"T. CARLYLE.[A]
"5, Cheyne-row, Chelsea, June 30."
[Footnote A: (Printed in The Times, Tuesday, July 2, 1861.)]
The "History of Frederick the Great" was completed early in 1865.
Later in the same year the students of Edinburgh University elected
Carlyle as Lord Rector. We cannot do better than describe the
proceedings and the subsequent address in the words of the late
Alexander Smith:—
"Mr. Gladstone demitted office, and then it behoved the students of the University to cast about for a worthy successor. Two candidates were proposed, Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Disraeli; and on the election day Mr. Carlyle was returned by a large and enthusiastic majority. This was all very well, but a doubt lingered in the minds of many whether Mr. Carlyle would accept the office, or if accepting it, whether he would deliver an address—said address being the sole apple which the Rectorial tree is capable of bearing. The hare was indeed caught, but it was doubtful somewhat whether the hare would allow itself to be cooked after the approved academical fashion. It was tolerably well known that Mr. Carlyle had emerged from his long spell of work on "Frederick," in a condition of health the reverse of robust; that he had once or twice before declined similar honours from Scottish Universities—from Glasgow some twelve or fourteen years ago, and from Aberdeen some seven or eight; and that he was constitutionally opposed to all varieties of popular displays, more especially those of the oratorical sort.
"But all dispute was ended when it was officially announced that Mr. Carlyle had accepted the office of Lord Rector, that he would conform to all its requirements, and that the Rectorial address would be delivered late in spring. And so when the days began to lengthen in these northern latitudes, and crocuses to show their yellow and purple heads, people began to talk about the visit of the great writer, and to speculate on what manner and fashion of speech he would deliver.
"Edinburgh has no University Hall, and accordingly when speech-day approached, the largest public room in the city was chartered by the University authorities. This public room—the Music Hall in George Street—will contain, under severe pressure, from eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred persons, and tickets to that extent were secured by the students and members of the General Council. Curious stories are told of the eagerness on every side manifested to hear Mr. Carlyle. Country clergymen from beyond Aberdeen came into Edinburgh for the sole purpose of hearing and seeing. Gentlemen came down from London by train the night before, and returned to London by train the night after.
"In a very few minutes after the doors were opened the large hall was filled in every part, and when up the central passage the Principal, the Lord Rector, the Members of the Senate, and other gentlemen advanced towards the platform, the cheering was vociferous and hearty. The Principal occupied the chair of course, the Lord Rector on his right, the Lord Provost on his left. Every eye was fixed on the Rector. To all appearance, as he sat, time and labour had dealt tenderly with him. His face had not yet lost the country bronze which he brought up with him from Dumfriesshire as a student fifty-six years ago. His long residence in London had not touched his Annandale look, nor had it—as we soon learned—touched his Annandale accent. His countenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful—the countenance of a man on whom 'the burden of the unintelligible world' had weighed more heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost dark; his moustache and short beard were iron grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy, sorrowful; and seemed as if they had been at times a-weary of the sun. Altogether in his aspect there was something aboriginal, as of a piece, of unhewn granite, which had never been polished to any approved pattern, whose natural and original vitality had never been tampered with. In a word, there seemed no passivity about Mr. Carlyle—he was the diamond, and the world was his pane of glass; he was a graving tool rather than a thing graven upon—a man to set his mark on the world—a man on whom the world could not set its mark. And just as, glancing towards Fife a few minutes before, one could not help thinking of his early connection with Edward Irving, so seeing him sit beside the venerable Principal of the University, one could not help thinking of his earliest connection with literature.
"Time brings men into the most unexpected relationships. When the Principal was plain Mr. Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh Cyclopædia, little dreaming that he should ever be Knight of Hanover and head of the Northern Metropolitan University, Mr. Carlyle—just as little dreaming that he should be the foremost man of letters of his day and Lord Rector of the same University—was his contributor, writing for said Cyclopædia biographies of Montesquieu and other notables. And so it came about that after years of separation and of honourable labour, the old editor and contributor were brought together again—in new aspects.
"The proceedings began by the conferring of the degree of LL.D. on Mr. Erskine of Linlathen—an old friend of Mr. Carlyle's—on Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and Ramsay, and on Dr. Rae, the Arctic explorer. That done, amid a tempest of cheering and hats enthusiastically waved, Mr. Carlyle, slipping off his Rectorial robe—which must have been a very shirt of Nessus to him—advanced to the table and began to speak in low, wavering, melancholy tones, which were in accordance with the melancholy eyes, and in the Annandale accent, with which his playfellows must have been familiar long ago. So self-contained was he, so impregnable to outward influences, that all his years of Edinburgh and London life could not impair even in the slightest degree, that.