Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/221

Rh by no means concurred with him in all his sentiments: "He was a person of a very deep and sharp exercise in his youth, and had a very extraordinary outgate from it. Afterwards he lived a most pious and religious life, and Mas a zealous and useful minister, and of an easy sweet natural temper. And I am of opinion, the singular steps he took towards the end of his course were as much to be attributed unto his regard to the sentiments of others, for whom he had a value, as to his own inclinations."

CARLYLE,, an eminent divine, was horn about the year 1721. His father was the minister of Prestonpans, and he received his education at the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Leyden. While he attended these schools of learning, the extreme elegance of his person, his manners, and his taste, introduced him to an order of society far above any in which such students as he generally mingle, and rendered him the favourite of men of science and literature. At the breaking out of the insurrection of 1745, he was an ardent youth of four-and-twenty, and thought proper to accept a commission in a troop of volunteers, which was raised at Edinburgh for the purpose of defending the city. This corps having been dissolved at the approach of the Highland army, he retired to his father's house at Prestonpans, where the tide of war, however, soon followed him. Sir John Cope having pitched his camp in the immediate neighbourhood of Prestonpans, the Highlanders attacked him early on the morning of the 21st of September, and soon gained a decided victory. Carlyle was awaked by an account that the armies were engaged, and hurried to the top of the village steeple in order to have a view of the action. He was just in time to see the regular soldiers flying in all directions to escape the broad- swords of the enemy. This incident gave him some uneasiness on his own account, for there was reason to apprehend that the victors would not be over kind to one who had lately appeared in arms against them. He therefore retired in the best way he could to the manse of Bolton, some miles off, where he lived unmolested for a few days, after which he returned to the bosom of his own family. Having gone through the usual exercises prescribed by the church of Scotland, Mr Carlyle Avas presented, in 1747, to the living of Inveresk, which was, perhaps, the best situation he could have obtained in the church, as the distance from Edinburgh was such as to make intercourse with metropolitan society very easy, while, at the same time, he enjoyed .ill the benefits of retirement and country leisure. From this period till the end of the century, the name of Dr Carlyle enters largely into the literary history of Scotland; he was the intimate associate of Hume, Home, Smith, Blair, and all the other illustrious men who flourished at this period. Unfortunately, though believed to possess talents fitting him to shine in the very highest walks of literature and intellectual science, he never could be prevailed upon to hazard himself in competition with his distinguished friends, but was content to lend to them the benefit of his assistance and critical advice in fitting their productions for the eye of the world. In his clerical character, Mr Carlyle was a zealous moderate; and when he had acquired some weight in the ecclesiastical courts, was the bold advocate of some of the strongest measures taken by the General Assembly for maintaining the standards of the church. In 1757, he himself fell under censure as an accomplice if we may use such an expression of Mr Home, in bringing forward the tragedy of Douglas. At the first private rehearsal of this play, Dr Carlyle enacted the part of Old Norval; and he was one of those clergymen who resolutely involved them- selves in the evil fame of the author, by attending the first representation. During the run of the play, while the general public, on the one hand, was lost in admiration of its merits, and the church, on the other, was preparing its sharpest thunders of condemnation, Dr Carlyle published a burlesque pamphlet, enti-