er took
before or after with any of his writings,--a compliment which Peel
gracefully acknowledged.

Carlyle's plans for the summer of 1846 were, a visit to his mother and a
run across to Ireland. Charles Gavan Duffy of the _Nation_ newspaper saw
him in London in consequence of what he had written in _Chartism_ about
misgovernment in Ireland. He had promised to go over and see what the
'Young Ireland' movement was doing. On the 31st of August he left
Scotsbrig, and landed in due course at Belfast, where he was to have
been met by John Mitchel and Gavan Duffy and driven to Drogheda. He
missed his two friends through a mistake at the post-office, and hurried
on by railway to Dublin. He met them at Dundrum, and was there
entertained at a large dinner-party. Next day he dined at Mitchel's. His
stay was remarkably short. He took steamer at Kingstown, and in the
early morning of September 10th 'he was sitting smoking a cigar before
the door of his wife's uncle's house in Liverpool till the household
should awake and let him in.'

In June 1847 Carlyle relates that they had a flying visit from Jeffrey.
'A much more interesting visitor than Jeffrey was old Dr Chalmers, who
came down to us also last week, whom I had not seen before for, I think,
five-and-twenty years. It was a pathetic meeting. The good old man is
grown white-headed, but is otherwise wonderfully little altered--grave,
deliberate, very gentle in his deportment, but with plenty too of soft
energy; full of interest still for all serious things, full of real
kindliness, and sensible even to honest mirth in a fair measure. He sate
with us an hour and a half, went away with our blessings and affections.
It is long since I have spoken to so _good_ and really pious-hearted and
beautiful old man.' In a week or two Chalmers was suddenly called away.
'I believe,' wrote Carlyle to his mother, 'there is not in all Scotland,
or all Europe, any such Christian priest left. It will long be memorable
to us, the little visit we had from him.'

Early in 1848, the Jew Bill was before Parliament, and the fate of it
doubtful, narrates Mr Froude. Baron Rothschild wrote to ask Carlyle to
write a pamphlet in its favour, and intimated that he might name any sum
which he liked to ask as payment. Froude enquired how he answered.
'Well,' he said, 'I had to tell him it couldn't be; but I observed, too,
that I could not conceive why he and his friends, who were supposed to
be looking out for