2. His second attempt at unsolicited publication. An account of his trial with it is given in the Reminiscences, II, 233–35: “It was still some eight or ten years before any personal contact occurred between Jeffrey and me; nor did I
ever tell him what a bitter passage, known to only one party, there had been between us. It was probably in 1819–1820 … that I had taken a most private resolution, and executed it in spite of physical and other misery, to try Jeffrey with
an actual Contribution to the Edinburgh Review. The idea seemed great, and might be tried, though nearly desperate. I had got hold somewhere … of a foolish enough, but
new French Book, a mechanical Theory of Gravitation, elaborately worked out by a late foolish M. Pictet (I think that was the name) in Geneva; this I carefully read, judged
of, and elaborately dictated a candid account and condemnation of, or modestly firm contradiction of (my amanuensis a certain
feeble, but inquiring quasi-disciple of mine, called George Dalgliesh of Annan, from whom I kept my ulterior purpose quite
secret): well do I yet remember those dreary evenings in Bristo Street; oh, what ghastly passages, and dismal successive spasms
of attempt, at ‘Literary Enterprise’. … My review of Pictet all fairly written out, in George Dalgliesh's good clerk hand, I penned some brief polite Note to the great Editor; and walked
off with the small Parcel, one night [24 Jan. 1820], to his address in George Street;— I very well remember leaving it with his valet there, and disappearing in the night with
various thoughts and doubts! My hopes had never risen high, or in fact risen at all; but for a fortnight or so, they did not
quite die out,—and then it was in absolute zero, no answer, no return of MS., absolutely no notice taken; which was a form of catastrophe more complete than even I had anticipated!
There rose in my head a pungent little Note, which might be written to the great man, with neatly cutting considerations offered
him from the small unknown ditto; but I wisely judged it was still more dignified to let the matter lie as it was, and take
what I had got for my own benefit only. Nor did I ever mention it to almost anybody; least of all to Jeffrey, in subsequent
changed times, when at any rate it was fallen extinct.” All efforts to locate Pictet's (presumably Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752–1825) book have proved unsuccessful. See also Maxwell H. Goldberg, “Carlyle, Pictet, and Jeffrey,” MLQ, VII (Sept. 1946), 291–96. (George Dalgliesh matriculated in arts at Edinburgh from 1818 to 1820, and took law classes in 1823. He did not graduate.)
3. Edward Irving had recently urged Carlyle in conversation to use the press to make a name for himself and to become a potent
influence. He repeated his advice in his letter to Carlyle of 28 Dec. in which he said: “Known you must be before you can be employed— Known you will not be for a winning attaching accommodating
man, but for an original, commanding & rather self-willed man— Now establish this last character and you take a far higher
grade than any other— How are you to establish it? Just by bringing yourself before the public as you are— Find vent for your
notions— Get them tongue. Upon every subject get them tongue. Not upon Law alone. … Now what way is to be sought for— I know
no other than the press. You have not the pulpit as I have. … Now of every department of the press, for your purpose—None
are so good as these two the Edinburgh Review & Blackwood's Magazine— Do not start away and say; the one I am not fit for,
the other I am not willing for. Both pleas I refuse— The Edinburgh Review, you are perfectly fit for. … Therefore again let
me entreat you to begin a new year by an effort continuous not for getting knowledge but for communicating it—that you may
gain money & favour & opinion.”
