Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 3, March 1847

Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 3, March 1847

Thomas Carlyle is a Scotchman, born about fifty years ago, at Ecclefechan, Annandale, according to one authority. His parents good farmer people, his father an elder in the Secession church there, and a man of strong native sense, whose words were said to nail a subject to the wall. We also hear of his excellent mother, still alive, and of her fine old covenanting accents, concerting with his transcendental tones. He seems to have gone to school at Annan, on the shore of the Solway Firth, and there, as he himself writes, heard of famed professors, of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole Wonderland of Knowledge, from Edward Irving, then a young man fresh from Edinburgh, with college prizes, &c.come to see our schoolmaster, who had also been his. From this place, they say, you can look over into Wordsworths country. Here first he may have become acquainted with Nature, with woods, such as are there, and rivers and brooks, some of whose names we have heard, and the last lapses of Atlantic billows. He got some of his education, too, more or less liberal, out of the University of Edinburgh, where, according to the same authority, he had to support himself, partly by private tuition, translations for the booksellers, &c., and afterward, as we are glad to hear, taught an academy in Dysart, at the same time that Irving was teaching in Kirkaldy, the usual middle passage of a literary life. He was destined for the church, but not by the powers that rule mans life; made his literary dbut in Frasers Magazine, long ago; read here and there in English and French, with more or less profit, we may suppose, such of us at least as are not particularly informed, and at length found some words which spoke to his condition in the German language, and set himself earnestly to unravel that mysterywith what success many readers know. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 56549
Author: Various
Release Date: Feb 11, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Graham, George R., 1813-1894