joost gane clear doon into an abominable cesspool of lies, shoddies and shams—­down to a bottomless damnation.  Ye may gie whatever meaning to that word that ye like.”  He could not refrain from laughing heartily himself at the conclusion of this eulogy on his countrymen.  If we had not known that Mr. Carlyle had a habit of exercising himself in this kind of talk, we should have felt a sort of consternation.  As it was we enjoyed it as a postscript to “Sartor Resartus” or the “Latter Day” pamphlets, and listened and laughed accordingly.  As we were about parting from him with a cordial and tender farewell, my friend, Newman Hall, handed him a copy of his celebrated little book, “Come to Jesus,” Mr. Carlyle, leaning over his table, fixed his eye upon the inscription on the outside of the booklet, and as we left the room, we heard him repeating to himself the title “Coom to Jesus—­Coom to Jesus.”

About Carlyle’s voluminous works, his glorious eulogies of Luther, Knox and Cromwell, his vivid histories, his pessimistic utterances, his hatred of falsehood and his true, pure and laborious life, I have no time or space to write.  He was the last of the giants in one department of British literature.  He will outlive many an author who slumbers in the great Abbey.  I owe him grateful thanks for many quickening, stimulating thoughts, and shall always be thankful that I grasped the strong hand of Thomas Carlyle.

One of the literary celebrities to whom I had credentials was the venerable Mrs. Joanna Baillie, not now much read, but then well known from her writings and her intimacy with Sir Walter Scott, and to whom Lockhart devotes a considerable space in the biography.  Her residence was in Hampstead, and I was obliged, after leaving the omnibus, to walk nearly a mile across open fields which are now completely built over by mighty London.  The walk proved a highly profitable one from the society of an intelligent stranger who, like every true English gentleman, when properly approached, was led to give all the information in his power.  When I reached the suburban village of Hampstead, after passing over stiles and through fields, I at last succeeded in finding her residence, a quiet little cottage, with a little parlor which had been honored by some of the first characters of our age.  “The female Shakespeare,” as she was sometimes called in those days, was at home and tripped into the room with the elastic step of a girl, although she was considerably over three score years and ten.  She was very petite and fair, with a sweet benignant countenance that inspired at once admiration and affection.  Almost her first words to me were:  “What a pity you did not come ten minutes sooner; for if you had you would have seen Mr. Thomas Campbell, who has just gone away.”  I was exceedingly sorry to have missed a sight of the author of “Hohenlinden” and the incomparable “Battle of the Baltic,” but was quite surprised that he was still seeking much