t favourably
viewed by some of the parents, who started a rival school, and resolved
to import a second master, with the result that Carlyle was selected.
Irving, with great magnanimity, gave him a cordial welcome to the 'Lang
Toon,' and the two Annandale natives became fast friends. The elder
placed his well-selected library at the disposal of the younger, and
together they explored the whole countryside. Short visits to Edinburgh
had a special attraction for both, where they met with a few kindred
spirits. On one of those visits, Carlyle, who had not cut off his
connection with the university, called at the Divinity Hall to put down
his name formally on the annual register. In his own words: 'Old Dr
Ritchie "not at home" when I called to enter myself. "Good!" answered I;
"_let the omen be fulfilled_."' Carlyle's studies in Kirkcaldy made him
eager to contribute to the fulfilment of the omen. Among the authors
which he read out of the Edinburgh University library was Gibbon, who
pushed Carlyle's sceptical questionings to a definite point. In a
conversation with Professor Masson, Carlyle stated that to his reading
of Gibbon he dated the extirpation from his mind of the last remnant
that had been left in it of the orthodox belief in miracles.

In the space of two years, Carlyle and Irving 'got tired of
schoolmastering and its mean contradictions and poor results.' They bade
Kirkcaldy farewell and made for Edinburgh,--Irving to lodge in Bristo
Street, 'more expensive rooms than mine,' naively remarks Carlyle, where
he gave breakfasts to 'Intellectualities he fell in with, I often a
guest with them. They were but stupid Intellectualities, etc.' As for
their prospects, this is what Carlyle says: 'Irving's outlooks in
Edinburgh were not of the best, considerably checkered with dubiety,
opposition, or even flat disfavour in some quarters; but at least they
were far superior to mine, and indeed, I was beginning my four or five
most miserable, dark, sick, and heavy-laden years; Irving, after some
staggerings aback, his seven or eight healthiest and brightest. He had,
I should guess, as one item several good hundreds of money to wait upon.
My _peculium_ I don't recollect, but it could not have exceeded L100. I
was without friends, experience, or connection in the sphere of human
business, was of shy humour, proud enough and to spare, and had begun my
long curriculum of _dyspepsia_ which has never ended since!'[1]
Carlyle's inten