It had become clear to him that literature was his true vocation,
and he would have started in the profession at once, had it been
convenient for him to do so.
[Footnote A: James Carlyle was born in August, 1758, and died January
23, 1832. His second wife (whose maiden name was Margaret Aitken), was
born in September, 1771, and died on Christmas Day, 1853. There
were nine children of this marriage, "whereof four sons and three
daughters," says the inscription en the tombstone in the burial-ground
at Ecclefechan, "survived, gratefully reverent of such a father and
such a mother."]
He had already written several articles and essays, and a few of them
had appeared in print; but they gave little promise or indication of
the power he was afterwards to exhibit. During the years 1820--1823,
he contributed a series of articles (biographical and topographical)
to Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,"[1] viz.:--
[Footnote 1: Vols. XIV. to XVI. The fourteenth volume bears at the end
the imprint, "Edinburgh, printed by Balfour and Clarke, 1820;" and the
sixteenth volume, "Printed by A.
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