Chapter Carew to Carlyle of C by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Carew to Carlyle

Carew, Richard (1555-1620).—Translator and antiquary, a county gentleman of Cornwall, educated at Oxford, made a translation of the first five cantos of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1594), more correct than that of Fairfax. Other works were A Survey of Cornwall (1602), and an Epistle concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue (1605).

Carew, Thomas (1594?-1639).—Poet, son of Sir Matthew Carew, was educated at Oxford, entered the Middle Temple, and was one of the first and best of the courtly poets who wrote gracefully on light themes of Court life and gallantry. Carew’s poems have often much beauty and even tenderness. His chief work is Coelum Britannicum. He lived the easy and careless life of a courtier of the day, but is said to have died in a repentant frame. His poems, consisting chiefly of short lyrics, were collected and published after his death. One of the most beautiful and best known of his songs is that beginning “He that loves a rosy cheek.”

Carey, Henry (died 1743).—Dramatist and song-writer, was believed to be an illegitimate son of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax. He wrote innumerable burlesques, farces, songs, etc., often with his own music, including Chrononhotonthologos (1734), a burlesque on the mouthing plays of the day, and The Dragon of Wantley (1744?). His poem, Namby Pamby, in ridicule of Ambrose Phillips (q.v.), added a word to the language, and his Sally in our Alley is one of our best-known songs. God Save the King was also claimed for him, but apparently without reason.

Carleton, William (1794-1869).—Novelist, son of a poor Irish cottar, born and brought up among the Irish peasantry, acquired an insight into their ideas and feelings which has never been equalled. His finest work is in his short stories, collected under the title of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, of which two series were published in 1830 and 1832 respectively. He also wrote several longer novels, of which the best is Fardorougha the Miser (1837), a work of great power. Others are The Misfortunes of Barny Branagan (1841), Valentine M‘Clutchy (1845), Rody the Rover (1847), The Squanders of Castle Squander (1854), and The Evil Eye. Carleton received a pension of £200 from Government.

Carlyle, Alexander (1722-1805).—Autobiographer, son of the Minister of Cummertrees, Dumfriesshire, was educated at Edinburgh and Leyden, and entering the Church became Minister of Inveresk, and was associated with Principal Robertson as an ecclesiastical leader. Hs was a man of great ability, shrewdness, and culture, and the friend of most of the eminent literary men in Scotland of his day. He left an autobiography in MS., which was edited by Hill Burton, and published in 1860, and which is one of the most interesting contemporary accounts of his time. His stately appearance gained for him the name of “Jupiter” C.

Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881).—Historian and essayist, was born at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire. His father, James Carlyle, was a stonemason, a man of intellect and strong character, and his mother was, as he said, “of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just, and the wise.” His earliest education was received at the parish school of Ecclefechan (the Entepfuhl of Sartor Resartus). Thence he went to the Grammar School of Annan, and in 1809 to the University of Edinburgh, the 90 miles to which he travelled on foot. There he read voraciously, his chief study being mathematics. After completing his “Arts” course, he went on to divinity with the view of entering the Church, but about the middle of his course found that he could not proceed. He became a schoolmaster first at Annan and then at Kirkcaldy, where he formed a profound friendship with Edward Irving (q.v.), and met Margaret Gordon, afterwards Lady Bannerman, believed by some to be the prototype of Blumine in Sartor. Returning in 1819 to Edinburgh he for a time studied law and took pupils; but his health was bad, he suffered from insomnia and dyspepsia, and he tried of law. He was also sorely bestead by mental and spiritual conflicts, which came to a crisis in Leith Walk in June 1821 in a sudden uprising of defiance to the devil and all his works, upon which the clouds lifted. For the next two years, 1822-24, he acted as tutor to Charles Buller (whose promising political career was cut short by his premature death) and his brother. On the termination of this engagement he decided upon a literary career, which he began by contributing articles to the Edinburgh Encyclopœdia. In 1824 he translated Legendre’s Geometry (to which he prefixed an essay on Proportion), and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister; he also wrote for the London Magazine a Life of Schiller. About this time he visited Paris and London, where he met Hazlitt, Campbell, Coleridge, and others.