to read, the first
volume.[8] It should be said here that the work was in every sense a
labor of love on Lockhart's part, as all the profits of the book went
towards the payment of Sir Walter's debt.

[Footnote 8: _Ibid._ pp. 181, 182.]

One of the friends of these years was Carlyle, who had first met
Lockhart at a Fraser dinner in 1831, and "rather liked the man, and
shall like to meet him again." Long afterward he was to write of him
as one "whom in the {p.xxviii} distance I esteemed more than perhaps
he ever knew. Seldom did I speak to him; but hardly ever without
learning and gaining something." Though the two men did not meet
often, Carlyle became warmly attached to Lockhart, and so much of
their correspondence as has been preserved forms one of the most
interesting chapters in Mr. Lang's biography. Some of the letters show
Carlyle in his best mood, and are peculiarly affectionate in tone. On
one occasion he writes to Lockhart, as though sure of his sympathy, in
a time of sorrow, and the reply, which came quickly, contains a part
of a poem which was written in one of Lockhart's diary books in June,
1841, and cannot be omitted from any sketch of his life:--

"When youthful faith has fled,
Of loving take thy leave;
Be constant to the dead,
The dead cannot deceive.

"Sweet, modest flowers of spring,
How fleet your balmy day!
And man's brief year can bring
No secondary May.

"No earthly burst again
Of gladness out of gloom;
Fond hope and vision vain,
Ungrateful to the tomb!

"But 't is an old belief,
That on some solemn shore,
Beyond the sphere of grief,
Dear friends will meet once more.

"Beyond the sphere of time,
And sin, and fate's control,
Serene in changeless prime
Of body and of soul.

"That creed I fain would keep,
That hope I'll not forego;
Eternal be the sleep,
Unless to waken so."[9]

[Footnote 9: "A few lines sent to him by a friend whom he
rarely saw, who is seldom ment