ing; and still oftener, when others
were present, the only person who had at all looked into the lesson
assigned was the same humble individual. I remember no instance in which
these facts elicited any note or comment from that instructor. He once
requested me to translate a mathematical paper, and I worked through it
the whole of one Sunday, and it was laid before him, and it was received
without remark or thanks. After such long years, I came to part with
him, and to get my certificate. Without a word, he wrote on a bit of
paper: "I certify that Mr Thomas Carlyle has been in my class during his
college course, and has made good progress in his studies." Then he rang
a bell, and ordered a servant to open the front door for me. Not the
slightest sign that I was a person whom he could have distinguished in
any crowd. And so I parted from old ----.'

Professor Masson, who in loving, painstaking style has ferreted all the
facts about Carlyle's university life, sums up in these words: 'Without
assuming that he meant the university described in _Sartor Resartus_ to
stand literally for Edinburgh University, of his own experience, we have
seen enough to show that any specific training of much value he
considered himself to owe to his four years in the Arts classes in
Edinburgh University, was the culture of his mathematical faculty under
Leslie, and that for the rest he acknowledged merely a certain benefit
from being in so many class-rooms where matters intellectual were
professedly in the atmosphere, and where he learned to take advantage
of books.' As Carlyle put it in his Rectorial Address of 1866, 'What I
have found the university did for me is that it taught me to read in
various languages, in various sciences, so that I go into the books
which treated of these things, and gradually penetrate into any
department I wanted to make myself master of, as I found it suit me.'

In 1814, Carlyle obtained the mathematical tutorship at Annan. Out of
his slender salary of L60 or L70 he was able to save something, so that
he was practically independent. By and by James Carlyle gave up his
trade, and settled on a small farm at Mainhill, about two miles from
Ecclefechan. Thither Thomas hied with unfeigned delight at holiday time,
for he led the life of a recluse at Annan, his books being his sole
companions.

Edward Irving, to whom Carlyle was introduced in college days, was now
settled as a dominie in Kirkcaldy. His teaching was no