Carlyle, says the _Athenaeum_ critic before quoted, divides
contemporary mankind into the fools and the wise: the wise are the
Carlyles, the Welshes, the Aitkens, and Edward Irving; the fools all the
rest of unfortunate mortals: a Fuseli stroke of the critic rivalling any
of the author criticised; yet the comment has a grain of truth.
[Footnote: Even the most adverse critics of Carlyle are often his
imitators, their hands taking a dye from what they work in.]
The Carlyles are said to have come, from the English town somewhat
differently spelt, to Annandale, with David II.; and, according to a
legend which the great author did not disdain to accept, among them was a
certain Lord of Torthorwald, so created for defences of the Border. The
churchyard of Ecclefechan is profusely strewn with the graves of the
family, all with coats of arms--two griffins with adders' stings. More
definitely we find Thomas, the author's grandfather, settled in that
dullest of county villages as a carpenter. In 1745 he saw the rebel
Highlanders on their southward march: he was notable for his study of
_Anson's Voyages_ and of the _Arabian Nights_: "a fiery man, his stroke
as ready as his word; of the toughness and springiness of steel; an
honest but not an industrious man;" subsequently tenant of a small farm,
in which capacity he does not seem to have managed his affairs with
much effect; the family were subjected to severe privations, the mother
having, on occasion, to heat the meal into cakes by straw taken from the
sacks on which the children slept.
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