Chapter I

BEFORE THE EDINBURGH PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION.

On Saturday evening, November 6, 1880, the directors of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution entertained Mr. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, American Minister, at dinner in the Balmoral Hotel in that city. Dr. W. Smith, senior vice-president of the institution, occupied the chair, and among others present were the Earl of Rosebery, Lord Reay, Principal Sir Alexander Grant, the Rev. Professor Flint, and Professor Blackie. Mr. LOWELL, in returning thanks for the toast of his health, said:

He thought that they in America had done quite their share
of work in their short life, although he was always
inclined to question the statement that they were a young
people. It was supposed, somehow or other, that they
were autochthonic; that they had sprung from the earth
of America, as the Athenians were said to have done from
the soil of Attica. But it was nothing of the kind. If he
might be allowed to say so, they began where those in this
country left off. It must be remembered that they took with
them all the traditions of English freedom and of English
civilization, and that they not only maintained them, but,
in his humble judgment, carried them further. (_Cheers._)

Mr. LOWELL concluded by referring to early association on his part with Edinburgh.

Afterwards, proposing “The health of Mr. Carlyle and the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh,” Mr. LOWELL said that--

America in a certain sense performed the office of
posterity to England and Scotland. Their authors were
first recognized across the Atlantic. (_Cheers._) He would
not say it was owing to quicker perception, but rather to
their clearness of atmosphere (_laughter_) that they had
this luck sometimes. He remembered particularly a book
which was published while he was still at college, and
which produced in his young mind as great a ferment as it
did among all his contemporaries. That book was “Sartor
Resartus.” (_Cheers._) It was first collected and published
in the year 1836 in the city of Boston, in the United
States of America (_cheers_); and it there received its
first approbation. Their chairman, Dr. Smith, had told
him during the course of the evening that when “Sartor
Resartus” first began to appear in _Fraser’s Magazine_
the editor received two letters, one from an Irishman,
if he was not mistaken, saying that if that particular
kind of stuff--describing it with what usually began with
a “d” (_laughter_)--was to be continued he wished his
subscription to be stopped. The other letter was from an
American, saying that if the writer of “Sartor Resartus”
in _Fraser’s Magazine_ had written anything else he wished
it all to be sent to him. (_Laughter._) The second writer
was a man he knew well--Ralph Waldo Emerson. (_Cheers._)
He remembered being very much struck many years ago with
something which Thackeray said to him. It was that Carlyle
was his master. That was said nearly thirty years ago. The
other day he took up a number of the _Nineteenth Century_,
and in an article by Mr. Ruskin he observed that he said
Carlyle was his master. This coincidence, the difference
between Thackeray and Ruskin being remembered, only showed,
he thought, the universality of Carlyle’s influence.
(_Cheers._) He meant to say that Carlyle approached
different men on different sides, which was one of the
strongest marks that could be mentioned of genius. Carlyle
had found an approach to their intellects and to their
hearts, to the intellects and hearts of a great variety
of men of different nations. He had introduced a new
style--a peculiarly English style--of looking at things,
quite as much as Sir Walter Scott introduced a new style
of novel-writing. Sir Walter Scott, he considered, was the
greatest story-teller of the age. (_Cheers._) Carlyle had
the surprising gift of expressing poetic thought in prose.
(_Cheers._) It was particularly their gratitude to him on
the moral and human side that they would feel in drinking,
not only with enthusiasm, but with a sort of reverence,
the health of Mr. Carlyle.

The toast was received with much enthusiasm. Other toasts followed.

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