the world.
It had become clear to him that literature was his true vocation,
and he would have started in the profession at once, had it been
convenient for him to do so.

[Footnote A: James Carlyle was born in August, 1758, and died January
23, 1832. His second wife (whose maiden name was Margaret Aitken), was
born in September, 1771, and died on Christmas Day, 1853. There
were nine children of this marriage, "whereof four sons and three
daughters," says the inscription en the tombstone in the burial-ground
at Ecclefechan, "survived, gratefully reverent of such a father and
such a mother."]

He had already written several articles and essays, and a few of them
had appeared in print; but they gave little promise or indication of
the power he was afterwards to exhibit. During the years 1820--1823,
he contributed a series of articles (biographical and topographical)
to Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,"[1] viz.:--

[Footnote 1: Vols. XIV. to XVI. The fourteenth volume bears at the end
the imprint, "Edinburgh, printed by Balfour and Clarke, 1820;" and the
sixteenth volume, "Printed by A. Balfour and Co., Edinburgh, 1823."
Most of these articles are distinguished by the initials "T.C."; but
they are all attributed to Carlyle in the List of the Authors of the
Principal Articles, prefixed to the work on its completion.]

1. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
2. Montaigne
3. Montesquieu
4. Montfaucon
5. Dr. Moore
6. Sir John Moore
7. Necker
8. Nelson
9. Netherlands
10. Newfoundland
11. Norfolk
12. Northamptonshire
13. Northumberland
14. Mungo Park
15. Lord Chatham
16. William Pitt.

The following is from the article on _Necker_:--

"As an author, Necker displays much irregular force of imagination,
united with considerable perspicuity and compass of thought; though
his speculations are deformed by an undue attachment to certain
leading ideas, which, harmonizing with his habits of mind, had
acquired an excessive preponderance in the course of his long and
uncontroverted meditations. He possessed extensive knowledge, and
his works bespeak a philosophical spirit; but their great and
characteristic excellence proceeds from that glow of fresh and
youthful admiration for everything that is amiable or august in the
character of man, which, in Necker's heart, survived all the blighting
vicissitudes it had passed through, _combining, in a singular union,
the fervour of the stripling