Year: 1866




Edinburgh. O.. I
ILondon correspondence Of the h. Y. Tribune


As the speech of Thomas Carlyle on his


instalment as Rector of the University Of


Edinburgh will be sure to get itself print


ed in the Tribune and as you are sbund-


antly able to perform the task of cTiticiz-


ing it, I shall not attempt it. Only here


is personal description of the speaker, at


near three score and ten, worth extracting


from the TetegraPh:


"Mr. Carlyle rose at once, shook HIM
self out Of his gold-laced rectorial gown,


left it on his chair, and stepped quietly to
the table, and drawing his tall boHy frame
into position of straight perpendicularity
not possible to one man in five hundred
at seventy years of age, he began to speak
| quietly aud distinctly, but nervously.
There was a slight flush on his face, but
he bore himself with composure and dig
| nifty, and in the course of half an hour he
was obviously beginning to feel at his
ease, so far, at least, as to have adequate
command over the current of his thought.
He spoke on quito freely and easily, hardly
ever repeated a word, never looked at
note, and only once returned to finish up
topic from which he had deviated. He
apologized for not having come with
written discourse. 1t was usual, and 1t
would have been more comfortable for me
Just at present, but be had triedit and could
not satisfy himself, and as the spoken
word comes from the heart he had re-
solved to try that method. What he said
in words Will be learned otherwise than
from me. I could not well describe it
but l do not think / ever heard any
address that should be so unwilling to
blot from my memory. Not that there
was much in it that cannot be found in
his writings, OF inferred from them; but
the manner of the man was key to the
writings and for naturalness and quiet
power l have never seen anything to
compare with it. he did not deal in
rhetoric He talked-it was continuous,
strong, quiet talk like q patriarch
about to leave the world to the young
lads who had chosen him and were. just |
entering the world. His voice is a soft,
doWny voice-not tone in it is OF the |
shrill, fierce kind that one would expect it |
to be in reading the latter-day pamphlets. |
There was not trace of effort or of affec- |
tation, or even of extravaganza. Shrewd |
common sense there was in abundance. |
There was the involved disrupted style |
also, but it looked so natural that refec- |
tion was needed to recognize in it that |
very style which purists find to be un-
English and unintellible. Over the angles |
of this disrupted style rolled not few |
cascades of humor-quite as if by acci- |
dent. he let them 60, talking on in his |
soft, downy accents, without smile; oc-
casionally for an instant looking very Sc
rious, with his dark eyes beating like pull |
ses, but generally looking merely COM
posed and kindly, and, SO to speak, father
like. He concluded by reciting his own
translation of a poem of Goethe:


Tho future hides in it good hap and sorrow.
And this he did in style of melancholy |
grandeur not to be described, but still less
to be forgotten. 1t was then alone that
the personality of the philosopher and
poet were revealed continuously in his
manner OF utterance. The features of his
face are familiar to all from his portraits
But do not think any portrait unless,
perhaps, Woolner's medallion, gives full
to the resolution that is visible
in his face. Besides they all make him
look sadder and older than he appears
Although he be three-seore and ten his
hair is is still abundant and tolerablv
olack, and there is considerable color in
in his cheek. Not man of his age on
that platform to-day looked so young, and
he had done more work than any ten of
them