Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/115

  from the best editions, and explanatory notes,' a volume which, under whatever aspect it is viewed, leaves little to be desired. The preface contains on estimate of Dante as a man and a poet, in which the influence of Thomas Carlyle is very conspicuous. After the preface come two appendices, useful contributions to the critical bibliography of the 'Divea Commedia,' and its commentators. A second edition, revised, appeared in 1867, with a prefatory notice, in which Mr. Carlyle spoke of issuing two volumes more, containing translations of the 'Purgatoria' and the 'Paradiso.' But the hope was not fulfilled, though he had execution considerable portion of the task. A third edition of the 'Inferno,' a reprint of the second edition, was issued in 1882.

In 1862 Dr. Carlyle married a rich widow with several children, and she died in 1854. After her death he resided for several years in Edinburgh, ultimately settling in Dumfrieshire. He devoted much of his time in later years to the study of the Icelandic language and literature. On the death of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Carlyle, he offered to take up his abode with his bereaved brother. The offer was declined. Complaints of his brother John's 'careless helter-skelter ways' occur not infrequently in Carlyle's annotations to the letters of his wife, while he hears testimony in them to Dr. Carlyle's 'good, affections to, manly character and fine talents,' and his many letters to him, published by Mr. Froude, are uniformly affectionate in tone. By his friends, Dr. Carlyle was regarded as a man of amiable and tranquil disposition, as well as of ability and accomplishment.

In 1861 Dr. Carlyle edited his friend Dr. Irving's posthumous 'History of Scottish Poetry,' adding a little fresh matter to the and notes, and appending a brief glossary of Scotch words occurring in the volume. In 1878 he made over to the acting committee of the Association for the Better Endowment of the University of Edinburgh 1,600l., to found two medical bursaries of not less than 25l. each, now worth 32l. each, known by the founder's name, and tenable for one year.

Thomas Carlyle speaks of John in his will as having 'no need of money or help,' but left him a life-interest in the lease of the house at Chelsea, with his books and the fragments of his history of James I, He made him, too, his chief executor, and asked him to superintend the execution of the instruction in his will, saying, in respect to them, 'I wish him to be regarded as my second self, my surviving self. Dr. Carlyle did not, however, survive his brother. He died at Dumfries, 15 Dec. 1879. {{smaller block|[Carlyle's Reminiscences (1881); Froude's Thomas Carlyle, a History of the First Forty Years of his Life (1882}; Froude's Thomas Carlyle's History of his Life in London (1384); Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (1883); The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883); Thomas Carlyle's Printed Will (1880); Edinburgh University Calendar for 1879-80; Early Letters of Carlyle, by C. E. Norton (1886).]}} 

CARLYLE, JOSEPH DACRE (1759–1804), Arabic scholar, born in 1759 at Carlisle, where his father practised as a physician, was educated at the Carlisle grammar school, and was then entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, whence he presently removed to Queens', proceeded B.A. in 1779, and was elected a fellow of Queens', took his M.A. degree in 1783, and B.D. in 1793. During his residence at Cambridge he profited by the instructions of a native of Bagdad, whose europeanised name was David Zamio, and became so proficient in oriental languages that he was appointed professor of Arabic on the resignation of Dr. Craven in 1795. In the meantime he had obtained some church preferment at Carlisle, and had succeeded Paley in 1793 as chancellor of that city. In 1792 he published in 4to the ‘Rerum Ægyptiacarum Annales,’ translated from the Arabic of Yûsuf ibn Taghrî Birdî, a meagre work of slight historical value; and in 1796, also 4to, ‘Specimens of Arabian Poetry’ (with some account of the authors selected), translations in which a certain elegance of diction is more striking than the fidelity to the spirit and colour of the originals. In 1799 he was appointed chaplain to Lord Elgin's mission to Constantinople, with the special duties of learned referee; and he made a tour through Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece, and Italy, collecting Greek and Syriac manuscripts for a proposed new version of the New Testament, which unfortunately he did not live to accomplish. Returning to England in September 1801, he was presented to the living of Newcastle-on-Tyne; but his health had been seriously impaired by the fatigues of travel, and he also suffered from a special and painful malady, to which he succumbed on 12 April 1804. His ‘Poems suggested chiefly by Scenes in Asia Minor, Syria, and Greece,’ together with some translations from the Arabic, were published after his death, 1805, 4to, with extracts from his journal and a preface by his sister. He had also almost completed an account of his tour through the Troad, which was never published, and had advanced so far in his Arabic Bible, revised from Walton's text, that it was issued at