Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, 18144826. 2 vole. Edited by
Charles Eliot Norton. (Macmillan and Co.)—We are not disposed to enter again into the controversy as to Mr. Froude's method of dis- charging his duties as Carlyle's literary executor. Accordingly, we refer our readers (without making any comment of our own) to the appendix to this collection of letters, in which the editor has discussed the relations between Carlyle, Jane Welsh (his future wife), and Irving. It is a statement which will have to be considered in any future biography. The letters themselves are remarkably interesting, and, we may add, pleasing. The writer appears, it might almost be said invariably, to the beet advantage. The earliest letter is addressed to his friend, Robert Mitchell, and dated from Edinburgh, where he was still studying. There are letters to his father (as well as some from his father), to his mother, to several friends, and to Jane Welsh. The last is dated from Seotabrig, eight days before his marriage, and is addressed to his future wife; the last but one thanks an old friend, the Rev. John Murray, for an effort which he had been making to establish the writer in the editorship of the Scots Magazine. One wonders how Carlyle would have carried on the very various and delicate duties which attach to such a poet. It ie quite possible that the scheme might have been a great success in his hands, and that Maga might have found a formidable rival in her native town.
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