ptic fits, fell upon the book, its author, and the translator,[B]
and Lord Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, although admitting Carlyle
to be a talented person, heaped condemnation upon the work.

[Footnote A: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. 3 Vols., Edinburgh,
1824.]

[Footnote B: Curiously enough in the very numbers of the "London
Magazine" containing the later instalments of Carlyle's Life of
Schiller.]

Carlyle's next work was a series of translations, entitled "German
Romance: Specimens of the chief Authors; with Biographical and
Critical Notices." 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1827. The Preface and
Introductions are reprinted in the second volume of Carlyle's
Collected Works: the Specimens translated from Hoffmann and La Motte
Fouque, have not been reprinted.

"This," says Carlyle, in 1857, "was a Book of Translations, not of my
suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journey-work in
defect of better. The pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable
on such terms: not quite of _less_ than no worth (I considered) any
piece of them; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only.
Four of these lots, or quotas to the adventure, Musaeus's, Tieck's,
Richter's, Goethe's, will be given in the final stage of this Series;
the rest we willingly leave, afloat or stranded, as waste driftwood,
to those whom they may farther concern."

It was in 1826 that Mr. Carlyle married Miss Jane Welsh, the only
child of Dr. John Welsh, of Haddington,[A] a lineal descendant of John
Knox, and a lady fitted in every way to be the wife of such a man. For
some time after marriage he continued to reside at Edinburgh, but
in May, 1828, he took up his residence in his native county, at
Craigenputtoch--a solitary farmhouse on a small estate belonging to
his wife's mother, about fifteen miles from Dumfries, and in one of
the most secluded parts of the country. Most of his letters to Goethe
were written from this place.

[Footnote A: Her father had been dead some seven years when Carlyle
and she were married, and the life interest of her inheritance in the
farm of Craigenputtoch had been made over to her mother, who survived
until 1842, when it reverted to Carlyle.]

In one of the letters sent from Craigenputtoch to Weimar, bearing
the date of 25th September, 1828, we have a charming picture of our
author's seclusion and retired literary life at this period:--

"You inquire with such warm interest respecting our present abod