34

CARLYLE'S DESCRIPTION OF IRVING.

people fancied he met equal opponents; till it became necessary for him, seventeen years old, and a graduate of Edinburgh University, to begin to help himself onwards, during the tedious intervals of his professional training.

He did this, as all Scotch clerical students do, by teaching. A new school, called the Mathematical School, by some strange caprice, since it seems to have been exactly like other schools-had just been established in Haddington; and by the recommendation of Sir John Leslie and of Professor Christison, Irving got the appointment. It was in the spring of 1810, after one session, as it is called, in the "Divinity Hall,” and at the age of eighteen, that he entered upon this situation. To somewhere about the same period must belong the description given of him in Carlyle's wonderful " Eloge." "The first time I saw Irving was in his native town of Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with college prizes, high character and promise: he had come to see our schoolmaster, who had also been his. We heard of famed professors, of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole wonderland of knowledge; nothing but joy, health, hopefulness without end looked out from the blooming young man."

a

Another spectator of more prosaic vision declares him to have been "rather a showy young man tendency always held in abhorrence by the sober Scotch imagination, which above all things admires the gift of reticence; or even, in default of better, that pride which takes the place of modesty. Irving, utterly ingenuous and open, always seeking love, and the approbation of love, and doubting no man, did not possess this quality.

"The blooming young man " went back to the school in which he was once kept in and punished, with candid, joyful self-demonstration, captivating the eyes which could see, and amusing those which had not that faculty. It was his farewell to his boyish, happy, dependent life.

And it was also the conclusion of his University education so far as reality went. For four or five years thereafter he was what is called a partial student of Divinity, matriculating regularly, and making his appearance at college to go through the necessary examinations, and deliver the prescribed discourses; but carrying on his intermediate studies by himself, according to a license permitted by the Church. His Haddington appointment removed him definitely from home and its homely provisions, and gave him an early

outset for himself into the business and labours of independent life. So far from being a hardship, or matter to be lamented, it was the best thing his friends could have wished for him. Such interruptions in the course of professional education were all but universal in Scotland; and he went under the best auspices and with the highest hopes.

CHAPTER III.

HADDINGTON.

IRVING entered upon this second chapter of his youthful life in the summer of 1810. He was then in his eighteenth year—still young enough, certainly, for the charge committed to him. Education was at a very low ebb in Haddington, which had not even a parish school to boast of, but was lost among "borough " regulations, and in the pottering hands of a little corporation. The rising tide, however, stirred a faint ripple in this quiet place; and the consequence was, the establishment of that school called the mathematical, to which came groups of lads not very much younger than the young teacher, who had been stupefied for years in such schools as did exist; and some of whom woke up like magic under the touch of the boystudent, so little older than themselves. Coming to the little town under these circumstances, recommended as a distinguished student by a man of such eminence as Sir John Leslie, the young man had a favourable reception in his new sphere. "When Irving first came to Haddington," writes one of his pupils," he was a tall, ruddy, robust, handsome youth, cheerful and kindly disposed; he soon won the confidence of his advanced pupils, and was admitted into the best society in the town and neighbourhood." Into one house, at least, he

L

THE DOCTOR'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.

37

went with a more genial introduction, and under circumstances equally interesting and amusing, This was the house of Dr. Welsh, the principal medical man of the district, whose family consisted of one little daughter, for whose training he entertained more ambitious views than little girls are generally the subjects of. This little girl, however, was as unique in mind as in circumstances. She heard, with eager childish wonder, a perennial discussion carried on between her father and mother about her education; both were naturally anxious to secure the special sympathy and companionship of their only child. The doctor, recovering from his disappointment that she was a girl, was bent upon educating her like a boy, to make up as far as possible for the unfortunate drawback of sex; while her mother, on the contrary, hoped for nothing higher in her daughter than the sweet domestic companion most congenial to herself. The child, who was not supposed to understand, listened eagerly, as children invariably do listen to all that is intended to be spoken over their heads. Her ambition was roused; to be educated like a boy became the object of her entire thoughts, and set her little mind working with independent projects of its own. She resolved to take the first step in this awful but fascinating course, on her own responsibility. Having already divined that Latin was the first grand point of distinction, she made up her mind to settle the matter by learning Latin. A copy of the Rudiments was quickly found in the lumber-room of the house, and a tutor not much further off in a humble student of the neighbourhood. The little scholar had a dramatic instinct; she did not pour forth her first lesson

38

THE FIRST DECLENSION.

as soon as it was acquired, or rashly betray her secret. She waited the fitting place and moment. It was evening, when dinner had softened out the asperities of the day: the doctor sat in luxurious leisure in his dressinggown and slippers, sipping his coffee; and all the cheerful accessories of the fireside picture were complete. The little heroine had arranged herself under the table, under the crimson folds of the cover, which concealed her small person. All was still: the moment had arrived: “penna, pennæ, pennam!" burst forth the little voice in breathless steadiness. The result may be imagined: the doctor smothered his child with kisses, and even the mother herself had not a word to say; the victory was complete.

After this pretty scene, the proud doctor asked Sir John Leslie to send him a tutor for the little pupil who had made so promising a beginning. Sir John recommended the youthful teacher who was already in Haddington, and Edward Irving became the teacher of the little girl. Their hours of study were from six to eight in the morning-which inclines one to imagine that, in spite of his fondness, the excellent doctor must have held his household under Spartan discipline; and again in the evening after school hours. When the young tutor arrived in the dark of the winter mornings, and found his little pupil, scarcely dressed, peeping out of her room, he used to snatch her up in his arms, and carry her to the door, to name to her the stars shining in the cold firmament, hours before dawn; and when the lessons were over, he set the child up on the table at which they had been pursuing their studies, and taught her logic, to the great tribulation of