Highlanders on their southward march: he was notable for his study of
_Anson's Voyages_ and of the _Arabian Nights_: "a fiery man, his stroke
as ready as his word; of the toughness and springiness of steel; an
honest but not an industrious man;" subsequently tenant of a small farm,
in which capacity he does not seem to have managed his affairs with
much effect; the family were subjected to severe privations, the mother
having, on occasion, to heat the meal into cakes by straw taken from the
sacks on which the children slept. In such an atmosphere there grew and
throve the five sons known as the five fighting masons--"a curious
sample of folks," said an old apprentice of one of them, "pithy, bitter
speaking bodies, and awfu' fighters." The second of the group, James,
born 1757, married--first, a full cousin, Janet Carlyle (the sole issue
of which marriage was John, who lived at Cockermouth); second, Margaret
Aitken, by whom he had four sons--THOMAS, 1795-1881; Alexander,
1797-1876; John (Dr. Carlyle, translator of Dante), 1801-1879; and James,
1805-1890; also five daughters, one of whom, Jane, became the wife of her
cousin James Aitken of Dumfries, and the mother of Mary, the niece who
tended her famous uncle so faithfully during the last years of his life.
Nowhere is Carlyle's loyalty to his race shown in a fairer light than in
the first of the papers published under the name of _Reminiscences_.
It differs from the others in being of an early date and free from all
offence. From this pathetic sketch, written when on a visit to London in
1832 he had sudden news of his father's death, we may, even in our brief
space, extract a few passages which throw light on the characters, _i.e._
the points of contact and contrast of the writer and his theme:--

In several respects I consider my father as one of the most interesting
men I have known, ... of perhaps the very largest natural endowment of
any it has been my lot to converse with. None of you will ever forget
that bold glowing style of his, flowing free from his untutored soul,