victims, he turned and rent himself. _Pari passu_, he was toiling at his
translation of _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_. This was published in
Edinburgh in 1824. Heartily commended in _Blackwood_, it was generally
recognised as one of the best English renderings of any foreign author;
and Jeffrey, in his absurd review of Goethe's great prose drama, speaks
in high terms of the skill displayed by the translator. The virulent
attack of De Quincey--a writer as unreliable as brilliant--in the _London
Magazine_ does not seem to have carried much weight even then, and has
none now. The _Wanderjahre_, constituting the third volume of the English
edition, first appeared as the last of four on German Romance--a series
of admirably selected and executed translations from Musaeus, Fouque,
Tieck, Hoffmann, Richter, and Goethe, prefaced by short biographical and
critical notices of each--published in Edinburgh in 1827. This date is
also that of the first of the more elaborate and extensive criticisms
which, appearing in the Edinburgh and Foreign reviews, established
Carlyle as the English pioneer of German literature. The result of these
works would have been enough to drive the wolf from the door and to
render their author independent of the oatmeal from home; while another
source of revenue enabled him not only to keep himself, but to settle
his brother Alick in a farm, and to support John through his University
course as a medical student. This and similar services to the family
circle were rendered with gracious disclaimers of obligation. "What any
brethren of our father's house possess, I look on as a common stock from
which all are entitled to draw."

For this good fortune he was again indebted to his friend of friends.
Irving had begun to feel his position at Glasgow unsatisfactory, and
at the close of 1821 he was induced to accept an appointment to the
Caledonian Chapel at Hatton Garden. On migrating to London, to make a
greater, if not a safer, name in the central city, and finally, be lost