UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 FROM THfc LIBRARY Ol 
 
 BENJAMIN PARKE AVERY. 
 
 GIFT OF MRS. AVERY, 
 
 * 
 
 Accessions No. toviotf Y (^Lns No. 
 
PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE 
 
 OP 
 
 CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 " PAST and FUTURE are the wings, 
 On whose support, harmoniously combined, 
 Moves the great spirit of human knowledge." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 [Mr.] 
 
 UiriVBRSITT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS, 
 
 1874. 
 
in* 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1874, by 
 
 G, P. PUTNAM S SONS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 LANGB, LITTLE & Co., 
 
 PRINTERS, 
 
 108 TO 114 WOOSTKR STREET, N. Y. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 N 1862 I received an intimation from the 
 proprietor of the "Windsor and Eton Ex 
 press," that, on the following first of 
 August, the newspaper so called would 
 have completed the fiftieth year of its publication. 
 The fact was an interesting one to me. That news 
 paper was established by my father and myself ; my 
 proprietary interest in it lasted for fourteen years ; 
 and I continued to be its editor till the end of 1826, 
 as I had been from its commencement. 
 
 Looking back upon the August of 1812, at 
 which time my working life really commenced, it 
 occurred to me that there were passages of that 
 working life of fifty years which might have an 
 interest for a wider circle than that of my family 
 and my immediate friends, if presented without 
 the tedious egotism of a formal Auto-Biography. 
 During that period my social position has not 
 materially altered, and I have not had the advan 
 tage of seeing " life in many lands." I have there 
 fore no startling incidents to relate, and no great 
 variety of scenes to describe. My occupation has 
 
 A 2 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 been that of a publisher and a writer. But, in 
 the course of my long connection with the Press 
 (I use this word in its most extended meaning), I 
 have been brought into communication with many 
 eminent persons, and have been somewhat exten 
 sively mixed up with vast changes in the social 
 condition of the people, in the progress of which 
 elementary education and popular literature have 
 been amongst the most efficient instruments of 
 amelioration. 
 
 But before I start upon a long journey broken, 
 however, into several stages, it may give a com 
 pleteness to my narrative if I put together some 
 earlier Reminiscences of circumstances by which I 
 was surrounded, from the beginning of the century, 
 in my childhood and my advance to manhood. The 
 first steps of self-formation are, I think, always 
 interesting -to follow, however uneventful may be 
 the subsequent career of an individual. But my 
 early days at Windsor have a wider interest, as 
 they made me familiar with the outward manifes 
 tations of the simple life of George the Third and 
 his Court a,n old-fashioned life of publicity, which 
 wholly passed away in the seclusion of the next 
 reign, when the King was seldom seen by his people, 
 much less liring among them in a sort of family 
 intimacy, such as I had looked upon from my 
 humble point of observation. In 1810, the regal 
 aspect of Windsor was wholly changed by the 
 illness of the King. In 1812, when I put on the 
 
PREFACE. r 
 
 responsibilities of full age, the Regent was invested 
 with unrestricted power. There never was a more 
 eventful period in the history of our country than 
 the first twelve years of the Nineteenth Century. 
 They were calculated to produce a strong and 
 abiding impression upon the mind of a thoughtful 
 youth, whose local associations were suggestive of 
 past dangers and triumphs of the Blenheim of 
 Anne and the Crecy of Edward. Moreover, as I 
 advanced towards manhood, there was an outburst 
 of literature, which stirred my spirit with a new 
 power. If, in recording my impressions of this 
 memorable era, I should be able to recal some of 
 the enthusiasm of the passing time, I may not be 
 without the hope of imparting an interest to the 
 Reminiscences of a solitary boy and an obscure 
 young man. 
 
 The half-century of active employment which I 
 look back upon is divided, in my retrospection, into 
 three epochs. I shall regard them as stages in my 
 journey of life ; not always caring thus to measure 
 my progress by any extreme nicety of dates ; and not 
 suddenly halting when the interest of a subject carries 
 me forward to its natural close. 
 
 I. From 1812 to the end of 1822, my chief occu 
 pation was that of a journalist at Windsor. But 
 my duties were not wholly limited to that narrow 
 range, although in tracing my course as the editor 
 of a local paper I may regard some circumstances as 
 of peculiar interest. The political aspects of that 
 
ri PREFACE. 
 
 period are not pleasant to review ; when the 
 thoughtful man saw as much to be apprehended 
 from an unsympathising Government as from a dis 
 contented people. In 1820 I made my first attempt 
 in publishing a Cheap Miscellany ; and I have to esti 
 mate what Popular Literature was, at a period when 
 the majority looked upon Books for the Many as a 
 very dangerous experiment in giving a direction to 
 the newly-diffused art of reading. At this period, 
 also, of strong political excitement, I was induced to 
 accept the editorship of a London Weekly News 
 paper. My area of observation was thus somewhat 
 enlarged. My aim was to make "The Guardian" as 
 much a literary as a political paper ; and I thus in 
 cidentally acquired a familiarity with the Periodical 
 Literature of a time when Magazines were becoming 
 more original and more influential. I also gained 
 some insight into the general commerce of books in 
 that closing era of high prices. During this period 
 one of the pleasantest occupations of my Windsor 
 life opened to me, as the printer and publisher of 
 "The Etonian." This circumstance led to my in 
 tercourse with that most remarkable knot of Cam 
 bridge students who became the chief contributors 
 to " Knight s Quarterly Magazine." It may be suffi 
 cient to mention the names of Macaulay, Praed, 
 Sidney Walker, Henry Nelson Coleridge (of these I 
 may, unhappily, speak without reserve), and add 
 those of Derwent Coleridge, Henry Maiden, and 
 John Moultrie, to give an abiding interest to such 
 
PREFACE. rii 
 
 remembrances. "The Quarterly Magazine " chiefly 
 led to my establishment as a London publisher in 
 the season of 1823. Through this year, and in 
 1824, I was occupied in the literary and commercial 
 management of that work, which was concluded after 
 the publication of six numbers. A second series was 
 subsequently undertaken ; but this attempt at a 
 revival was of too solid a character fitly to succeed 
 its brilliant predecessor. . : ; 
 
 II. I had been gradually extending my field of 
 business as a publisher of Miscellaneous Books, and 
 was not without the support of persons of reputation 
 and influence. Yet my experience of the risk of 
 miscellaneous publishing became in a year or two 
 somewhat discouraging. In 1826, I had to struggle, 
 in common with many others of my craft, against 
 the depression in value of all literary property. But 
 in this period of difficulty I was endeavouring to 
 mature several plans for wholly and systematically 
 devoting myself to cheap Popular Literature. Some 
 of the seed thus prepared was ultimately sown. 
 
 In 1827 I became connected with the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge ; and soon after 
 edited and published " The British Almanac " and 
 " Companion," and " The Library of Entertaining 
 Knowledge." Through twenty years until, indeed, 
 the Society thought that the time was come when 
 individual enterprise would accomplish all that they 
 had attempted I was more or less connected with 
 this memorable Association. My remembrances will 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 embrace whatever, without violation of confidence, 
 may be related of this connection. I need not here 
 particularise the eminent persons with whom I was 
 brought into contact, in carrying forward the works 
 which were entrusted to my care as Publisher, and 
 in several cases as Editor. Other important works 
 were undertaken by me without the support of the 
 Society s reputation. I availed myself perhaps 
 more than most of the publishers of that period of 
 the revived process of wood-engraving, to diffuse 
 popular Art as well as popular Literature. In this 
 species of enterprise "The Penny Magazine" led the 
 way. "The Pictorial Bible" was the most successful 
 of the more permanent class of such publications ; 
 the "Thousand and one Nights" was the most 
 beautiful. The "Pictorial History of England" was 
 followed by the "Pictorial Shakspere," which was 
 the most congenial undertaking of my literary life ; 
 and then by the "London." This series of years, 
 which brought with them unabated literary labour 
 and most anxious commercial responsibility, were 
 not without their enjoyments of pleasant and remu 
 nerating work. They afforded me the consolation 
 that I was performing a public good, when I bore 
 up, unaided, under the heavy load of " The Penny 
 Cyclopaedia," overweighted by taxation. This was 
 the most busy and the most interesting period of 
 my working life ; and its interest is heightened 
 beyond measure to myself by the consideration that 
 this epoch was the great turning-point in our poll- 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 tical and social history ; that it was a period of 
 wonderful progress ; and that many of the distin 
 guished men with whom I was associated can never 
 be separated, by the future historian, from the 
 course of that peaceful revolution which has made 
 the institutions of the country in harmony with 
 the advance of intelligence, and has identified the 
 interests and the wishes of the rulers and of the 
 nation. In this period, also, I became officially con 
 nected, as a Publisher, with those who originated and 
 carried forward the Amendment of the Poor-Law 
 and other cognate reforms; and I was thus neces 
 sarily called upon to give a close attention to the 
 principles and practical working of measures which 
 have so materially improved the Condition of the 
 People. 
 
 III. My third epoch is one of comparative repose. 
 I edited and published the extensive series of the 
 "Weekly Volume." I had opportunities of seeing 
 much of the actual condition of the country in 
 editing " The Land we Live in," during the transi 
 tion period of Free Trade. I assisted as Publisher 
 in the great sanitary measures which had assumed 
 fresh importance. Gradually I withdrew from any 
 novel undertakings involving considerable risk ; for 
 I found that the new competition of excessive cheap 
 ness, without regard to the quality of the reading 
 made cheap, was not suited to the habits in which 
 I had been so long trained. But I had still to 
 look for happiness in work. I had to become more 
 
* PREFACE 
 
 a writer and editor than a publisher. A few separate 
 volumes were published for me by Mr. Murray. 
 Larger undertakings, connected with copyrights 
 which I had retained, or was to create, were pub 
 lished by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. I was thus 
 relieved from the minor cares of business, and, having 
 a just confidence in those to whom my interests 
 were committed, I could work more efficiently at 
 my responsible duties as author and conductor. 
 The nature of my writings was such that I had to 
 look upon the various phases of Society in the Past, 
 and so, by comparison, to estimate the Present more 
 accurately and impartially than a view mainly 
 directed to current things might attain. Whilst 
 engaged in writing the History of my Country, I 
 had also to keep a steady eye upon the general 
 characteristics of its progress political, social, scien 
 tific, and literary ; for I was occupied in reproducing, 
 with large additions, that Cyclopaedia of which I had 
 been the proprietor and publisher under the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In this 
 evening of my life I had the happiness to become 
 intimate with many who were eminent in the imagi 
 native walks of Literature ; and I learnt, more com 
 pletely than I knew before, that it is not only the 
 scientific and the philosophical who are advancing, 
 by their writings, the moral and intellectual develop 
 ments of a nation. 
 
 In thus producing my memorials of Men and 
 Books, of Social Progress and Changing Manners, I 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 may be considered as risking the indulgence of the 
 garrulous egotism of advanced years. I hope that 
 the form of " Passages " will keep me from many 
 of the usual faults of Auto-Biography. I shall 
 prefer to speak of others rather than of myself. I 
 shall endeavour to deal with public realities rather 
 than with transient moods of my own mind. I 
 have undertaken a survey of a " long tract of time," 
 and, having often to rely upon my memory, may 
 have to ask the indulgence of the reader if he 
 discover any mistakes in dates, or any confusion in 
 the relation of one circumstance to another. I never 
 kept a diary. I am not sure that I should have had 
 a clearer view of the leading Passages of my life if 
 I had done so. I was not always careful in pre 
 serving letters. Yet somehow I feel as if I could 
 find my way through labyrinths which might be 
 impenetrable in their obscurity, were it not for 
 associations which conduct me onward, even as the 
 Indian can see his road by old footmarks which 
 he alone can recognise. 
 
 CHARLES KNIGHT. 
 
 November 11, 1863. 
 
PEEFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITOE. 
 
 Itf placing before American readers Charles Knight s 
 modest and manly record of his most fruitful and 
 earnest work, the editor would feel himself at variance 
 with the whole spirit of the Autobiography, if he should 
 endeavor to add to it any words of his own that could 
 seem like the attempt to point its very noble moral. 
 The creed on which Knight s life was based, was as 
 simple as the acts resulting from it were beneficial 
 and useful in the highest sense. It comprehended two 
 leading articles first, a most hopeful and unshaken 
 belief in good and in the great power of good ; and 
 secondly, a complete sacrifice of selfish aims, to the 
 endeavor to benefit and elevate other men. Perhaps, 
 after all, it is not often that a creed comes nearer than 
 this to the simplest rendering of a law, formulated 
 some twenty centuries ago, wherein are set forth a 
 man s duty to God and to his neighbor. 
 
 The regret which the editor feels at finding himself 
 compelled to omit from this abridgment many things 
 which have been of great interest to him and would 
 be equally interesting to the reader, is partly atoned 
 for by his hope that in this smaller form the Autobi 
 ography will reach many to whom the larger English 
 edition in three volumes would be less accessible. In 
 making omissions, the editor has endeavored to leave 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 out such passages as were rather descriptive of outside 
 events than of Mr. Knight s own life, or of subjects 
 intimately connected with his career. Summaries of 
 political affairs in Europe, descriptions of journeys and 
 places visited, and Mr. Knight s quotations (if of 
 great length) from the published writings of other 
 authors, have often been omitted ; and opinions ex 
 pressed upon matters foreign to the general topics of 
 the book have sometimes shared the same fate. The 
 account in the English edition, of Knight s experi 
 ences with the company of amateur actors, among 
 whom Dickens was the leading spirit, could be spared 
 frdm this volume better than many other passages, 
 since the subject is treated of in Mr. Forster s widely- 
 read biography of the great novelist. 
 
 Mr. Knight s words have in no case been changed. 
 A sentence has here and there been inserted to restore 
 the connection, where this has been interrupted by the 
 omission of a passage ; but the language, with these 
 exceptions, remains precisely that of the author. 
 It has been thought better that this should be pre 
 served, even at the cost of a possible abruptness of 
 transition in a few exceptional cases. While the editor 
 is prepared for the inevitable differences of opinion 
 that must exist with regard to what should be retained 
 and what omitted in the abridgment of a book, he 
 ventures to hope that in the plan he has pursued he 
 lias avoided any actual injustice to the author s clear 
 and vivid presentation of his life s history. 
 
 NEW YOKK, March, 1874. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Reminiscences : A Prelude, 1800-11 17 
 
 The First Epoch, . . 1813-23 79 
 
 The Second Epoch, . . 1824-50 251 
 
 The Third Epoch, . . 1851-65.... 421 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 HE book, for the new issue of which I have 
 undertaken to write an Introductory Note, 
 is strictly what its title indicates the 
 record of * Passages of a Working Life 
 during Half a Century. The Worker has ceased 
 from his labours and entered upon his rest. But it 
 is too soon yet to add the final chapter to his 
 Passages. All that will be attempted here will be 
 to carry on the record till the goal was reached. 1 
 have called the note Introductory, but its more fitting 
 place would, perhaps, be at the end rather than at 
 the beginning of the book, and the reader may, if 
 he please, defer the reading of it till he has read the 
 * Passages/ 
 
 In the Preface Mr. Knight tells us that it was in 
 the August of 1812 his " working life really com 
 menced ;" but nowhere, I think, has he mentioneu 
 the year when life itself began, though, from various 
 incidental references, it may readily be inferred. 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 But in considering the closing years of his working 
 life it is well to keep in mind his actual age. 
 
 He was born at Windsor on the 15th of March, 
 1791. The Dedication, which terminates the Pas 
 sages (vol. iii. p. 328), is dated January 16, 1865. 
 He had thus, as we see, nearly completed his seventy- 
 fourth year when he wrote the last pages of his 
 book : he had quite completed it when the book was 
 published. To pass in review half a century of such 
 varied and active occupation, and to produce his 
 * Memorials of Men and Books, of Social Progress, 
 and Changing Manners, was a toilsome and arduous 
 undertaking at such an age ; and it might have 
 been thought that its author would feel that, having 
 accomplished it, he had at length fairly earned 
 repose. But old habits could not be so easily cast 
 off. Work had long been necessary to his enjoy 
 ment of life. The love of literature had coloured 
 his business transactions when he was most active 
 as a publisher: when he withdrew from direct 
 participation in trade, the pursuit of literature be 
 came his chief occupation. As he wrote in the 
 Preface to the volume now in the reader s hand, he 
 " had still to look for happiness in work." Before 
 he had completed the present book, he had, in fact, 
 been laying down the lines of a new one. 
 
 The subject of this lay close to his hand, and 
 the research it involved was a congenial and pleasant 
 labour. Various references in the Passages had 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 vividly recalled the images of one and another of 
 the bygone generations of booksellers many of 
 them writers, printers, publishers, as well as book 
 sellers. Drydeu s quaint old publisher, " left-legged 
 Jacob," Pope s "huge Lintott," and "dauntless 
 Curll," Johnson s first London friend, Edward Cave, 
 and folio-smitten Osborne, Grandison-Kichardson, 
 and the philanthropic old curmudgeon, Thomas Guy, 
 sitting in his odd little shop at the corner of Lom 
 bard Street, " over against the Stocks Market," were 
 more than mere names to him ; and, as one and 
 another of their shadows crossed his path, there 
 recurred an old, half-formed fancy that a pleasant 
 gossiping volume might be written about them, 
 their doings, and their associates, such as years 
 before had led him to collect books and prints that 
 served to illustrate the history of the Trade. More 
 than once we had talked the subject over, and having 
 often had occasion, during the quarter of a century 
 we had worked together, to admire how quickly per 
 formance followed on conception, I was little sur 
 prised at receiving, a month or so after the publication 
 of the third volume of the * Passages, the first proof- 
 sheets of a Memoir of the Founder of Guy s Hospital, 
 and learning that it was to form the opening chapter 
 of a volume to be entitled Shadows of the Old 
 Booksellers. On some of the more out-of-the-way 
 points of a topographical and antiquarian kind, 
 respecting which he was unsatisfied, and which he 
 
g INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 was, of course, unable personally to investigate, I 
 was able to throw a little additional light, and to 
 indicate some collateral sources of information which 
 he had overlooked. The new materials entailed 
 fresh toil, but he at once cheerfully engaged on it, 
 recast, the memoir, and made it the best, the most 
 interesting, and the most appreciative biography 
 that had been written of one well entitled to com 
 memoration. 
 
 Once fairly started, the work advanced smoothly 
 and rapidly. With his life-long acquaintance with 
 the theme in all its parts and bearings, his know 
 ledge of the men, his fondness for picturesque 
 details, and tact in selecting and grouping them, 
 and his never-failing facility of expression, the mere 
 writing was comparatively easy, and printing, as 
 was his custom, chapter by chapter as each was 
 written, by the end of the year the volume was 
 finished. 
 
 The Old Booksellers had been a congenial theme, 
 and he parted from them unwillingly. He had told 
 the story, more or less fully, of a goodly number of 
 them from Thomas Guy to James Lackington 
 and thus traversed, in a desultory but not uncon 
 nected manner, the history of bookselling and pub 
 lishing during the entire eighteenth century, at the 
 same time illustrating on the way many a by-path 
 of literary and social life. But then, how many had 
 he been forced to exclude whose claims to a place 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 seemed scarcely inferior to those he had admitted, 
 and of whom, as representatives of special phases of 
 art or literature, of the trade or of the times, so* 
 much might have been told that would have given 
 life and freshness to the book, and amused and in 
 terested the reader ! Lingering thus over their 
 memories, he, in the Introduction to the volume, 
 enumerates and characterises many of those he has 
 omitted, and, noting some of the associations evoked 
 by their names, observes that the more prominent 
 among them might " fitly form the subject of a 
 separate series," and, " without pledging himself to 
 such an attempt," states that he "may probably 
 employ his leisure in collecting some of the neces 
 sary materials, which, like those upon which the 
 present volume has been based, have to be sought 
 for in odd corners, as well as in open spaces acces 
 sible to all." 
 
 Kesearch such as this was, however, more than 
 could be entered upon immediately, and, as a lighter 
 exercise, he undertook the preparation of a volume 
 entitled Half-hours with the best Letter- Writers 
 and Autobiographers/ a selection of short but always 
 interesting extracts, with introductory notices of the 
 writers, and usually some apt comments. Shadows 
 of the Old Booksellers was completed in October 
 1865 ; the Half-hours occupied him till November 
 1866. But-already he had a new work on the anvil. 
 Sight was fast failing ; the fingers could not guide 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 the pen ; the memory no longer responded as of old 
 to the calls made upon it. But there was the old 
 craving for work, and, as the readiest means of satis 
 fying it, he set about the composition of an historical 
 romance, led thereto, probably, by the circumstance 
 that he had been once again reading through Scott s 
 novels or, rather, had listened to them, for his eyes 
 no longer permitted him to read for himself. The 
 story was, however, suggested by a passage in a 
 letter from the Kev. George Garrard to Sir Thomas 
 Wentworth, Lord Deputy of Ireland, dated January 
 8th, 1635-6, telling how a man of mean estate, suc 
 ceeding unexpectedly to a large fortune, " was so 
 overjoyed that he fell mad," when, under the vicious 
 action of the Court of Wards, " instantly he was 
 begged at Court," but died two days after. Begg d 
 at Court, as the novel was called, is the story of this 
 "poor rich man s" daughter, who, in place of her 
 father, has been given as a ward to a certain Captain 
 Black man. It is a " Legend of Westminster," and 
 referring to the Commonwealth period, affords room 
 for some interesting local historical gossip. The 
 story is told in a single volume, and a reader old- 
 fashioned enough to enjoy a plain unsensational 
 historical novelette will peruse it with pleasure ; but 
 its chief interest will probably be found in the time 
 and the circumstances in which it was composed. 
 The last lines of it were written on the 15th of 
 March, 1867, the author s seventy-sixth birthday: 
 
INTRO DUCTOKY. 11 
 
 The story itself, owing to the failure of sight, was 
 "dictated to a kind helper." It would not be easy 
 to find a parallel to this in literary history. 
 
 The novel finished, his thoughts were still at work. 
 As lying within the compass of his now limited 
 means of research, he undertook a second series of 
 
 * Half-hours with the best Letter-Writers and Auto- 
 biographers ; and I see by the dates on the proof- 
 sheets now lying before me, that he had completed 
 it by the beginning of June 1868. But his vigour 
 was by this time greatly abated, and he acknow 
 ledges in the Preface the help for which he had 
 been indebted to a member of his family. Still, as 
 in the earlier series, the examples are well selected ; 
 the introductions and interchapters are written in a 
 cheerful and kindly spirit ; there is shrewd charac 
 terisation, genial criticism, a healthy moral tone ; 
 and, as in the sketch of Sir John Dinely, some 
 pleasant personal reminiscences. 
 
 With these Half-hours ended his career as an 
 author. His career as editor continued a few 
 months longer. In the second volume of the Pas 
 sages (pp. 58-64) he narrates at length the circum 
 stances which led him to originate in 1827 the 
 
 * British Almanac/ and the associated volume, the 
 
 * Companion to the Almanac, and he remarks with 
 evident, and very justifiable, satisfaction that {i the 
 pair have travelled on together for thirty-seven 
 years under my direction, through many changes of 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 times and men," while "the general features of 
 these publications have undergone very little change 
 during this long period." For yet five years more 
 he continued to edit the pair, and he brought his 
 literary labours to a close by preparing during the 
 last autumn days of 1868, the volume of the * Com 
 panion to the Almanac for 1869. This was the 
 forty-second of the annual series, each volume of 
 which had been produced under his direct super 
 vision. He could not have undertaken the labour 
 another year, and the work was transferred, with 
 its high character unimpaired, to other hands. 
 Mr. Knight s latest literary contribution to the 
 * Companion was a lively and interesting paper in 
 the volume for 1867 on Mural Records of Pedestrian 
 Tourists the pedestrian tourists being the pro 
 fessional tramps who infest the country workhouses, 
 and the mural records the scribblings they leave 
 behind them on the walls of the " Tramp-wards " in 
 which they make their temporary abode. 
 
 For a while longer he continued to select, or to 
 talk of selecting, books to be read to him with a view 
 to some new work ; but day by day it became more 
 and more clear to those who watched so tenderly 
 over him, that at length his working days were past, 
 and gradually, but tacitly, he seemed himself to ac 
 quiesce in that conviction. When, however, he ceased 
 to read, or be read to, with a view to writing, he re 
 mained as eager as ever in acquisition. At this time. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 and indeed as long as his strength held out, he was an 
 almost insatiable listener. Still, as of old, he watched 
 with unfailing interest the course of public events, 
 still liked to know what new books were published, 
 and in his general reading, whilst following the 
 current literature, mingled therewith the good old 
 favourites, alternating with the lighter works, 
 whether old or new, those of a higher and graver 
 purpose. Thus, for example, in these last years he 
 found in the Life, but still more in the Sermons, of 
 the Kev. W. F. Kobertson, of Brighton, a perennial 
 source of pleasure, refreshment and support. 
 
 And so, becoming constantly feebler, more and 
 more entirely dependent on those around him, slowly 
 wore away these latter days. For change of air and 
 scene, and brighter skies and warmer winter climate, 
 Ventnor, St. Boniface, with its pleasant grounds, and 
 Bonchurch, were successively chosen for residence 
 (1869-71) ; and when it was thought advisable to 
 be nearer London, Esher, Weybridge, and finally 
 Addlestone in Surrey (1871-73). But he had become 
 indifferent now to place or scene ; the days of his 
 fourscore years were in "their strength but labour 
 and sorrow," and fast " coming to~ an end, as it were 
 a tale that is told/ 
 
 The end came gently, solemnly. About half-past 
 two in the afternoon of Sunday, the 9th of March, 
 1873, tended and supported still, as ever, by Her to 
 whom, eight years before, he had dedicated these 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Passages/ and by the Daughters who constantly 
 shared in the pious duty, he passed away peacefully, 
 and, as it seemed to those who watched by him, 
 painlessly, to his rest. He was laid in the family 
 vault in the old burial-ground at Windsor on the 
 following Friday : the morrow would have been his 
 eighty-second birthday. 
 
 This is neither the place nor the occasion to con 
 sider the rank of Charles Knight as a writer, or to 
 attempt to estimate the work which he undertook 
 and that which he achieved. What he did is told 
 in the following pages. These few supplementary 
 lines are simply a notice of the occupations of his last 
 years. What he aimed to bring about, and what he 
 more than any one else aided in effecting, was, " the 
 general diffusion of sound popular literature." He 
 from the first longed to see "the wide fields of 
 knowledge become the inheritance of all ;" or, as he 
 expressed it in one of the last pages which he wrote 
 with his own hand,* in the outset of life he formed 
 the " desire to make knowledge a common possession 
 instead of an exclusive privilege," and to the end, 
 through good and evil fortune, he steadily prosecuted 
 his purpose. 
 
 JAMES THOBNE. 
 
 April, 1873. 
 * Dedication to Shadows of the Old Booksellers. October, 1865. 
 
EAELY EEM1NISCENCES. 
 

 
 EAELY REMINISCENCES: 
 
 A PRELUDE. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 N the night of the thirty-first of December, 
 1800, I had gone to bed with a vague 
 fear that I should be awakened by a 
 terrific noise which would shake the 
 house more than the loudest thunder-clap, and 
 would produce such a concussion of the air as 
 would break every window-pane in Windsor town. 
 The house in which my father lived, and in which I 
 was born, was close to the great entrance to the 
 lower ward of Windsor Castle, called, after its 
 builder, Henry the Eighth s gateway. I crept down 
 in the dawning of that first day of the year to a sit 
 ting room which commanded a view of the Round 
 Tower. The aspect of that room was eastern. I 
 watched the gradual reddening of the sky ; and I 
 momently expected to see a flash from one of the 
 many cannon mounted on the Tower, and to hear 
 that roar from those mighty pieces of ordnance which 
 was to produce such alarming consequences. I knew 
 not then that these guns were only four-pounders, 
 and that if all the seventeen had been fired at once 
 the windows would most probably have been safe. 
 I watched and watched till the sun was high. It was 
 
18 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 then reported that the King had ordered there should 
 be no discharge of the cannon of the keep, for the 
 new painted window by Mr. West, at the east end of 
 St. George s Chapel, might be broken by the concus 
 sion. There was no boom of artillery ; but the bells 
 of the belfry of St. George s Chapel and the bells of 
 the parish church rang out a merry peal not so 
 much to welcome the coming of the new year and 
 beginning of the new century (for the learned had 
 settled, after a vast deal of popular controversy, that 
 the century had its beginning on the 1st of January, 
 1801, and not on the 1st of January, 1800), but to 
 hail the legal commencement of the Union with Ire 
 land. The sun shone brilliantly on a new standard 
 on the Round Tower. I had often looked admiringly 
 upon the old standard, tattered and dingy as it some 
 times was ; but I now beheld that this new standard 
 was not only perfect in its shape and bright in its 
 colours, but was wholly of an unaccustomed pattern. 
 There were the arms of England in the first and 
 fourth quarterings ; the arms of Scotland in the 
 second quartering ; and the arms of Ireland in the 
 third. But where had vanished the fleur-de-lys ? 
 Was his gracious majesty no longer King of Great 
 Britain, France, and Ireland, as his style had run in 
 all legal instruments in the memory of man, and a 
 good deal beyond ? The newspapers said he was now 
 to be styled " George the Third, by the grace of God, 
 of the United Kingdom of Great Britain arid Ire 
 land, King, Defender of the Faith." The good folks 
 of Windsor argued that the change was ominous of 
 the departing glory of Old England. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that I knew much of 
 such matters in this tenth year of my life ; but, 
 
A PRELUDE. 19 
 
 nevertheless, I knew something of what was going 
 on in my little world of Windsor, in connexion with 
 the doings of the great world beyond the favoured 
 home of the king. I was the only child of a widowed 
 father ; his companion in his few leisure hours ; the 
 object of his incessant solicitude. I cannot remem 
 ber myself as I was painted at two years old, in a 
 white frock with a black sash the indication that 
 I had lost my mother. She was, as I was told by 
 those who knew her and loved her, a most amiable 
 woman, whose society my father had enjoyed only 
 for a few years the daughter of a wealthy yeoman, 
 of Iver, in Buckinghamshire. The "yeoman" of 
 those days, although a landed proprietor, did not 
 aspire to be called "esquire." He would now be 
 recognised as " gentleman-farmer." My white frock 
 and black sash had given place to jacket and trowsers. 
 But still I can call to remembrance the unjoyous 
 head of the desolate household ; his passionate 
 caresses of his boy; his long fits of gloom and 
 silence. We had little talk of childish things. Of 
 his own childhood he never spake to me. I came 
 to know, in after years, that he had been brought 
 up by his relative, the Rev. James Hampton, who 
 subsequently earned an honourable fame as the 
 translator of Polybius. This learned man died in 
 1778. In 1780, my father was settled at Windsor ; 
 for I have heard him relate with some complacency 
 how he had asserted his political independence, by 
 voting for Admiral Keppel in that year ; " though," 
 according to Horace Walpole, " all the royal bakers, 
 and brewers, and butchers voted against him." My 
 father had qualified himself for his trade of a book 
 seller, by his experience in the house of Hors- 
 
20 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 field, the successor of the Knaptons, both of which 
 publishers were very eminent in their day. He had 
 moreover a taste for literary composition, which he 
 professionally indulged in the useful labour of com 
 piling a little work which held its place in many 
 editions for half a century as " The Windsor Guide." 
 I find copper-plate views accompanying this hand 
 book which bear the inscription : " Published as the 
 Act directs by Charles Knight, Windsor, March 31st, 
 1785." In 1786 and 1787 he published the first 
 celebrated periodical written by Etonians. I possess 
 an interesting document, being the receipt to Charles 
 Knight for fifty guineas " in full for the copyright of 
 The Microcosm, a periodical work earned on by us, 
 the undermentioned persons, under the name and 
 title of Gregory Griffin. Received for John Smith, 
 Robert Smith, John Frere, and self, George Canning." 
 Of this school-boys production, remarkable for its 
 intrinsic merits, but more so for the subsequent 
 eminence of its writers, Canning was the working 
 Editor. He was thus brought into friendly commu 
 nication with my father. It was not only when the 
 brilliant supporter of Pitt was rising into political 
 importance, but when he had taken his place among 
 the foremost men of his time, that he had a kindly 
 feeling towards his first publisher, often calling 
 upon him with a cordial greeting when he visited 
 Windsor. 
 
 As I recollect my father when I was a child of 
 seven or eight years, he was much occupied by his 
 business, for he had become a printer in addition to 
 his trade of stationer and bookseller. A considerable 
 portion of his time was also spent on public affairs, 
 first of the Parish, and then of the Corporation. I 
 
A PRELUDE. 21 
 
 was left much to myself, except when I listened 
 to the old-world stories of the faithful servant to 
 whose charge I was committed by my dying mother 
 how like she was to the Peggotty of Dickens ! 
 It was fortunate, therefore, that I acquired very 
 early a taste for reading. I had access to a large 
 collection of books, and I quickly found abundant 
 consolation for my solitary hours in that reading 
 which, somewhat unwisely I think, has now been 
 supplanted by what is held to be directly instructive. 
 To the child, Robinson Crusoe is, happily, not a 
 sealed book in an educational age ; but the " Seven 
 Champions of Christendom," the "Arabian NigUts," 
 the "Arabian Tales," with their wonders of the 
 " Dom Daniel" (which, looking back upon, seem to mo 
 to have as much poetry in them as "Thalaba"), the 
 "Tales of the Genii," "Gulliver s Travels," "Philip 
 Quarll," " Peter Wilkins," and a dozen others, now 
 vanished, were not then superseded, either in their 
 original seductions or in safer abridgments, by the 
 tamer fictions in which moral and religious truths are 
 inculcated. My avidity for reading, and, perhaps, 
 the dangerous locality in which I lived an open 
 sewer from the Castle creeping at the back of my 
 father s house made my constitution feeble ; and 
 the feebleness ended in typhoid fever. I recovered 
 slowly, and was taken for the establishment of my 
 health to a farm which was tenanted by the father 
 of my good nurse. I have described what was the 
 life of a small farmer when I was playing at 
 "Farmer s Boy" at Warfield one of the parishes 
 comprised in Windsor Forest.* My host was a 
 
 * "Once upon a Time." The Farmer s Kitchen. 
 
22 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 shrewd Yorkshireman, from whom I learnt more 
 than I could have obtained from many books. He 
 was a tenant on the Walsh estate, having been placed 
 in this farm as a reward for his faithful service 
 with the Governor of Pennsylvania, Sir John Walsh, 
 before the War of Independence. He would dis 
 course to me of the wonderful man who drew light 
 ning from the skies the friend of his own scientific 
 master (whose papers about the Torpedo and other 
 curious matters may be read in the Philosophical 
 Transactions), and he told how Benjamin Franklin 
 became a great instrument in accomplishing that 
 change which had separated the American States 
 from their parent country. He would relate to me 
 incidents of the war about taxing the colonists, 
 speaking rather from the revolutionist than the 
 loyal point of view. Altogether, a plain good man 
 of simple habits and large intelligence. He and his 
 bustling wife lived in the usual style of the southern 
 farmer of the days of Arthur Young, before he was 
 pampered by war-prices into luxury and display. 
 The greater war-time of the French Revolution had 
 in twenty years extinguished much of the imme 
 diate interest of the half-forgotten era of the Ame 
 rican war. My experienced friend would make 
 the stirring passing events of the week known to 
 his household, in reading aloud the " Reading 
 Mercury," which was duly delivered at his door by 
 an old newsman on a shambling pony. How eagerly 
 we looked for this messenger, whose budget would 
 provide occupation for many a dull evening ! Pitt 
 and Fox, Nelson and Bonaparte, were familiar 
 names. Dibdin s songs had found their way to this 
 solitary inland place. Invasion was a threat we 
 
A PRELUDE. 23 
 
 despised ; for within a couple of miles of our farm 
 was a summer-camp of regular soldiers. I have 
 walked wonderingly through the lines of tents which 
 stretched across the sandy plain near Swinley, and 
 have lingered among the pickets till the evening gun 
 warned us to move homeward. But our country had 
 other protectors from our great enemy. It was satis 
 factory to learn, from a popular song which our 
 ploughmen trolled out, that 
 
 "Should their flat-bottoms in darkness come o er, 
 Our brave Volunteers would receive them on shore." 
 
 There were, indeed, Volunteers before the close of 
 the eighteenth century, and though they were some 
 what disparagingly called "Loyal Associations," as 
 though they were not soldiers, I can bear my testi 
 mony that at Windsor in their blue coats, black belts, 
 and round hats with a bear-skin over the crown, they 
 looked very formidable, although perhaps not quite 
 equal to suppress a riot for cheap bread. 
 
 My pleasant months at Brock Hill Farm came to 
 an end ; and I went home to begin the dreary life of 
 a day-school. Dreary, indeed, it was ; for the educa 
 tion was altogether rote-work ; without the slightest 
 attempt to smooth over the difficulties that presented 
 themselves in geographical names held together by 
 no thread of description, and in rules of arithmetic, 
 to be regularly worked through without the slightest 
 endeavour to explain their rationale. The beginning 
 of the century found me at this school. I was one 
 of the few who learnt Latin and French. The same 
 emigrd of the Revolutionary times taught both 
 tongues. I have no doubt his French accent was 
 perfect ; but his Latin, if I may judge from the way 
 
24 EAELY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 in which he read the first line of the JSneid, was not 
 the Latin of Eton " I do trow." 
 
 " Arma veeroomque cano,Trojfe quee preemus ab orees." 
 
 My language-master was a pleasant gentlemanly 
 person who hated England thoroughly. I have 
 looked with him upon our illuminations of tallow 
 candles for some naval victory, and have been dashed 
 in my confident belief that our town guns, and our 
 bells, and the " Reading Mercury " told the truth, 
 when he assured me that this rejoicing was only a 
 false pretence ; that it was vain to expect that a 
 trumpery island would ever be able to contend 
 against France ; and that assuredly George III. 
 would soon resign Windsor Castle to the First Con 
 sul. Nevertheless, he prayed that he might not see 
 the downfall of another monarchy. 
 
 The misery of the poor in my native town at the 
 beginning of the century was sufficiently visible even 
 to my childish apprehension. On an evening of the 
 previous . autumn, when I was returning homeward 
 from a game in the Park, I heard the distant shouts of 
 a multitude, and saw a furious mob gathering at the 
 junction of the streets near the market-place. I got 
 into the safety of my home not too soon, for the mob 
 was coming towards the baker s shop that was next 
 door. They had smashed the windows of several 
 bakers in the lower part of the town. They believed, 
 as the greater number of people everywhere believed, 
 that the high price of corn was wholly occasioned by 
 combinations of corn-factors, meal-men, millers, and 
 bakers ; and that if these oppressors of the nation 
 could be compelled to bring their stores to market, 
 there would be abundance and cheapness, and no 
 
A PKELUDE. 25 
 
 possible chance of the supply falling short. Our 
 neighbour the baker hid hiinself. He cared little if 
 his door were forced, and his loaves stolen, provided 
 the heavy box under his bed were safe. That box, 
 as he more than once showed me, was full of crowns 
 and half crowns, with some bright guineas, which he 
 had long hoarded. The reputed money-hoarders 
 were many in our town men and women who had 
 no faith in the Funds or the Bank of England. The 
 baker hid himself in the back bed-room where his 
 treasure was. My father from his window exhorted 
 the people to go home. I stood trembling behind 
 him, and was somewhat astonished to see how power 
 ful was the influence of firmness and kindness in 
 turning aside the wild but unpremeditated excite 
 ment of unhappy and ignorant men, who were not 
 without a sense of justice even in their anger. There 
 were a few more outbreaks as the winter drew on ; 
 for the price of bread continued to rise. In January 
 the price of the quartern loaf of 4 Ibs. 5 J ozs. was 
 Is. 9d. Windsor was always famous for its charities, 
 which, no doubt, were often improvidently bestowed; 
 but this, at any rate, was not a time in which the rich 
 could shrink from helping the poor, even if they had 
 known that the gratuitous distribution of provisions 
 had really a tendency to raise the price of food. 
 And so I looked upon crowds bringing daily their 
 tickets to a great empty house, which had been 
 fitted up with coppers, wherein unlimited shins of 
 beef became reduced into savoury soup, and bushels 
 of rice were boiled into a palatable mess. The work 
 of distribution was performed under the inspection of 
 a committee, who laboured with zeal, if not always 
 with judgment. One benefit they effected in addition 
 
 2 
 
 
26 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 to that of saving the humbler population from the pains 
 of hunger. They gave time for them to ask them 
 selves whether any good would be accomplished by 
 threatening millers and bakers with summary ven 
 geance if they did not lower the price of meal and 
 bread. It was a hard lesson to learn, when there 
 were few sound teachers. Not many of the working 
 people could then read the newspapers ; but some 
 who did read them might tell their neighbours that it 
 was argued that the excessive price of meal and bread 
 was a hard thing to bear, but that it was less terrible 
 than the famine which would ensue, if farmers and 
 millers and bakers could be compelled to sell from 
 their small stores at a price at which every mouth 
 could be fed as in years of plenty. Nevertheless, the 
 educated and the ignorant would equally learn from 
 the newspapers, that great peers and wise judges did 
 not altogether disapprove of the principles that led 
 to mill-burning and window-breaking. They would 
 learn how a corn-factor named Rusby had been found 
 guilty of the crime of having purchased by sample in 
 the corn-market at Mark Lane 90 quarters of oats 
 at 41s. per quarter, and sold 30 of them in the same 
 market, on the same day, at 44s. ; and how the Lord 
 Chief Justice Kenyon had said to the jury, " You 
 have conferred, by your verdict, almost the greatest 
 benefit on your country that ever was conferred by 
 any jury." They would learn how this wicked corn- 
 factor met with his deserts, even before his sentence 
 for the crime of regrating had been passed upon him ; 
 for that his house in Blackfriars Road had been 
 gutted by an enraged populace. They would learn 
 how the earl of Warwick in the House of Lords had 
 recommended the adoption of a maximum, by which 
 
A PRELUDE. 2? 
 
 no wheat should be sold at a higher price than ten 
 shillings the bushel ; and how his lordship had 
 rejoiced that no less than four hundred convictions 
 had taken place throughout the country for fore 
 stalling, regrating, and monopolising. And why did 
 he rejoice ? When the man Rusby, he said, was 
 convicted, the price of oats was fifty-two shillings per 
 quarter ; but such was the effect of his conviction, 
 that the price of oats fell from day to day till it came 
 as low as seventeen shillings and sixpence. Such 
 were the economic doctrines proclaimed sixty years 
 ago in high places ! Can we wonder that the igno 
 rance of the people was in perfect concord ? 
 
 It was a gloomy season, but nevertheless we 
 went on with our usual course of social observances. 
 Valentine s Day was well kept amongst us. It was 
 a serious affair then for a bachelor to send a letter 
 embellished with hearts and darts to a lady ; for it 
 was held to have a solemn meaning. But children 
 innocently played at Valentines. I have been led 
 blindfolded to the mistress of my affections in the 
 early mom, that no meaner divinity might meet my 
 eyes : no vulgar chance should interfere with our 
 deliberate choice. On St. Valentine s eve some would 
 draw lots, to determine which pair should be regis 
 tered in " Cupid s Kalendar." Old customs linger 
 about my early memories, like patches of sunlight 
 in a sombre wood. On the Saturday before mid- 
 lent Sunday, the farmers wives who kept their stalls 
 in our market would exhibit their well-known pre 
 paration of boiled wheat, which few old housewives 
 would neglect to purchase. On that fourth Sunday 
 in Lent, I regularly feasted on Furmety, with a lady 
 who was carefully observant of ancient usages. Does 
 
28 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 any one in the southern counties now know the taste 
 of this once famous dish, made of boiled wheat 
 prepared in the farmer s household, and having been 
 a second time boiled in milk with plums, was served 
 sugared and spiced in a tureen ? In the West, the 
 custom is still as duly regarded as the rite of the 
 pancake on Shrove Tuesday. The first of May 
 was scarcely saluted " with our early song." But 
 in this May of 1801, there was a great ceremony at 
 Windsor, in which I bore a humble part. On the 
 10th of May the custom of perambulating the 
 parish, which had been in disuse since 1783, was 
 revived, with wondrous feastings. The printed record 
 of these doings for three days takes me back into 
 the scenes of my childhood. There, still, my "little 
 footsteps lightly print the ground." The popula 
 tion of Windsor gave themselves up for three days 
 to singing psalms at boundary oaks, and carousing 
 at boundary houses. A good deal of the winter s 
 gloom was passing away. The spring was fine. The 
 price of the quartern loaf had been rapidly falling 
 from the Is. lOJd of the 5th of March (the 
 highest price it ever attained), to the Is. 6-Jd of the 
 7th of May. The king, who had been shut up in 
 the queen s lodge from the 14th of February to the 
 16th of March, with what the physicians called " cold 
 and fever," but which we now know to have been 
 insanity, was again trudging early to the dairy at 
 Frogmore ; or riding at a very gentle pace after his 
 harriers ; or travelling once a week to London to 
 meet his Council, where Mr. Pitt was no longer the 
 presiding genius. Our loyal people said that the 
 minister had justly forfeited the favour of " the best 
 of kings," by trying to make him violate his coro- 
 
A PRELUDE. 29 
 
 nation oath. To me, as to much older persons, the 
 removal of a great statesman from the government 
 of the kingdom was less important than the things 
 which concerned our borough and parish ; and of such 
 was our Perambulation. 
 
 Great were the preparations for our " Rogation 
 days of Procession." Mindful of the order of Queen 
 Elizabeth, that the curate on such occasions " shall 
 admonish the people to give thanks to God in the 
 beholding of God s benefits," our vicar and churchwar 
 dens were solicitous that there should be unusual 
 store of benefits to behold. And so it is recorded in 
 the churchwardens " Book of Benefactions and 
 Charities,"* how sundry letters were written to the 
 owners and occupiers of boundary houses, to remind 
 them that, in former times, entertainment, whether 
 of a barrel of ale and bread and cheese, or a " gen 
 teel" dinner, with wine to correspond, was provided 
 for the wayfarers, rich and poor, who thus laboured 
 to preserve their parish rights and liberties. Gene 
 rous were the answers from all, except from the 
 treasurer to the College of Windsor, " who cast a 
 damp upon the business, observing that it was a 
 waste of victuals and viands when everything was 
 dear." The chronicle of the perambulation was duly 
 printed for the edification of those who were par 
 takers of the solemnity, and for the bewilderment of 
 all future topographers. It was a glorious tenth of 
 May, when, after morning service at our old church, 
 we marched from the Town Hall mayor, vicar, 
 curate, charity children, inhabitants two and two ; 
 boys like myself clinging to their fathers skirts. 
 
 * Annals of Windsor ; " by Mr. Tiglie and Mr. Davis Vol. II., 
 pp. 550 to 563. 
 
30 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 We came to 4 the first boundary house, at the bottom 
 of Peascod Street. The psalm was sung ; the wine 
 was drunk " by the respectable parts of the com 
 pany," according to the record. Then comes an 
 entry, which, even at this distance of time,. produces 
 a qualm in my stomach : " We proceeded northward, 
 along the west side of the ditch ; crossed the road 
 in Goswell Lane and the ditch at the bottom of 
 George Street on planks, and kept the drain that 
 runs from the houses in Thames Street." All the 
 lower parts of Windsor were then drain or ditch. 
 The ditch the black ditch predominated. Never 
 was there such a sink of impurity as my native 
 town. Those pleasant fields, the Goswells, which 
 in winter were flooded, were in spring, summer, 
 and autumn, pestilent with black ditches. The 
 railroad has there swept away these horrors. The 
 authorities have also found out that the smaller 
 black ditches of every alley have a tendency to 
 increase the poor s rate. But in my early days 
 these things were unheeded. In the Bachelor s 
 Acre the "little victims" played by the side of a 
 great open cesspool, kept brimming and overflowing 
 by drains disgorging from every street. The Court 
 sniffed this filthy reek. In the fields around Frog- 
 more it tainted the cowslip and the hawthorn 
 blossom. Municipal or royal dignitaries never in 
 terfered to abate or remove the nuisance. In truth, 
 the word nuisance had scarcely then found a place 
 in our language in a sanitary sense. Foul ditches, 
 crossed on planks, scarcely disturbed the usual com 
 placency of the perambulators, for there was a 
 dinner in prospect, at her majesty s house at Frog- 
 more. I was witk my father, as one of the fa- 
 
A PRELUDE. 31 
 
 voured guests in the " state parlour," where Major 
 Price presided. The churchwardens book records 
 that " a gentleman who accompanied, us sung a song 
 or two, by permission." How well I remember that 
 facetious. song of the " learned pig ;" how often has 
 it been brought to my mind in recent years, in the 
 acquaintance of the very gentleman who sang a song 
 or two the indefatigable, good-tempered, self-satis 
 fied, pushing and puffing John Britton, who, then in 
 his thirtieth year, was at Windsor, occupied in a 
 topographical work which was commencing to be 
 published, " The Beauties of England and Wales." 
 He is gone, having done good service in his day by 
 wedding archaeology to a high style of illustrative 
 art. The Frogmore dinner was over. I was tired ; but 
 perambulating was too pleasant to be readily relin 
 quished. The next day I was tramping by the side 
 of a " bosky bourn " to Cranbourn, then a lodge, 
 which I had been told had as many windows as 
 there are days in the year. How changed is all this 
 forest scene ! The lodge has been demolished. Many 
 of the grand old sapless oaks have been hewn 
 down. New plantations cover the plain which was 
 sixty years ago a wilderness of fern. The beauty of 
 the district is more ornate than of old. But nothing 
 can destroy the noble features of the site of Cran 
 bourn, whether called Great Park or Forest. Another 
 royal dinner solaced our second day s march. The 
 third day s perambulation took us to Surly Hall and 
 The Willows familiar scenes to every Etonian. The 
 Church was not as bountiful as the Crown when we 
 had returned to the boundary house at the foot of 
 the Hundred Steps. The dean and canons had pro 
 vided, it is chronicled, "a dinner and a dozen of wine." 
 
32 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 Our way to the Town Hall was up the narrow 
 Thames-street, the whole castle side of the road from 
 the Hundred Steps to Henry the Eighth s gateway 
 being then, and long after, crowded with houses. 
 Some of the meanest character, and with the most 
 disreputable occupiers, were the property of no one, 
 but were tenanted under what was termed " key- 
 hold." They have all been swept away. The rubbish 
 that grew up under the castle walls has been cleared, 
 even as the social rubbish has been cleared which 
 hid a good deal of the grandeur of our Constitutional 
 Monarchy. 
 
 About this period my father took me to London. 
 The journey from our town to the White Horse 
 Cellar in Piccadilly was satisfactorily performed in 
 the usual time of five hours, and a little more. As 
 the night had closed in, I stood at the door of the 
 well-accustomed hotel, and looked with unspeakable 
 wonder upon the long line of brilliancy to the east 
 and to the west. Our lamps, few and far between, 
 were as farthing rushlights compared to this blaze 
 from patent reflectors. I knew not that even this 
 radiance would, like the glowworm in the matin 
 light, " pale its uneffectual fire," by the side of the 
 illumination without oil or wick. I saw the sights 
 which most boys were then taken to see, such as the 
 jewels in the Tower, and the wax- work in the Abbey. 
 But for one sight I was unprepared. I was led along 
 a somewhat dark passage up a narrow stair ; and 
 there (oh ! that my mind could ever again feel, at 
 the contemplation of the most sublime or the most 
 beautiful object of nature, as it felt at that moment) 
 there lay my beloved Windsor, stretched at my 
 feet. I screamed with an agony of pleasure. I 
 
A PRELUDE. 33 
 
 knew that I was in London ; but there were spread 
 before me the park, where I was wont to play; the 
 terraces, where I had used to gaze upon the distant 
 hills ; the river, whose osier bowers were as familiar 
 to me as my own little garden ; the steep and narrow 
 streets, which I then thought the perfection of archi 
 tecture ; the very house in which I was born. I rubbed 
 my eyes ; I was awake ; the scene was still there. 
 I strained my ears, and I fancied I could hear the 
 cawing of the rooks in those old towers. It was with 
 difficulty that I could be dragged away ; and when I 
 came out into the garish sunshine of Leicester 
 Square, and saw the bustling crowds, and heard the 
 din of the anxious city, I was reluctantly convinced 
 that I had looked upon a picture, called a panorama. 
 The bird s-eye representation, in one compact group 
 ing, of objects which I had previously looked upon 
 singly, has left an impression upon my memory 
 which will assist me in tracing one of my own boyish 
 perambulations about Windsor Castle. 
 
 It is the Saturday half-holiday at my day-school. 
 The afternoon is bright and frosty. The rains which 
 have flooded the low lands of the Thames have 
 ceased. I can again ramble in the upper park. 
 Castle Street, in which I live, has a continuation of 
 houses up to the Queen s Lodge, in which the King 
 dwells at his Castle foot. There is nothing to sepa 
 rate the Castle Hill from the town but a small 
 gateway, which bears the inscription, "Elizabethan 
 Reginae, xiii., 1572." Beyond the gate are substan 
 tial houses, inhabited by good families. In one of 
 those near the Lodge once dwelt Mrs. Delany, at 
 whose door the King would unceremoniously enter, as 
 he entered in a December twilight and caught Fanny 
 
34 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 Burney playing at puss-in-the-corner. This house is 
 shut up in these my early school days. It is 
 haunted, and the fact is proved by a broken win 
 dow-pane, through which the sentry had thrust his 
 bayonet when he saw the apparition. I pass the 
 railings which enclose the lawn before the Lodge, 
 and I reach the iron gates which terminate the road. 
 No gate-keeper is there to bar the entrance even of 
 beggars and vagrants. There is an old half-crazy 
 woman in an oil-skin coat, who opens the gate in 
 the hope of a halfpenny. Such is the " state and 
 ancientry" upon which the inmates of the royal 
 Lodge look out. School boys, with their kites and 
 hoops and cricket-bats, have free admission through 
 these gates. It is the common footpath to Datchet. 
 There is another footpath which leads to the dairy 
 at Frogmore, of which I may hereafter speak. I 
 walk by the well-trodden Datchet path to the edge 
 of the table-land forming the north side of the upper 
 park, and I reach the descent, winding amidst old 
 thorns and oaks, called Dod s Hill. My onward 
 walk is stopped, for the lower park is flooded. I 
 turn back and mount the broad flight of steps which 
 lead to the south terrace. This is no privileged 
 region for maids of honour and lords of the bed 
 chamber alone to enjoy. The entire terrace is free 
 to the commonalty. The town boys here play at 
 follow my leader, and fearlessly run along the parapet, 
 whether on the south, the east, or the north sides. 
 No one looks out of windows draperied or undraperied, 
 for no one dwells there, except, on the north side, 
 Mr. James Wyatt, the Surveyor-General. He has 
 been busy about the Castle for a year or two. A few 
 of the mean circular-headed windows by which the 
 
A PEELUDE. 35 
 
 upper court was deformed, when Wren, at the com 
 mand of Charles II., tried to obliterate the old fort 
 ress character of the buildings are being gothicised. 
 The Star building on the north terrace is undergoing 
 the same process. The patchwork system of improve 
 ments which is going forward, a window at a time, 
 appears very unlike the exercise of a royal will. 
 The war absorbs the revenues of the State, leaving 
 little or nothing for art. I come up the paltry 
 wooden stairs that lead from the north terrace. I 
 look into the Quadrangle, which is solitary and silent, 
 except where a stonemason or two are at work. I 
 pass through the Norman gateway, by the brick 
 wall of the Round Tower garden, to a pile of ugly 
 buildings the guard-house, and its canteen, the 
 Royal Standard. Adjoining the Deanery is a ruinous 
 building called Wolsey s Tomb-house. St. George s 
 Chapel has been restored and beautified ; but this 
 building has been neglected since the days of James 
 the Second, when it was a Roman Catholic Chapel. 
 I come home through Henry the Eighth s gateway, 
 the rooms of which, then, or a little before, were used 
 as a Court of Record, whose jurisdiction extended over 
 the forest of Windsor comprising many parishes. 
 Here, under the arch, was the prison of this " Castle 
 Court," which in 1790 was described as a disgrace 
 to the sight and to the feelings. I have seen the 
 grated windows of this prison, which was called " the 
 Colehouse." At the beginning of the century it was 
 converted into a guard-room. 
 
 From the circumstance that there was no carriage- 
 road from the Castle or the Queen s Lodge, except 
 through the town, it resulted that the King and his 
 family were for ever in the public eye. There was a 
 
36 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 lawn behind the Lodge in which their privacy would 
 be undisturbed ; but there was no other place in 
 which strangers or neighbours, might .not gaze upon 
 them or jostle them. The propinquity of the town, 
 and the constant passage of the royal carriages through 
 the town, made every movement of the Court familiar 
 to the lieges. Royalty lived in a glass house. There 
 was no restraint in these movements. What the 
 gossiping and inquiring gentleman who dwelt up the 
 hill said and did ; how his daughters were dressed, 
 and how they nodded to their friend, the linen-draper, 
 as he bowed at his shop-door ; how the good man s 
 lady was somewhat more reserved, but always gracious 
 these matters mixed themselves up as familiarly 
 with the town talk as if the personages were the 
 squire of the village and his family, who sat in the 
 great pew every Sunday. Out of the observation of 
 this antiquated publicity was Peter Pindar made. 
 
 " The works of the sublime bard are sold publicly 
 at Windsor." Thus writes this once-famous Dr. 
 Wolcott of his own ribald lyrics, which he says " are 
 now in the library at the Queen s palace ; " adding, 
 " his Majesty has written notes on the odes." As I 
 remember, there was no secresy observed in the sale 
 of these popular satires, although they might, per 
 chance, come under the notice of the illustrious 
 objects of their ridicule, 
 
 " Who down at Windsor daily go a-shopping, 
 Their heads, right royal, into houses popping." 
 
 In rny boyish experience I never sa,w the King 
 accompanying the Queen and Princesses in their 
 frequent visits to the shops of Windsor. The prints 
 in which the royal pair are represented as haggling 
 
A PRELUDE. 37 
 
 with their tradesmen, and cheapening their merchan 
 dise, were the productions of fifteen years before the 
 opening of the nineteenth century. But I have often 
 bowed to George III. in the upper park, as he walked 
 to his dairy at Frogmore, and passed me as I was 
 hunting for mushrooms in the short grass on some 
 dewy morning. He had an extraordinary faculty of 
 recognizing everybody, young or old ; and he knew 
 something of the character and affairs of most persons 
 who lived under the shadow of his castle. There was 
 ever a successor to the famous court barber, 
 
 " Eamus, called Billy by the best of kings," 
 
 who could retail the current scandal of our " Little 
 Pedlington," as he presided over the royal toilet. 
 The scandal was forgotten with the laugh which it 
 excited. 
 
 My early familiarity with the person of George III. 
 might have abated something in my mind of the 
 divinity which doth hedge a king ; but it has left an 
 impression of the homely kindness of his nature, 
 which no subsequent knowledge of his despotic ten 
 dencies, his cherished political hatreds, and his obsti 
 nate prejudices as a sovereign, can make me lay 
 aside. There was a magnanimity about the man in 
 his forgetfulness of the petty offences of very humble 
 people, who did not come across his will, although 
 they might appear indiscreet or even dangerous in 
 their supposed principles. Sir Richard Phillips, with 
 somewhat of a violation of confidence, printed in his 
 " Monthly Magazine " an anecdote of George III. 
 which was told him by my, father. Soon after the 
 publication of Paine s " Rights of Man," in 1791, 
 before the work was declared libellous, the King 
 
38 EARLY REMINISCENCES: 
 
 was wandering about Windsor early on a summer 
 morning, and was heard calling out " Knight, Knight!" 
 in the shop whose shutters were just opened. My 
 father made his appearance as quickly as possible, at 
 the sound of the well-known voice, and he beheld 
 his Majesty quietly seated, reading with marked 
 attention. Late on the preceding evening a parcel 
 from Paternoster Row had been opened, and its 
 miscellaneous contents were exposed on the counter. 
 Horror ! the King has taken up the dreadful " Bights 
 of Man," which advocated the French Revolution in 
 reply to Burke. Absorbed Majesty continued reading 
 for half an hour. The King went away without 
 a remark ; but he never afterwards expressed his 
 displeasure, or withdrew his countenance. Peter 
 Pindar s incessant endeavours to represent the King 
 as a garrulous simpleton were more likely to provoke 
 the laughter of his family, than to suggest any desire 
 to stifle the poor jests by those terrors of the law 
 which might have been easily commanded. It was 
 the same with the people. The amusements which 
 the satirist ridiculed, when he told of a monarch 
 
 " Who rams, and ewes, and lambs, and bullocks fed," 
 
 were pursuits congenial to the English taste, and not 
 incompatible with the most diligent performance of 
 public duty. The daubs of the caricaturist pro 
 voked no contempt for "Farmer George and his 
 Wife." The sneers of the rhymester at " sharp and 
 prudent economic kings," at the parsimony which 
 prescribed that at the breaking up of a royal card 
 party " the candles should be immediately blown 
 out," fell harmless upon Windsor ears. Blowing 
 out of wax candles, leaving the guests or congre- 
 
A PttELUDB. 39 
 
 gation in the dark, was the invariable practice of 
 royal and ecclesiastical officials. At St. George s 
 Chapel, the instant the benediction was pronounced, 
 vergers and choristers blew out the lights. Per 
 quisites were the law of all service. The good- 
 natured King respected the law as one of our insti 
 tutions. He dined early. The Queen dined at an 
 hour then deemed late. He wrote or read in his own 
 uncarpeted room, till the time when he joined his 
 family in the drawing-room. One evening, on a 
 sudden recollection, he went back to his library. 
 The wax-candles were still burning. When he 
 returned, the page, whose especial duty was about 
 the King s person, followed his Majesty in, and was 
 thus addressed, " Clarke, Clarke, you should mind 
 your perquisites. / blew out the candles." The 
 King s savings were no savings to the nation. In 
 1812 it was stated in the House of Commons that 
 the wax lights for Windsor Castle cost ten thousand 
 a year. 
 
 There were abundant opportunities for every 
 stranger to gaze upon the King and his family. The 
 opportunities were so abundant that his Majesty s 
 neighbours of Windsor did not manifest any great 
 solicitude to look upon the royal person. Duly every 
 Wednesday his travelling carriage passed down the 
 Castle Hill, preceded and followed by some twenty 
 light horse. A council or a leve e at St. James s 
 demanded the royal presence. I remember that his 
 Majesty s saddler stood at his door in a cocked hat 
 and bowed most reverentially, on these weekly jour- 
 neyings. Once a month the King went to receive 
 the recorder s report, that awful duty of which great 
 statesmen and lawyers then thought so lightly. 
 
40 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 Seldom were there fewer than four or six convicts, 
 male and female, left for execution. That all should 
 be respited is chronicled as a rare occurrence. The 
 severe administration of the law produced no dimi 
 nution of crime. In those days we lived in fear of 
 highwaymen and footpads. Three gentlemen from 
 the City bearing the well-known names of Hellish, 
 Bosanquet, and Pole, potentates in the money market 
 were nattered by his Majesty s attention to them in 
 commanding that a deer of much speed and bottom 
 should be turned out for their diversion at Langley 
 Broom. The party hilariously dined at Salt Hill, 
 after a glorious run. On their return, when near 
 the Magpies on Hounslow Heath they were robbed 
 by three footpads. Not content with their plunder, 
 one of the robbers fired a pistol into the carriage. 
 The ball entered the forehead of Mr. Mellish, and 
 he died at the Magpies. Hounslow Heath, Maiden 
 head Thicket, Langley Broom, were the resorts 
 of desperadoes, who clustered round Windsor as 
 brigands still cluster round Rome. At the root of 
 the evil in England was the inefficient and corrupt 
 administration of the lesser functionaries. In the 
 Papal States brigandage is only a part of the general 
 misrule. Robbers, with us, escaped till the police- 
 officer could obtain his "blood-money," the measure 
 of the marauder s iniquity being full. Terror had no 
 permanent influence. In the "Annual Register" 
 for 1799 is this record : " Haines has been hung in 
 chains on Hounslow Heath between the two roads." 
 In 1804, as I was riding home from school, the man 
 who accompanied me proposed to show me something 
 curious. Between the two roads, near a clamp of 
 firs, was a gibbet, on which two bodies hung in 
 
A PRELUDE. 41 
 
 chains. The chains rattled ; the iron plates scarcely 
 held the gibbet together ; the rags of the highway 
 men displayed their horrible skeletons. That was a 
 holiday sight for a schoolboy, sixty years ago ! 
 
 The most attractive of all the gatherings of crowds 
 to gaze on royalty was the Terrace. Before the 
 Castle was inhabited by the King and his family, the 
 music-room on the eastern side had been fitted up, 
 and here the Court repaired on Sunday evenings. 
 Dr. Burney, writing to his daughter Fanny (then 
 Madame D Arblay) in July, 1799, has a most enthu 
 siastic appreciation of the joys of Windsor Terrace. 
 " I never saw it more crowded or gay. The Park 
 was almost full of happy people farmers, servants, 
 tradespeople, all in Elysium." On the Terrace he 
 walked amidst a crowd of " the first people in the 
 kingdom for rank and office All was cheerful 
 ness, gaiety, and good humour, such as the subjects 
 of no other monarch, I believe, on earth enjoy at 
 present." Thus " voir tout couleur de rose" makes 
 life move pleasantly even to such as Dr. Burney, who 
 had been doomed " in suing long to bide." He was 
 perhaps seeking no advancement in 1799 ; but in 
 1786 he had been sagaciously advised to walk upon 
 the Terrace. " The King will understand." The 
 crowd of " the first people in the kingdom " had many 
 of them the same belief in the sagacity of the King. 
 The dean was there, looking for a bishopric ; the rich 
 incumbent was there, looking for a deanery ; the 
 pluralist was there, looking for a richer benefice than 
 his smaller one of poor five hundred a year. It was 
 a time when the Crown had more to say in the choice 
 of church dignitaries, and in the mode of disposing 
 of rich livings, than in the present degenerate times, 
 
42 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 when the chancellor and the prime minister have 
 advisers to regulate their patronage upon parliamen 
 tary principles. The Terrace, at the beginning of 
 the present century, was not strictly an institution 
 that was in accordance with the ordinary religious 
 habits of the King s life. As carriage after carriage 
 rolled up the Castle Hill, until a file of carriages, 
 having discharged their aristocratic occupants, filled 
 the space from the Terrace steps to the centre of the 
 town, there were unquestionably such violations of 
 Sunday observances as Bishop Porteus remonstrated 
 against and Wilberforce groaned over. There were 
 many anomalies in those days, and this was one of 
 them. I thought little then of such matters. I sat 
 upon the low Terrace wall ; listened to the two bands 
 the Queen s and that of the Staffordshire Militia ; 
 wondered at garters upon gouty legs, and at great 
 lords looking like valets in the Windsor uniform ; saw 
 the sun go down as the gay company dispersed, and 
 was gratified, if not altogether "in Elysium." 
 
 On one of these occasions it was in 1804 I saw 
 Mr. Pitt. He was waiting among the crowd till 
 the time when the King and Queen should come 
 forth from a small side-door, and descend the steps 
 which led to the level of the Eastern Terrace. A 
 queer position this for the man who was at that 
 moment the arbiter of European affairs ; who was to 
 decide whether continental kings were to draw their 
 swords at the magical word " Subsidy ; " upon whom 
 a few were looking with sorrow in the belief that he 
 had forfeited the pledge he had given when England 
 and Ireland became an United Kingdom, and whom 
 the many regarded as the pilot who had come to his 
 senses, and who could now be trusted with the vessel 
 
A FKELUDE. 43 
 
 of the state in the becalmed waters of intolerance. 
 Soon was the minister walking side by side with the 
 sovereign, who, courageous as he was, had a dread of 
 his great servant till he had manacled him. It was 
 something to me, even this once, to have seen Mr, 
 Pitt. The face and figure and deportment of the 
 man gave a precision to my subsequent conception of 
 him as one of the realities of history. The immo 
 bility of those features, the erectness of that form, 
 told of one born to command. The loftiness and 
 breadth of the forehead spoke of sagacity and firm 
 ness the quick eye, of eloquent promptitude the 
 nose (I cannot pass over that remarkable feature, 
 though painters and sculptors failed to repro 
 duce it), the nose, somewhat twisted out of the 
 perpendicular, made his enemies say his face was as 
 crooked as his policy. I saw these characteristics, 
 or had them pointed out to me afterwards. But the 
 smile, revealing the charm of his inner nature that 
 was to win the love of his intimates, but it was not 
 for vulgar observation. 
 
 Loudly and rapidly did his Majesty always talk as 
 the royal cortege moved up and down, amidst the 
 double line of his subjects duteously bowing or curt 
 seying, and graciously rewarded with nods and smiles 
 from Queen and Princesses when any familiar face 
 was recognised. " How do you do, Dr. Burney ? " said 
 the King, " Why, you are grown fat and young ! Why, 
 you used to be as thin as Dr. Lind." What mattered 
 it to Dr. Lind, who was close at hand, that crowds, 
 noble or plebeian, should then direct their eyes to the 
 tall gentleman, who is described by Dr. Burney as " a 
 mere lath " ? From my early years was the person 
 well known to me of that good physician. He inter- 
 
44 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 csted me, as I learnt that he had been round the 
 world with Captain Cook. He had stood at my bed 
 side with another friend, Mr. Battiscomb, the royal 
 apothecary, as I hovered between life and death ; 
 when, as my good nurse afterwards told me, she 
 thought it was all over, for they shook their heads 
 and talked Latin. Miss Burney writes of Dr. Lind, 
 in 1785, " He is married and settled here, and follows, 
 as much as he can get practice, his profession ; but 
 his taste for tricks, conundrums, and queer things, 
 makes people fearful of his trying experiments upon 
 their constitutions, and think him a better conjuror 
 than physician." He has often charmed me with a 
 sight of his " queer things." Mr. Hogg has, within 
 the last few years, given currency to a somewhat 
 incredible story that Shelley imputed to Dr. Lind 
 his initiation, when an Eton boy, into the reasons 
 for hating kings and priests, even as the Wind 
 sor physician hated them. Perhaps Shelley, who 
 was credulous in worldly matters, as are most scep 
 tics in religion, believed that the mysterious little 
 books which Dr. Lind printed from characters which 
 he called "Lindian Ogham," cut by himself into 
 strange fashions from battered printing types which 
 my father gave him, were the secret modes by which 
 the illuminati corresponded, even under the very eye 
 of the Court. I doubt whether he were conjuror 
 enough to make the shrewd George III. mistake 
 covert Jacobinism for ostentatious loyalty. 
 
 There were eminent men living at Windsor and in 
 the neighbourhood, from whom I occasionally ob 
 tained glimpses of knowledge beyond my ordinary 
 routine of imperfect scheol instruction. My father 
 took me to see the great telescope of Dr. Herschel at 
 
A PRELUDE. 45 
 
 Slough. The clear explanations of the celebrated 
 astronomer filled me with wonder, if they went be 
 yond my comprehension. The venerable philosopher, 
 Jean Andre de Luc (I believe it was somewhat later), 
 showed me a galvanic pile which he had constructed, 
 and astonished me by causing the mysterious agency 
 to ring a little bell. M. Porny, who had been French 
 master at Eton, and whose grammar and exercises 
 my father printed for the London publishers, would 
 occasionally come to see us, and would talk with a 
 kindly interest about my small acquirements. I have 
 an earlier remembrance of another amiable foreigner, 
 the Rev. Charles de Guiffardiere, for whom my father 
 was printing a French work on Ancient History for the 
 private use of the Royal Family a gentleman whom 
 Miss Burney held up to ridicule in her Diary, as Mr. 
 Turbulent. But must I confess it ? I am inclined 
 to believe that the stage did for the enlargement of 
 my mind something more than school lessons some 
 thing more than these rare opportunities of listening 
 to the conversation of men of learning and ability. 
 From my eighth year upwards, I could always obtain 
 a free admission to that smallest of playhouses, the 
 Theatre Royal of Windsor, where Majesty oft was 
 delighted to recreate itself with hearty laughs at the 
 comic stars of sixty years since. Tragedy was not to 
 the King s taste. Miss Burney has recorded how he 
 appreciated the dramatist whose Hamlet and Bene 
 dick were sometimes here personated by Elliston ; 
 and whose Richard III. Cooke coarsely but powerfully 
 enacted on this stage : " Was there ever such stuff 
 as great part of Shakspere ? only one must not 
 say so ! But what think you ? What ? Is there not 
 sad stuff? What? What?" George III. has had 
 
46 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 supporters in this opinion where we might scarcely 
 look for them. I have heard one such heretic, whose 
 intellectual dimensions would appear gigantic in 
 comparison with those of the King, say of the writer 
 
 of the sad stuff, " D and I always call him Silly 
 
 Billy." The publicity of which I have spoken was, 
 in the Windsor Theatre, carried to its extremest 
 limit. That honoured playhouse no longer exists. 
 The High Street exhibits a dissenting chapel on its 
 site, whose frontage may give some notion of the 
 dimensions of that cosy apartment, with its two tier 
 of boxes, its gallery, and its slips. It was not an 
 exclusive theatre. Three shillings gave the entrance 
 to the boxes, two shillings to the pit, and one shilling 
 to the gallery. One side of the lower tier of boxes 
 was occupied by the Court. The King and Queen 
 sat in capacious arm-chairs, with satin playbills 
 spread before them. The orchestra, which would 
 hold half a dozen fiddlers, and the pit, where some 
 dozen persons might be closely packed on each bench, 
 separated the royal circle from the genteel parties in 
 the opposite tier of boxes. With the plebeians in the 
 pit the Royal Family might have shaken hands ; and 
 when they left, there was always a scramble for their 
 satin bills, which would be afterwards duly framed 
 and glazed as spoils of peace. As the King laughed 
 and cried, " Bravo, Quick ! " or " Bravo, Suett ! " for 
 he had rejoiced in their well-known mirth-provoking 
 faces many a time before, the pit and gallery clapped 
 and roared in loyal sympathy : the boxes were too gen 
 teel for such emotional feelings. As the King, Queen, 
 and Princesses retired at the end of the third act, to 
 sip their coffee, the pot of Windsor ale, called Queen s 
 ale, circulated in the gallery. At eleven o clock the 
 
A PRELUDE. 47 
 
 curtain dropped. The fiddles struck up "God save the 
 King;" their Majesties bowed around as the house 
 clapped ; and the gouty manager, Mr. Thornton, lead 
 ing the way to the entrance (carrying wax-lights and 
 walking backward with the well-practised steps of a 
 Lord Chamberlain), the flambeaux of three or four 
 carriages gleamed through the dimly lighted streets, 
 and Royalty was quickly at rest. 
 
 Our theatre was only open at the Eton vacations. 
 But there, whether the King and Queen were present 
 or not, I obtained something like a peep into the outer 
 world the world beyond the little orb of my country 
 town. For the Royal Windsor was essentially a country 
 town of the narrowest range of observation, and the 
 tiniest circle of knowledge. The people vegetated, 
 although living amidst a continual din of Royalty 
 going to and fro of bell-ringing for birthdays of 
 gun-firing for victories of reviews in the Park of 
 the relief of the guard, with all pomp of military 
 music of the chapel bell tolling twice a day, 
 unheeded by few besides official worshippers of 
 crowding to the Terrace on Sunday evenings of 
 periodical holidays, such as Ascot races and Egham 
 races of rare festivities, such as a fete at Frogmore. 
 The " loyal," or the " independent " voters of Wind 
 sor, as they were styled in election bills by rival can 
 didates, were fierce in their partisanship, but there 
 was no real principle at the root of their differences. 
 Through 1801 they were preparing, by rounds of 
 treating, for an expected election, which occurred in 
 1802 ; when the Court candidate was returned by a 
 large majority, and the one who bribed highest of 
 two "independent" candidates was also returned, 
 but was finally unseated by a parliamentary com- 
 
48 EARLY REMINISCENCES . 
 
 mittee. Those who did not receive bribes were never 
 scrupulous about administering them. Corruption 
 was an open and almost a legitimate trade, as I occa 
 sionally learnt from the talk of those around me. 
 The Court was an indirect party to the corruption, by 
 installing two of the most influential of the plebeian 
 partisans into the snug retirement of the ancient 
 foundation of the Poor Knights of Windsor. The 
 institution had lost its character of "Milites Pau- 
 peres ;" and tailors and victuallers were not held to 
 desecrate it. In spite of all this laxity of political 
 morals, the people amongst whom I was thrown 
 were, for the most part, of honourable private cha 
 racter. It was a period when there was less compe 
 tition amongst tradesmen than in the present day. 
 There were, consequently, fewer of what we now 
 regard as the common tricks of trade. They sold the 
 article which they professed to sell ; and were 
 offended if they were asked to abate their price. 
 The few gentry were patronising, with a certain 
 friendliness. The many clergy of the two colleges 
 had somewhat haughty brows under their shovel 
 hats, but were charitable and not very intolerant. 
 The distinction between the trading and the profes 
 sional classes was not so nicely preserved as it is now. 
 Respectability was the quality more aimed at by the 
 attorney and the doctor than what we call gentility ; 
 and respectability did not mean the pretension of 
 keeping a gig or a footman display for the world, 
 and meanness for the household. 
 
 One of the most vivid of my recollections of this 
 period, and indeed of some years after, is that of 
 the extremely easy mode in which the majority of 
 the trading classes struggled with the cares of obtain- 
 
A PRELUDE. 49 
 
 ing a livelihood. It is not within my remembrance 
 that anybody worked hard. The absence of extreme 
 competition appeared to give the old settlers in the 
 borough a sort of vested interest in their occupations ; 
 and if sometimes a stranger came amongst them, 
 with lower prices and lower bows, he would be 
 regarded as an intruder on the fertile close, who 
 would soon come to the end of his tether. It was 
 the same with the attorneys and the apothecaries. 
 Those who had to preserve a genteel appearance 
 spent an hour each day under the hands of the 
 hair-dresser. Every morning the hair was powdered, 
 the queue was unrolled and rolled up again, the 
 gossip was talked, the evening paper was glanced 
 at, and by eleven the good man was behind his 
 counter. There were a few of the oldest school who 
 closed their hatch when they went to their noonday 
 dinner, and no importunity would induce them to 
 open it. When the baker had drawn his afternoon 
 batch, he took off his red cap and washed his bald 
 head, put on his flaxen wig, and sallied forth to spend 
 his long evening in his accustomed chair at the ale 
 house, which had become his second home. Some had 
 a notion that they secured custom to the shop by a 
 constant round among the numerous hostelries. I 
 knew a most worthy man, occupying a large house 
 which his forefathers had occupied from the time of 
 Queen Anne, who, when he gave up the business to his 
 son, who, recently married, preferred his own fireside, 
 told the innovator that he would infallibly be ruined 
 if he did not go out to make friends over his evening 
 glass. The secret of these worthy people keeping their 
 heads above water, in this laissez faire sort of exist 
 ence, was, that their ordinary habits were frugal, that 
 
 3 
 
50 EARLY REMINISCENCES: 
 
 they rarely drank wine; never occupied the best room 
 except on Sunday, and on that day alone had the 
 "added pudding" of time immemorial. The frugal 
 habits of all of the middle classes, and the want of 
 education of many, did not abate anything of their 
 importance when they were chosen to fill public 
 offices. Under the guidance of the Town Clerk, cor 
 porate magistrates generally got through their busi 
 ness decently. Sometimes they made little slips. 
 Late in the evening an offender was brought before 
 one of our mayors, having been detected in stealing 
 a smock-frock from a pawnbroker s door. " Look in 
 Burn s Justice, " said his worship to his son ; " look 
 in the index for smock-frock." " Can t find it, father. 
 Not there." " What ! no law against stealing smock- 
 frocks ? D my heart, young fellow, but you ve 
 
 had a lucky escape." (Even justices in those times 
 might incur the penalties against profane oaths.) The 
 constable demurred at the discharge of the prisoner. 
 " Well, well ! Lock him up, and we ll see the Town 
 Clerk in the morning." 
 
 Peter Pindar wrote an ode on " Frogmore Fe"te," 
 in which he describes the " Pair of England " with 
 " The family of Orange by their side." This would 
 take us to 1796 or 1797. It was about the begin 
 ning of the century that I was present at one of 
 these fetes, at which, as on previous occasions, how 
 ever sneered at, there was a real desire to . promote 
 the pleasures of their neighbours and dependents on 
 the part of the Royal Family. Amongst other 
 delights of that occasion, there was a play, or rather 
 scenes of a play, acted before the mansion, in the co 
 lonnade of which the Court stood, whilst the common 
 spectators were grouped on the lawn below. The 
 
A PRELUDE. 51 
 
 scenes were from the " Merry Wives of Windsor." 
 The critical faculty had not then been developed to 
 stand in the way of my perfect enjoyment. I be 
 lieved then in the real existence of Slender and 
 Anne Page; of the French doctor and the Welsh 
 parson ; of mine host of the Garter, who was un 
 doubtedly the host of the White Hart. I then knew 
 an old house at the corner of Sheet Street (alas ! it is 
 pulled down) where Mr. and Mrs. Ford once dwelt, 
 and whence Falstaff was carried in the buck-basket 
 to Datchet Mead. I could then tell the precise spot 
 where the epicurean knight went hissing hot into the 
 Thames. Herne s Oak was then to me an undeniable 
 memorial of centuries past. Forty years afterwards, 
 I went over the footsteps of my childhood with Mr. 
 Creswick, and we tried to verify the sites of these 
 immortal scenes. The pencil of my eminent friend 
 has shadowed forth some aids to the imagination of 
 the readers of the " Merry Wives of Windsor," in my 
 " pictorial" edition. But to my mind there were no 
 realities such as I had pictured when, after the 
 Fete at Frogmore, I wandered about, book in hand, 
 to the fields where Sir Hugh Evans sang "To shallow 
 rivers," and looked for the " oak with great ragg d 
 horns," near the pit where the fairies danced. Dili 
 gent antiquarianism has pointed out a mistake or two 
 in my conjectural sites. It is of little moment. It 
 was with a pang that I gave up iny boyish convic 
 tion that I had gathered acorns beneath "Herne s 
 Oak," and yielded to the evidence that it had been 
 cut down. The "undoubting mind" is a youthful 
 possession beyond all price ; and though the Winter 
 of scepticism may have come, it is still pleasant to 
 look back upon the Spring of belief. 
 
52 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 There are some things that are prominent among 
 the recollections of my nonage, in which the faith of 
 my inexperience and the doubts of my small know 
 ledge, were curiously blended. I was a frequent visitor 
 to the State Apartments and the Bound Tower. I 
 sometimes accompanied friends who came to see 
 Windsor ; sometimes was permitted by the kind and 
 intelligent keeper of the pictures in the Castle to 
 linger about and look my fill. The State Rooms now 
 are very different from the State Booms as I remem 
 ber them. There had been little change, I appre 
 hend, in the architectural character of the rooms 
 since the period of Anne and George I, when Sir 
 James Thornhill painted new allegories to supple 
 ment the old flatteries of Charles II. by Verrio. 
 We entered by a staircase under a dome gaudily 
 decorated with the story of Phaeton and with 
 lady-like representatives of the four elements, Fire, 
 Air, Earth, and Water. The pictures in the apart 
 ments had received a large addition to their num 
 ber after George III. came to reside at Windsor. 
 Amongst these additions were the Cartoons. At the 
 period of which I speak, and during several succeed 
 ing years, an artist was employed in making the most 
 elaborate pencil-drawings of these bold designs for 
 tapestry, which, perpetuated in the most exquisitely 
 finished engravings, gave a very adequate notion of 
 the skill of Mr. Holloway, but very little of the 
 grandeur of RafYaelle. That grandeur I could even 
 then comprehend in the Ananias, and Paul Preaching 
 at Athens ; I could feel the exquisite tenderness of 
 the charge to Peter; but I could not quite under 
 stand t he large men in the little boat in the Mira 
 culous Draught of Fishes. The most interesting 
 
A PRELUDE. 52 
 
 room, at the beginning of the century, was that 
 known as Queen Elizabeth s, or the Picture Gallery. 
 In a few years it was dismantled of its somewhat 
 choice collection, and became a lumber-room, into 
 which no one looked. There I -once gazed upon the 
 Misers of Quintin Matsys well-fed misers, gloating 
 over their money-heaps, with a joyous expression 
 quite incompatible with the ordinary notion of the 
 self-denying misery of avarice. At the end of this 
 long and narrow room, looking out on the North 
 Terrace, hung a wonderful Boy and Puppies, by 
 Murillo. In this gallery were the three grand ancient 
 paintings of the Battle of Spurs, the Embarkation of 
 Henry the Eighth, and the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 
 They first went away to the Society of Antiquaries, 
 who were forced to acknowledge that they were 
 only a loan ; and they are now among the heir-looms 
 of the people at Hampton Court. I hope that I had 
 not faith enough in the ideal of Lely arid Wissing to 
 believe that the profuse display of their charms by 
 most of King Charles s " beauties " was an adequate 
 representation of female loveliness. In the same 
 spirit of incredulity I was not quite content to believe 
 that the Roman Triumph which Verrio had painted 
 in St. George s Hall in which Edward the Black 
 Prince and his royal prisoner of France were the 
 principal personages was a faithful representation 
 of the costume and manners of the fourteenth cen 
 tury. The Hound Tower, whose rooms, now private, 
 were then open to the public gaze at the price of a 
 shilling, was a miserably -furnished, dreary place, 
 which had little charm for me, except in the noble 
 view from its leads. One of these dingy rooms was 
 hung with faded tapestry, delineating the piteous 
 
54 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 tory of Hero and Leander. Long ago I related the 
 discourse of the fair guide, who aroused my critical 
 scepticism in my boyhood, and who was a perpetual 
 source of enjoyment to me when I could beguile 
 some unsuspecting stranger into a patient attention 
 to her learned volubility. " Here, ladies and gentle 
 men, is the whole lamentable history of Hero and 
 Leander. Hero was a nun. She lived in that old 
 ancient nunnery which you see," &c., &c. We have 
 gained many great and good things through the 
 Education of the People ; but what have we not lost, 
 in losing the humorous contrasts of society which 
 were presented in the days of the Horn-Book. 
 
 AT the age of twelve a new life opened upon me. 
 I was sent to a somewhat famous classical school 
 that of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas, at Baling. Here, for 
 the first time, I was stimulated into the ambition to 
 excel. I had read a good deal for my own pleasure ; 
 but I had read little for solid improvement. My 
 command of books had given me advantages over 
 other boys ; for, although it might have been deemed 
 a waste of time that I had been devouring plays and 
 novels without stint, I had thus acquired some com 
 mand of my own language, and could write it with 
 ease and correctness. But I soon found that my 
 desultory knowledge would stand me in little stead 
 when I had to construe Caesar or Horace. There was 
 a kind friend at hand in one of the masters Joseph 
 Heath, a Fellow of St. John s, Oxford whose memory 
 I shall ever cherish. He helped me over the first dif 
 ficulties of my advance in the routine of my class. I 
 soon did my exercises quickly, and did them well ; 
 but the system of the school was not favourable to 
 
A PRELUDE. 55 
 
 steady and continuous exertion in climbing heights 
 by other than beaten tracks. My memory enabled 
 me readily to accomplish tasks which to others 
 were severe labours. But I was very young and 
 very small, so that I was kept too long amidst slow 
 class-fellows. Whilst I should have been learning 
 Greek, I was construing easy Latin authors, writing 
 a weekly theme, and making verses which required 
 little talent besides the careful use of the " Gradus 
 ad Parnassum." Nevertheless my school-life was 
 a real happiness. My nature bourgeoned under 
 kindness, and I received unusual favours from the 
 friend I have mentioned. He treated me in some 
 degree as his companion. At his house on a Satur 
 day afternoon I have been admitted to the privilege 
 of taking a glass of wine with scholars from London, 
 who came to renew the associations of their Oxford 
 undergraduate days. One of these was Mr. Ellis, of 
 the British Museum the Sir Henry Ellis of the pre 
 sent time whose genial courtesy still reminds me of 
 the sixty years ago when, as a boy, I first made an 
 acquaintance which I have never ceased to appreciate 
 as a man. I was happy at Ealing school, and if I had 
 been permitted to stay there long enough, I might have 
 fought my way to some sound scholarship. After little 
 more than two years I was uprooted from this con 
 genial soil, to be planted once more in the arid sands 
 of Windsor, my father s apprentice ; to become my 
 own instructor ; and, like too many self-teachers, to 
 dream away the precious years of youth in desultory 
 reading purposeless, almost hopeless. 
 
56 EARLY REMINISCENCES: 
 
 SECTION IL 
 
 AT the midsummer of 1805, 1 was taken altogether 
 from my school. It did not appear to me that I was 
 changing restraint for freedom. I left with bitter 
 feelings, for I had imbibed such a tincture of learning 
 as made me desirous to be a scholar. My father s 
 determination to put me to business, at the early age 
 of fourteen, did not pass without some ^emonstrance 
 from my schoolmaster. His answer was that I had 
 acquired enough knowledge to fit me for ray station 
 in life ; and if I became a bookseller was not 
 likely to be treated as Johnson treated Osborne, 
 when he knocked him down with a folio, spying, 
 "Lie there, thou lump of lead." My destiny was 
 sealed when I signed my indenture of apprentice 
 ship. My life, however, was not altogether without 
 opportunities of mental improvement. My first oc 
 cupation interested me greatly. M. Porny, of whom 
 I have spoken, died in 1804, leaving my fathei 
 one of his executors. The co-executor declined to 
 act. With the exception of a few legacies, all M. 
 Porny s property, of which the residue exceeded 
 4000Z., was bequeathed to a small charity school at 
 Eton. Upon his decease, letters which he had pre 
 pared were forwarded to his surviving relatives at 
 Caen, and they manifested an intention to dispute 
 his chief bequest, under the Statute of Mortmain. 
 A friendly suit in Chancery was accordingly com 
 menced ; and it being necessary that a somewhat 
 voluminous French correspondence should be laid 
 
A TEELUDE. 57 
 
 before the Master in Chancery to whom the matter 
 was referred, my first literary task was to translate 
 the letters which had been sent and received during 
 the half century in which M. Porny had found a 
 refuge in England from the alleged unkindness of 
 his family. The probability is that the Master never 
 read either the originals or my translation ; but 
 these letters were read by me with intense interest. 
 In them there was a mystery gradually unfolded, as 
 in some enchaining narrative of fiction. The real 
 name of the French teacher at Eton College the 
 author of many elementary books, and of a well- 
 known volume on Heraldry, that bear the name 
 of A. Porny was Antoine Pyron du Martre. Here 
 were depicted the undying memories of early wrongs ; 
 the strong "will which had scorned all fellowship 
 of his kinsmen when the solitary native of Nor 
 mandy was struggling for bread in a foreign land ; 
 the triumphs of his pride in rejecting the proffered 
 kindness which came too late ; the determination 
 that he would leave his hard-earned riches for the 
 benefit of the land in which he had gathered them. 
 From fourteen to seventeen I was learning the print 
 er s trade, more, as it were, for recreation than for use ; 
 set no task- work, but occasionally working with irre 
 gular industry at some self-appointed tasks. The 
 indulgence of my father was meant, I may believe, 
 to compensate me for his opposition to my desire for 
 a higher occupation than that which he pursued. 
 Thus I was often galloping my pony along the glades 
 of the forest ; or watching my float, hour after hour, 
 from the Thames bank at Datchet or at Clewer; 
 or wandering, book in hand, by the river-side in the 
 early morning ; or plunging into " the shade of 
 
58 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 melancholy boughs" on some "sunshine holiday." 
 I read the old novels and the old poems again and 
 again. Miss Porter and Mrs. Opie gave me fresh 
 excitement when I was tired of Mrs. Radcliffe. 
 "The Pleasures of Hope" and Beattie s "Minstrel" 
 had long been my familiar favourites. At this time 
 there were published charming little volumes of 
 verse and prose, as " Walker s Classics," one of which 
 was generally in my pocket. But in 1805 a new 
 world of romance was opened to me by " The Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel." The old didactic form of poetry 
 now seemed tedious compared with the adventures 
 of William of Deloraine, and the tricks of the Goblin 
 Page. Meanwhile my small Latin and less Greek 
 were vanishing away. The newspaper, too, occupied 
 much of my reading time. It was a period of tre 
 mendous interest, even to the apprehension of a 
 boy. What an autumn and what a winter were 
 those of 1805, in which I was enabled, day by 
 day, to read the narratives of such deeds as stirred 
 the heart of England in the days of the great 
 Armada ! Napoleon had broken up the camp at 
 Boulogne, and was marching to the Ehine. Nelson 
 had gone on board the " Victory " at Portsmouth, 
 and had joined the fleet before Cadiz. On the 3rd 
 of November came the news of the surrender of the 
 Austrian army to the French Emperor at Ulm. 
 On the 7th we were huzzaing for the final naval 
 glory of Trafalgar, and weeping for the death of 
 Nelson. Pitt rejoiced and wept when he was 
 called up in the night to receive this news, as the 
 humblest in the land rejoiced and wept. Before I 
 saw the funeral of Nelson, on the 9th of January, 
 Pitt had received that fatal mail which told of the 
 
A PRELUDE. 59 
 
 destruction at Austerlitz of all his hopes of a 
 triumphant coalition against France. It broke his 
 heart. He died on the 23rd of January. Tame, by 
 comparison, as were the great public events which 
 followed these mighty struggles, they were perhaps 
 more exciting in the conflicting opinions which they 
 provoked. England was still heart-whole. She was 
 not dismayed, even when Napoleon had the Prussian 
 monarchy at his feet, and Alexander of Russia had 
 exchanged vows of friendship with him on the raft 
 atJTilsit. Though she became isolated in her great 
 battle for existence, her resolution was not exhausted. 
 But she was humiliated by the events of the Dar 
 danelles and of Buenos Ayres. She blushed when 
 Copenhagen was bombarded, and she fancied that 
 the abstraction of the Danish fleet was a wanton 
 robbery. In this case, as in many others, journalism 
 was not history. The secret articles of the Treaty of 
 Tilsit had not then come to light for the vindication 
 of the Government. 
 
 The people at this time, even at Windsor, grew 
 gloomy and discontented. Public affairs were un- 
 prosperous ; parties ran high ; the taxes increased 
 with the expenses of the war and the yearly additions 
 to the interest of the debt. It was not only the 
 actual amount of taxation of which the middle classes 
 complained, but of the oppressive and insulting mode 
 of their assessment. The excisable trader had too long 
 been familiarised with the presence of the revenue 
 officer to complain. He walked into the tallow- 
 chandler s workshop without ceremony, put a seal 
 upon his copper and his dipping vat, and locked up his 
 moulds. He looked over the grocer s wares of tobacco, 
 pepper, and tea, at his good pleasure ; and this pro- 
 
60 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 cess, which he called taking stock, was insulting and 
 troublesome to the honest, and no real check upon 
 the fraudulent. The liquor-merchant did not dare 
 to send out a dozen of wine or a gallon of spirits 
 without a permit. The Income-Tax was truly inqui 
 sitorial, for the local Commissioners had no hesitation 
 in ordering a tradesman to produce his ledger and 
 cash-book. If there was an error in the return of As 
 sessed Taxes the resident officer of revenue, called an 
 Inspector, immediately made a surcharge, which it was 
 extremely difficult to get off by appeal. I was once 
 horror-struck by witnessing a scene between an apo 
 plectic innkeeper and the tax-collector, who had no 
 alternative but to insist upon the payment of a con 
 firmed surcharge. The unhappy man, doubly red 
 with passion, slid out of his arm-chair in the bar, 
 and, falling upon his knees, exclaimed, "May the 
 curse of God light upon you all. Now I ll pay it." 
 And yet, amidst much grumbling and disaffection, 
 the majority of my townsmen went on in the light- 
 hearted course which was habitual to them. There 
 were few fluctuations of fortune amongst us, as in a 
 manufacturing district ; no sudden prostrations of 
 the capitalist ; no exceptional miseries of the labourer. 
 There was amusement and excitement for us in the 
 invariable round of the weeks and months. The 
 4th of June was a great day of bell-ringing, and 
 reviews, and the regatta of the Eton boys, which 
 closed with fireworks. There were Ascot Races, to 
 which the Royal Family came in state up the course, 
 their carriages preceded by the master of the buck- 
 hounds, with his huntsman and his yeomen prickers. 
 Ascot was too distant from London for a multi 
 farious assemblage from Tottenham Court Road 
 
A. PRELUDE. 61 
 
 and St. Mary Axe to be there. The neighbouring 
 gentry came in their carriages, and the farmers 
 came in their taxed carts. A few Bow Street offi 
 cers stood around the royal booth, but they were 
 not installed in the preventive duties of sup 
 pressing E. O. tables, and of overturning the stools 
 of the numberless professors of " the thimble-rig " 
 and "prick in the garter." If a pickpocket were 
 detected, he had Lynch law. He was conducted 
 to a pond at the rear of the booths, and there, with 
 a long rope fastened round his waist, was dragged 
 through the water till he was half dead. There 
 was the weekly meet of the hounds, who duly 
 went forth to some neighbouring comnion from the 
 kennel at Swinley, with the deer in the cart. It 
 was not necessary to give the poor animal much 
 law, for the stag-hound of that day was slow, and 
 there were more hacks than hunters in the field. 
 The King walked as usual on the Terrace, but 
 loyalty was not so demonstrative as in the earlier 
 days. The Marquis of Thomond knocked off a 
 man s hat when it was not lifted as the King passed, 
 and the suspected democrat knocked down the Mar 
 quis of Thomond. 
 
 Left much to my own thoughts/ young as I was, I 
 gradually grew into a chronic state of suspicion as 
 to the general excellence of our political and social 
 system. I saw a vast deal of wretchedness around me, 
 and I saw no attempt to relieve it except by doles of 
 bread at the church door on Sundays, with an indis 
 criminate alms-giving to vagrants every night by the 
 overseer, and a driving of them out of the borough by 
 the beadle the next day. There was no education, 
 except at the Free School for some thirty boys and 
 
62 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 twenty girls. The national school of Eton, which the 
 good old Frenchman founded, preceded our Windsor 
 national school by fifteen years. Out relief to the 
 poor was voted every week by a committee with a 
 lavish hand. The assistant overseer insulted the 
 weak, and was bullied by the strong. The parish 
 gravel-pit was the specific for want of employment, 
 continuous or temporary. The poor s rate was enor 
 mous, for there was destitution everywhere through 
 sickness and death, produced by the contempt of 
 sanitary laws. There was no dispensary, and the 
 parish doctor was hard worked and ill paid. It is 
 difficult, in these happier times of fiscal enlighten 
 ment, to estimate what the poor had to endure in the 
 incidence of taxation. The great burden which they 
 had to bear was in the dearness of food. Without 
 mentioning the effect upon their means of living by 
 the laws for the protection of agriculture which told 
 upon the market-price not only of bread, but of meat, 
 bacon, butter, cheese there was excessive direct 
 taxation for the purposes of revenue upon sugar, 
 upon tea, upon coffee, upon soap, upon candles, upon 
 salt. They lived in miserable hovels, for there were 
 duties of enormous pressure upon bricks, upon foreign 
 timber, upon glass. The cost of a cotton gown was 
 enhanced by the duties upon raw cotton and upon 
 printed calicos. Worst of all, the effect of this vast 
 mass of injudicious taxes was to arrest the profitable 
 employment of capital, and thus to reduce the labourer 
 to the lowest condition. The oppression and the 
 neglect which I witnessed all around me, evils 
 of which I did not see the causes or anticipate 
 the remedies, drove me into those socialistic beliefs 
 which it is a mistake to think did not exist in 
 
A PRELUDE. 63 
 
 young and incautious minds long before the present 
 day. I was a sort of Communist in 1808. In a 
 satirical poem (whose MS. has turned up with other 
 rubbish of verse and prose stored in an old box) I 
 poured out my indignation against the indifference 
 and pride, lay and clerical, which I saw around me. 
 I find there these lines, which I give, believe me, 
 not as evidence of poetical talent but of a jaundiced 
 imagination. Many have written much of the same 
 stuff at a riper age than mine, who have in time 
 learnt the worth of more practical philanthropy. 
 But surely that youth is to be pitied who begins by 
 setting up for a political economist. 
 
 " Hail happy days, primeval ages hail, 
 Which deck the warm enthusiast s glowing tale, 
 When simple Nature, pure and unconfined, 
 With equal gifts ennobled all mankind ; 
 When hardy energy and rugged toil 
 Alone could snatch the blessings of the soil, 
 And wearied diligence return d to seize 
 The cup of pleasure in the lap of ease ! 
 Now when the hand of unsubstantial worth 
 Grasps every treasure of the teeming earth, 
 And Nature vainly spreads her equal store 
 Whilst millions, heirs of plenty, still are poor, 
 Say, shall the glittering pomp of pride despise 
 The humble toil that taught the proud to rise ? 
 Say, shall the wretched, all-laborious hind 
 In vain demand the bread he gives mankind ?" 
 
 I fear that in this unwatched time of morbid 
 thoughts my religious principles were in as great 
 danger of running wild as my political. I had read 
 some of the old divines Hall, and Barrow, and 
 Jeremy Taylor with real benefit. I fear that I 
 acquired a sceptical humour from such defences of 
 the faith as Watson s " Apology for the Bible," and 
 
 - 01 TH* > 
 
64 EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 Lyttelton s "Conversion of St. Paul." They attempted 
 to prove too much to satisfy my reason, which they 
 addressed exclusively. They did not marshal their 
 proofs with the consummate skill displayed by Sher 
 lock in his " Trial of the Witnesses ; " nor did they 
 charm away the mists of doubt by the tolerant and 
 fearless candour of Berkeley in his " Alciphron." 
 Beattie s "Essay on Truth" did not sink deep into 
 my heart, although the King and Queen had lauded 
 it as the greatest of all theological triumphs, as if 
 there had been no such book as Butler s "Analogy." 
 The service at our church was too cold and formal 
 often too slovenly to satisfy me. There was no con 
 gregational singing. Chaunts and musical responses 
 were unknown. I got away from it, whenever I could, 
 to find a seat in St. George s Chapel, where the cathe 
 dral service was exquisitely performed. On Sunday 
 the choir was full ; but I could stand by the iron 
 gates of the south aisle, and hear every note of the 
 rich harmonies of Boyce and Handel breathed from 
 the lips of Sale or Vaughan. On a frosty winter 
 evening of the week-day it mattered little to me 
 that the choir was empty and cold. I yielded up 
 my whole heart to the soothing influences. I was 
 sometimes glad to be admitted into a stall by a good- 
 natured verger ; for at times my attention was sadly 
 distracted by the tricks and grimaces of the young 
 choristers, who, as they knelt in apparent prayer, _ 
 were occupied in modelling hideous figures out of 
 the ends of their wax candles. Such were the secrets 
 disclosed to me as I commonly sat on the free bench 
 by the side of the sportive lads. These practices 
 were gradually extinguished by a better discipline ; 
 but there was one practice which no discipline could 
 
A PRELUDE. 65 
 
 control, for it was an institution as old as the days 
 of James I. Decker, in his "Gull s Horn-book," 
 thus ironically advises the lounger in Paul s : " Be 
 sure your silver spurs clog your heels, and then the 
 boys will swarm about you like so many white 
 butterflies ; when you, in the open quire, shall draw 
 forth a perfumed embroidered purse, and quoit silver 
 into the boys hands." Thus have I seen a stranger 
 civilian stalk into the choir of St. George s Chapel. 
 The spur was instantly detected ; and when the 
 bewildered man was surrounded by a bevy of white 
 surplices as he loitered in the nave, there was no 
 help for him but to pay the spur-money. 
 
 Such interruptions to the beauty and solemnity 
 of the service were not sufficient to prevent their 
 abiding impressions ; and thus the salt of devotion 
 was not wholly washed out of me. I was, how 
 ever, well nigh rushing into the desert, in going 
 through the ceremony which was to keep me in 
 the fold. I had diligently prepared myself for 
 Confirmation. Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, was 
 to perform the rite. There was an absence of all 
 solemnity, and even of decency, upon which I look 
 back with disgust. I still see the bishop s officers 
 driving the young people to the altar -rails as if 
 they were sheep going to the fair ; the monotonous 
 formality of the imposition of hands upon the 
 huddled batches who knelt for a few minutes, and 
 then were chased back to their seats by the impatient 
 ministers of the solemnity. Its failure altogether to 
 satisfy my excited feelings compelled me into a 
 passion of tears, and I went home and told my 
 father that I would be a Quaker or a Unitarian. 
 I think that Confirmation confirmed whatever was 
 
G6 EAELY REMINISCENCES ; 
 
 sceptical in my composition ; and I had to escape 
 into the region of natural piety, and long dwell there, 
 before I could become reconciled to the establish 
 ment which could endure such profanations. 
 
 Up to my sixteenth or seventeenth year T had 
 found little in my professional pursuits to interest 
 me. But I then became what Mr. Hill Burton terms 
 a " Bookhunter." My father was always a great 
 buyer of second-hand books. He attended sales. 
 He purchased private libraries. He bought many 
 more books than he sold. Many of his rare volumes 
 had been heaped up in cupboards till I routed 
 them out, and made a complete catalogue of some 
 thousands. This occupation was of lasting advan 
 tage to me, in widening my horizon of knowledge. 
 I was led to study and abstract, not only Dibdin 
 and De Bure, but the catalogues of great London 
 booksellers, such as those of White and Egerton and 
 Cuthell (the predecessors of the later and greater 
 authorities). These enlightened my provincial esti 
 mate of value by " scarce," " rare," " very rare." 
 To hunt in brokers shops ; to attend sales, and 
 sometimes bid for volumes that I carried home in 
 triumph at a small price ; to talk with gusto to an 
 old apothecary at Slough about black-letter treasures ; 
 this was a pursuit that weaned me from many of my 
 idle reveries, and was not without its use in later 
 life. The remembrance of that worthy book-col 
 lector of the then small village of Slough fills me, 
 even now, with a sort of pride at the honour of 
 having been regarded by him with a feeling that we 
 were fellow-travellers upon the same road he with 
 his large experience and superb acquisitions, I with 
 my newly-developed bibliomania and small store of 
 
A PRELUDE. 67 
 
 treasures. Often have I peeped into his little shop 
 on the high road, strong in many odours among 
 which rhubarb prevailed, to see if my master was 
 at liberty to discourse to a pupil on his favourite 
 theme. He would suspend his labours, if he were 
 not too busy, and hand over the pestle to his atten 
 dant boy. We then went up his narrow staircase 
 into .his sanctum. His first words invariably were, 
 "What have you got ?" I remember to have found 
 upon a stall in Windsor market two black-letter 
 pamphlets of the early English Reformers. They 
 were not much to his taste when I produced them ; 
 nor did he care for a rare Elzevir which I brought 
 out of my pocket. He would then unlock the cas 
 ket where he kept his jewels, and would delight my 
 eyes with something rich and rare that he had 
 recently obtained in a hasty visit to London, made 
 for the especial purpose of a book-hunt. How well 
 do I recollect the glow of his honest face as he 
 placed before me a Wynkyn de Worde, torn and 
 dirty, but nevertheless a fit companion for the im 
 perfect Caxton on his most sacred shelf. Missals he 
 had, and early English Bibles. They ranged har 
 moniously side by side. I soon grew to laugh at Dr. 
 Peckham s enthusiasm ; but better thoughts would 
 suggest to me how good it was that an old man who 
 had no cares of children to engross him, one who had 
 little aptitude for the acquirement of real knowledge, 
 scientific or literary should have a pursuit which was 
 intensely gratifying to him, and had a semblance of 
 learning to the world as well as to himself. 
 
 Even as Sir William Jones advised the young 
 Templar to read over law catalogues at his break 
 fast, that he might gain a general perception of 
 
68 EARLY REMINISCENCES: 
 
 the learning of which he desired to become the 
 master, so I gained something like a broad view 
 )f the range of literature by my bibliographical 
 studies. In these dealings in second-hand books, 
 a circumstance occurred which I think had some 
 effect in leading me to one of the most pleasant 
 labours of my future life. I had been sent to a 
 house at Old Windsor to make a list of books belong 
 ing to a clergyman who had received an appointment 
 in "India. When the price to be given had been 
 settled at home, I again went to make the offer, with 
 the money in my hand. The generous man was 
 pleased with what he considered liberal terms, and 
 said to me, "Young gentleman, I give you that 
 imperfect copy of Shakspere for yourself." It was 
 the first folio. Sadly defective it was in many 
 places. I devised a plan for making the rare volume 
 perfect. The fac-simile edition, then recently pub 
 lished, was procured. Amongst the oldest founts of 
 type in our printing-office was one which exactly 
 resembled that of the folio of 1623. We had abun 
 dant fly-leaves of seventeenth-century books which 
 matched the paper on which this edition was printed. 
 I set myself the task of composing every page that 
 was wholly wanting, or was torn and sullied. When 
 the book was handsomely bound I was in raptures at 
 my handiwork. I was to have the copy for myself ; 
 but one of the Eton private-tutors, to whom my 
 father showed the volume, and explained how it had 
 been completed, offered a tempting price for it, and 
 my treasure passed from me. Some real value 
 remained. The process of setting up the types led 
 me to understand the essential differences of the 
 early text, as compared with modern editions with 
 
A PRELUDE. 69 
 
 which I was familiar, especially those which had been 
 maimed and deformed for the purposes of the stage. 
 What would I riot now give, could I obtain this 
 testimonial that I had not been altogether uselessly 
 employed in this morning of my life, before a definite 
 purpose for the future had given energy and consis 
 tency to my pursuits ! 
 
 My future walk in the world was gradually shaping 
 itself into a distant view of a practicable hill-side 
 road. It became clear to me that, as the professions 
 seemed to be shut out from my adoption by my 
 father s anxious desire that I should remain with him, 
 my only way of escape from the petty cares of the 
 trade of a country bookseller and small printer was to 
 make literature, in some way or other, my vocation. 
 It was not by writing commonplace essays and occa 
 sional odes and sonnets (which I had the sense to 
 burn as fast as they were composed) that I was to 
 carry out this purpose. If I were to accomplish any 
 thing, I must have a locus standi. There was my 
 father s prin ting-office ; he was not without capital. 
 Windsor, with its objects of interest, was without a 
 newspaper. Some day, not very far off, should my 
 ambition gain me the conduct of such a journal ? I 
 felt that the vocation of a journalist even of a pro 
 vincial journalist required thought, energy, various 
 knowledge. I applied myself to study the history of 
 my country and the nature of its institutions. I 
 had De Lolme and Blackstone often at my side. 
 Burke enchanted me. Yet I did not wholly sur 
 render my political faith to the eloquent philosophy 
 which had become Toryism, and which, in the dread 
 of the French Revolution, was opposed to every 
 change and every obvious remedy for the grossest 
 
70 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 abuses. The Hunts John and Leigh began to 
 publish "The Examiner" in 1808. To my enthu 
 siastic views, the Hunts were the true men almost 
 the only ones who spoke the truth jas the younger 
 brother was the most winning of periodical writers. 
 Then there was the "Edinburgh Review." advo 
 cating Catholic Emancipation and many practical 
 reforms which were held as dangerous innovations, 
 and which, in their terror of the word " innovation," 
 legislators were afraid to touch. But when the Re 
 viewers were indiscriminately denouncing the conduct 
 of the war and the imbecility of the Government 
 bitter in their sarcasms against administrative mis 
 takes, depressing in their belief of the hopelessness 
 of the contest, and ungenerous in their appreciation of 
 the only military leader who seemed likely to stand 
 between the living and the dead and stay the plague, 
 I could see, however imperfectly, the one-sidedness 
 of political partizanship which neutralized the best 
 efforts of the Whig Journal. Conflicting opinions 
 sometimes distracted me. There were the alterna 
 tions of joy and of gloom, of confidence and of despair, 
 as the events of 1808-9 presented themselves to 
 view. The insurrection of the Spanish Patriots was 
 a beacon-light amidst the darkness. The people 
 were shouting one day for Wellesley s triumph over 
 Junot, and the next day cursing the Convention of 
 Cintra. Moore had marched into Spain in No 
 vember ; on the 1st of January he had accomplished 
 his disastrous retreat to Corunna, there won a vic 
 tory and died a soldier s death. Never shall I forget 
 my feelings on the bitter cold day on which this 
 news arrived, nor the indignation with which, some 
 months after, his Journal was perused. There came 
 
A PRELUDE. 71 
 
 to Windsor the son of a joiner, who had left his 
 father s house a stalwart dragoon, and returned 
 crippled and emaciated from the Spanish campaign. 
 He lent me his simple diary of his sufferings and 
 privations, which told of the horrors of war far 
 more forcibly than the newspaper reports of the 
 wounded and fever-stricken who filled the hospitals. 
 The public mind was inflamed by the mixed feelings 
 of disappointment and pity. Then came the wretched 
 inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York. The 
 hopes that had been revived of Germany being 
 roused to resistance were dissipated by the battle of 
 Wagra m. The expectation of a mighty blow to be 
 struck by England single-handed against France, by 
 the greatest armament that had ever left our shores, 
 came to an end in the pestilent marshes of Wal~ 
 cheren. Talavera failed to raise the once-sanguine 
 national spirit. It was a long while before many 
 people warmed into hope and confidence ; months, 
 and even years, before they could fully learn to dis 
 believe the prophecies of the Whigs, and refuse to 
 throw themselves in the dust before the car of the 
 conqueror. For myself, I had the old patriotic asso 
 ciations around me to prevent me wholly agreeing 
 with the freeholders of my county in their address 
 to the King, that, " under the government of persons 
 apparently inadequate to avert the dangers and diffi 
 culties of the country, we see no end to our misfor 
 tunes." I was not yet prepared to write Finis 
 Anglicv. With my fellow-townspeople of all ranks 
 and ages, I went into the boundless excitement of 
 the Jubilee of the 25th of October ; was a managei 
 of the ox-roasting in the Bachelor s Acre ; marched 
 in a procession of Bachelors, in the evening costume 
 
72 . EARLY REMINISCENCES : 
 
 of blue coat, white waistcoat, knee-breeches, and silk 
 stockings, to present slices of the ox on a silver salver 
 to the Queen and Princesses ; danced at the Jubi 
 lee Ball, at the Town Hall ; and wrote satirical 
 verses upon the genteel exclusives who attempted 
 to separate the attorneys wives and daughters from 
 the grocers wives and daughters, by stretching a 
 silken rope across the room, thus forming two sets. 
 I somehow recollect that the plebeian ladies were as 
 well dressed, and rather more beautiful, than those 
 above the rope, so that a good many of the exalted 
 were left without partners at least, by the younger 
 officers of the Blues and the Stafford Militia. 
 
 Windsor was a town that had ceased, in those days, 
 to be the residence of many persons of independent 
 fortunes. There was mushroom gentility growing up 
 at the Castle s foot ; there was the unapproachable 
 dignity of Canons of Windsor and Fellows of Eton ; 
 there were the pretensions of brewers and corn- 
 dealers, who flattered themselves that they ranked 
 far above shopkeepers. An atmosphere of proud 
 ignorance was surrounding the whole region. I had 
 a confident belief that I could do something, among 
 my own class, to dissipate this fog. In 1810 I formed 
 some dozen young men into a Reading Society. W"e 
 hired a room of the corporation in connection with 
 the Town Hall. They elected me their President. 
 Twenty-three years afterwards Sir John Herschel was 
 the President of a similar society at Windsor ; and in 
 a lecture which I then delivered I told my old towns 
 men how we had failed, and what were the changes 
 of opinion that had made one of the greatest scientific 
 men of the age a leader in the diffusion of intelli 
 gence, whilst ridicule awaited the earlier effort of 
 
A PRELUDE. 73 
 
 myself and a few others. In the old box of forgotten 
 records of my tentative progress to usefulness in my 
 generation, I find my inaugural address. Let me 
 copy a passage to exhibit a specimen of the good old 
 times : 
 
 "An opinion has been set forth with no little 
 activity, and with a plausibility of ridicule sufficient 
 to actuate those who ought to have united most 
 cordially in this measure a cry which has been 
 raised in the haunts of the ignorant and at the 
 tables of the educated that it is departing from our 
 proper sphere of action to engage in pursuits of this 
 nature. These sagacious reasoners would imply that 
 the common reward of ordinary occupation is suffi 
 cient to engross every faculty of the industrious part 
 of the community. No pursuits shall fill up the hour 
 of relaxation but those of trifling vulgarity or listless 
 inaction. Good heavens ! when I devote myself to 
 occupations which are alike rendered necessary by 
 my duty and my interest, am I to extinguish every 
 honourable and praiseworthy feeling and rest satisfied 
 with the torpid exercise of daily drudgery ? When 
 these cold-hearted bigots would thus exclude me from 
 every gratification of intellect, why do they not 
 demand that I should close my eyes to the appear 
 ances of universal nature, where every object excites 
 my curiosity and my wonder ? I am so sufficiently 
 convinced of the dignity and importance of an indus 
 trious life, that I will never exchange it for the gaudy 
 insipidity of luxurious idleness ; but I will yet ear 
 nestly endeavour to raise its importance, by acquisi 
 tions that will exempt me from the oppressions of 
 power or the arrogance of wealth." 
 
 Let me not, looking back upon these days, do 
 4 
 
76 EARLY REMINISCENCES I 
 
 the next day the physicians would allow his Majesty 
 to appear in public. On that Monday morning it 
 was said that his saddle-horse was ordered to be got 
 ready. This truly was no wild rumour. We crowded 
 to the Park and the Castle Yard. The favourite 
 horse was there. The venerable man, blind but 
 steady, was soon in the saddle, as I had often seen 
 him, a hobby-groom at his side with a leading 
 rein. He rode through the Little Park to the Great 
 Park. The bells rang ; the troops fired a/<m dejoie. 
 The King returned to the Castle within an hour. He 
 was never again seen outside those walls. 
 
 The failure of my scheme of an association for 
 mutual improvement was a blow to me. I had other 
 mortifications which disgusted me more and more 
 with my position, and made me fear that it would be 
 a wild attempt to establish a journal at Windsor. I 
 was again driven to the moody companionship of my 
 own thoughts. For two years the dear tutor of my 
 school-days at Baling had resided near Windsor 
 occasionally doing duty at our church once more 
 my warm friend and instructor. Under his guidance 
 I accomplished a distant and a wearisome travel, but 
 with a, new sense of pleasure in beholding unfamiliar 
 scenes. With him I saw the sea for the first time. 
 With him I made the tedious and somewhat 
 perilous passage from London Bridge to Margate. 
 Ye happier youths and maidens of another gene 
 ration, smile not at the epithets I bestow upon this 
 sail upon a summer-sea. None of you citizens of the 
 25th of Victoria can fitly understand what those had 
 to go through in the 50th of George III., who ven 
 tured upon the deck of a Margate hoy. The quick 
 run in the steamer from Tilbury after the comfortable 
 
A PRELUDB. 77 
 
 early dinner, and then your shrimps and tea in your 
 lodging-house long before the sun is down contrast 
 these delights with, what I have to remember. A 
 hurried breakfast at six, so as to be on board at 
 seven ; two hours of danger amidst the colliers in the 
 Pool ; a pelting storm in the river, with no luxurious 
 cabin to fly to ; Gravesend clock striking two as we 
 drifted past the dingy town ; hungry ; the steward 
 provided with no more tempting fare than a slice of 
 hard boiled-beef and a lump of stony cheese ; no 
 drink but rum and water, for brandy was almost 
 unknown and soda-water undiscovered ; the wind 
 rising; the waves raging; groans above and below; 
 darkness soon after we had passed the Nore ; then 
 the hoy becalmed off Herne Bay ; Margate cliffs in 
 sight as another morning breaks; no pier to land at; 
 a pickaback ride through the surf in a dirty fellow s 
 grasp ; a struggle between the temptations of break 
 fast or bed ; a decision for bed ; and a second day al 
 most gone before we can find our appetite or our legs. 
 Circumstances too soon removed the friend of my 
 boyhood to a distant part of the country. I was 
 alone. I pined for the conversation of educated men. 
 No one took heed of me. I writhed under neglect ; 
 but I lost little in not being familiar with those 
 above me in station. There was a coarseness of 
 manners, not only amongst half-pay officers and 
 retired tradesmen, but amongst persons of indepen 
 dent means and good families aye, even amongst 
 courtiers which revolted me. I have heard at our 
 mayor s feast toasts proposed by men whose rank gave 
 them a claim to the seats of honour, which the lowest 
 and the most ignorant would now be ashamed to utter. 
 Notwithstanding my strong local attachment, I grew 
 
78 EARLY REMINISCENCES. 
 
 to be thoroughly disgusted with my position at 
 Windsor. About this time I became possessed of a 
 small entailed estate at Tver, which I fancied would 
 give me the means of emancipation from a life that 
 had become distasteful to me. I entreated my father 
 to enter me as a student at one of the Inns of Court. 
 He at last gave a reluctant consent, and went to 
 London, to make the necessary arrangements, as I 
 believed. We neither of us knew much about the pro 
 bationary condition of a barrister s life, and it was 
 necessary to obtain some accurate information. His 
 friend, the Editor of a daily paper (of whom I shall 
 have more particularly to speak), dissuaded my father 
 from encouraging my ambition. My father returned 
 with such a dismal picture of the life which I had 
 courted, that I somewhat doggedly resumed my easy 
 and inglorious occupation ; not without a belief that 
 
 " There s a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 I stand upon the threshold of " A Working Life 
 during Half a Century." I had a few months of 
 experiment before the final choice of a career ; but 
 those months brought with them new responsibilities, 
 which were essentially work. My trade apprentice 
 ship was ended. 
 
PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE 
 
 Cfje Jtrst 
 
PASSAGES OF A WOBKING LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CCASIONAL glimpses of London had 
 been allowed to me in my boyish days. 
 In February, 1812, I was to be a resident 
 therein for some weeks ; to hear the pul 
 sations of the mighty heart ; to be face to face with 
 great public things. My father s friend, Mr. George 
 Lane, was the editor of a morning paper, the "British 
 Press," and of an evening paper, the "Globe." The 
 office of these papers was in the Strand, on the pre 
 mises where the "Globe" is still published. Under 
 his general guidance I was to have a brief apprentice 
 ship as an honorary member of the staff of reporters 
 belonging to his establishment. I might make myself 
 useful if I could ; but I was under no serious responsi 
 bility. I had, however, so much eagerness to behold 
 the novel and exciting matters which such a position 
 offered to me if possible to render them an important 
 part of my education that my willingness to work 
 soon obtained me work to do. I was placed under the 
 care of my friend s stepson, upon whom devolved the 
 duty of arranging the division of labour amongst 
 the reporters, but taking no share himself in their 
 actual work. He was a kind-hearted Irishman, some- 
 
80 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 wliat duller than most of his literary countrymen ; 
 not very zealous in the enforcement of discipline 
 amongst the troop of which he was the lieutenant ; 
 more frequently to be found in the neighbouring 
 coffee-houses than in the Gallery ; but, nevertheless, 
 useful in picking up the on dits of the LoViy. I 
 walked with him to the House on the second day of 
 my new town-life. 
 
 To gratify the curiosity of the youth from the 
 country, we go through Westminster Hall. The 
 little shops of the seventeenth century and much 
 later have been cleared away. Soane s ugly and 
 inconvenient Courts between the buttresses have not 
 yet been built. Within the hall, near the entrance 
 in Palace Yard, are two trumpery wooden buildings, 
 the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Ex 
 chequer. At the upper end of the hall are two 
 similar erections, the Court of King s Bench, and 
 the Court of Chancery. We pass below these through 
 a small door in the corner, and are quickly in the 
 Exchequer Coffee-house. There, apart from other 
 company, are half a dozen gentlemen very merry 
 over their wine. I am introduced to one or two of 
 these gentlemen, and am invited to take a glass with 
 them. Though somewhat prodigal amongst them 
 selves of what we now call " chaff," they spared the 
 shy stripling who suddenly found himself in the 
 midst of men of talent, who, whether attached to the 
 " Chronicle," the " Post," or the " Times," appeared 
 to regard all political questions with the sublimest 
 indifference. One I especially remember as looking 
 upon the laughing side of human affairs, and never 
 unmindful of the enjoyment of the passing hour, even 
 amidst the monotonous performance of his duty in 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 81 
 
 the reporter s function. Age could not wither, nor cus 
 tom stale, the infinite sociality of William Jerdan, as I 
 knew him in years when the third and fourth Georges 
 had passed away. I saw that, in this pleasant party, 
 he was not alone in his conviction that when one of the 
 orators who could quickly empty the House was up, he 
 might linger awhile before he took his turn, and pick 
 up something of what the bore had said from those 
 who had had the misfortune to note his platitudes. 
 We are at last in the lobby of the House of Com- 
 m ons not a grand vestibule, but a shabby room 
 with a low ceiling. We enter by a swing door mem 
 bers and strangers indiscriminately and move to the 
 left side of the gangway by which members pass to 
 the sacred door of the house. We stand by the fire 
 place. My companion has some information to 
 obtain from an Irish member of his acquaintance 
 perhaps he has only to ask for a frank and he waits 
 his opportunity. I am somewhat tired of this delay, 
 and long to be looking upon the stirring scene within. 
 For ever and anon, as the door opens, I hear a loud 
 voice, and catch a peep of a member gesticulating 
 amidst cheers and laughter, and the Speaker crying 
 " Order ! order ! " At length we ascend the narrow 
 stairs to the Strangers Gallery. I am allowed to 
 pass as a reporter. It is the sole privilege accorded 
 to those without whom Parliament would become a 
 voice shut up in a cavern. The gallery is crowded 
 with members constituents, who have come with 
 orders, much to the annoyance of the guardian of 
 the toll-bar on the stairs. He would rather see his 
 customary half-crown, which others have paid. We 
 put our heads in ; and I observe on the back bench 
 which by its elevation commands a view of the body 
 
82 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 of the House half-a-dozen reporters busily employed 
 with their note-books. This back bench is theirs by 
 custom, but not by right. If the gallery should be 
 cleared for a division, the staff of the Journals will 
 take care to keep as close to the door as possible, 
 that they may regain their places after the division. 
 It was later, if I remember rightly, that they had a 
 separate door of admission to this especial seat. It 
 was fourteen years later that a Reporters Room was 
 assigned them at one extremity of the gallery passage. 
 It is enough for me, on this my first night, to look 
 upon the general aspect of the House. In a week or 
 two, by persevering attendance, I become familiar 
 with the personal appearance of the leaders on either 
 side. To the right of the Speaker, on the ministerial 
 bench there sit, Spencer Perceval, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer ; Vicary Gibbs, Attorney-General ; Ryder, 
 Home Secretary ; George Rose ; Palmerston ; Croker. 
 Castlereagh is sitting high up above the Treasury 
 bench. Canning is on the cross bench below. To 
 the left of the Speaker are Ponsonby, Brougham, 
 Burdett, Grattan, Horner, Romilly, Sheridan, Tier- 
 ney, Whitbread. All of these are gone but two, to 
 whom it has been permitted to vindicate the belief 
 that it is the privilege of genius never to grow old. 
 I practise myself in reporting for my own amusement 
 and instruction. In not writing short-hand, I have 
 no inferiority to the experienced men around me ; for 
 I observe that very few have acquired, or at any rate 
 employ, that useful art. The debates of 1812 were 
 not expected to be reported so fully as in more recent 
 times. Often members complained that their sayings 
 were misrepresented. Such complaints were gene 
 rally met by a disposition on the part of the House 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 83 
 
 to punish the offender. It was very daring in Mr. 
 Brougham to hint, on such an occasion in 1812, that 
 " Gentlemen should consider the disadvantages under 
 which reports of their debates were taken." With a 
 mock solemnity the Speaker called " Order ! " and 
 the cry of " Order ! " echoed through the House. To 
 recognise the presence at its debates of the obscure 
 strangers who sat on the back bench of the gallery 
 would have been to compromise the privileges of 
 Parliament. This hypocrisy was a queer relic of those 
 times when the repression of public opinion was held 
 to be the security of the State. 
 
 Thursday, the 27th of February, is to be a great 
 field-day in the Commons. I must be there at noon, 
 to secure a seat in the gallery. There I sit, looking 
 upon the empty House till the Speaker comes in. 
 The prayers are read, and some uninteresting orders 
 of the day are disposed of. Strangers are crowding 
 in, and we hold our places as well as we can against 
 the rush. There are apparently two or three seats 
 vacant on the front bench. A wicked gentleman of 
 the press suggests to a despairing provincial that 
 there he may be accommodated. He strides and 
 pushes to the desired haven, amidst a suppressed 
 titter, and is horror-struck to find that there he can 
 neither see nor hear. The back of the great clock 
 is his obstructing enemy. This is the standing joke 
 nightly repeated. It was as successful in producing a 
 titter as the Timeo Danaos below, when it was the 
 fashion for young and even old members to air their 
 musty Latin in bald quotations, as some lady novelists 
 interlard their feeble English with boarding-school 
 French. The routine business is over. The battle 
 is about to begin. Sir Thomas Turton is to bring 
 
84 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 on a motion on the state of the nation. He was a 
 true professor of the Whig creed that the contest 
 against the French Emperor was hopeless that the. 
 Spanish war would last as long as the Peloponnesian, 
 with little probability of success. He touched upon 
 the Orders in Council ; but was told by the clever 
 ministerial supporter, Mr. Robinson, that such dis 
 cussion had better be reserved for the forthcoming 
 debate, upon the motion of which notice had been 
 given "by a learned gentleman of great talents and 
 extensive information." In two years from the time 
 when he had made his maiden speech, Mr. Brougham 
 had thus become an authority in the House. The 
 debate of the 27th of February was spirited. It 
 appeared likely to close at an early hour, for the 
 gallery was being cleared for a division. But Mr. 
 Whitbread rose, and called upon Lord Castlereagh to 
 give some explanation of his views, especially upon 
 the Catholic question, now that he was likely to 
 become a member of the Administration. The Mar 
 quis Wellesley had resigned the seals of the Foreign 
 Office a week before. The most important declara 
 tions of the session were thus called forth. Mr. Per 
 ceval and Lord Castlereagh declared that they and 
 the Ministry were unanimous against granting the 
 Catholic claims now. The debate was dragging on 
 till two o clock. The reporters had expected that, 
 after the speech of the Prime Minister, the House 
 would divide. I was left by the staff of the " British 
 Press" to make a short note if anything should occur. 
 Up rose Mr. Canning. Somewhat alarmed I began 
 to write. I gained confidence. His graceful sentences 
 had no involved construction to render them difficult 
 to follow. His impressive elocution fixed his words 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 85 
 
 in mf memory. Some matters I necessarily passed 
 over ; but the great point of his speech, that he 
 was for speedily granting the Catholic claims with 
 due safeguards, was an important one for the journal 
 which I was suddenly called upon to represent, and 
 I caught the spirit, if not the full words, of the 
 declaration in which he stood opposed to the 
 Minister, and to his own ancient rival. I ran to 
 the office (for young legs were faster than hackney- 
 coaches), wrote rny report, to the astonishment of 
 the regular staff of reporters, and went happy to 
 bed at five o clock. I doubt whether any literary 
 success of my afterlife gave me as much pleasure 
 as this feat. 
 
 The accomplished wife of my friend the editor held 
 a sort of levee every morning in her drawing-room. 
 Whilst he was labouring upon his evening papers, 
 Mrs. Lane was picking up the gossip of the town 
 from members of Parliament who dropped in from 
 authors, players, and artists. On the morning of the 
 28th, Lord Byron was the great theme in his capa 
 city of politician, when we were anxiously expecting 
 a poem whose excellence was bruited abroad. The 
 night before, he had delivered his maiden speech in 
 the House of Lords, against the Bill for making the 
 destruction or injury of stocking or lace frames a 
 capital offence. It was a set speech declamatory 
 rather than reasoning. He believed that it was a 
 great speech, and had a right so to believe from the 
 compliments that were paid him in the House. A 
 week after this appeared " Childe Harold." He says 
 in one of his journals, " Nobody ever thought of my 
 prose afterwards, nor indeed did I." It was then 
 that he awoke one morning and found himself 
 
86 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 famous. It is difficult, after the lapse of half a 
 century, to describe, without the appearance of ex 
 aggeration, the effect which Lord Byron s poetry 
 produced, year after year, upon the younger minds 
 of that time. Its tone was in harmony with the 
 great vicissitudes of the world. Its passionate ex 
 hibition of deep and often morbid feelings was 
 akin with the emotions that were engendered by 
 the tremendous struggle in which England was en 
 gaged its alternations of rapture and depression, its 
 courage and its despair. What we now call "sensa 
 tion " dramas and " sensation " novels are the lineal 
 descendants of the verse romances in which, under 
 every variety of clime and costume, Byron was pour 
 ing forth his own feelings indifferent to the possible 
 injury to others of that contempt for the conven 
 tionalities of society which made him parade his 
 misanthropy and his scepticism, his loves and his 
 hatreds, before all mankind. The corruption thus 
 engendered was more the corruption of taste than 
 of morals. Our Castalian spring became insipid 
 without a dash of alcohol. Scott paled in this 
 strong light. The Lake poets underwent an eclipse. 
 This could not have been accomplished without high 
 genius ; but it may be doubted whether the sensual 
 egotism of Byron would have ever allowed him to 
 take a higher place than he now takes amongst the 
 English immortals. 
 
 My life during these two months in London was a 
 round of excitement. The theatre was open to me 
 the one theatre, Covent Garden, where I could see 
 John Kemble and Charles Young, and the best comic 
 actors where once, and once only, I saw Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, before she left the stage in June of that year. 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 87 
 
 Drury Lane was being rebuilt. There was no other 
 theatre in London, except "the little theatre in the 
 Haymarket " for summer performances. The theatri 
 cal monopoly was vigorously contended for by what 
 was deemed the liberal party in Parliament. A Bill 
 had been brought in for establishing a new theatre 
 for dramatic entertainments within the cities of Lon 
 don and Westminster. It was opposed, because, said 
 some Liberals who had become shareholders in Drury 
 Lane, it went to supersede the royal prerogative for 
 granting licences for dramatic exhibition. It ^as 
 in vain urged that the monopolists had built play 
 houses in which a great many could see and no one 
 could hear, and thus we had dogs, elephants, and 
 horses introduced on the stage. Mr. Whitbread, 
 who had taken an active part in the rebuilding 
 of Drury Lane upon the same principle of sacrificing 
 sense to show, contended that the taste of the people 
 must be followed as well as guided. With these 
 notions, Mr. Whitbread was to become a caterer for 
 the public taste, as one of the committee of manage 
 ment for the theatre upon whose portico Shakspere 
 was set to shiver outside, little regarded till the 
 greatest of modern actors should bring him once 
 more into fashion. 
 
 Of the many intellectual excitements not with 
 out accompanying temptations to which I was ex 
 posed, the most attractive was the Club of the 
 Eccentrics. Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his admirable 
 "Hand-book of London," tells us that in May s 
 Buildings, St. Martin s Lane, the Sutherland Arms 
 w was the favourite place of meeting of the Eccen 
 trics, a club of privileged wits so called." The wits 
 had certainly not here any exclusive possession of the 
 
88 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 privileges of such a club ; for without a considerable 
 infusion of dulness they would have missed many 
 an opportunity for the exercise of their time-honoured 
 art, " to cut blocks with a razor." On ordinary 
 nights the company at the Sutherland Arms had as 
 little pretensions to the character of wits as the 
 members of Goldsmith s " Muzzy Club." They ate 
 their kidneys ; they smoked their pipes ; they read 
 the newspaper ; and they made profound reflections 
 upon the war and the ministry. But upon Saturday 
 nights the calm is invaded by a rush of reporters. On 
 such a night I am admitted, upon payment of the fee 
 of half-a-crown ; am duly harangued by the chairman 
 chosen for the occasion, who descants upon the glories 
 of a society which numbered the greatest of the age ; 
 sign my name in the big book, which really contains 
 some records of the illustrious, and am glad to 
 have made my reply, and have gone to a table to 
 eat my supper. Then it is moved that the chair 
 should be taken by Mr. Jones, to hear " a charge." 
 For three hours I listen to gleams of wit and flashes 
 of eloquence intermingled with the occasional ven 
 tures of a rash ambition which provoke laughter, 
 and with small attempts at fun which call forth 
 groans so that midnight arrives and I have no 
 disposition for rest. A name or two of those to 
 whom I have rapturously listened have not alto 
 gether perished out of the ken of a new generation. 
 Richard Lalor Sheil belongs to history. Once or 
 twice I was witness to the profound admiration, 
 entertained by men who were not incompetent 
 judges, of the wondrous eloquence of a reporter 
 named Brownley. Some of the elders of the company 
 told me that he came nearer to the excellences of 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 89 
 
 Burke than any living man. He was not a Burke ; 
 for the orgies of the night clouded the intellect of the 
 morning. Undoubtedly his powers were very wonder 
 ful. He poured forth a torrent of words ; but far more 
 regulated by a correct taste than the flowery metaphors 
 of Sheil. Brownley had a lofty figure and a grand 
 massive head. Sheil presented a singular contrast 
 to him in person and in his rapid utterance and 
 violent gestures. Sheil was then little known ; and 
 when he had finished his oration, Mr. Quin, the 
 editor of a daily paper, rushed forward with, " Sir, 
 I honour ye dine with me to-morrow." Less 
 aspiring in his declamation than Brownley was 
 William Mudford, the editor of the " Courier," but 
 singularly neat in his logical precision and his 
 mild sarcasm. J. P. Davis (Pope Davis, as he 
 was called, from a great picture which he painted 
 at Rome the Presentation of Lord Shrewsbury s 
 Family to the Pope) did not belong to the Reporting 
 tribe. We have missed him lately, in a green old 
 age, doing violence to the natural kindness of his 
 heart by an intense hatred of the Royal Academy, 
 in which he persevered to the last, and in which 
 he was ever associated with his friend Haydon. 
 
 It is time to close these rambling Reminiscences of 
 the London of 1812. I went back to Windsor with 
 some enlargement of my intellectual vision. The 
 realities of life had cured me of many day-dreams. 
 In the House of Commons I had looked night after 
 night upon the grand spectacle of an assembly that, 
 without any of the outward semblances of power, filled 
 the world with a mysterious influence which kept 
 alive the sacred fire of liberty amongst the nations. 
 
90 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE : 
 
 It was an assembly imbued with party spirit, but that 
 spirit was raised into virtue by the common love of 
 country. Not in that House nor in that other seat 
 of legislation, in which the principle of honour was 
 mainly derived from long lines of ancestry would 
 any one who " spake the tongue which Shakspere 
 spake," ever think of succumbing to the gigantic 
 ambition which was threatening to sweep away all 
 thrones and dominations. One land should never 
 " lie at the proud foot of a conqueror." There, was 
 my patriotism stimulated, even whilst political rival 
 ries appeared to forbid that union which alone could 
 save. But what courtesy did I behold tempering the 
 strongest denunciations and the bitterest sarcasm ! 
 What self-command what restraints upon passion 
 what bursts of generosity what candour amidst the 
 most obstinate prejudices marked these Commoners 
 of the realm as essentially the gentlemen of England ! 
 From this example, the humblest aspirant to the 
 character of public instructor might learn to be tole 
 rant of all honest opinions to be moderate in the 
 expression of his own. In looking upon the great 
 political gladiators he would perceive what talent 
 and knowledge were required to raise a man to emi 
 nence, but especially he would learn that honesty 
 alone could keep the high place which ability 
 and unremitting industry might win. This lesson 
 was for the lowly as well as for the exalted. I saw 
 this grand Parliament of England at a grand time. 
 Hope was beginning to spring up out of a long season 
 of misfortune and mismanagement. I had heard it 
 said in the House of Commons on the 27th February, 
 with a mixed tone of reproach and despondency, 
 "Badajoz, Gerona, Tortosa, Valencia, and almost 
 
THE FIBST EPOCH. 01 
 
 every place of strength in Spain are in the hands of 
 the French." On the 23rd of April the horns were 
 blowing in every thoroughfare, and men were 
 bawling " News News Great News ! " Welling 
 ton had taken Badajoz. The crisis of the European 
 conflict appeared to be at hand. Napoleon was 
 evidently preparing for an offensive war against 
 Alexander of Russia. If my cherished project of a 
 newspaper could now be carried out, the mighty 
 events of the time would give it an interest which 
 would compensate for my editorial inexperience. I 
 might do some good, socially and intellectually, with 
 such an instrument, humble as it might be by com 
 parison with the power of the London press. This was 
 a very moderate ambition ; but I was then contented 
 with it. 
 
 I was heartily disposed to go about the work that 
 was before me in a sanguine spirit in a spirit which 
 perhaps too little regarded the chances of commercial 
 success. The field was altogether too narrow. To one 
 who was to stand by my side through the battle of 
 life I wrote at this transition period of its course : 
 " It shall go hard if I do not reform many things in 
 this neighbourhood, and give the inhabitants a cha 
 racter that they never possessed. If fair argument 
 can do it, they shall think liberally. I will set out 
 as the temperate advocate of everything that think 
 ing men will support Toleration, Education of the 
 Poor, Diffusion of Religious Knowledge, Public 
 Economy. I shall adopt the opinions of no set of 
 men in Church or State ; but think for myself on all 
 points. I belong to no party, for I would uphold the 
 Roman Catholics moderate claims as the first step 
 to public safety, and continue the war in Spain as 
 
92 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 the last resource of national honour. This country 
 is full of bigotry. Some are afraid to educate the 
 poor, some are afraid of distributing Bibles, and the 
 greater part are afraid of Popery. I heai many 
 people who call themselves reasoners talk of the 
 Protestant massacres in France as arguments that 
 all Catholics are blood-thirsty. The fire-brand of 
 religion will soon be burnt out. The very miseries 
 of the present generation will become the means 
 of establishing the happiness of the next." In 
 transcribing this from a mirror of the past which 
 lies before me, I cannot avoid what must appear 
 as a parade of the conceit of imperfect education. 
 But it may be a satisfaction to some other solitary 
 and obscure young man to know, that self-instruction 
 is not always the worst preparation for arriving at 
 a due sense of the serious moral responsibility of a 
 literary career which, even in its humblest attempts, 
 must be an instrument for good or for evil. And 
 thus with a considerable amount of multifarious 
 reading, with slight knowledge of the world, with 
 aspirations very much out of proportion to any chance 
 of their being realised the 1st of August, 1812, 
 saw me established as proprietor with my father 
 in the " Windsor and Eton Express," and entrusted 
 with its responsible editorship. That day, having 
 passed my twenty-first year a few months before, saw 
 me bound upon that wheel of periodical writing and 
 publishing which was to revolve with me for fifty 
 years. It was not to be the torturing wheel of Ixion, 
 but one whose revolutions, wearisome as they some 
 times might be, were often to become sources of plea 
 surable excitement. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE first number of the " Windsor and Eton 
 Express " lies before me. It looks to my 
 mind like some relic of a past era of jour 
 nalism, in which I have no especial inte 
 rest, any more than I have in a fac-simile of a 
 "Times" of the days of Nelson which has been 
 recently published. I am told that some of the 
 middle-aged inhabitants of my native town preserve 
 this first newspaper ever issued there, as a curiosity 
 of the time of their fathers a piece of dim antiquity 
 like a guinea of George III. I look anxiously at 
 my " Political Inquirer," and I do not blush at my 
 earliest attempts in the vocation of "best public 
 instructor." 
 
 Why do I not blush at some of these crude efforts 
 of inexperience ? Because, although the things which 
 I then wrote may be something different from my 
 maturer convictions, they were written under a strong 
 sense of the serious nature of the vocation of a public 
 writer. I dare say that, in my want of knowledge of 
 the world, I wore my 
 
 " Foolscap uniform turn d up with ink " 
 
 somewhat too grandly. " Anxious " I was, if not 
 "fine and jealous." But this sense of my moral 
 responsibility has saved me from a feeling of shame, 
 as I now look back upon the feeble utterances of the 
 
94 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 time thus brought before me, something like a dream. 
 These utterances were those of an impulsive young 
 man ; but of one who felt the duty of controlling his 
 inclination to express himself passionately. I wrote 
 with a motto from Locke always at the head of my 
 political essay, "This is a question only of inquirers, 
 not disputers, who neither affirm, nor deny, but 
 examine." This motto often held my hand. I had 
 a notion that rapid composition was a test of ability. 
 I used to task myself to write a leading article in a 
 given time. The habit has been of value to me in 
 after life ; it is of infinite importance to the journalist. 
 But it is of more importance that what he writes 
 should not at some future day rise up in j udgment 
 against him, " trumpet-tongued," and convict him 
 not of the suppressio veri, for that is incidental to 
 his profession, as it is to the barrister s but of the 
 assertion of opinions which were the exact contrary 
 of his own convictions. Let me not, however, be held 
 to imply that what is called political consistency is 
 a virtue in the man of advanced age that the rash 
 judgments of his youth are to be preserved in his 
 maturity. The mind that is not open to the teach 
 ings of time, and that chooses to stand upon its own 
 " ancient way," and not look around to see " which 
 is the right and true way," is worth little as a guide 
 for the formation of opinion. 
 
 Amongst the startling contrasts that are presented 
 between the England of 1812 and the England of 
 half a century later, there is perhaps no contrast 
 more remarkable than that which offers itself to my 
 mind in the difficulties of setting on foot a news 
 paper at Windsor, such as I had projected as an 
 easy and profitable employment for my literary 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 95 
 
 ambition. These rush upon my memory as I look 
 upon my old "folio of four pages," and think of this 
 my first venture upon a dangerous sea. 
 
 The newspaper stamp was then fourpence. The 
 advertisement duty was three shillings, subsequently 
 raised to three shillings and sixpence. The blank 
 paper was to be stamped at Somerset House, the 
 payment being in cash, with a discount. It will be 
 seen at once how these taxes pressed upon the 
 capital to be devoted to such an undertaking. No 
 article of consumption, with the exception of salt, 
 was so highly taxed as the Newspaper. The circu 
 lation of a country journal was not a simple operation 
 like that of a London journal, which was, and is, a 
 wholesale transaction between the newspaper pro 
 prietor and the newsmen. The established custom 
 was this : the country proprietor had agencies in the 
 larger towns, who had their own retail customers; 
 but the greater number of the papers were delivered, 
 by newsmen specially employed, to the subscribers, 
 whether in the place of publication or in scattered 
 country districts. These had quarterly accounts, 
 which often grew into half-yearly or yearly settle 
 ments. Thus the return of the capital was very slow. 
 
 The demand for the newspaper, and the number 
 of advertisers, being thus narrowed by the high 
 price consequent upon the tax, the cost of produc 
 tion was to be met by a comparatively small number 
 of supporters. A cheap newspaper was an impossi 
 bility. But there were expenses at that time which 
 have altogether vanished under a different state of 
 social organization. The Windsor paper was to be 
 published on a Saturday evening, in time to be des 
 patched by post to the more distant places. It was 
 5 
 
96 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 essential that it should contain the latest news from 
 the metropolis. The " London Gazette " was then 
 published on a Saturday afternoon. How was the 
 " Gazette " to be obtained, and also the late editions 
 of the evening papers? For this object the long- 
 established "Salisbury Journal" had an express 
 direct from London to that city. By an arrange 
 ment with the London agent of that journal, its 
 express was to bring our despatch to Staines, from 
 which place we should have a branch express to 
 Windsor. It would arrive about three quarters of 
 an hour before our post departed. Then there was 
 to ensue a scurry of editor, compositors, pressmen, to 
 complete enough papers to fill two bags, which we 
 were allowed to send to the receiving post-offices at 
 Staines and Maidenhead by the mail-carts from our 
 town. All this could not be accomplished without 
 the most strenuous exertions and the most perfect 
 division of labour. It was to be calculated that in 
 the beginning of the undertaking the machinery 
 would be often out of gear. 
 
 This laborious and costly organization was the 
 only method of fighting with space and time before 
 the days of railway conveyance and the electric 
 telegraph. The London daily papers, which fur 
 nished the staple of news, had the same difficulties, 
 though much greater in degree, to contend against. 
 The more considerable, especially the "Times," had 
 not only their special expresses from the outports, 
 but occasionally had a private packet-boat to pick 
 up news from homeward-bound ships before they 
 came into port. The sudden arrival of foreign intel 
 ligence, and the lateness of the sittings of Parlia 
 ment, occasioned the morning papers sometimes to 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 9? 
 
 be delayed in publication till almost noon. If thia 
 occurred on a Saturday, the " Times/ or the " Post/ 
 or the "Chronicle/ or the "British Press/ not 
 reaching Windsor till six in the evening, another 
 leader would then have to be written. Sometimes 
 the "Times," upon which most reliance could be 
 placed for the latest news, did not come at all. 
 During the excitement of the great war-time the 
 demand outran the supply, for it was not till the end 
 of 1814 that the "Times" was printed by steam 
 machinery. 
 
 Our journal being once safely at press, there would 
 come the arrangements for its distribution through 
 the rural districts, in addition to the small number 
 which had been sent off by post. The hamlets and 
 scattered farm-houses and gentlemen s seats could 
 not be reached by the post, at a time when not 
 one village in twenty had a post-office when letters 
 and newspapers remained with the postmaster of the 
 market-town till they were called for by the inhabi 
 tants of the surrounding district. Many a populous 
 parish was thus left to chance for the receipt of its 
 private or its public intelligence. Our new paper 
 would have to meet this difficulty by our own express- 
 carts, which were to travel long distances, and by 
 pedestrians, who would have many a weary mile to 
 trudge over unfrequented roads. These deliverers 
 would seldom receive payment from the subscribers. 
 The debts would accumulate, requiring to be col 
 lected at- periodical visits. Remittances in many 
 cases could not easily be made ; in some cases they 
 would be impossible, for the system of postal money- 
 orders was a quarter of a century later. 
 
 The price of a country newspaper was, in almost. 
 
98 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 every case, sevenpence. The wages of mechanical 
 labour were high, keeping pace with the price of 
 wheat, which in 1812 was 150s. a quarter Paper was 
 extremely dear, the duty being threepence a pound, 
 and the cheapening by the paper machine, now so 
 efficient, being then one of the visions of the pro 
 jector. In the absence, besides, of all the modern 
 appliances of civilization such as I have recited 
 which have so lessened the cost of a provincial 
 journal, and have increased the demand in a far 
 greater ratio than the doubling of the population 
 the number of country newspapers was comparatively 
 small. Throughout England there were less than a 
 hundred. There were not a great many of them 
 which ventured upon original writing ; but the 
 leading article had become a feature with those of 
 the higher class, such as the " Leeds Mercury," after 
 the beginning of the century. To express strong 
 opinions upon gross abuses was, however, a service of 
 danger which most editors avoided in the days of ex 
 officio informations. 
 
 It was a perilous time for the newspaper press, 
 for the people were discontented, and the authorities 
 were sensitive. They were especially sensitive in 
 this war-time as to any strictures which were sup 
 posed to have a tendency to weaken the allegiance 
 of the army, or render soldiers less satisfied under 
 the severe discipline by which alone obedience was 
 held to be capable of enforcement. Military flogging 
 was one of the forbidden subjects for editorial com 
 ment. In the year 181 2, William Cobbett was in 
 Newgate, having been sentenced in 1810 to two years 
 imprisonment and a fine of a thousand pounds for a 
 virulent effusion upon a punishment which had taken 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 99 
 
 place in the local militia of Ely. In the " Stamford 
 News," a paper most ably conducted by Mr. John 
 Scott (afterwards editor of the " Champion "), an 
 article appeared at the same period, in which flogging 
 was described as " a species of torture at least as 
 exquisite as any that was ever devised by the infer 
 nal ingenuity of the Inquisition." This article was 
 copied into the " Examiner," and Sir Vicary Gibbs, 
 the Attorney-General, filed informations against both 
 papers. The trial of John and Leigh Hunt came on 
 the first, before Lord Ellenborough, who laboured 
 hard for a conviction. They were defended by Mr. 
 Brougham, and the Middlesex jury acquitted them. 
 The subsequent trial of Mr. Drakard, the proprietor 
 of the " Stamford News," resulted in his conviction, 
 although the same advocate defended him. He was 
 sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment. Such 
 a notable example of the uncertainty of trial by jury 
 in matters of political libel could give a public writer 
 no great confidence that incautious words, without 
 evil intentions, might not be visited with punishment 
 such as is earned by atrocious crimes. There was 
 another subject upon which the law-officers of the 
 Crown were equally determined to war against 
 public opinion. In proportion as the Prince Regent 
 was becoming unpopular, the Attorney-General re 
 sented any reflections upon his coxcombry and his 
 frivolous tastes. Moore ran great risks when he 
 dubbed the Prince " the Maecenas of Tailors." But 
 it was " most tolerable and not to be endured " by 
 the Dogberries who guarded the honour of Carlton 
 House, when a newspaper writer, who was not a pet 
 of fashion, dared to say of his Royal Highness in 
 ridicule of a fulsome article in the " Morning Post " in 
 
100 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE! 
 
 which he was called " an Adonis in loveliness " that 
 this Adonis was " a corpulent gentleman of fifty." 
 The ex-ojficio information against John and Leigh 
 Hunt, for a libel in the " Examiner " of March 24th, 
 1812, resulted in a fine of a thousand pounds and 
 the imprisonment of each for two years in separate 
 prisons. Mr. Brougham had again defended the 
 brothers, and had the satisfaction to be told by Lord 
 Ellenborough that he had imbibed the spirit of his 
 client, and seemed to have inoculated himself with 
 all the poison and mischief which this libel was 
 calculated to effect. It was undoubtedly strong 
 language for the "Examiner" to designate the 
 Prince as " a violator of his word, a libertine over 
 head and ears in debt and disgrace, a despiser of 
 domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demi 
 reps, a man who has just closed half a century 
 without one single claim on the gratitude of his 
 country or the respect of posterity." Posterity has 
 not given such an answer as would put to shame this 
 daring appeal to its judgment. But the dispassionate 
 lookers-on of that period could not think it seemly 
 that such harsh truths should be told of him who 
 stood in the place of a king who, as chief magis 
 trate, ought to claim from the people all respect and 
 reverence. 
 
 But it was not only the dread of indictment for poli 
 tical libel that hung over the head of the newspaper 
 proprietor in 1812. Any statement of fact, or any 
 comment upon occurrences that might be supposed 
 to affect private character, were constantly made 
 the subject of actions, got up by rapacious attorneys, 
 speculating upon that love of litigation which was 
 then especially characteristic of the English. It was 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 101 
 
 not till thirty years after 1812 that Lord Campbell s 
 Act gave to the journalist the power to plead, in any 
 action for libel, " that such libel was inserted in such 
 newspaper without actual malice, and without gross 
 negligence ; and that before the commencement of 
 the action, or at the earliest opportunity afterwards, 
 he inserted in such newspaper a full apology for such 
 libel." Imagine, at the present day, the Lord Chief 
 Justice of the Court of Queen s Bench trying an 
 action for libel, with two leaders, such as Mr. Den- 
 man for the prosecution, and Mr. Scarlett for the 
 defence, the alleged libel being the report in a 
 country newspaper of a flagrant case of cruelty 
 which was a notorious subject of local indignation. 
 The libel consisted in terming that "a brutal assault," 
 upon which the assailants were held to bail. Imagine 
 that the persons whose characters were thus defamed 
 were a pig-keeper and his wife, who let lodgings to 
 poor people ; and having a dispute with a family of 
 which the mother had only been confined a week, 
 threatened to pull the bed from under her, and turn 
 her into the street. Imagine a London jury finding 
 a verdict for the plaintiff, with 501. damages. Imagine 
 a second action for the same libel being brought by 
 the wife. Imagine ten several actions against ten 
 London papers, for reporting the trial in the King s 
 Bench with a few words of just comment upon the 
 scandal of such litigation, when there was no "private 
 malice " or " gross negligence." Imagine a hungry 
 attorney, prowling for prey, at the bottom of all these 
 actions, who hao], no object to attain but the heavy 
 costs which he pocketed. These verdicts cost me 
 500. in 1825. Is not the newspaper press in a 
 better condition than it was in, forty years ago ? 
 
102 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 The perils of the Libel Law did not much affect 
 my confident belief in 1812 that I could navigate my 
 little bark in safety. But. I did feel, perhaps too 
 acutely, the difficulties of my position as a journalist 
 under the shadow of the Castle at Windsor. It was 
 a time in which the patriotism which had upheld the 
 nation through the fierce struggle of twenty years 
 required, at this great crisis of our history, when the 
 fate of England was trembling in the balance, the 
 prop of a sincere and spontaneous loyalty. I deeply 
 felt, as one about to become a public writer, that 
 upon the head of the Government I could only 
 bestow 
 
 " month-honour, breath 
 Which the poor heart would fuin deny but dare not." 
 
 I look back upon the public feeling of the first 
 twenty years of my working life, and compare it 
 with the quarter of a century which was blessed with 
 a female Sovereign. Oh, could the generation which, 
 during the reign of Victoria, has entered upon the 
 duties of mature age, know the full value of their 
 privilege in being able to cherish the loyalty of the 
 subject, not as an abstract principle, but as a holy 
 sentiment, often rising into the warmest devotion, 
 they would pity the youth of a less happy time, who 
 had a struggle to maintain even his love of country 
 amidst the " curses not loud but deep " which at 
 tended its sensual and frivolous ruler ! We should 
 have been perhaps plunged into a profounder abyss 
 of royal degradation, had not the long-established 
 habit of decency still kept the public Court circle 
 free from ladies whose " misfortune " (as Lord 
 Ellenborough termed the fashionable sin upon the 
 
THE FIEST EPOCH. 103 
 
 trial of the Hunts) met with no pity in the eyes of 
 the rigid Queen Charlotte. 
 
 The political atmosphere was not very bright on 
 the 1st of August, 1812, when the Windsor news 
 paper struggled into life. The 29th of July was a 
 day of gloom, for the intelligence arrived that the 
 United States of America had declared war against 
 Great Britain. Wellington had advanced into Spain 
 in June. His position was a very difficult one. The 
 English army and the French army were on opposite 
 banks of the Douro in the early part of July. Mar- 
 mont was expecting a large accession of strength in 
 the junction of King Joseph s army from Madrid. 
 Wellington was disappointed of the arrival of rein 
 forcements under Lord William Bentinck. There 
 was a wide-spread conviction that the Government at 
 home was feebly supporting the one great captain 
 whose genius appeared likely to retrieve the disasters 
 of a long series of " warriors " not " for the working- 
 day." Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of July. 
 The speech of the Prince Regent was in no degree 
 a jubilant prophecy of a glorious future. It con 
 sisted of little more than tamely expressed sentiments. 
 
 It was Sunday night the 16th of August. The 
 evening promenade in the Long Walk, which had 
 succeeded to the regal promenade on the Terrace, 
 had been interrupted by the sudden withdrawal of 
 the band of the 29th Regiment, who were summoned 
 to their barracks. The sun had gone down behind 
 the hills of the forest, as I sat lonely in a cottage 
 belonging to my father, which then stood apart from 
 any other houses, fronting the Long Walk. I was 
 meditating upon the unofficial news, which had 
 
104 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LITE: 
 
 arrived on the Saturday night, of a victory in Spain 
 shaping my thoughts into exulting verse as the 
 death-song of a Guerilla who lay bleeding on that 
 battle-field. Suddenly, from the not distant bar 
 racks, rose the burst of " God save the King," and 
 the cheers of a multitude. I rushed to the town. 
 The 29th Regiment was marching out of Park Street 
 along the Frogmore Road to the inspiriting tune 
 which revolutionary Frenchmen called " c,a ira," but 
 which loyal Englishmen translated into " The Down 
 fall of Paris." The Extraordinary Gazette, containing 
 Wellington s despatches relating to the great victory 
 of Salamanca, had been published on that Sunday 
 morning, and had arrived at Windsor, to demand 
 from the enthusiasm of the moment this hasty night- 
 march. I followed the measured tramp of the sol 
 diery, in common with the great mass of our popu 
 lation, unknowing what was to be done, and yet 
 filled with the passionate desire of the hundreds 
 around me to give expression to the belief that the 
 tide had turned that England might shout for a 
 mighty victory by land, as she had shouted for the 
 Nile and for Trafalgar. The joyous troops marched 
 into a field adjoining Frogmore Gardens, and there, 
 formed into line, fired three volleys, and gave three 
 cheers. Such was the British war-cry which they 
 had given three years before, when they met the 
 French at Talavera, and contributed their part to the 
 great battle which, says the strategist Jomini, " re 
 covered the glory of the successors of Maiiborough, 
 which for a century had declined, and showed that 
 the English infantry could contend with the best in 
 Europe." If Talavera was the hardest-fought battle 
 of modern times, as Sir Arthur Wellesley described 
 
THE FIEST EPOCH. 105 
 
 it, Salamanca was the most fruitful in its results. 
 This victory of Wellington over Marmont gave con 
 fidence to Russia, and awakened the hopes of Germany 
 that a new era was approaching. My " Dying Gue 
 rilla " was not a false prophet when he exclaimed 
 
 " I see embattled Europe s wrath sublime 
 Rush to the field and blacken, all the clime ; 
 Insulted nations spurn their blood-stain d lord, 
 And Vengeance draw the soul-redeeming sword." * 
 
 The first duty of a Provincial Journalist is to pre 
 sent always a faithful, and if possible a full, account 
 of the occurrences of his district. But how little 
 of all this is worth a more permanent record ! I was 
 unfortunate in having few noteable things to relate 
 beyond the ordinary routine of the life of the Castle, 
 and the monotonous proceedings of vestries and 
 borough magistrates. Quarter-Sessions offered little 
 of abiding interest. Assizes sometimes furnished 
 something characteristic of the age, which looked 
 like materials for the Annual Chronicler. But the 
 most exciting of such matters are apt to become as 
 motes in the historical sunbeam. I glance over my 
 old newspapers, and almost wonder how many local 
 trifles came to be printed. 
 
 The staple of my newspaper was Politics. I am 
 not about to offer any narrative of the great events 
 of the greatest era of modern history, but I cannot 
 wholly pass them over. When I look back upon the 
 autumn and winter of 1812, and call to mind the 
 ever-varied excitement attending the wars in Spain, 
 in Russia, in America, I feel that such a concentration 
 of points of immense public interest scarcely ever 
 
 * Windsor Express, August 22, 1812. 
 
106 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 before demanded the vigilant and faithful attention 
 of the journalist. The victory of Salamanca was fol 
 lowed by the entrance of Wellington into Madrid, 
 and then came the unwelcome intelligence of the 
 raising of the siege of Burgos, and the retreat of the 
 British army. I was the echo of the loud voice of 
 public complaint, that in the barracks and arsenals 
 of Great Britain should have slumbered that force 
 which, two months before, would have put the Penin 
 sular war beyond the reverses of fortune. I denounced 
 the policy which still regarded the contest as a war 
 of experiment the policy of a weak government, 
 ready again for the course of repairing errors by an 
 expenditure of means which far outran the limits of 
 their original necessity. " Demosthenes," I said, 
 " reproached the Athenians that they were like rustics 
 in a fencing-school, who, after a blow, guard the part 
 that was hit, and not before." Yet the gloom pro 
 duced by the retreat to Portugal, after the triumph 
 of Salamanca, was scarcely so intense, because it was 
 unmixed with a feeling of national disgrace, as when 
 in that autumn three British ships-, in three distinct 
 engagements, struck the once invincible flag to the 
 American stars and stripes. In October it was known 
 that the French, were in Moscow, and that the Em 
 peror was lodged in the Kremlin. The fluctuating 
 fortunes of those times might well teach the public 
 writer the great duty contained in the sermon of six 
 words "in adversity hope, in prosperity consider." 
 Even whilst the French, after a perilous occupation 
 of the great city, marched forth from the burning 
 ruins of Moscow, there was hope, but not certainty, 
 that the European struggle was coming to an end. 
 But on Christmas Day, the French papers, announcing 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 107 
 
 the return of Bonaparte to Paris, and containing the 
 famous twenty-ninth bulletin which could not con 
 ceal the almost total annihilation of the French army, 
 rendered that joyous festival one of unusual solem 
 nity. 
 
 The spring of 1813 brought with it a lull in the 
 hurricane of foreign politics. Windsor was excited 
 by a grand royal funeral that of the Duchess of 
 Brunswick, on the 31st of March. But there was a 
 stronger excitement in some mysterious circumstances 
 which followed that funeral It was known that, 
 previous to the interment, while workmen were 
 employed in making a subterraneous passage from 
 the middle of the choir of St. George s Chapel to the 
 new Royal Mausoleum under the building called 
 Wolsey s Tomb-House, they had accidentally broken 
 away a part of the vault of Henry the Eighth, but 
 which was not then opened. On the morning after 
 the funeral the Prince Regent was seen to enter the 
 Chapel, attended by Sir Henry Halford. A master- 
 mason and a master-plumber had been previously 
 sent for, who were to do some work with their own 
 hands which could not be entrusted to common 
 mechanics, and about which they were to preserve 
 the most profound secresy. The Chapel was again 
 closed ; the Prince Regent returned to the Castle ; 
 the mason and plumber, burdened with some tremen 
 dous mystery, were afraid to speak to their curious 
 neighbours ; and yet the mystery did ooze out. 
 Solemn whisperings went from the Castle to the 
 town ; from the town to the villages ; and wild 
 rumours soon found their wav to London. The most 
 
108 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 various and contradictory narratives now had then- 
 due place in the daily papers. For myself, I deemed 
 it prudent to remain silent, rather than become a 
 propagator of erroneous details and absurd fictions. 
 I was enabled at last to present an authentic account 
 of the investigations which took place in the vault of 
 Henry the Eighth. This differed very slightly from 
 the narrative published a fortnight afterwards by Sir 
 Henry Halford. ,The intimation of Clarendon, that 
 after the Restoration the body of Charles the First 
 could not be found after the most diligent search, 
 was disproved by the discovery of the 1st of April, 
 1813. When the plumber had cut .open the upper 
 part of the leaden coffin, and the cerecloth in which 
 the body had been wrapped was removed, there was 
 the long oval face with the pointed beard, which 
 reminded those present of the portraits of Vandyke. 
 The head was loose, although it had been carefully 
 adjusted to the shoulders, and it was taken up with 
 out difficulty, and held to view. The narrative of 
 the court physician has no false delicacy in attempting 
 to conceal the results of this remarkable examination. 
 My business and my inclination often led me now 
 to the capital. There I was enabled to gather some 
 flavour for my insipid dish of Windsor ideas, in the 
 full flow of London talk. There I got away from the 
 Court atmosphere, and the College atmosphere, and 
 the Corporation atmosphere, to think boldly and 
 speak freely with friends who were fighting their 
 way amidst a crowd of aspirants in Law, in Litera 
 ture, and in the Arts. Politics, however, were the 
 absorbing topics of every society. The people of 
 Germany had risen as one man to do battle against 
 the conqueror, humbled but not overthrown, at whose 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 109 
 
 feet the sovereigns had crouched. The adherents of 
 the Bourbons in London were full of revived and 
 long-suspended energies. I was introduced to one 
 who had played an important part before the meeting 
 of the States-General the Marquis of Chambonas. 
 I passed some pleasant and instructive evenings with 
 the former lord of a great chateau near Montpelier, 
 in the Fleet Prison. Here, for some mysterious 
 reason, he had lived, securely and contentedly, with 
 his niece, for some years ; never going beyond the 
 walls, untouched by the squalid misery of the place, 
 having no companionship with other prisoners, but 
 holding audience in a large and well-furnished apart 
 ment, where men of note, even such men as George 
 Canning, would come to visit him. His ostensible 
 occupation was that of a teacher of the French lan 
 guage. On certain nights of the week he held a 
 soiree, at which he would read a French author, 
 interspersing a running commentary of spirited and 
 tasteful criticism. I regretted that before his return 
 to France at the peace of 1814, I had not availed 
 myself of his proposition that I should correspond 
 with him for my improvement in a French style. 
 There was something more than met the eye in that 
 proposal. I came to learn that the old Marquis had 
 been so long secluded from the outer world, that he 
 might be a safe and unsuspected recipient of the 
 secrets of the Royalists on the other side of the 
 channel. It was not to obtain a correct accent, to 
 hear Racine and Moliere read with unaccustomed 
 elegance, that writers and statesmen went to that 
 second floor of the Fleet Prison, where the Marquis 
 sat through all the changes of seasons, not deficient 
 in any of the means of procuring abundant comforts 
 and luxuries. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIND from old letters that at the end 
 of 1813 I occupied my leisure in writing 
 a play, which was intended to have some 
 parallel with the uprising of the German 
 population. My subject was the deliverance of the 
 German nation from the Roman yoke by Arminius. 
 It is one of the usual mistakes of young writers to 
 believe that some temporary outburst of popular 
 enthusiasm would ensure success to a poem, and 
 especially to a drama, which, in the very nature of 
 its subject, must be little more than a vehicle for 
 rhetorical display. This is easier than to deal with 
 the great elements of terror and pity, which must 
 largely enter into the composition of a tragedy as a 
 real work of art. My play was sent to Drury Lane, 
 then managed by a Committee, of which Mr. Whit- 
 bread was a leading member. My attempt was 
 treated with all respect ; it had a fair consideration, 
 and its rejection was accompanied with a note suffi 
 ciently complimentary : " There is much spirited 
 and easy writing in this tragedy. Its greatest fault 
 appears to be a want of incident and contrivance ; it 
 is too declamatory ; and I apprehend the want of 
 interest and situation would not be compensated by 
 the neatness arid fire of the dialogue." I had sense 
 enough to know that the objections thus stated were 
 perfectly just ; but I had not then learnt the lesson 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. Ill 
 
 which a critical acquaintance with Shakspere, and 
 with other great dramatists, afterwards impressed 
 upon me, that a play unfit for the stage is incapable 
 of imparting true poetical pleasure in the closet. In 
 such a drama the unity of object is wanting. The 
 action halts. The descriptive passages are elaborated 
 till the realities of character vanish. I printed my 
 " Arminius. " The book had some success, and 
 caused me to be enrolled amongst the poets of 
 England in a Catalogue of Living Authors, and more 
 permanently in Watt s " Bibliotheca Britannica." 
 But what is the value of such fame ? One living 
 rival of Magliabecchi, whose knowledge of books is 
 as universal as profound, whilst, unlike Magliabecchi, 
 he is able profitably to use his knowledge, tells me 
 that there is not a copy of my play in the British 
 Museum. My vanity is soothed a little by re 
 membering that one of the scenes is to be found in 
 a school-book of elocution,-side by side with extracts 
 from Addison s " Cato," and Brooke s " Gustavus 
 Vasa." It is not a great fame. 
 
 The third week of the new year witnessed that 
 most unusual occurrence the stoppage of communi 
 cation on some of the most frequented roads of 
 England and Scotland. There never had been such 
 a fall of snow in the memory of man, and there has 
 certainly been nothing like it since. Had railways 
 been in existence, the obstacles to all travelling and 
 all commercial transit would have been precisely the 
 same. It is under such unusual circumstances of 
 interruption to the business of a busy people that we 
 best understand the value of roads, and of all the con 
 current means of communication which have grown 
 up during a long period of civilized society. I well 
 
112 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 remember the consternation and difficulty, when, on 
 a certain Thursday, our morning coaches set out for 
 London and were obliged to return ; when we learnt 
 that the only mails which had reached the General 
 Post Office on the Friday were three from Brighton, 
 Rye, and Portsmouth ; when we knew, from the report 
 of horsemen and pedestrians, who had contrived to 
 struggle up from Bath, that the West of England 
 was completely impassable for carriages ; that the 
 shops in Exeter were shut up, and the doors arid 
 windows of private houses barricaded, by the drifts of 
 snow. At Oxford no letters or papers arrived for 
 four days, and there was a blockade far more effectual 
 than when Cromwell s army was hemming it around. 
 I made my way on horseback to the Bath road, and 
 proceeded well enough from Slough to a mile or so 
 beyond Salthill, through a lane cut through the snow, 
 which rose on either side like the outer walls of a 
 medieval castle. This narrow passage had been 
 accomplished by the exertions of many labourers, 
 and the same process was going forward throughout 
 the northern and western roads. On the 21st of 
 January a notice was issued from the General Post 
 Office to all post masters, directing them to apply to the 
 overseers of parishes to employ all the means in their 
 power to get the country cleared for the passage of 
 the mails. A more stringent command was issued 
 from the Home Office to the Lords-Lieutenants of 
 counties, for restoring the accustomed means of com 
 munication between London and the interior. The 
 fall of snow was succeeded by an intense frost. 
 Between Blackfriars Bridge and London Bridge 
 there was a sort of fair on the ice, which has been 
 best preserved from oblivion in one of the designs 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 113 
 
 of George Cruikshank, in Hone s " Every Day 
 Book." 
 
 The milder days of February gave us back again 
 the ordinary means of communication from Cornwall 
 to Lanarkshire. From out of a " House of Glass " 
 Rumour now carne flying all abroad, and the land 
 was alive with the anticipation of great events. The 
 Allies marched on from the Rhine. Then came the 
 fruitless struggle which manifested the military 
 genius of Napoleon as much as any one of his great 
 victories. From one point to another he rushed to 
 meet his enemies wherever they appeared; some 
 times victorious, sometimes defeated, but always 
 contriving to make the great issue still doubtful. 
 Aberdeen the peaceful was for making terms with 
 him ; other statesmen, English and foreign, were 
 for pushing him to extremities. The risings of 
 Bordeaux, the second city of the Empire, in favour 
 of the Bourbons, appeared to indicate that the 
 popular feeling of France was changing, as regarded 
 him who had done everything for its glory and 
 nothing for its happiness. The negociations for 
 peace were broken off. Whilst Wellington was 
 fighting his final battle with Soult on the 10th 
 of April, Paris had capitulated, and the Emperor 
 of Russia and the King of Prussia had entered 
 the capital which had appropriated the spoils of a 
 hundred cities. On the 4th of April, Napoleon had 
 abdicated, and soon after was on his road to Elba. 
 For three nights London was in a tumult of exulta 
 tion, amidst illuminations of unprecedented bril 
 liancy. On the 3rd of May, Louis the Eighteenth 
 was in the Tuileries. In England the beauty of the 
 spring weather was such as had scarcely ever been 
 
114 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 remembered. Poets seized upon it as an omen of 
 future happiness. Leigh Hunt who had endured 
 enough to render him cold to a cause which was that 
 of the ruling powers at home and of royalty in 
 general looked at this crisis as somewhat like a 
 final triumph over war and oppression, and in his 
 new-born zeal wrote a Mask, " The Descent of 
 Liberty," to which the glories of the spring lent their 
 most poetical associations. We had our especial turn 
 of patriotic excitement at Windsor. The great festi 
 vities in London when the Emperor of Russia and 
 the King of Prussia arrived ; when they were in 
 vested with the Order of the Garter at Carlton 
 House ; when the Prince Regent and the two sove 
 reigns dined with the Corporation of London at the 
 Mansion House ; these were of little importance to 
 us compared with that of the visit to Windsor of the 
 Emperor of Russia with his famous Platoff, and of the 
 King of Prussia with his no less famous Bliicher. 
 In the "Poetical Remains " of William Sidney 
 Walker, with whom I was associated in after life, 
 there is a letter from him when a boy at Eton, 
 dated the 6th of July, 1814, in which he says, " I 
 have shaken hands with the King of Prussia and 
 Platoff, and have touched the flap of Blucher s coat. 
 I shall have it engraven on my tombstone." I cannot 
 desire so solemn a record, that, having arrived early 
 at the Ascot Race-ground, I saw the King of Prussia 
 who had ridden thither before the rest of the 
 royal party buying a penny roll and a slice of cheese 
 at one of the common booths, and marching up and 
 down, cutting his humble luncheon with a pocket- 
 knife which I supposed he had carried through many 
 a troublous campaign. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 115 
 
 Of course 1 took a more exalted view of the historical 
 grandeur of this season of rejoicing and felicitation 
 when the Duke of Wellington was to arrive at 
 Windsor, for the purpose of reviewing his regiment 
 of the Horse Guards Blue, and I was requested by 
 the Corporation to write an Address to be presented 
 to his Grace by the Town Clerk. I very much fear 
 that its stilted paragraphs were a humble imitation 
 of that Address of the Speaker of the House of Com 
 mons, when he said, "This nation well knows that it 
 is largely your debtor." The Duke, on the 6th of 
 August, received the Corporation in the hall of the 
 Castle Inn, somewhat weary, I suppose, of the 
 manner in which, as he said, " he had been received 
 in different parts of the kingdom." I crept into that 
 narrow hall, between the red gowns and the blue 
 gowns, some of whom stood in the street ; and I was 
 not very proud of my fine paragraphs when I looked 
 upon that impassive face, and thinking of what 
 welded iron that conqueror of Bonaparte was made, 
 fancied how little the men of action appreciated the 
 sounding periods of the men of words. I did not 
 then know with what success this great soldier would 
 vindicate his own claim to be ranked amongst the 
 best writers. 
 
 My newspaper of the 3rd of December contained a 
 paragraph which I had copied from " The Times " of 
 November the 29th, 1814, not interesting, perhaps, 
 to the majority of my provincial readers, but which 
 strongly excited my wonder and curiosity, and led 
 me into obscure speculations of what might be the 
 probable consequences of what "The Times" described 
 as " the greatest improvement connected with print- 
 
116 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 ing since the discovery of the art itself." Well know 
 ing the great bodily exertion which up to that time 
 was required of two men working at the common 
 press, to produce two hundred and fifty impressions of 
 one side of a newspaper in an hour, I might well be 
 surprised when I read as follows : "The reader of this 
 paragraph now holds in his hand one of the many 
 thousand impressions of The Times newspaper 
 which were taken off last night, by a mechanical 
 apparatus. A system of machinery almost organic 
 has been devised and arranged, which, while it re 
 lieves the human frame of its most laborious efforts 
 in printing, far exceeds all human powers in rapidity 
 and dispatch." The process is then briefly described ; 
 and it is added, " the whole of these complicated acts 
 is performed with such a velocity and simulta- 
 neousness of movement, that no less than eleven 
 hundred sheets are impressed in one hour." The 
 invention is termed in this announcement " The 
 Printing Machine." The inventor s name was Koenig. 
 For ten years Mr. Walter, the proprietor of " The 
 Times," had been vainly endeavouring, at a heavy 
 cost, to perfect some machinery by which he could 
 send forth a greater number than the four thousand 
 copies of his journal which he was able to produce 
 by the utmost exertion of manual labour. The 
 machine of Koenig was, however, a most complicated 
 affair ; expensive, liable to derangement, and not 
 capable, therefore, of being applied to the general 
 purposes of printing. In 1823 I read in Scott s novel 
 of " Quentin Durward " the prophetic words of Marti- 
 valle, " Can I look forward without wonder and asto 
 nishment to the lot of a succeeding generation, on 
 whom knowledge shall descend like the first and 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 117 
 
 second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded." 
 The Printing Press had produced the first rain ; the 
 Printing Machine was the "little cloud no bigger 
 than a man s hand " which promised the second rain. 
 There was now some chance that the steam-engine 
 would accomplish for printing what it was accom 
 plishing for navigation. In June, 1824, 1 attended a 
 trial in the Common Pleas, in which the Duke of 
 Northumberland was plaintiff, and my friend, Mr. 
 Clowes, the defendant. The printer, who carried on 
 his business in Northumberland Court, had erected a 
 steam-press in his cellar, the wall of which abutted 
 on the Duke s princely mansion at Charing Cross. 
 Ludicrous it was to hear the extravagant terms in 
 which the counsel for the plaintiff and his witnesses 
 described the alleged nuisance the noise made by 
 this engine, quite horrid, sometimes resembling 
 thunder, at other times like a threshing-machine, 
 and then again like the rumbling of carts and wag 
 gons. With surpassing ability was the cause of the 
 defendant conducted by the Attorney-General (Cop 
 ley). The course of the trial is beside my present 
 purpose. Mi-. Donkin, the celebrated engineer, de 
 posed that there were not less than twenty engines 
 erected for printing in London. Simplifications of 
 the original invention had rendered the Printing 
 Machine applicable to the production of books as 
 well as newspapers. The second rain was beginning 
 to descend. In 1814 I was very far from a concep 
 tion of the extent in which the invention of the 
 Printing Machine would affect a future stage in my 
 working life. But in the boundless fertility of that 
 second rain I anticipated a wider scope for my pro 
 fessional labours. I had incurred new responsibilities, 
 
118 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 and had gained new motives for exertion, in marrying. 
 The Christmas of that year saw my once solitary 
 home lighted up with love and cheerfulness. 
 
 In February, 1815, a Bill was hurried through 
 Parliament which absolutely closed the ports against 
 the introduction of foreign corn till the price of wheat 
 should rise to eighty shillings a quarter. I rejoice to 
 see that I was fearless of the indignation which the 
 Windsor paper, circulating chiefly in an agricultural 
 district, would produce, when I wrote " It is hardly 
 fair that the landowner and cultivator should enter 
 Parliament with such a formidable power as the 
 united voice of the people will scarcely be able to 
 put down, and there demand that the price of wheat 
 should now be fixed at the average rate of a time of 
 war. There are many noble lords and right honour 
 able gentlemen who have doubled their rentals since 
 the year 1794, and there are many very thrifty agri 
 culturists who have purchased the estates which their 
 fathers only tilled, and have adjourned, with unsoiled 
 hands, from the oak-chair in the chimney-corner to 
 the velvet sofa in the drawing-room. Doubtless all 
 this is very agreeable to the parties themselves, and 
 worldly wisdom will blame no man for preferring 
 20,OOOZ. to 10,000, or a hunter and madeira to a 
 market-cart and ale. But then it is rather galling 
 to be told that all this is essentially necessary to our 
 existence and prosperity, and to hear it very gravely 
 asserted that we shall be all the happier and better 
 for being shortly allowed to get two loaves with the 
 money for which we now purchase three." 
 
 The " hunter and madeira " as contrasted with the 
 " market-cart and ale " of the old times, was not un 
 generously applied to the generation of Southern 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 119 
 
 farmers, who had sprung up in the days of protection 
 and paper currency. 
 
 The marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince 
 Leopold, on the 2nd of May, 1816, was an event in 
 which I took exceeding interest. It set me poetizing ; 
 for I was somewhat too apt to be moved into writing 
 verse on passing subjects, forgetting that poetry ought 
 to be almost exclusively conversant with the perma 
 nent and universal. My Mask, " The Bridal of the 
 Isles," whatever might have been its defects, was 
 not written in the spirit of a courtier ; for in the 
 Second Canto, in which I called up the shades of the 
 great British rulers of old, I put these lines in the 
 mouth of Alfred addressing the Genius of England : 
 
 " 0, I have watch d thy monarchs as they pass d, 
 Now leaping upward to my tempting throne, 
 Now toppling down in hateful civil strife, 
 Or sliding to the slumbers of the tomb ; 
 But never saw I one who fill d that seat 
 In rightful ministration, who might say, 
 * This is my couch of ease, my chair of joy, 
 This sceptre is a pleasure-charming rod 
 To call up all fresh luxuries around me. 
 The lofty soul, with reverend eye and meek, 
 "Would look upon the trappings of its state 
 As emblems of a fearful trust, that ask d 
 The smile of Heaven on self-denying virtue. 
 Yes ! I will hover round those youthful hearts, 
 Unblighted yet by power and with a voice 
 Borne on the ear by eveiy morning breeze, 
 Cry Live not for yourselves. " 
 
 I had a very pleasant, because a very character 
 istic, letter from Leigh Hunt about this Mask. He 
 complimented me by saying, "It is very crisp and 
 luxuriant, and shows that you possess in a great 
 degree my favourite part of the poetical spirit that 
 6 
 
120 PASSAGES OE A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 of enjoyment." Yes. It was that spirit of enjoy 
 ment which gave Hunt his perennial youth, amidst 
 worldly troubles as great as most men have endured ; 
 which, carried somewhat to excess, made him almost 
 indifferent to adversity in its stern realities. " But," 
 he continued, " I would rather talk with you about 
 these matters than write about them ; for when I get 
 upon poetry I feel my wings on, and do not like to 
 wait the zig-zag travelling of the pen." Happy 
 nature ! I did not cultivate his acquaintance as I 
 ought to have done in this fresh time of hope. I 
 knew him in later years when I was sobered ; but 
 when I had not lost the power of enjoyment in his 
 delightful conversation, so charming especially to 
 one who was also battling with the world in its 
 constant looking at the sunny side of human affairs. 
 
 The transition from joy at the auspicious marriage 
 of the Princess Charlotte, to the universal mourning 
 for her death, was not sudden in point of time, but it 
 nevertheless came upon the nation as an unexpected 
 blow, suspending all lesser interests of domestic 
 politics. The interval between May, 1816, and No 
 vember, 1817, was one of very serious aspects. The 
 Government and the People were not in accord ; 
 suffering and sedition went hand in hand ; dema 
 gogues flourished; spies were more than tolerated. 
 Of this unhappy period I shall have to speak in 
 another chapter. Let me at present advert to some 
 personal experiences at the funeral of the Princess 
 Charlotte, on Wednesday evening, the 19th of No 
 vember, which I thus related in a Supplementary 
 Number of "The Windsor Express," published on 
 the following morning. In this narrative I laid 
 aside the usual editorial style, and signed my name 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 121 
 
 as to facts which I was prepared individually to sub 
 stantiate : 
 
 " On the morning of Tuesday I received from one 
 of the Canons of the College of Windsor a ticket of 
 admission to the organ-loft of St. George s Chapel, to 
 witness the ceremonial of the late Princess Charlotte s 
 interment. This, I was given to understand, was 
 presented to me by the particular direction of the 
 Dean and Chapter, to allow me to make a faithful 
 report of the solemnities, and as a compliment to 
 the office of chief magistrate which my father holds 
 in the borough. At seven o clock this evening I 
 claimed an entrance at the outer gate of the lower 
 ward of the Castle, which was kept by two subalterns 
 of the Foot Guards, and a numerous body of rank 
 and file. Constables of the borough were also posted 
 here, but they were evidently considered as intruders 
 upon these unconstitutional guardians of the peace. 
 I was roughly thrust back against the wheels of the 
 carnages which were passing behind me, and told, in 
 common with many others who, like myself, had 
 tickets, that no more would be admitted. For an 
 hour I was buffeted about, with my unfortunate com 
 panions, who comprised some of the most respectable 
 inhabitants of Windsor ; sometimes collared by the 
 soldiers, sometimes jammed against the castle wall, 
 and at all times insulted by dogmatical assertions or 
 sneering indifference. We at last retired in despair, 
 having risked our lives till danger was no longer 
 endurable. Ten minutes before the procession 
 entered the gate, I procured access to one of the 
 officers, under the escort of a sentinel ; and having 
 represented the peculiar circumstances under which 
 I had obtained my ticket, and the duty which I 
 
123 PASSAGES OF A WORKLNG LIFE I 
 
 owed to tlae public to enforce my claim for admission, 
 requested that the order of exclusion might be with 
 drawn. I was haughtily repulsed. At this instant, 
 two military men, not on duty, with four ladies, were 
 passed through the gate without any other authority 
 than the dictum of the officer I was addressing. I 
 complained of the unjust partiality in a respectful 
 manner. For that presumption I was instantly 
 handed over to the next corporal, with orders to 
 take back that man. Collared like a felon, I was 
 forced along the line of foot-guards, and on reaching 
 the last soldier was thrust against a carriage like an 
 intrzsive hound." 
 
 Never shall I forget the feelings of that evening. 
 After my long detention in the vain endeavour to 
 assert my right of passing the outer gate, I waited to 
 look upon the street procession. When I came back 
 to my home, exhausted, boiling over with indigna 
 tion, I found my wife in a situation of extreme 
 danger. For some days she had been seriously ill. 
 The funeral procession had passed under our windows. 
 The lurid glare of the torches ; the roll of carriages ; 
 the tramp of horses, amidst the universal silence of 
 the crowd ; these, almost unendurable for any in 
 valid, who could hear all but who could not look out 
 upon a scene so solemn and so exciting, produced the 
 most alarming effects upon one who was at the 
 extreme point of weakness. By God s Providence, 
 our medical friend, a surgeon of the first eminence 
 in Windsor, returned with me to my house, having 
 been himself subjected to the outrages of the mili 
 tary. He was thus the means of bestowing such 
 immediate attentions upon his patient as probably 
 saved her in the dangerous crisis of that melan- 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 1.23 
 
 clioly November night. The one great and enduring 
 happiness of my life was to be preserved to me. 
 
 At this Royal Funeral, when a whole nation was 
 present in heart and mind, these military outrages 
 were not the sole disorders and indecencies. The 
 undertaker s men were unmistakeably drunk, as they 
 reeled up the steep Castle street. Within St. George s 
 Chapel there were struggles and murmurs, as in an 
 overcrowded pit at the theatre ; for three or four 
 hundred rank and file of the Guards were placed 
 from the western entrance to the extremity of the 
 nave, so as to prevent nine-tenths of the assemblage 
 admitted by tickets from seeing more of the 
 solemnity than they could have seen had the outer 
 walls of the Chapel been the barrier to their desires. 
 Just before the procession arrived, there was a noisy 
 conflict at the door of the Choir, which had ulterior 
 consequences. One of the Canons refused to admit 
 a confidential page of the Regent, who had been 
 commanded to notice and report to his royal master 
 how the ceremony was conducted. " It is our free 
 hold," said the Church Dignitary. " It is the Chapel 
 of the Order of the Garter," replied the offended 
 Ruler; " and until the clerical ministers of the 
 Order can behave better, they shall come down 
 from their accustomed seats in the stalls of the 
 Knights." 
 
 In my newspaper of the Saturday which followed 
 the Supplement of the 20th of November, I wrote an 
 article entitled " Excessive Employment of Soldiery 
 in a Religious Solemnity, and Abuses in Military 
 Power." My animadversion on "Abuses in Military 
 Power " was bitter enough in its general invective ; 
 but there was nothing that the epauletted puppies 
 
124 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 who talked of horsewhipping the newspaper-fellow 
 could have produced in a court of justice as a justi 
 fication of a new outrage. I have detailed this 
 occurrence at somewhat greater length than it pro 
 bably deserved ; but it presents a striking contrast 
 not only to the altered temper of the military in 
 these happier times, but to the manner in which the 
 conductors of the Press are now respected in the dis 
 charge of their useful functions as the accredited 
 representatives of the people. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HATEVER might have been the monotony 
 of the life of the editor of a provincial 
 journal in the mere discharge of his office 
 duties, I could always find an ever-chang 
 ing interest in the necessity for seeing many things 
 with my own eyes ; in making personal inquiries in 
 distant places as to the correctness of reputed occur 
 rences in fact, in being my own reporter. Much of 
 my time was spent on horseback. My ordinary 
 costume was knee-breeches and top-boots. My 
 varied out-door life was as healthful as it was 
 instructive. In these local operations the brain was 
 not heavily taxed. Education was going on. Some 
 exercise of the intellect was essential to report the 
 speeches at a public meeting. The facts exhibited 
 at a coroner s, inquest might be best dispatched in 
 that brief style which was once considered sufficient 
 for the London newspaper, but which is now dis 
 placed by the most wonderful accumulation of "horror 
 on horror s head." Sometimes, however, the country 
 newspaper might attempt to be graphic when it had 
 to record occurrences of an unusual nature ; and yet 
 the absolute limitation of space would often compel 
 rne to throw away the kernel of the picturesque to 
 give my readers the hard shell of the literal. 
 
 On the 4th of July, 1816, I rode out to Maiden 
 head Thicket to behold a remarkable proof of the 
 
126 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 alleged want of employment in the mining and 
 manufacturing districts. On the road from Henley 
 there was the halt of a cavalcade not such as the 
 poet and the novelist have so often described as the 
 halt of jovial pilgrims taking their morning meal in 
 the beechen shade ; but of a party of grim colliers 
 clustered round a waggon laden with coals, which 
 they had drawn for many miles, and whose further 
 progress was interrupted at the mandate of a Bow- 
 street magistrate. From Bilston Moor where the 
 furnaces of many iron-works no longer darkened the 
 air with their smoke, and the windlass of many a pit 
 was now idle forty-one men, having a leader on 
 horseback, had the day before passed through Oxford, 
 dragging the waggon in solemn silence, asking no 
 alms, but bearing a placard, on which was inscribed, 
 "Willing to work, but none of us will beg." Their 
 intention, as well as that of another party march 
 ing on the St. Alban s Road, was to proceed to 
 London, in the belief that the Prince Regent 
 could order them employment. At Maidenhead the 
 military were prepared for some dire conflict with 
 want and desperation. But Sir Richar d Birnie very 
 wisely went forward with two police-officers, finally 
 persuading these men to let their coals be taken into 
 Maidenhead, and to receive a handsome present 
 which would enable them to return to their homes. 
 They were punctilious in refusing to sell their coals. 
 The march of the blanketeers of Manchester in the 
 next year was not so quietly prevented. 
 
 There never was a problem more difficult of solu 
 tion, even by the soundest political economists of the 
 time, than that of the condition of the labouring 
 classes in 1816 and 1817. When I look back on 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 127 
 
 what I wrote on this overwhelming subject in the 
 last four years of the reign of George the Third, I 
 behold a succession of fallacies and half-truths pro 
 pounded with a sincere belief and with a benevolent 
 earnestness. I was groping my way, in common with 
 most public writers, in the thick darkness by which we 
 were surrounded. The text upon which I commonly 
 preached was from Southey not the Southey de 
 nounced by the "Anti-Jacobin" of 1797, but the 
 Southey of 1817, who denounced Byron and the 
 " Satanic School." The text was not in any great 
 degree an exaggerated description of the condition of 
 England. " We are arrived at that state in which the 
 extremes of inequality are become intolerable." The 
 fallacies and half-truths of the usual comment upon 
 this doctrine sprang from a narrow and one-sided 
 view of the causes of these extremes. 
 
 I maintained, not without reason, that the existence 
 of some radical disease in the condition of the labour 
 ing classes had been long indicated by the progressive 
 increase of the Poor Rates. I held that the prodigious 
 increase in the demands of pauperism, from the 
 million and a half sterling in 1776, to the eight 
 millions in 1815, was the consequence of some system 
 which, as it had multiplied the temporary sources of 
 profitable labour, had a natural tendency to multiply 
 population, without providing for the regular support 
 of the human beings which it called forth. I averred 
 that the mechanical improvements of the forty years 
 constituted that system. The war, which produced 
 a comparative monopoly of commerce, gave birth to a 
 new machinery to supply that monopoly. The manu 
 facturing system made no provision for that inevitable 
 period when the trading intercourse of the world 
 
128 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 would return to its accustomed channels, and man 
 kind would be free to use the same instruments of 
 commercial advantage that we had employed. The 
 system had called into action half a million of human 
 beings whom it had now unavoidably abandoned. 
 The State must therefore supply the means of life, 
 which the ordinary modes of employment could no 
 longer give. 
 
 I had never seen the practical working of the 
 manufacturing system, and thus I talked, as it) was 
 the fashion to talk when Southey wrote, "The nation 
 that builds upon manufactures sleeps upon gun 
 powder." But I was perfectly familiar with the 
 condition of the agricultural districts. I held, truly, 
 that the organization of society in Great Britian had 
 been completely changed by the system of inclosures 
 and agricultural improvements. These were forced 
 on by the increased demand for corn, originating in 
 the extraordinary consumption and waste of war, and 
 in the increased wants of an increased manufactur 
 ing population. I wept over the diminution of the 
 labour which was once required by imperfect modes 
 of cultivation. I grieved over the extinguishing of 
 those indirect means of support which supplied the 
 primitive wants of the ancient peasantry. I missed 
 the old commons on which I used to ramble in my 
 boyhood. I saw no longer the half-starved cow 
 of the cottager tethered before the broken-down 
 hedge of his slovenly garden, and the pig lying on 
 the dunghill that blocked up the dirty approach to 
 his ruinous hovel. The additional patch of garden- 
 ground that was allotted to him seemed to me but a 
 poor compensation for the heath where he once might 
 freely cut the turf for his fire. I grieved the grief of 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 129 
 
 ignorance when I quoted the population returns of 
 1811, to prove that while two or three millions of 
 additional mouths had been maintained from the 
 land, some thousands less had been maintained upon 
 the land. The interests of the consumers appeared 
 to me small in comparison with those of the pro 
 ducers. Had I looked more deeply into the matter, 
 I might have mourned over a greater evil than; the 
 destruction of the semi-barbarous independence of 
 the squatters who had regarded the heaths and 
 commons as their proper and peculiar inheritance. 
 I might have reasonably mourned that the Agricul 
 tural Labourers were slaves to the Poor Laws 
 brought into the world as paupers by the improvi 
 dent encouragement to early marriages under the 
 allowance-system ; kept through life as paupers by 
 receiving as alms what they had fairly earned as 
 wages ; deprived of profitable employment, and 
 hunted from parish to parish, by the laws of Settle 
 ment ; punished with the most unrelenting severity 
 if they should knock down a rabbit. I might at 
 that time have protested against the bulk of the 
 population being kept in the most degrading igno 
 rance, by the dread which then very generally pre 
 vailed in rural districts, that to educate the labourer 
 was to unfit him for the duties (they might have said 
 the degradations) of " that state of life into which it 
 had pleased God to call him " the formula of conso 
 lation always addressed to the poor for the repression 
 of any impious desire to better their condition. 
 
 The experience of all men, whether in the South 
 or the North, was sufficient to show that a superfluous 
 population was now pressing upon the capital devoted 
 to the maintenance of labour. But, in that time of 
 bold and impudent assertion, there were believers ever. 
 
130 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 in Cobbett when he said "I am quite convinced that 
 the population, upon the whole, has not increased, 
 in England, one single soul since I was born." Still 
 less would many doubt the truth of his description 
 of the Labourers Paradise in the days " before they 
 were stripped of the commons, of their kettles, their 
 bedding, their beer-barrels." 
 
 Whatever might be my heresies as to the best 
 modes of bettering the condition of the Poor, I never 
 had any doubt of the advantages of educating them. 
 It was not often that I came into contact with men 
 who were capable of uniting strong benevolent im 
 pulses with the broad view of the consequences of 
 making the pauper more comfortable than the inde 
 pendent labourer. A sort of instinctive horror of the 
 Malthusian doctrine was at the bottom of the thoughts 
 of many sensible persons, who, in spite of their own 
 convictions, were for the most liberal parish allow 
 ances according to the number of children in a family, 
 and for the best dietary within the Workhouse walls. 
 Such were, to some extent, the convictions of one of 
 the shrewdest and most warm-hearted of self-taught 
 men with whom it was ever my happiness to become 
 acquainted. Mr. Ingalton had a flourishing business 
 as a shoemaker at Eton. His son, a young artist of 
 great promise, was for some years the most intimate 
 companion of my leisure ; and he is one of the few 
 whom time has spared to show me how justly I 
 esteemed him. In his painting-room I have had 
 many a friendly argument with his intelligent father. 
 There was another occasional visitor of that painting- 
 room, who was ready to discuss controverted subjects 
 of social economy, with a perfect theoretical know 
 ledge, but with the practical earnestness of a Christian 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 131 
 
 love for his fellow-creatures. Often have I listened 
 with real delight to an instructive dialogue between 
 the refined scholar and the thoughtful tradesman, 
 who was not wanting in book-knowledge but was 
 stronger in his mother-wit. I see his stately figure 
 in his working garb fresh from the " cutting out " 
 of his back-shop standing side by side with the tall 
 and thin clergyman before his son s easel, and dis 
 coursing, with no ordinary knowledge of the prin 
 ciples of Art, upon the composition of the " Cottage 
 interior " or the " Village Concert." The characters 
 of the English scenes which his son painted, in the 
 days of Wilkie, were studies from life ; and thus the 
 transition of talk was natural enough from the picture 
 to the reality. The accomplished divine, who was 
 not unfamiliar with many an abode of poverty, was 
 a patient listener to every plea for tenderness to the 
 improvident, and of compassion for the ignorant fol 
 lowers of things evil. But he believed in more en 
 during helps than casual charity. A few years before, 
 he had proclaimed the great principle, that "the only 
 true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents 
 in bettering their own condition, and to supply them, 
 uot with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent 
 energy Many avenues to an improved con 
 dition are open to one whose faculties are enlarged 
 and exercised ; he sees his own interest more clearly, 
 he pursues it more steadily, and he does not study 
 immediate gratification at the expense of bitter and 
 late repentance, or mortgage the labour of his future 
 life without an adequate return." * A year or two 
 later, I had a more intimate knowledge of this 
 admirable expositor of principles which have even- 
 * " Records of Creation," 1816. 
 
132 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE : 
 
 tually triumphed over the fears of the rich and the 
 doubts of the learned. But in yielding up some 
 prejudices to the gentle persuasiveness of the Fellow 
 of Eton who, by his recent sermons in the College 
 Chapel had produced a marked effect in the moral 
 conduct of five hundred youths T could scarcely 
 then have believed that I was receiving lessons of 
 practical wisdom from a future Archbishop of Can 
 terbury, when I was an earnest listener to John Bird 
 Suinner. 
 
 At the Lady Day of 1818 I was placed in a position 
 to acquire a somewhat enlarged experience of the 
 working of the Poor Laws. My father, as Chief 
 Magistrate, nominated me one of the Overseers of 
 the Parish of Windsor. He wished me to become 
 familiar with public business ; and although the 
 appointment was not much to my taste I soon came 
 to acknowledge that he was right. I could scarcely 
 have foreseen the benefit that such experience, how 
 ever limited, would be to me in my future profes 
 sional pursuits. As there is no man from whom 
 something may not be learnt, even in standing with 
 him under a gateway in a shower of rain, so there is 
 no public office, however little elevated above that of 
 the Constable, and far below the grandeur of the 
 Justice of the Peace, from which he who sets about 
 the performance of its duties in a right spirit may 
 not acquire some practical wisdom to fit him for a 
 higher sphere of action. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 T this period, when I was working energe 
 tically at parish affairs in addition to my 
 ordinary business, I was equally busied 
 with literary schemes. The practical and 
 the ideal had possession of my mind at one and the 
 same time, and had no contention for superiority. I 
 may truly say and I say it for the encouragement 
 of any young man who is sighing over the fetters of 
 his daily labour, and pining for weeks and months of 
 uninterrupted study that I have found through life 
 that the acquisition of knowledge, and a regular 
 course of literary employment, are far from being 
 incompatible with commercial pursuits. I doubt 
 whether, if I had been all author or all publisher, I 
 should have succeeded better in either capacity. It 
 is true that these my occupations were homogeneous ; 
 but I question whether that condition is necessary in 
 any case in a lawyer s, for example where there is 
 sufficient elasticity of mind to turn readily out of 
 the main line to the loop-line (how could I have 
 expressed this in the days before Stephenson T), and 
 sufficient steadiness of purpose to return to it. In 
 my time of humble journalism at Windsor, I was 
 constantly devising some magnificent scheme of books 
 that I thought the world wanted ; in which opinion, 
 it is most probable, I should have found no encou- 
 rager in the cautious experience of " The Row " or 
 
 
134 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 in the venturous liberality of Albemarle Street. 
 One small project 1 carried out myself without com 
 mercial aid. 
 
 Keats has described his acquaintance with our 
 grand old poets : 
 
 " Oft had I travell d in the realms of gold." 
 
 Now and then I came across a volume which I could 
 take up again and again, even whilst Byron was sti 
 mulating me with his "Corsair" and his "Giaour," 
 and whilst Wordsworth was awakening a more pro 
 found sense of the higher objects of poetry. Such 
 a volume was Shakspere s "Sonnets," rarely pub 
 lished with the Plays, and known only to a few 
 enthusiasts who did not believe, with Steevens, 
 that they were sentimental rubbish. Such was 
 " England s Parnassus," which I borrowed, and longed 
 to appropriate. No publisher had then thought it 
 worth while to reprint Drayton, or Wither, or 
 Herrick, or Herbert. The delight which Keats 
 expressed in his noble Sonnet upon the discovery of 
 Chapman s " Homer " was mine, when I first lighted 
 upon Fairfax s " Tasso." I had entered a new realm 
 of gold. To me that small folio the first edition, 
 revised by Fairfax himself was a precious treasure. 
 There had been no edition of the book for seventy 
 years. Resolved that I would achieve the honour of 
 reprinting it, I issued an Advertisement, in October, 
 1817, in which I said, "Dr. Johnson, with somewhat 
 of his characteristic temerity, ventured to predict 
 that the Tasso of Fairfax would never be reprinted. 
 If the national taste in poetry had not mended since 
 the days of that critic, his prophetic flattery of Hoole 
 would not yet have been disproved." The produc- 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 135 
 
 tion of two small volumes at our Windsor Press of 
 the exquisite translation that had been forgotten 
 since Collins had rejoiced to hear Tasso s harp " by 
 English Fairfax strung," was received by a few critics 
 as creditable to the taste of a country printer. The 
 editing of this volume was a pleasant occupation to 
 me. I prefixed to it a Life of Tasso, and a Life of 
 Fairfax. In that of Fairfax I inserted an Eclogue 
 which was first printed in Mrs. Cooper s " Muses 
 Library" a volume which had become scarce, and 
 which I found at the London Institution. Mr. 
 Upcott was then the librarian in the new building, 
 which, in its handsome elevation and its judicious 
 interior arrangements, did credit to the architect, 
 then a young man Mr. William Brooks, the father 
 of Mr. Shirley Brooks. My reprint appeared a little 
 before that of Mr. Singer ; or probably I might have 
 shrunk from the competition. 
 
 Every now and then, however, my newspaper 
 opened subjects of a new and interesting character, 
 which engaged my attention for a time. Such 
 was the question of inquiry into the Endowed 
 Charities of the country, which in 1818 had as 
 sumed a national importance. By the strenuous 
 exertions of Mr. Brougham a Commission was 
 appointed first to inquire into charities connected 
 with Education, and then into all charities. Pend 
 ing the results of this investigation, a volume was 
 published by a member of the Bar, Mr. Francis 
 Charles Parry, on the Charities of Berkshire. Such 
 an account as this gentleman collected, somewhat 
 too full of vague charges of abuses, determined me to 
 undertake a really useful labour that of carefully 
 searching all the documents relating to the charities 
 
136 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 of Windsor, and of publishing them in the most 
 complete form in my newspaper. It was an honour 
 to my native town that no information was withheld 
 from me ; and that I could discover no misappro 
 priation of bequests, and no violation of " the will of 
 the founder." JSTor was there any example of that 
 species of legal construction of "the will of the 
 founder" which has built up the magnificence of 
 many of the London Companies. Vast are their 
 rent-rolls. In days when houses and lands were not 
 worth a twentieth part of their present nominal 
 value, these magnates became the inheritors of many 
 a fertile acre and many an improveable tenement, in 
 trust that they should pay, for defined charitable 
 purposes, a particular amount of pounds sterling, 
 annually and for ever probably the then rent of 
 those lands and houses leaving something for need 
 ful charges. The rents of the fourteenth, or fifteenth, 
 or sixteenth centuries the defined sums are justly 
 paid. The surplus of the rents of the nineteenth 
 century, increased twenty-fold or even fifty-fold, are 
 partially employed for useful purposes ; but they go 
 very far towards the cost of the turtle and loving- 
 cups upon which so much of the public welfare 
 depends. Though Windsor had no flagrant abuses, 
 a few of our charities furnished an example of the 
 necessity of giving large powers to Charity Commis 
 sioners, if not for authorizing the Government, to 
 deal with some benevolent provisions of ancient times 
 in a way better adapted to the wants of modern 
 society. But the greater number were not wholly 
 for past generations in their usefulness. There was 
 a Free School, with a considerable permanent income, 
 where fifty boys and girls were educated and clothed. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 137 
 
 It did not belong to the then much abused class of 
 Grammar Schools of which there were several speci 
 mens within my knowledge where the clergyman, 
 who was also the schoolmaster, put the funds into his 
 pocket because the farmers and labourers sons did 
 not want to learn Latin. The poor children of our 
 borough were taught those humble accomplishments 
 which Sir William Curtis eulogised as the three Rs 
 Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic. With the aid of 
 supplementary endowments for Apprenticing Poor 
 Boys and Rewarding Diligent Apprentices, many of 
 these lads became thriving tradesmen. I could point 
 to one man whom I am proud to call my friend, 
 who came to my father to be apprenticed with his 
 blue lively on his back ; received the reward upon 
 the faithful completion of his indentures; pursued 
 the trade on his own account in which he had been 
 a valuable assistant ; is now not unknown to the 
 world, as having, before the days of railroads, orga 
 nised a newspaper-system which fought against space 
 and timo to give the earliest intelligence to the 
 Liverpool Exchange; and has become himself a 
 newspaper proprietor, and one of the chief mediums 
 for the journalistic communication between England 
 and her Colonies as well as with North and South 
 America. Honoured be the memory of Archbishop 
 Laud, who by his will thus made provision not 
 onlv for the apprenticeship of "children of honest 
 poor people ;" but laid the foundations of their future 
 prosperity. Many a young woman, through his pro 
 vident care, has kept her position in " the faithful 
 service of the antique world," and has not rushed 
 into premature wedlock, sustained by the hope of re 
 ceiving a marriage -portion on the condition of having 
 
138 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 served the same master or mistress for three years. 
 Let us cherish the memory of Laud for the sake of 
 his Berkshire Charities. What matters it to us that 
 we have outgrown his politics and his polemics ! 
 May we never, in dreams of universal philanthropy, 
 believe that we are growing in true philosophy when 
 we attempt to exclude individual sympathies for the 
 lowly by larger aspirations for the human race. 
 Above all, let us not presume to obliterate the Past, 
 by turning aside from those who have helped, each 
 according to his lights, to build up a wider Present 
 erring men short-sighted enemies to progress in 
 the abstract, but nevertheless, in their practical bene 
 volence, working for the " one increasing purpose " of 
 human improvement. 
 
 Social Science in 1818 had a very small attend 
 ance of disciples in her schools. For an inquiring 
 few, she had her Primers and her Junior Class 
 Books ; and in her inner courts for the initiated, 
 Bentham was preaching in a language the farthest 
 removed from popular comprehension. Komilly, 
 in the House of Commons, had been labouring for 
 ten years to amend the Criminal Laws. His 
 valuable life was closed prematurely before he 
 had achieved any marked victory over the system 
 under which the death penalty was capriciously 
 enforced, to inspire "a vague terror" amongst the 
 whole criminal population. The prisons were nur 
 series of crime. The detective police were amongst 
 crime s chief encouragers. Forgery flourished above 
 all other crimes, for the Government offered the 
 temptation whilst they unsparingly hanged the 
 tempted. The Game Laws raised up pilfering pea 
 sants into gangs of brigands. Smuggling was 
 nurtured into the dignity of commercial enterprise, 
 by protective duties so absurdly high that a wall 
 
THE FIEST EPOCH. 139 
 
 of brass could not have kept out the brandies and 
 lace arid silk that the Continent was ready to pour 
 in. The great bulk of the population was wholly 
 ignorant and partly brutal. The Church had not 
 awakened from its long sleep. If the schoolmaster 
 was abroad, he was rather seeking for work than 
 doing it. Looking as a journalist upon our social 
 condition, I was sometimes unhappy and desponding. 
 My dissatisfaction found a vent in letters from an 
 imaginary correspondent : 
 
 " The prevailing feeling which a newspaper excites 
 in my breast, without the indulgence of any sickly 
 sensibility, is that of melancholy. It presents a 
 gloomy portrait of our species. It is a living herald 
 of the bad passions of individuals and the mistakes 
 of society. It discovers little of the better part of 
 mankind, for the most elevated virtue is the most 
 unobtrusive. The atmosphere of vice is a broad 
 and visible darkness overspreading the land, through 
 which the gaunt spectres of crime glare fearfully 
 upon us. The newspaper applies its microscopic 
 eyes to these miserable objects ; like Tarn O Shanter, 
 it looks upon their secret revels it notes every 
 movement of the infuriated dance ; it traces the 
 progress of evil from its mazy beginning to its hor 
 rible close ; it anatomizes the deformities of the 
 heart, and encases them for public exhibition. 
 Should these spectacles be withheld from the 
 general eye? Unquestionably not. They administer, 
 indeed, to that love of strong excitement which 
 characterizes the human mind in every state, but 
 which operates most powerfully upon a highly re 
 fined community and so far they are mischievous. 
 But still they have a voice of edification. They 
 
140 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 summon us all to the labour of opposing that flood 
 of iniquity which threatens to break down the dykes 
 and mounds of our social institutions ; they call us 
 to eradicate the canker which interrupts the natural 
 spring of moral health. The evil is in the root. 
 The institutions for the prevention and punishment 
 of crime are founded upon a wrong view of human 
 nature ; they have a direct tendency to confirm and 
 multiply the effects of depraved ignorancfe. 
 
 " Your weekly map of busy life reaches me in 
 the solitude of the most beautiful and the least 
 visited part of Windsor Forest. This morning I 
 rose ere the sun had lighted the autumnal foliage 
 with a brighter yellow and a richer brown. My 
 walk was in the silent woods. All around me was 
 cheerfulness. The birds of song were pouring forth 
 their instinctive gratitude for returning day the 
 noisy rooks had a spirit of gladness in their whirling 
 flights the graceful deer glided before me with 
 fearless nimbleness. My heart expanded at the 
 enjoyments of these humble beings. Surely, I ex 
 claimed, every creature that lives in conformity to 
 its nature is happy. I returned to my home. Your 
 journal was on my breakfast-table. The calendar 
 of the Old Bailey met my view. I read of the 
 condemnation of thirty-five persons to the penalty 
 of death, and of nearly two hundred to lesser degrees 
 of punishment. I considered that these scenes are 
 repeated every six weeks !* The impressions of my 
 morning walk had a redoubled force. I felt assured 
 that man was not destined to crime and misery. 
 
 * The Central Criminal Court was not established till 1834. The 
 Sessions of the Old Bailey, previous to that change, were held 
 eight times a year for the trial of offences committed in Middlesex. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 141 
 
 Are, then, these penal modes of counteracting the 
 corruptions of society suggested by reason and bene 
 volence ? " 
 
 I believe that at this period I got into a morbid 
 state of mind, by thinking too much of 
 
 " the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world." 
 
 I had no large and definite object of ambition. My 
 occupations were not engrossing enough to carry 
 me away from dreamy speculations. I pored over 
 the Platonic writers, Proclus and Plotinus, in Tay 
 lor s translations ; and accepted the philosophy of 
 which Coleridge was the modern expositor, as far 
 nobler than the doctrine of ideas derived from sen 
 sation. I sometimes thought that the great mysteries 
 of human life were clearing up ; and then again I 
 relapsed into bewilderment. May I venture to dig 
 out from its recesses a sonnet which represents my 
 state of mind at this crisis, when the blessing of the 
 primal curse was not sufficiently laid upon me ? 
 
 " Unquiet thoughts, ye wind about my heart 
 In many-tangled webs. My daily toil, 
 The obstinate cares of life, the vain turmoil 
 
 Of getting dross and spending, bear their part 
 In this entanglement ; and if my mind 
 Shake off its chains, and, free as mountain-wind, 
 
 Repose on Nature s pure maternal breast, 
 Interpreting her fresh and innocent looks 
 Discoursing truth and love clearer than books, 
 
 Thoughts are still weaving webs of my unrest. 
 
 O grant me, "Wisdom, to behold thee near, 
 Deep, clear, reveal d as one all-perfect whole ; 
 
 Or give me back the sleep to worldlings dear 
 Thy glimmerings disturb my heated soul." 
 
 Turning from metaphysics to hard realities, and 
 looking upon the apparently interminable warfare 
 
142 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 between Ignorance and Power, I could perceive very 
 few reconciling principles of social policy, or influen 
 tial mediators between the lawless and the governing 
 classes. 
 
 As early as 1814 I had the notiori of becoming a 
 Popular Educator. I have a letter before me, written 
 on the 24th of January of that year to the more than 
 friend to whom I laid open all my feelings and plans, 
 in which I said " I want to consult you about a 
 cheap work we think of publishing in weekly num 
 bers, for the use of the industrious part of the com 
 munity, who have neither money to buy, nor leisure 
 to read, bulky and expensive books. It will consist 
 of plain Essays on points of duty; the Evidences of 
 Christianity ; Selections from the works of the most 
 approved English Divines ; Abstracts of the Laws 
 and Constitution of Great Britain ; History ; Infor 
 mation on useful Arts and Sciences; and Select 
 Pieces of Entertainment." The scheme was con 
 stantly in my mind ; and it was often present in 
 day-drearns of a more extended area of employment 
 than I then occupied, especially after I had acquired 
 a little familiarity with the general ignorance of the 
 working classes, knew something practical of their 
 habits, saw in some few a desire for knowledge, and 
 felt how ill their intellectual wants could be supplied. 
 Now and then, on our market-day, in strange juxta 
 position with the brown earthenware and the coarse 
 brushes of the itinerant dealers, would be placed 
 upon a stall the old dog s-eared volume, and the new 
 flimsy numbers of the book-hawker. I have seen 
 with pity some aspiring artisan spend his sixpence 
 upon an antiquated manual of history or geography, 
 to which he would devote his brief and hard-earned 
 hours of leisure, gaining thus the " two grains of 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 143 
 
 wheat hid in two bushels of chaff." Or I have 
 beheld some careful matron tempted to buy the 
 first number of the " Pilgrim s Progress " or the 
 " Book of Martyrs " perhaps one less discreet 
 bestowing her attention upon the " History of Witch 
 craft " or the " Lives of the Highwaymen " each 
 arranging with the Canvasser for a monthly delivery 
 till the works should be completed, when they would 
 find themselves in possession of the, dearest books 
 that came from the press, even in the palmy days of 
 expensive luxuries. For the young, such stalls would 
 offer the worst sort of temptations in sixpenny Novels 
 with a coloured frontispiece ; whose very titles would 
 invite to a familiarity with the details of crime of 
 murders and adulteries, of violence and fraud, of 
 licentiousness revelling in London, and innocence be 
 trayed in the country something much more harmful 
 than the old-world stories, the dreams and divina 
 tions, of the ancient chap-books. Would the book- 
 hawker of that time, with his costly, meagre, 
 useless, and worse than useless, wares, be able to 
 satisfy the intellectual cravings of any young man 
 sincerely desirous profitably to exercise his newly- 
 acquired ability to read ? 
 
 I shall have to relate, in the next chapter, how, 
 nearly six years after the idea of a Cheap Miscellany 
 had been gradually shaping itself in my habitual 
 thoughts, but still without any notion of an imme 
 diate practical result, I suddenly made my first ex 
 cursion into the almost untrodden field of cheap and 
 wholesome Literature for the People. The necessity 
 for some educational efforts to counteract the influence 
 of dangerous teachers had become more and more 
 apparent. The Government was watchful. It had 
 
 7 
 
144 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 the power of repressing tumult by the military arm, 
 and of suspending the public liberty for the discovery 
 of conspirators. But it did nothing, and encouraged 
 nothing, that indicated a paternal Government. There 
 Were crafty men in most towns, who stimulated dis 
 content into outrage, and for a sufficient motive would 
 betray their associates. Such a man was living at 
 Eton. Upon the trial of the wretched participators 
 in the Cato-Street Conspiracy, Arthur Thistlewood 
 denounced this man, as " the contriver, the instigator, 
 the entrapper." We are told, from unquestionable 
 authority, in the " Life of Lord Sidmouth," that the 
 principal informant of the Home-Office "was a 
 modeller and itinerant vendor of images, named 
 Edwards, who first opened himself at Windsor, as 
 early as the month of November, to Sir Herbert 
 Taylor, then occupying an important official situation 
 in the establishment of George III." This Edwards 
 was not an itinerant vendor of images. I have 
 spoken with him in his small shop in the High 
 Street of Eton perhaps at the very time when he 
 was plotting and betraying. He had some ingenuity 
 as a modeller ; and produced a very tolerable statu 
 ette of Dr. Keate, in his cocked hat. His sale of 
 this little model was considerable amongst the junior 
 boys of Eton College not exactly out of reverence 
 for their head-master but as a mark to be pelted at. 
 Does any copy exist of this historical Portrait ? The 
 subject of the little bust anxl its modeller are both 
 historical. They each belong to a state of society of 
 which we have, happily, got rid. The schoolmaster, 
 albeit a ripe scholar and a gentleman, belonged to 
 the past times, when Education, like Government, was 
 conducted upon that system of terror which was the 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 145 
 
 easiest system for the administrators. " The greatest 
 happiness for the greatest number," whether of boys 
 or men, had to be discovered. In the scholastic, or 
 political, exaltation of the aristocratic system, there 
 was ample scope for the few clever and aspiring. To 
 these the patrician and the pedagogue graciously 
 afforded encouragement and substantial patronage. 
 But the mass of the dull, the unambitious, and the 
 reckless, were left to their own capacity for drifting 
 into evil If the misdoers came under the imperfect 
 cognizance of the authorities, they were heavily 
 punished as a salutary terror to others. The flog 
 ging-block was the first step to personal degra 
 dation in the school ; the prison, in the State. If 
 these did not answer, the school was ready with 
 expulsion ; the State with the gallows. One essen 
 tial difference there was in the two systems. The 
 honour of the Etonian was proof against spydom and 
 treachery as regarded his fellows. In the terror- 
 stricken politics of that time there was verge enough 
 for the instigator and entrapper. I have written 
 that Sir Herbert Taylor, whose honour was unim 
 peachable, was utterly incapable of suggesting to the 
 spy that he should incite the wretched associates in 
 the conspiracy to the pursuance of their frantic de 
 signs. ("Popular History of England," vol. viii. p. 
 160.) Yet, if I remember rightly the face of George 
 Edwards, Sir Herbert Taylor might have seen that 
 he was a rogue by nature. This diminutive animal, 
 with downcast look and stealthy face, did not calculate 
 badly when he approached one who, although bred in 
 court-habits, had a solid foundation of honesty which 
 made him unsuspicious. Sir "Herbert was a man not 
 versed in the common affairs of the outer world. 
 
146 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 He had been the depository of many a political secret 
 which he could confide to no friend. Shy, painfully 
 cautious, I have heard him break down in the most 
 simple address to the electors when he first stood for 
 Windsor ; and yet a man of real ability. Imagine a 
 crafty mechanic procuring access to him at the 
 Castle as the starving man of taste a plaster cast 
 of his workmanship carefully produced the guinea 
 about to be proffered and then a whisper of some 
 terrible Secret which he could disclose at the peril 
 of his life all the outer evidences of contrition, and 
 the resolve to make a clean breast. Imagine this 
 repeated day by day with the plot-haunted Lord 
 Sidmouth eagerly calling for more evidence, and 
 urging Sir Herbert Taylor to palter with this devil, 
 and not hand him over to the Privy Council, who 
 might have crushed the cockatrice before the egg 
 was hatched. We may imagine all this ; and yet 
 acquit Sir Herbert Taylor of a participation in the 
 guilt which too often attaches to those, in all ages, 
 who have fostered treason in waiting for overt acts. 
 
 Before the outbreak of the Conspiracy, an event 
 occurred, which, although not unexpected, nor fraught 
 with consequences unforeseen, opened a further cer 
 tain prospect of political disquiet. The death of 
 George the Third took place on the evening of Satur 
 day, the 29th of January, 1820. The Duke of Kent, 
 his fourth son, had died only six days before. The 
 Regent became King ; the Duke of York was the 
 Presumptive Heir to the Throne ; the Duke of 
 Clarence the next in succession. The infant daughter 
 of the Duke of Kent would succeed, if the three 
 elder brothers of her father should die without issue. 
 The position of George the Fourth and Queen Caro- 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 147 
 
 line might again open that miserable " Book " which 
 the public welfare required to be for ever shut. 
 
 The Funeral of George the Third appeared to me 
 like the close of a long series of reminiscences. 
 Windsor had to me been associated with the loud 
 talk and the good-natured laugh of a portly gentle 
 man with a star on his breast, whom I sometimes 
 ran against in my childhood ; with a venerable per 
 sonage, blind, but cheerful, who sat erect on a led 
 horse, as I had s.een him in my youth ; with the dim 
 idea of my manhood, that in rooms of the Castle 
 which no curiosity could penetrate, there sat an old 
 man with a long beard, bereft of every attribute of 
 rank, who occasionally talked wildly or threw himself 
 about frantically, and sometimes awoke recollections 
 of happier days by striking a few chords on his piano. 
 Then came the final pageant. It was a Poem rather 
 than a show. The Lying-in- State was something 
 higher than undertaker s art. As I passed through 
 St. George s Hall, I thought of the last display of 
 regal pomp in that room the Installation of 1805 
 when at the banquet the Sovereign stood up and 
 pledged his knights, and the knights, in full cups of 
 gold, invoked health and happiness on the Sovereign. 
 The throne on which George the Third then sat was 
 now covered with funeral draperies. I went on into 
 the King s Guard-Chamber. The room was darkened 
 there was no light but that of the flickering wood- 
 fires which burnt on an ancient hearth on each side, 
 On the ground lay the beds on which the Yeomen of 
 the Guard had slept during the night. They stood 
 in their grand old dresses of state, with broad scarves 
 of crape across their breasts, and crape on their 
 halberds. As the red light of the burning brands 
 
148 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 gleamed on their rough faces, and glanced ever and 
 anon upon the polished mail of the Black Prince, 
 on the bruised armour of the soldiers of the Plan- 
 tagenets, and on the matchlocks and bandoleers of 
 the early days of modern warfare, some of the reality 
 of the Present passed into visions of the Past. I 
 thought of Edward of Windsor, the great builder of 
 the Castle, deserted in his last moments. I thought 
 of other " sad stories of the deaths of kings." I came 
 back to the immediate interest of the scene before 
 me, by remembering that not one of the long line of 
 English sovereigns before George the Third had died 
 at Windsor. I passed on into the chamber of death. 
 All here was comparatively modern. The hangings 
 of purple cloth which hid West s gaudy pictures of 
 the Institution of the Order of the Garter ; the wax- 
 lights on silver sconces ; the pages standing by the 
 side of the coffin ; the Lord of the Bedchamber sitting 
 at its head ; much of this was upholstery work, 
 and did not affect the imagination, except in con 
 nexion with the solemn silence, a stillness unbroken, 
 even when rustic feet, unused to tread on carpets, 
 passed by the bier, awe-struck. 
 
 One such Royal Funeral as I had previously seen 
 was not essentially different from another. The out 
 door ceremonial at the interment of George the Third 
 was not readily to be forgotten. It was a walking 
 procession. The night was dark and misty. Vast 
 crowds were assembled in the Lower Ward of the 
 Castle, hushed and expectant. A platform had been 
 erected from the Grand Entrance of the Castle to 
 the Western Entrance of St. George s Chapel. It 
 was lined on each side by a single file of the Guards. 
 A signal-rocket is fired. Every soldier lights a torch, 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 149 
 
 and the massive towers and the delicate pinnacles 
 stand out in the red glare. Minute guns are now 
 heard in the distance. Will those startling voices 
 never cease ? Expectation is at its height. A flourish 
 of trumpets is heard, and then the roll of muffled 
 drums. A solemn dirge comes upon the ear, nearer 
 and nearer. The funeral-car glides slowly along the 
 platform without any perceptible aid from human or 
 mechanical power. The dirge ceases for a little while ; 
 and then again the trumpets and the muffled drums 
 sound alternately. Again the dirge softly breath 
 ing flutes and clarionets mingling their notes with 
 " the mellow horn " and then a dead silence ; for 
 the final resting-place is reached. Heralds and ban 
 ners and escutcheons touch not the heart. But 
 the Music! That is something grander than the 
 picturesque. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAY trace my first venture, as an Editor 
 and Publisher, into the dimly -descried 
 region of Popular Literature, to a paper 
 which I wrote in the Windsor Express of 
 December 11, 18] 9, headed "Cheap Publications." 
 In this article I set forth, as one of the most re 
 markable, and in some degree most fearful "signs 
 of the times," the excessive spread of cheap publi 
 cations almost exclusively directed to the united 
 object of inspiring hatred of the Government and 
 contempt of the Religious Institutions of the country. 
 I noticed the singleness of purpose, in connexion with 
 the commercial rivalry, with which this object had 
 been pursued. With Cobbett s "Twopenny Register" 
 a race was run in London by Wooller s " Black 
 Dwarf," " The Republican," " The Medusa s Head/ 
 " The Cap of Liberty," and many more of the same 
 stamp ; whilst every large manufacturing town had 
 its own peculiar vehicle of seditious and infidel 
 opinions. I had mentioned in a previous article 
 that a Manchester paper was advertising a catalogue 
 of books, occupying one column, nearly the whole 
 of which, aiming at the overthrow of Christianity, 
 " are all published in numbers," at a price accessible 
 even to the unhappy mechanics who labour sixteen 
 hours a-day for less than a shilling. I continued 
 my essay on " Cheap Publications " by adverting to 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 151 
 
 the rapid advances that had been made during the 
 previous twenty years in the Education of the Poor, 
 upon systems of instruction under which a consider 
 able proportion of young men moving in the working 
 classes had grown up. It was amongst these persons, 
 possessing a talent unknown to their fathers per 
 haps a little ardent and presumptuous, and certainly 
 craving after information with a passionate desire 
 that might become either a blessing or a curse that 
 cheap publications had been most widely diffused. 
 The anarchists of that day were a subtle and acute 
 race. They had watched the progress of knowledge 
 amongst the people. Their publications teemed with 
 allusions to the increased intelligence of the working 
 classes. "There is a new power in society, and they 
 have combined to give that power a direction. The 
 work must be taken out of their hands." 
 
 After the lapse of more than forty years, I feel 
 that a desire to exhibit some characteristics of the 
 tentative process by which useful knowledge was 
 then to be diffused will excuse me for giving a longer 
 extract from this essay. 
 
 " We have already said, and it is perhaps necessary 
 to repeat it, that there is a new power entrusted to 
 the great mass of the working people, and that it is 
 daily becoming of wider extent and greater impor 
 tance. It has been most wisely and providently 
 agreed to give that power one principal direction by 
 interweaving it with religious knowledge and feel 
 ings, that they might thus blend with the whole cur 
 rent of mature thought, and sanctify the possession 
 of the keys of learning to useful and innocent ends. 
 We are yet disposed to think that this is not all 
 which the creation of such a new and extraordinary 
 
152 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE; 
 
 power demands. Knowledge must have its worldly 
 as well as its spiritual range ; it looks towards 
 Heaven, but it treads upon the earth. The mass 
 of useful books are not accessible to the poor; 
 newspapers, with their admixture of good and evil, 
 seldom find their way into the domestic circle of the 
 labourer or artizan ; the tracts which pious persons 
 distribute are exclusively religious, and the tone of 
 these is often either fanatical or puerile. The two 
 penny trash/ as it is called, has seen farther, with 
 the quick perception of avarice or ambition, into the 
 intellectual wants of the working-classes. It was 
 just because there was no healthful food for their 
 newly-created appetite, that sedition and infidelity 
 have been so widely disseminated. The writers 
 employed in this work, and their leader and prototype, 
 Cobbett, in particular, show us pretty accurately the 
 sort of talent which is required to provide this health 
 ful food. Fas est ab hoste doceri. They state an 
 argument with great clearness and precision ; they 
 divest knowledge of all its pedantic incumbrances ; 
 they make powerful appeals to the deepest passions of 
 the human heart. Let a man of genius set out upon 
 these principles, in the task of building up a mere 
 popular literature than we possess ; and let him add, 
 what the seditious and infidel writers have thrown 
 away, the power of directing the affections to what 
 is reverend and beautiful in national manners 
 and institutions tender and subduing in pure 
 and domestic associations sacred and glowing in 
 what belongs to the high and mysterious destiny 
 of the human mind satisfying and consoling in the 
 divine revelations of that destiny, and then, were 
 such a system embodied in one grand benevolent 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 153 
 
 design supplementary to the Instruction of the Poor, 
 National Education, we sincerely think, would go 
 on diffusing its blessings over every portion of the 
 land, and calling up a truly English spirit wherever 
 it penetrated. Neglect this provision, and we fear 
 that no penal laws will prevent the craving after 
 knowledge from being improperly gratified, and then 
 but the evidence of the danger is before us." 
 
 The publication of this article led to an intimacy 
 between Mr. Locker and myself, which I count 
 amongst the most gratifying recollections of my life. 
 Within twenty-four hours of its appearance he called 
 upon me ; and we very soon agreed to be joint 
 editors of a Monthly Serial work, intended, in some 
 degree, to supply the want I had pointed out. Within 
 a fortnight our plans were matured ; and in the 
 "Express" of Christmas-day it was announced, that 
 on the 1st of February, 1820, would appear No. I. of 
 " The Plain Englishman." 
 
 When I first had the happiness of acquiring the 
 friendship of Mr. Locker he was in his forty-second 
 year. His life, before he came to reside at Windsor, 
 had been one of large and varied experience. The 
 names of Edward Hawke were given to him in 
 honour of the illustrious officer under whom his 
 father had served in the middle of the last century. 
 In his charming memoir of Admiral Locker, in 
 " The Plain Englishman," he dwells with just pride 
 upon the attachment of our great naval hero to his 
 father. " Horatio Nelson, to the last hour of his 
 life, regarded him with the affection of a son and 
 with the respect of a pupil." After the battle of the 
 Nile he did not forget his old commander amidst the 
 flatteries and seductions which followed his victory. 
 
154 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 "I have been your scholar," he wrote; " it is you 
 who taught me to board a French man-of-war, by 
 your conduct in the Experiment. It is you who 
 always said, Lay a Frenchman close, and you will 
 beat him. 5 " The private life of such a man, as 
 glanced at by his son, is very interesting. 
 
 My friend had the advantage of an Eton educa 
 tion ; but he was destined for an active rather than a 
 learned life. He was in a government-office till he 
 was twenty-three, and then became Private Secre 
 tary to Sir Edward Pellew. When his admiral 
 was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Mr. 
 Locker discharged the arduous duties of Secretary 
 to the Fleet. He had a printing-press on board the 
 flag-ship which materially assisted his labours. In 
 his official capacity he visited Napoleon at Elba, a 
 few days after the fallen Emperor had taken posses 
 sion of his narrow territory. His narrative of their 
 conversations is exceedingly interesting. ("Plain 
 Englishman," voL iii. p. 475.) After the peace, Mr. 
 Locker married, and came to reside at Windsor. 
 From the period when our intimate acquaintance 
 commenced, I enjoyed his friendship for a quarter of 
 a century. He was to me an example of a true gen 
 tleman intelligent, well-read, energetic, charitable, 
 religious, tolerant such as I had scarcely met in the 
 limited society in which I lived when I first knew him. 
 He soon removed from Windsor, to become the Se 
 cretary of Greenwich Hospital, and afterwards the 
 Resident Civil Commissioner. His hospitable home 
 was always open to me ; his active friendship was 
 never withheld ; his judicious advice was my stay in 
 many a doubt and difficulty. 
 
 For three years Mr. Locker and I worked together, 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 155 
 
 with a cordiality never disturbed, in conducting "The 
 Plain Englishman." Our views were set forth in an 
 Introduction, which I wrote. Much of this composition 
 had necessarily regard to the peculiar danger of that 
 period the irreligion and disloyalty that were asso 
 ciated, or seemed to be associated, with the spread of 
 education. We were prepared to meet this danger in an 
 honest spirit : "We think highly of the understandings 
 of the people of our country. We shall address them, 
 therefore, not as children, but as men and women. 
 If we combat Infidelity, we shall look for our argu 
 ments in those volumes which have made the deepest 
 impression on the wise and learned. If we would 
 disprove the falsehoods which designing persons have 
 propagated against our Government, we shall repub- 
 lish those reasons for a reverence of its forms and 
 institutions which have convinced the ablest minds, 
 and shown them its practical excellence. If we would 
 awaken all the noble feelings which belong to the 
 real patriot, we shall go back into the chronicles of 
 old for a history of those deeds which rouse the spirit 
 as with a trumpet. We shall not conceal anything 
 or distort anything. We shall enable all who seek 
 for knowledge to judge for themselves." 
 
 This plain avowal did not receive the approbation 
 of the constituted authorities for making the people 
 wiser and better. The Christian Knowledge Society 
 was, at that period, the representative of what was 
 supine, timid, and time-serving in the Church. That 
 venerable corporation had not yet roused itself into 
 activity, to meet the new wants created by the grow 
 ing ability to read. It had a depository of books, in 
 which were to be found antiquated works on the Evi 
 dences, such as that of the learned and amiable Bishop 
 
156 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Wilson, entitled " Instructions for the Indians," 
 so low was the intellectual power of his countrymen 
 rated by the good prelate. Many new compilations 
 had they in their store, through which they hoped to 
 meet the evils of the time, by talking to working 
 people as if they were as innocent of all knowledge, 
 both of good and evil, as in the days when their 
 painstaking mothers committed them to the edifying 
 instruction of the village schoolmistress, to be taught 
 to sit still and hold their tongues, forty in a close 
 room, for three hours together, at the moderate price 
 of twopence each per week. They meddled not 
 with dangerous Science or more dangerous History. 
 Poetry and all works of Imagination they eschewed. 
 Over their collection of dry bones the orthodox pub 
 lishers, Messrs. Kivington, presided. My brother- 
 editor believed that this time-honoured Society would 
 willingly lend a helping hand to our well-meant 
 endeavour. Their booksellers agreed to be our Lon 
 don publishers. But High-Church frowned ; and we 
 were driven to the Low-Church rivals of the shop 
 that had long had "the Bible and Crown" over 
 its door. We had fallen into the common error of 
 the infancy of Popular Knowledge, in believing that 
 any scheme for its diffusion could be successful 
 which was not immediately addressed to the people 
 themselves, without in any degree depending upon 
 the patronage of gratuitous, and therefore suspicious, 
 distribution, by the superiors of those for whose 
 perusal works of a popular character are devised. It 
 was well for us that we got out of the shackles of this 
 Society, which was then wholly ignorant of the in 
 tellectual wants and capabilities of the working popu 
 lation ; and would have insisted upon maintaining 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 157 
 
 the habit of talking to thinking beings, and for the 
 most part to very acute thinking beings, in the 
 language of the nursery the besetting weakness 
 of the learned and aristocratic, from the very first 
 moment that they began to prattle about bestowing 
 the blessings of education. If we were tolerated in 
 the adoption of a higher tone, we must still have 
 assumed the. attitude of writers who had come down 
 from their natural elevation to impart a small portion 
 of their wisdom to persons of very inferior under 
 standing. " The Schoolmaster was abroad," and so 
 was Cobbett. As Scarlett always won a verdict by 
 getting close to the confiding twelve as if he were a 
 thirteenth juryman, so Cobbett forced his "Register" 
 into every workshop and every cottage, not only by 
 using the plainest English, but by identifying him 
 self with the every-day thoughts the passions, the 
 prejudices of those whom he addressed. It was very 
 long before any of us who aspired to be popular 
 instructors learnt the secret of his influence, and 
 could exhibit the "vigour of the bow" without "the 
 venom of the shaft." 
 
 The title-page of "The Plain Englishman" some 
 what too prominently described the work as "compre 
 hending Original Compositions, and Selections from 
 the best Writers, under the heads of The Christian 
 Monitor ; The British Patriot ; The Fireside Com 
 panion." I look back upon this division of subjects 
 as a mistake. In 1832, at the commencement of rny 
 editorship of "The Penny Magazine," Dr. Arnold 
 wrote to Mr. W. Tooke, the Treasurer of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society, to speak in terms of somewhat 
 extravagant commendation of a short article on 
 Mirabeau which I had written; and to express his 
 
158 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 opinion that the infusion of religious feeling into the 
 treatment of secular subjects was far more valuable 
 for popular instruction than any direct exhortations.* 
 In "The Plain Englishman" it was perhaps essential 
 to our objects to have separate papers on religious 
 matters ; but I am inclined to think that they lost 
 much of their usefulness by standing separate from 
 those of "The British Patriot" and "The Fireside 
 Companion." In the same way the historical and 
 constitutional articles of the second section would 
 have had a much better chance of being read if they 
 had been mixed up with the third miscellaneous 
 division. At any rate, as we soon became aware, our 
 Serial stood very little chance of an extensive natural 
 sale amongst the young and newly half-educated. A 
 Weekly Penny or Twopenny Sheet, such as I had 
 proposed in 1812, might have had a better chance of 
 success, but still a very small chance. I could not 
 have rendered it attractive by pictures, in the then 
 condition of wood-engraving, without a greater cost 
 than the probable circulation of such a work would 
 have justified. The good engravers were few, and the 
 Art had been almost lost since the death of Bewick. 
 For ordinary purposes of book-illustration it was 
 scarcely used. " The Mirror," established about that 
 time, was slightly but very indifferently illustrated. 
 Its laudable endeavours to furnish information and 
 amusement, without stirring up the passions of the 
 people, were not crowned with any signal success. 
 The great artist of half a century, whose etchings 
 and whose designs for wood present that rare union 
 of truth and fancy which has made Hogaith im- 
 
 * Life of Dr. Arnold. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 159 
 
 mortal, was at that time enlisted in the work of 
 political caricature, in which he was the creative 
 spirit whilst another gave the rough idea. When 
 William Hone and George Cruikshank met in 1820, 
 to devise "The Political House that Jack built," 
 there was a veracious man present who has described 
 to me one of the amusing scenes of which he was a 
 witness. The obscure publisher of "Parodies" in 
 1817, who, with his bag of books spread on the 
 table of the King s Bench, had done battle against 
 the ablest and boldest judge of the time, and had 
 driven him from the field, was now a public cha 
 racter. Whatever little stinging pamphlets he issued 
 were sure to find their way over the land. But 
 assurance of success was made doubly sure when he 
 had enlisted Cruikshank in the cause which to them 
 appeared resistance to oppression and vindication of 
 innocence. Three friends fellow conspirators, if you 
 like are snugly ensconced in a private room of a 
 well-accustomed tavern. Hone produces his scheme 
 for " The House that Jack built." He reads some of 
 his doggerel lines. The author wants a design for an 
 idea that is clear enough in words, but is beyond the 
 range of pictorial representation. The artist pooh- 
 poohs. The bland publisher is pertinacious, but not 
 dictatorial. My friend, Alfred Fry, the most earnest, 
 straightforward, and argumentative of men, is no 
 greater judge of the limits of Art than the man who 
 had the best of the discussion with Lord Ellen- 
 borough but cannot vanquish or convince George 
 Cruikshank. "Wait a moment," says the artist. The 
 wine perhaps the grog is on the table. He dips 
 his finger in his glass. He rapidly traces wet lines 
 on the mahogany. A single figure starts into life. 
 
160 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Two or three smaller figures come out around the 
 first head and trunk a likeness in its grotesqueness. 
 The publisher cries "Hoorah." The looker-on is 
 silent after this rapid manifestation of a great power. 
 A pen-and-ink sketch is completed on the spot. The 
 bottle circulates briskly or the rummers are replen 
 ished. Politics are the theme, whether of agreement 
 or disputation. Alfred Fry quotes Greek, which 
 neither of his auditors understand, but that is no 
 matter. There is one upon whom his learning will 
 not be thrown away. He gets admission to the 
 House of Lords during the Queen s trial, and passes 
 on to Mr. Denman a slip of paper which contains a 
 sentence from Athenseus. The apt quotation appears 
 in the official Minutes of the Proceedings. This 
 recollection of Cruikshank and his friends may seem 
 out of place ; but it is not wholly without relation to 
 the slow progress of my " Plain Englishman." The 
 violent politics of that unhappy time were all- 
 absorbing. The newspapers furnished the most 
 stimulating reading. Even Cobbett, with his denun 
 ciations of boroughmongers and bank-directors, was 
 little heeded. The pamphlet-buyers rushed to Hone. 
 " The House that Jack built " ran through forty- 
 seven editions ; " iThe Queen s Matrimonial Ladder," 
 forty-four; "Non mi ricordo," thirty one. London, 
 and indeed all the kingdom, had gone mad. It 
 would be very long before the people would listen to 
 the small voice of popular knowledge, which pos 
 sessed no ephemeral influence, and which was utterly 
 drowned in the howlings of that storm. 
 
 In such a heaving up of the crust of society by the 
 volcanic fires below, it was not very likely that the 
 benevolent optimism of our Monthly Serial would 
 
THE F1EST EPOCH. 161 
 
 produce much influence upon the peasant and the 
 mechanic, each designated by us as "The Plain 
 Englishman of the Working Classes." Looking at 
 the " burning fiery furnace " that we have all walked 
 through since that period, it seems to me something 
 like hypocrisy when I wrote, in 1820, of the Plain 
 Englishman who felt, if he could not describe, the 
 foundations of his respectability. But it was not 
 hypocrisy. I believed what I wrote when I talked 
 of " the happiness peculiar to the course of peaceful 
 labour ;" of "the security which rendered him master 
 of his own possessions, however small ;" of " the kind 
 look or the benevolent visit from his wealthier neigh 
 bour, which cheered him in his humble station." It 
 certainly was not true, as regarded the majority of 
 those who earned their bread by the sweat of their 
 brow, that the Plain Englishman "viewed the dif 
 ference of ranks without envy, convinced that, as 
 subjects of the same laws, sharers in the same infir 
 mities, and heirs of the same salvation, the rich and 
 the poor of England w^ere all equal." * I followed in 
 the wake of men most anxious for the welfare of the 
 lower classes, but. who were at that time convinced 
 that the first and greatest object of all popular ex 
 hortation was to preach from the text of St. James, 
 " Study to be quiet." There never was a more sound 
 political economist than Dr. John Bird Sumner 
 never one who took a more enlarged view of the 
 necessity of looking at economical questions over a 
 wider area than that which was bounded by the 
 material " wealth of nations." He was amongst our 
 first contributors. His " Conversations with an Un- 
 
 * " Plain Englishman," vol. i. Introduction. 
 
163 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 believer/ or " Dialogues between Eusebius and Alci- 
 phron " may be regarded as elegant cooling mixtures 
 such as a timid physician might prescribe to a patient 
 in a burning fever. He made no attempt to grapple 
 stoutly with the arguments of the " Unbeliever," as 
 he would probably have done with the opinions of 
 the " Communist." He meets the Unbeliever in the 
 mild persuasive spirit which was the index of his own 
 character no assumption of superiority, no ana 
 themas. This tone was perhaps scarcely suited to 
 the time ; but, after all, the lessons of the Christian 
 teacher must win before they can convince. The 
 heart must be touched before the reason can be 
 subjected. Even the style that borders upon the 
 poetical may allure, and then hold captive, those, 
 especially the young, whom a severer logic might 
 repel. Taylor has probably made more converts 
 than Barrow. Nothing can be prettier than the 
 following opening of a "Conversation," as he was 
 returning from his parish church on Christmas-day, 
 and fell in with an acquaintance whom he knew to 
 entertain what he called free thoughts on the subject 
 of Revelation : " I always pity you, Alciphron, and 
 particularly at the present season. The air of cheer 
 fulness which so generally prevails, and makes even 
 winter smile, must fill you with melancholy when it 
 reminds you of the errors of your fellow-creatures. 
 The village steeple, which from time immemorial has 
 been accustomed to proclaim the message of glad 
 tidings, must appear to you to usher in the reign of 
 superstition; since bells repeat what the hearers 
 think. No sight is more welcome to my eye than 
 that of those knots of country people, as they wind 
 among the hills which intercept the spire from our 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 163 
 
 view, returning in family groups from the church 
 where their fathers and forefathers have been long 
 used to celebrate the assurance of God s good-will 
 towards men. It brings a thousand delightful asso 
 ciations to my mind. You, the meanwhile, must be 
 inwardly lamenting such idle commemoration of the 
 origin of their bondage and their error. To-day, too, 
 the sun re-appearing after a season of unusual gloomi 
 ness and severity assorts with the impressions on my 
 mind. The clouds and darkness which had long 
 shrouded the throne of God seem suddenly dispersed ; 
 the scene is lighted up and brightens ; but yet it is 
 the sunshine of winter still. For you, and such as . 
 you, who close your eyes against the light and 
 many others who hate the light because their deeds 
 are evil, spread a gloom over the distance, and, like 
 the patches of snow which lie unmelted on the hills, 
 remind us that it is a wintry world after all." Alci- 
 phron argues that Revelation is an imposture, and 
 that "an army of well-paid priests is leagued together 
 to keep up the deceit." Eusebius answers him thus : 
 " So you have really been persuaded by Paine and 
 his disciples to imagine that a Christian minister, for 
 the sake of lucre, imposes on the credulity of his 
 hearers a system of Religion which he knows to be 
 without foundation ! I little expected an insinuation 
 like this from any adversary less ignorant than 
 Carlile, or less vulgar than Paine. But, to meet you 
 here also, you forget that the benefices which engage 
 your well-paid army to practise this baseness, do 
 not average a hundred pounds per annum ; you 
 forget how many follow their profession to their grave, 
 without ever obtaining one of the lowest of its prizes. 
 Would not the same education and the same talents. 
 
164 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 exerted in any other profession, ensure a much 
 higher reward ? Depend upon it, if the clergy had no 
 other than a temporal inducement to maintain the 
 Christian faith, it would not continue twenty years." 
 Before our excellent contributor had finished his 
 career of piety and active goodness as archbishop, 
 he would have had a perfect experience that the 
 Alciphrons never point their attacks upon the well- 
 paid army by the example of the under-paid curate 
 of a hundred a year. In that great lottery the prizes 
 are sufficient to keep even the worldly aspirants sted- 
 fast, as Sydney Smith wisely and wittily argued. 
 And yet such a man as the late Archbishop of Can 
 terbury might win the highest prize, and still be as 
 spiritually-minded as he was when thus writing in 
 his pretty parish of Mapledurham. The mildness 
 with which the commonplace objection is met 
 might have the effect of leading some, step by step, 
 to go deeper into the great question, glad to have 
 their surface doubts cleared away with a tender 
 hand. 
 
 The "Lectures on the Bible and Liturgy" contri 
 buted to " The Plain Englishman " by Mr. Locker, 
 were the substance of a course of familiar Addresses 
 delivered by him to his shipmates on board the Ca 
 ledonia, when he was Secretary of the Mediterranean 
 Fleet. They have been published in a separate 
 volume, and well deserve to hold a place in an ele 
 mentary library of Christian instruction ; for they are 
 realities. They were addressed to sailors who re 
 quired no subtle arguments of doctrine to induce 
 them to be religious. They were plain, earnest, 
 affectionate. They must have touched the heart of 
 " Poor Jack," like Dibdin s transfusion into nautical 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 165 
 
 language of Hamlet s " there s a special Providence 
 in the fall of a sparrow." They have passed into 
 oblivion. Our theology, like our novels, has become 
 sensational. 
 
 Amongst our intimate and constant contributors 
 was a scholar whose memory I regard with sincere 
 respect the Rev. J. M. Turner, who succeeded 
 Daniel Wilson as bishop of Calcutta. His papers 
 on the "Naval Victories" are capital summaries 
 of those great triumphs which kept England safe 
 in the midst of dangers that looked overwhelming. 
 When I knew him he was private tutor at Eton 
 to the sons of Lord Londonderry. In religion, 
 tolerant ; in politics, almost liberal. I often met him 
 at Mr. Locker s table at Greenwich ; and never left 
 him without feeling that he was a friend to make 
 one wiser and better. We passed into different 
 spheres of exertion. His last letter to me was one of 
 encouragement to go on with a bolder attempt at 
 Popular Instruction than our "Plain Englishman." 
 To our " British Patriot " we had a valuable contri 
 butor in a personal friend John Steer, who was 
 diligently studying as a pupil of Mr. Chitty. His 
 mastery of the principles of jurisprudence and the 
 practice of the courts was evidenced in his excellent 
 papers on "Popular Law." His valuable life was 
 cut short before he reached that eminence at the 
 Bar which seemed fairly within his power to attain. 
 
 For myself, I worked with hearty good will at our 
 Miscellany. It took me out of the region of political 
 controversy, for which I had no great love at any 
 time, and especially in times when it was very diffi 
 cult to be impartial and sincere. A journalist in my 
 position was between the Scylla of bad government, 
 
166 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 and the Charybdis of no government. In " The 
 Plain Englishman" it was impossible to allude to 
 the necessity of any Parliamentary Reform ; for the 
 Radical Reformers were sending their foxes all over 
 the country, with lighted brands at their tails, to 
 burn the standing corn and the vineyards and olives. 
 We were friends of Catholic Emancipation, and yet 
 we dared not advocate so vital a change without a 
 dread that the Church of England would lose its 
 anchorage. The scandalous abuses of the Irish 
 Church could not be spoken of; although I have 
 heard one of the ablest of our reverend associates 
 devoutly wish that the rope could be cut by which 
 the gallant ship towed the overladen and rotten hulk 
 through a perilous sea. I had to write a " Monthly 
 Retrospect of Public Affairs/ in which the first neces 
 sity was caution. For a year or more all " Public 
 Affairs " were seething in a witch s cauldron, with the 
 scum uppermost. I had to write, here and else 
 where, about the Queen s trial. I said truly, " We 
 have restrained ourselves from the expression, almost 
 from the admission, of any decided conviction in this 
 matter." But not the less did I feel that Caroline of 
 Brunswick was an injured wife, although I could not 
 doubt that she was a depraved woman. Why, I 
 asked of my brother-editor, was Lord Exmouth, 
 unused to take part .in politics, so marked in his 
 manifestation of a hostile feeling towards the Queen? 
 " We saw and heard too much in the Caledonia of 
 what was passing on the Italian shores. The lady 
 came one day on board, and was received with all 
 the honours due to her rank. She dined at the 
 Admiral s table, and left an impression that will 
 never be forgotten. Her talk was of such a nature 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 167 
 
 that Lord Exmouth ordered the midshipman to leave 
 the cabin." 
 
 If much of the wide domain of domestic politics 
 was tabooed to us, there was a region where we could 
 " expatiate free," in advocating certain social improve 
 ments of whose efficacy no one now doubts. The 
 doubters and the adversaries of reforms which the 
 people might effect themselves were then a majority. 
 An excellent friend of my youth, who had estab 
 lished an extensive practice as a surgeon in London 
 John Cole wrote several papers of this nature. 
 An admirable article on " Cleanliness and Ventila 
 tion" suggests how little had been accomplished 
 twenty years before the days of Arnott, and Kay, 
 and Southwood Smith, and Chadwick. My friend 
 told a great moral truth when he said, " If men are 
 once so far overtaken by sloth or poverty as to submit 
 unresistingly to the utter destitution of comfort that 
 attends excessive dirtiness, all sense of shame will 
 soon be lost, and with it all disposition to exertion." 
 But London then, and most other great towns, had a 
 very insufficient supply of water for the preservation 
 of cleanliness. He spoke of the most expensive of 
 luxuries when he talked of the advantages of a tepid 
 bath once a week. The young men and women of 
 the present day may incline to believe that a medical 
 practitioner was giving very unnecessary advice, 
 suited only to the darkest ages, when he wrote, 
 " Those who can be brought to venture on so un 
 heard of a thing as to wash the whole of their bodies, 
 will generally be induced to repeat the experiment 
 from the comfort it affords." The household sages of 
 the last years of George III. had heard that there was 
 " Death in the Pot ;" and they were perfectly satis- 
 
168 PASSAGES OF A WOE KING LIFE I 
 
 fied that there was Death in the Ba,th, as a domestic 
 institution. It is related by Miss Martineau that an 
 ancient dame, who was taken suddenly ill, having been 
 recommended to put her feet in warm water, ex 
 claimed, " I ve not wet my feet for thretty years ! I 
 once had a daughter who was persuaded to wash her 
 feet, and who died afterwards. Nobody can prove that 
 she would have died if she had not washed her feet. 
 When Mr. Cole was treating of Ventilation and Clean 
 liness, he was setting forth some of the then neglected 
 "modern in stances" of scientific discovery which have 
 come to be popular " wise saws." Yet it is still neces 
 sary to preach from this text : " In the construction of 
 houses for the poor, the great object of ventilation has 
 too generally been overlooked." I had myself seen 
 some of the miseries of badly-situated dwellings. 
 There was a memorable flood at Eton, and the lower 
 parts of Windsor, in the December of 1821 ; Eton was 
 traversed in boats. Provisions were taken in at the win 
 dows by the unfortunate persons in the upper rooms of 
 many a house. Looking from the North Terrace, " the 
 expanse below of mead and grove" was one vast lake. 
 In "Hints to the Cottager on the Choice of a Dwelling," 
 I wrote, " There are many dangerous fevers which are 
 produced by the vicinity of stagnant waters; and houses 
 which, from their site, are constantly damp, expose those 
 who inhabit them to rheumatism, croup, ague, and 
 other painful disorders. The same effects are. produced 
 by dwelling-houses which are subject to occasional 
 inundations of rivers. We have lately seen the misery 
 which is produced by such a circumstance ; and are 
 quite sure that none would be subject to the visits of 
 a flood if they could possibly avoid it. To be driven 
 in cold weather from the accustomed fireside ; to 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 169 
 
 shiver in bed-rooms which have probably no grate ; 
 to have two or three feet of water running through 
 the lower part,of the house, destroying many things 
 and injuring more ; and at last, when the inundation 
 ceases, to find the whole dwelling damp and mise 
 rable for several weeks ; this is a visitation which 
 no one would willingly seek." 
 
 I have now been separated for nearly forty years 
 from the home of my youth and my early manhood. 
 When I trace in various faithful records the evidence 
 of my intense local atachment to Windsor, I wonder 
 how I ever endured this separation. In " The Plain 
 Englishman " I wrote a series of simple Tales. It is 
 long since I looked at them ; but now I am struck 
 with the local colour which nearly all of them exhibit. 
 There are personal recollections of a deeper character 
 associated with "The Plain Englishman." During the 
 summer and autumn of its first year I occupied a 
 cottage on the bank of the Thames. In the winter 
 I was settled in a house to me most interesting in its 
 connexion with the dim antiquity of the Castle. Its 
 entrance was in the smaller cloisters to the north of 
 St. George s Chapel, but its principal rooms were over 
 the great Cloister on the east of the Chapel. I 
 wrote here in the most charming of studies. The 
 organ swell, the choral harmonies, more solemn in 
 their indistinctness, often made me pause at my work 
 and throw down my pen, to surrender my thoughts to 
 the spiritual charm. The ceiling of this antique 
 room was of the most exquisite carving so beautiful 
 that George Cattermole, then a young man doing 
 task-work for John Britton, was my guest for a day 
 or two, that he might preserve it in one of his charm 
 ing architectural drawings. There is no fear now of 
 
170 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE I 
 
 its destruction, for this suite of rooms forms part 
 of the Chapter-House of the College of Windsor. 
 In 1821, I rented this unique dwelling of the Dean 
 and Canons. Beautiful it was, but the want of free 
 air made it unfit for healthful existence. Here we 
 had a daughter born ; here we lost a son. My 
 dear friend Matthew Davenport Hill here passed 
 some happy hours with us at Christmas. Before 
 Easter I had to record "My First Grief." I was then, 
 as I am now, as little disposed as Coriolanus was, to 
 show my wounds in the market-place ; but my feel 
 ings overflowed into a paper which I printed in "The 
 Plain Englishman." Two sentences will be sufficient 
 to mark this passage in my life. " Until I had 
 reached my thirtieth year I had known nothing of 
 what I can properly term sorrow. The evils of 
 mortality had not begun to come home to me. The 
 wings of the destroying angel had rested upon the 
 dwellings of my neighbours ; but death had never yet 
 crossed my threshold, and sickness seldom. I had 
 heard the voice of misery like the mutterings of a 
 distant storm ; but the thunder had not yet burst 
 over my head I had not covered my eyes from the 
 passing lightning." .... "I now knew, for tire first 
 time, what it is to have death about our hearths. 
 The excitement of hope and fear in a moment passes 
 away ; and the contest between feeling and reason 
 begins, with its alternation of passion and listless- 
 ness. It is some time before the image of death 
 gets possession of the mind. We sleep, perchance, 
 amidst a feverish dream of gloomy and indistinct 
 remembrances. The object of our grief, it may 
 be, has seemed to us present, in health and 
 animation. We wake in a struggle between the. 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 171 
 
 shadowy and the real world ; and we require an 
 effort of" the intellect to believe that the earthly part 
 of the being we have loved is no more than a clod 
 of the valley." 
 
 "The Plain Englishman" was closed, upon the 
 completion of the third volume, in December, 
 1822. I may incidentally mention, as a curious 
 fact, that the title of one of our articles of that year 
 anticipated the identical name of the Society which, 
 in 1827, was enabled to accomplish much that I had 
 dreamt of (and a great deal more), in my beginnings 
 of Popular Literature. That paper was headed, 
 "DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE."* 
 
 Plain Englishman, voL iii., p. 277. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 N the 13th of June, 1820, I received an 
 offer, conveyed to me in confidence by my 
 zealous friend Mr. Locker, to become the 
 Editor and part Proprietor of a London 
 Weekly Paper, "The Guardian." The tone of my poli 
 tical opinions had been collected from the " Retrospect 
 of Public Affairs " in " The Plain Englishman." The 
 violence of political agitation appeared to be fast sub 
 siding. Some of the physical-force Reformers were in 
 prison. The miscreants who had contemplated assassi 
 nation as a cure for political evils were hanged. There 
 was only one chance of a convulsion. The Queen, 
 contrary to all reasonable expectation, had landed at 
 Dover, and on the 6th of June had entered London 
 amidst the shouts of thousands. On that evening a 
 Message from the King was presented to the Lords 
 and Commons, and a green bag was laid on the table 
 of each House, containing papers respecting the 
 conduct of Her Majesty when abroad, which the King 
 had thought fit to communicate to Parliament. 
 When I entered upon my new editorial duties at the 
 end of the month, the hope was at an end which 
 wise men of all parties had entertained, that a com 
 promise would avert the scandal and danger of a 
 public inquiry. Through July, after the Secret 
 Committee of the House of Lords had made its 
 Report, and a Bill of Pains and Penalties was read 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 173 
 
 a first time, the mob excitement of London was such 
 as few had before witnessed. When the Queen took 
 up her residence at Brandenburgh House on the 3rd 
 of August, there began a series of processions, from the 
 extreme East to the extreme West, that manifested 
 at once the energy and the folly of democracy in its 
 wildest hour of excitement. Often riding to Windsor 
 have I been detained by the impossibility of passing 
 through an army of working men, with bands, and 
 banners, and placards, headed by deputations of their 
 several committees with wands of office all terribly 
 in earnest all perfectly convinced of the Queen s 
 immaculate purity all resolved that oppression 
 should not triumph a peaceful multitude, but one 
 that in any other country would have seemed the 
 herald, if not the manifestation, of Revolution. In 
 the fierce battle of journalism which was then fought 
 throughout the year, I was not called upon for a 
 declaration of extreme opinions. If such a course 
 had been insisted upon I should have resigned my 
 charge. I wrote to my co-proprietor, when it was 
 suggested that a stronger tone ought to be adopted 
 with regard to the Queen, "I can only say that I feel 
 confident that the language of moderation ought to 
 be most aimed at, as the likeliest to prevent the exist 
 ing ferment increasing into a state of perpetual 
 division and anarchy." This was written at the end 
 of November ; when, although the Government had 
 terminated this unhappy contest, the political animo 
 sities that had grown up with it were raging in a 
 flood of personality such as had never before 
 disgraced the Press of England. The " Guardian" 
 had not flourished under the gross mismanagement 
 of its early career, nor under my too conscientious 
 
174 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 interpretation of the duties of a journalist. I became 
 its sole proprietor upon easy terms. Gladly did I 
 leave the rough work of party to John Bull, which, 
 established in December, 1820, soon obtained an 
 influence which was earned by something more than 
 its cleverness. A year after, in both the papers 
 which I then conducted, I expressed my opinion of 
 the danger and disgrace of the prevailing tone of the 
 " public instructors." This opinion is perhaps worth 
 transcribing, as affording a contrast between the 
 London newspapers of 1821 with a fourpenny 
 stamp, paying a duty of 3s. 6d. on every advertise 
 ment, printed on heavily-taxed paper, hemmed round 
 by all imaginable safeguards against libel and the 
 newspapers of 1863, with no stamp whatever and 
 no advertisement-duty, paying no tax upon paper, 
 fettered by no securities ; between the London 
 newspapers whose aggregate circulation in one week 
 was about a quarter of a million, and the news 
 papers that upon a moderate estimate may be held 
 to circulate five millions weekly. In the country 
 newspapers the contrast is perhaps still greater. 
 Much as I believed in the regenerating power of the 
 Press, I could scarcely have imagined that some 
 distant age of cheapness would have been an age 
 when the impure, seditious, violent, intolerant, and 
 libellous writer would have become a rare exception 
 amongst journalists. Nevertheless, I rightly con 
 sidered that out of the increase of knowledge 
 amongst the people would arise a better spirit of 
 journalism ; which, in its turn, would become one 
 of the most efficient instruments of education. 
 
 Thus I wrote in 1821 : " A general view of the 
 influence of the Press would lead us to judge that 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 175 
 
 very much of that influence is injurious to the safety 
 of the Government ; opposed to the happiness of the 
 people ; and destructive of that real freedom of 
 thought and writing upon which the glory and pros 
 perity of England have been built. But we believe 
 that a great deal of the evil will cure itself. It is 
 the half-knowledge of the people that has created 
 the host of ephemeral writers who address themselves 
 to the popular passions. If the firmness of the 
 Government, and, what is better, the good sense of 
 the upper and middle classes who have property at 
 stake, can succeed for a few years in preserving 
 tranquillity, the ignorant disseminators of sedition 
 and discontent will be beaten out of the field by 
 opponents of better principles, who will direct the 
 secret of popular writing to a useful and a righteous 
 purpose. But this change in the temper of the 
 multitude is not to be effected by borrowing the 
 dirty weapons of those who are engaged in stimulat 
 ing them to acts of atrocity. It is not to be effected 
 by raking up scandalous stories against the dema 
 gogues of a faction by penetrating into the recesses 
 of private life to drag forth the evidence of a for 
 gotten fault or an expiated folly by pouring forth 
 the coarsest abuse against the principles and practice 
 of eminent men of adverse opinions, with a blind and 
 levelling fury. There is a revolutionary temper in 
 such ultra-publications which degrades the cause it 
 affects to support, and furnishes an example to the 
 dangerous doctrines it pretends to resist. The Black 
 Dwarf and John Bull are scions from the same 
 stock. The dictates of interest only have made the 
 one a pander to the passions of the little vulgar ; 
 the other, a hunter of scandal for the vulgar great." 
 
17G PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 It was time to speak out when a Society had 
 started up to do the work of a Censorship, in the 
 blindest fashion of ultra-loyal partisanship. In 
 March, 1821, the "Constitutional Association" was 
 formed, for the purpose of prosecuting printers and 
 publishers who went beyond what they deemed the 
 proper bounds of political discussion. This despi 
 cable Association despicable, however supported by 
 rank and wealth saw no mischief in the gross libels 
 of one set of writers who professed to be the friends 
 of the Government, but instituted the most reckless 
 prosecutions against "liberal" newspapers. The term 
 " liberal " had then begun to mark a certain set of 
 opinions which had outgrown their former title of 
 "Jacobinical." This Association acquired the name 
 of " The Bridge Street Gang." After three or four 
 months of a hateful existence denounced in Parlia 
 ment execrated by every man who had inherited a 
 spark of Milton s zeal for " the Liberty of Unlicensed 
 Printing " this Association was prosecuted for 
 oppression and extortion. The grand jury found a 
 true bill against its members. They were acquitted 
 upon their trial ; but practices were disclosed which 
 showed how dangerous it was for a crafty attorney 
 and a knot of fanatical politicians to play at attor 
 ney-generalship. The true public of this country 
 was getting as sick of outrageous Loyalty as of 
 desperate Radicalism. 
 
 Looking around me at the Newspaper Press of 
 London, I saw very few papers that attempted to 
 combine the literary and the political character 
 John Hunt was still the editor of "The Examiner ;" 
 but his brother Leigh, who had raised the critical 
 department of the paper to the highest eminence 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 177 
 
 might well be tired of newspaper occupation, and 
 was meditating the unfortunate union with Byron in. 
 "The Liberal." John Hunt, in May, 1821, was 
 prosecuted for a libel on the House of Commons, and 
 was sentenced to two years imprisonment. " The 
 Champion," " The News," and one or two others, had 
 literary pretensions, but they made their criticism 
 little more than a vehicle for their politics. I fan 
 cied there was an opening for a paper that, giving 
 a temperate support to the Government, might deal 
 with Literature in a spirit of impartiality. I panted 
 for a region of pure air and clear skies, lifted out of 
 the heat and fever of the plains, where public writers 
 lost all natural freedom and vigour in a constant 
 round of controversial dram-drinking. 
 
 I have the merit, humble as it may be, of having 
 created a new department of Newspaper Literature. 
 On the 3rd of March, 1821, " The Guardian " had the 
 first of a series of articles, regularly continued month 
 by month, entitled "Magazine-Day." This paper 
 opens with a glimpse- of " The Bow," forty-two years 
 since. What changes have come over the then 
 naiTOw world of Magazines ! Periodical writing had 
 then a few able workmen, and some, rather more 
 numerous, of the " Ned Purdon " school. But now h 
 Let me copy from this paper a few sentences of what 
 then struck me as one of the remarkable indications 
 of a new "Reading Age," upon which age Coleridge 
 made some lumbering jokes : "There is no bustle, 
 to our minds, half so agreeable as the bustle of 
 Paternoster Row on the last day of the month. This 
 is Magazine Day the most important division in 
 the life of a bookseller s collector ; as important as 
 settling day to the stock-broker, or quarter-day to 
 
178 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 the annuitant. We delight, on these memorable 
 . mornings, to lounge through the narrow approaches 
 of Ave-Maria or Warwick Lanes, and then to make 
 a dead stop in the Paradise of Publishers to hear 
 the hum of the great hive of literature to see its 
 bees going forth in search of, or returning with, their 
 spoils. As the dusky porter, catching the rapid step 
 of the periodical lore which he bears, brushes past us, 
 " we delight to speculate upon the component parts of 
 his burden to estimate the relative proportions of 
 Blackwoods and Baldwins, of Monthlies (Old and 
 New], of Gentleman s and Ladies , of Belle Assem- 
 blees and Evangelicals. It is a special pleasure to us 
 to dive into some of the celebrated penetralia of the 
 Row, and there learn to estimate the merits of these 
 monthly candidates for applause, not by the beauty 
 of their styles, but by the bulk of their heaps." I 
 then described how, by these walks, I obtained pos 
 session of half a dozen periodicals, and was able to 
 taste the fruit, not before it was ripe, but before it was 
 brought into the market. I had long thought, I said, 
 of turning this passion to account ; and at length 
 resolved to give my readers some of the chit-chat 
 of Magazine Day. " With a fearless hand we will 
 twitch your mantles, blue, or drab, or green, ye 
 
 Abstract and brief chronicles of the time. 
 
 Your days of dulness are overpast. Ye are no longer 
 the reversionary property of the pastrycook and the 
 trunk-maker. Ye are well worth a regular monthly 
 notice ; aye, and much better worth than many a 
 lumbering quarto." This article made a stir in " The 
 Trade," and before next Magazine Day, these " squires 
 of the moon s body " trooped into my office without 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 179 
 
 giving me the trouble of a journey to Paternoster 
 Row. 
 
 The new era of Magazines may be said to have 
 commenced in 1817. In that year "Blackwood s 
 Edinburgh Magazine " startled the London publishers 
 into a conviction that for a new generation of readers 
 more attractive fare might be provided than at some 
 of the old established restaurateurs, whose dishes 
 were neither light, nor elegant, nor altogether whole 
 some. When Blackwood was started apparently 
 without any very correct knowledge that something 
 was wanted in periodical literature beyond political 
 bitterness the old magazines and their new rivals 
 had gone on without much deviation from the hack 
 neyed paths in which they had first walked. The 
 possibility was then scarcely conceived that they 
 could afford to pay handsomely for contributions ; 
 and thus their chief dependence was upon their 
 gratuitous correspondence. They were the vehicles 
 for the communication to the world of all sorts of 
 opinions, theological, moral, political, and antiquarian. 
 They were the tablets upon which the retired scholar 
 or the active citizen might equally inscribe their 
 theories or their observations, in a familiar and un 
 pretending style ; and they at once kept alive the 
 intelligence of their own generation, and formed 
 valuable records for succeeding eras. In one maga 
 zine, "The Gentleman s," which had lived the most 
 respectable of existences for nine decades, the anti 
 quarians stoutly held their own. In its volumes 
 from 1731 there is more valuable " tombstone infor 
 mation " to be found than in any other work in our 
 language ; and this, to speak truly, is not knowledge 
 to be despised. The honest printer of St. John s 
 
180 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 Gate, of whom Johnson said that he scarcely ever 
 looked out of the window without a view to the 
 improvement of his magazine, had seen the births and 
 the deaths of many rivals. There was a " London " to 
 enter the lists against him when the booksellers had 
 discovered the value of this new lode in the mine of 
 literature. There was a "Monthly." There was a 
 " Ladies ." The old names were supposed to retain 
 their old influences ; and so at the time of my 
 " Magazine Day " there was a " Monthly," and there 
 was a " New Monthly ; " there was a " London," and 
 there was a "Ladies ." Mr. Phillips, afterwards Sir 
 Richard, had revived the "Monthly " in 1796, pretty 
 much upon the ancient " correspondence " principle. 
 The " New Monthly Magazine and Universal Regis 
 ter "had scarcely more ambitious pretensions, when 
 set up in 1814. The " London," of all the metropo 
 litan magazines, was the most distinguished for its 
 literary excellence. It had been re-established in 1 820 
 by Mr. Robert Baldwin, and was as often called " Bald 
 win," as the Edinburgh Magazine was called " Black- 
 wood." A controversy between the two leading 
 Miscellanies, conducted with that bitterness on both 
 sides which was an evil characteristic of the periodical 
 literature of those days, when writers of all grades 
 readily plunged into the waters of strife and there 
 wallowed like the heroes of " The Dunciad " in Fleet 
 Ditch led to the fatal catastrophe of the death in a 
 duel of Mr. John Scott, the amiable and accomplished 
 editor of the " London." I knew not Mr. Scott ; but 
 in common with all who felt that the pistol was the 
 worst arbiter of differences, literary or political, I 
 deeply grieved for such an end of his career, in which 
 he had in various ways shed a lustre upon journalism. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 181 
 
 In my first article of " Magazine Day," I said, " Look 
 ing at the melancholy circumstances under which the 
 present " London " has been brought out, we are 
 surprised that there is so much excellent matter in 
 it ; and argue thence that the fatal termination of a 
 foolish affair will not greatly impair the future 
 gratification of the public in this very agreeable 
 miscellany." 
 
 The " JBlackwood " of this period had attained a 
 reputation which made all successful rivalry very 
 difficult. " Nothing," says Mrs. Gordon, " was left 
 undone to spread the fame and fear of Black wood." 
 The indefatigable publisher, who, as we now learn, 
 was its real editor, was as careful to propitiate a 
 favourable opinion of his " Maga " amongst periodical 
 writers who admired its talent, as its great sup 
 porters, Wilson and Lockhart, were ever ready for a 
 warfare in which no quarter was given or expected. 
 It was a surprise to me when I received from the 
 dreaded William Blackwood a letter of thanks for 
 "your kind and early notices of my magazine." 
 Still more was I surprised when he wrote, " Permit 
 me to return you the author s and my own best 
 thanks for your splendid critique upon Valerius. 
 Your opinion (which was the first given upon the 
 work) seems to be fully confirmed by the public 
 voice." Was this the style, I thought, in which it 
 was necessary for a publisher to administer small 
 doses of flattery to periodical critics, however humble, 
 for what ought only to be considered an act of justice? 
 In after years, occasionally coming across the cold 
 and proud author of "Valerius," when he had become 
 Editor of the " Quarterly Review," I have thought of 
 " the author s best thanks," &c. ; and have suspected 
 
182 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 that the ultra-courteous phrase was a mere fagon de 
 parler of the skilful charioteer who could show such a 
 high-mettled racer in his team. Of Professor Wilson I 
 could readily have believed that any cordial acknow 
 ledgment of a supposed courtesy would be in accord 
 ance with his genial nature. In later years, he and 
 I may be judged to have adopted very different 
 opinions upon public questions, but his hand of 
 kindness was always held out to me ; and in his 
 social hour, when I first knew him, and in those 
 days when sorrow and sadness had impaired but not 
 subdued the elasticity of his nature, I had a confir 
 mation of my belief, established in many instances 
 before and since, that a political partisan and satirist 
 may have the warmest heart and be capable of the 
 truest friendship. 
 
 In "Blackwood" at this time was finished "The 
 Ayrshire Legatees," in which Gait first opened his 
 rich vein of observation- and humour. Had that 
 publishing economy of the present day been then 
 fully established, which consists in making a work of 
 fiction do double service, originally as a series of 
 magazine papers and then as a complete work, Gait 
 would have spread his next venture over a dozen 
 numbers of the closely printed pages that had ren 
 dered Buchanan s head so familiar to the Southern 
 public, and then have made his more dignified 
 appearance. The canny publisher seems to have 
 had some doubts of our metropolitan tastes, for he 
 writes to the editor of * The Guardian : " " With 
 this you will receive a very singular book, which I 
 shall publish in a few days, Annals of the Parish. 
 How it may be liked in England I cannot exactly 
 say ; but I am sure it will be highly relished by all 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 183 
 
 Scotsmen, because the sketches of Scottish country 
 life are so true to nature." Do any of the younger 
 readers of the present day care to look into a book 
 whose chief merit is that it is " so true to nature ? " 
 Do they care to turn to that storehouse of quiet 
 humour, " Sir Andrew Wylie, of that ilk," which 
 came in rapid succession ? Perhaps some of my 
 Georgian-era contemporaries who are sick of sensa 
 tion novels, may turn again to what afforded them 
 delight forty years ago. Proud as he was of the men 
 of genius that he had gathered around him, Mr. 
 Blackwood could not forego his political antipathies ; 
 and, somewhat too confidently, fancied that the " able 
 editor " whom he flattered would partake them. He 
 wrote, " As the magazine has been so much attacked 
 and misrepresented by the Whig and Radical press, 
 I would .be particularly obliged to you if you could 
 notice the article on The Personalities of the Whigs. " 
 I did notice it in these words : " The letter on * The 
 Personalities of the Whigs is forcible, and convincing 
 enough to a partizan. The object of the writer is 
 to prove that the Whigs commenced this species of 
 warfare, and that those opposed to their principles 
 have a right to bring the same weapons into the field 
 which their enemies have so long been exclusively 
 permitted to employ. For our own parts, we had 
 rather that political contests were conducted accord 
 ing to the usual rules of honourable warfare ; but if 
 one party use catamarans and infernal machines, it 
 would be hard to restrict the other to simple steel 
 and gunpowder." 
 
 The new facilities of communication were begin 
 ning to tell upon the commerce of Literature as upon 
 all other commerce. Railroads were yet ten years off 
 
184 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 in an undreamt-of future. But in 1821 the potent 
 agency of steam-packets was breaking down the 
 difference between Paternoster Row and Princes 
 Street. On the 28th of September I was reading 
 " Black wood/ when the magazines of our metropolis 
 were just getting on their outer garments ; while 
 their northern brethren were quietly reposing, in 
 well arranged heaps, in our southern warehouses, 
 perfectly sleek and dry, after a happy voyage of 
 sixty hours. This new condition upon which com 
 petition was to be carried on made the London 
 publishers more solicitous for the excellence, rather 
 than the cheap cost, of their periodical offerings to a 
 public that had begun to be clamorous for novelties, 
 and somewhat more critical than a previous gene 
 ration. Unmoved amidst the general rivalry was 
 that staid and sober brown-coated companion of our 
 forefathers, who scorned the fluctuations of fashion, 
 and was still the Gentleman of the days of Pulteney 
 and Walpole. His costume was preserved as un 
 changeably as that of the statue of George the Second 
 in Leicester Square. He still gloried in being one 
 of the staunchest cocked hats of the Society of 
 Antiquaries ; knew nothing of Wellington boots or 
 Cossack trousers ; dined at one o clock ; and if he 
 could have been persuaded to go to the play, 
 would have been at the pit-door at five, as in his 
 spring-time. It would have puzzled the dandyism 
 of the days of George the Fourth and Brummell to 
 have found Mr. Urban an endurable companion ; but 
 he was eminently respectable ; and no magazine 
 critic could honestly pass over this excellent hermit 
 of modern literature. One of his old companions, 
 " The European," was smartening up. Mr. Colburn, 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 185 
 
 not to be left behind in the periodical race, had, 
 in 1821, engaged Campbell to be the avowed editor 
 of " The New Monthly Magazine and Literary 
 Journal." Campbell s own lectures on poetry were 
 elegant and dull. His contributors had not caught 
 the spirit of liveliness by which even the old stock of 
 ideas could be successfully reproduced. The poet 
 made, as we then thought, a mistake in proclaiming 
 his acceptance of the editorial office. There is a 
 good deal to be argued for and against anonymous 
 editorship and anonymous contributorship. We then 
 said, and we are not quite sure that we were wrong 
 " His power of selection from the contributions of 
 his assistants must be fettered, and the freedom and 
 boldness of his own opinions encumbered, by a 
 thousand personal considerations, which ought not to 
 weigh, and would not have weighed, a feather in the 
 scale, had he preserved that best of all forms of 
 government in periodical literature a secret des 
 potism." 
 
 After the unhappy death of John Scott, the 
 " London " had passed from Mr, Baldwin into the 
 hands of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey. These were its 
 palmy days the days of Lamb and De Quincey ; of 
 John Hamilton Reynolds ; of Thomas Hood, whose 
 first introduction to the literary world was that of its 
 sub-editor. I wrote, in September, 1821 : " We never 
 read anything more deeply interesting than the 
 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. We can 
 put implicit faith in them. They have all the cir 
 cumstantial sincerity of Defoe. They are written in 
 a fine flowing style, in which the author is perfectly 
 forgotten." After the publication of two articles on 
 the Pleasures and Pains of Opium, the majority of 
 
186 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 their readers doubted the reality of these Confes 
 sions. The author, in a letter to the editor of the 
 magazine, declared that the narrative contained a 
 faithful statement of his own experience as an Opium- 
 Eater, drawn up with entire simplicity, except in 
 some trifling deviations of dates and suppression of 
 names which circumstances had rendered it expe 
 dient should not be published. I had ample oppor 
 tunities, a few years after, of knowing how unexag- 
 gerated were Mr. De Quincey s statements of his 
 extraordinary power of taking opium, injurious indeed 
 to his health, but without any perceptible deterio 
 ration of his wonderful intellect. Of " Elia " I was 
 almost extravagant in my admiration. I sometimes 
 ventured upon verse in my " Magazine Day," and 
 thus I wrote, in 1822, after speaking dispraisingly of 
 some articles : 
 
 " But Elia, Elia, he is half divine, 
 
 Fragrant as woodbines in the evening sun, 
 Fresh as the jasmines round his porch that twine, 
 
 Happy as school-boy when his task is done, 
 And simple as the village-maid that sings 
 Her bubbling song of old forgotten things." 
 
 I can scarcely understand De Quincey when he says 
 of Charles Lamb, and particularly of his delightful 
 prose essays under the signature of Elia, that "he 
 ranks amongst writers whose works are destined to 
 be for ever unpopular, and yet for ever interesting ; 
 interesting, moreover, by means of those very quali 
 ties which guarantee their non-popularity" (De Quin 
 cey s Works, 1st edit., Leaders in Literature, p. 109). 
 If De Quincey be right, is popularity worth having ? 
 My life, during the period of my London editor 
 ship was one of very pleasurable excitement. My 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 187 
 
 solitary musings, my morbid fancies, had reached 
 their term. I had ample occupation perhaps too 
 much for tranquil thought. We had a branch-office 
 of our newspaper at Aylesbury, where the last page 
 3f "The Bucks Gazette" was printed, whilst three 
 pages were supplied by the printed sheets of " The 
 Windsor Express." To despatch these sheets by a 
 special conveyance thirty miles, so as to be in time 
 for the due appearance of the secondary paper, 
 required careful organization. This I had to accom 
 plish on a Saturday morning^ leaving my Windsor 
 paper in a state fit for publication. To ride up to 
 London, or to mount one of the long coaches in the 
 afternoon, so as to be at the " Guardian " office for 
 new work, was my next exertion. The day had per 
 haps brought forth fresh aspects of political affairs. 
 Often, before writing my leader, have I discussed 
 the great topics of the hour with two valued friends, 
 whose opinions were not entirely in accordance with 
 my own. Mounted upon stools at my editorial desk, 
 have Matthew Davenport Hill and John Steer (who 
 was my sub-editor), argued with me about the de 
 linquencies and short-comings of the Government, 
 the necessity of Parliamentary Reform, the degrada 
 tion of England in all matters of foreign policy. My 
 w r ork done, we have gladly foregone all disputation, 
 to place ourselves under the genial presidency of the 
 worthy immortalized by Tennyson "the waiter at 
 the Cock." In the lapse of time we gradually grew 
 nearer in our opinions. The world was changing. 
 The miserable convulsion on the subject of the 
 Queen was terminated by her death. Lord Castle- 
 reagh was no more, carrying with him a good deal 
 of undeserved obloquy. Canning was come back to 
 
188 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 power. He was to inaugurate a new era of liberty 
 for the nations. I had access to one who was at that 
 time Canning s political adherent upon the subject 
 of Catholic Emancipation, and that of the pretensions 
 of a Congress to decide upon the destinies of Europe. 
 Mr. John Wilson Croker was always ready to give 
 me his opinions, as I believed, honestly. They were 
 to a great extent liberal, as liberalism was then un 
 derstood by those opposed to extreme views. He 
 was always glad to gossip upon subjects of literature, 
 and he earnestly counselled me to settle in London 
 as a publisher. I am bound to say, advisedly, that 
 I think his character has been misrepresented ; and 
 that the " Rigby " of " Coningsby " is an ebullition of 
 personal spite. 
 
 My occupation as the editor of a literary paper 
 necessarily made me somewhat familiar with the 
 aspects of the Publishing Trade of London. I gra 
 dually looked at the great establishments and the 
 small, somewhat more closely, through my vague 
 desire to find a place amongst them. There was a 
 new world all before me " where to choose," not my 
 " place of rest," but my sphere of action. Let me 
 glance back at my rough survey of this terra 
 incognita. 
 
 Paternoster Row, and the immediate neighbour 
 hood of St. Paul s Churchyard and Ave-Maria Lane, 
 were the principal seats of the wholesale book-trade. 
 At the beginning of the century, according to Mr. 
 Britton, "most of the tradesmen attended to their 
 respective shops, and dwelt in the upper part of their 
 houses." He had lived to see "the heads of many 
 of the large establishments visit their counting- 
 houses only for a few hours in the day, and leave 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 189 
 
 the working part to junior partners, clerks, and 
 apprentices." The greater number of city book 
 sellers did not carry on the business of publisher pur 
 et simple. They were factors of books for the London 
 collectors ; they were the agents of the country 
 booksellers ; they almost all were shareholders of 
 what were called Chapter Books, from the business 
 concerning them being conducted at the Chapter 
 Coffee House. If we open a book of fifty years ago, 
 which had become a standard work in its frequent 
 reprints, we find the names of twelve or twenty or 
 even more booksellers on the title-page. The copy 
 right had probably long expired. But these share 
 holders, who formed a Limited Liability Company 
 (not registered), were considered as the only legiti 
 mate dealers, and their editions the only genuine 
 ones. It was long before their monopoly was broken 
 up by a few daring adventurers who defied these 
 banded hosts, and were ready to pounce upon an 
 expired copyright before it could be appropriated by 
 the large and small potentates who had parcelled 
 out the realms of print, with absolute exclusiveness, 
 in the good times before Innovation. Trade Sales, 
 as they were called, were frequent and general 
 amongst the primitive race of booksellers ; at which 
 sales these share-books were sold, amongst other 
 wares, to the best bidders. The company was not 
 attracted by elegant banquets, such as those at which, 
 in later times, I have assisted as a guest and as a 
 host. There was a plain dinner of substantial beef 
 and mutton, which the bookseller ordered at an 
 adjacent tavern, directing what dishes should be pro 
 vided to meet the number of his expected guests. 
 I have heard an illustrative anecdote I do not 
 
190 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 vouch for its truth of one of the respectable firm 
 that lived under the sign of the Bible and Crown. 
 In the midst of family prayer he suddenly paused, 
 and exclaimed, " John, go and tell Higgins to make 
 another marrow-pudding." 
 
 The "legitimate" trade had its code of "protec 
 tion," on which it had reposed since the days of the 
 Tonsons and Lintots. Its system of associating many 
 shareholders in the production and sale of an esta 
 blished work kept up its price. The retailers were 
 only allowed to purchase of the wholesale houses 
 upon certain conditions, which had the effect of 
 making it difficult, if not impossible, for the private 
 purchaser to obtain a book under the sum advertised. 
 No publisher had discovered that it was to his 
 interest that the profit of the middle-man should be 
 small, so that a book should be vended at the 
 cheapest rate. The very notion of cheap books 
 stank in the nostrils, not only of the ancient mag 
 nates of the East, but of the new potentates of the 
 West. For a new work which involved the purchase 
 of copyright, it was the established rule that the 
 wealthy few, to whom price was not a consideration, 
 were alone to be depended upon for the remuneration 
 of the author and the first profit of the publisher. 
 The proud quarto, with a rivulet of text meandering 
 through a wide plain of margin, was the " decus et 
 tutamen" of the Row and of Albemarle Street.* 
 Conduit Street now and then vied in this gran 
 diosity ; but more commonly sent forth legions of 
 octavos, translated from the French with a rapidity 
 that was not very careful about correctness or elegance 
 
 * The Albemarle Street of Mr. Murray is still famous. The 
 Conduit Street of Mr. Colburn is no longer renowned. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 191 
 
 qualities which were not contemplated in the esti 
 mate of the literary cost. These were the books 
 whose cheapness was deceptive, like the books issued 
 by the Number-publishers. One of these successful 
 tradesmen, who, although he became Lord Mayor, 
 was once " Thomas " the porter in an old concern for 
 the production of the dearest books in folio such as 
 we may still find amongst the heir-looms of a humble 
 family in some remote village was never solicitous 
 to buy an author; his great object was to buy "a 
 ground." " A ground " was like a milk-walk there 
 were a body of customers to be transferred to the 
 new capitalist. He was once tempted into the em 
 ployment of original authorship. When his press 
 one day stood still for want of a sufficient supply of 
 the commodity for which he had indiscreetly bar 
 gained, he exclaimed, " Give me dead authors ! they 
 never keep you waiting for copy." 
 
 The publishers of classical books were not nume 
 rous. Amongst the most celebrated was Richard 
 Priestley, who undertook many reprints of Greek 
 and Roman authors and ponderous lexicons. His 
 career was not a successful one. In 1830, I occu 
 pied for the summer a cottage near Hampstead. 
 My landlord, who had become rich by a bequest, had 
 been a sheriff s officer. " Did you know poor Dick 
 Priestley ? " he said. " He was a good fellow. I had 
 him often under my lock. We were great friends ; 
 and after I left my calling I lent him a couple of 
 thousand." Was a sentimental friendship ever before 
 or since formed under circumstances so unromantic ? 
 Amongst the new class of publishers there were several 
 whose republications of standard works were as beau 
 tiful as they were cheap. The names of Major and 
 9 
 
192 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 Pickering are still deservedly in repute. But till 
 Constable started his "Miscellany," in 1827, no one 
 had thought it possible that an original work could 
 be produced in the first instance at the price of the 
 humblest reprint. His three-and -sixpenny volumes, 
 and. his grand talk of "a million of buyers," made the 
 publishing world of London believe that the mighty 
 autocrat of Edinburgh literature had gone " daft." 
 And so the Row sneered, and persevered in its old 
 system of fourteen-shilling octavos and two-guinea 
 quartos. The Circulating Library was scarcely then 
 an institution to be depended upon for the purchase 
 of a large impression, even of the most popular 
 Novels. Travels and Memoirs rarely then found a 
 place on the shelves of which fiction had long claimed 
 the exclusive occupation. There were Book-Clubs, 
 whose members aspired to be patrons of a more solid 
 literature ; but they were far from universal. All 
 circumstances considered, it was extremely difficult 
 for one like myself, very imperfectly acquainted with 
 the Trade, to form a correct estimate of what number 
 of a new book he might venture to print. Caution 
 and common-sense might save inexperience from 
 ridiculous ventures, such as had ruined many who 
 fancied there were no blanks in that tempting lottery. 
 I had known an unhappy man, who had come into 
 the possession of a considerable fortune, rush into the 
 wildest dealings with literary schemers, who regarded 
 him as a whale cast upon the shore, to be cut up as 
 speedily as possible. Poor fellow ! he was always 
 ready to buy he would even buy a title-page, the 
 more absurd the more attractive. " Mumbo Jumbo," 
 in the egg, was held by him cheap at a few hundreds. 
 I looked upon his fate as a warning. But yet I could 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 193 
 
 not resist the temptation to enter upon a career of 
 usefulness, in which there was reputation, and pos 
 sible wealth, to be won by diligence and integrity. 
 Not to be embarrassed with conflicting occupations, 
 I sold my pet " Guardian " at the end of 1822, and 
 in the season of 1823 I had taken my position in 
 Pall Mall East. 
 
CHAPTER VI1L 
 
 HE Etonians of 1819 had set on foot a 
 " College Magazine," which was circulated 
 in manuscript amongst a favoured circle 
 of schoolfellows. At the office of "The 
 Windsor and Eton Express " we printed for them a 
 selection from their contributions, which was entitled 
 "The Poetry of the College Magazine." As this 
 pamphlet came under my view in its course through 
 the press, I was much struck by the exceeding beauty 
 of some of these compositions striking in them 
 selves, but more remarkable as the productions of 
 young men, who seemed to have escaped from the 
 classical trammels of the " Musa3 Etonenses " to wear 
 a modern English garb with grace and freedom. 
 Amongst the most remarkable of these poems were 
 "The Hall of my Fathers" and "My Brother s 
 Grave." These were reprinted in the more ambi 
 tious work which grew out of the manuscript 
 periodical. 
 
 In the latter half of September, 1820, the Eton 
 vacation was at an end. The proceedings against 
 the Queen had been suspended till the 3rd of 
 October. The evidence to support the Bill of Pains 
 and Penalties had been concluded. Gladly did I 
 hail the prospect of some pleasant occupation some 
 relief from the routine of the filthy journalism of 
 that time when, arriving from London, I found two 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 195 
 
 youths waiting for me at my cottage by the side of 
 the Thames, who proposed to me to print and 
 publish an Eton Miscellany. The one was Walter 
 Blunt, the other Winthrop Mackworth Praed. There 
 was nothing to discuss beyond the estimate for print 
 ing ; for if the magazine did not pay its expenses 
 the deficiency was to be met by a subscription. It 
 was not to be a weekly essay, such as " The Micro 
 cosm," but a magazine of considerable size, that 
 might aspire to take its place amongst the best of 
 the monthly periodicals. On the 1st of November 
 appeared " The Etonian," No. I. 
 
 The remembrance of my intercourse with the two 
 youthful editors, and with a few of their contributors, 
 takes me back to a delightful passage of my working 
 life. I have before me the bright, earnest, happy 
 face of Mr. Blunt, who took a manifest delight in 
 doing the editorial drudgery. The worst proofs (for 
 in the haste unavoidable in periodical literature he 
 would sometimes catch hold of a proof unread} never 
 disturbed the serenity of his temper. To him it 
 seemed a real happiness to stand at a desk in the 
 composing-room, and laugh over the blunders which 
 others more experienced in the editorial craft would 
 have raved at as stupidity unbearable. In our print 
 ing-office there was a most intelligent overseer and 
 reader, who soon grew into favour with the editors, 
 one of whom did not forget, after forty years had 
 passed, the man who delighted to anticipate their 
 wishes. The Rev. Mr. Blunt, in a letter full of his 
 wonted kindliness, invited me, in 1859, to his house, 
 and thus recalled the old days : " The fact of my 
 writing this from a sofa, with gout in both legs, 
 bespeaks the lapse of time since I used to skurry up 
 
196 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 to Windsor to M Kechnie, with the proofs of The 
 Etonian/ " Mr. Praed came to the printing-office 
 less frequently. But during the ten months of the 
 life of this Miscellany which his own productions 
 were chiefly instrumental in raising to an eminence 
 never before attained by schoolboy genius similarly 
 exerted I was more and more astonished by the 
 unbounded fertility of his mind and the readiness 
 of his resources. He wrote under the signature of 
 " Peregrine Courtenay," the President of " The King 
 of Clubs," by whose members the magazine was 
 assumed to be conducted. The character of Pere 
 grine Courtenay, given in " An Account of the Pro 
 ceedings which led to the Publication of the Eto 
 nian, " furnishes no satisfactory idea of the youthful 
 Winthrop Mackworth Praed, when he is described as 
 one " possessed of sound good sense, rather than of 
 brilliance of genius." His "general acquirements 
 and universal information " are fitly recorded, as well 
 as his acquaintance with " the world at large." But 
 the kindness that lurks under sarcasm ; the wisdom 
 that wears the mask of fun; the half-melancholy 
 that is veiled by levity ; these qualities very soon 
 struck me as far out of the ordinary indications of 
 precocious talent. 
 
 It is not easy to separate my recollections of the 
 Praed of Eton from those of the Praed of Cambridge. 
 The Etonian of 1820 was natural and unaffected in 
 his ordinary talk ; neither shy nor presuming; proud, 
 without a tinge of vanity ; somewhat reserved, but 
 ever courteous ; giving few indications of the suscep 
 tibility of the poet, but ample evidence of the laugh 
 ing satirist ; a pale and slight youth, who had looked 
 upon the aspects of society with the keen perception 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 197 
 
 of a clever manhood ; one who had, moreover, seen 
 in human life something more than follies to be 
 ridiculed by the gay jest or scouted by the sarcastic 
 sneer. I had many opportunities of studying his 
 complex character. His writings then, especially bis 
 poems, occasionally exhibited that remarkable union 
 of pathos with wit and humour which attested the 
 originality of his genius, as it was subsequently deve 
 loped in maturer efforts. In these blended qualities 
 a superficial inquirer might conclude that he was .an 
 imitator of Hood. But Hood had written nothing 
 that indicated his future greatness, when Praed was 
 pouring forth verse beneath whose gaiety and quaint- 
 ness might be traced the characteristics which his 
 friend Mr. Moultrie describes as the peculiar attri 
 butes of his nature 
 
 " drawing off intrusive eyes 
 From that intensity of human lore 
 And that most deep and tender sympathy 
 Close guarded in the chambers of his heart." 
 
 The Dream of Life. 
 
 I soon had many opportunities of observing the 
 Praed of Eton in other relations than those of our 
 business intercourse. Whilst the first number of 
 " The Etonian " was growing into shape, I often 
 breakfasted with the two young editors in Mr. Blunt s 
 room out of the College bounds ; it being then the 
 practice, as all familiar with Eton know, for the 
 scholars of the foundation to get a breakfast as they 
 best could from their own means, or go without. 
 There were sometimes three or four at this social 
 meal. I had perhaps been in the House of Lords, 
 attending the Queen s trial on the previous afternoon, 
 and could tell them something of the withering 
 
198 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 eloquence of Brougham and the searching subtlety 
 of Copley. Praed took far more than a schoolboy s 
 interest in the questions of the day, and his sly or 
 sharp commentary would show how well he under 
 stood them. To me it was a rare pleasure to have 
 an occasional companionship with these fresh young 
 men, so fearless in the expression of their opinions ; 
 so frank in the display of their sympathies or anti 
 pathies ; full of the best associations of ancient learn 
 ing without a particle of pedantry ; quizzing each 
 other with the most perfect good temper ; passing 
 rapidly from an occasional argument of mock solem 
 nity to talk of their theatre in Datchet Lane, and 
 "the best bat in the school" these blithe spirits, 
 some of whom, in after years, might be wrangling at 
 Nisi Prius, or struggling in the muddy waters of 
 party politics. Upon these Eton days Praed looked 
 lovingly back in verses which he wrote for me when 
 he had taken his place in the great world : 
 
 " I wish that I could run away 
 
 From house, and court, and levee, 
 Where bearded men appear to-day 
 
 Just Eton-boys grown heavy ; 
 That I could bask in childhood s sun, 
 
 And dance o er childhood s roses ; 
 And find huge wealth in one pound one, 
 
 Vast wit in broken noses ; 
 And play Sir Giles at Datchet Lane, 
 
 And call the milk-maids houris ; 
 That I could be a boy again, 
 
 A happy boy at Drary s." 
 
 London Magazine, 1829. 
 
 A boy such as Praed, who possessed his genius, 
 and was not possessed by it (as I once heard the 
 great Coleridge say in comparing the peculiarities of 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 199 
 
 two young men), was sure to be happy at Eton. He 
 was in every respect the opposite, in certain qualities 
 which may be called physical rather than intellectual, 
 to another contributor to "The Etonian." William 
 Sidney Walker was in 1820 a Fellow of Trinity Col 
 lege. I had no acquaintance with him till the end 
 of 1822, but I saw a great deal of him in after years, 
 both at Cambridge and in my family circle. I may 
 say that I never beheld in any man, even of the lowest 
 ability, such a striking example of the every-day 
 want of " decision of character " that most valuable 
 quality, which is the subject of one of Foster s inte 
 resting " Essays." Irresolute, even in the most trivial 
 actions of life ; hesitating in the utterance of the 
 commonest colloquial forms ; utterly incapable of 
 sustaining a share in conversation even amongst his 
 familiar friends Sidney Walker was inferior to very 
 few in some of the higher qualities of genius second 
 to none in a marvellous power of memory and, 
 having won his Fellowship by his brilliant scholar 
 ship, might have left an imperishable .reputation, if 
 his will had been sufficiently strong to counteract the 
 morbid tendencies of his feelings. As an Eton boy, 
 there was no one in the school who had given such 
 an early promise of poetical ability, apart from his 
 school studies. At seventeen, his epic poem of " Gus- 
 tavus Vasa" was published by subscription. And 
 yet this wonderful boy was the subject of the direst 
 persecution by the common herd of his schoolfellows. 
 Mr. Moultrie, who was his junior by four years, has, 
 in a beautiful Memoir prefixed to Walker s " Poetical 
 Remains," described him at Eton as flying for refuge 
 from his tormentors, even into the private apart 
 ments of the assistant-masters. Another friend, Mr. 
 
200 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 Derwent Coleridge, alludes to this victim of school 
 boy-tyranny, as "one of the very largest natural 
 capacity, whose whole moral and intellectual nature 
 had been dwarfed arid distorted by the treatment he 
 received at school." Mr. Walker had a profound 
 admiration for female loveliness, and yet he induced 
 no sentiment but pity in his grotesque approaches to 
 ladies, and his extraordinary modes of testifying his 
 devotion. When one of the most beautiful, as well 
 as the most gifted, women of her time appeared at a 
 public ball at Cambridge, he peered into her face, and 
 clapped his hands in an ecstasy of delight. " It was 
 the joy of the savage," said Macaulay, " when he first 
 sees a tenpenny nail." His admiration was too deep 
 for words. I once, however, witnessed a demonstra 
 tion at a social meeting of his friends at Trinity, 
 which took every one by surprise. The wine was 
 passing round, when he suddenly jumped upon a 
 chair, and flourishing his glass, exclaimed, " The 
 Greeks !" The introduction of the toast by the most 
 brilliant harangue of Macaulay, who was present, 
 could not have produced a more profound sensation. 
 Incapable as he was of expressing it, there was a 
 tenderness in Walker s appreciation of the pure and 
 beautiful in Women, as there was of loftiness in his 
 estimate of the heroic in Nations. If the author of 
 " The Lover s Song," in " The Etonian," could have 
 spoken as he wrote, his terror of a life of perpetual 
 celibacy as the Fellow of a College might have been 
 happily ended, in spite of his slovenly dress, his 
 pirouetting walk, his want of the outward attributes 
 of manliness. When " the toils of day are past and 
 done," and he invokes the image of his "lost, remem- 
 ber d Emily," few passages of the best amatory lyrics 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 201 
 
 may compare with four lines of this exquisite little 
 poem : 
 
 " Too solemn for day, too sweet for night, 
 Come not in darkness, come not in light ; 
 But come in some twilight interim 
 "When the gloom is soft and the light is dim." 
 
 Mr. Praed and Mr. Moultrie were the life-long 
 friends of this unhappy man. Praed made the most 
 noble exertions to clear off his debts, and to place 
 him above actual want, when he had lost his Fellow 
 ship from his honest scruples as to taking Orders, 
 bewildered as he ever was by his habitual scepticism 
 on all subjects. Moultrie cherished him living, and 
 he has done justice to his memory when dead 
 touching lightly upon his foibles lamenting over 
 the " shapeless wreck " of a lost mind 
 
 " by what mysterious bane 
 Of physical or mental malady 
 Disordered, none can tell." 
 
 Dream of Life. 
 
 Let me turn to Mr. Moultrie himself, as a contri 
 butor to " The Etonian." 
 
 In the collected edition of " Poems by John Moul 
 trie," amongst the "Poems composed between the 
 years 1818 and 1828," there are found those most 
 touching and graphic lines which first gave assurance 
 to the world of his rare qualities as a poet. " My 
 Brother s Grave " is one of those outpourings of the 
 heart that never fail to command human sympathy. 
 The two longer poems in " The Etonian," of "Godiva" 
 and " Maimoune," are not reprinted in this collection. 
 When, in 1837, Mr. Moultrie was looking back upon 
 the productions of 1820, he might probably have 
 
202 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 considered that the occasional levities of the young 
 student of nineteen might scarcely be deemed fit for 
 republication by the clergyman of six-and-thirty. 
 Yet it is to be regretted that these poems should not 
 have been preserved, other than as a portion of a 
 Miscellany now scarce and little known. The same 
 minute and careful excisions which have been be 
 stowed upon the long poem of " Sir Launfal " (the 
 "La Belle Tryamour" of " Knight s Quarterly Maga 
 zine") might have given these two productions a 
 wider celebrity. The two or three fragments which 
 are republished offer no adequate idea of the more 
 than cleverness of these early poems. In the stanzas 
 which tell the well-known story of the gentle lady of 
 Coventry, there are passages of rare beauty, which 
 may justly compete with the " Godiva " of Tennyson, 
 written ten years afterwards. " Maimoune " is more 
 unequal ; and there are occasional licences in it 
 which now would call up frowns from some, which 
 might have been smiles forty years ago. But the 
 author may justly claim never to have written a 
 verse that was really corrupting, even in the un- 
 pruned luxuriance of his spring-time. Looking back 
 upon his Eton experiences he describes his chief 
 poetical characteristics : 
 
 " If my song 
 
 Hath ever found its way to gentle hearts, 
 Twas by the nurture and development 
 Of dormant powers, then first and only found, 
 That its wild notes were fashioned to express 
 A natural tenderness. " 
 
 Dream of Life. 
 
 Henry Nelson Coleridge was in 1820 a scholar of 
 King s College, Cambridge. At the time when he was 
 
THE FIRSsT EPOCH. 203 
 
 a contributor to "The Etonian" he had given evidence 
 of his great abilities and scholarship, by winning two 
 of Sir William Brown s medals one for the Greek 
 ode and one for the Latin ode. His poetical faculty, 
 although not of a common order, was less remarkable 
 than his literary taste. The nephew of Samuel 
 Taylor Coleridge, his admiration of those who were 
 then sneered at as "the Lake School" was only 
 natural. But- it required some courage in the young 
 critic to stand up to defend Wordsworth and Cole 
 ridge from that never-ceasing ridicule of the Edin 
 burgh Reviewers, which, it appears, was in some 
 favour at Eton. He did more than this. He 
 endeavoured to explain and illustrate Wordsworth as 
 a very singular and peculiar poet, quite set apart 
 from the troop of every-day metrists, and living and 
 breathing in a world of his own. When Wordsworth 
 was then spoken of as a great poet, the ordinary 
 question was, " Why is he not more popular?" The 
 process through which public opinion gradually turns 
 from an ephemeral popularity, permanently to repose 
 upon works of imagination that are not extravagant 
 stimulants, is admirably illustrated by his own expe 
 rience : "I remember distinctly, when Lalla Rookh 
 first came out, I read it through at one sitting. To 
 say I was delighted with it is a poor word for my 
 feelings ; I was transported out of myself entranced, 
 or what you will. The men did not appear to me 
 half fierce and beautiful enough, and the women had 
 nothing in their eyes at all like those of the gazelle ; 
 not to mention that the flowers were very meagre, 
 and the wind cold, and the chapel-organ out of tune, 
 and the blessed Sun himself but a poor substitute 
 for the god of the Guebres. This seems extravagant, 
 
204 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 and yet I believe that many a young heart has felt 
 nearly the same, if those feelings were uttered. 
 Well after a few days it occurred to me as some 
 thing very odd that I had no patience now with old 
 Homer, or Virgil, or even Milton, and scarcely with 
 Shakspere ; they were not transporting enough. 
 This made me reflect upon the causes which could 
 work such a revolution in me ; for I used to think 
 the aforesaid poets the very first in their lines, and 
 lo ! now a greater than they had swept them out of 
 my favour ! After the cooling interval of three weeks 
 I sat down to read this book again but oh ! quan 
 tum mutatus ab illo Hectare ! I cannot describe 
 my feelings, but suffice it to say, the potent charm 
 had vanished ; but still I was bewitched in a minor 
 degree by the glare and dazzle of the scenery and 
 the music of the versification. Will you believe me, 
 that a whole year afterwards I read this same book a 
 third time ; and then I felt and knew, as all will feel 
 and know who will take the trouble of making the 
 experiment, that the only parts of the work that are 
 worth a farthing are precisely those which are the 
 simplest, the most plain, and free from the beauties of 
 the author, and which, on that very account, I, on iny 
 first acquaintance with him, disliked or neglected." 
 
 Henry Coleridge, by his republication of "The 
 Friend," and other materials for a proper estimation 
 of his illustrious uncle s labours, testified in his 
 maturer years a profound admiration of his character 
 as a philosopher and a critic. But the Cambridge 
 scholar, while regarding him as the greatest poetical 
 genius of that day, does not hesitate to ask, " Where 
 are we to find in Mr. Coleridge s philosophy that 
 solid, sensible ground upon which we may venture to 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 205 
 
 build up an abiding-place for our doubts and our 
 desires ?" Such are the changes which years produce 
 in every mind in which the process of educating 
 itself is always going on. 
 
 There were altogether fifteen contributors to "The 
 Etonian." I have mentioned the more prominent. 
 But there was no one who, in the extent and variety 
 of his articles, approached Mr. Praed. They occupy 
 more than a fourth of the whole Miscellany. His 
 prose contributions are far less striking than his 
 poetical. His verse bore a remarkable resemblance 
 to his handwriting. It was the most perfect cali- 
 graphy I ever beheld. No printer could mistake a 
 word or letter. It was not what is called a running- 
 hand, and yet it was written with rapidity, as I have 
 often witnessed. Such, too, was the flow and finish 
 of his compositions. In the poems which earliest 
 appeared in "The Etonian" we scarcely trace that 
 peculiar vein which peeps out in his later verse in 
 the same work. And yet these first of a numerous 
 series are essentially different from the common run 
 of classical imitations or juvenile sentimentalities. 
 " The Eve of Battle " is an example. Eighteen hun 
 dred and twenty was sufficiently nigh the year of 
 Waterloo to have suggested recollections of many an 
 Etonian who there fell. For those who closed their 
 career in the Crimea there is a memorial-window at 
 Eton. Praed s poem is most probably a memorial, 
 in some particulars, of real persons who had left 
 memories of their happy boyhood. Yet how strik 
 ingly has he varied their characters ! There, is "the 
 beau of battle ;" there, is the would-be poet, who 
 " on the fray that is to be" is writing " a Dirge or 
 Elegy ;" there, is " the merriest soul that ever loved 
 
206 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 the circling bowl ;" there, is " Etona s wild and way 
 ward -son" who will "break Frenchmen s heads, 
 instead of Priscian s ;" there, is " Sir Matthew Chase," 
 in whose dreams " blood and blood-horses smoke by 
 turns." How unlike the thoughts of eighteen is the 
 description of a youth who was " all by turns, and 
 nothing long : " 
 
 " A friend by turns to saints and sinners, 
 Attending lectures, plays, and dinners, 
 The Commons House, and Common Halls, 
 Chapels of ease, and Tattersall s; 
 Skilful in fencing and in fist, 
 Blood critic jockey methodist; 
 Causeless alike in joy or sorrow, 
 Tory to-day and Whig to-morrow, 
 All habits and all shapes he Avore, 
 And lov d, and laugh d, and pray d, and swore." 
 
 In the eighth Number of " The Etonian ," Praed 
 found out his forte of poetical narrative, in which the 
 legendary stories of the old Komances are told with 
 touches of wit and humour, far more effective than 
 the coarse burlesque of such forgotten modernizations 
 as " The Dragon of Wantley." As an example of 
 his clever management of antithetical images take 
 these lines of "Gog:" 
 
 " Oh ! Arthur s days were blessed days, 
 When all was wit, and worth, and praise ; 
 And planting thrusts and planting oaks, 
 And cracking nuts and cracking jokes, 
 And turning out the toes and tiltings, 
 And jousts, and journeyings, and jiltings. 
 Lord ! what a stern and stunning rout 
 As tall Adventure strode about, 
 Rang through the land ; for there were duels 
 For love of dames and love of jewels ; 
 And steeds that carried knight and prince 
 As never steeds have carried since ; 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 207 
 
 And heavy lords and heavy lances ; 
 And strange unfashionable dances ; 
 And endless bustle and turmoil, 
 In vain disputes for fame and spoil. 
 Manners and roads were very rough ; 
 Armour and beeves were very tough ; 
 And then then brightest figures far 
 In din or dinner, peace or war 
 Dwarfs sang to ladies in their teens, 
 And giants grew as thick as beans ! " 
 
 Mr. Praed left Eton for Trinity College at the 
 summer vacation of 1821. In his parting poem of 
 " Surly Hall" he thus apostrophizes Eton : 
 
 " A few short hours, and I am borno 
 Far from the fetters I have worn ; 
 A few short hours, and I am free ! 
 And yet I shrink from liberty ; 
 And look, and long to give my soul 
 Back to thy cherishing control. 
 Control ! ah, no ! thy chain was meant 
 Far less for bond than omament ; 
 And though its links be firmly set, 
 I never found them gall me yet. 
 Oh ! still, through many chequer d years, 
 Mid anxious toils, and hopes, and fears, 
 Still I have doted on thy fame, 
 And only gloried in thy name." 
 
 In Mr. Moultrie s " Maimoune/ of the same conclud 
 ing Number of "The Etonian," he half seriously 
 alludes to the approaching privation of that vehicle 
 for his poetical effusions which had grown out of the 
 manuscript "College Magazine" which he conducted. 
 " Sweet Muse," he says, 
 
 " Tis a sad bore to have thy fancies pent 
 "Within my brain all joys of printing flown 
 No praise my dear anonymous state to sweeten, 
 And all because some folks are leaving Eton." 
 
208 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 In the concluding Number of " The Etonian" the 
 list of fifteen Contributors is signed, as Editors, by 
 "Walter Blunt, Winthrop Mackworth Praed." In a 
 parting address, Peregrine Courtenay thus gracefully 
 records his obligations to his editorial coadjutor: 
 " Most of all, I have to speak my feelings to him, 
 who, at my earnest solicitations, undertook to bear 
 an equal portion of my fatigues and my responsi 
 bility, to him, who has performed so diligently the 
 labours which he entered upon so reluctantly, to 
 him, who has been the constant companion of my 
 hopes and fears, my good and ill fortune, to him, 
 who, by the assiduity of his own attention, and the 
 genius of the contributors whose good offices he 
 secured, has ensured the success of The Etonian/ " 
 
 Deeply did I regret my separation from two 
 or three with whom an intimacy had grown up, 
 which, in spite of the differences of ages and pur 
 suits, was something higher than the cold inter 
 course of business. Some months had passed away. 
 Mr. Praed was now a Brown s medallist for the 
 Greek ode and for Epigrams. In December, 
 1822, I received from him a letter which materially 
 influenced my determination to enter upon a new 
 career : " I shall labour in no periodical vocation 
 until you publish one in which I can be of service 
 to you ; and divers other Etonians long to hear 
 of your happy establishment in town." I spent 
 a week most pleasantly at Cambridge. I was wel 
 comed by a knot of young men who belonged, as 
 one of them has described, to 
 
 " a generation nobler far 
 Than that which went before it more athirst 
 For knowledge more intent on loftiest schemes 
 
THE FIKST EPOCH. 209 
 
 And purposes of good and if more prone 
 To daring speculation apt to tread 
 More venturous paths yet purer from the stain 
 Of gross and sensual vice." 
 
 The Dream of Life. 
 
 In addition to those I had previously known in con 
 nexion with " The Etonian," I was introduced to Mr. 
 Derwent Coleridge, Mr. Maiden, and Mr. Macaulay. 
 It was a cold and wet season, but I was well pleased 
 to wander with such intelligent guides amongst those 
 venerable buildings, which had then lost little of 
 their antique character; to look into libraries and 
 museums ; to see something of the observances of 
 College life, in prayers at Chapel and dinners in 
 Hall ; to ride to Ely along slushy causeways, which 
 were in parts flooded by the waters of the fens, with 
 baby-windmills striving to keep them down. In 
 the mornings there were pleasant breakfasts and 
 luncheons ; in the evenings cheerful wine-parties, 
 and sometimes the famous milk-punch of Trinity 
 and of King s. But there was no excess. Amongst 
 my enjoyments the general plan of " Knight a 
 Quarterly Magazine" was settled. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HE title of our projected work had not been 
 decided when contributions reached me, 
 sufficient in number and quality to indi 
 cate that my Cambridge friends were 
 thoroughly in earnest. The "English Magazine" 
 was rather a favourite name with us. I scarcely 
 recollect how "Knight s Quarterly Magazine" was 
 adopted ; but there appears to have been no doubt 
 upon the point when Mr. Praed sent me his opening 
 article, called " Castle Yernon." A very singular 
 paper it was, quite removed from the ordinary tone 
 of what Leigh Hunt has somewhere designated as 
 the most amiable but least interesting part of a book. 
 The only prospectus which I issued was an extract 
 from this eccentric Introduction : 
 
 " To the Lady Mary Yernon, the Mistress of all 
 Harmony, the Queen of all Wits, the Brightest 
 of all Belles, we, the undersigned, send 
 greeting : 
 
 " We, the undersigned, are a knot of young men, 
 of various forms and features of more various talents 
 and inclinations ; agreeing in nothing, save in two 
 essential points a warm liking for one another, and 
 a very profound devotion for your Ladyship. 
 
 " Some of us have no occupation. 
 " Some of us have no money. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 211 
 
 " Some of us are desperately in love. 
 
 " Some of us are desperately in debt. 
 
 " Many of us are very clever, and wish to convince 
 the Public of the fact. 
 
 " Several of us have never written a line. 
 
 "Several of us have written a great many, and 
 wish to write more. 
 
 " For all these reasons, we intend to write a Book. 
 
 " We will not compile a lumbering quarto of Tra 
 vels, to be bound in Russia, and skimmed in the 
 Quarterly, and bought by the country book-clubs ; 
 nor a biting Political Pamphlet, to be praised by 
 everybody on one side, and abused by everybody on 
 the other, and read by nobody at all ; nor a Philo 
 sophical Essay, to be marvelled at by the few, and 
 shuddered at by the many, and prosecuted by His 
 Majesty s Attorney-General ; nor a little Epic 
 Poem in twenty-four books, to be loved by the 
 milliners, and lauded in the Literary Gazette/ and 
 burnt by your Ladyship. 
 
 " But a Book of some sort we are resolved to write. 
 We will go forth to the world once a quarter, in high 
 spirits and handsome type, and a modest dress of 
 drab, with verse and prose, criticism and witticism, 
 fond love and loud laughter; everything that is light 
 and warm, and fantastic, and beautiful, shall be the 
 offering we will bear ; while we will leave the Nation 
 to the care of the Parliament, and the Church to the 
 Bishop of Peterborough. And to this end we will 
 give up to colder lips and duller souls their gross and 
 terrestrial food ; we will not interfere with the saddle 
 or the sirloin, the brandy-bottle or the punch-bowl ; 
 our food shall be of the spicy curry and the glisten 
 ing champagne ; our inspiration shall be the thanks 
 
212 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 of pleasant voices, and the smiles of sparkling eyes. 
 We grasp at no renown we pray for no immortality; 
 but we trust, that in the voyage it shall be our destiny 
 to run, we shall waken many glowing feelings, and 
 revive many agreeable recollections ; we shall make 
 many jokes and many friends ; we shall enliven our 
 selves and the public together ; and when we meet 
 around some merry hearth to discuss the past and 
 the future, our projects, and our success, we shall 
 give a zest to our bottle and our debate by drinking 
 a health to all who read us, and three healths to all 
 who praise." 
 
 Twenty-five signatures followed this address to 
 " the idol before whom they were to prostrate their 
 hearts and their papers." Some eight or ten of these 
 noms de guerre clung to the real men during their 
 connexion with the Magazine. Take as the more 
 distinguished examples : 
 
 PEREGRINE COTJRTENAY ) _ 
 
 VYVYAN JOTEUSE . . j ^INTHROP MACKWOBTH PEAED. 
 
 GERARD MONTGOMERY. JOHN MOULTRIE. 
 
 DAVENANT CECIL . . DERWENT COLERIDGE. 
 
 TRISTRAM MERTON . . THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 EDWARD HASELFOOT . WILLIAM SIDNEY WALKER. 
 
 HAMILTON MURRAY . HENRY MALDEN. 
 
 JOSEPH HALLER. . . HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE. 
 
 Peregrine Courtenay was the signature of Praed in 
 " The Etonian." Vyvyan Joyeuse was the one he 
 adopted for his gay and laughing moods in the 
 "Quarterly Magazine." The name was in accord 
 ance with the description of him who bore it, when 
 he was called up to explain to Lady Mary and her 
 coterie the meaning of the address which had been 
 presented to her : " You shall call nobody but me/ 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 213 
 
 cried a shrill voice ; you shall call nobody but me, 
 Vyvyan Joyeuse ! And immediately a whimsical 
 apparition leaped with an opera step into the front of 
 the battalia ; a tall thin youth, with long sallow fea 
 tures ; thick brown hair curled attentively, and small 
 gray eyes. He threw a quick shifting glance upon 
 his auditors, and then, dangling the ribbon of his 
 glass with both hands, stood prepared for his in 
 terrogator." Christopher North introduced Vyvyan 
 Joyeuse into his "Noctes," when he described the 
 Magazine as " a gentlemanly Miscellany, got together 
 by a clan of young scholars, who look upon the world 
 with a cheerful eye, and all its on-goings with a spirit 
 of hopeful kindness." There is another portrait 
 drawn by Praed, in which, as in many sketches ap 
 proaching to caricature such as those of H. B. forty 
 years ago we may trace the best likenesses of emi 
 nent men who lived on into another generation : 
 
 " Tristram Merton, come into court. There came 
 up a short manly figure, marvellously upright, with 
 a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat- 
 pocket. Of regular beauty he had little to boast ; 
 but in faces where there is an expression of great 
 power, or of great good humour, or of both, you do 
 not regret its absence. 
 
 " They were glorious days, he said, with a bend, 
 and a look of chivalrous gallantry to the circle around 
 him, they were glorious days for old Athens when 
 all she held of witty and of wise, of brave and of 
 beautiful, was collected in the drawing-room of 
 Aspasia. In those, the brightest and the noblest 
 times of Greece, there was no feeling so strong as the 
 devotion of youth, no talisman of such virtue as the 
 smile of beauty. Aspasia was the arbitress of peace 
 
214 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 and war, the queen of arts and arms, the Pallas of 
 the spear and the pen : we have looked back to those 
 golden hours with transport and with longing. Here 
 our classical dreams shall in some sort wear a dress of 
 reality. He who has not the piety of a Socrates, 
 may at least fall down before as lovely a divinity ; 
 he who has not the power of a Pericles may at least 
 kneel before as beautiful an Aspasia/ 
 
 " His tone had just so much earnest that what he 
 said was felt as a compliment, and just so much 
 banter that it was felt to be nothing more. As he 
 concluded he dropped on one knee, and paused. 
 
 " Tristram/ said the Attorney-General, we really 
 are sorry to cramp a culprit in his line of defence ; 
 but the time of the court must not be taken up. If 
 you can speak ten words to the purpose 
 
 " Prythee, Frederic, retorted the other, leave 
 me to manage my own course. I have an arduous 
 journey to run ; and, in such a circle, like the poor 
 prince in the Arabian Tales, I must be frozen into 
 stone before I can finish my task without turning to 
 the right or the left/ 
 
 " For the love you bear us, a truce to your 
 similes : they shall be felony without benefit of 
 clergy ; and silence for an hour shall be the penalty/ 
 
 " A penalty for similes ! horrible ! Paul of 
 Russia prohibited round hats, and Chihu of China 
 denounced white teeth ; but this is atrocious ! 
 
 " I beseech you, Tristram, if you can for a moment 
 forget your omniscience, let us 
 
 " I will endeavour. It is related of Zoroaster, 
 that " 
 
 Others of the "knot of young men of various 
 forms and features, of more various habits and incli- 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 215 
 
 nations," were called before "the Mistress of all 
 Harmony." There was Cecil, of whose character no 
 idea could be conveyed in the compass of a few lines, 
 " except that which will be naturally associated with 
 a highly-flushed cheek, and a magnificent forehead, 
 and thick black hair." There were others whose 
 names figured in the address who were not called at 
 all. Mr. Peregrine Courtenay " having said a few 
 words in kind remembrance of his quondam passages 
 with Mr. C. Knight," it was resolved that " the most 
 entertaining publication of the day be immediately 
 set on foot, under the title of Knight s Quarterly 
 Magazine. " But there was no chance of coming to 
 a conclusion upon the question, " who was to edite 
 the work ? " The publisher drifted into the editor 
 ship, much against his will ; but if his anomalous 
 power had its pains, it had also its pleasures. 
 
 There is perhaps no happiness of the editorial life 
 equal to that of first reading the manuscript of a con 
 tributor in which original genius is so manifest that 
 none but a blockhead would venture upon an altera 
 tion. I have, however, seen a little of such block 
 heads in my day real live editors, obtuse and 
 prosaic as the mysterious Mr. Perkins of the Shak- 
 spere folio. Very early amongst the contributions 
 came " La Belle Tryamour," which Mr. Moultrie 
 described as "the threatened Beppo," which, if 
 I thought it too long, or had better matter to 
 supply its place, I was to pack off without ceremony. 
 I did not avail myself of the permission. One con 
 tribution of no common order was at least secured. 
 In a week or two followed a prose contribution. 
 Those who do not possess, or cannot obtain even at 
 such cost as that of works figuring in old catalogues 
 
216 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 as rare the " Quarterly Magazine," which the intel 
 ligent public of forty years ago did not exactly 
 appreciate, may find the noble "Fragments of a 
 lloman Tale " preserved from oblivion in the " Mis 
 cellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay." They may 
 also find there an article on " The Royal Society of 
 Literature." If they should not care to trace how 
 the scheme of patronage for the incubation of great 
 authors was mauled by one who was to take the 
 foremost rank amongst those who have but one 
 patron, the public, he may be struck with the apo 
 logue that clenches the argument. "About four 
 hundred years after the deluge, when King Gomer 
 Chephoraod reigned in Babylon, and was so popular 
 that the clay of all the plains round the Euphrates 
 could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his 
 eulogists, at a time when all authors inscribed their 
 compositions on massive bricks this beneficent 
 Prince was petitioned that he should take order that 
 his people should only drink good wine. A decree 
 was passed that great rewards should be bestowed 
 upon the man who should make ten measures of the 
 best wine. The examiners, assembled to judge the 
 wine, decided that all sent in was little better than 
 poison. There had been a singularly good season, 
 but the only bad wine was that tasted by the judges. 
 Who can explain this? said the King. An old 
 philosopher then came forward, and spoke thus : 
 
 " Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever ! Marvel not at 
 that which has happened. It was no miracle, but a 
 natural event. How could it be otherwise ? It is 
 true that much good wine has been made this year ; 
 but who would send it in for thy rewards ? Thou 
 knowest Ascobaruch, who hath the great vineyards 
 10 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 217 
 
 in the north, and Cohahirotb, who sendeth wine every 
 year from the south over the Persian Gulf. Theii 
 wines are so delicious that ten measures thereof are 
 sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou 
 that they will exchange them for thy slaves and thine 
 asses ? What would thy prize profit any who have 
 vineyards in rich soils ? 
 
 " Who, then, said one of the judges, are the 
 wretches who sent us this poison ? 
 
 " Blame them not/ said the sage, seeing that 
 you have "been the authors of the evil. They are 
 men whose lands are poor, and have never yielded 
 them any returns equal to the prizes which the King 
 proposed. Wherefore, knowing that the lords of the 
 fruitful vineyards would not enter into competition 
 with them, they planted vines, some on rocks, and 
 some in light sandy soil, and some in deep clay. 
 Hence their wines are bad. For no culture or re 
 ward will make barren land bear good vines. Know, 
 therefore, assuredly, that your prizes have increased 
 the quantity of bad but not of good wine. 
 
 " There was a long silence. At length the King 
 spoke. Give him the purple robe and the chain of 
 gold. Throw the wine into the Euphrates ; and pro 
 claim the Royal Society of Wines is dissolved. " 
 
 There was another prose article by Mr. Macaulay 
 in the first number of the Magazine which has not 
 been reprinted. The evil which was there combated 
 with unusual energy was remedied when the young 
 writer, who had been bred up in the doctrines of the 
 school of Wilberforce to which his father belonged, 
 had become a legislator. It was before the days of 
 his political responsibility that he thus introduced 
 the article on "West Indian Slavery": "We espouse 
 
218 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 no party. Zadig himself did not listen to the memo 
 rable controversy about Zoroaster and his griffins 
 with more composure and impartiality than we hope 
 to display on most of the subjects which interest 
 politicians. We are neutrals." To write against 
 Slavery seemed likely to have interested " the Clap- 
 ham sect " in the " Quarterly Magazine " perhaps 
 fco have induced them to tolerate even its occasional 
 levity. Painful must have been the struggle when 
 Macaulay felt himself compelled to secede after the 
 publication of the first number. But how honourable 
 to his memory is the letter which he addressed to me, 
 and which this conviction would alone induce me to 
 publish : 
 
 " Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, 
 June 20, 1823. 
 
 " My dear Sir, As I fear that it will be impossible 
 for me to contribute to your Magazine for the future, 
 I think it due to you and to myself to acquaint you, 
 without reserve, of the circumstances which have 
 influenced me. 
 
 " You are probably aware that there are among my 
 family connections several persons of rigidly religious 
 sentiments. My father, in particular, is, I believe, 
 generally known to entertain in their utmost extent 
 what are denominated evangelical opinions. Several 
 articles in our first number, one or two of my own in 
 particular, appeared to give him great uneasiness. 
 I need not say that I do not in the slightest degree 
 partake of his scruples. Nor have I at all dissembled 
 the complete discrepancy which exists between his 
 opinions and mine. At the same time, gratitude, 
 duty, and prudence, alike compel me to respect pre 
 judices which I do not in the slightest degree share. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 219 
 
 And, for the present, I must desist from taking any 
 part in the Quarterly Magazine. 
 
 "The sacrifice gives me considerable pain. The 
 Magazine formed a connecting tie between me and 
 some very dear friends, from whom 1 am now sepa 
 rated, probably for a very long time ; and I should 
 feel still more concerned if I could imagine that any 
 inconvenience could result from my conduct. 
 
 " I shall probably be in London in about a month. 
 I will then explain my motives to you more fully. 
 In the meantime, I can only say that all that has 
 passed between us increases my regrets for the ter- < 
 mination of our connection, and my wishes that it 
 may be renewed under more favourable circum 
 stances. 
 
 " Let me beg that you will communicate what I 
 have said to nobody excepting Coleridge, Moultrie, 
 Praed, and Maiden ; and to them under the injunc 
 tion of secrecy. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Sir, yours sincerely, 
 "T. B. MACAULAY." 
 
 Derwent Coleridge, who has been addressed by his 
 bosom friend as 
 
 " A poet s child, thyself a poet born," 
 
 contributed " Beauty, a Lyrical Poem." Henry 
 Nelson Coleridge sent a paper full of deep thought 
 eloquently expressed, " Scibile," a paper which De 
 Quincey, writing to me some months after its publi- 
 cation, regarded as truly admirable. Henry Maiden 
 furnished a graceful Italian tale, " Agostino della 
 Monterosa," in which the romantic superstitions of 
 the Middle Ages are reproduced with the complete- 
 
220 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 ness of a full knowledge. He describes an enthusiast 
 whose mind was subdued by the arts of a false friend 
 to believe in " the secrets of the Rosy Cross, and of 
 those spirits of the elements who pervade all that we 
 hear and see and touch, although we hear them not, 
 and see them not, and feel them not," (a nobler 
 form of credulity, it seems to me, than a belief in 
 spirits whose presence is indicated by rapping and 
 table-lifting) to believe in tales of unhappy spirits 
 lingering over graves and charnel-houses, of unquiet 
 tenants of the tomb; of mighty magicians. "He 
 pored over ancient chronicles, and read of the black 
 Boy who was the attendant of Julius Ca3sar, and who, 
 though he lived many years, grew never the older ; 
 of the strange knight, who came, sore spent with 
 travel, on a huge-boned mulberry-coloured horse, to 
 the court of Charlemagne ; and no one knew his 
 name or lineage, or whence he came, yet he was ever 
 with the Emperor, who did nothing that he did with 
 out his counsel, save when he went down to the great 
 battle of Roncesvalles ; and the strange knight went 
 into the battle, and came not out of it, yet was not 
 his body found among the slaughtered Paladins ; 
 and of the deaf and dumb dwarf with the yellow 
 beard, who had the secret ear of the Soldan Saladin, 
 and went with him wherever he went, save into the 
 holy city of Jerusalem. On tales as wild as these he 
 suffered his mind to dwell with a blind and visionary 
 faith, and he was filled with a vague and anxious 
 longing for such supernatural converse." The power 
 displayed in this tale might almost lead one to 
 lament that such qualities of genius should have 
 merged into a life of unambitious usefulness, did we 
 not know that in such a life that of the trainer 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 221 
 
 of the young to sound learning, that of a teacher 
 commanding obedience through love the truest 
 happiness and honour are to be found. 
 
 The smaller poetical contributions of the Magazine 
 were to be grouped in a concluding paper, entitled, 
 " What you will." In the first number we have some 
 exquisite Sonnets by Moultrie, which have been 
 reprinted in his collected Poems. We have one of 
 Praed s charming Enigmas. We have, what no one 
 would expect to find, amatory verses by Tristram 
 Merton, who might perhaps have rivalled " Tom 
 Moore," had he not been born for higher things. It 
 is almost needless to say that there is no reprint in 
 " Lord Macaulay s Miscellaneous Works " of the 
 ballad of which we give two stanzas : 
 
 " Oh Rosamond ! how sweet it were, on some fine summer dawn, 
 With thee to wander, hand in hand, upon the dewy lawn, 
 When flowers and heaps of new-mown grass perfume the 
 
 morning breeze, 
 And round the straw-built hive resounds the murmur of the 
 
 bees ; 
 
 To see the distant mountain-tops empurpled by the ray, 
 And look along the spreading vale to the ocean far away ; 
 O er russet heaths, and glancing rills, and massy forests green, 
 And curling smoke of cottages, and dark grey spires between. 
 
 And oh ! how passing sweet it were, through the long sunny day, 
 To gaze upon thy lovely face, to gaze myself away, 
 While thou beneath a mountain-ash, upon a mossy seat, 
 Shouldst sing a low wild song to me, reclining at thy feet ! 
 And oh ! to see thee, in some mood of playful toil, entwine 
 Round the green trellice of our bower the rose and eglantine, 
 Still laying on my soul and sense a new and mystic charm 
 At every turn of thy fairy shape and of thy snowy arm !" 
 
 The secession of Macaulay was felt by all of us as 
 an almost irreparable loss. There was one of our 
 band whose energies were ever called forth with new 
 
222 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 vigour under pressure and difficulty. Praed had that 
 confidence in his own powers which is at the root of 
 all greatness, and which is far removed from the 
 vanity of mediocrity. Amidst the disappointments 
 which had arisen, he wrote to me to entreat that I 
 would not think of postponing the appearance of the 
 second number. "For myself, I will give night and day 
 to the Magazine, rather than see it so assassinated." 
 He amply redeemed his pledge. He produced for 
 that number more than a fourth of the whole the 
 first canto of his Poem " The Troubadour/ and five 
 prose articles. My other Cambridge allies seconded 
 his endeavours. But I had also looked around me 
 amongst my own old familiar friends. Such a friend 
 was Matthew Hill. We had often planned literary 
 enterprises in concert, in the days when the young 
 barrister was struggling, as most lawyers have to 
 struggle, when the collar presses hard upon the weak 
 but willing horse if he be permitted to work, and 
 when hope deferred presses still harder when no 
 profitable work falls in his way. Of those times my 
 friend had vivid recollections, and he gave utterance 
 to them in " My Maiden Brief " that paper to which 
 an eminent judge alluded from the bench, and nodded 
 kindly to the stuff gown in the back rows. Hill 
 contributed also a very striking picture of the 
 Staffordshire Collieries of that dreary country 
 through which I walked some thirty years after 
 wards with Charles Dickens, and saw whence he 
 had derived one of the most telling scenes of the 
 wanderings of " Little Nell." But Mr. Hill s vocation 
 was to describe the people of this region. He thus 
 concludes his paper : "I wished to preserve some 
 sketch, while the original is yet in existence, of a 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 223 
 
 race which refinement, that fell destroyer of charac 
 ter, has hitherto spared. Soon will these be tales of 
 other times. The primitive simplicity even of the 
 collieries is threatened. Already have the eyes of 
 Bell and Lancaster searched out this spot of innocent 
 seclusion ; and the voice of education will ere long 
 be heard above the wild untutored sounds which 
 have so long charmed the ears of the traveller." I 
 am not sure that " the voice of education " is yet 
 very powerful in the land where the dwellers had 
 " no similarity either in speech or features with the 
 peasantry of the neighbouring districts." If my 
 friend could spare a day or two from other depart 
 ments of " Social Science," it might be worth while 
 for him to go over the ground once more, to compare 
 1823 with 1863. 
 
 In this second number of the Magazine I wrote 
 a paper, upon which I may not improperly say a 
 little, as it in some measure related real incidents 
 of my Working Life. " An unpublished Episode of 
 Vathek " is reprinted in my volumes of " Once upon 
 a Time." Mr. Rutter, an enterprising bookseller of 
 Shaftesbury, had proposed to me to publish a splen 
 didly illustrated work, which he was preparing, on 
 Fonthill, soon after the period when the wondrous 
 building, of which every one had some marvel to 
 relate but which no one had ever seen, was thrown 
 open to those who chose to travel over Salisbury 
 Plain, and pay a guinea for the long-coveted sight. 
 Bekfudi, says my tale, the superb merchant, had 
 gone on for many moons building and embellishing 
 his mosque, and living in a round of selfish enjoy 
 ment. But gradually Bekfudi found there was a 
 limit to his extravagance. Bekfudi was in debt. 
 
224 PASSAGES OF A W011K1JSG LIFE: 
 
 " He resolved to invite all Samarah to see his mosque, 
 and purchase his curiosities. For three moons all 
 Samarah went mad. Away ran the idle and the 
 busy to scramble up Bekfudi s tower, to wander 
 about his long galleries upon carpets from Cairo, 
 to touch his gold censers, or to pore upon his 
 curious pictures. As to his books, Bekfudi carefully 
 locked them up. He was a great commentator, and 
 his relish for theological speculations led him to fear 
 that his performances might introduce him to too 
 close an acquaintance with the mufti and the cadi." 
 I was amongst the curious, and had an agreeable 
 holiday. But some months later I went to Fonthill 
 to assist the worthy quaker bookseller of Shaftesbury 
 in getting up his quarto. Fonthill had then passed 
 into the possession of Mr. Farquhar, in the negotia 
 tion for which purchase Mr. Phillips, the famous 
 auctioneer of Bond Street, was the agent. He stipu 
 lated for the purchase of Fonthill and everything 
 which it contained : " I will purchase thy lands and 
 thy mosques, and thy silken draperies, and thy woven 
 carpets, and thy golden vessels, and thy jewels, and 
 thy books, and thy pictures, and all that thy palace 
 contains ; and here, without, I have twenty drome 
 daries laden with four hundred thousand sequins, 
 which shall be thine. Bekfudi was in a rage, but 
 the eloquence of the dromedaries prevailed ; and 
 that night the little Jew locked up the mosque with 
 the airs of a master." At this juncture I went to 
 Fonthill. Artists were there making drawings. 
 Journalists were there writing elaborate paragraphs, 
 with a slight tendency to puff. My friend Stedman 
 Whitwell was Avith me, and we rambled freely over 
 the American gardens, and partook of the choice 
 
THE FJKST EPOCH. 225 
 
 fruit of the hothouses, and had a sumptuous table 
 every day. To me the ostensible lord of the place, 
 the clever auctioneer, was particularly civil. The 
 first night I was led by him through a long corridor 
 apart from the saloons and galleries of this architec 
 tural marvel, and was installed in a chamber of state, 
 where the hangings of the bed were of velvet, and 
 the chairs were of ebony reputed to have belonged to 
 Wolsey. I sat in a reverie, moralizing upon the 
 probable dispersion of these splendid things, when I 
 heard a whirr my wax candle was suddenly extin 
 guished the bat that had dwelt in the gorgeous 
 draperies was hovering about me. I was glad to 
 creep into the downy bed. But I could not sleep. 
 " Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs ? " 
 There were others to whom sleep was that night 
 more difficult to be secured than to myself. Two or 
 three adventurous artists I think George Cattermole 
 was of the number elected to lodge in the dormi 
 tories of the great tower, some hundred and fifty feet 
 above the floor from which it sprang. The wind 
 rose ; the storm grew louder and louder ; the frail 
 structure rocked, as Gulliver s cage rocked in the 
 eagle s beak. The terrified guests rushed down the 
 broad stairs, and sat drearily in the dark saloon till 
 the daybreak gave them assurance of safety. But I 
 am rambling from my Episode of Vathek. " Within 
 a week the superb merchant began to indulge a wish 
 for the possession of some of his former most splendid 
 baubles ; he bethought him that his free habit of 
 expressing his thoughts in the broad margins of his 
 beautiful manuscripts might one day cause some 
 awkward inquiries." I was taken by my host to the 
 Library. "You are free," he said, "to make any 
 
226 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 transcript you please of marginal notes on these 
 books. I have sent an invitation to Hazlitt to come 
 also ; but I hear that he has not got beyond Winter- 
 slow Hut." Something was whispered about a new 
 book, to be called " Fly Leaves from Fonthill." My 
 curiosity was roused, though I shrank from making 
 profit by book or article out of my notes. In truth, 
 as far as I could trace, there was little in these 
 volumes to alarm their annotator or interest the 
 public. I need not have tested my conscience. When 
 the Library had been glanced at by profane eyes the 
 object was accomplished. " The articles," says the 
 Episode, " were selected, but the little Jew had yet 
 to name the price. Bekfudi raved and tore his hair 
 when a fourth of his four hundred thousand sequins 
 were demanded for what had cost even him not a 
 tenth of the sum." 
 
 The second number of the Magazine was getting 
 into shape in the middle of the September of 1823, 
 although its publication was a month behind its due 
 time. With me this was a pleasant autumn. Mr. 
 Moultrie had come to reside at Eton. We had friendly 
 walks together. He was writing the second Canto 
 of " La Belle Tryamour," and as we sat on the lawn 
 of a little village inn he was rapidly jotting down 
 his verses. In a piece of nonsense which I also 
 wrote as we laughed and lounged, I said, " I have 
 seen, as I watched Gerard s impassioned countenance, 
 the infancy of a thought struggling into energy in 
 its perilous contest with the fetters of a rhyme, and 
 at last triumph in the maturity of a stanza." Mr. 
 Derwent Coleridge came to visit Mr. Moultrie. He 
 was also to write for the forthcoming number. I dare 
 say he forgave me when I ventured to say, that 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 227 
 
 before he went to work " Davenant had first to be 
 delivered of a theory on the supernatural creations of 
 Shakspere, and this carried us to Racine and 
 Voltaire, Aristotle and Confucius ; a slight disserta 
 tion on the merits of the Italian Platonists led us to 
 Germany ; and we ended, as the candles were brought, 
 with Kant and Jacob Behmen." 
 
 In that autumn of 1823, looking back through 
 four decades, I see a youth of twenty-two, and a 
 man ten years his senior one who had given " hos 
 tages to fortune " anxiously engaged in discussing 
 all the circumstances which had led to a challenge to 
 fight a duel, in which the younger was to be one of 
 *he principals. My wife and I were at breakfast, 
 when Mr. Praed came in, looking pale and anxious. 
 He begged me to walk out with him. It was nearly 
 the end of the term, and most of his intimates hatt 
 left Cambridge. He had come to town by the early 
 coach, having arranged for a hostile meeting, in 
 London, with a gentleman with whom he had 
 quarrelled the night before. The subject of differ 
 ence had been the date of the battle of Bunker s 
 Hill. The heat of argument had been so great, that 
 the three unforgiveable words which, spoken in Par 
 liament, always sent honourable members to their 
 hats, had been uttered by him. We went from 
 house to house, and from chamber to chamber, to 
 find a friend. No one was to be found. No one 
 could be found. Would I be his friend ? I at once 
 consented, for I was determined that, if possible, 
 there should be no duel. The place of rendezvous 
 was the Swan with two Necks in Lad Lane. After 
 a little suspense, a young man came in, who was 
 deputed by his brother, the challenger, to make 
 
228 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 the needful arrangements with Mr. Praed s friend. 
 He and I retired. My course was clear. I was 
 instructed not to tender an apology, but the way, 
 I saw, was open for a compromise. Rustication, 
 expulsion, all the possible dangers of a meeting, were 
 nothing to the horrors of a younger brother standing 
 by to see his elder brother shot at ; or to imagine the 
 possibility of both of them appearing in the dock of 
 the Old Bailey on their trial as murderers. I con 
 quered at last. We signed a paper that was satis 
 factory, and it was sent under cover to Mr. Macaulay. 
 Mr. Praed returned to Cambridge by the afternoon 
 coach. A few hours after Mr. William Henry Ord, 
 then a Fellow Commoner of Trinity, arrived at my 
 house in great agitation. He was soon made happy. 
 He had come up to London in all haste with the 
 Tutor of Trinity, Mr. Whewell. To Dick s Coffee 
 House we immediately went, to relieve the appre 
 hensions of this eminent scholar and man of science, 
 then rising into general reputation. We spent a 
 happy evening together, and nothing more was 
 heard of the matter. Mr. Hill, in a very admirable 
 paper " On Duelling," in our first number, had said 
 " In the present state of society, the total abolition 
 of duels cannot, as experience abundantly shows, be 
 effected." God be praised, the "state of society" 
 has so changed, that the change has carried with it 
 not a few great moral as well as political reforms. 
 The Duel has become as much a thing of the past as 
 the Wager of Battle. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 T was with no common pleasure that I 
 opened a letter from Mr. Macaulay a 
 few lines to say that he was ready to re 
 sume his contributions to "The Quarterly 
 Magazine." He enclosed two Manuscripts. These 
 scarcely filled two sheets of paper, but they were 
 as precious as fine gold. Well do I remember the 
 delight with which I read with a friend in London, 
 and afterwards heard read by Mr. Moultrie at Wind 
 sor in a way in which few could read, the " Songs 
 of the Huguenots." These are almost as well known 
 as Campbell s "Mariners of England" and "The 
 Battle of the Baltic." The " Montcontour " is re 
 printed in Macaulay s " Miscellaneous Works " 
 the " Ivry " was republished by himself with " Lays 
 of Ancient Rome." But they ought never to have 
 been separated. There is a dramatic unity in the 
 two poems which makes each more valuable. The 
 song of lamentation should be read before the song 
 of triumph. 
 
 In a few months came another pair of lyrics, which 
 no change in the fashion of literature can ever con 
 sign to oblivion " Songs of the Civil War." These, 
 again, ought to be read together. " The Cavaliers 
 March to London" has not been reprinted by the 
 author, nor in his " Miscellaneous Works." 
 
230 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE: 
 
 The return of Macaulay was the herald of " the 
 most high and palmy state " of the Magazine, when 
 its first fruits were succeeded by a rich harvest. 
 Macaulay was now unquestionably its leading spirit. 
 In the third number, in addition to his " Songs of 
 the Huguenots," we have " Scenes from Athenian 
 Kevels" and "Dante." In the fourth number we 
 have, as well as " Songs of the Civil War," the criti 
 cism on " Petrarch," and the " Great Law-Suit be 
 tween the Parishes of St. Dennis and St. George in the 
 Water." This is something more than an imitation 
 of Swift. Those who venerate, and most justly, the 
 memory of Burke, will not be displeased to see him 
 in a caricature portrait as effective as that of Gilray : 
 
 " There was an honest Irishman, a great favourite 
 among them [the Vestry of St. George in the Water], 
 who used to entertain them with raree-shows, and to 
 exhibit a rnagic-lantern to children on winter even 
 ings. He had gone quite mad upon this subject 
 [the refractory conduct of the tenants of Sir Lewis, 
 the Lord of the Manor of St. Dennis]. Sometimes he 
 would call out in the middle of the street Take 
 care of that corner, neighbours : for the love of 
 Heaven, keep clear of that post ; there is a patent 
 steel-trap concealed thereabouts. Sometimes he 
 would be disturbed by frightful dreams ; then he 
 would get up at dead of night, open his window, 
 and cry fire/ till the parish was roused, and the 
 engines sent for. The pulpit of the parish of St. 
 George seemed likely to fall ; I believe that the 
 only reason was, that the parson had grown too fat 
 and heavy ; but nothing would persuade this honest 
 man but that it was a scheme of the people of St. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 231 
 
 Dennis s, and that they had sawed through the 
 pillars in order to break the rector s neck. Once he 
 went about with a knife in his pocket, and told all 
 the persons whom he met, that it had been sharpened 
 by the knife-grinder of the next parish to cut their 
 throats. These extravagances had a great effect 
 on the people, and the more so because they were 
 espoused by the Squire Guelf s steward, who was the 
 most influential person in the parish. He was a very- 
 fair-spoken man, very attentive to the main chance, 
 and the idol of the old women, because he never 
 played at skittles or danced with the girls ; and 
 indeed never took any recreation but that of drink 
 ing on Saturday nights with his friend Harry, the 
 Scotch pedlar. His supporters called him Sweet 
 William ; his enemies the Bottomless Pit." 
 
 The fifth number gave us " The Athenian Orators ;" 
 and a paper which, to my mind, if it wants some 
 thing of the force of the great article on Milton in 
 the " Edinburgh Review," has a quiet beauty which 
 is even superior. The " Gentleman of the Middle 
 Temple," who relates a " Conversation between Mr. 
 Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the 
 great Civil War," tells us how, in the warm and 
 beautiful spring of 1665, " two men of pregnant 
 parts and great reputation " dined with him at his 
 lodging in the Temple. 
 
 Macaulay, in the height of his fame, looked back 
 upon the Conversation between Cowley and Milton 
 with a just pride. And yet it would seem that he could 
 scarcely have felt, when he thus concluded his article 
 on "The Athenian Orators," that there was something 
 in these Magazine papers of a Cambridge under-gra- 
 duate which " the world would not willingly let die." 
 
 After the return of Mr. Macaulay, the Quarterly 
 
232 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Magazine went on flourishingly to the completion of 
 the fifth number. The " Troubadour " of Mr. Praed 
 vied with the "Tryamour" of Mr. Moultrie. Mr. 
 Henry Coleridge produced admirable historical 
 articles on "Mirabeau" and the "Long Parliament." 
 Mr. Maiden wrote papers as entertaining as they 
 were learned on "Lucian s True History," and the 
 "Literary History of the Provencals." In the fourth 
 number appeared " The Boeotian Order of Architec 
 ture" an article upon which I must somewhat 
 dilate, for the purpose of referring to a most extraor 
 dinary attempt to restrain the liberty of opinion 
 in matters of taste. The case of "Soane versus 
 Knight/ recorded in the King s Bench Term Reports, 
 remains as a warning to over-sensitive artists not to 
 sally forth with the heavy ordnance of Law to do 
 battle against the " light artillery " of Criticism. 
 
 " The Boeotian, or Sixth Order," professed to be 
 an analytical account of a work on the principles of 
 Architecture, almost unknown in this country. This 
 production of the great Vander von Bluggen set forth 
 canons of Art which had not been lost upon a few 
 modern architects, and which were illustrated in 
 their practice. Mr. Soane, although his name was 
 not mentioned in the article, thought fit, in 1827, to 
 bring an action against me for the libellous matter 
 contained in the publication of 1824. The cause 
 was tried in the Court of King s Bench on the 12th of 
 June, 1827. The array of counsel for the plaintiff was 
 most formidable Mr. Gurney, Mr. Brougham, and 
 two juniors. The defendant was fortunate in having 
 retained Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Hill. When Mr. Gurney 
 solemnly read some of the axioms of Vander von Blug 
 gen. contending that they were doubtless intended 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 233 
 
 to apply to Mr. Soane, there was a titter throughout 
 the court. I was sitting near Mr. Brougham (to 
 whom I had" been introduced in the previous No 
 vember), and looking at me with a face of imper 
 turbable gravity, he whispered, " Oh ! you wicked 
 fellow." I had taken some pains in getting up what 
 may be termed the literature of such actions. The 
 sort of essay which was embodied in the brief of 
 "The Defendant s Case" is before me. I scarcely 
 need say that Mr. Scarlett interpreted the matter to 
 the jury in a very different form, though much of 
 the substance of his speech was the same as my brief. 
 There was not the least hesitation in the verdict 
 being for the defendant. 
 
 In the fifth number of the " Quarterly Magazine " 
 there appeared a miscellaneous paper entitled " The 
 Anniversary." It was a vehicle for the introduction 
 of a considerable variety of stray contributions. My 
 article had little of originality in its conception ; for 
 Blackwood had published something similar, occu 
 pying a whole number of his Miscellany. I could 
 scarcely have dreamt that, eight and twenty years 
 afterwards, this piece of merriment would have been 
 received aw pied de la lettre; that in a Memoir of 
 Macaulay " with some account of his early and un 
 known writings" so charming a simplicity would 
 have been manifested by this " shilling " biographer, 
 as to demand from him an elaborate abridgment of 
 the narrative of what he terms "a jollification amongst 
 the young contributors" to "Knight s Quarterly 
 Magazine." He has, however, a saving clause which 
 may cover a little of his greenery " The whole affair 
 may have been heightened by the pen of the re 
 porter." 
 
 When the fifth number of the Magazine was 
 
234 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 published in July, 1824, I had become acquainted 
 with Mr. De Quincey ; and he had contributed a 
 paper translated, as he purported, from the German 
 of Laun, called "The Incognito." It was a very lively 
 and pleasant paper ; but as to the strict fidelity of 
 the translation I might have had considerable doubts. 
 He could not go about this sort of work without im 
 proving all he touched. In November he was engaged 
 upon a translation of " Walladmor," which some Curll 
 of Germany advertised as the translation of a sup 
 pressed work of Sir Walter Scott. Messrs. Taylor 
 and Hessey put the German hoax into the hands of 
 De Quincey to be re-translated. I saw him groaning 
 over his uncongenial labour, by which he eventually 
 got very little. It was projected to appear in three 
 volumes. He despairingly wrote to me, " after weed 
 ing out the forests of rubbish, I believe it will make 
 only one decent volume." At that time he was direly 
 beset with visitations more terrible than the normal 
 poverty of authors. A little before I knew him he 
 had come one morning to my friend Hill, wet and 
 shivering, having slept under a hayrick in the Hamp- 
 stead fields. I have a letter from him of this period, 
 in which he says, " anxiety, long-continued with me 
 of late years in consequence of my opium-shattering 
 seizes on some frail part about the stomach, and 
 produces a specific complaint, which very soon abo 
 lishes all power of thinking at all." In " The An 
 niversary" I thus introduced De Quincey : " A short 
 spare figure, with an expression in his eye that at 
 once indicated the strength of the man of genius and 
 the weakness of the valetudinarian, advanced with a 
 slow pace of diffidence towards us, and thus addressed 
 us : I fear, sir, that I am an intruder both upon 
 
THE FIBST EPOCH. 235 
 
 your interesting conversation and your purposed en 
 joyments. I was looking round, sir, for my worthy 
 friend, Mr. Paterson Aymer. By his cordial invita 
 tion I have been tempted from my solitude, to join a 
 company that I cannot but feel desirous of knowing, 
 though I fear much ine weight, the heavy and un 
 utterable weight, of depression that bears me down, 
 will render me an unfit partaker of your intellectual 
 pleasures. Oh, sir, even now do I feel the gnawings 
 of that poison with which I have drugged my veins. 
 Fly the cursed spell, if you would continue to know 
 peace of mind and body. But you will excuse me 
 talking of myself. We all looked at each other 
 with surprise. Can it be ! was on every tongue. 
 May I venture to ask, sir, whom I have the honour 
 of seeing amongst us? Though Mr. Paterson Aymer 
 be not yet arrived, his friends are ours. My name, 
 sir, is ; but you have heard of me as a too- 
 celebrated Opium -Eater. We all involuntarily 
 bowed; and in two minutes Haller and our illustrious 
 friend were deep in a discussion on political economy, 
 while Murray and Tristram appealed to him, in the 
 intervals of the debate, upon their contrary views of 
 the knowledge of Greek in Europe at the time of 
 Dante." 
 
 The Macaulay biographer receives this as a curious 
 anecdote of De Quincey, which " indicates that he 
 was fast changing into that little dried-up, parch 
 ment-hided man that he became years afterwards." 
 This it is, to make a book without the least know 
 ledge of the men and things of which it treats. 
 " Dried-tip I parchment-hided ! " " Oh, for one hour 
 of Dundee !" One hour of De Quincey better, 
 three hours from nine till midnight for a rapt 
 
S3 6 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE : 
 
 listener to be "under the wand of a magician" - 
 spell-bound by his wonderful affluence of talk, such 
 as that of the fairy whose lips dropped rubies and 
 diamonds. Many a night have I, with my wife by 
 my side, sat listening to the equable flow of his 
 discourse, both of us utterly forgetting the usual 
 regularity of our habits, and hearing the drowsy 
 watchman s " past one o clock " (for the old watch 
 man then walked his round) before we parted. 
 There was another newly acquired intimate of that 
 time Barry St. Leger who also had contributed 
 to the " Quarterly Magazine." Our friendship was 
 of the warmest nature during the remainder of his 
 too short life. The wit-combats between him and 
 De Quincey were most amusing. Never were two 
 men greater contrasts in their intellectual characters. 
 The one passionately rhetorical the other calmly 
 logical, the one making a fierce onslaught upon his 
 apparently unwatchful opponent, the other with a 
 slight turn of his wrist striking the sword out of his 
 adversary s hand, leaving him defenceless. In the 
 ordinary intercourse of society, St. Leger was self- 
 possessed, perfectly at his ease, ready for every 
 emergency, a man of the world, yet with a heart for 
 friendship as warm as that of a schoolboy. De 
 Quincey, vast as were his acquirements, intuitive as 
 was his appreciation of character and the motives 
 of human actions, unembarrassed as was his demea 
 nour, pleasant and even mirthful his table-talk, was 
 as helpless in every position of responsibility, as 
 when he nightly paced "stony-hearted Oxford 
 Street " looking for the lost one. He was constantly 
 beset by idle fears and vain imaginings. His sensi 
 tiveness was so extreme, in combination with the 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 237 
 
 almost ultra-courtesy of a gentleman, that he hesi 
 tated to trouble a servant with any personal re 
 quests without a long prefatory apology. My family 
 were in the country in the summer of 1825, when 
 he was staying at my house in Pall Mall East. A 
 friend or two had met him at dinner, and I had 
 walked part of the way home with one of them. 
 When I returned, I tapped at his chamber-door to 
 bid him good night. He was sitting at the open 
 window, habited as a prize-fighter when he enters the 
 ring. " You will take cold," I exclaimed. " Where 
 is your shirt ?" "I have not a shirt my shirts 
 are unwashed." " But why not tell the servant to 
 send them to the laundress?" "Ah ! how could I 
 presume to do that in Mrs. Knight s absence ?" 
 
 One more illustration of the eccentricity of De 
 Quincey. I had been to Windsor. On my return I 
 was told that Mr. De Quincey had taken his box 
 away, leaving word that he was gone home. I 
 knew that he was waiting for a remittance from 
 his mother, which would satisfy some clamorous 
 creditors and enable him to rejoin his family at 
 Grasmere. Two or three days after, I heard that he 
 was still in town. I obtained a clue to his hiding- 
 place, and found him in a miserable lodging on the 
 Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. He had received 
 a large draft on a London banker at twenty-one 
 days sight. He summoned courage to go to Lom 
 bard Street, and was astonished to learn that he 
 could not obtain the amount till the draft became 
 due. A man of less sensitive feelings would have 
 returned to Pall Mall East, and have there waited 
 securely and comfortably till I came. How to frame 
 his apology to our trusty domestic was the diffi- 
 
238 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 culty that sent him into the den where I found 
 him. He produced the draft to me from out cf 
 his Bible, which he thought was the best hiding- 
 place. "Come to me to-morrow morning, and I 
 will give you the cash." " What ? how ? Can such 
 a thing be possible ? Can the amount be got before 
 the draft is due ?" " Never fear come you and 
 then get home as fast as you can." 
 
 At the beginning of October I went to Cambridge 
 with Mr. Hill. We arrived on a day of jubilation, 
 for Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Maiden had each gained 
 a Trinity fellowship. There was a happy dinner in 
 Mr. Maiden s rooms. But a cloud had come over 
 the bright prospects of the " Quarterly Magazine." 
 Two of its first supporters were holding back their 
 contributions. " Some trick not worth an egg" 
 some misunderstanding about the future editorship 
 had produced a coldness in those with whom I 
 had been most intimate. I was weary and heartsick. 
 I was worn out with anxiety at the dangerous illness 
 of my father. Cares of business were pressing upon 
 me heavily. I had engaged in large undertakings 
 which demanded my constant attention in London, 
 and I had a divided duty at Windsor. The Magazine 
 was a loss and a trouble. With the sixth number 
 I determined to announce that its career was 
 ended. 
 
 I had spent a night at my father s bed-side. 
 The crisis was fast approaching. My wife had been 
 too ill, in Pall Mall East, to take her willing part in 
 this sad office but, at all risks, she came in time 
 for the end. As the November sun was rising 
 brightly above the trees of the Long Walk, I poured 
 out to her my thoughts in a long letter. 
 
 The future of my London life loomed dark and 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 239 
 
 dangerous. My mind rested upon the contented past 
 that had not known many fears. 
 
 Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita 
 Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura 
 Che la diritta via era smarrita. " 
 
 DANTE Inferno. 
 
 " In the midway of this our mortal life 
 I found me in a gloomy wood, astray, 
 Gone from the path direct." 
 
 CART. 
 
 Reserving for the next epoch of my "Working 
 Life " the recital of some of its passages in my 
 vocation of a London publisher from 1823 to 1826, I 
 have here to complete my notice of the close of " The 
 Quarterly Magazine." A glance at the short life of 
 a second series, and at a small experiment upon the 
 public taste which was attempted by me, in con 
 junction with Mr. Praed and Mr. St. Leger, will be 
 briefly given in the present volume. 
 
 The " advertisement " in the concluding Number, 
 wherein I announced the discontinuance of a work 
 which, " as it proceeded, had acquired a considerable 
 distinction amongst the discerning and the intelli 
 gent," was certain to give offence. I was unwilling 
 to offend ; but I was sorely wounded. I wrote 
 "The publisher has lately had to choose between 
 surrendering that responsibility which his duties to 
 society have compelled him to retain, and which has 
 in many cases prevented this work offending those 
 whose esteem is most to be desired, or losing much 
 of the assistance which has given to the Quarterly 
 Magazine a peculiar and original character. He 
 could not hesitate in his choice. He would not 
 commit his own opinions to an inexperienced and 
 11 
 
240 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 incautious dictation ; and he prefers the discontinu 
 ance of the work to conducting it with diminished 
 talent." 
 
 This led to a controversy. An article appeared in 
 "The Cambridge Chronicle," written by Mr. Praed. 
 It was more temperate than I had anticipated. He 
 described the Magazine as having been intended 
 originally to assume something of a more classical 
 tone than its periodical contemporaries. He spoke 
 of the publisher as an honest and liberal man, 
 but expressed a somewhat disparaging opinion of 
 his competence to retain the direction of the Ma 
 gazine permanently and exclusively. I replied in 
 the same newspaper. There was a correspondence 
 between Mr. Praed and myself, formal and reserved 
 on either side. Willingly would I forget the whole 
 affair, did I not feel it my duty and pleasure to 
 record that, within two months, Mr. Praed sponta 
 neously called upon me, held out once more the hand 
 of friendship, and never afterwards lost an opportu 
 nity of testifying his goodwill towards me. He took 
 no part in the continuation of the " Quarterly Ma 
 gazine." In the editorship of its one number, pub 
 lished in the autumn of 1825, Mr. Maiden assisted. 
 In its general tone it was much more sober and of 
 course less interesting than its predecessor. It 
 might have made its way; for one of the great whole 
 sale houses in Paternoster How proposed to take a 
 share in it, after its first appearance. The Panic came, 
 and disposed of this and of many other schemes. 
 
 Mr. Derwent Coleridge had returned to assist in 
 rearing our callow Phoenix. His paper on "The 
 Chevalier Bayard " is curious, as showing how the 
 romantic may gradually slide into the practical. 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 241 
 
 De Quinceyhad written to me in December, 1824, 
 in the belief that, as he expressed it, " many of 
 your friends will rally about you, and urge you to 
 some new undertaking of the same kind. If that 
 should happen I beg to say, that you may count upon 
 me, as one of your men, for any extent of labour, to 
 the best of my power, which you may choose to com 
 mand." He wrote a translation of "The Love Charm" 
 of Tieck, with a notice of the author. This is not 
 reprinted in his collected works, though perhaps it 
 is the most interesting of his translations from the 
 German. In this spring and summer of 1825, De 
 Quincey and I were in intimate companionship. It 
 was a pleasant time of intellectual intercourse for 
 me. My father, a little before his last illness, had 
 far advanced in building a cottage, by the side of 
 his own, for my family to occupy. That hope of his 
 heart to have us near him was not fulfilled. But in 
 that summer we spent mujsh of our time there. Mr. 
 Praed and Mr. Moultrie were living at Eton as private 
 tutors. They had taken a great liking to my friend 
 Mr. Tarver, and were most assiduous in promoting 
 his interests, as French master at the college. 
 In his society, after he came to reside at Windsoi 
 when the war was at an end, I had found a clevei 
 and accomplished companion, who had the pecu 
 liar advantage of knowing intimately both the 
 French and English languages, and was familiar 
 with the literature of both countries. He was born 
 and bred up in France, but was of English parents. 
 Mr. Maiden came to visit me for a week or two. There 
 was a re-union in which all unpleasantnesses were 
 forgotten. When I went to London, I was associated 
 with Hill, and St. Leger, and De Quincey, who each 
 
PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 thoroughly relished the conversation of the others. 
 De Quincey, as I have incidentally mentioned, went 
 away home in the summer of 1825. We were all 
 truly sorry to part with this valued friend, whose 
 eccentricities made him even more dear to us whose 
 helplessness under the direst pressure of want of 
 means, brought no feeling of contempt, for his abili 
 ties and learning commanded our reverence. We 
 scarcely knew then what he had to endure during his 
 London sojourn. We may now judge of his miseries 
 from a letter which he wrote to Professor Wilson in 
 February, 1825 : 
 
 "At this time calamity presses upon me with a 
 
 heavy hand At this moment I have not a 
 
 place to hide my head in." (Mrs. Gordon s Christo 
 pher North, vol. ii. p. 79.) He left London in the 
 summer, exulting in the prospect of freedom from 
 debt, and from the necessity that had pressed upon 
 him "to maintain the .war with the wretched 
 business of hack author, with all its degradations." 
 (Ibid.) I occasionally had a warm-hearted letter 
 from him; but our correspondence, after a year 
 or two, had ceased. I was delighted at its renewal 
 in July 1829, when he wrote me the most pressing 
 invitation from Mrs. De Quincey and himself, 
 to come, with my wife and children, to visit 
 them. He had quitted his home at the Lakes 
 in 1827, to remain in Edinburgh for two years, 
 writing, but separated for the greater part of the 
 time from his family. Wonderfully characteristic 
 are some passages of this letter: "Well, by good 
 management and better luck, I contrived early in 
 this present year to silence f mes Anglois (as the 
 French do, or did, use to entitle creditors). This 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 243 
 
 odious race of people were silenced, I say, or nearly 
 so : no insolent dun has raised his disgusting voice 
 against me since Candlemas 1829 ; they now speak 
 softly, and as if butter would not melt in their 
 mouths ; and I have so well planted my fire-engines, 
 for extinguishing this horrid description of nuisance, 
 that if by chance any one should smoulder a little 
 too much (flame out, none durst for shame), him I 
 shall souse and drench forthwith into quietness." 
 Whilst " this great operation " was in progress he 
 had been negotiating for the purchase of a "rich 
 farm-house, flowing with milk and honey, with mighty 
 barns and spacious pastures," in the vicinity of his 
 cottage at Grasmere. " Purchasing, you say, what 
 the devil ? Don t swear, my dear friend ; you know 
 there is such a thing as buying a thing and yet not 
 paying for it, or, at least, paying only the annual 
 interest. Well, that is what 1 do, can do, and will 
 do. For hear, finally, that the thing is done." To 
 this farm of Bydal Hay, from which he had written 
 to me, were we to be welcomed. Mighty was the 
 temptation, but mightier the difficulty in the days 
 before railways. " And now, my friend, think what 
 a glorious El Dorado of milk and butter and cream 
 cheeses, and all other dairy products, supposing that 
 you like those things, I can offer you morning, noon, 
 and night. You may absolutely bathe in new milk, 
 or even in cream ; and you shall bathe, if you like it. 
 T know that you care not much about luxuries for the 
 dinner table ; else, though our luxuries are few and 
 simple, I could offer you some temptations : mountain 
 lamb equal to Welsh ; char famous to the antipodes ; 
 trout and pike from the very lake within twenty-five 
 feet of our door ; bread, such as you have never pre- 
 
244 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 sumed to dream of, made of our own wheat, not doctored 
 and separated by the usual miller s process into fine 
 insipid flour, and coarse, that is, merely dirty-looking 
 white, but all ground down together which is the sole 
 receipt (experto crede) for having rich, lustrous, red- 
 brown, ambrosial bread ; new potatoes, of celestial 
 earthiness and raciness, which, with us, last to October ; 
 and, finally, milk, milk, milk cream, cream, cream 
 (hear it, thou benighted Londoner !) in which you must 
 and shall bathe." 
 
 In the spring of 1826, St. Leger and I, at a time 
 when there was little prospect of publishing books 
 with any success, thought that a smart weekly sheet 
 might have some hold upon the London public, who 
 were sick of all money questions, and wanted some 
 thing like fun in that gloomy season of commercial 
 ruin. We went to Eton to consult Praed. He 
 entered most warmly and kindly into the project. 
 We settled that " The Brazen Head " should be its 
 title; and that " The Friar" and " The Head" should 
 discourse upon human affairs, chiefly under the 
 management of our brilliant associate. For our 
 selves, we had a supplementary machinery, that of 
 " Harlequin," whose laughing face had been too long 
 hidden by a wretched black mask, and who had been 
 too long doomed to perpetual silence, a woeful con 
 trast to the overflowing wit of his dear Italian days. 
 We had four weeks of this pleasantry ; and, what was 
 not an advantage, we had nearly all the amusement 
 to ourselves ; for the number of our purchasers was 
 not "Legion." Yet in the "Brazen Head" there 
 are poems of Praed (unknown, from the scarcity 
 of these sixty-four pages, to the Americans who 
 have printed three editions of his poems) which 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 245 
 
 are every way worthy of that genius which his 
 countrymen will be soon permitted more fairly to 
 appreciate in an edition of all his poetical pieces, 
 issued by an English publisher. There is one 
 poem purporting to be a chaunt of The Head while 
 the Friar falls asleep, which exhibits the remark 
 able power of blending earnestness with levity, 
 philosophy with jest, so peculiarly characteristic of 
 Praed s happiest vein : 
 
 " I think, whatever mortals crave, 
 
 With impotent endeavour, 
 A wreath, a rank, a throne, a grave, 
 
 The world goes round for ever ; 
 I think that life is not too long, 
 
 And therefore I determine 
 That many people read a song, 
 
 Who will not read a sermon. 
 
 " I think you ve look d through many hearts, 
 
 And mused on many actions, 
 And studied man s component parts, 
 
 And nature s compound fractions ; 
 I think you ve picked up truth by bits 
 
 From foreigner and neighbour, 
 I think the world has lost its wits, 
 
 And you have lost your labour. 
 
 " I think the studies of the wise, 
 
 The hero s noisy quarrel, 
 The majesty of woman s eyes, 
 
 The poet s cherish d laurel ; 
 And all that makes us lean or fat, 
 
 And all that charms or troubles, 
 This bubble is more bright than that^ 
 
 But still they all are bubbles. 
 
 " I think the thing you call Renown, 
 
 The unsubstantial vapour 
 For which the soldier burns a town, 
 The sonnetteer a taper, 
 
246 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Is like the mist which, as he flies, 
 The horseman leaves behind him ; 
 
 He cannot mark its wreaths arise, 
 Or, if he does, they blind him. 
 
 " I think one nod of mistress Chance 
 
 Makes creditors of debtors, 
 And shifts the funeral for the dance, 
 
 The sceptre for the fetters ; 
 I think that Fortune s favour d guest 
 
 May live to gnaw the platters; 
 And he that wears the purple vest 
 
 May wear the rags and tatters. 
 
 " I think the Tories love to buy 
 
 Your Lordships and Your Graces, 
 By loathing common honesty, 
 
 And lauding common-places ; 
 I think that some are very wise, 
 
 And some are very funny, 
 And some grow rich by telling lies, 
 
 And some by telling money. 
 
 " I think the "Whigs are wicked knaves, 
 
 And very like the Tories, 
 Who doubt that Britain rules the waves, 
 
 And ask the price of glories ; 
 I think that many fret and fume 
 
 At what their friends are planning, 
 And Mr. Hume hates Mr. Brougham 
 
 As much as Mr. Canning. 
 
 "I think that friars and their hoods, 
 
 Their doctrines and their maggots, 
 Have lighted up too many feuds, 
 
 And far too many faggots ; 
 I think while zealots fast and frown, 
 
 And fight for two or seven, 
 That there are fifty roads to town, 
 
 And rather more to Heaven. 
 
 " I think that, thanks to Paget s lance, 
 
 And thanks to Chester s learning, 
 The hearts that burned for fame in France, 
 At home are safe from burning j 
 
THE FIRST EPOCH. 247 
 
 I think the Pope is on his back, 
 And, though tis fun to shake him, 
 
 I think the Devil not so black 
 As many people make him. 
 
 " I think that Love is like a play 
 
 Where tears and smiles are blended, 
 Or like a faithless April day, 
 
 Whose shine with shower is ended ; 
 Like Colnbrook pavement, rather rough, 
 
 Like trade exposed to losses, 
 And like a Highland plaid, all stuff, 
 
 And very full of crosses. 
 
 " I think the world, though dark it be, 
 
 Has aye one rapturous pleasure, 
 Conceal d in life s monotony, 
 
 For those who seek the treasure ; 
 One planet in a starless night, 
 
 One blossom on a briar, 
 One friend not quite a hypocrite, 
 
 One woman not a liar ! 
 
 " I think poor beggars court St. Giles, 
 
 Rich beggars court St. Stephen ; 
 And Death looks down with nods and smiley 
 
 And makes the odds all even ; 
 I think some die upon the field, 
 
 And some upon the billow, 
 And some are laid beneath a shield, 
 
 And some beneath a willow. 
 
 " I think that very few have sigh d, 
 
 When Fate at last has found them, 
 Though bitter foes were by their side, 
 
 And barren moss around them ; 
 I think that some have died of drought, 
 
 And some have died of drinking ; 
 I think that nought is worth a thought, 
 
 And I m a fool for thinking !" 
 
 " I think " my readers will not complain of the 
 length of this reprint. I could not select stanzas 
 
248 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 without injury to the unity of thought. The poem, 
 after having been published six-and- thirty years, is 
 far less known than was Macaulay s famous " Elec 
 tion Ballad" of 1827, before the "Quarterly Review" 
 disentombed it from the columns of " The Times." 
 
 I must hold my hand. I must look forward to my 
 proper work of sober narrative in the next stage of 
 life s journey to trace the progress of education 
 the growth of popular literature. The following 
 lines from the "Arlechino Parlante " of " The Brazen 
 Head " the Harlequin " who everything changes " 
 verses which St. Leger and I produced in happy 
 association, are suggestive of the opening, in a new 
 condition of society, for labours that might be useful 
 to my fellow-men : 
 
 " I have whistled up sprites to bestow my new lights 
 
 On all that is ancient, exclusive, and dark ; 
 I have spread around knowledge I build London College 
 
 I have steam on the Thames, I have gas in the Park. 
 No longer a minister frowns and looks sinister, 
 
 When philosophy mingles with maxims of state ; 
 Economical squires deride their grand -sires, 
 
 And reasoning citizens lead the debate." 
 
PASSAGES OF A WOBKING LIFE, 
 
 t jmraJr 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 1824, 1 am settled as a Publisher in a 
 newly-built house in Pall Mall East, the 
 next house to the College of Physicians. 
 1 had occupied for a year a much smaller 
 place of business on the opposite side of the way. 
 This was altogether a new neighbourhood. On the 
 west side of what is now called Trafalgar Square, 
 houses had grown up, which were terminated towards 
 Charing Cross by the Union Club. But there was as 
 yet no Nelson s column ; no fountains in the centre, 
 to be ridiculed as dumb-waiters. 
 
 During the first years of my residence in Pall 
 Mall East, Saint James s Park was getting rid of 
 its old squalidness. The road after nightfall had 
 ceased to be a place of danger and licentiousness. 
 "There is gas in the Park/ 3 At the time of the 
 Stuarts the Mall had been the lounging place of 
 the highest the favourite ground of assignation 
 of the Comedies in which Wit and Profligacy long 
 maintained a flourishing co-partnership. Forty years 
 ago the fashionable idlers had given place to happy 
 children and smart nursery-maids. Mechanics out 
 of work, and street vagabonds, always formed a 
 
252 PASSAGES OF A WOHKING LIFE: 
 
 crowd to see the relief of the Guard. Gapers from 
 the country stood wonderingly upon the Parade, 
 watching the working of the Telegraph at the top 
 of the Admiralty. The old machine, which told 
 its story by the opening and closing of shutters, was 
 superseded by a greater wonder, the Semaphore, 
 which threw out an arm, first on one side and then 
 on another, and at varying heights. Very tedious 
 was the transmission of the message, even by this 
 improved instrument ; sometimes impossible from 
 the state of the atmosphere. About 1824 I was 
 summoned as a witness upon a trial in which Mr. 
 Croker was also required to give his testimony. I 
 walked with him for an hour or more up and down 
 Westminster Hall. So full of anecdote was his talk, 
 that I could scarcely agree with him when he said, 
 "The French are right in calling the vestibule to 
 their Palace of Justice la salle des pas perdus." My 
 steps with him were neither lost nor wearisome. 
 At last, looking at his watch, he exclaimed, " Go I 
 must. There is a frigate waiting at Portsmouth 
 for orders to sail, and it will be dark before I can 
 set the Telegraph in motion if I stay longer." The 
 Secretary of the Admiralty writes a few words now, 
 regardless of dark or light, and the faithful wire con 
 veys his orders from port to port, and from sea to sea, 
 far quicker than the flight of Ariel. 
 
 The neighbourhood in which I am seated is not as 
 yet a very busy or a very lively one. It is gradually 
 growing into a region dedicated to the Fine Arts. 
 The Society of Painters in Water Colours have fixed 
 their Gallery opposite me. The Society of British 
 Artists have their Exhibition close at hand in Suffolk 
 Street. My next-door neighbour is Mr. Colnaghi, 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 253 
 
 the printseller. From him, and from iiis excellent 
 son Dominick, I had some lessons in taste, as they 
 would occasionally show me a few of their choice im 
 portations. 
 
 It is forty years ago since the Londoners began 
 seriously to think that their traffic was becoming too 
 large for their streets. The broad-wheeled waggon 
 generally crept in and out at nightfall, as it had 
 crept since the days of Fielding and Hogarth. The 
 hackney-coach, never in a hurry, went on "melan 
 choly, slow," patient under every stoppage. No med 
 dling policeman yet presumed to regulate the move 
 ments of the driver with a dozen capes, who pulled 
 up when he pleased, unheeding his silk-stockinged 
 fare who was too late for dinner, and sat in the 
 damp straw, shouting and cursing. The omnibus 
 appeared not in our streets till 1831, and when it 
 came, the genteel remained faithful to the foul hack 
 ney-coach, mounting its exclusive iron steps with true 
 English satisfaction at not being in mixed company. 
 There were schemes of sub- ways, but they met no 
 encouragement. Colonel Trench obtained an audi 
 ence at the Mansion House, to listen to his proposal 
 of a terrace, eighty feet wide, from London Bridge to 
 Westminster Bridge. Some thought the scheme a 
 good one, but far too grand. Most sneered at such 
 projects of Laputa. The sneerers and doubters kept 
 their ground through a generation ; and now we are 
 thinking in reality about such an obvious improve 
 ment. 
 
 In the semi-thoroughfare of Pall Mall East we had 
 few passing sights. But on the 12th of July, 1824 
 I stand with my family on our balcony, looking out 
 for a grand funeral procession that is to come from 
 
254: PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 Great George Street, Westminster, and to pass from 
 Charing Cross up the Haymarket. On the 19th of 
 April Lord Byron had died at Missolonghi. The 
 hearse which was moving up the Haymarket, to end 
 its journey at Newstead Abbey, was followed by a 
 few who loved him, and by many who reverenced his 
 genius. Poets were there Moore, Campbell, Rogers ; 
 statesmen Grey, Lansdowne, Holland ; Greek Depu 
 ties, who thought he was to have been the saviour of 
 their country ; and English guardians of his fair fame, 
 who had honoured his memory by burning his auto 
 biography. His sudden death in the land where he 
 was attempting to express by heroic deeds that sym 
 pathy with the " Cause of the Greeks " which other 
 eminent men were content to associate with their 
 speeches and their writings had moved all (except 
 ing a few who refused his body sepulture in our 
 temple of the illustrious dead) to forget how he had 
 latterly abused his great powers, and to remember 
 only how ineffaceably he tad inscribed his name 
 amongst the immortals of literature. The pageant 
 is over. Forty years have passed away, and Byron 
 is now judged with the impartiality of posterity. He 
 is not held to be the greatest poet that modern 
 England has produced ; he is not execrated as 
 amongst the most immoral. There was much to pity 
 and forgive in his frailties. The mellowing influence 
 of a few more years might have lifted his words and 
 his deeds out of the slough in which he sometimes 
 seemed unwilling to strive for a firmer footing. 
 
 At the time of Lord Byron s funeral I was involved 
 in a matter of public interest connected with the 
 career of the deceased poet. I was enduring a dis 
 appointment, such as I had scarcely contemplated as 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 255 
 
 a possible incident of my publishing career. I will 
 relate, as briefly as I can, the story of a Chancery 
 Injunction to restrain me from publishing certain 
 Letters of Lord Byron, which was served upon me 
 five days before the funeral procession which I wit 
 nessed on the 12th of July. 
 
 Robert Charles Dallas was connected by marriage 
 with the family of the poet. Captain George Anson 
 Byron, the uncle of Lord Byron, married the sister of 
 Mr. Dallas. In 1824, through the intervention of 
 my kind friend, the Rev. Charles Richard Sumner, 
 then residing at Windsor as Domestic Chaplain to 
 George IV., I was offered the publication of a book to 
 be entitled " Correspondence of Lord Byron." Upon 
 receiving intelligence of the death at Missolonghi of 
 the eminent man of whom he had some interesting 
 memorials, Mr. Dallas came from Paris to England to 
 arrange for the publication of some work in which 
 should be exhibited his " Recollections of the Life of 
 Lord Byron from 1808 to the end of 1814." I saw 
 him at the house of his son Alexander, who, having 
 been formerly in the army, had taken orders, and 
 was in 1824 in the ministerial charge of the village 
 of Wooburn, near Beaconsfield. The elder Dallas 
 was then in his seventieth year a handsome old 
 man, of refined manners, of varied and extensive in 
 formation ; manifesting an affectionate attachment to 
 the memory of the poet, but with a strong religious 
 feeling as to his moral aberrations since the period 
 of their intimate acquaintance, which in some respects 
 might have been called friendship. That intimacy 
 ceased after 1814. Mr. Dallas had many times heard 
 Lord Byron read portions of a book in which he in 
 serted his opinion of the persons with whom he mixed, 
 
256 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LEFE I 
 
 which book, he said, he intended for publication after 
 his death. This, I conceive, was the Memoir upon 
 which Mr. Murray advanced two thousand guineas 
 to Thomas Moore ; and which was torn and burned, 
 under advice, in the presence of Moore, the advance 
 being repaid to Mr. Murray. Such is Mr. Moore s 
 account of this mysterious transaction.* From hear 
 ing some of Lord Byron s opinions of his contempo 
 raries, Mr. Dallas took the hint of writing a volume 
 to be published after his own death and that of Lord 
 Byron, which should present a faithful delineation of 
 the poet s character as he had known him. The 
 judicious advice of the elder author for Dallas had 
 been a not unsuccessful historian and novelist was 
 useful to Byron in his tentative walk to fame ; and 
 the obligation was amply repaid by the present of 
 the copyright of the first two cantos of " Childe 
 Harold," which, strange to say, Byron was unwilling 
 to publish till encouraged by the judgment of his 
 experienced friend. Byron died at the age of thirty- 
 seven ; Dallas could have scarcely contemplated to 
 have been his survivor. The world was eager to 
 learn all it could about the man who had filled so 
 large a space in its thoughts for fourteen years; and 
 Mr. Dallas, not from mere sordid motives, remodelled 
 his Memoir into " Correspondence of Lord Byron." 
 I purchased the manuscript for a large sum ; and in 
 June it was advertised for publication. On the 30th 
 of that month Mr. Hobhouse called on me with a 
 friend who, as it subsequently appeared, was to be a 
 witness to our conversation. I was not aware of the 
 disadvantage under which the presence of a witness 
 
 * See his letter, dated May 26, in " Annual Register " for 1824. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 257 
 
 was intended to place me, but immediately after the 
 interview I made a full note of what took place. 
 Mr. Hobhouse came to protest, as one of the exe 
 cutors of Lord Byron, against the publication of 
 this correspondence. I stated that I had read the 
 manuscript carefully, and that the family and the 
 executors need feel no apprehension as to its ten 
 dency, as the work was intended to elevate Lord 
 Byron s moral and intellectual character. Mr. Hob- 
 house observed, that if individuals were not spoken 
 of with bitterness, and if opinions were not very freely 
 expressed in these letters, they were not like Lord 
 Byron s letters in general. The result was, that the 
 Vice-Chancellor granted an injunction upon the affi 
 davits of Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Hanson, co-executors, 
 that such contemplated publication was " a breach of 
 private confidence, and a violation of the rights of pro 
 perty." There was an appeal. Our counter-affidavits 
 affirmed that the letters were not of a confidential 
 character. After two months of anxiety, Lord Eldon, 
 the Chancellor, decided " that if A. writes a letter to 
 B., B. has the property in that letter for the purpose 
 of reading and keeping it, but no property in it to 
 publish it." The unfortunate quarto volume, as 
 printed to p. 168, is before me. In a few years, 
 Mr. Moore, in his " Life of Byron," gave his testi 
 mony to the value of "a sort of Memoir of the 
 noble Poet, published soon after his death, which, 
 from being founded chiefly on original correspond 
 ence, is the most authentic and trustworthy of any 
 that have yet appeared." That Memoir was pub 
 lished by me at the end of 1824, after the death of 
 Mr. Dallas on the 21st of October. It was edited 
 by his son, the Reverend Alexander Dallas, who, 
 
258 PASSAGES OF A WOKKENG LIFE: 
 
 throughout the whole of this affair, acted in the 
 most honourable and conscientious spirit. In the 
 omission of passages of the original manuscript, he 
 evinced a truly Christian temper of moderation 
 towards those who had endeavoured to damage his 
 father s character, by the imputation of unworthy 
 motives in seeking to publish this Correspondence. 
 I was never brought so near to Lord Eldon as 
 during the hours when this case was argued in his 
 private room. I observed with admiration: the 
 patient spirit of inquiry ; the desire to uphold the 
 authority of previous cases ; but with a strong incli 
 nation not to decide against the right of publication, 
 when no satisfactory reason could be shown but that 
 of individual caprice or self-interest for suppressing 
 the work. Mr. Kindersley, now a Vice-Chancellor, was 
 our Counsel, and most ably did he perform his duty. 
 At times I thought that the " I doubt " of the great 
 Chancellor would have terminated in our favour. 
 He seemed, even in pronouncing judgment, to have 
 some hesitation about affirming the principle upon 
 which he ultimately decided as to the property in 
 letters, as settled by the law. "Whether that was 
 a decision that could very well have stood at first 
 or not I will not undertake to say." But for most 
 purposes of public utility his judgment was valuable. 
 "It is a very different thing, as it appears to me, 
 publishing as information what these letters contain, 
 and publishing the letters themselves." Upon this 
 principle we acted, in regard to the volume which 
 was published at the end of 1824, as " Recollections 
 of Lord Byron." Mr. Moore reaped the full advan 
 tage of the suppressed Correspondence, by filling 
 many pages, in 1829, with the letters of Dallas and 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 259 
 
 Byron that the executors had thought fit to suppress 
 in 1824. 
 
 In the midst of these Chancery proceedings a Cap 
 tain Parry was announced. "A fine rough subject" 
 as Byron designated this "fire-master who was to 
 burn a whole fleet," came into my private room, 
 with a leathern bag slung over his shoulder. He 
 threw it on the table, exclaiming, " There you have 
 the best book that any one can write about the 
 Bight Honourable George Gordon, Lord Byron/ He 
 opened the wallet ; handed me some of the illiterate 
 scrawl ; vaunted again and again his friendship with 
 the Right Honourable George Gordon, Lord Byron 
 always naming him by his titles at full length ; and 
 was very much astonished when I declined having 
 anything to say to the affair. Captain Parry found 
 some person to prepare his MS. for the press. An 
 action of some sort arose out of the publication ; and 
 I was called as a witness to prove the nature of the 
 contents of that leathern bag, Parry having main 
 tained that he was the sole author of the book. The 
 most remarkable part of this piece of literary manu 
 facture was a ribald description of Jeremy Bentham, 
 running up Fleet Street pursued by a notorious 
 woman called " The City Barge." Parry had indoc 
 trinated his scribe with his own hatred of the Utili 
 tarians of the Greek Committee in London, who 
 sent out printing-presses and pedagogues in more 
 plentiful supply than Congreve-rockets. Byron 
 
 writes on the 8th February, " Parry says B 
 
 [? Bentham] is a humbug, to which I say nothing. 
 He sorely laments the printing and civilizing ex 
 penses, and wishes that there was not a Sunday 
 school in the world." 
 
260 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LEPEI 
 
 The business-house of a young publisher had, at the 
 time of which I am writing, the sort of attraction for 
 flights of authors as a saltcat has for pigeons. The 
 whole commerce of Literature is, happily, so changed ; 
 the buyers of books and the vendors of books have 
 become so numerous ; the competition for the power 
 of securing literary merit, when it first imps its wing, 
 has so enlarged, that the publishers have now to 
 seek the authors if they be worth seeking. I am 
 not sure, even, that mediocrity is now the thing 
 abhorred by gods, men, and booksellers. However 
 this may be, I had, in 1824, heaps of unpublished 
 manuscripts to look over; and, what was more 
 troublesome, a good many indignant writers to bow 
 out. There were strange small fishes trying to swim 
 in the wake of the Leviathans in that " yeasty main." 
 Some brought their wares in bulk, and some offered 
 their samples. I honestly think that I tried to be 
 conscientious in my refusals to deal, for I had expe 
 rienced myself a little of the unknown author s diffi 
 culty of obtaining a publisher. Yet it was hard 
 work. I had not learnt the art of refusing in terms 
 that should be meaningless and yet effective. One 
 eminent publisher was the most skilful practitioner 
 of that art with whom I was acquainted. I have 
 heard some such dialogue as this : A. "I presume, 
 Sir, you have at length been able to peruse my 
 novel ? " C. " H m ! chair ... my reader . . . clever 
 .... not quite adapted to public taste .... glut .... 
 trade very dull . . . perhaps next season." A. "Would 
 a volume of poems ? " C. " Poems ? .... oh ! .... 
 drug . . . ." A. " But so many come out ! " C. "Yes 
 
 .... on commission .... Messrs. will publish 
 
 for you . , . , print on your own account .... sell five- 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 261 
 
 and-twenty .... not our line .... excuse .... 
 gentleman waiting." I began at last to think that 
 for a fashionable publisher there was a grand subject 
 for imitation in Lord Burleigh s shake of the head. 
 Sometimes a book would be offered me that appeared 
 really worth a venture. A huge ungainly Scot walks 
 in, dressed in a semi-military fashion, a braided 
 surtout and a huge fur cape to his cloak ; spluttering 
 forth his unalloyed dialect, and somewhat redolent 
 of the whiskey that he could find south of the Tweed. 
 He at length interested me. He had come to Lon 
 don a literary adventurer. He had been his own 
 educator, for he was once a working weaver. Many 
 were the schemes of books that he was ready to 
 write schemes that had been in the hands- of most 
 publishers, famous or obscure. He was known, I 
 found, to one of the ablest of the staff of the " Times/ 
 a gentleman to whom was committed the charge 
 of the Foreign department of that Journal, which, 
 even forty years ago, founded its success upon the 
 marked talent and reliable knowledge of its writers. 
 Out of the budget of Robert Mudie I selected a plan 
 for a book on London something in the manner of 
 one which he had published, " The Modern Athens." 
 It was to be called " Babylon the Great." The work 
 was a success. I was acquainted with this singular 
 man for some years. He would occasionally use his 
 powers to good purpose ; but his writings were too 
 often inaccurate. He approached nearer to the idea 
 of a hack author of the old times than any man I 
 ever saw. He would undertake any work, however 
 unsuited to his acquirements or his taste. Late in 
 his career, he produced a book forgotten now per 
 haps, and too much overlooked by scientific naturalists 
 
262 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 in his own day which exhibits remarkable powers 
 of observation and description. Before he had been 
 condemned to a life of incessant literary toil in 
 London only made more heavy by sottish indul 
 gence he was a genuine naturalist, who had looked 
 upon the plants, the insects, the birds, and other ani 
 mal life of his own moors and mountains, with a 
 rare perception of the curious and beautiful. " The 
 Feathered Tribes of the British Islands " is not an 
 e very-day work of science without imagination. 
 
 I used sometimes to avail myself of the privilege 
 of propinquity to have a gossip with the worthy old 
 gentleman who first made the name of Colnaghi 
 famous amongst collectors. He once gave me a piece 
 of advice, which to some extent made me shy of pur 
 suing an interesting study of human character. He 
 had seen William Henry Ireland entering my door, 
 and sometimes making a long visit. I delighted to 
 talk with the author of the Shakspere forgeries, 
 having no very harsh opinion of the man who, when 
 a lad of eighteen, had hoaxed the big-wigs of his day, 
 and had laughed in his sleeve when Dr. Parr reve 
 rently knelt and rendered thanks that he had lived 
 to read a prayer by the divine poet, finer than any 
 thing in the Liturgy. How joyously would he now 
 look back upon his imposture of 1795, preserved by 
 his inordinate vanity from any compunctious visitings 
 that might lead him to think that a fraud was not 
 altogether to be justified by its cleverness ! He was 
 now nearly fifty years of age ; doing hard work of 
 authorship wherever he could find employment ; 
 wretchedly poor, and perhaps not altogether trust 
 worthy. " Take you care of that Mr. Ireland," says 
 my kind neighbour the printseller. " He used to be 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 
 
 very fond of looking over my Rembrandt etchings 
 and other portable rarities. But I will say no 
 more." I was not taken with any of poor Ireland s 
 schemes. He had outlived his very questionable 
 fame as the author of Shakspere s " Yortigern and 
 Rowena." Thirty years had passed since he made 
 his " Confessions." 
 
 When I was first planted in the West End as a 
 Publisher of Miscellaneous Works, I adopted the 
 honest, but somewhat impolitic, rule of never suffer 
 ing myself to be denied. The natural consequence 
 was, that half my day was spent in listening to very 
 dull harangues upon neglected merit, from authors 
 who were making the round of hard-hearted and 
 mercenary dealers, who, with the hereditary effrontery 
 of the trade, refused to embark their capital in print 
 ing books that they were satisfied would not sell. 
 But there would often come a welcome relief in 
 clients of a better order. Of such I may mention 
 Captain John Dundas Cochrane, whose " Pedestrian 
 Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary," I 
 published with great success. Most amusing was 
 the conversation of this eccentric traveller, who did 
 me the honour to introduce me to his wife, brought 
 to England by him from the end of the Kamtchatkan 
 peninsula a beautiful little flaxen-haired creature, 
 who shrank from my presence and hid behind a 
 table. He did not persuade me to adopt the custom 
 which had been forced upon him in default of other 
 food- that of eating fish raw, which he retained in 
 the heart of civilised life as a luxury far greater than 
 any nice cookery could produce. In a varied inter 
 course such as that of an aspiring publisher, he must 
 
 have very dull faculties to allow them to stagnate. 
 12 
 
264 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Give him a prosperous career and few occupations 
 can be happier, great as may be his risks and re 
 sponsibilities. Even the loungers who had no objects 
 of business to propound kept up a pleasant excite 
 ment. The mere gossipers were not unprofitable 
 visitors. I endured much desultory tattle in the 
 conviction that a successful publisher must make up 
 his mind to give many hours to what, in the crowded 
 marts " where merchants most do congregate," would 
 be deemed utter waste of time. Some of the plea 
 sant friends of those mornings in Pall Mall East now 
 " come like shadows " before me. Let me call up 
 the memory of one to whom the words of Junius 
 might be applied, " he is a genus let him stand 
 alone." Thomas Gent sits rollicking on the largest 
 chair that he can find as fat, not quite as witty, but 
 with as sufficient an amount of " impudent sauci- 
 ness," as Falstaff. I have witnessed the irresistible 
 joke come slowly and demurely off the tongue of 
 Hood, he perfectly grave and silent after the effusion, 
 whilst his hearers are bursting again and again into 
 peals of laughter. I have seen the retort, quick and 
 blinding as lightning, flash from the lips of Jen-old, 
 whilst he himself led the chorus of mirth at his own 
 success, and the victim would laugh the longest and 
 the loudest. But never saw I such effects of mere 
 drollery, resting upon the slightest sub-soil of intel 
 lect, as my corpulent friend produced, whether he 
 encountered an acquaintance as he slowly paced the 
 Strand " larding the lean earth ; " or gathered a 
 crowd round him in the box-lobby to grin as they 
 had just grinned at Liston ; or, falling asleep the 
 instant he had dined, suddenly woke up and set the 
 table in a roar, again closing his eyes and again 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 265 
 
 waking up to the same success. And yet I can 
 recollect none of this humourist s jests or his anec 
 dotes. Yes one. He was a Yarmouth man, and 
 there also was sojourning his reverend friend, Mr. 
 Croly, and their genial associate, J. P. Davis. A 
 hospitable alderman of that flourishing port had 
 invited them to dinner ; the three were the earliest 
 of the guests. As usual Gent fired off some absurdity 
 which put an end to all conventional gravity, even 
 in the stark clergyman, and the trio began " to giggle 
 and make giggle." The solemn host, unused to such 
 explosions, exclaimed in an agony, " Gentlemen, gen 
 tlemen pray be quiet the company arn t come." 
 Croly drew himself up to his full height, and address 
 ing the unfortunate man with that withering haughti 
 ness which was sometimes a mask for his good nature, 
 said, " What, sir ! are we hired ? are we hired ? " I 
 must not linger amongst the loungers of my back 
 room, yet I cannot forget one of the pleasantest and 
 most improving, Dr. Maginn. To him the gossip of 
 the modern world was as familiar as the learning of 
 the ancient. From some organic defect of utterance 
 his speech was occasionally hesitating ; yet when his 
 words came forth they were full of meaning always 
 pleasant, often wise. It cannot, however, be denieU 
 he was best of a morning, the double excitement 
 of the table and the talk was sometimes too much 
 for him. 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 E have no sufficiently clear record of the 
 commerce of books in the days of Pope 
 and Addison, to be enabled to say that 
 there was a marked Publishing Season. 
 The fact that there was a Long Vacation rnay lead 
 us to conclude that when " Chambers in the King s 
 Bench Walk " were deserted, Mr. Tonson was 
 entertaining the Kit-Cat Club in his Thames-side 
 "Villa, and that Mr. Lintot had left the custody of 
 his " rubric posts " to his shop boys. Whatever may 
 have been the custom in the reign of the first George, 
 undoubtedly the publisher of any note asserted his 
 right to a Season in the reign of George IV. 
 For the three months of autumn, the Circulating 
 Libraries were indifferently supplied with Travel 
 and Romance ; but great were the preparations for 
 the coming campaign. Manuscripts were in critical 
 hands, proofs were circulating by post, negotiations 
 were on foot, advertisements were being prepared, 
 mysterious hints about " the Journal of a noble lady, 
 that had been read to a select circle, of fashionables," 
 appeared in the papers. Like the mighty ones of 
 my craft, I was glad that the Season had come to an 
 end, in the July of 1825. With me it was closed by 
 the publication of a work of unusual importance. 
 Milton s Latin Treatise on Christian Doctrine, having 
 been discovered in the State Paper Office, was placed 
 
THE SECOND EP OCH. 2G7 
 
 in the hands of the Librarian and Historiographer to 
 George IV., for the laudable purpose of giving to 
 the world an unpublished work of one of the greatest 
 of English poets. That office was held in 1824 by 
 the Rev. Charles Richard Sumner. The original, 
 and a translation, were printed at the Cambridge 
 University Press, and I was selected as their Pub 
 lisher.* At the time of its publication the editor 
 and translator was D.D., and a prebendary of Canter 
 bury. In 1827 he succeeded Dr. Tomline, as bishop 
 of Winchester. I cannot advert to the confidence 
 which Dr. Sumner placed in me, and bear in mind 
 the whole nature of my intercourse with him, without 
 a feeling of affectionate gratitude to a most zealous 
 and constant friend, whose kindness was never alloyed 
 by any of the condescension of patronage who, when 
 he had arrived at almost the highest ecclesiastical 
 dignity, preserved the same frank and amiable de 
 meanour that he had exhibited when I first knew 
 him at Windsor who, a year or two later, won 
 my heart by his public spirit, as well as by his 
 personal kindness, for it was he, in his diocese of 
 LlandafF, who, in a letter of interrogatories sent 
 round to his Clergy, asked a question which became 
 famous " Are there infant schools in your parish 
 and, if not, why not ? " It is in me an act of simple 
 justice here to record a circumstance which has been 
 misunderstood in connection with the translation of 
 Milton s posthumous work. 
 
 In 1824 I went with Mr. Sumner to Cambridge, 
 to arrange for the printing of the original Latin MS. 
 at the University Press. Marvellous to relate, there 
 
 * A reprint of the translation lias been published by Mr. Bohn. 
 
268 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 was no functionary of that printing office who was 
 competent to see that the corrections upon the proofs 
 as they passed out of the hands of the editor were 
 properly attended to. I had the pleasure of intro 
 ducing Mr. Sidney Walker to Mr. Sumner, and it 
 was agreed that he should undertake this duty. The 
 printing of the Latin edition, and of the English 
 translation, was completed in the course of a twelve 
 month. The Preface by the translator contains the 
 following paragraph : " He cannot conclude these 
 preliminary remarks without acknowledging his 
 obligations to W. S. Walker, Esq., Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, who has not only discharged the 
 greater part of the laborious office of correcting the 
 press, but whose valuable suggestions during the 
 progress of the work have contributed to remove 
 some of its imperfections." The Rev. J. Moultrie, 
 in his Memoir of Mr. Walker, prefixed to his 
 " Poetical Remains," says of this incident in his 
 friend s literary career, " The work being printed at 
 the University Press, Walker was selected as resident 
 on the spot, and eminently qualified for the office, to 
 revise and correct the proof sheets. In the perform 
 ance of this task he considerably overstepped the 
 limits of his commission, reviewing not only the 
 printer s but the translator s labour, and leaving 
 upon the work the indelible impress of his own 
 masterly scholarship and profound appreciation of 
 the author s genius." Compared with this statement 
 the acknowledgment by Dr. Sumner of his obliga 
 tions to Mr. Walker may appear not only cold, but 
 insufficient. It is my duty to state that not only 
 had the accomplished Fellow of Trinity " consider 
 ably overstepped the limits of his commission," but 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 269 
 
 had concealed the fact of having done so till the 
 printing of the work was completed. He was 
 fastidious to excess in his critical scholarship. His 
 clandestine mode of proceeding was to be attributed to 
 his utter want of decision of character. To me he at 
 length made the tardy communication of his error. " I 
 ought properly to address Mr. Sumner, but I cannot 
 muster confidence to make the communication to him. 
 The truth is, that I have been guilty of great and 
 unwarrantable liberties with regard to the trans 
 lation of Milton. I understood it to be his wish that 
 I should make no alterations, except such as were 
 approved of by him ; and with this wish I conformed 
 for a short time, except some minute encroachments 
 after the sheet was returned from Windsor ; but as 
 I went on, so many instances occurred to me in which, 
 so I thought, the translation might be bettered, that 
 at last I dropped all remorse and altered without 
 compunction. The truth was, that although the 
 translation would in any case have been quite as 
 good as is generally thought proper to bestow on 
 modern works, written in foreign languages so that 
 the public would not have complained, I could not 
 be satisfied, unless it were something better." Many, 
 he says, may think he had too rigid ideas of the 
 duties of a translator. His justification was to be 
 found, he maintains, in the desire he felt " that the 
 work might be, not good in a certain stated degree, 
 but as good as it could be made." 
 
 The days before " Murray " the days when the 
 tourist went groping his way through foreign towns 
 without the friendly aid of the famous " Hand Books 
 for Travellers " seem to belong to an era when 
 the majority of Britons were, in some sense, " almost 
 
270 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 separated from the whole world." Yet, in 1825, 
 these excellent books would have been before their 
 time. Travelling had not then become a fashion. 
 The modes of conveyance were tedious, uncertain, 
 and expensive. An opportunity was presented to 
 me in the August of that year of seeing Paris under 
 agreeable circumstances ; and I persuaded myself 
 that through a personal intercourse with French pub 
 lishers I could unite business with pleasure. I joined 
 a family, of which the mother had been the friend 
 of my childhood whose elder daughter was growing 
 into the elegant and accomplished woman whose 
 two sons were Etonians, full of spirit and curiosity. 
 We travelled through Picardy with a caleche and 
 pair of horses that we had hired at Calais ; accom 
 plishing about forty miles each day, with ample 
 opportunities of seeing the country and observing 
 the manners of the people. The Diligence often 
 passed us or met us. We could never want a hearty 
 laugh whilst the postilion diverted us with his jack 
 boots and his pigtail. We drew up beneatn tho 
 hedge-row apple-trees as he cracked his leathern 
 whip with the noise of a little blunderbuss. We 
 rather pitied the poor creatures, who, in the hottest 
 of weather, were shut up in the interior of that 
 machine. We did not even envy the uninterrupted 
 prospect of the few who sat aloft with the conducteur 
 in the cabriolet. So we leisurely journeyed, pleased 
 with all we saw ; enjoying the quails and partridges, 
 which we often found at dinner or supper, although 
 the glory of bread-sauce was reserved for our own 
 country, according to the belief of Lord Devon ; 
 mightily relishing the wine which we always thought 
 surprisingly cheap ; and well inclined to believe that 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 271 
 
 there were no bad inns upon the road which the 
 English were wont to use in tke days of leisurely 
 travelling. They are gone, for the tourist from 
 Boulogne to Paris of 1864 the Diligence, the Malle 
 poste, the colossal boots, and the queues. He cannot 
 enjoy, as we enjoyed, the quiet dinner at Montreuil ; 
 the nice supper at Abbeville ; the market day at 
 Beauvais, amidst smiling vendors of eggs and poultry 
 in their wondrous caps and sabots, who did not seem 
 as if they ever toiled in the harvest time as we had 
 seen some of their hard-worked country-women. We 
 now rush from London to Paris in twelve hours, and 
 fancy we have seen France. 
 
 The Paris of Charles X. was as suggestive of 
 political and social contrasts to the Paris of the first 
 Napoleon, as its physical aspects gave no promise of 
 the wonders that might be effected under a sagacious 
 despotism during the lapse of another generation. 
 There was a constitutional Government ; a vigorous 
 opposition ; an unlicensed Press. There were earnest 
 speakers in the Chamber of Deputies ; bitter satirists 
 in prose and verse ; Beranger was on all lips, and 
 Courier might be read in castrated editions ; the 
 officers of the Crown instituted proceedings against 
 journalists, but the tribunals refused to condemn 
 them. There was then an open struggle between 
 the narrowest bigotry and the broadest licence in 
 matters of religion. The priestly and ultra-royalist 
 parties, with the Court at their head, were despised. 
 They were " les infiniment petits," whose fall would 
 be a Revolution. I saw the King and the Royal 
 family walk from the Tuileries in procession to 
 Notre Dame, on the Feast of the Ascension of the 
 Virgin, amidst a population intent upon a holiday 
 
272 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 and in tolerable good humour. But there was no 
 enthusiasm, and there were significant shrugs of 
 the shoulders. While the King was marching 
 through the streets at the head of an army of 
 priests, the people were discussing the atrocity of the 
 law of sacrilege which was being debated in the 
 Chamber of Deputies, under which law the profana 
 tion of the sacred utensils was to be punished with 
 death. Nevertheless, all was gaiety in this beauteous 
 summer time. There were then noble trees on the 
 Boulevards, beneath whose shade we sipped our ices, 
 or lingered till the deep blue sky was gemmed with 
 stars. The gardens of the Tuileries and the Champs 
 Elyse es were filled with crowds of idlers. Versailles, 
 with its Grandes Eaux, was to us a place of wonder 
 and delight. The Palace of the Grand Monarque, 
 before Louis Philippe had dedicated its saloons to 
 the glories of the Consulate and the Empire, 
 presented historical memorials more interesting than 
 picture after picture of battle fields, most of them bad 
 and all wearisome. The streets of Paris were fertile 
 in remembrances of a past generation of comparative 
 uncivilisation. The stinking gutter stagnated in the 
 middle of the causeway, which had no trottoirs. The 
 rope stretched from side to side, with the lamp in 
 the centre, made us understand the meaning of a la 
 lanterne. I was awakened every morning at five 
 o clock by the cleaving of wood in the Rue Richelieu, 
 for the winter supply of the Hotel des Princes, in 
 which I had the misfortune to be lodged in a front 
 bed-room. In spite of some discomforts even in a 
 first-rate hotel which have now vanished, we were 
 well pleased with our fortnight of sight-seeing ; were 
 not discomposed by assisting at the representation of 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 273 
 
 three farces at the Theatre des Varie te s, in which 
 the chief humour was a burlesque of English 
 manners. At the Theatre Frangais I saw Talma 
 in Sylla, and lost my belief that French dramatic 
 poetry was essentially a conventional and tame 
 affair. The great tragedian united, as I then felt, 
 the majestic impressiveness of Kemble with the 
 passionate energy of Kean. I am afraid that I was 
 too much pleased and excited in Paris to attend very 
 profitably to business. I found the publishers with 
 whom I had negotiations very obliging and. unpre 
 tentious ; living plainly in their houses of business ; 
 and not affectii)g to be anything grander than 
 dealers in books, who had a shrewd eye to a bargain. 
 We travelled homeward through Normandy, where 
 the green fields and the pretty churches reminded us 
 of English scenes. We rested for a night at Neuf- 
 chatel, where we tasted the delicious little cheeses 
 fresh in the place of their production a luxury 
 made just then somewhat famous by the mistake of 
 a worthy alderman of London, who, having first seen 
 the delicacy at a great man s table, said he would 
 order a hundred of his correspondent, and was 
 astonished by the delivery at his door of a ton or 
 two of the hard cheeses of Switzerland, almost as big 
 as a cart wheel. May I dare to say, that some of the 
 leisure of the ladies of our party was employed in 
 sewing sundry yards of French silk within the 
 lining of my cloak. Smuggling was then deemed a 
 venial offence. Huskisson s great measure removing 
 the prohibition upon the importation of foreign silks 
 was not to take effect till 1826. 
 
 When I returned in September, my family were 
 at Windsor. I had the opportunity, in company 
 
274 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 with. Dr. Sumner, of seeing the progress of the great 
 improvements of the Castle, and of listening to the 
 clear explanations of his plans, which Mr. Wyatville 
 gave with the straightforward simplicity characteristic 
 of his practical genius. In the previous summer, 
 soon after the commencement of the works, I had 
 gone into the old building with Mr. Britton. We 
 had found the architect sitting alone surrounded 
 with demolished walls at the north-east angle of the 
 Terrace front, deeply engaged in the study of a 
 ground plan. His idea of the beautiful octagon 
 tower, called Brunswick, was then shaping itself 
 into that harmonious combination of somewhat in 
 congruous parts which he so happily effected in 
 many portions of the fortress-palace of Edward III., 
 by the careful preservation of old features and the 
 happy adaptation of new. I could not long linger at 
 Windsor in the enjoyment of a beautiful autumn, 
 but had to be much in London, as the publishing 
 season was approaching. Every day was then giving 
 birth to some new project for the employment of 
 capital, although during the Session of Parliament, 
 which closed on the 6th of July, two hundred and 
 eighty-six private bills had been passed for schemes 
 of local improvement, chiefly to be effected by the 
 agency of Joint Stock Companies. You could 
 scarcely meet a man in the city who had not some 
 thing to say about the rise or the fall in shares 
 shares in Canals, in Rail-roads, in Packets, in Gas 
 works, in Mines, in Banks, in Insurance Offices, in 
 Fisheries, in Sugar and Indigo cultivation, in Irish 
 Manufactures, in Newspapers. At the beginning of 
 the Session the King had " the happiness of con 
 gratulating" his Parliament on "general and in- 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 275 
 
 creasing prosperity ; " at the end of the Session the 
 same prosperity "continues to pervade every part 
 of the kingdom." These sanguine views gained for 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer the title of " Pros 
 perity Robinson." Turning aside from thoughts of 
 French translations and other productions of ephe 
 meral Literature, I had devised a large and compre 
 hensive scheme of a " National Library " a cheap 
 series of books which should condense the informa 
 tion contained in voluminous and expensive works. 
 I prepared a Prospectus, in which I truly said, " It 
 is to be remarked that, with some few striking 
 exceptions, the general Literature of our country is 
 either addressed to men of leisure and research, and 
 is, therefore, bulky and diffuse ; or it is frittered 
 down into meagre and spiritless outlines, adapted 
 only for juvenile capacities." I settled the subjects 
 of about a hundred volumes, in History, Science and 
 Art, and Miscellaneous Literature. I submitted this 
 Prospectus to Mr. Colbum, who expressed his desire 
 to join me in the undertaking, in conjunction with 
 some wholesale house. It was .settled that Mr. 
 Whittaker should be applied to, and accordingly the 
 general terms of an agreement were soon arranged 
 between us. 
 
 During November I applied myself assiduously to 
 the preparation of a complete scheme to go before 
 the public. I obtained the opinion of judicious 
 advisers. I made overtures to writers. I received 
 a letter from my old friend the Rev. J. M. Turner, 
 in which he says, " I hear from Mr. Locker that 
 you are about to undertake an extensive scheme 
 of publication something like that which Constable 
 is advertising so assiduously. I shall be very glad 
 
276 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 to enlist as a contributor to your stores. Constable s 
 programme seems very imposing, but like all com 
 prehensive sketches it is both deficient and redun 
 dant." My own plan was no doubt open to the same 
 objection. It was more systematic than Constable s, 
 and, therefore, perhaps less attractive. I was in 
 high spirits at the prospect of congenial occupation 
 in the editorship of this series, and in a probable 
 source of profit with a limited responsibility. Mr. 
 Whittaker was as sanguine as myself. We had 
 contracted an intimacy as members of a Club 
 of a peculiar character, of which there was no 
 previous example, and which, as far as I know, has 
 had no imitators. " The Publishers Club " included 
 under that comprehensive name Authors as well as 
 Publishers proper. Mr. Jerdan, in his " Auto 
 biography," describes this Club as "The Literary 
 Club," but I never knew it under any other name 
 than " The Publishers ." Our monthly dinner was at 
 the Albion, in Aldersgate Street. It was an ex 
 ceedingly pleasant association, even when the pro 
 ceedings were not enlivened by invited guests, such 
 as the great comedians Munden and Mathews. I 
 remember an evening of rare enjoyment, when I sat 
 by Munden a man of the most exquisite humour 
 a great actor when asked for an exercise of his art, 
 but returning naturally to take an intelligent share 
 in general conversation. On ordinary occasions, Mr. 
 Croly harangued in a style which some deemed 
 eloquence ; Mr. Jerdan made puns which some re 
 garded as wit ; and Dr. Kitchener pronounced dog 
 matic opinions upon cookery and wine. Hood, a 
 few years before, had spread his fame far and wide 
 in his " Ode to Dr. Kitchener ;" but I was not quite 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 277 
 
 aware of our Vice-Chairman s greatness in the world 
 of gastronomy till I saw the rich landlord of the 
 Albion address himself to the sage physician, whose 
 maxim to ward off dyspepsia was " masticate, denti- 
 cate, chump, and chew." As he sat, eagerly looking 
 for the remove, with his pocket-case of sauces by 
 his side, Mr. - - humbly requested that he would 
 deign to taste of a certain dish which the genius 
 of his chef had recently produced. The fiat of 
 approval was given. Henceforth the luxury would 
 be classical. 
 
 The first meeting of our Club season of 1825 was 
 joyous. The second meeting was dismal. The com 
 mercial world was in alarm. How well I remember 
 the anxious face of Mr. James Duncan, one of the 
 most prudent and sagacious of publishers ! Even 
 such a man 
 
 " Drew Priam s curtain in the dead of night, 
 And would have told him, half his Troy was burnt. " 
 
 Duncan would have told us, had he dared, that half 
 the Row was shaky. Few of our Club after this 
 meeting were in the humour for a monthly festivity. 
 The Panic had come, passing over all our tribe like 
 the Simoom, bringing with it general feebleness, if 
 not individual death. Scott, in the blind confidence 
 which he felt, even whilst he and Constable were 
 signing " sheafs of bills," writes in his Journal of 
 November 25th, "After all, it is hard that the 
 vagabond stock -jobbing Jews, should, for their own 
 purposes, make such a state of credit as now exists 
 in London." If the "pleasant vices" of speculative 
 men had not found work for the stock-jobbing Jews, 
 there would have been no panic to become one of 
 
278 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 the " instruments to scourge us " the humblest 
 subjects, and the highest potentates, of "the realms 
 of print." The house of Whittaker succumbed very 
 early, and its affairs were righteously administered 
 by Trustees, who in a few years restored it to its 
 old position. Hurst and Robinson fell, never to rise 
 again, and pulled down Constable and Ballantyne 
 with them. Then began the heroic period of Walter 
 Scott s life, when we might almost envy him his 
 misfortunes and mistakes, in the contemplation of 
 the grandeur of his efforts to retrieve them. 
 
 On the 6th of December I had been at Windsor. 
 Returning to London by the afternoon coach, I 
 learnt that the banking-house of Williams & Co. 
 had stopped payment. They were the bankers who 
 transacted the business of Messrs. Ramsbottom and 
 Legh, the partners in our sole Windsor bank, and 
 large brewers. I was upon intimate terms with 
 both these gentlemen, and I dreaded the conse 
 quence to them of this unexpected calamity. Late 
 at night they both arrived at my house in Pall Mall 
 East. We spent several hours in anxious consulta 
 tion ; but it was at length agreed that Mr. Legh 
 should immediately return to Windsor, to counter 
 mand an order that had been given for the closing 
 of their bank on the morning of the 7th. It had 
 seemed impossible upon the first receipt of the dis 
 astrous intelligence to prevent a fatal run upon 
 them ; for their resources, beyond the regulated 
 supply of specie and banknotes to pay their own 
 well-worn pieces of paper the ordinary currency of 
 the town and neighbourhood were now locked up 
 in the unfortunate London house. Mr. Ramsbottom 
 was one of the members for the borough, very 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 279 
 
 popular, and of unimpeached credit. He and I set 
 out on an excursion, west and east, to seek the 
 assistance of bankers and other capitalists, his 
 friends. In the Albany we found the partners of 
 one firm, that of Messrs. Everett, deliberating by 
 lamp-light. A few words showed how unavailing 
 was the hope of help from them : " We shall our 
 selves stop at nine o clock." The dark December 
 morning gradually grew lighter ; the gas-lamps died 
 out ; but long before it was perfect day we found 
 Lombard Street blocked up by eager crowds, each 
 man struggling to be foremost at the bank where he 
 kept his account if its doors should be opened. We 
 entered several of the banks where the counters 
 were surrounded by the presenters of cheques ; and 
 were witnesses to the calm which sustains the honest 
 English trader in the hour of difficulty, even as it 
 has sustained many a naval commander when the 
 ship has struck upon a sunken rock, and his own 
 safety is the last consideration. There was a 
 London office of Messrs. Ramsbottom s brewery ; and 
 here we found a considerable sum that, through the 
 prudence of the principal clerk, had not been paid 
 in on the 6th to their banking agents in Birchin 
 Lane. We decided upon a plan of action, the artifice 
 of which was justified by the necessity of the case. 
 I took my seat in a postchaise with my treasure 
 something less than a thousand pounds and was 
 whirled to Windsor in a couple of hours by four 
 horses. As I changed horses at Hounslow, or stopped 
 at turnpikes, I proclaimed, " funds for the Windsor 
 Bank." The news spread down the road in that 
 extraordinary way in which news, good or bad, is 
 promulgated. I drove triumphantly into the yard 
 
280 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 of the Bank, amidst the hurrahs of a multitude out 
 side, to whom I had proclaimed my mission. There 
 was a meeting at the same time taking place at the 
 Town Hall, at which my townsmen entered into 
 resolutions declaring their opinion of the solvency of 
 the firm, and the necessity of not pressing upon 
 them in the hour of difficulty. The bank was saved. 
 Its failure would have spread general dismay and 
 misery ; especially as several of the tradesmen largely 
 employed in the alterations of the Castle depended 
 upon advances for wages upon their credit accounts 
 with Messrs. Ramsbottom. I went the next day to 
 Dr. Sumner, and represented to him that a prompt 
 payment of arrears from the Board of Works would 
 be an immense relief. With a ready kindness he 
 applied to the highest quarter. The King s inter 
 vention, then, perhaps, more potent in overcoming 
 obstacles of routine than in the present day quickly 
 accomplished this object. Williams & Co. resumed 
 .payments in a few weeks. 
 
 Lockhart, in his life of Scott, relates that in 
 January, 1826, Constable, awakening from his dream 
 of safety from impending ruin, had come to London 
 with the resolution of applying to the Bank of 
 England, "for a loan of from 100,OOOZ. to 200,000?. 
 on the security of the copyrights in his possession." 
 Copyrights, in that perilous season, were a most 
 unmarketable commodity ; and the Governor and 
 Company of the Bank of England, or indeed any 
 other bankers, would have regarded such securities, 
 and even the most valuable stock of a publisher, 
 as so much waste paper. My own credit was un- 
 assailed amidst suspicions on every side. I had no 
 engagements that had arisen out of the system of 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 281 
 
 accommodation bills, those treacherous allies who 
 pull down the strongest in the hour of mortal 
 conflict. Such desperate help in tiding over diffi 
 culties was fully developed in all its evils by that 
 unsparing Panic. I had trade engagements that 
 would have been duly met, if a paralysis of commerce 
 had not been eventually as dangerous as its apoplexy ; 
 chronic decay as fatal as sudden extinction. The 
 publications of 1825 would no longer sell in 1826 ; 
 the new works projected, written, half printed, 
 advertised, must wait for a more propitious time. 
 The " tender leaves " would not endure that " killing 
 frost." This was the reasoning of most of us of 
 nearly all, with the exception of Mr. Colburn, who 
 pushed his new works with great vigour, having the 
 market of light literature almost wholly to him 
 self. He was perhaps more right than his fellows, 
 in following a course which the most wonderful 
 Common-sense, lifted into the noblest poetry by the 
 power of Imagination, has prescribed as well for 
 publishers as for statesmen : 
 
 " To have done, is to hang 
 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
 In monumental mockery." 
 
 Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 For myself, I saw and heard so much of commercial 
 misery, of fear that kills, of unmerited suspicion 
 troubling the sleep of the most prudent, that the 
 spring was passing into summer, and I began to look 
 upon 1826 as a lost year of business. I could not 
 resolve to "take the instant way" to "keep the 
 path." I had achieved something like a position in 
 1825. I could scarcely hope to regain it by follow 
 ing the usual course of publishing books that might 
 
282 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 live their little hour of novelty and then pass to the 
 trunk makers. Every day made me sick of my occu 
 pation. " The Brazen Head," of which I have 
 spoken, dropped upon the town like a leaden lump. 
 Credit was whispered away. Harsh judgments were 
 pronounced upon the unlucky. In this dark season 
 I sometimes heard the raven-croak of a man who 
 peeped into every corner, and was nightly exhibited 
 in his peeping attitude to laughing play-goers. The 
 Paul Pry of Liston was a chubby, rosy-faced, good- 
 natured, but essentially mischievous meddler, known 
 as Tom Hill. He would lay hold of your button in 
 the streets, and detain you by some such talk as 
 this : " Do you know if W has given up his 
 hunter ? I asked one of his porters, and he wouldn t 
 
 tell me Isn t it suspicious to see and Co. 
 
 sending a waggon load of stock from their ware 
 house ? . . . . Do give a hint to your friend in 
 
 Street, that his servants are very extravagant. I 
 looked down his area and saw them having hot rolls 
 for breakfast." I got away from this moral fog of 
 London as soon as I could. I was shut up, moody 
 and irresolute, at Windsor, in the summer, project- 
 ting, planning, re-arranging my " National Library " 
 scheme, which had been stifled by the panic before 
 its birth ; adding a book here and there, or cur 
 tailing the list, already too long. I was about to 
 return to London with no more preparation for 
 a coming campaign than half a dozen various pro 
 spectuses of this work. It had become a fixed idea 
 with me, to the exclusion of all minor purposes of 
 business or literary occupation. 
 
 In the autumn of 1826 Mr. Brougham was or 
 ganizing his "Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 283 
 
 Knowledge." The Long Vacation was at an end, 
 and in that November, the prospectus of the new 
 society was privately circulated. It said, "The 
 object of the Society is strictly limited to what its 
 title imports, namely, the imparting useful informa 
 tion to all classes of the community, particularly to 
 such as are unable to avail themselves of ex 
 perienced teachers, or may prefer learning by them 
 selves." Here, then, appeared an opening for the 
 nurture of my cherished scheme, of which I ought 
 to avail myself. At Windsor, in November, I 
 received a letter from Mr. M. D. Hill, wishing me 
 to come to town immediately, as he had mentioned 
 my plan of popular books to Mr. Brougham, and to 
 a committee for the encouragement of such a project, 
 and that he thought great things might be done. 
 Of course this communication brought me instantly 
 to London ; and I was very quickly introduced 
 by Mr. Hill to Mr. Brougham. That interview is 
 indelibly impressed upon my memory with all its 
 attendant circumstances. I had never come across 
 the renowned orator in private life, or had seen him 
 under an every-day character. There was an image 
 in my mind of the Queen s Attorney-General, as I had 
 often beheld him in the House of Lords, wielding a 
 power in the proceedings on the Bill of Pains and 
 Penalties which no other man seemed to possess 
 equivocating witnesses crouching beneath his wither 
 ing scorn ; mighty peers shrinking from his bold 
 sarcasm ; the whole assembly visibly agitated at 
 times by the splendour of his eloquence. The 
 Henry Brougham I had gazed upon was, in my 
 mind s eye, a man stern and repellent ; not to be 
 approached with any attempt at familiarity ; whose 
 
284 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 opinions must be received with the most respectful 
 deference ; whose mental superiority would be some 
 what overwhelming. The Henry Brougham into 
 whose chambers in Lincoln s Inn I was ushered on 
 a November night was sitting amidst his briefs, 
 evidently delighted to be interrupted for some 
 thoughts more attractive. After saluting my friend 
 with a joke, and grasping my hand with a cordial 
 welcome, he went at once to the subject upon which 
 I came. The rapid conception of the features of my 
 plan ; the few brief questions as to my wishes ; the 
 manifestation of a warm interest in my views with 
 out the slightest attempt to be patronizing, were 
 most gratifying to me. The image of the great 
 orator of 1820 altogether vanished when I listened 
 to the unpretentious and often playful words of one 
 of the best table-talkers of 1826, it vanished, even 
 as the full-bottomed wig of that time seemed to. 
 have belonged to some other head than the close- 
 cropped one upon which I looked. The foremost 
 advocate of popular education made no harangues 
 about its advantages. He did not indoctrinate me, 
 as I have been bored by many an educationist 
 before and since, with flourishes upon a subject 
 which he gave Mr. Hill and myself full credit 
 for comprehending. M. Charles Dupin said to 
 Mackintosh, after a night in the House of Com 
 mons " I heard not one word about the bless 
 ings of Liberty." " No, no/ replied Mackintosh, 
 "we take all that for granted." So did Henry 
 Brougham take for granted that he and I were 
 in accord upon the subject of the Diffusion of 
 Knowledge. He was then within a few days of the 
 completion of his forty-seventh year ; full of health 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 285 
 
 and energy one who had been working without 
 intermission in literature, in science, in law, in 
 politics, for a quarter of a century, but one to 
 whom no work seemed to bring fatigue ; no tedious 
 mornings of the King s Bench, no sleepless nights 
 of the House of Commons, able to " stale his infinite 
 variety." From that hour I felt more confidence in 
 talking with perfect freedom to him who worthily 
 filled so large a space in the world s eye, than to many 
 a man of commonplaces, whose depths I had plumbed 
 and had found them shallow. That first interview 
 with Mr. Brougham was an event that had a marked 
 influence upon many subsequent passages of my 
 life. 
 
 It would be a fruitless and wearisome story of 
 private affairs, were I to detail the circumstances 
 under which my unfortunate "National Library," 
 having been at first taken up by the Society of 
 which Mr. Brougham was President, and negotia 
 tions having been opened with their publishers, was 
 finally adopted by Mr. Murray, with an earnestness 
 which was to me very assuring, after my long term 
 of enforced idleness and dark apprehensions. The 
 eminent West-end publisher was committed to the 
 enterprise, by the issue of the Prospectus in his own 
 name, which I had so carefully prepared. In my 
 original Prospectus, which I had submitted to Mr. 
 Murray in February, 1826, I had said, " It is our 
 peculiar object to condense the information which is 
 scattered through voluminous and expensive works, 
 into the form and substance of Original Treatises." 
 In the Prospectus issued on the 24th of December, 
 it was set forth that " the divisions of Popular Know 
 ledge in which the National Library is arranged, will 
 
286 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 comprehend, in distinct Treatises, the most important 
 branches of instruction and amusement. They will 
 present the most valuable and interesting articles of 
 an Encyclopaedia, in a form accessible to every descrip 
 tion of purchaser." This final Prospectus is printed, 
 in extenso, in Goodhugh s " English Gentleman s 
 Library Manual," published in May, 1827. Differ 
 ences of opinion about the editorial responsibility of 
 the series too soon arose. Quis custodiet was 
 answered by the apparition of a very solemn divine, 
 who talked as a " Sir Oracle." Arrangements 
 regarding my old stock and copyrights, which it 
 was considered I may say perfectly understood 
 were to be taken at a valuation, when I was about 
 to merge my business in the great house of Albe- 
 marle Street, presented new obstacles. Thus were 
 my prospects clouded in a few weeks of 1827. I was 
 heartsick at last, and abandoning the whole scheme 
 left it for the imitation of others of more independent 
 means. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge produced their " Treatises " in March, 
 and Messrs. Longman their Lardner s " Cabinet 
 Cyclopaedia " a few years afterwards. Mr. Murray, I 
 had reason to believe, had become frightened at the 
 magnitude of my plan. He several times said to me, 
 " where will you find the men to write these books ? " 
 In my maturer experience I came to perceive that 
 this was the real difficulty in such undertakings. 
 
 Let me hasten to close these recollections of the 
 spring of 1827. Scott writes of old letters, some 
 where in his Diary, " they rise up as scorpions to hiss 
 at me." So may I write of the documents by which 
 I trace this crisis of my life. My abortive efforts to 
 begin a new career, shaking off future responsibilities 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 287 
 
 of trade, made the responsibilities which remained 
 more onerous. My boat was stranded. Happily for 
 me there were no wreckers at hand ready for the 
 plunder of my damaged cargo. A private trust 
 administered my affairs, whose only concern was to 
 realize to sell, to the best advantage, land, houses, 
 newspaper, stock, copyrights. I would not be a 
 burden. I would earn my own bread. I walked forth 
 from my business homes in London and Windsor, after 
 the fashion of a man represented in a wood-cut in a 
 title-page of one of the old printers (I think it was 
 a work of Budseus) which comes into my thoughts a 
 man, not bowed down by age or sorrow, moving for 
 ward, not briskly, but not unsteadily, with his stout 
 staff, and his small wallet, and a label of four words, 
 "OMNIA MEA MECUM PORTO." 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 AM living at Brompton, with my wife and 
 four little girls. The house which we 
 have chosen in which to begin a new and 
 unambitious life is in a narrow road, 
 called Cromwell Lane, through which few people 
 pass. Our long slip of garden is bounded on one 
 side by the high wall of Cromwell House, the reputed 
 mansion of the Protector. We are surrounded by 
 nursery grounds. I can no longer find the place 
 where I dwelt for two or three years. The few 
 unpretending houses, nestling in snug gardens, have 
 given place to squares, and rows, and to " Great 
 Exhibition " buildings themselves doomed prema 
 turely to perish. Perchance I might discover some 
 traces of the quiet corner if the humble tavern still 
 remains that was once known as " The Hoop and 
 Toy." Does the " Goat in Boots " still exist ? 
 another landmark. The daughter of a very dear 
 friend, who afterwards occupied our house, was eager 
 to tell us that, "when she visited the Exhibition of 
 1862, she rejoiced to find, in a small plot of ground 
 not yet subdued to the tyranny of brick and mortar, 
 a single apple-tree, which she could identify as the 
 tree under which she had sat as a child, looking wist 
 fully up at the ripening fruit. Why do I linger about 
 this unpretentious abiding place of 1827 ? Because 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 289 
 
 it was to me as a city of refuge. Here I first 
 relinquished the hope of commercial success, having 
 surrendered to others my commercial responsibilities. 
 I had much for which to be grateful to the All-giver. 
 I had preserved my bodily and mental health. I 
 had domestic confidence and peace. The " precious 
 jewel" in the toad s head was not undiscovered. I 
 was determined to work, and I was equally resolved 
 to be as happy as I could be. I did not repine at 
 the turn of Fortune s wheel. Amongst some papers 
 of this period I find a scrap on which I had written, 
 If the capacity to enjoy were commensurate with 
 the power to possess, we then, indeed, might com 
 plain of the inequality of our conditions. 
 
 Looking back upon the summer of 1827, I have 
 no recollection of such hours of gloom as belonged 
 to the previous year. No unkindness wounded my 
 pride ; no desertion of old friends rendered me mis 
 anthropical. I had quickly obtained an engagement 
 as a writer in Mr. Buckingham s new paper, " The 
 Sphinx." High-priced as it was a shilling it had 
 a considerable sale. I wrote political articles and 
 reviews. At that time I was an enthusiast in public 
 affairs. Canning was the head of a new administra 
 tion. On the 1st of May I had stood in the crowded 
 avenues of the House of Commons, and had seen for 
 a moment his radiant face, as he rapidly mounted the 
 old staircase which led to the lobby, about to take the 
 foremost place, and vindicate his policy before many 
 detractors and some new friends. There were whis 
 pered blessings upon many lips. In that triumph 
 of the minister who had shaken off the shackles 
 of the great Continental Powers, and had carried 
 England " into the camp of progress and liberty," I 
 
290 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 regarded the man as the " deliverer " described by 
 Burke, in words almost profane in their idolatrous 
 admiration. But I may look back upon that memo 
 rable occasion, and soberly say, " Nor , did he seem 
 insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love 
 and admiration of his fellow citizens. Hope ele 
 vated and joy brightened his crest." [Speech on 
 American Taxation, 1774.] On the 16th of August 
 I saw him laid in his grave, in the north transept of 
 Westminster Abbey. On the previous 20th of Janu 
 ary, I had seen him standing for two hours of the 
 bitterest night, upon the cold unmatted pavement of 
 the nave of St. George s Chapel, at the funeral of the 
 Duke of York. He did not take the precaution 
 which he had suggested to Lord Eldon, to stand upon 
 his cocked hat. That funeral broke up the delicate 
 health of George Canning. 
 
 My course of journalism under Mr. James Silk 
 Buckingham was not agreeable. Perhaps I had been 
 too long my own master in such matters to brook 
 control and criticism. Perhaps I formed too low an 
 estimate of his knowledge and ability. His wonder 
 ful fluency as a platform speaker, pouring forth plati 
 tude after platitude, was calculated to catch the 
 multitude. He has written scores of volumes in the 
 same style, and I may ask " where are they ? " I 
 cared not how wearisome were his own newspaper 
 prolusions ; but I rebelled against his unparalleled 
 conceit. He outraged me by presuming to alter, in 
 his own obtuse fashion, some spirited lines on the 
 death of Canning, which Praed had sent me. I at 
 once quitted his office where I had diligently 
 laboured, and not without success when he pro 
 posed an amended scale of remuneration for critiques 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 291 
 
 on new books, beginning at half-a-crown and rising 
 to a guinea, according to the length of the article. I 
 know not whether he found journeymen at this rate. 
 I know not whether literature was degraded then, or 
 is now, by the pretence of giving an opinion of a 
 book amongst what are called " short notices," at 
 the rate of threepence a line, to be earned by men 
 who ought to have been hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water. Happily a more worthy course of industry 
 was opening for me. But before I enter upon the 
 " passages " of an employment which was spread 
 over nearly twenty years, let me glance at a tempo 
 rary labour of 1827. What were then called 
 " The Annuals " were introduced to England by 
 Mr. Ackermann, in his " Forget-me-not " of 1822. 
 Alaric Watts followed with his " Literary Souvenir." 
 Samuel Carter Hall started " The Amulet," for the 
 especial use of " serious persons." In 1827 I was 
 asked to edit " Friendship s Offering." It was an 
 enterprise hastily entered upon by Messrs. Smith and 
 Elder, late in the season, and I had to obtain pictures 
 for engraving, secure contributors, and see the book 
 through the press in two or three months. The 
 pleasantest thing about the engagement was that 
 my friends of the " Quarterly Magazine," Mr. Praed 
 and Mr. Moultrie, with others of their following, 
 rallied round me, and contributed the most original 
 pages of a volume, for which, like its rivals, there 
 would be no lack of sentimental stories, and verses 
 somewhat mawkish with their bowers and flowers. 
 The most disagreeable thing was, that a blockhead 
 behind the scenes, in the confidence of the pub 
 lishers, took upon himself to change the title which 
 Praed had given to his poem, and had it printed 
 
292 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE: 
 
 as " The Red Fisherman " instead of " The Devil s 
 Decoy." My friend had nearly quarrelled with me 
 about this matter, in which I was really blameless. 
 He had a right to be angry, for the poem was, I 
 am inclined to think, his chef-d oeuvre. New An 
 nuals stai ted up, in the next and few following 
 years, amongst the best of which was " The Anni 
 versary," edited by Allan Cunningham, who had 
 it in his power to make as good a book of this 
 sort as could be produced, from the esteem with 
 which he was regarded by the best writers and the 
 best artists. There were Keepsakes, and Gems, and 
 Bijous ; but these delicate flowerets of the literary 
 hotbed had a brief existence. They did more for 
 the arts than for letters. They had set a great 
 many people scribbling, who would never have 
 dreamt of committing the- sin of rhyme without 
 such excitements, and they had compelled some of 
 those who could write well to adopt a style anything 
 but vigorous and original. They were perhaps right, 
 and so were the editors and publishers. It was a 
 period in which, except in a few rare instances, 
 mediocrity was essentially necessary to great literary 
 success. There was a poem entitled " The Omni 
 presence of the Deity," by one whose fame settled 
 into the name of " the wrong Montgomery ; " the 
 good old champion of freedom, the right Mont 
 gomery, being, then alive and honoured by all com 
 petent judges. It went rapidly through five or six 
 editions. The " Excursion " had reached a second 
 edition in ten years. 
 
 A document, which I value as a soldier who has 
 seen long service values his first Commission, lies 
 before me : 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 293 
 
 " GENERAL MEETING of the Committee for the Diffusion of 
 Useful. Knowledge. 26th July, 1827. 
 
 " James Mill, Esq., in the Chair. 
 
 " Mr. Hill having informed the Committee that Mr. Charles 
 Knight was willing to undertake the superintendence of the 
 Society s Publications, it was 
 
 " Resolved, 
 
 " That his services be accepted, and that it be referred to 
 the Publication Committee to furnish him with the necessary 
 instructions." 
 
 At that time the only publications of the Society 
 were the Treatises of the " Library of Useful Know 
 ledge," issued fortnightly in sixpenny numbers. The 
 Series had been commenced in the Spring, with Mr. 
 Brougham s " Discourse on the Objects, Advantages, 
 and Pleasures of Science." The sale of this work 
 had been as extraordinary as its merits were striking 
 and almost unexampled. Some called it superficial, 
 because it touched rapidly upon many departments 
 of scientific knowledge ; but the more just conclusion 
 was that it was the work of " a full man/ who had 
 not laboriously elaborated this fascinating treatise out 
 of books recently studied or hastily referred to, bat 
 had poured it forth out of the accumulated wealth of 
 his rich treasury of knowledge. No reader to whom 
 the subjects treated of were in any. degree new could 
 read this little book without feeling an ardent desire 
 to know more to know all. Such were my own 
 feelings as I devoured this tract on the outside of an 
 Aylesbury coach, and bitterly regretted that upon 
 mere business considerations I had lost the chance of 
 becoming intimate with the author of such a book, 
 as his fellow-labourer in the work of popular en 
 lightenment. It could scarcely be expected that 
 many other Treatises could have the same attraction 
 
294 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 as this Preliminary Discourse. They were to be 
 manuals for self-education clear, accurate, but not 
 to be mastered without diligence and perseverance. 
 Their success made it clear that there was a great 
 body of students whether in Colleges or Mechanics 
 Institutes, in busy towns or quiet villages, to whom 
 such guides would be welcome. My duties, in con 
 nexion with this Series, were scarcely more than 
 ministerial. I had to read manuscripts and give an 
 opinion upon them, although the decision did not 
 rest with me but with the Committee. Upon the 
 higher scientific subjects I was not competent to give 
 an opinion as regarded their correctness, but I could 
 judge how far they were adapted for popular use. I 
 was thus what the Germans, I believe, call a Vorleser. 
 Proofs went through my hands as they passed the Com 
 mittee, and the printers were kept up to their work. 
 I could not reasonably shrink from this drudgery, 
 for I saw men of high station and literary eminence 
 statesmen, lawyers, physicians, willingly perform 
 ing it. It was not necessary that I should regularly 
 attend at the Offices of the Society in Furnival s 
 Inn ; but I had often to confer with Mr. Coates, the 
 active and intelligent Secretary of the Society, and 
 to attend some meetings of the general and special 
 Committees. I gradually came to form a just esti 
 mate of the individual characters and qualifications of 
 those with whom I was brought in contact. I found 
 them, collectively, very different from provincial 
 Committees of which I had once had some experience 
 earnest in the pursuit of a common object ; not 
 intent upon personal display or the assertion of petty 
 self-importance ; men of cultivated minds, each treat 
 ing the opinions of the others with respect ; the most 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 295 
 
 capable amongst them the most modest ; in a word, 
 gentlemen and scholars. I felt that it depended 
 upon myself some day to win their confidence in a 
 position of higher responsibility than my early labours 
 demanded. 
 
 In these pursuits, the summer of 1827 wore away. 
 I was not without my pleasures. I delighted to 
 walk in Kensington Gardens, sometimes on a holiday 
 afternoon with my elder girls more frequently in 
 the early morning on my way to town. Glancing 
 in the intervals of my present task of reviving old 
 memories, at the work of a poet who ought to be 
 more widely known, I find these lines : 
 
 " Once as I stray d a student, happiest then, 
 "What time the summer s garniture was on, 
 Beneath "the princely shades of Kensington, 
 A girl I spied, whose years might number ten, 
 With full round eyes, and fair soft English face."* 
 
 In such a season, when the sun was scarcely high 
 enough to have dried up the dews of Kensington s 
 green alleys, as I passed along the broad central 
 walk, I saw a group on the lawn before the Palace, 
 which, to my mind, was a vision of exquisite loveli 
 ness. The Duchess of Kent, and her daughter, 
 whose years then numbered nine, are breakfasting 
 in the open air a single page attending upon them 
 at a respectful distance -the matron looking on with 
 eyes of love, whilst the " fair soft English face " is 
 bright with smiles. The world of fashion is not yet 
 astir. Clerks and mechanics, passing onward to their 
 occupations, are few ; and they exhibit nothing of 
 
 * " Lays of Middle Age ; " by James Hedderwick, 1859. 
 
296 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE I 
 
 that vulgar curiosity which I think is more com 
 monly found in the class of the merely rich, than in 
 the ranks below them in the world s estimation. 
 What a beautiful characteristic it seemed to me of 
 the training of this royal girl, that she should not 
 have been taught to shrink from the public eye 
 that she should not have been burthened with a 
 premature conception of her probable high destiny 
 that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity 
 of a child s nature that she should not be restrained 
 when she starts up from the breakfast-table and runs 
 to gather a flower in the adjoining parterre that 
 her merry laugh should be as fear] ess as the notes of 
 the thrush in the groves around her. I passed on 
 and blessed her ; and I thank God that I have lived 
 to see the golden fruits of such training. 
 
 At this period the Almanacs of the Stationers 
 Company were published within a few days of Lord 
 Mayor s Day, the 9th of November. Before their 
 issue, the Master and other magnates of the Com 
 pany used to go in their barge to Lambeth, to 
 present copies of all their Almanacs to the Arch 
 bishop of Canterbury. In Erskine s famous Speech 
 in 1779, when Lord North brought a Bill into the 
 House of Commons for re-vesting in the Stationers 
 Company a monopoly which had been declared 
 illegal by the Court of Common Pleas in 1775, he 
 adverted to " the episcopal revision " which formerly 
 existed, when the Universities, as well as the Sta 
 tioners Company, were alone authorised to print 
 Almanacs. " It is notorious," said the great advo 
 cate, " that the Universities sell their right to the 
 Stationers Company for a fixed annual sum ; and it 
 is equally notorious, that the Stationers Company 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 297 
 
 make a scandalous job of the bargain ; and to in 
 crease the sale of Almanacs amongst the vulgar, 
 publish, under the auspices of religion and learning, 
 the most senseless absurdities." .His respect for the 
 House, he said, prevented him from citing some 
 sentences from the one hundred and thirteenth of 
 the series of Poor Robin s Almanac, published under 
 the revision of the Archbishop of Canterbury and 
 the Bishop of London. " The worst part of Roches 
 ter is ladies reading, compared with them." The 
 monopoly of 1779 wa,s destroyed. But the powerful 
 Company bought off the competitors who rose up 
 from time to time. They had become possessed in 
 1827 of an exclusive market for stamped Almanacs ; 
 and, in the absence of all competition, the absurdities 
 and the indecencies flourished as vigorously as when 
 Erskine denounced them half a century before. The 
 solemn farce was still enacted once a year of laying 
 these productions at the feet of the Primate, when 
 " episcopal revision" for state purposes was as extinct 
 as the Star Chamber. They were still, as Erskine 
 described the ancient mockery, to be " sanctified by 
 the blessings of the bishops." 
 
 I had long been conversant with the character of 
 these productions. Upon the day of their publica 
 tion for the year 1828 I bought them all, and 
 eagerly applied myself to discover if they had be 
 come more adapted to the improving intelligence 
 of the age. First, there was "Francis Moore, 
 Physician," who had commenced his career of im 
 posture in 1698. He then dated his productions 
 "from the sign of Lilly s Head, in Crown Court, 
 near Cupid s Bridge, in Lambeth parish ; " where 
 he advertised for sale " his famous familiar family 
 
298 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 cathartick and diuretick purging pills." Here the 
 " author also cures all sorts of agues at once ; " and 
 he adds, in the true spirit of his almanac, " this dis 
 temper often comes by supernatural means, which is 
 the reason it will not yield to natural means." In 
 1827, when the Almanac stamp was fifteen pence, 
 the people of England, calling themselves en 
 lightened, voluntarily taxed themselves to pay an 
 annual sum of fifteen thousand pounds to the 
 government, for permission to read the unchanged 
 trash which first obtained currency and belief when 
 every village had its witch and every churchyard 
 its ghost when agues were cured by charms, and 
 stolen spoons discovered by incantation. Surely 
 it was full time that "Francis Moore, Physician," 
 should be boldly dealt with. No common assaults 
 would do. He would survive ridicule, as " Part 
 ridge s Almanack " survived the wicked- wit of 
 Swift, although Bickerstaff had killed the real Alma 
 nac for a season, and frightened the seer from ever 
 attempting to set it up again. The Stationers Com 
 pany were not to be so beaten ; and they had the 
 impudence to publish a " Partridge s Almanack " 
 with a portrait of the discomfited astrologer, which 
 he refused to acknowledge, obstinately persisting not 
 to prophesy in the flesh. The Company evoked the 
 ghost of Partridge to do the needful work, and the 
 Almanac for 1828 bore this motto, "Etiam mortuus 
 loquitur." Another astrological Almanac, " Season 
 on Seasons," still existed for 1828, modelled after 
 the fashion of the palmy days of Lilly and Gadbury. 
 " Moore Improved," particularly adapted for farmers 
 and country gentlemen, was as impudent in his 
 astrology as his great ancestor. All the Almanacs 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 299 
 
 of the Stationers Company had their prophecies 
 that on a particular day of the coming year it 
 would rain or shine that there would be "good 
 weather for the hay season in July, and in August 
 fine harvest weather about the middle of the 
 month." In Swift s wonderful piece of solemn 
 humour, the account of Partridge s death, he makes 
 the old sinner confess his "impositions on the 
 people," and say, "We have a common form for all 
 these things : as to foretelling the weather, we never 
 meddle with that, but leave it to the printer, who 
 takes it out of any old almanac as he thinks fit." 
 This, which looks like a mere joke in 1709, was easy 
 of proof in 1827, by comparing the Almanac of the 
 reign of Charles II. with the Almanac of George II., 
 and both with the Almanac of George IV. The only 
 variation in the weather prophecies was in " Poor 
 Robin s Almanac" for 1828, when he closed his hun 
 dred and sixty-eighth year, a drivelling idiot, still 
 clinging to his old filth. Could any reader of this 
 day imagine that in the year when the London 
 University was opened, and the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge was beginning its 
 work, he could find these lines at the head of the 
 Calendar for January ? 
 
 " If it don t snow 
 I don t care. 
 But if it freezes 
 It may as it pleases 
 And then I sneezes, 
 And my nose blow." 
 
 Armed with such materials, I immediately went to 
 work, to elaborate the scheme of a rational and useful 
 
300 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Almanac. It was completed in a few days, and I 
 took it to my steady friend, Matthew Hill. We went 
 together to Westminster, to consult Mr. Brougham. 
 What an incalculable source of satisfaction to a pro 
 jector, even of so apparently humble a work as an 
 Almanac, to find a man of ardent and capacious 
 mind, quick to comprehend, frank to approve, not 
 deeming a difficult undertaking impossible, ready not 
 only for counsel but for action. " It is now the middle 
 of November," said the rapid genius of unprocrasti- 
 nating labour " can you have your Almanac out 
 before the end of the year ? " " Yes ; with a little 
 help in the scientific matters." " Then tell Mr. Coates 
 to call a meeting of the General Committee at my 
 chambers, at half-past eight to-morrow morning. 
 You shall have help enough. There s Lubbock and 
 Wrottesley and Daniel and Beaufort you may have 
 your choice of good men for your astronomy and 
 meteorology, your tides and your eclipses. Go to 
 work, and never fear." The market-gardeners of 
 Brompton were scarcely yet astir when I started to 
 walk to Lincoln s Inn. The morning was dismal ; 
 the road was solitary. When I reached the top of 
 Sloane Street, I was encountered by a dense fog so 
 heavy that I remember feeling my way by the iron 
 railings in front of Apsley House, and so groping 
 through Piccadilly. I began to despair of keeping 
 the appointment which I deemed so important. But 
 I persevered. That fog seemed to me as a type of 
 the difficulties that I might have to encounter in 
 this novel attempt, and in the realization of other 
 projects floating in my mind. In Mr. Brougham s 
 chambers there was assembled a quorum of the Com 
 mittee. The energy of the Chairman swept away 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 301 
 
 every doubt. The work was committed to my charge. 
 The aid which had been suggested to me was freely 
 given. I remembered the sarcastic exclamation of 
 Erskine, when he was contending against the re- 
 establishment of the usurped monopoly of the Uni 
 versities " Is it imagined that our Almanacs are to 
 come to us, in future, in the classical arrangement of 
 Oxford, fraught with the mathematics and astro 
 nomy of Cambridge?" It might be so with one 
 Almanac not " printed with the correct type of the 
 Stationers Company." Our supporters would little 
 care for the pretence, still kept up, that the respon 
 sibility of that Company prevented the inconveniences 
 that might arise to the public from mistakes in the 
 matters that Almanacs contained. A constant friend 
 through many years, the hydrographer of the Admi 
 ralty, Captain Beaufort, found a gentleman in his 
 office who quickly prepared the various astronomical 
 tables. There were senior wranglers, " fraught with 
 the mathematics and astronomy of Cambridge," whose 
 names had been rapidly mentioned to me by Mr. 
 Brougham, ready to look over the proofs. I arranged 
 the business terms with the Finance Committee of 
 the Society, upon the principle of paying a rent upon 
 the numbers sold. " The British Almanac" was 
 published before the 1st of January. Late as it was 
 in the field, high as was its unavoidable price half- 
 a-crown, to cover the heavy stamp duty, and allow a 
 profit to the retailers ten thousand were sold in a 
 week. I had thus encouragement to propose a col 
 lateral scheme to the Society. In their Annual 
 Report issued at the beginning of February, was this 
 announcement : " A Companion to the Almanac is 
 in the press, which will treat of many important 
 
302 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 branches of knowledge." The pair have travelled on 
 together for thirty-seven years under my direction, 
 through many changes of times and men through 
 many a social revolution, bloodless and beneficent 
 through a wonderful era of progress in commerce, in 
 literature, in science, in the arts in the manifesta 
 tions of the approach of all ranks to that union of 
 interests and feelings which is the most solid founda 
 tion of public happiness, and the best defence against 
 assaults from without. The general features of these 
 publications have undergone very little change during 
 this long period. The two objects which have been 
 always kept in view in the preparation of the " Com 
 panion" were set forth in 1828 : " 1st. That the 
 subjects selected shall be generally useful, either for 
 present information or future reference. 2ndly. That 
 the knowledge conveyed shall be given in the most 
 condensed and explicit manner, so as to be valuable 
 to every class of readers." 
 
CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 my return to London at the end of June, 
 1828, after a journey through " the provin 
 ces " to aid in furthering the object of our 
 association, the meetings of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society were approaching their termina 
 tion for the season. Parliament was prorogued. The 
 members of our committee had mostly left town ; law 
 yers were on circuit ; members of Parliament were look 
 ing after their local interests. But I had to keep up a 
 tolerably active correspondence with some who took an 
 especial interest in the works upon which I was occupied 
 with none more unremittingly than Mr. Brougham. 
 Whether contending in friendly rivalry for the 
 leadership of the Northern Circuit with Mr. Pollock, 
 or enjoying the delicious quiet of his family home in 
 Westmoreland, his mind was ever occupied with 
 thoughts of the society which he had founded, and 
 which was daily growing more important. Mr. Hill 
 writes to me from Ambleside on the 30th of August : 
 " I came here with Mr. Brougham, from Lancaster, 
 to-day. Scenery glorious of course. But I fear we 
 talked more about diffusion of knowledge than any 
 thing else. Mr. B. is delighted with all you have 
 done." It was very pleasant to know that my 
 preparations for the " Library of Entertaining Know 
 ledge " were approved. I was chiefly engaged in 
 writing " The Menageries," which was a sufficient 
 task for my faculties ; for I had to learn a good deal 
 
304 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 of the subjects upon which I was to write. But 
 Mr. Brougham, estimating the powers of other men 
 by his own, would have had me engage in some 
 by-work for both of the series the Useful and the 
 Entertaining. I had intimated a desire to write a 
 Life of Alfred. With his characteristic readiness, 
 while expressing his gratification, he suggests to 
 me not to lose sight of one interesting part of the 
 subject" the ancient form of our government there 
 are many errors afloat in this matter." He then 
 states that Mr. Allen, of Holland House, has, more 
 than all lawyers and historians, studied it deeply, 
 and he sends me a list of Mr. Allen s articles in the 
 " Edinburgh Review," on topics connected with this 
 question. I had also given to Mr. Brougham the 
 introductory portion of a life of Las Casas a 
 subject which had deeply interested me, as a very 
 young man, when I had read in Croft s singular 
 volume, " Love and Madness," that, " all things con 
 sidered, Bartholomew Las Casas was perhaps the 
 greatest man that ever existed." Mr. Brougham 
 writes " I have lost sight of Las Casas. How near 
 making a volume is it for the L. E. K. ? If not for 
 that, there must be at least enough for a treatise in 
 the L. TJ. K." How could I let th.e grass grow under 
 my feet with such an inciter to activity ? 
 
 In looking back at some correspondence of Sep 
 tember, 1828, I am > enabled to form an accurate 
 conception of the technical difficulties of producing 
 a cheap book with excellent wood-cuts. I had 
 arranged to have my " Menageries " illustrated with 
 representations of animals drawn from the life. I 
 was fortunate in securing the assistance of several 
 rising young men, who did not disdain what some 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 305 
 
 painters might have deemed ignoble employment. 
 Two of these are now Royal Academicians. There 
 were not many wood-engravers then in London ; and 
 this art was almost invariably applied to the pro 
 duction of expensive books, printed in the finest 
 style. The legitimate purpose of wood-engraving 
 was not then attained. It is essentially that branch 
 of the art of design which is associated with cheap 
 and rapid printing. In the costly books of the period 
 a single woodcut introduced into a sheet to be 
 worked off with the types, enhanced the cost of 
 manual labour in a proportion which would now 
 seem incredible. In engraving the wood-cuts for the 
 "Menageries," some attention of the artist was 
 necessary to give his shadows the requisite force, 
 and his lights the desired clearness, so as to meet 
 the uniform application of the ink, and the cylin 
 drical pressure, in the printing-machine process. 
 It was long before this excellence could be practi 
 cally attained. Without this explanation it would 
 appear ludicrous that Mr. Hill should write to me 
 from Mr. Brougham s house, " Everybody here is 
 in raptures with the proofs of the wood-cuts ; but 
 we have misgivings about the machine." A sheet 
 of my book was to be set up with the engravings 
 in their due place, and a hundred or two were to 
 be printed off by the rapid operation. " Mr. Loch 
 is here," writes Mr. Hill. " We have held a com 
 mittee. He will be in London in a fortnight, quite 
 at leisure, and anxious to attend to our affairs. He 
 has promised to assist at Clowes s. I hope you will 
 succeed in assembling everybody." "Everybody" 
 not only meant the patentee of the machine, the 
 wood-engraver, the stationer, the ink-maker, and 
 
306 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 the ingenious overseer of the printing office, but as 
 many of the committee as I could get together. 
 Imagine a learned society thus employed ! Imagine 
 a hard-worked editor thus exhorted to interference 
 with a printer s proper duty ! Yet such was a 
 part of my editorial duty at a time when the great 
 revolution in the production of books to be ac 
 complished by the printing machine, was almost 
 as imperfectly realised as when Caxton first as 
 tonished England by the miracles of the printing 
 press. We succeeded in partially overcoming -the 
 difficulties of making an illustrated volume not 
 despicable as a work of art, and yet cheap some 
 thing very different from the lesson books with 
 blotches called pictures, that puzzled the school-boy 
 mind half a century ago, to distinguish what some 
 daub was meant to delineate ; " It is backed like a 
 weasel s," says Brown "or, like a whale," says 
 Jones " Very like a whale," concludes Robinson. 
 
 At this time my duties in connection with the 
 " Library of Entertaining Knowledge " were simply 
 those of author and editor. I had retained a pro 
 prietary interest in the Almanac and Companion, 
 although it was published for two years by Messrs. 
 Baldwin. But the new series was a large under 
 taking, from the risk of which I shrank. Again, 
 Mr. Murray, as a publisher, was to have been asso 
 ciated with my labours. In November, 1828, Mr. 
 Tooke, the treasurer of the society, informed me 
 that Mr. Murray desired that I should send him 
 "the form of a reduced advertisement, descriptive 
 only of the intended volume." The "Menageries" 
 was then sufficiently advanced for me to comply. 
 Before the volume was ready for publication the 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 307 
 
 proprietor of the "Quarterly Keview" took some 
 alarm. The Society and he parted company, but 
 upon very friendly terms. I was urged to take " at 
 the flood " this opportunity of the " tide in the affairs 
 of man." I found a capitalist ready to bear his part 
 in my new venture. I made terms with the Society, 
 which secured to them a rent upon the copies sold 
 of the " Library of Entertaining Knowledge." I was 
 again a publisher in Pall Mall East, before Mid 
 summer, 1829, when the first volume of the "Me 
 nageries " was published. At the same period Mr. 
 Murray issued the first volume of his " Family 
 Library." 
 
 The sub-committees of the Society are once 
 more in active work when the long vacation had 
 come to an end. The monthly meetings now regu 
 larly take place. At these periodical gatherings 
 there is a dinner at five o clock a plain English 
 dinner, at a moderate fixed charge, to which 
 each present contributes. There is a subscription 
 for wine. On these occasions the organisation 
 of the Society is fully developed. The sub 
 committees report their proceedings ; the general 
 committee confirm them. Questions are asked ; 
 suggestions are made. The chairman conducts the 
 proceedings with the least possible parade of words. 
 The members express their opinions in the same 
 quiet conversational tone. I never heard but one 
 oration in that assembly of which so many eloquent 
 statesmen and lawyers formed a part. That display 
 came from a president of the Royal Academy, whose 
 rhetoric is as forgotten a thing as his "Rhymes 
 on Art." Let me look back upon those pleasant 
 meetings, at which I had generally the happiness to 
 
308 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 be present during more than fifteen years. Let me, 
 without confining myself to a particular session 
 of my early years in connection with the Society, 
 look round that social table, to call up the shadows 
 of some whose reputations only survive, and to 
 renew, as it were, the friendships which I have still 
 the happiness of possessing. 
 
 The dinner is over in an hour. There has been 
 pleasant gossip and occasional fun. A few cordial 
 greetings have passed in the old form of the wine- 
 pledge, which we of a past generation regret to 
 find almost obsolete. The cloth is cleared. Mr. 
 Coates, the secretary, moves to the side of the chair 
 man, and there are then two hours of solid business. 
 Subjects of science, of art, of literature, having to be 
 discussed, the talk is sure to be improving, and occa 
 sionally amusing. The chair is generally filled by Mr. 
 Brougham, and, in his rare absence, more frequently 
 by the treasurer, Mr. William Tooke, than by Lord 
 John Russell, the vice-chairman. Other members, 
 however, are occasionally called to take the chair. 
 Mr. Tooke was one of the founders of the Society, 
 and was for some years an active member. He was 
 somewhat ambitious of literary distinction, priding 
 himself upon being one of " the family of Tooke," 
 his father having been known as the author of 
 some valuable works on Russia ; his brother Thomas 
 being the eminent political economist, the historian 
 of " Prices." Our treasurer had somewhat harsh 
 treatment from the critics as the biographer of 
 Churchill. I always regarded him as a kind-hearted 
 man of moderate abilities somewhat fussy, not 
 altogether disinclined to a job, and always disposed 
 to be patronizing. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 309 
 
 Where shall I begin with those who did not fill the 
 offices of the Society amongst the sixty members of 
 its committee ? I cannot classify them according to 
 their professional pursuits ; for in this gathering, 
 statesmen, lawyers, physicians, professors, not only 
 clubbed their technical knowledge, but their various 
 acquirements in science, in history, in art, in ancient 
 scholarship, in modern literature. I must take 
 the individuals somewhat at random, as they crowd 
 upon my memory in connection with my own 
 experience. 
 
 James Mill. I see the historian of British India, 
 sitting near Mr. Brougham, listening to his opinions 
 with marked attention. It always appeared to me 
 
 a signal tribute to the intellectual eminence of the 
 o 
 
 great orator, that the writer who, of all others, aimed 
 most at terseness and perspicuity, should exhibit 
 such deference to one whose reputation was built 
 upon broader foundations than logical profundity 
 or metaphysical subtlety. Yet so it was. Their 
 minds were not certainly cast in the same mould ; 
 yet there must have been deep sympathies between 
 them as is perhaps often the case when two men of 
 apparently opposite temperaments, and pursuing 
 very different paths to eminence, are brought into 
 friendly contact for a common object. Mr. Mill was 
 too soon removed from us. To me he rendered 
 valuable aid in the early numbers of the "Com 
 panion to the Almanac." 
 
 Henry Hallam was one of the original promoters 
 of the Society, of which, during many years, he was 
 an active member. That the historian of the 
 " Middle Ages," was an authority in the committee 
 cannot be doubted. He was a sedulous attendant 
 
310 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 upon sub-committees. He read proofs diligently. 
 In his general manner rather cold and dry, he would 
 occasionally deliver an energetic opinion, pregnant 
 with good sense and refined taste. I used at first to 
 feel some shrinking from his critical faculty, but no 
 one could be more tolerant or encouraging ; and if he 
 made objections it was generally without harshness. 
 He was in the full possession of his high faculties 
 when I first had the opportunity of benefiting, in a 
 small degree, by the quiet exhibition of his varied 
 acquirements. The great sorrow of his life had not 
 then chilled his energy. He lived to recover, out 
 wardly, the loss which gave occasion to the noblest 
 elegiac poetry in our language. 
 
 I turn to a man eminent in a pursuit not less 
 useful than that of the historian to Francis 
 Beaufort, the hydrographer to the Admiralty, under 
 whose especial superintendence the Atlas of the 
 Society attained a perfection never before realised in 
 this country. His design of producing the most 
 trustworthy maps at the cheapest rate, would have 
 conferred an honourable distinction upon this 
 Association, if it had accomplished nothing else. But 
 Captain Beaufort (afterwards Admiral Sir Francis) 
 did not confine himself to the duties of this great 
 undertaking. I could always rely upon his sound 
 judgment in discussing any project that I offered, 
 or in the correction of proofs. No member of the 
 committee wrote purer English. Of his unremitting 
 kindness I had ample experience. The frankness, 
 almost bluntness, of the sailor was never offensive, 
 for it had the true ring of the sterling metal of an 
 honest mind, and the unvarnished courtesy of a gen 
 tleman. Shall I place by the side of this worthy plain 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 311 
 
 dealer and plain speaker one of whom it has been 
 said he often tried to make himself disagreeable, but 
 never succeeded ? There was no man with whom I less 
 perfectly sympathized when I first joined the Society 
 than Henry Bellenden Ker ; gradually I learnt to 
 understand him. I have the happiness still to enjoy 
 an intimacy that has endured since those early days 
 of our intercourse proof against banter on one side, 
 and pettishness on the other. He was the most 
 fertile in projects of any member of the committee. 
 Apart from the Society, he had ever some new scheme 
 to suggest to me as a publishing enterprise. His 
 plans were not always practicable ; but they always 
 indicated the fertility of his mind, and the refine 
 ment of his taste. He did me incalculable good in 
 his rough-riding when I was learning my paces in 
 this intellectual manage. It was like the discipline 
 which a young barrister receives on his first circuit. 
 Not to wince under a joke ; to see the kind heart 
 and the earnest good will, ill-concealed by the levity 
 of tongue ; to find indifference growing into cordiality, 
 and then ripening into friendship this was my 
 experience of a man whose ready talent, whose social 
 aptitude, rarely failed to secure the friendship of the 
 young and of the aged one who was a warm 
 politician without the bitterness of a partisan ; whose 
 companionable qualities gave pleasure to the de 
 clining vigour of Lyndhurst, and who continues, as 
 he had begun, to be the cherished friend of 
 Brougham. 
 
 In the present instance, as in others that will con 
 stantly occur, I find it exceedingly difficult to speak 
 with the same freedom of the living as of the dead. 
 Yet, looking back for more than a generation upon 
 14 
 
312 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 the eminent persons with whom I had become 
 acquainted, they all assume with me an aspect 
 approaching to the historical. I run over the list of 
 the committee prefixed to the "British Almanac " for 
 1830. Of forty-five members, whose essential 
 services in the diffusion of knowledge live in my 
 remembrance, twenty-five are gone where " all 
 hidden things shall be made manifest." Yet to speak 
 impartially, I must not pass over those who remain 
 with us, believing that the " nil nisi verum " is a 
 better principle to act upon either for the living or 
 the dead than the " nil nisi bonum" 
 
 I have already, several times, mentioned Matthew 
 Davenport Hill as a member of the committee ; and 
 it is therefore unnecessary that I should here dwell 
 upon the energy of his character as a diffuser of 
 knowledge. He was one of the earliest members of 
 the Society. His brother Rowland was elected when 
 it was fully in action. Of modest demeanour; 
 courteous but independent ; expressing his opinions 
 with a prudent brevity, few could have given him 
 credit for that unwearied industry in following out 
 all the ramifications of a complicated question ; for 
 that power of marshalling all the possible details of a 
 great theory which in practice resolved itself into the 
 most complete organisation. The inventor of the 
 Penny Postage made no eager rush to the display of 
 an imperfect project. He felt every step of his way, 
 and when he had ceased to have any doubt of the 
 certainty of his convictions, he put them forth with 
 the confidence of genius, and was ready to do battle 
 for them with the courage which is the best pledge 
 of victory. The young schoolmaster of Hazelwood 
 became one of the greatest of public benefactors. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 313 
 
 Amongst the founders of the society, Dr. Roget 
 was, from his accepted high reputation, the most 
 eminent of its men of science. He wrote its treatises 
 on Electricity and on Magnetism. He was a diligent 
 attendant on its committees ; a vigilant corrector of 
 its proofs. Of most winning manners, he was as 
 beloved as he was respected. I met him in 1863, at 
 an evening party, and had much talk with him about 
 our old intercourse. Full of animation, with 
 undimned intelligence his age was " as a lusty 
 winter, frosty but kindly." In his beaming face 
 there could scarcely be found the traces of that hard 
 work made up of professional practice, of scientific 
 writing, of secretaryship of the Royal Society, of 
 lecturer at the Royal Institution, which he had 
 gone through since he graduated in medicine at 
 Edinburgh in 1798. Upon all questions of Physi 
 ology, Peter Mark Roget and Charles Bell are the 
 great authorities in the Useful Knowledge Society. 
 No higher service could have been rendered to the 
 association in its early stages than Mr. Bell s con 
 tribution to its treatises. His " Animal Mechanics " 
 is a model of popular writing upon subjects which 
 demand high scientific knowledge. This charming 
 production was published in 1828. At that time 
 there was another member of the medical profession 
 one, however, unconnected with our Society who 
 also contributed most effectually to disperse the 
 belief that science could only be taught in the use of 
 technical language ; that the uninitiated in the 
 technicalities had better not attempt to comprehend 
 the mysteries of that temple where there was scant 
 room for the worship of the multitude. Dr. Neil 
 Arnott, in 1827, published the first portion of his 
 
314 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 " Elements of Physics ; or Natural Philosophy, 
 General and Medical, explained in plain or non 
 technical language." Never was book more popular; 
 never was the completion of any undertaking more 
 anxiously looked for. The first volume of the " Sixth 
 and Completed Edition" reaches me while I write this 
 chapter. It is a presentation copy from one who for 
 five-and-thirty years has won the love and gratitude 
 of me and mine, as the wise physician and the hearty 
 friend. I could not forego this digression from the 
 matters more immediately before me. 
 
 The Useful Knowledge committees, as I have 
 looked upon these monthly assemblages, present the 
 aspect of something higher than toleration a 
 cordial union of men of very different persuasions in 
 religion, who have met upon a common platform for 
 the advancement of knowledge, to which religion can 
 never be opposed. Let me group three represen 
 tatives of opinions that appear as far removed as 
 possible from amalgamation. Dr. Maltby, a great 
 classical scholar, the preacher at Lincoln s Inn, the 
 future bishop, first of Chichester, and then of 
 Durham, is a dignified representative of the Church 
 of England. He is zealous for the welfare of the 
 Useful Knowledge Society, of which he was one of 
 the earliest members. He will do its work assi 
 duously and carefully. He will not insist upon 
 religious topics being thrust in amongst secular. He 
 will not stickle for the due honour of the Established 
 Church. How can he do either? By his side, it 
 may be, sits Mr. Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, the wealthy 
 Jew, whose ambition, as that of the Rothschilds and 
 of other men of large property and unimpeachable 
 loyalty, is to have a voice in the British Parliament. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 315 
 
 Mr. Goldsmid is a man of something more than 
 business talent ; good tempered ; not obtruding the 
 pride of riches ; hospitable. Mr. William Allen, the 
 Quaker, may form the third in this group. I have 
 often called on him at his old place of business in 
 Plough Court, where, a practical chemist, he had 
 been a thriving tradesman, and at the same time a 
 Fellow of the Royal Society and a valuable con 
 tributor to its transactions. He well merited the 
 honour of his countrymen for other qualities than his 
 scientific acquirements. He was a liberal promoter 
 of every public scheme of benevolence. He estab 
 lished upon his estate at Lindfield, in Sussex, after 
 he withdrew from the cares of a commercial life, 
 schools for boys, girls, and infants, real schools of 
 industry, where agriculture was taught, as well as 
 many useful arts. Whilst the children had every 
 opportunity for acquiring health in recreation, and 
 improvement in a good library, he built cottages for 
 the labourers of his village, such as ought to have 
 shamed many a landowner out of his neglect. The 
 memory of this good man is to me fresh and fragrant. 
 There was perhaps no society in England, with 
 the exception of the Royal Society, which could 
 present such a knot of young men of high promise 
 as were assembled at our committees in the 
 earliest stages of their organisation. Mr. John 
 William Lubbock, the only child of the eminent city 
 banker, assiduously followed his father s calling, 
 whilst he was attaining the highest reputation as a 
 mathematician. In 1825 he had graduated as M.A. 
 at Cambridge. In 1828 he was rendering me the 
 most important assistance in the preparation of the 
 " British Almanac." For several years he worked 
 
316 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 with the heartiest zeal at this apparently humble 
 contribution to the objects of the Society. But the 
 occupation was not a humble one, for he was prac 
 tically developing his investigations upon the Tides, 
 which subject formed several papers in the Philo 
 sophical Transactions. Devoting himself with the 
 same readiness to superintend the astronomical 
 portion of the British Almanac, I was also brought 
 into intercourse with Mr. John Wrottesley, after 
 wards Lord Wrottesley, and President of the Royal 
 Society. He was a member of the bar. Mr. 
 Benjamin Malkin afterwards Sir Benjamin, when 
 he accepted a high judicial appointment in India, 
 and there too soon closed his valuable life devoted 
 his great talents and acquirements with indefatigable 
 industry to the business of our committee. His 
 forte was mathematics. His brother Arthur was 
 elected to the committee a few years after, and in 
 several departments rendered essential service as 
 a writer and editor. Mr. T. F. Ellis, the friend 
 and executor of Macaulay, had many opportu 
 nities, in the revision of the Society s works, to 
 exercise his acute critical faculty. Mr. Lefevre (now 
 Sir John) was also one of the distinguished Cam 
 bridge graduates who gave to the Useful Knowledge 
 Society the prestige of their academical honours. 
 
 The University of London (as the College was then 
 called) numbered amongst its Professors some of the 
 ablest members of our committee. Amongst the first 
 of those who joined the Society was Mr. George Long. 
 In subsequent " Passages," I shall have so frequently 
 to mention his name, as one of the most important 
 of my associates, that it will be scarcely necessary for 
 me here to do more than allude to his unequalled 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 317 
 
 industry, his rich scholarship, his sound judgment, 
 which very soon gave him his right position amongst 
 the eminent persons by whom he was surrounded. 
 Mr. De Morgan became a member somewhat later. I 
 first saw him in 1830. The occasion will arise for 
 mentioning the eminent services he rendered to the 
 works in which I have been engaged. Mr. Key, and 
 Mr. Maiden, about the same period commenced their 
 distinguished career as teachers of youth, and very 
 soon also devoted their unprofessional services to the 
 general diffusion of knowledge. 
 
 Mr. Leonard Horner was the Warden of the 
 London University, when he became a member of 
 the Useful Knowledge committee. In their early 
 stages the new preparatory institution " for affording 
 to young men adequate opportunities for obtaining 
 literary and scientific education at a moderate ex 
 pense ;" and the new society for " imparting useful 
 information to all classes of the community," were 
 considered by many to be engaged in a co-partner 
 ship for the political and theological corruption of 
 youths and adults. In some arrangements pre 
 scribed by a rigid economy in the finances of each, 
 they did appear to cany on their operations in con 
 cert. Thus, when I first attended in Percy Street 
 to read manuscripts and proofs, I had to thread my 
 way up a staircase, on the walls of which Dr. 
 Lardner was hanging models for the illustration of 
 his approaching Lectures on Mechanics. As a ne 
 cessary consequence, the council of the University, 
 and the committee of the Society, had several 
 members in common. Mr. Horner was not only 
 surrounded with the reflection of his eminent bro 
 ther s fame, but had. that brother s testimony, in 
 
318 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 his published letters, to the interest which young 
 Leonard, as early as 1811, took in the education of 
 the people. How well he was qualified for popular 
 instruction was shown by an admirable series of 
 articles on " The Mineral Kingdom " which he con 
 tributed to the " Penny Magazine." How ardently 
 and unremittingly he strove to elevate the condition, 
 and provide for the health of the Working Classes, 
 has been manifested by his labours as a Factory 
 Commissioner. 
 
 I am still hovering round the remembrance of the 
 earlier members of the Society, whose literary or 
 scientific qualifications gave the assurance that no 
 publication would go forth, deformed by the in 
 accuracies of superficial information. In a volume 
 written by me ten years ago, I have expressed 
 my opinion upon the system pursued in our com 
 mittees : " From the time when the Society com 
 menced a real superintendence of works for the 
 people when it assisted, by diligent revision and 
 friendly inquiry, the services of its editors the 
 old vague generalities of popular knowledge were 
 exploded ; and the scissors-and-paste school of 
 authorship had to seek for other occupations than 
 Paternoster Row could once furnish. Accuracy was 
 forced upon elementary books as the rule and not 
 the exception. Books professedly entertaining 
 were to be founded upon exact information, and 
 their authorities invariably indicated. No doubt 
 this superintendence in some degree interfered with 
 the free course of original composition, and imparted 
 somewhat of the utilitarian character to everything 
 produced. But it was the only course by which a 
 new aspect could be given to cheap literature, by 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 319 
 
 showing that the great principles of excellence were 
 common to all books, whether for the learned or 
 the uninformed."* To accomplish such real super 
 intendence there were the services at hand, in the 
 department that may be broadly characterised as 
 Natural History, of Mr. Daniel, in Meteorology ; 
 of Mr. De La Beche, in Geology ; of Mr. Vigors, 
 in Zoology ; and of Dr. Anthony Todd Thomson, in 
 Botany and Vegetable Physiology. With each of 
 these gentlemen I was, in various labours, brought 
 into pleasant and profitable intercourse. I was in 
 more direct and constant intimacy with Mr. William 
 Coulson, the translator of Blumenbach s " Com 
 parative Anatomy." In the composition of my 
 little book on " Menageries," I could always apply, 
 in cases of doubt, to his technical information, and 
 to the wide range of the scientific knowledge of 
 Mr. Vigors. The aid which Dr. Conolly rendered to 
 the diffusion of knowledge was not special or pro 
 fessional. In those departments of what we now 
 call " social science," which include the public health 
 in its largest sense, his experience was always working 
 in companionship with his benevolence. In 1831 
 we were united in the production of a series which 
 was directly addressed to the working classes. Dr. 
 Conolly brought to this useful labour of which I 
 shall have to make more particular mention a lucid 
 style, and an accurate conception of the true mode of 
 reaching the uneducated. " Be thou familiar, but by 
 no means vulgar," is as good a maxim for a popular 
 writer, as for a young courtier going forth into the 
 world, to deal with all sorts and conditions of men. 
 
 *" The Old Printer and the^Modern Press." Murray. 1854. 
 
320 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 We had many lawyers on the committee. I have 
 mentioned several who were distinguished for their 
 remarkable scientific qualifications. Others of the 
 bar were accomplished scholars. But no one dis 
 played a more elegant taste than John Herman 
 Merivale. His translations fro"m the Greek Antho 
 logy, and from the minor poems of Schiller, have 
 not been condemned to that oblivion which attends 
 the greater number of poetical attempts. The -purity 
 and elegance of the whole mind of Mr. Merivale is 
 reflected in his poems. Courteous and sympathizing, 
 I look back upon my occasional intercourse with him 
 with respect almost bordering upon affection. Mr. 
 George Cornewall Lewis brought his various high 
 qualifications to the service of the Society at a later 
 period, when he became a contributor to its publica 
 tions. I mention him among the lawyers, for before 
 he joined the Useful Knowledge committee he had 
 been called to the bar. Of the elder lawyers, no 
 one was more valuable to the society than Mr. 
 James Manning perhaps the most profound of the 
 historical and antiquarian lawyers of his time. His 
 accurate information upon many abstruse legal mat 
 ters was amply displayed when he became one of the 
 most important contributors to the " Penny Cyclo 
 paedia." Mr. David Jardine was also a most useful 
 contributor to the legal department of the Cyclo 
 paedia, and was the author of " Criminal Trials," pub 
 lished in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge a 
 valuable contribution to our constitutional history. 
 Let me not omit to mention the youngest of the 
 lawyers amongst us Mr. Thomas Falconer, who 
 was called to the bar in 1830. He inherited literary 
 tastes, and was an acute as well as a modest critic 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 321 
 
 upon the unpublished volumes and articles that 
 were submitted for his revision. 
 
 I have finally to turn to a knot of men, eminent 
 in the political annals of our country. They might 
 at first view be regarded as the Corinthian capitals 
 of our edifice. But this would only be a half-truth. 
 Lord John Russell, Lord Auckland, Lord Al thorp, 
 Mr. Denman, Mr. Spring Eice, Sir Henry Parnell, 
 were always ready to work as members of our 
 committee, even after they had been called to the 
 highest offices of the State. After the Reform era 
 I have sat at the monthly dinner with five Cabinet 
 Ministers, to whom it appeared that their duty was 
 to carry forward that advancing intelligence of the 
 people which had conducted them to power, and 
 which would afford the best security that liberal 
 opinions and democratic violence should not be in 
 concert, as the " one increasing purpose " was work 
 ing out the inevitable changes of society and govern 
 ment. The first poet of the generation that was 
 immediately to follow them has probably shadowed 
 out the convictions that made Ministers of State 
 zealous educationists : 
 
 " Yet 1 doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the 
 suns." LocksUy Hall. 
 
 It was not only in the meetings of our committees 
 that I had the advantage, for my editorial guidance, 
 of the opinions of men of accurate minds and sound 
 information ; but I was frequently also in corre 
 spondence with those who took a more than common 
 interest in particular works. Such a work was that 
 well-known contribution to the " Library of Enter- 
 
322 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 taining Knowledge," which first established the re 
 putation of Mr. George Lillie Craik as a sound 
 thinker and an accomplished writer. To myself, 
 individually, the recollection of that autumn of 1828 
 is especially dear, for it saw the commencement of an 
 intimacy which ripened into the unbroken friendship 
 of six-and-thirty years. In the preliminary stages 
 of discussion on the objects and mode of treatment 
 of a book such as this, which was to embrace a vast 
 number of illustrative anecdotes of the love of know 
 ledge overcoming the opposition of circumstances, 
 there were necessarily different estimates of the 
 value of scientific and literary studies, whether "for 
 use," or " for delight," or " for ornament." The great 
 distinction between the love of knowledge for its own 
 sake, and the love of knowledge as the means of 
 worldly advancement, may be traced very distinctly 
 in the two popular volumes of Mr. Craik, and the 
 equally popular " Self Help" of Mr. Smiles. 
 
 Mr. Craik had written a preliminary disser 
 tation in the sound views of which Mr. Brougham 
 expressed himself to me as generally coinciding. 
 But in a portion of a letter, dated from West 
 moreland in September, 1828, Mr. Brougham takes a 
 different view of the range of such a work as that 
 proposed : 
 
 "His (Mr. Craik s) idea of the line to be drawn 
 as to self-educated men in modern times, is also 
 quite correct; but we must, nevertheless, confine 
 the examples to cases which are quite plainly those 
 of men who have greatly altered their situation 
 by force of merit. As Watt, Arkwright, Franklin, 
 Burns, Bloomfield, Mendelssohn making the ground 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 323 
 
 of division or classification self-exaltation rather 
 than self-education, though they often will coincide. 
 This field is quite large enough for one book ; but 
 the work might be followed by another compre 
 hending the rest of it, and including all self-taught 
 Genius in the larger sense. To give an example 
 I should certainly exclude Newton, though, like 
 Pascal, he taught himself mathematics ; also Gran- 
 ville Sharpe, though he raised himself by his merit to 
 great fame ; but he was grandson of the Archbishop 
 of York, and could not be said to alter his station in 
 life. I look forward to Mr. Craik s labours as of the 
 greatest use to the Society, and to the good cause; 
 having the greatest confidence in his sound prin 
 ciples, and a very high opinion of his talents." 
 
 This interesting discussion was continued between 
 Mr. Brougham, Mr. Hill, Mr. Craik, and myself, till 
 it was seen how the opposite views could be resolved 
 into a general agreement. I have before me Mr. 
 Brougham s proof of Mr. Craik s first volume. To 
 Mr. Brougham is to be assigned the merit of giving 
 to the book in this proof the title which has come 
 to be one of the commonest forms of speech : 
 
 " THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFI 
 CULTIES." 
 
 The title originally stood, 
 
 " THE LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE OVERCOMING DIFFI 
 CULTIES IN ITS PURSUIT." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EVERAL years had passed, crowded with 
 political events. The amended Reform 
 Bill was passing through Committee in the 
 House of Commons in February, 1832. 
 There seemed to be little doubt that a Minis 
 terial majority would be too strong in the Lower 
 House to allow any re-actionary measure in the 
 House of Lords to be successful. The new Govern 
 ment officials were settling themselves to the 
 discharge of their administrative duties as if a long 
 and quiet possession of place had been won. On the 
 13th of February, I received a note from Lord 
 Auckland, the President of the Board of Trade, 
 expressing his desire for a few minutes conversation 
 with me in the course of the afternoon. The inter 
 view was a very brief one, but its importance to me 
 was not to be measured by its duration. The 
 Cabinet Minister offered me a new office, which it 
 was proposed to create at the Board of Trade, for 
 digesting and arranging Parliamentary and other 
 official documents for the information of members of 
 the Government, and possibly for publication. This 
 duty would have involved a regular attendance at 
 Whitehall ; the salary proposed was not a tempting 
 one ; but the offer seemed to open the way for a 
 more ambitious career than that of a publisher. I 
 requested time for deliberation. Having consulted 
 a distinguished friend, he advised me to decline the 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 325 
 
 * 
 
 proposal, however flattering. Lord Auckland was 
 surprised but not displeased at my rejection of his 
 kind overture. He asked me to recommend some 
 gentleman fitted for -the post. There was one with 
 whom I had recently formed an acquaintance, Mr. 
 George Richardson Porter. He had written a paper on 
 Life Assurance for the " Companion to the Almanac," 
 and he was the author of a volume on the Silk 
 Manufacture, published in Lardner s " Cyclopaedia." 
 Mr. Porter received the appointment. The experi 
 ment was perfectly successful, and much of its 
 success may be attributed to the ability and industry 
 of him whom, so fortunately for the public good, I 
 had recommended. Mr. Porter became the head of 
 the statistical department of the Board of Trade, and 
 in 1841 he was promoted to be one of the joint- 
 secretaries of that board. Till the time of his 
 lamented death in 1852, we were mutually attached 
 friends, and he was one of the most valuable con 
 tributors to several of my publications. 
 
 Had I accepted the appointment of the Board of 
 Trade in that February, it is probable that the whole 
 course of my future life would have been changed. 
 It was upon the cards that either I should have 
 been sitting in an office at Whitehall from ten till 
 four, cramming Ministers and Members of Par 
 liament with statistical facts, or become identified 
 with the most successful experiment in popular 
 literature that England had seen. On March 31st, 
 1832, appeared the first number of " The Penny 
 Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge." 
 
 In a debate in the House of Commons on the 22nd 
 of May, 1834, on a motion for the Repeal of tho 
 
326 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Stamp Duty on Newspapers, Mr. M. D. Hill, then 
 member for Hull, in reply to Mr. Bulwer who moved 
 the Repeal, thus described the origin of that work : 
 "The Honourable Gentleman -was pleased to cha 
 racterize The Penny Magazine, as affording a 
 trumpery education to the people, because he says it 
 deals in accounts of birds and insects, and such 
 matters. I certainly was a little astonished to find 
 my Honourable Friend scout an insight into the 
 wonders of creation, as a trumpery affair. I should 
 be sorry if his designation of that little work were 
 correct, because the blame of its existence rests with 
 myself, it being a project of my own ; neither am I 
 innocent of the course it has pursued ; which from 
 first to last has had, and still has, my hearty con 
 currence." The circumstances connected with this 
 "project" were these. The town in that time of 
 political excitement abounded with unstamped weekly 
 publications, which in some degree came under the 
 character of contraband newspapers, and were nearly 
 all dangerous in principle and coarse in language. 
 Mr. Hill and I were neighbours on Hampstead 
 Heath, and as we walked to town on a morning of 
 the second week in March, our talk was of these 
 cheap and offensive publications. "Let us," he 
 exclaimed, " see what something cheap and good can 
 accomplish ! Let us have a Penny Magazine ! " 
 " And what shall be its title ? " said I. "THE PENNY 
 MAGAZINE." We went at once to the Lord Chan 
 cellor. He cordially entered into the project. A 
 committee of the Society was called, and such a 
 publication was decided upon after some hesitation. 
 There was a feeling amongst a few that a penny 
 weekly sheet would be below the dignity of the 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 327 
 
 Society. One gentleman of the old Whig school, 
 who had not originally belonged to the Committee, 
 said again and again, " It is very awkward." Lord 
 Brougham, however, was not accustomed to let 
 awkward things stand much in his way. " The 
 Penny Magazine" was decided upon. I undertook 
 the risk of the publication, and was appointed to be 
 its editor. The task was not a very easy one in the 
 onset, for it was impossible to say, before the issue of 
 a few numbers, whether the periodical sale would be 
 twenty thousand or a hundred thousand, and whether 
 a large demand would be a permanent one. It was 
 therefore necessary to have a due regard to economy ; 
 and thus the attraction of expensive woodcuts could 
 scarcely be ventured upon in the early days of the 
 experiment. It was imperative also to proceed very 
 cautiously in treading near the ill-defined line that 
 separated the essayist from the newspaper writer. 
 I have a letter before me from the Solicitor of Stamps, 
 in which he says he has perused the specimen 
 numbers (1 and 2) of the Magazine intended to be 
 published by the Society, and that he sees nothing 
 in these numbers that will render the publication 
 liable to stamp duty. So I went confidently to my 
 work. Perhaps no circumstance gave me greater 
 encouragement than a letter from Francis Place, who 
 knew more about the working classes, and had 
 probably more influence with them, than any man in 
 London. He describes his pleasure at seeing the 
 prospectus. He begs me to let him have a quantity, 
 which he would cause " to be usefully dispersed in 
 the houses of call for journeymen, in workshops, and 
 factories." Mr. Place united to his business of 
 master-tailor, at Charing Cross, an intense devotion 
 
328 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 to all the leading questions of politics that had been 
 agitating the world since the time of the French 
 Revolution. His collection of contemporary pam 
 phlets was as extensive and complete as any man 
 could have formed. I believe it was dispersed at 
 his death, but it ought to have gone to the British 
 Museum. 
 
 The excellent Dr. Arnold, some months after the 
 " Penny Magazine " had appeared, described it as 
 " all ramble-scramble." It was meant to be so to 
 touch rapidly and lightly upon many subjects. In 
 the introductory article of the first number, I wrote : 
 " Whatever tends to enlarge the range of observa 
 tion, to add to the store of facts, to awaken the 
 reason, and to lead the imagination into agreeable 
 and innocent trains of thought, may assist in the 
 establishment of a sincere and ardent desire for 
 information ; and in this point of view our little 
 miscellany may prepare the way for the reception of 
 more elaborate and precise knowledge, and be as the 
 small optic-glass called the finder, which is placed by 
 the side of a large telescope, to enable the observer 
 to discover the star which is afterwards to be care 
 fully examined by the more perfect instrument." I 
 certainly never received any more striking testimony 
 to the usefulness of the " ramble-scramble " in 
 supplying a want to those who were striving to gain 
 knowledge, but who were too poor to buy books, 
 than the following passage in the " Autobiography 
 of an Artisan," published in 3847. Christopher 
 Thomson, the author of this interesting book, had 
 settled as a house-painter at Edwinstowe, a village 
 in Nottinghamshire : " Squatting down here penni 
 less, without a table or three-legged stool to furnish 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. . 329 
 
 a cottage with, it may easily be imagined that I had 
 tough work of it. My great want was books ; I was 
 too poor to purchase expensive ones, and the cheap 
 literature was not then, as now, to be found in 
 every out-o -the-way nooking. However, Knight had 
 unfurled his paper banners of free trade in letters. 
 The Penny Magazine was published I borrowed 
 the first volume, and determined to make an effort 
 to possess myself with the second ; accordingly, with 
 January, 1833, I determined to discontinue the use 
 of sugar in my tea, hoping that my family would not 
 then feel the sacrifice necessary to buy the book. 
 Since that period, I have expended large sums in 
 books, some of them very costly ones, but I never 
 had one so truly valuable as was the second volume 
 of the Penny Magazine ; and I looked as anxiously 
 for the issue of the monthly part as I did for the 
 means of getting a living." This then was the 
 service which the " Penny Magazine " was rendering, 
 at the beginning of 1832, to the general cause of 
 letters. I must associate with it " Chambers Edin 
 burgh Journal," a publication which was established 
 a few weeks before mine. They were making readers. 
 They were raising up a new class, and a much larger 
 class than previously existed, to be the purchasers of 
 books. They were planting the commerce of books 
 upon broader foundations than those upon which it 
 had been previously built. They were relegating 
 the hole-and-corner literature of the days of exclu- 
 siveness to the rewards which the few could furnish ; 
 preparing the way for writers and booksellers to reap 
 the abundant harvest when the " second rain " of 
 knowledge should be descending " uninterrupted, 
 unabated, unbounded ; fertilizing some grounds and 
 
 
330 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 overflowing others ; changing the whole form of 
 social life." * 
 
 The success of the "Penny Magazine" was an 
 astonishment to most persons ; I honestly confess it 
 was a surprise to myself. It was not till the autumn 
 that an attempt was made by the means of woodcuts 
 to familiarise the people with great works of art. 
 Then were presented to them engravings of a costly 
 character, of such subjects as the Laocoon, the Apollo 
 Belvedere, the Cartoons, and the great Cathedrals, 
 British and Foreign. At the end of 1832, the 
 "Penny Magazine" had reached a sale of 200,000 
 in weekly numbers and monthly parts. In the pre 
 face to the first volume, under the date of December 
 the 18th, I thus wrote : " It was considered by 
 Edmund Burke, about forty years ago, that there 
 were 80,000 readers in this country. In the present 
 year it has been shown, by the sale of the Penny 
 Magazine, that there are 200,000 purchasers of one 
 periodical work. It may be fairly calculated that 
 the number of readers of that single work amounts 
 to a million. If this incontestable evidence of the 
 spread of the ability to read be most satisfactory, it 
 is still more satisfactory to consider the species of 
 reading which has had such an extensive and increas 
 ing popularity. In this work there has never been a 
 single sentence that could inflame a vicious appetite ; 
 and not a paragraph that could minister to prejudices 
 and superstitions which a few years since were com 
 mon. There have been no excitements for the lovers 
 of the marvellous no tattle or abuse for the grati 
 fication of a diseased taste for personality, and, above 
 all, no party politics." 
 
 * Scott. "QuentinDurward." 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 331 
 
 Although the " Penny Magazine " has a peculiar 
 interest as a subject of literary history, it would be 
 tedious if I were to attempt any minute notice of 
 its contributors ; but I may mention a few whose 
 names occur to me as I turn over its early pages. 
 There were members of the Committee who had a 
 very just conception of what writing for the people 
 meant. An article by Mr. Long, in the seventh 
 number, on the value of a penny, is as clear and im 
 pressive as any statement from the pen of Cobbett. 
 Mr. De Morgan wrote mathematical papers, in which 
 the rationale of Fractions was exhibited, and the 
 fallacy of such notions as. squaring the circle was 
 pointed out. Mr. Craik could be depended upon for 
 enlightened as well as familiar expositions of the 
 value of standard works, under the head of "The 
 Library." Mr. Charles Macfaiiane, of whom I shall 
 have subsequently to speak, wrote most amusing 
 accounts of his travelling experiences. There were 
 authors not regularly engaged as contributors, who 
 furnished valuable papers of marked ability. I had 
 been in the habit of familiar intercourse with Allan 
 Cunningham, even before the time when he wrote 
 a paper in the " Quarterly Magazine." For the 
 " Penny Magazine " he furnished a series of articles 
 on " The Old English Ballads." I must not omit to 
 mention the interesting relations of his South African 
 experience, contributed by Thomas Pringle, one of the 
 most amiable of men, with whom I had cultivated 
 something higher than mere intimacy, when our 
 friendly relations were cut short by his death in 
 1834. His biography of Sir Walter Scott, was called 
 forth by the great novelist s lamented death on the 
 21st of September, 1832. It occupied an entire 
 
332 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 number of the " Penny Magazine," and contains 
 some valuable facts regarding Mr. Pringle s personal 
 intimacy with Scott in 1819. 
 
 It may not be without an interest of no transient 
 nature that I proceed to notice the beginnings of my 
 intercourse with a man who left his mark upon his 
 time, but who, when I first knew him, was not only 
 under the check of " poverty s unconquerable bar," but 
 was suffering under a great physical privation which 
 appeared likely to disqualify him for any prosperous 
 career in life. On the 18th of July, 1833, a short 
 stout man, of about thirty years of age, presented 
 himself to me at my place of business in Ludgate 
 Street, to which premises, nearer the great hive of 
 " the Trade " I had found it indispensable to remove. 
 He tendered me a note from Mr. Coates, at the same 
 time uttering some strange sounds, which could 
 scarcely be called articulate. The few lines of intro 
 duction said that the bearer, Mr. Kitto, laboured 
 under the misfortune of nearly absolute deafness, 
 and that I must therefore communicate with hirn in 
 writing. Mr. Coates enclosed me a letter from Mr. 
 Woollcombe, the chairman of our local committee 
 at Plymouth. That letter is now before me, dated 
 the 10th of July. This gentleman who appears to 
 have been peculiarly fitted, by his compassion for 
 misfortune and his sympathy with talent, to rescue 
 a pauper boy from the misery and degradation of a 
 parish workhouse pleaded the claims of the un 
 known John Kitto for literary employment in a way 
 so interesting that I cannot hesitate to transcribe his 
 words : " He is a native of this town, and became 
 known to us by his misfortunes, as a lad of extra 
 ordinary capacity, though reduced by the vices of 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 333 
 
 his father to the condition of an inhabitant of our 
 workhouse, and by an accident to an almost entire 
 loss of the sense of hearing. He has subsequently 
 been employed as a printer at Malta, by a religious 
 society. But he is now just returned from a resi 
 dence of some years at Bagdad ; having embarked 
 from England for Petersburg, and descended from 
 thence through Russia to Moscow and other towns, 
 entering Persia by the Desert ; of that country he 
 has acquired considerable information, which he is 
 ready to communicate through your publications. 
 He returned to England in June last. * * 
 
 His appearance is not prepossessing ; his deafness is 
 comewhat embarrassing ; his talents are considerable, 
 memory retentive, observation quick, and undivided 
 as other men s are. His life is a series of extra 
 ordinary incidents, such as one is unwilling to ac 
 knowledge as being natural. I laugh and tell him 
 the world is to be now indebted to two Devonshire 
 men for the information it is to receive of distant 
 countries. The one a blind man (Lieut. Holman), 
 who is to publish what he has seen in his progress 
 round the world. And (John Kitto) a deaf man, of 
 what he has heard in Persia !" 
 
 I may have had something like an anticipation 
 of this poor man s future eminence, judging from the 
 unusual care with which I appear to have preserved 
 some memoranda of our intercourse. I find a paper 
 dated July the 21st, headed " Conversation with Mr. 
 Kitto," of which the following is the substance of 
 half a dozen pages of my notes. I asked him what 
 European languages he knew. He said Italian, 
 French perfectly, not German. He had proposed a 
 new project, into which I thought the Society would 
 
334 PASSAGES OF A WOKKISIG LIFE: 
 
 not at present enter ; but, I should be glad to en 
 deavour to arrange for his employment in the " Penny 
 Magazine " and " Penny Cyclopaedia." I asked if he 
 could undertake to give a personal narrative of his 
 travels in Persia. That would show what he could 
 do, and he might be afterwards engaged on geogra 
 phical articles for the " Cyclopaedia," requiring more 
 precise and systematic information. I then arranged 
 with him to furnish a few articles of the nature I 
 had mentioned, to be paid for at the rate of a guinea 
 and a half a page. And so John Kitto, the future 
 Biblical critic and commentator, went away per 
 fectly happy, to produce the first number of "The 
 Deaf Traveller," which appeared in "The Penny 
 Magazine" of the 10th of August. A month of 
 experiment had passed, and I then engaged Kitto 
 at a regular salary, to work in my own room in Fleet 
 Street. I could -thus assist him whenever he had 
 any question to propose, and to me he was no inter 
 ruption, for our golden silence was rarely broken. 
 He writes to a friend on the 18th of August, after 
 he had been regularly employed for a week : " I 
 have little doubt that, through Mr. Knight s indul 
 gence, I shall be able to keep this situation ; the 
 rather, as whatever spare time The Penny Maga 
 zine does not require, is spent in perfecting my 
 knowledge of French and Italian, and in acquiring 
 the German. I do thank God for this relief from a 
 state of great anxiety, in which I had begun to 
 entertain the most melancholy view of the things 
 before me, and saw possible consequences that I 
 could not bear steadily to contemplate." Sitting, as 
 he describes, " in Mr. Knight s room, with plenty of 
 books about me, and more below," authors, printers, 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 335 
 
 country agents, and other men of business come and 
 go to impart something to my private ear. They 
 addressed me in whispers, when they saw a somewhat 
 dwarfish man of sallow complexion, bright eyes, and 
 lofty forehead, sitting close to my table at a separate 
 desk, writing incessantly. To some he might have 
 looked as a very suspicious person, who was placed 
 there to note down their conversation. They soon 
 became accustomed to this companionship, and learnt 
 that he would be the most faithful depository of their 
 spoken secrets, whether they were to roar as loud as 
 Bully Bottom when he desired to play the lion, or 
 spake "in a monstrous little voice," as when the 
 same actor of all- work would have played " Thisby 
 dear." 
 
 It appears from the correspondence of Dr. Arnold, 
 that in the early stages of " The Penny Magazine " 
 he felt a strong desire to see something of the reli 
 gious spirit imparted to the works of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society. His views upon the subject 
 were so just and reasonable, that it is to me a matter 
 of the deepest regret that I was never brought into 
 direct communication with him in my editorial 
 capacity. He says : " It does seem to me as forced 
 and unnatural in us now to dismiss the principles of 
 the Gospel and its great motives from our conversa 
 tion, as is done habitually, for example, in Miss 
 Edgeworth s books, as it is to fill our pages with 
 Hebraisms, and to write and speak in the words and 
 style of the Bible. The slightest touches of Chris 
 tian principle and Christian hope in the Society s 
 biographical and historical articles would be a sort 
 of living salt to the whole ; and would exhibit that 
 union which I never will consent to think unattain- 
 15 
 
336 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 able, between goodness and wisdom ; between every 
 thing that is manly, sensible, and free, and every 
 thing that is pure and self-denying, and humble, and 
 heavenly." * Dr. Arnold s strong desire was that of 
 being able to co-operate with a body which he " be 
 lieved might, with God s blessing, do more good of 
 all kinds, political, intellectual, and spiritual, than 
 any other society in existence." ( He was anxious, 
 he wrote, " to furnish them regularly with articles of 
 the kind that I desire." For myself I can distinctly 
 state that no expression of such a desire ever reached 
 me ; nor do I know that any communication to such an 
 effect was ever formally put before the sub-committee 
 for " The Penny Magazine." Dr. Arnold s nephew, 
 Mr. John Ward, a solicitor in Bedford Row, to whom 
 he writes in 1832, about " your Useful Knowledge 
 Society Committee," was a member of that commit 
 tee, and he contributed some very useful but rather 
 dry " Statistical Notes " to " The Penny Magazine." 
 These certainly were not calculated to cany out Dr. 
 Arnold s views. But he himself has borne the most 
 cordial testimony to one circumstance in the conduct 
 of " The Penny Magazine," which shows that there 
 was no settled purpose to exclude from that work 
 " the slightest touches of Christian principle." I 
 have said with reference to the religious articles of 
 the " Plain Englishman," that Dr. Arnold wrote " in 
 terms of somewhat extravagant commendation of a 
 short article on Mirabeau which I had written." J 
 The letter was to Mr. Tooke, the treasurer of the 
 
 * "Life and Correspondence," vol. i. p. 274. 
 
 t /Wa., p. 275. 
 
 J "Passages," vol. i. p. 243. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 337 
 
 Society, and for the sake of clearing up this im 
 portant question of principle, I must quote the pas 
 sage to which I referred. " I cannot tell you how 
 much I was delighted by the conclusion of an article 
 on Mirabeau, in The Penny Magazine of May 12. 
 That article is exactly a specimen of what I wished 
 to see, but done far better than I could do it. I 
 never wanted articles on religious subjects half so 
 much as articles on common subjects written with a 
 decidedly Christian tone. History and Biography 
 are far better vehicles of good, I think, than any 
 direct comments on Scripture, or essays on Evi 
 dences." * The conclusion of the article to which 
 Dr. Arnold refers, is as follows: "The career of 
 Mirabeau offers a few consolatory remarks to those 
 who are gifted with no extraordinary faculties, either 
 for good or for evil Mirabeau swayed the destinies 
 of millions, but he was never happy ; Mirabeau had 
 almost reached the pinnacle of human power, and 
 yet he fell a victim to the same evil passions which 
 degrade and ruin the lowest of mankind. He could 
 never be really great, because he was never freed 
 from the bondage of his own evil desires. The man 
 who steadily pursues a consistent course of duty, 
 which has for its object to do good to himself and to 
 all around him, will be followed to the grave by a 
 few humble and sincere mourners, and no record will 
 remain except in the hearts of those who loved him, 
 to tell of his earthly career. But that man may 
 gladly leave to such as Mirabeau the music, the 
 torches, and the cannon, by which a nation 
 proclaimed its loss ; for assuredly he has felt that 
 
 * "Life and Correspondence," vol. L p. 299. 
 
338 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 inward consolation, and that sustaining hope through 
 out his life, which only the good can feel ; he 
 has fully enjoyed, in all its purity, the holy 
 influence of the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding. " 
 
 I think that I may confidently say, that without 
 attempting to impart to the " Penny Magazine " a 
 distinctly religious character, I did not interpret 
 in a too literal signification the original rule of the 
 Society with reference to religion that is, to abstain 
 from publishing on that subject, " convinced that the 
 numerous institutions already existing for the diffu 
 sion of religious knowledge in every shape will best 
 advance that momentous end." * That I might have 
 been encouraged to do more in the incidental manner 
 advocated by Dr. Arnold I cannot doubt, had his 
 approval of what he had read been communicated 
 to me. When I first saw the opinion of this good 
 and great man in his " Life," by the Rev. Arthur 
 Stanley, published after his decease, I felt it was 
 an injustice to myself on the part of the treasurer 
 of the Society that this letter had been withheld 
 from me. 
 
 I cannot conclude this notice of the early history 
 of the " Penny Magazine " without adverting to one 
 who first gave me the benefit of his assistance, in the 
 office generally known as that of a sub-editor, soon 
 after I became connected with the Useful Knowledge 
 Society. Alexander Ramsay has been for five-and- 
 thirty years my friend and fellow-labourer. He has 
 worked with me in every undertaking in which I 
 
 * First Annual Report of the Society, 1828. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 339 
 
 have been engaged, from the second volume of the 
 " British Almanac and Companion " for 1830, to the 
 last for 1864?. He has brought to this long course of 
 duty not only the ministerial services which belong 
 to a reader of manuscripts and a corrector of the 
 press, but taste, and knowledge, and readiness of 
 resource, well adapted for original composition, in the 
 accustomed progress and occasional exigencies of 
 periodical works. I think it is creditable to both of 
 us that in a long struggle by societies and individuals 
 for the establishment of cheap and wholesome lite 
 rature, we have been labouring side by side that 
 
 " In this glorious and well-foughten field, 
 We kept together in our chivalry ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HE success of the Penny Magazine* has 
 induced the Committee to undertake 
 the publication of a Penny Cyclopaedia, 
 in Numbers and Monthly Parts. A work 
 of such magnitude and novelty requires all the 
 assistance which can be afforded it by the Members 
 of the Society, both in London and in the Country, 
 in order to give it publicity and circulation." Such 
 was the announcement of their greatest undertaking 
 in the annual address of the Useful Knowledge 
 Society, dated June 30, 1832. A specimen of the 
 projected " Penny Cyclopaedia " had been printed by 
 Mr. Clowes on the previous 2nd of June. This fact 
 was certified by him after a surreptitious " Penny 
 Cyclopaedia " had been advertised in the daily papers 
 of the 16th of August "as now ready." This had 
 been met on the 17th by an advertisement from the 
 Committee, cautioning the public against an attempt 
 to impose upon them. The career of this pretender 
 was terminated before the issue of the first number 
 of the real "Penny Cyclopaedia," on the 2nd of 
 January, 1833. 
 
 In characterizing their undertaking as " a work of 
 such magnitude and novelty," the Committee appear 
 to have looked at its magnitude, rather with reference 
 to the universal range of the proposed information, 
 than to the contemplated limits in point of size. I 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 341 
 
 have stated that the " Penny Cyclopaedia " was pro 
 jected by me "to form a moderate-sized book of 
 eight volumes." * The novelty was not to consist 
 in producing a Cyclopaedia under one alphabetical 
 arrangement, but in its issue in weekly sheets, each 
 of which was to be sold at a penny. But there was 
 another novelty which would very soon be discovered 
 by the educated portion of the public, upon a com 
 parison of this work with existing Cyclopaedias. 
 It was not an affair of scissors and paste. It was not 
 a hash from German and French sources. Its writers 
 had not "been at a great feast of languages and 
 stolen the scraps." Every article was to be original ; 
 to be furnished by various men, each the best that 
 could be found in special departments of knowledge. 
 The essential difficulty of making the contributions 
 at once brief and complete was discovered when the 
 experiment Qame to be tried for a few months. It 
 was impossible, moreover, to offer an adequate 
 remuneration to a competent scholar or man of 
 science, when it was said to him You must give us 
 the very cream of your knowledge ; you must pour 
 out the fullest information in the most condensed 
 form of words ; your articles must nevertheless be 
 readable and perfectly intelligible to the popular 
 mind ; and yet, under these difficult conditions, you 
 must be paid at a certain rate per page. This 
 "solatium," not low as compared with reviews and 
 magazine articles in reference to the mere number 
 of words, was very low if the merit of the Cyclopaedia 
 was to consist in extreme compression, whilst the 
 Review and the Magazine conductors would allow of 
 
 * Companion to the Almanac, 1858. 
 
342 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 any amoimt of expansion not altogether extravagant. 
 The plan would never work. It would pay the 
 gardener to grow dwarf pear trees and peach trees, 
 but it would not pay the writer to produce dwarfed 
 articles that, like the rarities of the hot-house and 
 conservatory, should be perfect in form, if not in size, 
 bear good fruit, and not die very prematurely. A 
 very clever and accomplished author, Mr. Samuel 
 Phillips, thus described the issue of this experiment : 
 " When the Cyclopaedia was started, the public were 
 invited to pay their penny a we*ek, and to seize the 
 opportunity of securing, not only a valuable, but 
 also an incomparably cheap publication. Useful 
 knowledge was to be diffused by a society 
 appointed for the express purpose, but it was not to 
 be ( diffusive. It was to be poured abroad, but in 
 such a form as should instruct, not weary or perplex 
 the recipient. If we remember rightly, eight good 
 compact volumes were to contain the substantial 
 food for which the working mind was pining. Before 
 one volume, however, was completed, the Committee 
 thought it expedient to hint that it must be 
 observed that the plan of the Cyclopcedia had been 
 rather enlarged. After a year the plan had enlarged 
 so much that the rate of issue was doubled. It was 
 no longer a penny a week, but twopence. After 
 three years it was quadrupled fourpence a-week 
 instead of twopence. Had the original plan of a 
 penny weekly issue been persevered in, it would have 
 taken exactly thirty-seven years to complete the 
 business." * 
 
 The extension of the quantity of the Cyclopasdia 
 
 * "Times, "Oct. 12, 1854. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 343 
 
 was no doubt unavoidable under the superintendence 
 of the Society, but it destroyed its commercial value. 
 Had it been a careful compilation, instead of an 
 original work furnished by nearly two hundred con 
 tributors, it would have been to me a fortune. In 
 that case, its preparation being confined to a few 
 persons, its proposed limits could have been steadily 
 adhered to. I have recorded, without inferring 
 that any blame was in the least degree to be attached 
 to those who were responsible for its conduct what 
 was the commercial result of this enterprise. " The 
 Committee had the honour of the woik, in its 
 extended form, but without incurring any of the risk, 
 or contributing one shilling to the cost, the literary 
 expenditure alone having reached nearly 40,000 . 
 Upon the completion of the Cyclopaedia, the balance 
 upon the outlay above the receipts was 30,788." * 
 The regular decrease in the sale was very marked. 
 While it continued to be published upon its original 
 plan of one number weekly, the sale was 75,000. 
 The instant there was an issue of two numbers a 
 week it fell to 55,000, and at the end of its second 
 year it had fallen to 44,000. When the twopence 
 a week became fourpence, the rate of diminution 
 became still more rapid. The sale of the first year 
 was double that of the fourth year. The sale of the 
 fourth year doubled that of the eighth year. It then 
 found its level, and became steady to the end the 
 55,000 of the latter months of 1833 having been 
 reduced to 20,000 at the close of 1843. The Com 
 mittee of the Society, when the original project had 
 been departed from, and they saw that the under- 
 
 * Companion to the Almanac, 1858. 
 
344 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 taking had become to me a burden and a loss, passed 
 a resolution that no rent be paid upon the first 
 110,000 copies of each number of the "Penny 
 Cyclopaedia." Rent was then to commence ; and to 
 continue till the work had reached a sale of 200,000, 
 when the Society would no longer ask for a remunera 
 tion for its superintendence. No doubt I was 
 grateful for this sanguine anticipation of a good time 
 coming, but it is scarcely prudent or satisfactory for 
 a commercial man to postpone his profits ad 
 Calendar Graecas. The chronic loss for eleven 
 years, which was induced by the Cyclopaedia, and 
 which fell wholly upon me, absorbed every other 
 source of profit in my extensive business, leaving me 
 little beyond a bare maintenance, without the hope 
 of laying by for the future. 
 
 There was a very serious interruption to the sale 
 of the Cyclopaedia after it had existed about six 
 months ; which may be worth recording, as exhibiting 
 the evils of unrepealed laws passed in former states 
 of society and under different circumstances. I find 
 this record in the Minutes of the Committee of the 
 12th of June, 1833 : "Mr. Knight laid on the table 
 a letter from Mr. Drake, of Birmingham, dated the 
 10th instant, which stated, that informations had 
 been filed, and convictions obtained, under the 27th 
 clause of the 39th George III., chap. 79, against 
 booksellers in that town, for selling a publication 
 whereof the printer s name did not appear on the first 
 and last pages ; and that in consequence many book 
 sellers were fearful f selling the Penny Magazine 
 and Cyclopaedia. " Copies of these and other letters 
 received on this subject were transmitted to Mr. 
 Spring Rice, with whom 1 had an interview. The 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 345 
 
 result was that, although a law might eventually be 
 passed to remedy the oppression of these qui tarn 
 informations, the statute of the 39th George III. 
 could not at once be repealed. I had no remedy 
 but to call in the whole of the stock in the hands 
 of many wholesale agents scattered through the 
 country, who had to go through the same process 
 with those they had supplied. The law was sub 
 sequently altered in its effect by the Government 
 deciding that it should be left to the discretion 
 of the Attorney-General to prosecute publishers 
 in all cases where the statute was not strictly 
 adhered to. 
 
 Mr. Phillips has said in his article on the " Penny 
 Cyclopaedia " " Mr. Knight, the publisher and prime 
 mover of the undertaking, proudly congratulated 
 himself at its close upon having achieved a great 
 literary triumph ; he had also, as was usual in his 
 paeans, to mingle in his song the melancholy note of 
 one suffering under the consciousness of great com 
 mercial loss." The melancholy note which was out 
 of harmony with my pasans was almost invariably 
 connected with the pressure of the paper duty upon 
 all works of large circulation and low price. With 
 the high duty of threepence in the pound, it re 
 quired a steadfast resolution on my part not to be 
 beaten by excessive taxation, and an equal hope that 
 the duty might be abolished or reduced, to prevent 
 me throwing up the Cyclopaedia in despair. In 
 1836 the duty was reduced to three halfpence in the 
 pound. This was a relief ; but it was not commen 
 surate with the constant falling sale to which I have 
 adverted. I gladly suspend " the melancholy note " 
 and turn to a much more interesting subject the 
 
346 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 reminiscence of some of the most valued contri 
 butors to the Cyclopaedia, whose services conferred 
 upon it a reputation which has survived during all 
 the varied changes of literature and science that we 
 have seen, and which is capable of a constant renewal 
 of its pristine vigour, such as has been accomplished 
 in " The English Cyclopaedia." 
 
 The author of " The Rehearsal " has made merry 
 with the notion of " two kings of Brentford sitting 
 on one throne, smelling to one nosegay." If Mr. 
 Long and myself had persevered for more than a few 
 months in the attempt to divide the editorial duties 
 connected with the " Penny Cyclopaedia " we might 
 possibly have been presented to the world in this 
 ludicrous attitude. As it was, I very soon most 
 gladly resigned the reins into the hands of one who 
 managed his team with consummate skill during 
 many years. For such a work as the Cyclopaedia a 
 thoroughly competent Editor was indispensable. He 
 must combine the moral qualities of unwearied 
 industry and undeviating punctuality, with the 
 firmness which is best supported by courtesy and 
 kindness. I have heard that a man of letters 
 who was rather raw, laid down as a maxim for his 
 editorial guidance that he must be polite to his 
 contributors, but by n,o means familiar. Mr. Long s 
 contributors gathered round him as friends. On his 
 intellectual qualities it is unnecessary for me to 
 dilate. Lord Brougham, in his Address to the Asso 
 ciation for the Promotion of Social Science in 1857, 
 referred to the operations of the Committees of the 
 Useful Knowledge Society as an example of " the 
 beneficial effects of united action." In the " Com 
 panion to the Almanac" for 1858, I noticed, as I 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 347 
 
 felt it my duty to do, the somewhat exaggerated 
 estimate which the Chairman of the Society had 
 formed of the results of this united action, without 
 making the slightest reference to individual actions. 
 Speaking more especially of Mr. Long s labours as 
 Editor of the Cyclopedia, and incidentally alluding 
 to my own in connection with the " Penny Maga 
 zine " and other works, I said " That the Society 
 presented many advantages as a base of operations 
 is unquestionable. It had the prestige of great 
 names connected with it. Its members were of high 
 intelligence and various learning ; they were in 
 dustrious ; and, what was of equal importance, they 
 confided in their editors. Had this confidence not 
 existed, the periodical works could not have gone 
 on a single month. They would have broken down 
 under a divided responsibility, and have been suffo 
 cated in the red-tapeism of what Lord Brougham 
 described as a vigilant superintendence over the 
 style, so that errors in composition and offences 
 against correct, and even severe, taste were sure to 
 be corrected, always provided that the editors had 
 any reliance upon the correct, and even severe, taste 
 of the correctors. That the great number of our 
 members produced even these minor results is a 
 figure of speech. There were a few working mem 
 bers, as there are in every association, who were 
 valuable referees ; but that the Society, as a body, 
 was the moving power which enabled it to publish 
 for twenty years with unbroken regularity/ we 
 humbly beg to say is a continuance of a delusion 
 which was not entertained by those members who 
 were content to aid in doing what they thought a 
 work of public utility, without attempting to shut 
 
348 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 their eyes to what had been accomplished, during 
 many years, by editorial responsibility." 
 
 In the sixth chapter, I have incidentally men 
 tioned several of the earlier members of the Useful 
 Knowledge Committee as contributors to the Cyclo 
 pedia. Upon looking over the general list of the 
 contributors to this work during the many years 
 of its publication, I cannot but regard it as most 
 fortunate that a rule, which was attempted to be 
 established in the first stages of the Society, soon 
 came to be held as perfectly impracticable. This 
 rule, to which Lord Brougham gave the name of 
 the Self-denying Ordinance, was in effect that no 
 member of the Committee should be paid for his 
 writings. It was perhaps desirable that such a rule 
 should have existed at the origin of the Society, 
 when it was considered that public subscriptions 
 would be necessary for its maintenance. But when 
 it was found that during five years this source of 
 revenue had only yielded to the Society a clear 
 annual sum of 12o., and that its publications might 
 be carried on upon the commercial principle alone, 
 and afford a profit partly to the Society and partly 
 to its publishers, it would have been the extreme 
 of false delicacy to deny to the Editor of the Cyclo 
 paedia, especially, the services of some of the best 
 contributors he could anywhere find. The time was 
 past when the highest in rank, as well as the most 
 eminent in literature or science, would think it a 
 degradation to be paid for their writings. And 
 thus, whether members of our Committee or other 
 wise, every writer in the Cyclopaedia was paid at 
 a fixed rate, whose aggregate at the end of the work 
 had amounted to the large sum I have previously 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 349 
 
 stated. Standing, therefore, upon the same principle 
 as regulated the pecuniary arrangements with other 
 contributors the only principle upon which the re 
 lations of author and publisher can be harmoniously 
 maintained I shall not attempt to separate the two 
 classes in referring with necessary brevity to the 
 chief supporters of this undertaking in the character 
 of writers. 
 
 First in importance of the great departments of 
 the " Cyclopaedia," may be reckoned that of mathe 
 matical and physical science. Upon Professor 
 De Morgan rested its heaviest labours. It was es 
 sential that one mind should have the almost 
 undivided charge of Mathematics, considering that, 
 the order of the articles being alphabetical, the 
 relation of one portion of a subject to the other 
 had constantly to be regarded so as to render the 
 whole series of articles complete and harmonious. 
 Thus this collection of mathematical papers, when 
 duly arranged by their author according to his own 
 views, have been constantly referred to in his classes 
 at University College. Astronomy necessarily formed 
 a portion of this division, and to Professor De 
 Morgan are due the accuracy and completeness of 
 the general articles on this subject. There were 
 special papers on this branch of science by other 
 contributors. In speaking of the series on astro 
 nomical instruments, by the Rev. Richard Sheep 
 shanks (who became a member of the committee 
 soon after the first publication of the Cyclopaedia), 
 I cannot forbear to express the admiration I always 
 felt for this distinguished man. There was a breadth 
 in his understanding which carried him beyond the 
 range of the minute and laborious scientific opera- 
 
350 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 tions to which he devoted the greater part of his 
 time. He was a liberal thinker in political matters, 
 although never publicly meddling with the great 
 questions whose triumphs he rejoiced to behold. 
 His conversation on matters of history and literature 
 always presented the evidence of sound thought 
 and rich learning. He was ready to assist in 
 any well-considered project of utility with a self- 
 devotion quite untainted by any desire of profit 
 or distinction. The same generous spirit seems to 
 have been a family inheritance, for it was his brother 
 John, who, in 1856, presented to the nation his 
 noble collection of pictures by British artists. 
 
 Lord Brougham used to point with a just pride to 
 the one contribution of the Astronomer-Royal to the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia," as a notable example of the 
 value of popular literature in the eyes of one of the 
 most eminent scientific men of his day. Mr. Airy s 
 paper on Gravitation is indeed a masterpiece of lucid 
 exposition without the employment of mathematical 
 formulae. 
 
 I turn to the applications of science to the arts. 
 First in importance in the past and in the present 
 state of civilisation is Agriculture. I have a note 
 before me, dated February 25th, 1833, from the Rev. 
 William Lewis Rham, whom I had slightly known 
 during my Windsor experience as the Vicar of Wink- 
 field, in Berkshire. He therein proposes, upon the 
 suggestion of his friend, Mr. Jardine, to write for the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia," " as affording a considerable 
 variety of subjects, and especially those connected 
 with agriculture, to which I have paid some atten 
 tion, and in which I have some practical experience." 
 This proposition was gladly closed with ; for it was 
 not easy then to find one of " practical experience " 
 in agriculture who had the power of expressing his 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 351 
 
 ideas in a style which should unite brevity with clear 
 ness, and by its popular qualities turn aside the country 
 gentleman and the cultivator from their ordinary 
 contempt of " book-farming." Mr. Rham immediately 
 commenced that series of papers in the " Penny 
 Cyclopaedia/ which were subsequently collected in a 
 volume entitled " The Dictionary of the Farm." He 
 wrote the first of these articles at the beginning of 
 1833. He wrote the last of the series, " Yorkshire 
 Husbandry," in 1843, only a few weeks before his 
 death. 
 
CHAPTEK XYII. 
 
 O attempt the most general view of the 
 condition of manufactures and machinery 
 during the progress of the " Penny Cyclo 
 paedia/ especially bearing in mind the 
 vast changes that would grow out of the removal of 
 the fiscal burthens upon industry, and the gradual 
 development of Free Trade would be far beyond the 
 scope of these incidental glances at a brighter future. 
 I have touched very lightly upon the subject in the 
 fourth and fifth chapters of this volume. Of the 
 contributors to this department of the " Cyclopedia," 
 I may mention an old friend who has worked with 
 me during many years upon matters of a cognate 
 character, Mr. George Dodd. His careful observa 
 tion and his punctual industry made him then, as he 
 still continues to be, one of the most useful con 
 tributors to serial works. Furnishing not so much 
 in quantity, but what he did always being of signal 
 value, was Mr. Edward Cowper. As an inventor, 
 Mr. Cowper was to me peculiarly interesting, as 
 being connected with those simplifications of the 
 printing machine which brought it into common 
 use. He felt that it was his great pride to have 
 rendered what was originally a complicated instru 
 ment, one capable of adaptation to the purposes of 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 353 
 
 rapid and cheap book -printing, and of producing such 
 illustrated works as the " Penny Magazine " and the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia." In an examination before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons, he said : " The 
 ease with which the principles and illustrations of 
 Art might be diffused, I think is so obvious that it 
 is hardly necessary to say a word about it. Here 
 you may see it exemplified in the Penny Maga 
 zine. Such works as this could not have existed 
 without the printing-machine." Amongst the lead 
 ing questions or observations by the Committee 
 was this : "In fact the mechanic and the peasant 
 in the most remote districts of the country, have 
 now an opportunity of seeing tolerably correct out 
 lines of form which they never could behold be 
 fore ?" His answer was, " Exactly ; and literally at 
 the price they used to give for a song." When asked 
 " Is there not, therefore, a greater chance of calling 
 genius into activity ? " he answered, " Yes ; not 
 merely by these books creating an artist here and 
 there, but by the general elevation of the taste of 
 the public." Beyond what Mr. Cowper so justly 
 stated with regard to our own country, I may add, 
 that at this period, 1836, the " Penny Magazine " 
 was producing a revolution in popular Art through 
 out the world. Stereotype casts of its best cuts were 
 supplied by me for the illustration of publications of 
 a similar character, which appeared in eleven different 
 languages and countries. Many interesting considera 
 tions are involved in the mere recital of the names 
 of these countries : Germany France Holland 
 Livonia (in Russian and German) Bohemia (Scla 
 vonic) Italy Ionian Islands (modern Greek) 
 Sweden Norway Spanish America the Brazils. 
 
354= PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 The entire work was also reprinted in the United 
 States from plates sent from this country. I was 
 not only bound to be grateful to Mr. Cowper for his 
 evidence, but I had long entertained the highest 
 respect for the wide range of his information, and 
 the simplicity of his character. In his latter years 
 he became Professor of Mechanics and Manufacturing 
 Arts at King s College. His mode of teaching was 
 singularly lucid, never trusting to mere descriptions 
 of machinery, so difficult to understand, but illus 
 trating what he had to say by models constructed 
 with a most minute ingenuity. He did not consider 
 it beneath the dignity of a Professor to superintend 
 daily, and actually to work without assistance, a 
 machine of his invention, at the blacking manu 
 factory of Messrs. Day and Martin, for secretly print 
 ing the labels of their bottles in a manner which 
 would preclude imitation. It was long before the 
 Arts that had been effectually used for preventing 
 the forgery of blacking labels, were allowed to inter 
 fere with the flourishing manufacture of forged bank 
 notes. 
 
 Dr. Andrew Ure was a contributor to this depart 
 ment of the " Cyclopaedia." In 1835, I published 
 his very interesting volume on " The Philosophy of 
 Manufactures ; " and in 1836, his larger work on 
 " The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain compared 
 with other Countries." He was then analytical che 
 mist to the Board of Customs. There were many 
 special articles on Manufactures and Machinery, by 
 men conversant with particular branches. Amongst 
 various names, there is one which stands out promi 
 nent, although processes and mechanical principles 
 were not exactly in his line. Edwin Norris has won 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 355 
 
 his distinguished position and his high reputation by 
 his labours as a philological and ethnological writer. 
 In the "Companion to the Almanac " for 1830, he fur 
 nished a striking example of the range and accuracy of 
 his peculiar knowledge, in a most complete explanation 
 of " The Eras of Ancient and Modern Times, and of 
 various Countries." He still renders me the kind 
 ness of supplying to the " British Almanac" the brief 
 notices under each month of the Hebrew Calendar 
 and the Mohammedan Calendar. I knew him with 
 some degree of intimacy, upon which I look back 
 with pleasure, in the years before his great know 
 ledge of languages gave him the high appointment 
 of Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, and the 
 onerous responsibility of translator to the Foreign 
 Office. In our earliest intercourse, he not only won 
 my regard by his intellectual and moral qualities, but 
 to me he was especially interesting as the son of a 
 newspaper proprietor at Taunton. He had acquired 
 the practical knowledge of a printer ; but, passionately 
 fond of travelling, and devoted to studies whose use 
 fulness was not exactly to be manifested in provincial 
 journalism, he went to the continent as a private 
 tutor, and remained abroad several years. In his 
 pedestrian tours from city to city his remittances 
 from home sometimes failed to reach him. He had 
 resources in himself which were ever ready to secure 
 his independence as a citizen of the world. Arriving 
 at a certain town, he found himself almost penniless. 
 Applying to the principal printer, he solicits employ 
 ment as a compositor. He states his knowledge of 
 foreign languages. Work is slack, and the young 
 linguist is about to look further. " Stop ! " says the 
 typographical successor of the Stephenses (for I 
 
356 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 believe the town was Geneva). " Stop ! I have been 
 printing a Hebrew Bible, of which a little is done ; 
 but I can find nobody here to finish it. Can you 
 undertake the job and go through with it?" The 
 job was undertaken, and it was completed. I need 
 give no better illustration of that force of character 
 which, in the instance of Mr. Norris, was one of 
 many manifestations of that power which we are 
 accustomed to call Genius. 
 
 In the department of the Fine Arts, Mr. Eastlake 
 (now Sir Charles) contributed a few valuable papers 
 such as Basso E-ilievo. Sir Edmund Head also 
 wrote on painting, as did my old friend J. P. Davis. 
 Mr. R. N. Wornum (now Keeper of the National 
 Gallery) gave to the Cyclopaedia the advantage of 
 his almost unequalled knowledge of the general 
 history and character of Schools of Art, and of the 
 lives of the great painters. And here I may take 
 occasion to mention not only with reference to the 
 biographies of artists, but of those of the eminent in 
 Science, in Literature, in Statesmanship, in Theo 
 logy, in Law that the plan of the " Penny Cyclo 
 paedia" being such as to forbid the introduction of 
 any living person, was necessarily limited and im 
 perfect. Under the superintendence of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society, it would have been very difficult, 
 if not impossible, to have widened the biographical 
 circle, so as to include many of those who were daily 
 coming into contact with members of its committee 
 in the friendships or the rivalries of Politics or 
 letters. When the superintendence of the Society 
 had ceased, the " English Cyclopaedia " was free to 
 take a wider range. It was with considerable re 
 luctance that, as the conductor of the enlarged work, 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 357 
 
 I decided upon the introduction of the names of 
 living persons, British and Foreign. ( There are, 
 doubtless, grave objections to such a course ; but the 
 advantages, looking at them strictly in the literary 
 point of view, are very manifest. A Cyclopaedia that 
 deals only with those of whom it may speak with 
 the absolute freedom of the " honest chronicler " 
 who is to keep the honour of the dead from corrup 
 tion, must be, if not half a century, at least three or 
 four decades behind the wants of the existing gene 
 ration. This is an era in no respects more remark 
 able than for the long lives of many eminent men. 
 Lord Lyndhurst, for example, died in 1863, at the 
 age of ninety-one. Because his place was not in the 
 necrology of the century till that year, is the histo 
 rical student to learn nothing from a biographical 
 dictionary of the John Singleton Copley, who was 
 counsel for Watson and Thistlewood in 1817? 
 William Mulready died in 1863, at the age of 
 seventy-eight. The young Irishman was a student 
 of the Royal Academy in 1801. He was a Royal 
 Academician in 1816. Was the most successful rival 
 of Wilkie not to be noticed in a popular biography 
 whilst his works were still the theme of admiration, 
 and the old man could still look critically, but gene 
 rously, upon the productions of celebrated artists 
 who were unborn, or were mere boys, when he was 
 in the zenith of his fame ? Difficulties in such an 
 undertaking there unquestionably were ; but these 
 were to be overcome by obtaining, wherever possible, 
 from living persons themselves authentic materials ; 
 and above all, by avoiding rash inferences and hypo 
 thetical explanations. 
 
 Photography, in spite of the protests of land- 
 
358 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 scape painters and portrait painters, has taken rank 
 amongst the Fine Arts. Its imperfect beginnings 
 only could have been noticed in the " Penny Cyclo 
 paedia." When Arago, in 1839, communicated to the 
 French Academy of Sciences that Daguerre had dis 
 covered a process by which objects could be faithfully 
 represented by other agencies than the hand of man, 
 the world was at first incredulous, as if an attempt 
 had been made to revive the middle-age miracles. 
 Englishmen came home from Paris with dim repre 
 sentations of buildings, and hideous copies of their 
 own features, sun-painted on metal. Such were the 
 first Daguerreotypes. Mr. Fox Talbot, who had been 
 working out this discovery at the same period as 
 Daguerre, soon produced his Talbotypes on paper, 
 and, in 1841, described his process to the Society of 
 Arts. But, as yet, photographic portraits and land 
 scapes were regarded as mere curiosities. In twenty 
 years photography was to bestow an amount of pleasure 
 upon every class of society which had never been 
 attained in any age by the imitative arts. It may 
 not be too much to regard it as one of the special 
 blessings of a beneficent Providence, that, at a period 
 when steam navigation has dispersed the European 
 races over the most distant regions of the habitable 
 globe, there should have sprung up an invention 
 which brings into the dwelling of the colonizer, 
 whether a mansion or a cabin, the very scenes of 
 the home he has left, and the images of the loved 
 ones from whom he is separated. 
 
 This leads me briefly to advert to the Geographical 
 department of the "Penny Cyclopaedia." This sec 
 tion also stopped short in 1843, in tracing that 
 inarch of English adventure which had made new 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 359 
 
 nations in the days of Elizabeth, but which had not 
 yet accomplished the wonderful development of the 
 Australian colonies during the reign of Victoria. 
 There was a great deal to be done by the encyclopae 
 dist of the next twenty years. But what was done 
 by us, especially in the department of Physical 
 Geography, was of a character very different from 
 the matter that had previously occupied the most 
 elaborate geographical works. The chief contributor 
 was Mr. William Wittich, who became Teacher of 
 German at University College. I have heard Mr. 
 Long declare, that he considered Mr. Wittich as the 
 father of descriptive geography in this country. Of 
 many other contributors to the geographical depart 
 ment, I must be content to mention the names of Sir 
 Francis Beaufort, Sir J. F. Davis, Colonel Jackson, Mr. 
 Smith, Secretary of King s College, and Mr. Means. 
 Karl Ritter, the celebrated professor at Berlin, wrote 
 the important article " Asia." Of Andre Vieusseux 
 and of William Weir, whose contributions were exten 
 sive, I shall have subsequently to speak. 
 
 In the Natural History division of the Cyclopaedia, 
 I must especially mention Mr. William John Broderip, 
 who contributed nearly all the Zoological articles 
 of the entire work. No more remarkable example 
 could have been presented of a man zealously dis 
 charging responsible official duties, and finding his 
 best recreation in scientific pursuits, than Mr. Bro 
 derip. He was for thirty-four years one of the most 
 industrious and upright Police Magistrates of the 
 Metropolis. In writing a brief memoir of this 
 learned and at the same time entertaining naturalist, 
 I have said : " His articles in the Cyclopaedia are 
 models of scientific exactness and popular attrac- 
 16 
 
360 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 tion ; and whilst they have instructed and delighted 
 thousands of readers, have won the suffrages of the 
 most fastidious, even amongst those who are slow to 
 believe that the solid and the amusing have no neces 
 sary antagonism." In the section of Geology, Mr. John 
 Phillips, Professor of that science in King s College, 
 was a most valuable contributor. In that of Botany, 
 Dr. Lindley wrote all the articles up to the letter R. 
 Dr. Edwin Lankester, who had studied under Dr. 
 Lindley at University College, gave also his valuable 
 assistance to the original work, and subsequently 
 edited the Natural History Division of its successor. 
 In Law and Jurisprudence, the "Penny Cyclopaedia " 
 was a most complete repository of information, histo 
 rical and practical. The constitution of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society, of which many eminent lawyers 
 were members, gave an authority to its legal articles 
 even before the names of its contributors were given 
 to the world. As there were also eminent physicians 
 and surgeons, the same prestige attached to its articles 
 on Medical Science. A mere catalogue of the names 
 of these professional men would scarcely be interest 
 ing, unless I were to trace the career of some who 
 were only slightly known at the period of their early 
 contributions, but who have subsequently risen into 
 high reputation. Such, amongst the medical contri 
 butors, was the late Dr. Baley, whose useful life was 
 so grievously cut short by a railway accident ; such 
 was Mr. J. Paget, the distinguished surgeon ; such, 
 Mr. John Simon, who, as the medical officer of the 
 General Board of Health, has accomplished so much 
 for sanitary reform. Dr. Robert Dickson, whose 
 benevolence is as conspicuous as his knowledge, 
 contributed all the articles on Materia Medica. Nor 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 361 
 
 must I omit Dr. Southwood Smith, who supplied 
 many of the articles on Anatomy, Medicine, and 
 Physiology. I was his publisher also of that inte 
 resting popular work, " The Philosophy of Health." 
 Now that his most useful life has closed, I may 
 mention a circumstance which I should have hesi 
 tated previously .to print. Dr. Smith s book, " The 
 Use of the Dead to the Living," chiefly led to the 
 passing of the Anatomy Act, by which an end was 
 put to the necessity of the hateful tribe of Resur 
 rection Men, and to such atrocities as those which 
 had been committed in Edinburgh and London, 
 where adults and children had been systematically 
 murdered by the vampires of modern times, who 
 sold their bodies to the anatomical schools. Dr. 
 Southwood Smith had been the intimate friend of 
 Jeremy Bentham. It was the wish of the venerable 
 philosopher that his body should be dissected, and 
 for that purpose he left it to the enlightened phy 
 sician who had been his attendant at the time of his 
 death. Having called upon Dr. Smith at his house in 
 the city, as I was going away he said, in his quiet 
 manner, " Would you like to see Bentham?" I could 
 not quite comprehend him ; but leading the way 
 into his hall, he unlocked, with a small key that 
 hung to his watch-chain, a mahogany case, some 
 thing like the sedan chair of a past generation. 
 Behind an inner covering of plate-glass sat the 
 figure of the old jurist in the identical clothes 
 which he had worn living ; a waxen face, round 
 which was clustering the white hair, was covered 
 with his well-known broad-brimmed hat, and he 
 leant on the trusty stick with which he had so 
 often paced the Green Park. I long stood absorbed 
 
362 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 in many thoughts of the great man s career. Dr. 
 Smith withdrew the glass, opened the few buttons of 
 the waistcoat, and then showed the skeleton, which 
 preached the same lesson to the pride of human 
 wisdom as the skull of " poor Yorick " did to the 
 gibes that were wont " to set the table in a roar." 
 
 Collected for the purpose of separate publication 
 in the remodelled " English Cyclopaedia," it was 
 found that the biographical articles of the original 
 work constituted its largest division. It may, there 
 fore, be concluded that in this place I can only 
 notice the leading features of that division, and a few 
 only of its contributors. Those who wrote the arti 
 cles on history and literature, ancient and modern, 
 furnished, for the most part, the series of biographies. 
 It may be sufficient to point to articles by Thomas 
 Hewitt Key, George Cornewall Lewis, George Long, 
 Leonard Schmitz, Dr. Donaldson, Philip Smith, and 
 William Smith, to show how completely these Lives 
 were calculated to supersede the inaccurate sciolisms 
 of Lempriere and similar manufacturers of Classical 
 Dictionaries. Nor is it necessary that I should 
 particularly specify those who brought their histo 
 rical and literary knowledge to build up the com 
 pact, but yet full, Biographia Britannica, which our 
 work presents, even without the subsequent addition 
 of living names. The writers of these articles are 
 generally well known in their more extended repu 
 tations as authors of separate works. But there 
 was a class of writers whom Mr. Long had the good 
 fortune to collect around him, who had previously 
 added little to the stores of English learning. I 
 allude to the eminent foreigners who wrote in the 
 " Cyclopedia," some in our language, others in their 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 363 
 
 own. The editorial care either corrected- the foreign 
 idioms sometimes peeping out of their English 
 compositions or procured accurate translations of 
 the French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portu 
 guese, in which some wrote. One foreigner whose 
 English required little correction, if any, was Andre* 
 Vieusseux. I had been intimate with this most 
 amiable and accomplished man from the time when 
 he wrote in the " Quarterly Magazine." I had pub 
 lished, in 1824, his delightful work, " Italy and 
 the Italians." My pleasant and improving inter 
 course with him was renewed when he became one 
 of the most industrious contributors to the " Cyclo 
 paedia." His life had been a varied and eventful 
 one. As a youth he had seen the bloody course of 
 revolution in Naples, when it was doubtful which 
 was most to be hated monarchical oppression or 
 democratic fury. He had fought in the Peninsular 
 War, as an officer in one of the foreign legions. 
 After the peace, he had settled in England upon a 
 small independence, to which he was enabled to 
 add by literary labour. His conscientious devotion 
 to the right performance of whatever he undertook, 
 his large experience, and his correct taste, made him 
 one of our most valuable coadjutors. In German 
 literature, Dr. Leonard Schmitz was as useful as in 
 classical. Pascual de Gayangos, who had married an 
 English lady, also wrote fluently in our language 
 during his residence amongst us. His perfect ac 
 quaintance with Arabic gave him a mastery over the 
 general and literary history of Spain during the 
 mediaeval period, which few of his countrymen have 
 attained. His biographies in the " Cyclopaedia " 
 Spanish and Oriental are, therefore, particularly 
 
364 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 valuable. Another great Oriental scholar, Frederick 
 Augustus Rosen, was the Sanskrit Professor in 
 University College. In the " Penny Cyclopedia " 
 he wrote all the articles on Oriental literature from 
 "Abbasides" to " Ethiopian Language." His labours 
 were terminated by his sudden death in 1837, at 
 the age of thirty-two. This distinguished native of 
 Hanover acquired in England a host of friends, whose 
 admiration he had won by his high intellectual at 
 tainments, and whose love was commanded by his 
 gentle manners and kind heart. Count Krasinski 
 was one of the Polish exiles in England to whom 
 literature had become the only means of support. 
 He came here on a diplomatic mission, in 1830, from 
 the revolutionary government, of which Prince Czar- 
 toryski was president. In 1831, when the hope of 
 Polish independence was again crushed, he dwelt 
 among us a penniless fugitive, until his death in 
 1855. His contributions to the " Penny Cyclopaedia" 
 were on the Sclavonian history and literature. 
 
 I have passed over Music, in referring to the de 
 partment of Fine Arts, that I may more particularly, 
 notice the amount of musical taste and knowledge 
 amongst us twenty years ago. Mr. William Ayrton 
 could scarcely, during the time I knew him, be called 
 a Professor of Music, although some few years pre 
 vious the opera had been under his management. A 
 man of education, he moved in the best society ; 
 whilst his ability as a writer, combined with his 
 extensive musical knowledge, fitted him to contribute 
 the whole series of musical biographies to the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia." He had previously edited for 
 me a work which, I may flatter myself, contributed 
 something to that great change which has made the 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 365 
 
 English of the reign of Queen Victoria as musical a 
 people as their ancestors of Queen Elizabeth s time. 
 The nioveable types used in the " Musical Library " 
 furnished the means of producing vocal and instru 
 mental music from the best masters, in weekly sheets 
 of eight pages, sold at about a quarter of the price of 
 the ordinaiy sheet of the music shops. The period 
 was then only beginning when an idea penetrated 
 the English mind, that in music, as in the other Fine 
 Arts, anything but the common-place and vulgar could 
 have any charms for the bulk of the people. Pro 
 found philosophers believed that nothing else could 
 please, theatrical managers affirmed that nothing else 
 would draw. The great and fashionable firmly 
 relied upon the unchangeableness of the opinion 
 though a hundred and twenty years old of Isaac 
 Bickerstaff, who says : " In Italy, nothing is more 
 frequent than to hear a cobbler working to an opera 
 tune ; but, on the contrary, our honest countrymen 
 have so little an inclination to music, that they sel 
 dom begin to sing till they are drunk." In the 
 "Penny Magazine" for 1834, it was said: "The 
 theatres and other public places have administered 
 to bad taste : little or nothing except trash has been 
 open to the people ; and they have been deemed 
 barbarians because they took what fell in their way, 
 and showed no love for what they never had an 
 opportunity of knowing. We trust, however, that, 
 for the future, good music, like good literature, may 
 be made accessible to all ; and that, as a mode of 
 enlarging the cheap enjoyments of a poor man s life, 
 even every village school in the kingdom may possess 
 the means of teaching (as they are taught at similar 
 establishments in several districts of Germany, in 
 
366 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 Bohemia, and even in the snow-covered, poverty- 
 stricken island of Iceland) the art of reading musical 
 notation and the first rudiments of music." 
 
 I have traced the greatest work of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society to its completion at the end of 
 eleven years. Let me revert to its opening period, 
 when the friends of Popular Education had not only 
 to build up the walls of their citadel, but to work 
 with weapons at their side. When the " Penny 
 Magazine," during two years existence, had reached 
 a sale quite unprecedented in Popular Literature, 
 and after the first year s publication, with marked 
 success, of the "Penny Cyclopedia," a series of 
 attacks, as unceasing as they were virulent, were 
 directed against the Society for the Diffusion of 
 Useful Knowledge, and against me, especially, as 
 their chief instrument in the fearful revolution 
 which was threatening to destroy the legitimate 
 thrones and dominations of the empire of books. 
 The Society was a monopoly ; the " Penny Maga 
 zine " was " a glorious humbug upon the reading 
 portion of the operatives," for it was nothing more 
 than a bookseller s speculation, which " brings in 
 Knight some thousands per annum ;" the idea of the 
 " Penny Cyclopedia " was stolen from a respectable 
 man, who was struggling to maintain a young family, 
 " by a trader, who, because he has the name of the 
 Society painted on his sign-board, seems to think 
 himself entitled to throw off all the ordinary re 
 straints to which fair rivalry in trade is subject ;" the 
 writers in these works were literary drudges obscure 
 literary drudges, without a single idea in their heads, 
 save what they filch from the British Museum. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 367 
 
 Such was the temper in which the " New Monthly 
 Magazine " poured out the vials of its wrath on my 
 devoted head. It was necessary to publish a few 
 facts, with very little comment, to show the false 
 hoods and absurdities of the daily, weekly, and 
 monthly assaults of this complexion. That was 
 done, with the sanction of the Society, in the " Com 
 panion to the Almanac," in December, 1833. On 
 the 15th of February, 1834, I published No. I. of 
 " The Printing Machine, a Review for the Many ;" 
 and therein, in an article entitled " The Literary 
 Newspapers," I uttered, perhaps with more spirit 
 than prudence, some unpalatable remonstrances 
 against the systematic hostility of the two journals 
 which I described as "the advanced guard of the 
 army of letters, who carry small baggage on their 
 march." The attacks soon became more personal. 
 
 Towards the end of that February, I was proposed 
 as a member of the " Garrick Club." In the second 
 week of March a very dear friend, my solicitor, 
 Mr. Thomas Clarke, came to me to say that the 
 Committee of that Club were hesitating about my 
 election, as I had been excluded from a Club which 
 had been formed out of members of the "Literary 
 Union," such exclusion involving some serious impu 
 tation upon my character and conduct. I had been 
 a member of the " Literary Union " for three or 
 four years. Several gentlemen immediately under 
 took to ascertain the nature of the charges against 
 me ; and I was in a few days authorised by two of 
 these friends to rest the vindication of my character 
 upon the ground that the imputation made in the 
 Committee of the " Literary Union Club," appointed 
 for the formation of a New Club, was, that I had 
 
368 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 formerly failed in business and dishonourably failed 
 that I "had made a bad bankruptcy." In twenty- 
 four hours I had possessed myself of the means of 
 my vindication. The publication of an indignant 
 letter addressed by me* to the Committee, accom 
 panied by the documents which they had refused to 
 look at, was my only course. That paper was circu 
 lated by me to a limited extent. It consisted of 
 letters from my three trustees, a London printer, a 
 London stationer, and a banker of Windsor, and one 
 also from the solicitor to the trustees. They were to 
 the effect that my suspension of payments was not to 
 be attributed in the slightest degree to any miscon 
 duct, or even imprudence, on my part ; but was an 
 unavoidable result of the Panic of 1825, which so 
 materially diminished the value of all bookselling 
 property ; that the final resolution to place my affairs 
 under the management of trustees was come to by 
 my creditors with the greatest reluctance to interfere 
 with my own administration of my estate ; that the 
 anxious and self-denying care with which I abstained 
 from receiving a single shilling of its proceeds after 
 that resolution had been come to, was a striking 
 instance of firmness and integrity ; that I had been 
 unvarying in my determination not to consider the 
 release from my engagements as at all binding, 
 except in a legal point of view, and had unweariedly 
 laboured to discharge every debt in full, just as if no 
 such acquittance had taken place, going far beyond 
 what they thought a duty to my own family. 
 
 It is not from any motive of self-exaltation that I 
 revive this matter, never to touch it again. My own 
 deep feeling of gratitude to the eminent men with 
 whom I was associated in the Useful Knowledge 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 369 
 
 Society is called forth now, when I glance at the 
 many warm letters from them which this occurrence 
 produced. Nor do I feel less grateful to Mr. Coates, 
 their secretary, for his letters to me at this juncture. 
 My friends were anxious that the stigma of my 
 exclusion from this so-called Literary Club should be 
 effectually wiped off by my election to the most 
 distinguished Club in London. Lord Lansdowne, in 
 a letter addressed to the Lord Chancellor, full of the 
 most hearty kindness towards me, declared his 
 opinion upon the wishes that my friends had ex 
 pressed on my behalf : " There is no man in England 
 better entitled than Knight to come into the Athe- 
 naBum," and he subsequently agreed to propose me 
 as a member. This Lord Lansdowne did, with a full 
 knowledge of the circumstances. The Bishop of 
 Winchester, whose conduct to me since 1827 had 
 been marked by unvarying kindness and generosity, 
 wished to support my nomination. Many other lead 
 ing members of that Club and I was glad to have 
 Mr. Murray amongst the number volunteered their 
 aid. But party feeling then ran high, and I was 
 unwilling to risk a contest, which might renew what 
 was very disagreeable to me as a subject of public 
 discussion. The " Garrick Club Committee " elected 
 me after a brief interval. I became also one of the 
 early members of the " Reform Club." 
 
 The hostility against the Society for the Diffusion 
 of Useful Knowledge, which had been manifested by 
 a small section of the periodical press, gradually died 
 out. Public opinion was louder than the cuckoo cry 
 of "monopoly" that was shouted by fashionable 
 publishers and echoed by a clique of the regular pro 
 fessors of "la literature facile." Those who wrote 
 
370 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 for the Society had been called in derision " com 
 pilers." The "men of genius" who despised industry 
 as dulness had their little day of sarcasm against 
 "literary drudges," but in the end the public many was 
 too strong for the exclusive few. The bookselling trade 
 publishers as well as retailers had also discovered 
 that, in the manifest extension of readers, a reliance 
 might be placed upon the principle of increased 
 numbers co-operating to purchase cheap books, and 
 that enlarged returns would make up for diminished 
 profits upon dear books. They had discovered that the 
 trade of books would not be destroyed by cheap weekly 
 sheets. If they had not arrived, through a process 
 of reasoning, at the belief that the more people read 
 the more they will read, they had the evidence of 
 their own ledgers to inform them that the literary 
 returns of the United Kingdom had nearly doubled 
 since the terrible era of cheapness which commenced 
 in 1827. Books, which at the beginning of the cen 
 tury had been a luxury, had now become a necessity. 
 Still the objection was urged that, however extended 
 was the market for popular literature, the quality of 
 the supply must as a matter of course be low. The 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia " furnished a veiy sufficient 
 answer to such reasoners. 
 
 The calumnies with which I had been personally 
 assailed had not accomplished their object that of in 
 juring me as a man of business. They did not lessen 
 the regard of my old friends, nor did they cut me 
 off from the confidence which secured me a new and 
 important connexion. Within another year I became 
 associated as Publisher with the great measure of 
 Local Administration that had received the sanction 
 of Parliament. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIH. 
 
 EXT to the " Cyclopaedia " in the costliness 
 of its production, if not in intrinsic im 
 portance, was the " Gallery of Portraits," 
 which I published under the superinten 
 dence of the Society. It was issued in monthly 
 numbers at half-a-crown each number, containing 
 three portraits with biographies. The object of the 
 publication was to present likenesses of those emi 
 nent men of modern times who have given the 
 greatest impulse to their age. In the selection of 
 subjects for portraiture, the Committee was occupied 
 from the beginning of 1832 (the first number being 
 published in May), to the midsummer of 1834. 
 Their occupation was of a most pleasant and im 
 proving kind, for there was scarcely a name sug 
 gested that did not involve some discussion upon 
 the merits of those proposed to be represented, or 
 some statement of the sources from which authentic 
 portraits might be obtained. In this latter respect 
 the influence of the Society, or that of its individual 
 members, was most valuable, by securing the admis 
 sion of copyists to Royal Galleries and private 
 collections. British and Foreign statesmen, warriors, 
 divines, men of science and letters, artists, were 
 thus assigned their due honour in a work, which was 
 essentially different in its plan from the " Portraits 
 of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain," by 
 
372 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Edmund Lodge, Norroy King of Arms. Interesting 
 as much of Mr. Lodge s information was in its genea 
 logical and antiquarian features, the book was not 
 what it professed to be, "A Gallery of the Illustrious 
 Dead " " A Collection of Portraits and Lives of 
 British Worthies." It was a collection of kings and 
 queens, of noble lords and ladies and officers of state. 
 It was, with very few exceptions, not a gallery of the 
 intellectually illustrious. Of the chief glories of our 
 nation the poets, historians, philosophers, divines, 
 of the inventors and discoverers in physical and 
 abstract science, of our most distinguished artists, 
 there was not one in this " Gallery of the Illustrious 
 Dead," unless he could claim a place there by some 
 titular or official distinction. Very different was the 
 range of the gallery which I considered it an honour 
 to publish, and the large expenses of which I cheer 
 fully bore until the work became remunerative. 
 The merit of suggesting it, and of most assiduously 
 labouring to carry it worthily forward, is due to 
 Mr. Bellenden Ker. The superintendence of the 
 engravings was confided to Mr. Lupton, a mezzo- 
 tinto engraver of the first eminence. Mr. Arthur 
 Malkin was the editor of the biographies. These are 
 all distinguished for careful research and an unpre- 
 tending style. A few of the lives were written by 
 his personal friends, amongst whom was Arthur H. 
 Hallam the A. H. H. of Tennyson s "In Memo- 
 riam " who died in 1833. From De Quincey I 
 obtained a spirited memoir of Milton ; and it was to 
 ine a matter of regret, that its length was so out of 
 proportion to the general character of the work, that, 
 some curtailment was absolutely necessary. 
 
 The 13th of August, 1836, was a remarkable day 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 373 
 
 in the annals of the press of this country, for on that 
 day two Acts of Parliament received the Royal 
 Assent, which materially influenced all the com 
 mercial arrangements for rendering knowledge, poli 
 tical or literary, more accessible to the bulk of the 
 people. The first of these (c. 52), was to reduce 
 the duties on first-class paper from three-pence per 
 pound to three-halfpence, so that the former tax of 
 three-halfpence upon second-class paper should apply 
 to paper of all descriptions. The second of these 
 (c. 76), was to reduce the stamp on newspapers 
 from fourpence to a penny. I have previously 
 mentioned (page 180), a debate in the House of 
 Commons, on the 22nd of May, 1834, upon a motion 
 for the repeal of the newspaper stamp duties. I 
 had at that time learnt something of the desire of 
 several members of the government, including Lord 
 Brougham and Lord Althorp, that these duties 
 should be wholly repealed. Had that been the case, 
 a difficulty would have arisen as to the transmission 
 of unstamped newspapers by post. In a letter to 
 Lord Althorp, I suggested that a penny stamped 
 frank should be issued by the government. Mr. 
 M. D. Hill, in the debate which I have mentioned, 
 described the nature of this suggestion. In the 
 " Companion to the Newspaper," for June the 1st, 
 1834, there appeared a paper of considerable length 
 " prepared several months ago for the information of 
 some official personages who took a strong interest 
 in the question of the repeal of the stamp duties on 
 newspapers." In that paper it is said, " In order to 
 allow the unstamped papers to pass through the 
 Post-office, it is proposed that franks should be sold 
 (say by the vendors of stamps), at a penny each. It 
 
374 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 will be necessary to make the postage payable by 
 the person sending the paper ; for otherwise, a great 
 many papers, especially the very low-priced ones, 
 would be refused by persons to whom they were 
 addressed. It is obvious that a direct payment to 
 the Post-office, by the transmitter of the paper, 
 would be highly inconvenient, if not impossible. 
 Mr. Knight s plan . of a stamped frank obviates the 
 difficulty ; and it would facilitate the transmission of 
 all printed sheets under a certain weight." It has 
 always been to me a matter of honest pride that 
 this suggestion contributed, in however small a 
 degree, to the efficient working of the magnificent 
 system of penny-postage. Mr. Rowland Hill, in his 
 celebrated pamphlet on Post-office Reform, pub 
 lished in 1837, says, " A few years ago, when the 
 expediency of entirely abolishing the newspaper 
 stamp, and allowing newspapers to pass through 
 the Post-office for one penny each, was under con 
 sideration, it was proposed by Mr. Charles Knight, 
 the publisher, that the postage on newspapers might 
 be collected by selling stamped wrappers at one 
 penny each. Availing myself of this excellent sug 
 gestion, I propose the following arrangement : Let 
 stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to 
 the public from the Stamp-office, or Post-office, as 
 may be most convenient, and sold at such a price as 
 to include the postage : letters so stamped, might 
 be put into the letter-box as at present." 
 
 In 1836, my views, as to the total repeal of the 
 Stamp Duty on Newspapers, were considerably al 
 tered from those of 1834, when, in suggesting a plan 
 for the circulation of unstamped newspapers, I had 
 adopted the opinion that the stamp, except as a 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 375 
 
 postage payment, was injurious. I was apprehen* 
 sive, as I was before the removal of the stamp in 
 1855, that cheap newspapers would involve the de 
 gradation of journalism. I did not draw sound con 
 clusions from my own experience. I did not believe 
 that Penny Papers would be as innoxious as Penny 
 Magazines and Penny Cyclopedias, and go on making 
 readers, till the great body of those who read would, 
 prefer sound nutriment to the garbage which was 
 offered them in the days of high taxation. As in 
 most cases, my own interest gave a colour, I suppose, 
 to my opinions. From the time when William 
 Henry Ord was a contributor to " The Etonian," to 
 the time when he was a Member of Parliament and 
 a Lord of the Treasury, I had some degree of inti 
 macy, almost amounting to friendship, with this 
 amiable and accomplished man. In 1836, in his 
 official position, he had devoted himself to the great 
 measure of the consolidation of the various Stamp 
 Acts. The mass of obscure and confused enactments 
 was to be swept away, and some intelligible fiscal 
 measure was to be substituted. Mr. Ord devoted 
 himself to the herculean task of preparing the way 
 for the proposition which was brought forward by 
 Mr. Spring Bice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 The labour killed him. In the spring of 1836, I 
 frequently saw him. We had many conversations 
 on the subject of the Newspaper Stamp Duties and 
 the Paper Duty. I fancied that if the government 
 consented to abolish the Newspaper Stamp, they 
 would retain the high Paper Duty. Mr. Ord and I 
 came to the opinion that the safest and the best 
 course would be to lower both imposts. I wrote a 
 pamphlet advocating this policy, which was circu- 
 
376 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 lated amongst members of both Houses. Whether 
 it had any effect upon the settlement of the question 
 is not for me to judge. At any rate, the reduction 
 of the Paper Duty was to me a matter of vital im 
 portance ; and when that boon to the publishers of 
 cheap books came into operation in the autumn, I 
 felt that I had shaken off much of the insupportable 
 weight of the " Old Man of the Sea/ and went for 
 ward with the words of Milton in my heart : 
 
 "To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new." 
 
 In 1835, Mr. Bellenden Ker having returned from 
 a continental tour, gave me some numbers of a work 
 then publishing in Germany, the " Bilder Bibel." 
 An idea had once been entertained of the Useful 
 Knowledge Society publishing a Bible an illus 
 trated one ; but the notion was given up as imprac 
 ticable, and not in accordance with the principle 
 upon which the Society was established. Mr. Ker s 
 present revived the project in my mind. Such a 
 publication, in which Art should be employed to 
 delight the young, and learning should not be want 
 ing, offered a strong temptation to my individual 
 enterprise. But the difficulty was to find a fit 
 editor one who held sound opinions upon the great 
 cardinal points of religion, but who would at the 
 same time content himself with furnishing an ample 
 commentary on such passages as are connected with 
 the History, Geography, Natural History, and Anti 
 quities of the Sacred Scriptures. Thus to limit the 
 objects of the work was to make it acceptable to all 
 denominations of Christians. I had several conversa 
 tions on this matter with a very learned and liberal 
 divine ; but he could not see his course clearly, in 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 377 
 
 avoiding theological questions. I often thought of 
 dividing the labour ; and with this view I proposed 
 to Mr. Kitto to furnish notes upon such subjects as 
 had come under his observation during his travels 
 and sojourn in the East. This task he gladly under 
 took. In a few weeks he came to me and said in 
 that guttural voice to which I had now become 
 accustomed " I will undertake it all." We had a 
 little merriment over the boldness of the proposal ; 
 but I found that he was perfectly in earnest. As a 
 matter of prudence I proposed that he should com 
 plete the book of Genesis, and after that we could 
 determine upon the future course of proceeding. He 
 accomplished this to my complete satisfaction. The 
 enthusiasm with which he entered upon the task 
 was to me an earnest that he could well be trusted 
 to carry it through faithfully. I released him from 
 all other employments ; and so, at the beginning of 
 1836, the first number of " The Pictorial Bible " was 
 issued. In hitting upon the word " Pictorial " I felt 
 that I was rather daring in the employment of a 
 term which the Dictionaries pronounced as " not in 
 use." It has now been rendered familiar by frequent 
 employment. I could not have easily found any 
 other word that would have conveyed the intention 
 to present wood-engravings of the scriptural designs 
 of great painters ; of landscape scenes ; of costume ; 
 of zoology and botany"; of the remains of ancient 
 architecture. " The Pictorial Bible " was completed 
 in two years and a half. To me it was profitable, 
 costly as were the wood-cuts. The profit was doubly 
 welcome from the fact, that after having paid Mr. 
 Kitto, during the progress of publication, 250?. a-year, 
 I was enabled, upon the completion of the book, to 
 
378 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 present him with a sum which seemed to him a little 
 fortune. A letter which Mr. Kitto wrote to me, as 
 the work was proceeding, has been published by his 
 biographer : " I cannot begin any observations re 
 specting The Pictorial Bible/ without stating how 
 highly I have been gratified and interested in the 
 occupation it has afforded. It has been of infinite 
 advantage as an exercise to my own mind. It has 
 afforded me an opportunity of bringing nearly all my 
 resources into play; my old biblical studies, the 
 observations of travel, and even the very miscella 
 neous character of my reading, have all been highly 
 useful to me in this undertaking. The venerable 
 character of the work on which I have laboured, the 
 responsibility of annotation, and the extent in which 
 such labour is likely to have influence, are also cir 
 cumstances which have greatly gratified, in a very 
 definite manner, that desire of usefulness, which has, 
 I may say, been a strong principle of action with me, 
 and which owes its origin, I think, to the desire I 
 was early led to entertain of finding whether the 
 most adverse circumstances (including the privation 
 of intellectual nourishment) must necessarily operate 
 in excluding me from the hope of filling .a useful 
 place in society. The question was, whether I should 
 hang a dead weight upon society, or take a place 
 among its active men. I have struggled for the 
 latter alternative, and it will be a proud thing for 
 me if I am enabled to realise it. I venture to hope 
 that I shall : and to you I am, in the most eminent 
 degree, indebted for the opportunities, assistance, and 
 encouragement you have always afforded me in my 
 endeavours after this object." * 
 * Life of John Kitto, D.D., by John Eadie, D.D., 1857, p. 304. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 379 
 
 Of the illustrated books subsequently published, 
 the " Pictorial History of England " occupied seven 
 years in a regular monthly course of publica 
 tion. It bore upon its title-page that it was produced 
 "By George L. Craik and Charles MacFarlane, 
 assisted by other Contributors." Four out of its 
 eight volumes carried the narrative to the conclusion 
 of the reign of George the Second. The other four 
 volumes comprised only the reign of George the 
 Third. This disproportion was fatal to the success 
 which might have been anticipated if the whole work 
 had been confined within as reasonable limits as the 
 narrative of eighteen centuries, which preceded that 
 of the latter half century. Mr. MacFarlane had 
 undertaken the larger department of civil and mili 
 tary history. The history of religion, of literature, 
 and of commerce, could not have been better confided 
 than to Mr. Craik. In his history of the constitution 
 he was occasionally assisted by Mr. Andrew Bisset, 
 who has recently given an evidence that his charac 
 teristic views upon historical questions are unchanged. 
 Sir Henry Ellis, my old and valued friend, lent some 
 aid to the literature of the Saxon Period. The 
 subject of the Arts was in the hands of an emi 
 nent architect, Mr. Edward Poynter, whose vari 
 ous accomplishments extended beyond the range of 
 his own profession. Mr. Weir, who subsequently 
 became the Editor of the " Daily News," wrote some 
 graphic chapters on manners in the time of the third 
 George. But upon Mr. MacFarlane rested the chief 
 burden of this elaborate work. In the early half of 
 its chronological divisions the subsidiary chapters 
 rendered the historical narrative less difficult for one 
 
380 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 writer to manage. For the work, like that of Dr. 
 Henry, was broken up into separate divisions. I came 
 subsequently to the conviction that this was not the 
 true plan upon which a history of England ought to 
 be conducted. " It may be convenient to a writer to 
 treat of a period under distinct heads, such as those 
 adopted by Dr. Henry Civil and Military ; Ecclesi 
 astical ; Constitution ; Learning ; Arts ; Commerce ; 
 Manners; but such an arrangement necessarily 
 involves a large amount of prolixity and repetition. 
 The intervals, also, at which the several divisions 
 occur in works so conducted are much too- long ; for, 
 in a century and a half, or two centuries, social 
 changes are usually so great, that the Laws, Learn 
 ing, Arts, and Customs at the beginning of such a 
 period have little in common with those of its con 
 clusion." * What was convenient to one writer was 
 a far greater convenience in a history upon which 
 many writers were employed. The plan worked well 
 to the end of the fourth volume. Mr. MacFarlane 
 had a considerable power of narration. He dealt 
 more with military than with civil history, and in 
 this his merit was conspicuous, for, by nature or by 
 study, he had acquired a very competent notion of 
 the military art. Upon paper he " could set an army 
 in the field," and " the division of a battle " well 
 understood. But in other respects he had not the 
 prime quality of the historian, impartiality. He was 
 essentially a partizan. He did not run riot upon 
 vexed questions of past times. He was moderate 
 in his estimate of the virtues of Charles the First, 
 
 * " Popular History of England." By Charles Knight. Vol. I. 
 Introduction. 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 381 
 
 and would not have broken a lance in maintaining 
 the purity of Mary Queen of Scots. But when he 
 came to the French Revolution, then he was for 
 " whole volumes in folio," that he might dwell upon 
 its countless abominations, and say no word about 
 the mighty changes which it was destined to produce 
 upon the condition of the mass of society. -He was a 
 most agreeable companion, and an affectionate though 
 not a safe friend. Had I been less attached to him I 
 might, at all risks, have stopped the publication after 
 the disproportion of the latter volumes had been 
 manifested. But it is difficult for a publisher to 
 adopt such a course in a serial work, even if his 
 interest called upon him to be despotic. He is in 
 the hands of others ; and he must assent to their 
 completion of the task which they had begun. To 
 go on is dangerous; but to halt midway would be 
 destruction. 
 
CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 HEN I had entered upon the publication 
 of pictorial works, which had become a 
 marked feature of my business, I was 
 naturally led, as one serial approached its 
 completion, to look around me for its fit successor. 
 The Bible, the History of England, were books of 
 universal interest, in which I could carry out my 
 plan of rendering wood-cuts real illustrations of the 
 text, instead of fanciful devices true eye-knowledge, 
 sometimes more instructive than words. There was 
 one large subject capable of such treatment. It was 
 once the fashion to illustrate Pennant s " London " 
 with prints of every age and character. There could 
 be no want of authentic materials for such a book as 
 I contemplated. 
 
 Many descriptions of the great capital, whose past 
 history is as interesting as its present state, had ap 
 peared at various periods. In the age of Elizabeth, 
 John Stow published his " Survey of London, con- 
 teyning the originall, antiquity, increase, moderne 
 estate and description of that citie." The worthy 
 citizen of London has been fortunate in the eulogy 
 of his modern editor, William J. Thorns, who to the 
 learning of the antiquary unites the graces of the 
 accomplished writer. Well has he said in his intro 
 ductory notice, " If it were given to the reader to 
 wield for a brief space the staff of Prospero, with 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 383 
 
 power to conjure up a vision of London as it existed 
 in some former period, there can be little doubt but 
 that he would so employ his art that the London 
 of Shakspeare should stand revealed before him. 
 Happily, although Prospero s staff is broken, the 
 conjurations of the mighty magic necessary to call 
 up this busy pageant were lodged in the untiring 
 pen of honest John Stow." In the latter years of 
 the Commonwealth, James Howell published his 
 " Londinopolis ; Historical Discourse and Perlustra- 
 tion of London." This is the city in which Milton 
 had dwelt, as a boy, beneath his father s roof in 
 Bread Street, to the time of his death in 1674, a 
 blind old man. Then came laborious antiquaries to 
 delve amongst registers and tomb-stones, with a 
 taste far inferior to the historians who had gone 
 before them. There was a field open to the light 
 essayist ; and Leigh Hunt made a very pleasant but 
 very impeifect book of literary gossip about authors 
 and players. As a subject for a pictorial book of 
 some extent, I decided upon publishing " London " 
 in weekly numbers. It was commenced in 1841 ; it 
 was finished in 1844. I undertook the general 
 conduct of the work. I had valuable contributors in 
 Mr. Craik, Mr. Saunders, Mr. Weir, Mr. Platt, Mr. 
 Dodd, Mr. Planche , and Mr. Fairholt. I adopted 
 the plan of giving the names of the authors of each 
 paper in a table of contents of the several volumes. 
 The proportions in which each contributed to a 
 work extending to two thousand five hundred 
 pages will thus be seen. 
 
 In 1837 I began to look about me for artistic 
 
 materials adapted to a Pictorial Edition of Shakspere. 
 
 At first view, the existing stores of illustrations 
 
 seemed almost boundless. There were embellish- 
 
 17 
 
384 PASSAGES OP A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 ments to various editions from the time of Howe, 
 chiefly of a theatrical character, and, for the most 
 part, thoroughly unnatural. The grand historical 
 pictures of the Shakspere Gallery were not in a very 
 much higher taste, furnishing a remarkable example 
 how painters of the highest rank in their day had 
 contrived to make the characters of Shakspere little 
 more than vehicles for the display of false costume. 
 There were a few valuable antiquarian illustrations, 
 such as those given by Mr. Douce. Altogether, it 
 became necessary for me to look carefully at the 
 plays, to see whether the aid of art might not be 
 called in to add both to the information and enjoy 
 ment of the reader of Shakspere, by representing 
 the Realities upon which the imagination of the 
 poet must have rested. There were the localities of 
 the various scenes, whether English or foreign; the 
 portraits of the real personages of the historical 
 plays; the objects of natural history, so constantly 
 occurring ; accurate costume in all its rich variety. 
 Whilst engaged in my search after such pictorial 
 illustrations, a gentleman, who has since distin 
 guished himself by his antiquarian knowledge, lent 
 me his note-book, in which he had jotted down a 
 somewhat large list of archasological subjects. This 
 kindness of Mr. William Fairholt was of essential use 
 to me. I very early put myself in communication 
 with Mr. Poynter, who made for me a series of the 
 most beautiful architectural drawings, which imparted 
 a character of truthfulness to many scenes, which 
 upon the stage had in general been merely fanciful 
 creations of the painter. Mr. Harvey undertook to 
 produce a series of frontispieces, which, embodying 
 the realities of costume and other accessaries, would 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 385 
 
 have enough of an imaginative character to render 
 them pleasing. 
 
 The foundations of my edition as an illustrated 
 work of art being thus laid, I diligently applied 
 myself to a critical examination of the text to be 
 adopted. I procured a copy of the first folio, which 
 was read aloud to me whilst I marked upon a copy 
 of the common trade edition, all the variations that 
 presented themselves. I found that no book could 
 be more incorrectly printed than this booksellers 
 stereotyped volume. I subsequently expressed my 
 belief that the text of Shakspere had not been com 
 pared with the originals carefully and systematically 
 for half a century. Not only had words been changed 
 by printers, but whole lines had been omitted. The 
 punctuation of the received text was in the most 
 confused state. Thus far, my way was clear to 
 produce a pictorial edition with a more correct text, 
 even if I absolutely relied upon the authority of the 
 first folio compared with the quartos. Of these 
 scarce morsels I could avail myself in Steevens very 
 accurate reprint. This accuracy I had tested by 
 having the several plays which he thus, reproduced, 
 collated with originals in the British Museum. But 
 then, a new difficulty arose. The conjectural emen 
 dations of the variorum editors were so numerous, 
 that it was necessary that I should make up my 
 mind as to their adoption or rejection. I had to 
 decide upon many disputed readings ; and for this it 
 was essential to consult the great mass of separate 
 commentary that had been published tty the learned, 
 the dull, and the conceited, during the century in 
 which the critical study of Shakspere s text had 
 been pursued by many competent and incompetent 
 
386 PASSAGES OP A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 writers. There was one man of my acquaintance, 
 for whom I had a high regard Mr. Thomas Rodd, 
 the well-known bookseller of Great Newport Street 
 whose knowledge of the works which he sold went 
 far beyond their title-pages. He enabled me to form 
 a considerable collection of commentaries on Shak 
 spere, ranging from Rymer and Dennis to Hazlitt 
 and Coleridge. As I advanced in my Shaksperian 
 studies, I found that my labours would not cease with 
 the acquirement of a more intimate knowledge of all 
 that had been written about the text, but that I mast 
 carefully examine the various opinions as to the 
 order in which the plays of Shakspere were produced, 
 unless I were implicitly to adopt the theories advo 
 cated in Malone s " Essay" on that very difficult sub 
 ject. I was satisfied that much depended in coming 
 to something like accurate conclusions as to the 
 plays which belonged respectively to the poet s earlier 
 period, his middle period, and his later period. The 
 historical plays would necessarily follow in the order 
 of the events of which they were the subject. But 
 for the comedies and tragedies, I determined to print 
 them in the order which I believed to be at least an 
 approximation to the period of their composition. 
 
 After a year of preparation I issued my pro 
 spectus, in which I boldly declared that Shakspere 
 demanded a rational edition of his performances, 
 that should address itself to the popular understand 
 ing in a spirit of love, and not of captious and pre 
 sumptuous cavilling. In the first number of my 
 edition, containing the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
 I made a distinct profession of faith in Shakspere, 
 with a perfect knowledge that I should be assailed 
 on many sides, but that I should call up hosts of 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 387 
 
 friends ready to shake off their allegiance to " the 
 dwarfish commentators who are for ever cutting him 
 down to their own size." I thus wrote in my intro 
 ductory notice to this play : " We believe the time is 
 past when it can afford any satisfaction to an English 
 man to hear the greatest of our poets perpetually 
 held up to ridicule as a sort of inspired barbarian, 
 who worked without method, and wholly without 
 learning. But before Shakspere can be properly 
 understood, the popular mind must be led in an 
 opposite direction ; and. we must learn to regard him, 
 as he really was, as the most consummate of artists, 
 who had a complete and absolute control over all the 
 materials and instruments of his art, without any 
 subordination to mere impulses and caprices, with 
 entire self-possession and perfect knowledge." 
 
 It was natural for many who had been bred in a 
 reverence for the old school of criticism to consider 
 me presumptuous in declaring my scepticism as to 
 the authority of Steevens and of M alone. Probably, 
 my new-born enthusiasm carried me somewhat too 
 far. I accepted as a seasonable admonition a friendly 
 letter from Mr. Rodd : " Notwithstanding all their 
 squabbles among themselves and abuse of each other, 
 the dulness of some and wildness of others, I con 
 sider them as a whole as a body of men who have 
 rendered singular service to English literature. In 
 their readings for illustration of his text, they have 
 thrown great light upon our national history, anti 
 quities and language, and been the means of calling 
 into notice several good authors who had fallen into 
 unmerited obscurity. Let me beg of you to tread 
 more lightly over their ashes in future." But I was 
 not likely, although I might modify my future ex- 
 
388 PASSAGES OP A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 pressions, to be diverted from my convictions that I 
 had chosen the right path, however perplexed it 
 might he. I had abundant encouragement in my 
 course. Henry Nelson Coleridge wrote to me upon 
 the appearance of my opening number : " It is at 
 once a beautiful and instructive edition ; indeed, the 
 first in the country conceived in a right spirit." 
 Mrs. Jameson, in a most welcome letter, expressed 
 her entire sympathy with my opinions : "I thought 
 I had well studied Shakspere myself, but your 
 edition has opened fresh sources of reflection and 
 information." My old friend, Sir Henry Ellis, prof 
 fered his assistance, and sent me a genuine slice of 
 the mulberry-tree which he received from the Rev. 
 Mr. Becket, and saw it cut from the block upon 
 which Garrick had himself placed his seal. From 
 Leigh Hunt I received a letter, from which I give 
 an extract, very characteristic of the writer : " It 
 rejoices me to see you in a task like this, because it 
 enables you to live in a world which belongs to you 
 besides the world of business, and which will do you 
 as much good as I believe it will give pleasure and 
 profit to the reader. To live with Shakspere, is to 
 breathe at once the sweetest and most universal air 
 of humanity." I could multiply these testimonies of 
 kindness, were it not distasteful to me to appear 
 like my own eulogist. 
 
 Offers of literary assistance in my undertaking 
 reached me from various quarters. I had originally 
 hoped for much direct aid, and had thought that my 
 task would be lightened by having several persons 
 engaged upon various departments. I found this 
 idea, with two exceptions music and costume im 
 possible of execution, even if I had not become 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 389 
 
 enamoured of my work, and had derived from it a 
 solace amidst many cares. The labour had not 
 wearied me when I had completed three-fourths of 
 my undertaking. In a postscript to my sixth volume, 
 I thus expressed my feelings : " It is now somewhat 
 more than three years since I commenced the pub 
 lication of The Pictorial Edition of Shakspere, in 
 Monthly Parts ; and during that period I have pro 
 duced a Part on the first day of each month, with one 
 single exception. The task of editing this work has 
 been to me a most agreeable one. It has been ab 
 sorbing enough to require my daily attention, to 
 occupy my habitual thoughts, to shut out dark 
 forebodings, to lighten the pressure of instant evils. 
 It has furnished me a useful and honourable occupa 
 tion, which has not been less zealously pursued be 
 cause it was associated with the discharge of duties 
 not so pleasurable. I have worked at this task with 
 a full consciousness of the responsibility which lay 
 upon me ; but as I have worked in the spirit of love, 
 that consciousness has never been painful." 
 
 The Two Gentlemen of Verona was printed for the 
 first time in the folio of 1623. That volume also 
 contained eight other comedies, three histories, and 
 six tragedies, of which no previous edition is known. 
 In addition to these eighteen plays, four other 
 comedies were there first printed in a perfect shape. 
 I had, therefore, ample reason for considering that 
 first folio as standing with regard to half of Shak- 
 spere s plays in the same relation to the text as the 
 one manuscript of an ancient author. It was the 
 only accredited complete copy of four more of his 
 choicest works. I, therefore, from the first, held that 
 for three-fifths of Shakspere s plays that folio was 
 
390 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I [Ch. XIV. 
 
 the only authority, however the quartos might be 
 advantageously compared with its text with regard 
 to the other two-fifths. I did not place an exclusive 
 reliance, as I have often been accused of doing, upon 
 the text of that folio, but I did not rely by preference 
 upon those rare quarto morsels which the editors of 
 the first folio had described as stolen and surreptitious 
 copies. Within a week after the appearance of my 
 first number, I had a letter from Mr. John Wilson 
 Croker, which went to confirm me in my views with 
 regard to the text. He says, " Let me tell you that 
 many years ago (near forty I fear) I wrote a great 
 many pages to establish the principle that you have 
 adopted the paramount authority of the first folio ; 
 and, as well as I can recollect, I went through the 
 whole of Macbeth to prove my position. I know not 
 whether my MS. is in existence, I rather fear not, as 
 I have not seen it for near thirty years, but it may 
 be in some boxes of old papers which are in a lumber 
 room, and I will have it looked for. If I find it, and 
 that it contains anything worth copying, you shall 
 have it. Perhaps, also, I may be able now and then 
 to give you some hints which may be worth your 
 consideration." My old friend, Dr. Maginn, in a 
 letter of the 15th of November, showed that he held 
 the first folio in the same respect as I did myself, 
 but was inclined to treat that and all other authori 
 ties with a licence that appeared to me somewhat 
 dangerous : " I have not any Shakespeare collections 
 by me, though I once made a considerable number 
 of notes with a view of giving an edition, not of the 
 kind you are publishing, but merely critical with 
 reference principally to the state of the text. I con 
 sider with you the first folio to be in the nature of a 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 391 
 
 MS., and therefore to be kept always primarily in 
 view, not of course neglecting the second folio, and 
 the quartos ; but having been reared in a school of 
 criticism in which even MSS. themselves are used, 
 not worshipped, I have no objection to wielding the 
 hook in a manner which you would perhaps consider 
 as slashing as that of Bentley himself." 
 
 Having thus taken up my position with regard to 
 the text, I went on fearlessly and consistently. I 
 preferred perhaps a little too exclusively the autho 
 rity of the folio. I often adopted the text of a reli 
 able quarto, always pointing out the discrepancies of 
 the two editions. But I utterly rejected the principle 
 of making a hash out of two texts, which had been 
 the common practice of the variorum editors. To 
 decide amidst various readings was really a much 
 more difficult task a quarter of a century ago than it 
 would be now, did the text remain precisely in the 
 state in which it was when I began my labours. 
 There did not then exist such a perfect, I might 
 almost say such a wonderful help to memory as Mrs. 
 Cowden Clarke s Concordance. Ayscough s Index 
 was exceedingly imperfect and ill-arranged. The 
 "Verbal Index" of Twiss two rare volumes, which 
 cost me three or four guineas was a book that was 
 to me a perpetual source of perplexity, for the refer 
 ences of a single word to a hundred different places, 
 without the slightest key to its use and significance, 
 led me into a labyrinth whose darkness it was im 
 possible to penetrate. Honoured be the untiring 
 industry and correct judgment of that lady, who 
 came too late to assist me in my first edition, but 
 who has ever since been my reliable aid whenever I 
 was engaged in a critical study of Shakspere. 
 
392 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 My continuous work had sometimes relief when 
 questions arose which were of a more novel and 
 exciting character than textual commentary or even 
 sesthetical criticism. The Merry Wives of Windsor 
 took me back into the old scenes of iny childhood, 
 which I retraced in companionship with one whose 
 mind was as natural and genial as his landscapes are 
 pure and truthful. Thomas Creswick and his wife 
 spent a few weeks with us in a cottage at Salt Hill. 
 A short walk took the painter with his sketch book, 
 and the editor, with his unwritten knowledge of old 
 familiar haunts, into Windsor, and there we might 
 trace the misfortunes of Falstaff, as he was carried 
 " in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane," and 
 thence " slighted into the river where the shore was 
 shelvy and narrow." "About the fields through 
 Frogmore " suggested a stroll in another direction, to 
 find a fit locality for the farm-house where Ann Page 
 was " a feasting." The Windsor town of mediaeval 
 architecture was to be imagined, but the position 
 of its streets with reference to the Castle could be 
 well defined. Mr. Ores wick s charming designs made 
 the Merry Wives of Windsor the gem of the come 
 dies in my edition. But as if Shakspere, the " gentle 
 Shakspere," was to be always provocative of contro 
 versy, I became involved in the discussion of the 
 very doubtful question whether Herne s Oak existed 
 or had been cut down. The subject is stated so fully 
 in my original edition, and, with some additional 
 matter, in the revised issue of the Pictorial Shakspere 
 now publishing, that it is scarcely necessary to add 
 anything to my details of the evidence regarding 
 the controverted points between Mr. Jesse and the 
 (( Quarterly Review/ 1 beyond printing here an extract 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 393 
 
 of a letter to me from Mr. Croker, of the 13th of 
 January, 1842 : 
 
 " Your dissertation on Herne s Oak is conclusive 
 against Mr. Jesse s fable, but there is one point of 
 that fable, of the error of which you cannot be ap 
 prised. Mr. Jesse admits that George IV. frequently 
 stated that George III. had cut down the tree sup 
 posed to be Herne s oak ; but that he always 
 added that it was not so. Now I was the person to 
 whom George IV. told the whole story, and I told it, 
 many years ago, to Mr. Jesse, to whom it was then 
 new, and I can assert that George IV. never added 
 anything like what Mr. Jesse has stated, but quite 
 the reverse. I know not from whom else Mr. Jesse 
 might afterwards have heard the story, nor with 
 what additions ; but his statement that George IV. 
 always told the story with the addition in question, 
 is assuredly not the fact, for he did not so tell it me, 
 and Mr. Jesse first heard the story from me without 
 any such addition. Mr. Jesse asked me to allow him 
 to print my version of the story not at that time 
 stating that he had heard any other version but 
 this I refused, out of delicacy to George IV., who, I 
 think, was still alive, and to the rest of the Royal 
 family, for the fact is, that George IV. told me the 
 story as a proof that his father s mental disorder had 
 shown itself earlier than was generally known ; and 
 all the circumstances of the anecdote and they are 
 very curious tended to show that this cutting down 
 of the tree was an act of temporary derangement. 
 So much for my share in Mr. Jesse s story. In 1838 
 George IV. and even William IV. were dead, and I 
 thought I might, without impropriety, set the 
 substance of the matter right in the Quarterly 
 
394 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 Review/ which I did in the passage you have 
 quoted." 
 
 During my editorial employment upon Twelfth 
 Night, I was led into considerations with regard to 
 Shakspere s domestic character by the perusal of Mr. 
 De Quincey s Life of Shakspere in a Part of the 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica " which had just then 
 appeared. My logical friend had taken up the no 
 tion that a passage in Twelfth Night was a pathetic 
 counsel of the poet in his maturest years " against 
 the errors into which his own inexperience had been 
 ensnared." He maintains that when the duke says 
 to the pretended Cesario 
 
 " Then let thy love be younger than thyself, 
 Or thy affection cannot hold the bent," 
 
 Shakspere intends to notice the disparity of years 
 between himself and his wife. Mr. De Quincey s 
 theory that Shakspere s married life was one of un- 
 happiness, was supported by the dictum of Malone 
 in 1780, who first dragged a passage of Shakspere s 
 Will into light, to prove that in this, his last solemn 
 act, the wife of the rich player of Stratford had not 
 wholly escaped his memory ; but, as more strongly 
 to mark how little he esteemed her, he had " cut her 
 off, not indeed with a shilling, but with an old bed." 
 Steevens considered the bequest of the second best 
 bed as " a mark of peculiar tenderness," and assumed 
 that she was provided for by a settlement. It cer 
 tainly occurred to me that such conjectures and 
 inferences were a mere waste of words. I had made 
 what the critical solvers of historical puzzles call a 
 discovery. Well do I remember the glee with which, 
 having written the following paragraph, I showed 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. . 395 
 
 it to my dear friend, Mr. Thomas Clarke, a sound 
 lawyer, who confirmed my opinion, as fully as did 
 Mr. Long and Mr. Hill, with whom I subsequently 
 discussed the matter. " Shakspere knew the law of 
 England better than his legal commentators. His 
 estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, 
 expressly mentioned in his will, were freehold. His 
 WIFE WAS ENTITLED TO DOWER. She was provided 
 for amply, by the clear and undeniable operation 
 of the English law. Of the houses and gardens 
 which Shakspere inherited from his father, she was as 
 sured of the life-interest of a third, should she survive 
 her husband, the instant that old John Shakspere 
 died. Of the capital messuage, called New Place, 
 the best house in Stratford, which Shakspere pur 
 chased in 1597, she was assured of the same life- 
 interest, from the moment of the conveyance, pro 
 vided it was a direct conveyance to her husband. 
 That it was so conveyed, we may infer from the 
 terms of the conveyance of the lands in Old Strat 
 ford, and other places, which were purchased by 
 Shakspere in 1 602, and were then conveyed to the 
 onlye proper use and behoofe of the saide William 
 Shakespere, his heires and assignes for ever. Of a 
 life-interest in a third of those lands also was she 
 assured. The tenement in Blackfriars, purchased in 
 1614, was conveyed to Shakspere and three other 
 persons, and after his death was re-conveyed by 
 those persons to the uses of his will, for and in per 
 formance of the confidence and trust in them reposed 
 by William Shakespeare deceased. In this estate, 
 certainly, the widow of our poet had not dower." 
 
 In the postscript to Twelfth Night, I had said, 
 adverting to a letter printed by Mr. Collier in his 
 
396 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 " New Facts," " There was one who knew Shakspere 
 well who, illustrious as he was by birth and station, 
 does not hesitate to call him, one of the poor players 
 of Blackfriars, my especial friend who testifies 
 decidedly enough to the public estimation of his 
 domestic conduct." That letter purported to have 
 been written in 1608 by Lord Southampton to Lord 
 Chancellor Ellesmere. I must give another extract 
 from Mr. Croker s correspondence with me on the 
 subject of Shakspere, to show how carefully this 
 friend watched my progress, and with what critical 
 acumen he anticipated the objections of the present 
 day to discoveries of this apocryphal character. " I 
 observe you quote and rely upon the letter signed 
 H. S. discovered among Lord Ellesmere s papers 
 by Mr. Collier. If that letter be genuine I must 
 plead guilty to a great want of critical sagacity, for 
 somehow it smacks to me of modern invention, and 
 all my reconsideration of the subject, and some other 
 circumstances which have since struck me, corrobo 
 rate my doubts. Mr. Collier is, of course, above all 
 suspicion of having any hand in a fabrication, but it 
 appears that one person at least, and perhaps more, 
 had access to the papers before him, though it would 
 seem that the particular bundle appeared not to 
 have been opened since it was first tied up. In 
 short, I see such strong external evidence of authen 
 ticity, and, on the other hand, such internal evidence 
 (in my judgment) of the contrary, that I am 
 puzzled." 
 
 In the spring of 1841 I commenced the publica 
 tion of " Knight s Store of Knowledge for all 
 Readers" a series of original treatises by various 
 authors. It was issued in weekly numbers at two- 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 397 
 
 pence. The first and second numbers were de 
 voted to Shakspere and his writings, and they bore 
 my name as their author. At this period I had 
 finished six volumes of the Pictorial Shakspere, and 
 the seventh, consisting of the doubtful plays and 
 poems, was being printed. I had not yet commenced 
 writing the biography, but I had collected various 
 materials for that object ; had visited Stratford, and 
 had inspected several documents preserved there. I 
 was thus prepared to write the papers in the " Store 
 of Knowledge," with many new materials, and a 
 tolerably complete acquaintance with whatever had 
 been published of this very obscure life. That this 
 unpretending production of mine had supplied a 
 want, I was assured in a letter which I have before 
 me from John Sterling, written in February, 1842, 
 when he was staying at Falmouth. He thanks me 
 for the pleasure and instruction furnished by the 
 first volume of my new edition of Shakspere " The 
 Library Edition," published on the 1st of January, 
 1842, and he then adds, " I had previously read with 
 great delight your convincing and comprehensive 
 Life of the Poet in the Store of Knowledge. I was 
 charmed to find so much external evidence for a 
 view which the study of his style so richly compo 
 site must have more or less obscurely suggested to 
 all intelligent readers." The praise of such a man 
 furnished ample encouragement to me to devote my 
 best exertions to the completion of the " Biography " 
 which I had announced. The outline in the " Store 
 of Knowledge " embodied, with slight variations, the 
 general view which I subsequently elaborated. As 
 those papers have probably passed into oblivion, I 
 shall here attempt a very brief analysis of the 
 
398 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 portions in which I expressed my strong objections, 
 or grave doubts, as to much that had been previously 
 given to the world as the authentic facts of Shak- 
 spere s life. My discovery as to his wife s dower, 
 had perhaps made me a little too sceptical perhaps 
 a little too rash, in regard to many of the stories 
 embodied in the elaborate "Life of William Shak- 
 speare," by Edmund Malone, which occupies .nearly 
 three hundred pages of the edition of 1821. I had 
 earned that volume with me to Stratford in my first 
 visit just noticed ; and during my few days sojourn 
 there, had made many marginal notes, for the most 
 part recording my first doubts of the received biogra 
 phies. At the head of the section in which it is 
 attempted to prove that Shakspere s father was an 
 impoverished and dishonoured man, I find written, 
 u It appears to me that all this may be pounded into 
 nothing." 
 
 About six months afterwards, I published in my 
 Pictorial Edition, an "Illustration of the Sonnets." 
 In this elaborate analysis I worked out my theory 
 that the poems of Shakspere, which Meres had, in 
 1598, termed his "sugared sonnets," amongst his 
 private friends, when published as "never before 
 imprinted," in 1609, " were a collection of ( Sibylline 
 leaves rescued from the perishableness of their writ 
 ten state, by some person who had access to the high 
 and brilliant circle in which Shakspere was esteemed ; 
 and that this person s scrap-book, necessarily imper 
 fect and pretending to no order, found its way to the 
 hands of a bookseller, who was too happy to give to 
 that age what its most distinguished man had written 
 at various periods, for his own amusement, and for 
 the gratification of his private friends. " 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 399 
 
 I commenced the composition of " William Shak 
 spere, a Biography," at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the 
 summer of 1842. The first book, comprising about 
 half the volume, was published in November of that 
 year. This portion embraces the scanty materials 
 for a life of Shakspere properly so called, up to the 
 period when he left Stratford to enter upon his dra 
 matic career in London. But I endeavoured to 
 associate Shakspere with the circumstances around 
 him, in a manner which might fix them in the mind 
 of the reader by exciting his interest. I might have 
 accomplished the same end by somewhat extending 
 the notice in the "Store of Knowledge," accompanied 
 by a History of Manners and Customs, a History 
 of the Stage, &c., &c. The form of my biography 
 might appear fanciful. It has been called by a 
 prosaic critic a burlesque. But the narrative essen 
 tially rested upon facts, and if criticism required me 
 to move in the old tramway, I was content to have 
 chosen a byway more circuitous, but probably more 
 pleasing. 
 
CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 HE "Penny Cyclopaedia" was finished in 
 twenty-seven volumes, in the spring of 
 1844. The notion of a Supplement had 
 not then been matured. The work was 
 deemed complete, as far as the efforts of the editor 
 and his contributors could keep pace with the rapid 
 march of invention, the improvements of legislation, 
 and the onward rush of every department of 
 knowledge. It is in the very nature of such works that 
 they must be to some extent imperfect. Not Argus 
 with his hundred eyes could note down all the me 
 tamorphoses of Time, the great magician, as lie calls 
 them into life. 
 
 Soon after the close of this labour of eleven years, 
 I received an honour upon which I look back as one 
 of my unalloyed " Pleasures of Memory." It comes 
 before me now with the vagueness of an agreeable 
 dream. To give some precision to my recollections, a 
 friend transcribed for me, from the vast file of news 
 papers in the British Museum, some paragraphs 
 from those of June, 1844. I will give one from 
 the " Athenaeum" of the 15th of that month: 
 " Change is our order the order of the nineteenth 
 century ; and, in marking progress, we may record 
 here that authors and publishers seem about to 
 handy-dandy/ and that the contributors to the 
 Penny Cyclopaedia, and some personal friends, 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 401 
 
 have given Mr. Charles Knight a sumptuous enter 
 tainment at the Albion Tavern, on the completion of 
 that work." The word "handy-dandy" may send 
 my readers to their Shakspere : " Change places, and 
 handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the 
 thief? " This were an unsavoury allusion to the 
 change indicated above ; if there were any meaning 
 intended. But perhaps the " Athenaeum" had turned 
 to Todd s "Johnson," and had there found this de 
 finition : " A play amongst children, in which some 
 thing is shaken between two hands, and then a guess 
 is made in which hand it is retained." There was 
 little of the material reward of industry to be retained 
 in my palm had it been ever so " itching ; " and this 
 my "authors" knew. But when one individual 
 amongst " publishers " received such an unusual com 
 pliment as was bestowed upon me, I trust that I may 
 regard the circumstance in the spirit of the " Athe 
 naeum " as " marking progress " in the relations be 
 tween two classes that were generally considered 
 natural enemies, but whose interests are identical and 
 ought never to be separated. 
 
 Upon reflection, I do not think it would be seemly 
 in me to present my own recollections of the circum 
 stances attending this dinner. Nor could I faithfully 
 do so. I was at once joyous and frightened in my 
 novel position. As to remembering what I said 
 myself, in returning thanks, it comes before me "like 
 a tangled chain." One thing I recollect. I quoted 
 from Joan of Arc s speech in Henry VI. 
 
 Glory is like a circle in the water, 
 "Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, 
 Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought. " 
 
 And then I ejaculated "not so knowledge." 
 
402 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 But I must give some relation of this dinner ; and 
 I therefore blend portions of the reports of "The 
 Times " and the " Morning Chronicle," without any 
 deviation of phrase. 
 
 " On the suggestion of several eminent persons, 
 it was proposed to give an entertainment to Mr. 
 Knight, in celebration of the successful completion 
 of the " Penny Cyclopsedia," and to express their 
 sense of the value and usefulness of the literary un 
 dertakings in which he has been engaged as editor or 
 publisher. Accordingly a large party met on Wed 
 nesday evening at the Albion Tavern. 
 
 " The Chair was taken by Lord Brougham ; and 
 amongst the company assembled were Lord Wrot- 
 tesley, the Rev. Mr. Jones the tithe commissioner, 
 Mr. Bellenden Ker, Mr. John Lefevre, Mr. Parkes, 
 Professor Key, Professor Long, Mr. M. D. Hill, Mr. 
 Christie, M. P., Mr. Chadwick, Mr. Porter of the 
 Board of Trade, and a host of literary and scientific 
 gentlemen, as well as influential individuals con 
 nected with the publishing world. 
 
 " Lord Brougham, in proposing the health of Mr. 
 Knight, dwelt on the various services which, in con 
 nection with the Useful Knowledge Society, he had 
 been enabled to render towards the advancement of 
 society in moral as well as intellectual knowledge ; 
 pointed out especially the grea,t service he did to the 
 state in writing and publishing his two little works, 
 "The Rights of Industry" and "The Results of 
 Machinery" two publications which, at a time of 
 great public excitement, were eminently conducive 
 to allaying the reckless spirit which, in 1830, was 
 leading multitudes to destroy property and break 
 up machines. He also pointed out what Mr. Knight 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 403 
 
 Lad done in editing and illustrating Shakspcre ; in 
 the projection and carrying on of the Penny Ma 
 gazine ; and the completion of the Penny Cy 
 clopaedia. 
 
 " Mr. Knight s health was drunk with much enthu 
 siasm, and he returned thanks in a very expressive 
 manner, modestly urging the greater services of Pro 
 fessor -Long, the editor, in the completion of the 
 Penny Cyclopaedia. The Chairman, after tendering 
 apologies for the absence of Lord Denman, Lord 
 John Russell, and Dr. Lushington, proposed the 
 health of Professor Long, who duly returned thanks, 
 and called on the assembly to thank the contributors 
 whose valuable aid he had received. After a few 
 words from Professor Key, Mr. Weir proposed the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, to 
 which Lord Wrottesley responded. 
 
 " Some excellent speeches were made during the 
 evening, especially one by Mr. M. D. Hill, who 
 pointed out that the Pictorial History of England/ 
 projected by Mr. Knight, had realised a long-cherished 
 idea, that of seeing a history of England which would 
 make the people and the progress of national insti 
 tutions a prominent feature. To this toast Mr. 
 Craik responded. The Rev. Mr. Jones, who proposed 
 the health of Lord Brougham, was warmly applauded 
 in declaring that neither the Church nor religion had 
 anything to fear from the spread of useful knowledge, 
 but, on the contrary, its diffusion was tributary to the 
 highest and best interests of mankind." 
 
 In connection with the paragraph respecting the 
 dinner at the Albion which I have quoted from the 
 " Athenaeum," was the following notice : " We may 
 add, as equally significant of the change that is 
 
404 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 coming over the spirit of the age, that Her Majesty 
 has been pleased to signify, through Sir Henry 
 Wheatley, her desire that copies of Mr. Knight s 
 forthcoming publications, entitled Knight s Weekly 
 Volume, should be supplied to the libraries esta 
 blished at all the palaces." 
 
 The " change that is coming over the spirit of the 
 age " had probably some regard to times happily long 
 past, when literature was the toy of a king and his 
 courtesans, or the scorn of another crowned head who 
 hated "Boets and Bainters." There was a period 
 nearer to our own when the great were considered 
 the exclusive patrons of letters. Queen Victoria 
 upheld " the spirit of the age " in her gracious sup 
 port of a series of books professedly cheaper than 
 any collection that had previously existed. The 
 undertaking had several features of novelty, and of 
 general interest. I was proud of the patronage of 
 the Queen. Perhaps I was equally pleased with the 
 encouragement I received from a distinguished writer, 
 with whom I had not then the happiness of that inti 
 mate acquaintance which I have subsequently enjoyed. 
 On the 4th of June, I received a letter from Mr. 
 Charles Dickens, who had seen my Prospectus, and 
 pronounced " the whole scheme full of the highest 
 interest." He adds : " If I can ever be of the 
 feeblest use in advancing a project so intimately con 
 nected with an end on which my heart is set the 
 liberal education of the people I shall be sincerely 
 glad. All good wishes and success attend you." 
 
 The prospectus to which Mr. Dickens refers was 
 entitled " Book-Clubs for all Headers." It set forth 
 that one of the first attempts, and it was a successful 
 one, to establish a cheap Book-Club was made by 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 405 
 
 Robert Burns. He had founded a Society at Tarbol- 
 ton, called the Bachelors Club, which met monthly 
 for the purposes of discussion and conversation. But 
 this was a club without books ; for the fines levied 
 upon the members were spent in conviviality. Having 
 changed his residence to Mauchline, a similar club 
 was established there, but with one important altera 
 tion : the fines were set apart for the purchase of 
 books, and the first work bought was " The Mirror," 
 by Henry Mackenzie. The prospectus went on to 
 notice that, in 1825, Mr. Brougham, in his " Practical 
 Observations upon the Education of the People," had 
 maintained that Book-Clubs or Reading Societies 
 might be established bv small numbers of contribu- 
 
 o / 
 
 tors, and would require only an inconsiderable fund. 
 He says having mentioned a few works which were 
 then in existence " I would here remark the great 
 effect of combination upon such plans, in making the 
 money of individuals go far. Three -halfpence a week, 
 laid by in a whole family, will enable it to purchase 
 in a year one of the cheap volumes of which I have 
 spoken above ; and a penny a week would be sufficient, 
 were the publications made as cheap as possible. Now, 
 let only a few neighbours join, say ten or twelve, and 
 lend each other the books bought, and it is evident 
 that, for a price so small as to be within the reach of 
 the poorest labourer, all may have full as many books 
 in the course of the year as it is possible for them to 
 read, even supposing that the books bought by every 
 one are not such as all the others desire to have." 
 
 The publications which I proposed to make "as 
 cheap as possible," would enable a family to purchase 
 four separate books at the end of a year by laying by 
 a penny a week. But if twelve neighbours, or twelve 
 
406 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 fellow- workmen^ or twelve apprentices, or twelve 
 school boys, were to form a book-club to which each 
 should contribute a penny a week, the association 
 would find itself at the end of the year in possession 
 of fifty-two of "Knight s Weekly Volumes," to be 
 preserved as a Joint-Stock Library, or sold to the 
 highest bidder, according to the plan of expensive 
 Book-Clubs. The first " Weekly Volume" was pub 
 lished on the 29th of June, 1844. 
 
 The series of the " Weekly Volume " was com 
 menced with a book written by myself, " William 
 Caxton, the first English Printer, a Biography." 
 During the course of two years, one hundred and 
 five volumes were issued regularly, the weekly 
 publication not having been omitted in a single 
 instance. The subjects had always been selected 
 upon a plan which had (in the course of this time) 
 attained a certain completeness ; and a little library 
 having been formed, equally suited to Book Clubs 
 and private purchasers, it was unnecessary to con 
 tinue the publication at the rapid rate which had 
 been previously thought desirable. The "Weekly 
 Volume " then became the " Shilling Volume." In 
 the monthly issue it was continued for two more 
 years. I shall have occasion briefly to refer to the 
 series in the next epoch of my "Working Life," for 
 some books of original value were comprised in it, 
 and their writers merit especial mention. The 
 editorial conduct of the Series was to me a labour of 
 love. The success, and the reputation which it 
 acquired, compensated me for the falling off in the 
 demand for the " Penny Magazine," for which there 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 407 
 
 were many causes ; particularly the extended sale of 
 newspapers, and the application of wood -engravings 
 to their illustration. To close the story of my 
 literary connection with the Society for the Diffu 
 sion of Useful Knowledge, I will here advert to 
 the last days of the popular miscellany upon which 
 I had laboured for fourteen years. 
 
 The "Penny Magazine" of the Society for the 
 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge terminated on the 
 27th of December, 1845. In 1841, after the pub 
 lication of nine volumes of the original form and 
 character, a second series was issued, which is 
 comprised in five volumes. I may truly say that 
 the object of the change was to present to a pubiic 
 which had been advancing in education, a Miscellany 
 of a higher character than the first series. The 
 engravings were superior ; the writing was less 
 " ramble-scramble." There were a series of articles 
 on the great Italian painters, by Mrs. Jameson. 
 During three years the factories of London and the 
 country were visited by Mr. Dodd and a competent 
 artist, to provide descriptions of all our great manu 
 factories. Mr. Thorne wrote papers of a topogra 
 phical nature, which indicated the talent and 
 knowledge which he would subsequently display 
 in "Rambles by Rivers." Mr. Saunders wrote a 
 series of clever articles on " The Canterbury Tales." 
 And yet the sale fell off. The superintendence of 
 the Society had merged in my individual responsi 
 bility as editor when I announced a new "Penny 
 Magazine." It was thenceforth to be chiefly a 
 magazine of reading ; woodcuts no longer continuing 
 to be the prominent feature in the work. I took 
 a zealous interest in this little Miscellany. In the 
 
 18 
 
408 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : 
 
 first number I republished one of Praed s charming 
 Enigmas, with an illustration by Harvey. I also 
 then commenced a series entitled " The Caricaturist s 
 Portrait Gallery." John Wilkes, by Hogarth ; 
 Charles Churchill, by Hogarth ; Lord North, as the 
 State-Coachman asleep ; Burke throwing down the 
 Dagger these, with brief biographical notices, con 
 stituted a novel feature, which I would recommend 
 some weekly or monthly provider of light literature 
 to take up. Of Praed s Enigmas I published 
 fourteen. In the desire to prevent the memory of 
 my early friend from falling into oblivion amongst 
 a new generation, I gave " Some Specimens "" of his 
 writings in addition, with a brief memoir. In 1839 
 this extraordinary genius died in the prime of life. 
 "Knight s Penny Magazine," as the miscellany 
 which commenced in January, 1846, was called, had 
 a short existence. In the sixth monthly part, I thus 
 announced its discontinuance : " The present Series 
 of the Penny Magazine is closed after an experi 
 ment of only six months. The Editor has no reason 
 to complain of the want of public encouragement, for 
 the sale of this Series has exceeded that of its 
 predecessor in 1845. But the sale, such as it is, is 
 scarcely remunerating ; and there are indications 
 that it may decline rather than increase. This is a 
 hint which cannot be mistaken. It shall not be said 
 of his humble efforts to continue, upon an equality 
 with the best of his contemporaries, a publication 
 which once had a decided pre-eminence, that 
 
 Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage." 
 
 He leaves this portion of popular literature to be 
 cultivated by those whose new energy may be worth 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 409 
 
 more than his old experience. The Penny Maga 
 zine shall begin and end with him. It shall not 
 pass into other hands." 
 
 Three months before I had thus put an end to my 
 participation in the good or the evil of the Penny 
 Press, the Committee of the Society for the Diffu 
 sion of Useful Knowledge announced the suspen 
 sion of their operations. Their "Address," dated 
 March 11, 1846, offered an explanation of their 
 motives for this step. The circumstances attending 
 the publication of the " Biographical Dictionary" 
 had led to this determination. The Society had 
 undertaken this great work at its own risk. It now 
 felt what it was to engage in a serial publication 
 that was not likely to be concluded during ten or 
 more years, and to find the public support altogether 
 inadequate to defray its literary expenditure. A 
 Society can do what an individual can not dare to 
 achieve. It could leave the battle-field. It was not 
 so with me, when the " Penny Cyclopaedia " was 
 dragging me down. The Society had a charter, and 
 might some day renew its active life : 
 
 " He that fights and runs away, 
 May live to fight another day." 
 
 Had I not fought on to the end of my perilous 
 commercial enterprise, I should have been disgraced. 
 Individual members of the Committee subscribed 
 liberally to keep on their " Biographical Dictionary," 
 and no one more generously than Earl Spencer. Had 
 his death not occurred during the struggle to meet 
 the loss of this bold commercial undertaking, it is 
 probable that the Society would not have thus sung 
 its requiem : 
 
410 PASSAGES OF A WOBKING LIFE: 
 
 "Though the Committee always counted upon 
 a loss, or at the best upon a deficiency which could 
 not be made good until long after the completion of 
 the work, neither they, nor others more conversant 
 with the chances of the bookselling-trade, were at 
 all prepared to expect so large a deficiency as ap 
 peared by the time the letter A was completed. On 
 these seven half-volumes the excess of expenditure 
 above receipts amounts to nearly 5000Z. Of this loss, 
 more than half, it appears, has been sustained by the 
 Society, and the remainder of the subscriptions and 
 donations which have been announced from time to 
 time. Though the first sale of the work was en 
 couraging, as giving some reason to hope that it 
 would shortly rise to such a point as might enable 
 the Committee to proceed steadily to the end, yet it 
 was found that the average rate of sale of the seven 
 half-volumes produced the defalcation above alluded 
 to. And careful estimates showed that, under exist 
 ing circumstances, an additional sum of at least 
 15,OOOZ. must be sunk. A work commenced in parts 
 ought to be continued to the full extent which the 
 capital of the undertaker will allow. The Society 
 has obeyed this reasonable rule, and has exhausted 
 its resources." 
 
 The Committee with perfect justice turn away 
 from the contemplation of one failure to rejoice over 
 a long continued success : " The Society s work is 
 done, for its greatest object is achieved fully, fairly, 
 and permanently. The public is supplied with cheap 
 and good literature to an extent which the most 
 sanguine friend of human improvement could not 
 in 1826, have hoped to have witnessed in twenty 
 years." 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH. 411 
 
 But there was a temporary evil to counterbalance 
 this permanent success. All the cheap literature 
 was not good at the period of this triumphant re 
 trospect. This was a circumstance that was suffi 
 ciently mortifying to those who, like myself, had 
 formed an over sanguine estimate of the benefit that 
 was likely to result from the general diffusion of 
 the ability to read. The " Penny Magazine " and 
 " Chambers s Journal " had, in 1832, driven the 
 greater number of noxious publications out of the 
 field. The great body of the people appeared satis 
 fied with good solid food, without any inordinate 
 craving for stale pastry, and with an utter disrelish 
 of offal. But a taste for garbage, cooked up for the 
 satisfaction of the lowest appetite, seemed to have 
 returned. I made no lamentation over the cheapness 
 which had become excessive. I did not regret that 
 there was a competition going on in cheap weekly 
 publications which was wholly unprecedented. In 
 1846, fourteen penny and penny-halfpenny Maga 
 zines, twelve Economical and Social Journals, and 
 thirty-seven weekly sheets, forming separate books, 
 were to be found in the shops of many regular 
 booksellers, and on the counters of all the small 
 dealers in periodicals that had started up through 
 out the country. The cheapness was accomplished 
 in some by pilfering from every copyright work 
 that came in their way. There were very few of 
 these publications whose writers were paid for origi 
 nal articles upon a scale as liberal as that of the best 
 reviews -and magazines. There were some of a cha 
 racter to render the principle of cheapness dangerous 
 and disgusting. In the concluding address of 
 " Knight s Penny Magazine/ I said : " The editor 
 
412 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 rejoices that there are many in the field, and some 
 who have come at the eleventh hour, who deserve the 
 wages of zealous and faithful labourers. But there are 
 others who are carrying out the principle of cheap 
 weekly sheets, to the disgrace of the system, and 
 who appear to have got some considerable hold 
 upon the less-informed of the working people, and 
 especially upon the young. There are manufactories 
 in London whence hundreds of reams of vile paper and 
 printing issue weekly ; where large bodies of children 
 are employed to arrange types, at the wages of 
 shirt-makers, from copy furnished by the most 
 ignorant, at the wages of scavengers. In truth, such 
 writers, if they deserve the name of writers, are 
 scavengers. All the garbage that belongs to the 
 history of crime and misery is raked together, to 
 diffuse a moral miasma through the land, in the 
 shape of the most vulgar and brutal fiction. Penny 
 Magazines, and Edinburgh Journals/ and Weekly 
 Instructors, and People s Journals/ have little 
 chance of circulation amongst the least-informed 
 class, who most require sound knowledge, while the 
 cheap booksellers shops are filled with such things 
 as Newgate, a Romance/ The Black Mantle, or the 
 Murder at the old Jewry/ The Spectre of the Hall/ 
 The Love-Child/ The Feast of Blood/ The Con 
 vict/ and twenty others, all of the same exciting 
 character to the young and ignorant. But the detri 
 mental exercise of the printing-press is only to be 
 met by its wholesome employment. He has no fear 
 for the righteous cause of cheap literature." 
 
 My conviction that the cheap press would purify 
 itself was realised in another decade. I had given a 
 name to the wholesome literature for the people, 
 
THE SECOND EPOCH.. 413 
 
 "The Fountain" the noxious I had called "The 
 Sewer." But I contended, as I had ever done, that 
 the Paper Duty was an insurmountable barrier to 
 the diffusion of publications that should combine the 
 qualities of literary excellence and extreme cheap 
 ness. I maintained that to thrust out the noxious 
 publications, the supply of the higher class must be 
 abundant ; the quality of the writing must be of the 
 best, for to write well for the people is the rarest, 
 of literary qualifications ; lastly, the price must as 
 nearly as possible approach to the cost of the mis 
 chievous production. Whatever interferes with the 
 circulation of the higher periodicals by increasing 
 their price whatever tends to render a false economy 
 necessary, by lowering their payment for the best 
 literary labour interferes with one of the most im 
 portant instruments of National Education, using 
 the term in its highest sense. Such were the inju 
 rious consequences of the Paper Duty. That long 
 disputed question has now been settled. The total 
 repeal of this impost took place after my commercial 
 career was in a great degree closed. How this tax 
 weighed me down in the production of the " Penny 
 Cyclopaedia," I have related in a pamphlet of 1850, 
 which was often quoted in Parliament, and which 
 has some interest as a matter of literary history. I 
 give the most material passage as a Note to this 
 Chapter. 
 
NOTE TO CHAPTER XX. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM " THE STRUGGLES OF A BOOK AGAINST 
 EXCESSIVE TAXATION." BY CHARLES KNIGHT. 1850. 
 
 ON the 1st of January, 1833, I commenced the publica 
 tion of THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA, in Numbers and Monthly 
 Parts. 
 
 This work was entirely original. It was projected by 
 myself, and published under the Superintendence of the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But the 
 entire cost and risk were borne by me. The total cost for 
 Literature and Engravings was 42,000?. 
 
 The Penny Cyclopaedia and its Supplement were com 
 pleted in 1846. The two works contain 15,764 pages, and 
 the quantity of Paper required to produce a single copy is 
 2 Reams, each weighing 35 Ibs. At the period of its com 
 pletion, the entire quantity of Paper consumed in the work 
 was FIFTY THOUSAND REAMS, the total weight of which 
 amounted to ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY 
 THOUSAND POUNDS. Of this weight 20,000 Reams, or 
 700,000 Ibs., paid the Excise Duty of Threepence per lb., 
 amounting to 8750?. ; and the remaining 30,000 Reams 
 paid the reduced Duty of Three-halfpence per lb. (commenc 
 ing in 1837) upon 1,050,000 Ibs., amounting to 6562?. 
 The total Duty paid up to the completion of the Cyclopaedia, 
 in 1846, was 15,312?. Since that period 2000 Reams of 
 Paper have been used in reprinting, to correct the inequali 
 ties of the Stock, making an addition of 70,000 Ibs., excised 
 at 437?. But further, the Wrappers for the Monthly Parts 
 have used 1500 Reams of Paper, taxed at 500?., and the 
 Milled Boards employed in binding the Volumes have been 
 also taxed about 300?. THE TOTAL PAYMENT TO THE 
 
416 NOTE. 
 
 EXCISE BY THE PENNY CYCLOPAEDIA HAS BEEN SIXTEEN 
 THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS. 
 
 I propose to show, 
 
 1. That this excessive burthen upon the great work to 
 which I have devoted seventeen years of toil and 
 anxiety, has been the primary cause that the enter 
 prise has not yet been remunerative. 
 
 2. That the continuance of the Paper Duty, at the 
 present rate of Three-halfpence per lb., prevents me 
 undertaking the publication of a new and improved 
 edition, upon its first plan of a continuous alphabe~ 
 tical arrangement. 
 
 1. The positive burthen of Sixteen thousand five hundred 
 Pounds imposed by the State upon the publication of one 
 book, is far from representing the difficulty and loss which 
 that payment has entailed upon the undertaking. 
 
 It is well known that the amount of a duty upon raw 
 material by no means represents the amount of the charge 
 which it entails upon the manufacturer. Mr. MacCulloch 
 and Mr. Porter rightly state that the price for a ream of 
 one particular sort of printing paper was in 1831, twenty- 
 four shillings, in 1843, fifteen shillings and sixpence. 
 From 1833 to 1837, the price of a Ream of Penny Cyclo 
 paedia Paper was thirty-three shillings ; from 1838 to 1846, 
 it was twenty-four shillings. The difference in price was 
 nine shillings per ream ; the amount of reduced duty was 
 four shillings and fourpence halfpenny. The paper-makers 
 and the stationers doubled the tax.* But even at the 
 reduced rate it has been satisfactorily shown by my fellow- 
 labourers, the Messrs. Chambers, that the Duty enters one- 
 third into price. Unquestionably, if the Duty were now 
 removed, I could buy a Ream of similar paper for seventeen 
 shillings. The tax, preventing competition, and giving 
 
 * "Whatever renders a larger capital necessary in any trade or 
 business, limits .the competition in that business ; and by giving 
 something like a monopoly to a few dealers, enables them to keep 
 up the price beyond what would afford the ordinary rate of profit." 
 John Mill, Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 388. If 
 the tax annihilates profits in a secondary process, such as the con 
 version of paper into books, it is easy to understand how the 
 monopoly becomes complete. 
 
NOTE. 417 
 
 undue advantages to capitalists, had the effect of making 
 me pay for my Paper, from 1833 to 1837, sixteen shillings 
 a Ream more than the price of untaxed Paper would be, or 
 Sixteen thousand Pounds upon 20,000 Reams ; and from 
 1838 to 1846, seven shillings per Ream more than I should 
 otherwise have paid, which upon 30,000 Reams amounts to 
 Ten thousand five hundred Pounds. The tax therefore 
 operated as a burthen upon my publication to the extent of 
 TWENTY-SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS, during its 
 long and difficult progress to completion. The paper since 
 used for Reprints, and the paper for Wrappers, has been 
 raised in price 2500?. by the same process. 
 
 The Struggles of one Book against excessive Taxation are, up 
 to this point, to be measured by a burthen of TWENTY-NINE 
 THOUSAND POUNDS. 
 
 But I have not yet done. The tax has been working 
 against the Penny Cyclopaedia for seventeen years, in the 
 chronic form of interest and compound interest. 
 
 It was very long before the periodical sale settled into a 
 regular quantity. The work became too extensive for the 
 great bulk of purchasers. For the first few months of the 
 publication the sale was double what it was at the end of 
 the first year. The sale of the first year doubled that of 
 the fourth year. The sale of the fourth year doubled that 
 of the eighth year, and then it found its level and became 
 steady to the end, reduced from 55,000 at the commence 
 ment, to 20,000 at the conclusion. Every publisher of a 
 periodical work knows the accumulation of Stock that must 
 inevitably take place with a falling demand. There never 
 was a period after the third year at which I had less than 
 Five thousand Reams of the Penny Cyclopaedia in my 
 Warehouse ; upon which Duty had been paid, for some 
 portion at the high duty, and for some at the low, averaging 
 1500?. In 1841 there were in my Warehouse 1200 Reams 
 upon which the high duty, expiring in 1837, had been paid. 
 I consider the accumulating interest in this investment, in 
 actually paid Duty, upon dead Stock, to have amounted, in 
 the seventeen years during which I have been labouring to 
 sell that Stock, to 1500?., and including the interest upon 
 the extra price charged by the paper-manufacturer upon the 
 Duty, to 3000?. 
 
 And here, then, will the usual conclusion arise, that the 
 
418 NOTE. 
 
 Publisher has not boriue this load of Thirty-two thousand 
 Pounds imposed by the State upon the Penny Cyclopaedia, 
 but the purchasers of the Penny Cyclopaedia. My answer 
 is very direct. Had that sum of 32,000?. been actually 
 saved to me, I should not have been a pound richer by the 
 publication of the Penny Cyclopaedia. But with the saving 
 I should not have been to that amount poorer. The 
 outlay was so great, that it could never pay its expenses 
 under a sale of 36,000 copies with the high duty. In the 
 first five years that average number was printed ; but the 
 accumulation of Stock locked up 10,000?. Under the low 
 duty it paid its expenses at 30,000 copies. The actual 
 average sale during the nine years of that duty was 20,000. 
 It would have required that there should have been no 
 Paper Duty at all to have paid its expenses on a sale of 
 20,000. Had the Duty not been reduced by one-half at 
 the end of 1836, I could not by any possibility have carried 
 on the work. As it was, I struggled to the end. 
 
 2. The reduced Paper Duty, as I have undertaken to 
 show, prevents me making the best use of the valuable 
 Copyright which remains to me, now that the accumulated 
 Stock is in great part exhausted. 
 
 I was advised to propose a Subscription for an entirely 
 new Edition. The highest Personage in the realm accorded 
 me Her support, and so did Her admirable Consort, who is 
 doing for Science and Industry what is worth far more than 
 any money value. Some of the most eminent in the walks 
 of intellect also came forward to aid me. Of the support of 
 the Members of the Legislature which taxed me during 
 fourteen years, I have not much to boast. I have given up 
 the design. Upon a sale that would have merely returned 
 my new outlay, the Paper Duty would have burtheried the 
 work to the extent of 3000?. Its abandonment would have 
 lightened my risk to the extent of making the work yield 
 me as high a profit from 3000 subscribers, as from 4000 
 subscribers with the Duty continued. With this encourage 
 ment I should have gone on. 
 
 There is a steady demand for the existing edition of the 
 Penny Cyclopaedia, to the extent of 250 Sets annually. 
 The Paper Duty prevents me meeting this demand with any 
 moderate commercial profit. The technical explanation is 
 not difficult to be understood : If I print 250 Copies only 
 
NOTE. 419 
 
 I use 500 Reams of Paper, of which the Duty is 4s. 6d 
 each, and the necessary increase of manufacturer s price 
 2s. 6c?., making a charge, arising out of the Duty, of 7s. 
 per Ream, or 175?. upon 250 Copies. But in printing only 
 250 Copies I have to pay for the Presswork, as high as 15s. 
 per Ream ; whereas if I printed 500, I should only pay 10s. 
 As the number of a book first printed increases, the cost of 
 Presswork, or Machine-work, diminishes ; and for this rea 
 son a tax upon the raw material of a book, Paper, increasing 
 the risk of printing a large impression, compels a smaller 
 impression, at a higher cost. But if there were no Paper 
 Duty, I should print 500 Copies, by which I should save 
 350?. in the price of Paper, and 250?. in the price of Press- 
 work ; making a saving of 600?. This outlay of 600?. is 
 imposed upon me absolutely by the existence of the Paper 
 Duty ; and that fact will possibly compel me to give up 
 reprinting a Book which has done more for the advancement 
 of sound knowledge and general education in these kingdoms, 
 than any work ever produced in any country. That 600?. 
 saved would afford me an income which would allow me to 
 invest capital in such a Reprint. Printing only 250 Copies 
 at the present price of Paper, a set of this book would cost 
 me 1000?. My net profit upon that outlay would not be 
 1 per cent. 
 
 And -with all this danger and difficulty with " this lion 
 in my path " I am not yet beaten. I have my valuable 
 copyright of the Penny Cyclopaedia remaining to me ; and 
 I have passed many an anxious hour in seeing how I can 
 best turn it to account. I am about to publish a Series of 
 separate Cyclopcedias, with large improvements, and I begin 
 with a Cyclopaedia of British Geography, and a Cyclopaedia 
 of Arts and Industry. Let me show the exact track which 
 " the lion in my path" drives me to seek ; and then some 
 of those legislators who find that a fashionable novel, sold 
 at a guinea and a half, pays about fourpence Paper Duty, 
 and thence conclude that it is the lightest of taxes, and by 
 all means should be preserved especially as books, as they 
 hold, are not necessaries of life some of those who 
 
 " Hate not learning worse than toad or asp-" 
 may know what it is to maintain a tax upon knowledge, 
 
420 NOTE. 
 
 struggling to preserve its high rank and its useful extension 
 amidst the widest competition of cheapness. 
 
 Upon these four volumes, estimated to contain about 3000 
 pages, I shall expend 1500?. upon new editorial labour. I 
 shall further expend about 1000?. upon new plates and 
 maps. The printer s charge for setting up the types will be 
 8001 ; and the cost of stereotyping will be 500?. Add for 
 advertising 200?. ; and I have thus to expend 4000?. as a 
 first outlay, whether I sell 500 copies or 5000. At the 
 present cost of paper, 3000 copies (the least number I could 
 print with advantage) will amount to 1500?. ; the Press- 
 work will cost 500?. : total 6000?. The 3000 copies, pro 
 duced upon this scale, will exactly cover my outlay, without 
 a shilling profit. But let us see how the account would 
 stand with the price of paper reduced one-third by the abo 
 lition of the duty. My course would then be to print 4000 
 copies, and not stereotype, which process is chiefly employed 
 to save the outlay of capital in taxed paper. The first out 
 lay is therefore 3500?. ; the Paper for 4000 Copies, at the 
 lower untaxed price, would cost me 1333?. ; the Presswork 
 600?. (reduced per ream on account of the larger number). 
 I produce, therefore, 4000 copies for 5433?., instead of 3000 
 copies for 6000?. I expend less by 567?., and I have 1000 
 copies left to sell for my profit. I could sell 4000 copies, 
 under these circumstances, more easily than 3000 as 1 now 
 stand, for I could afford to advertise more freely, and to 
 offer higher inducements to retailers. This is something 
 different from a fourpenny tax upon a fashionable novel. 
 
PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 HE greater portion of my Second Epoch 
 was written at Ventnor, in the Isle of 
 Wight. I had spent the winter there 
 with my family, and quitted it when the 
 spring seemed at once passing into summer, and 
 there was such an outburst of leaf and blossom as 
 I had rarely witnessed in the early days of May. 
 What a region of beauty is the Undercliff in all 
 seasons. Winter rarely touches it with an icy finger. 
 When " yellow leaves, or none, or few " hang upon 
 the boughs that mingle with fallen crags, their bare 
 ness is hidden by the glossy ivy. In March it is a 
 land of evergreens ; in June a land of " flowers of 
 all hues." It is scarcely a place in which to pass 
 " a working life ; " but it is a place in which it is 
 good to look back upon the turmoil of such a life 
 its vain cares, its disappointed hopes, and to see 
 what was once deemed the highest good fading into 
 nothingness, and the instant evil melting into a 
 twilight in which good and evil wear the same pas 
 sionless and almost shapeless features. We unwil 
 lingly left the Undercliff, which had long been to me 
 a spot sacred to friendship, when the friend was a 
 perennial source of delight to all who had the happi 
 ness to know him. It has become to me even more 
 sacred, now that he lies in the most beautiful of 
 churchyards, that of his long-loved Bonchurch. 
 
424 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 We moved for the summer to a very different 
 scene, but one, to my mind, equally attractive. I 
 commence the story of my Third Epoch on the banks 
 of the Thames, above Kingston. We are the tenants 
 of an artist, whose spacious and quaint studio where 
 I write is fitted by its seclusion for calling up the 
 most abstracted memories of the Past. The river 
 flows rapidly beneath my window, under the shadow 
 of lofty elms which have flourished for a century, 
 and by gay villas which proclaim the changes which 
 have marked the era of rapid communication. And 
 yet the Present is constantly in view, in the con 
 tinuous stream of human life, which appears to move 
 on as if it were always " a sunshine holiday." 
 
 There was no lack of abundant materials for the 
 new series, in copyrights in which I had an interest. 
 Some might be reprinted without alteration, others 
 could be adapted by their writers. Lord Brougham s 
 Statesmen of the Time of George the Third ; his 
 Dialogues on Instinct, and his edition of Paley s 
 Natural Theology, were of this character. Mr. 
 Lane s Modern Egyptians, and Sir John Davis s 
 Manners and Customs of the Chinese, were in the 
 same way valuable works, expensive in their original 
 form, now brought down to the lowest cost. Mr. 
 Craik, out of the extension of his chapters on Lite 
 rature in the Pictorial History of England, produced 
 six valuable little volumes, which have since been 
 reprinted, as they well deserve to be, in a more 
 costly shape for the library. One of the most 
 original and important works in this series was the 
 Biographical History of Ancient and Modern Philo 
 sophy by Mr. G. H. Lewes. In this series I included 
 several summaries of great writers, such as Spenser 
 and Bacon, by Mr. Craik ; Moliere and Racijie, by 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 425 
 
 Madame Blaz de Bury ; Chaucer, by Mr. John 
 Saunders ; Hudibras, by Mr. Ramsay. The small 
 comparative sale of such volumes was to me a 
 tolerably satisfactory proof that abridgments and 
 analyses of standard authors are not likely to be 
 successful. Unless important works are inaccessible 
 from their rarity or their bulk, the greater number 
 of readers and these perhaps are the more judicious 
 are ill-content with hashes and essences. 
 
 Amongst the original works was one which was an 
 exception to the general character of the books in 
 my series, which for the most part carried the 
 recommendation of popular names as their authors. 
 This was " Memoirs of a Working Man." It was 
 writen by a tailor of the name of Carter. He was 
 the author of one of the little books published by 
 Knight and Co., called the " Guide to Trade," and 
 had been recommended to me in 1840 as a highly 
 deserving man, carrying on a little business for 
 himself, with a dependent family, and struggling 
 with the severest ill health. In the introduction 
 which I wrote to the " Memoirs of a Working Man," 
 I stated that when the author brought to me his 
 manuscript, which he wished to be published by 
 subscription, I carefully read his simple record of an 
 uneventful life, advised him to curtail such parti 
 culars as could only be interesting to himself and 
 his family, but on no account to suppress what would 
 be interesting to all the history of the formation of 
 his habits of thought, and thence of his system of 
 conduct the development of his intellectual and 
 moral life. In conclusion I said : " Upon receiving 
 the Manuscript thus altered and completed, I pro 
 posed to publish it in the Weekly Volume. This is 
 
426 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE. 
 
 the extent of my editorial duty. I have not added, 
 nor have I altered, a single word. The purity of its 
 style is one of the most remarkable characteristics of 
 this little book." 
 
 The series of the Weekly Volume, although it did 
 not involve any considerable loss, was certainly not a 
 commercial success. " Why Mr. Knight did not profit 
 largely by the speculation, is a problem yet to be 
 solved," said the writer of a paper on " Literature for 
 the People." The solution was that the people did 
 not sufficiently buy the series. There were not 
 twenty volumes that reached a sale of ten thousand, 
 and the average sale was scarcely five thousand. 
 Although very generally welcomed by many who were 
 anxious for the enlightenment of the humbler classes, 
 the humbler classes themselves did not find in them 
 the mental aliment for which they hungered. They 
 wanted fiction, and the half dozen historical novelets 
 of the series were not of the exciting kind which in 
 a few years became the staple product of the cheap 
 press. It was perhaps as useless as it was unwise ta 
 battle against this growing taste, which was not 
 limited to hard-handed mechanics and their families. 
 In 1854, when I was inclined to think too harshly of 
 the popular appetite for fiction, which was stimulated 
 by the coarsely seasoned food of such publications as 
 the London Journal/ Mr. Dickens remonstrated with 
 me in the most earnest and affectionate spirit. I 
 extract from a letter of his. marked by his accustomed 
 good sense, a passage which deserves the serious 
 consideration of those who look too severely upon 
 the exuberance of this species of popular literature. 
 " The English are, so far as I know, the hardest 
 worked people on whom the sun shines. Be con- 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 427 
 
 tent if in their wretched intervals of leisure they 
 read for amusement and do no worse. They are 
 born at the oar, and they live and die at it. Good 
 God, what would we have of them ! " 
 
 At the time of the issue of the Weekly Volume, 
 the sale of books at railway stations was unknown. 
 Seven years afterwards it had become universal. 
 Then, in the vicinity of great towns where there was 
 a railway station, the shelves of the newspaper vender 
 were filled with shilling volumes known as the Par 
 lour Library, The Popular Library, The Kailway 
 Library, The Shilling Series. In their bulk of 
 thin paper and close printing they would appear 
 to be twice as . cheap as my volumes, but, except in 
 very rare instances, they had involved no expense of 
 copyright. In a few years, a most remarkable de 
 velopment of cheapness in books, especially in works 
 of fiction, was accomplished without " the great dam 
 age of the circulating libraries." Wonderful organi 
 zations of the circulating library system presented a 
 far greater encouragement to original authorship 
 than at the period when the few rich purchased books 
 for their sole use. The day of furniture books was 
 almost past. When the circulating libraries had 
 done their work of "the season," then came the 
 cheap reprint. This was the crucial test of an 
 author s popularity. My work as a publisher was 
 finished before these times arrived, which are certainly 
 more favourable for publishing enterprise than those 
 of my own commercial experience. 
 
 Somewhat before the commencement of the 
 Weekly Volume, I was engaged for several years 
 in the publication of a series of popular books which 
 had a very large sale, but were little known to the 
 
428 PASSAGES OP A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 general reading public. They were picture books, 
 especially adapted for sale, in the neighbourhood of 
 the great manufacturing towns and other populous 
 districts, by the class of book-hawkers known as 
 canvassers. There were four books, forming seven 
 volumes in folio, which I included under the generic 
 name of " The New Orbis Pictus," in imitation of 
 that work of Comenius, which, after the lapse of 
 two centuries, still holds its place amongst the 
 educational books of continental Europe. That 
 work, which was once amongst the most popular 
 of books, originally contained several hundred rude 
 wood cuts with appropriate descriptions. My series 
 comprised the following separate books : " Pictorial 
 Museum of Animated Nature:" "Pictorial Sunday- 
 Book:" " Old England :" " Pictorial Gallery of Arts." 
 I told the public that what the Orbis Pictus had 
 imperfectly accomplished was fully carried out in 
 this series, in which was accumulated the largest 
 body of eye-knowledge that had ever been brought 
 together, consisting in the whole of twelve thousand 
 engravings. It is satisfactory to me to think that 
 these books may have presented to some portions 
 of the population who without the canvasser s im 
 portunity would never have expended a monthly 
 shilling upon literature sources of instruction and 
 amusement as various and extensive as my general 
 title implies The Pictorial World. Of this series 
 I was necessarily the editor. The descriptions in 
 each book were for the most part confided to persons 
 of literary habits and competent knowledge these 
 were, Mr. "William C. L. Martin for Natural His 
 tory, Dr. Kitto for Sacred History, Mr. Dodd for 
 
THE THIKD EPOCH. 429 
 
 the Useful Arts, Mr. Wornum for the Fine Arts, 
 and Mr. John Saunders for our National Anti 
 quities. I must mention, however, that the first 
 Book of "Old England" and part of the second, 
 were written by myself. At the period of its 
 publication there was an awakening feeling for the 
 preservation of our historical monuments. The 
 barbarous neglect which had permitted so many 
 druidioal remains, such as Abury, to be in great 
 part destroyed ; so many traces of the Eoman occu 
 pation to be buried ; and so many of the noble eccle 
 siastical edifices of the Norman era to be defaced ; 
 this ignorant apathy was rapidly giving place to a 
 just reverence for the past 
 
CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 N 1847 I commenced editing and publish 
 ing, in monthly parts, a work which 
 furnished me with a really delightful 
 occupation for fifty-two weeks. "Half- 
 Hours with the Best Authors, Selected and Ar 
 ranged, with Short Biographical and Critical No 
 tices," has had, and still has, so large a circulation 
 that it is unnecessary for me to describe the 
 character of a book so universally known. The 
 complete work contains specimens of three hundred 
 various writers, of which number about forty were 
 living at the period of its publication. From many 
 of these, his contemporaries, the editor received 
 permission to borrow some connected extracts from 
 their writings which would occupy about half an 
 hour s ordinary reading. Judging from the warm 
 expressions of the greater number of these writers, 
 even the most eminent felt something of satisfaction 
 in being included amongst the standard authors who 
 have built up the greatest literature of the modern 
 world. In a postscript I thus spoke of my "short 
 biographical notices ;" " Their brevity must ne 
 cessarily render them incomplete and unsatisfactory ; 
 but they have not been written without serious 
 thought and an earnest desire to be just. There are 
 many who will differ from the Editor in his estimate 
 of some writers, particularly of the more recent. 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 431 
 
 Dickens I described as "one who came to fill up 
 the void which Scott had left." Of Tennyson, 
 who at the present day has sent Byron into the 
 shade, I wrote in 1848 "He has not published 
 much, he does not live upon the breath of popular 
 applause, but he has more ardent admirers than any 
 living poet, with the exception of Wordsworth." 
 
 As I open the four volumes of Half-Hours and 
 review the short notices of contemporaries, I find 
 amongst them many with whom I have had the 
 transient pleasure of an occasional acquaintance or 
 the happiness of a continued friendly intercourse. 
 Let me mention a few of each class, taking the 
 names, for the most part, in the order in which they 
 present themselves in " Half-Hours." 
 
 I have met Walter Savage Landor at the table of 
 a common friend. Although he was then a septua 
 genarian (I read his Count Julian when I was a boy), 
 he was in the full vigour of his understanding. The 
 variety and richness of his knowledge were as mani 
 fest in his real as in his " Imaginary Conversations." 
 He could sustain a literary discussion with wonderful 
 acuteness and felicity of illustration. Sometimes 
 indeed with a leaven of those paradoxical opinions, 
 in which he seemed to delight with a wilfulness of 
 exaggeration. Whilst I write this, his death is re 
 corded at the age of ninety. Dickens has painted 
 him, with scarcely any exaggeration, in his " Boycroft." 
 Leigh Hunt could have known nothing of the early 
 friend of Southey when, in the " Feast of the Poets," 
 he termed him, " one Mr. Landor," and made his 
 name rhyme with " gander." 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I never saw but once. 
 It was about the time when he first went to dwell 
 with Mr. Gillman at Highgate. To me, then a very 
 19 
 
432 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 young man, the outpourings of his mighty volume of 
 words seemed something more than eloquence ; and 
 I went away half crazed by his expositions of the 
 power of the human will in producing such effects 
 upon matter as were once ascribed to magic. We 
 are more familiar in the present day with wonders 
 such as some of those he had seen or heard of in 
 Germany; but his belief that the magnetic needle 
 would follow the finger of a bared hand and arm, did 
 not perhaps demand so great an exercise of faith as 
 the stately walks of dining tables and the nimble 
 dances of arm chairs. The Cagliostros of the human 
 race have ever been a thriving family. Coleridge died 
 in 1834. I went to live at Highgate the year after. 
 During a few years friendly intercourse with Mr. 
 Gillman and his most amiable and intelligent wife, 
 I was deeply impressed with the ascendancy which a 
 man of the highest genius can obtain over those 
 with whom he is brought into daily contact. Their 
 tastes were in some respects essentially different from 
 his. His irregular habits must often have been 
 exceedingly annoying. But this was a remarkable 
 case of hero-worship, in which the devotion was as 
 enthusiastic as in any instance of the few heroes 
 whom the universal consent of mankind has placed 
 upon the loftiest pedestal. I was always enamoured 
 of Coleridge as a poet, and had become convinced, 
 when I wrote my notice of him in the Half-Hours, 
 that there was " no man of our own times who has 
 incidentally, as well as directly, contributed more to 
 produce that revolution in opinion, which has led us 
 from the hard and barren paths of a miscalled 
 utility, to expatiate in the boundless luxuriance of 
 those regions of thought which belong to the 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 433 
 
 
 
 spiritual part of our nature, and have something 
 in them higher than a money value." I often 
 thought of Coleridge as I rambled where he had 
 mused for many a year the pleasant meadows and 
 green lanes near Caen Wood. I used sometimes to 
 think that if it had been my fortune to have dwelt 
 at Highgate at an earlier period, I might have ven 
 tured to accost him as the boy Keats did, to crave 
 the honour of shaking hands (although I could not 
 say " I too am a poet ") with one who had so largely 
 filled my mind with images of beauty and lessons of 
 wisdom. 
 
 I have incidently mentioned my friend Dr. Arnott 
 in these "Passages." In extracting for the Half- 
 Hours the account of the Barometer from his "Ele 
 ments of Physics " I said, " When we consider that this 
 excellent book can only be completed at the rare in 
 tervals of leisure in a most arduous professional life 
 that at the moments when the physician is not remov 
 ing or mitigating the sufferings of individuals, he is 
 labouring for the benefit of all by such noble inven 
 tions as the Hydrostatic Bed we can only hope that 
 the well-earned repose which wise men look to in the 
 evening of their day, will give opportunity for per 
 fecting one of the books best calculated to advance 
 the education of the people that the world has seen." 
 Amidst his engagements as a physician and his devo 
 tion to science, Dr. Arnott had still leisure for social 
 enjoyment, as every studious man who does not wish 
 to become an ascetic must seek with moderation. 
 There are many who may remember with the same 
 delight as myself the pleasant Thursday dinners at 
 his house in Bedford Square. Here was no osten- 
 
434 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 
 
 tatious display, but the warmest welcome. Here wag 
 no oppression of great talkers, but men of very various 
 pursuits and acquirements contributed each in his 
 degree to the amusement of a small listening circle. 
 Of science there was no engrossing parade. Our 
 genial host seemed to say, in the words of Milton to 
 Cyriack Skinner : 
 
 " To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench 
 In mirth that, after, no repenting draws ; 
 Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause." 
 
 In the wide range of Dr. Arnott s acquaintance, 
 curiously assorted guests would sometimes be found 
 at his board. Of such was the philosophic Brahmin, 
 Rammohun Roy, who was enabled to reconcile the 
 best principles of his native faith with the religion 
 of Christians, and Robert Owen, who had proclaimed 
 the negation of all religious belief as essential to the 
 establishment of his co-operative system of universal 
 love. There was much in the real benevolence of 
 these two men, so different in education and habits, 
 which drew them together with something like a 
 cordial sympathy. But once, when we were in the 
 drawing-room, a quiet talk between them upon the 
 principle of co-operation suddenly broke out into a 
 loud discussion to which we all listened with sur 
 passing interest. The Rajah held his ground with great 
 ability, and with no common knowledge of political 
 economy, against Owen s doctrine, that in the com 
 petitive principle were to be found all the crimes 
 and miseries of society. The persevering logician 
 with his common sense was too strong for the kind 
 hearted visionary. Owen, worn out with objections, 
 at length exclaimed, " Roger, Roger, you are not a 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 435 
 
 practical man ! " The reproach from such lips, and 
 the peculiar pronunciation of the Hindu title, were 
 too much for the gravity of any of us. Robert Owen 
 was a man too respectable to provoke laughter except 
 on such a rare occasion as this even from those who 
 would smile at his enthusiasm. 
 
 Of Wordsworth in the Half-Hours I thus wrote : 
 " The greatest name in the literature of our own age 
 is William Wordsworth. He has at last influenced 
 the world more enduringly than any of his contem 
 poraries, although his power has been slowly won." 
 I was diligently reading Wordsworth fifty years ago 
 in spite of the sneers of Jeffrey. I can read him now 
 without feeling, as younger men may feel, that he is 
 tedious. The universality of Wordsworth has sent 
 his poetry into the homes of the poor and lowly, and 
 that vital quality will keep him fresh and green for 
 the few, and possibly for the many, of coming ages. 
 During the long course of years in which Wordsworth 
 was to me as it were a household presence, I never 
 saw him until 1849. I was then visiting Miss 
 Martineau at Ambleside. Early on a bright morning, 
 a tall man, not bowed by age but having the deep 
 furrows of many winters on his massive face, entered 
 the house. I knew at once that it was the great 
 poet, for no ordinary Dalesman with his stout staff 
 and his clouted shoon would present a countenance 
 so remarkable in its majestic simplicity. He was 
 then in his seventy-ninth year. After a pleasant 
 chat with my hostess and myself, he asked me to 
 walk with him to his house at Rydal Mount. As we 
 passed along the road the cottagers and the children 
 saluted him with a familiar and yet respectful greet 
 ing. He was their old friend, who had lived amongst 
 
436 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 them from the beginning of the century ; who had 
 interested himself in their feelings and habits ; and 
 who, in this constant and affectionate intercourse, 
 was not likely to be moved by the exhortations of an 
 Edinburgh Reviewer. He would not be likely to 
 alter his way of life at the bidding of Mr. Jeffrey, 
 and "condescend to mingle a little more with the 
 people who were to read and judge of his poems, 
 instead of confining himself almost entirely to the 
 society of the Dalesmen, and cottagers, and little 
 children, who formed their subjects." When I spent 
 this pleasant morning with the great Lake poet, he 
 had a little condescended to move out of his seclu 
 sion from the gay world to go to court in his capacity 
 of Poet Laureate. He laughed a little at the idea 
 of his state costume, and I really thought that the 
 home-spun suit of Wonderful Robert Walker would 
 have been quite as becoming. Yet Wordsworth was 
 a thorough gentleman. He shewed me his favourite 
 books and the antique heir-looms of his study, with 
 the grace of an unaffected desire to bestow pleasure 
 on a chance visitor ; he pointed out the most exqui 
 site points of view from his own garden ; he sat with 
 me for half an hour on the somewhat dilapidated 
 seat that overlooks the Lower Fall at Rydal. He 
 talked with a deep tenderness of Hartley Coleridge, 
 the gifted and the unfortunate, who had died in the 
 winter before. I was surprised at the very slight 
 acquaintance with the more eminent writers of the 
 previous ten or twenty years which he manifested. 
 Of the novelists he appeared to know nothing. Of 
 the poets he might be excused for not giving an 
 opinion. He has been reproached with wilfully ignor 
 ing the merits of his contemporaries. I doubt 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 437 
 
 whether it might with justice be attributed either 
 to envy or to affectation when he told me that he 
 felt no interest in any modern book except in Mr. 
 Layard s Nineveh, which had then been recently 
 published. I was fortunate in the opportunity of 
 seeing this great man in that mountain home where 
 he was best seen. This was only a year before he 
 was laid in Grasmere churchyard. They say that 
 the lowly mounds beneath which rest with him the 
 remains of his wife and his sister close by which 
 honoured graves Hartley Coleridge was buried are 
 trampled down by rude visitors tourists perhaps, 
 but without the reverence that belongs to those who 
 come to look upon such scenes of beauty, even were 
 there no higher motive for reverence in all the asso 
 ciations of this holy ground. 
 
 In 1847 the literary reputation of Macaulay, then 
 famous as an orator, was built upon his " Lays of 
 Ancient Rome," and his " Essays " from the Edin 
 burgh Review. I described these essays as having 
 attained a success far higher than any other contri 
 butions to the periodical works of our day. Their 
 success, indeed, gave an impulse to this somewhat 
 novel mode of investing the ephemeral productions 
 of the Reviewer with a separate dignity befitting 
 them for a permanent position in a library. The 
 commercial importance of this system was sufficiently 
 ascertained when Mr. Macaulay inserted in Lord 
 Mahon s Copyright Bill that clause which rendered 
 the consent of the author necessary to the re-publica 
 tion, in a separate shape, of his contributions to a 
 Review or Magazine. This was a salutary arrangement 
 for Letters and literary men. But Macaulay was to 
 attain a far higher reputation than that of the brilliant 
 
438 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 essayist. The first and second volumes of his History of 
 England were published in 1849. The third and fourth 
 volumes in 1855. The fifth volume was a posthu 
 mous fragment. When the youthful contributor to 
 the Quarterly Magazine of 1824 had taken his posi- 
 tion in the political world, our once friendly inter 
 course was necessarily suspended. He took no part, 
 and probably felt no interest, in the Useful Know 
 ledge Society, although many of his intimate friends 
 were active members. After his return from India, 
 I had often a cordial greeting from him if we acci 
 dentally met, but I never had the opportunity of 
 listening, during his maturer years, to that wonderful 
 affluence of conversation for which the Scholar of 
 Trinity was as remarkable as the Cabinet Minister. 
 I saw him laid in his last resting place in Poet s 
 Corner on a raw December day of 1859. He had 
 lived twenty years longer than his youthful friend 
 and colleague, Praed. There was time for Macaulay s 
 fame to culminate, but it must always be a matter of 
 regret that his great historical work has not given 
 to the grand epic of the Revolution a certain com 
 pleteness, by bringing up the splendid narrative to 
 the accession of the House of Brunswick. We 
 
 cannot 
 
 " caU up him that left half-told 
 The story." 
 
 No one else is fitted to tell it. 
 
 Amongst the "Best Authors" are some of whom the 
 traces of our intimacy are indicated with more or less 
 fullness in my previous volumes. Leigh Hunt, John 
 Wilson, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Hood, are of 
 this number. I may glean a few sentences from the 
 Half-Hours to mark my opinion of their literary 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 439 
 
 excellence. " Mr. Hunt," I said, " who has borne 
 much adversity with a cheerfulness beyond all praise, 
 writes as freshly and brilliantly as ever." I added 
 " Long may those unfailing spirits which are the 
 delight of his social and family circle, be the sunshine 
 of his old age." These unfailing spirits made the 
 great charm of his conversation. The stream flowed 
 gently on, always clear, often sparkling. His vivacity 
 frequently approached to wit, and if there were the 
 slightest touch of satire in his opinions of books or 
 men, it was so subtle and delicate that it was more 
 like the fencing with foils of Congreve s fine gentle 
 men, than the sword thrusts of one who in his time 
 was foremost in the lists of bold public writers. John 
 Wilson s prose writings, as collected in " The Recrea 
 tions of Christopher North," are mentioned by me 
 with a warmth of admiration that to many must 
 appear somewhat extravagant. "It would be diffi 
 cult to point to three volumes of our own times that 
 have an equal chance of becoming immortal." I 
 might have spoken with more moderation had I anti 
 cipated that the political partisanship, so fierce and 
 so unscrupulous, of the " Noctes " would have been 
 reproduced in a permanent form, to make us think 
 less of the wit, the fancy, the genial criticism, and 
 the unaffected pathos of their principal writer. Of 
 De Quincey I expressed a deep regret that the un 
 fortunate habit which forms the subject of his 
 " Confessions " should have prevented him from pro 
 ducing " any great continuous book, worthy of his 
 surpassing powers." But whoever carefully reads the 
 fifteen volumes of his collected works will scarcely 
 join in this regret. In his case, as in that of a few other 
 persons, his death was necessary to place him in the 
 
440 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 rank of a great classic. Thomas Hood had been 
 dead three years when I published the Half-Hours, 
 and there said of him " He was brought up an 
 engraver ; he became a writer of ( Whims and 
 Oddities/ and he grew into a poet of great and 
 original power. The slight partition which divides 
 humour and pathos was remarkably exemplified in 
 Hood. Misfortune and feeble health made him 
 doubly sensitive to the ills of his fellow-creatures/ 
 On several occasions we had corresponded ; I had met 
 him a few times in general society, but I had never 
 the opportunity of cultivating a closer acquaintance. 
 I have heard one who was well fitted by his intimacy 
 to judge of Hood s social qualities, speak of the 
 beauty of his domestic life. We had a mutual admi 
 ration of his humour and his pathos, and above all 
 could appreciate that exquisite sensibility which 
 made Hood touch the sore places of the wretched 
 with such a tender and delicate hand. That one was 
 Douglas Jerrold. 
 
 Although my close intercourse and unbroken 
 friendship with Jerrold was a source of happiness to 
 me for ten years, it was not until 1845 that I even 
 knew his person. In November of that year I had a 
 special invitation to a great Soire e of the Man 
 chester AthenaBum, to be held in the Free Trade 
 Hall. I was the guest of Mr. James Heywood, who 
 subsequently represented North Lancashire. As I 
 was better pleased to stay in the pleasant country 
 house of my host than go much into the smoky 
 metropolis of cotton, I was not thrown into the 
 society of the contributors to " Punch," who were 
 assembled there, and might read their names in 
 enormous placards advertised as the great stars of 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 441 
 
 the coming meeting. " Punch," out of a not very 
 promising commencement in 1841, had in four years 
 risen into an unequalled popularity. Jerrold was, 
 however, one of its earliest contributors, a paper of 
 his appearing in the second number. As the publi 
 cation went on we may every now and then trace 
 some of those flashes of merriment, that biting satire, 
 and those pleadings for the wretched, which charac 
 terized his avowed writings. " The Story of a 
 Feather" which commenced in 1843, and " Mrs. 
 Caudle s Curtain Lectures " with which the volume 
 for 1845 opened, raised the reputation of " Punch " 
 to a height which showed how, in a periodical work, 
 the happy direction and the peculiar genius of one 
 man may carry it far beyond the. reach of ordinary 
 competition. I described in " Half Hours " the 
 " Caudle Lectures " as " admirable examples of the 
 skill with which character can be preserved in every 
 possible variety of circumstances." It was almost 
 universally known who was the author of this re 
 markable series, so that when Douglas Jerrold rose 
 in the Free Trade Hall to address an assembly of 
 three thousand people, the shouts were so continuous 
 that the coolest plat form- orator might have lost for 
 a moment his presence of mind. I looked upon a 
 slight figure bending again and again, as each gust 
 of applause seemed to overpower him and make him 
 shrink into himself. Mr. Serjeant Talfourd was in 
 the Chair, and had delivered an eloquent address 
 which the local reporters called " massive," and 
 which by some might have been deemed " heavy." 
 The audience was perhaps somewhat impatient even 
 of the florid language of the author of " Ion," for 
 they wanted to hear the great wit who sat on the 
 
442 PASSAGES OP A WORKING LIFE! 
 
 edge of the platform, and whose brilliant eye appeared 
 as if endeavouring to penetrate the obscure distance 
 of that vast hall, the extremity of which he might 
 possibly have calculated his somewhat feeble voice 
 would be unable to reach. When the moment had 
 at last arrived in which he was called upon to give 
 utterance to his thoughts, he hesitated, rambled into 
 unconnected sentences, laboured to string together 
 some platitudes about education, and was really dis 
 appointing, even to common expectations, until the 
 genius of the man attained the ascendancy. Apos 
 trophising the enemies of education, he exclaimed 
 " Let them come here and we will serve them as 
 Luther served the Devil we will throw inkstands 
 at their heads." The effect was marvellous, not only 
 upon his hearers but upon the speaker. He re 
 covered his self-possession and succeeded in making 
 a very tolerable speech. A few nights afterwards, I 
 had to take the Chair at the " City of London Lite 
 rary and Scientific Institution," in Aldersgate Street, 
 and I said there what I have never ceased to feel. I 
 find it reported that I said, " I had just returned 
 from attending the splendid soire e of the Athenaeum 
 at Manchester. I had felt that it was a rare, and 
 perhaps unequalled, spectacle that of three or four 
 thousand ladies and gentlemen comfortably seated in 
 a vast hall glittering with light, to listen to the 
 addresses of popular writers. But, at the same time, 
 I could not avoid feeling that there was something in 
 this display which would not bear the test of sober 
 examination. I ventured to think that it was a 
 mistake to tempt authors out of their proper sphere 
 to come forward as orators to ask them to play 
 upon an instrument to which they were unaccus- 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 443 
 
 tomed and, of necessity, to feel a proportionate 
 disappointment when some one, who had afforded 
 unmixed delight in his own vocation, was found, as 
 a speaker, not to drop all pearls and rubies from his 
 mouth, like the princess in the fairy tale." If it be 
 replied to this argument that Mr. Dickens is the 
 most effective speaker at a public dinner that was 
 ever listened to with general admiration, I will 
 answer, that at the opening of the Manchester Free 
 Library in 1852, I heard one of the greatest masters 
 of the English language utterly break down in ad 
 dressing a large audience, and take his seat in hope 
 less despair of being able to complete the sentence 
 which he had begun. That speaker was the autho 
 of " Vanity Fair." 
 
 In the " Half Hours " I have described the first 
 great novel of William Makepeace Thackeray as " a 
 masterly production the work of an acute observer 
 sound in principle, manly in its contempt of the 
 miserable conventionalities that make our social life 
 such a cold and barren thing for too many. Never 
 was the absurd desire for display, which is the bane 
 of so much real happiness, better exposed than in 
 the writings of Mr. Thackeray. He is the very 
 antagonism of that heartless pretence to exclusiveness 
 and gentility which acquired for its advocates and 
 expositors the name of the silver-fork school. 
 Such authors as this produce incalculable benefit, 
 and will do much to bring us back to that old English 
 simplicity the parent of real taste and refinement 
 which sees nothing truly to be ashamed of but profli 
 gacy and meanness." Of the private character and 
 conversation of the author of the series of fictions 
 which will most probably hold their place till some 
 
444 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 great revolution of opinion sends a new generation 
 to seek for delight in writers of a different school 
 from this great master I know too little to speak 
 with any authority. In saying here what I did 
 observe in Thackeray, I hope not to be considered as 
 going out of my way to add my voice to the general 
 accord of panegyric which has naturally followed the 
 sudden deprivation we have recently endured. My con 
 viction was, that beneath an occasional affectation of 
 cynicism, there was a tenderness of heart which he 
 was more eager to repress than to exhibit ; that he 
 was no idolater of rank in the sense in which Moore 
 was said dearly to love a lord, but had his best 
 pleasures in the society of those of his own social 
 position men of letters and artists ; and that, 
 however fond of " the full flow of London talk," his 
 own home was the centre of his affections. He was 
 a sensitive man, as I have seen on more than one 
 occasion. One, I cannot forbear mentioning. We 
 were dining at the table of Mr. M. D. Hill, on the 
 9th of April, 1848, the evening before the expected 
 outbreak of Chartism in London. The cloth had 
 scarcely been removed, when he suddenly started up 
 and said, " Pray excuse me, I must go. I left my 
 children in terror that something dreadful was about 
 to happen. I am unfit for society. Good night." 
 
 Of our other great novelist, I wrote in "Half Hours" 
 "Dickens, as well as every writer of enduring 
 fiction, must be judged by his power of producing a 
 ;omplete work of Art, in which all the parts have a 
 mutual relation. Tested by this severe principle, 
 some of his creations may be held imperfect, written 
 for periodical issue and not published entire, hurried 
 occasionally, and wanting in proportion. But from 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 445 
 
 the Pickwick of 1837 to the Dombey of 1848, 
 there has been no failing of interest and effect ; his 
 characters are familiar in our mouths as household 
 words ; his faults are for the critical eye." 
 
 Mr. Forster had in 1840 attained a high reputation 
 as the author of " Statesmen of the Commonwealth." 
 It is scarcely necessary here to point out with what 
 mastery of original materials he has improved these 
 biographies into works of permanent historical value. 
 When I published my " Half Hours," he had just 
 achieved a wide popularity as the author of " Oliver 
 Goldsmith, a Biography," Of this charming book I 
 thus wrote : "Mr. Forster has lighted up the authentic 
 narrative of a literary life with the brilliant hues of 
 taste and imagination ; and, what is a higher thing, 
 he has told the story of the errors, the sorrows, the 
 endurance, and the success, of one of the most 
 delightful of our best authors, with an earnest 
 vindication of simplicity of character, and a deep 
 sympathy with the struggles of talent, which ought 
 to make every reader of this life more just, tolerant, 
 and loving to his fellows." As was the case with Mr. 
 Dickens, Mr. Forster and I became more intimately 
 associated about the middle of the century. In his 
 chambers in Lincoln s Inn he frequently gathered 
 around him a small circle of men of Letters. Those 
 who sat at his hospitable board were seldom too few 
 or too many for general conversation. 
 
 There I first met Tennyson, and there Carlyle. 
 Some other hand will perhaps complete my imperfect 
 selection from the Best Authors, by a copious addition 
 of names of recent writers, and by supplementing my 
 biographical notices of those there given. He will 
 have to trace the maturity of Tennyson s powers in 
 " The Princess," in the " In Memoriam," in " Maud/ 
 
446 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 in "The Idylls of the King," and in "Enoch Arden." 
 What an influence the poems of Tennyson have had 
 upon the tastes of the present age can scarcely be 
 appreciated, except by a contrast with the fiery stim 
 ulus of the feast which Byron prepared half a 
 century ago. There must be. pauses in the excite 
 ment of these days in which ," onward," the motto 
 of one of the railway companies, may apply to all the 
 movements of social life when the most busy and 
 the most pleasure-seeking may relish a poet who, 
 with a perfect mastery of harmonious numbers, fills 
 the mind with tranquil images and natural thoughts, 
 drawn out of his intimate acquaintance with the 
 human heart. In familiar intercourse, such as that 
 of Mr. Forster s table, Mr. Tennyson was cordial and 
 unaffected, exhibiting, as in his writings, the simpli 
 city of a manly character, and feeling perfectly safe 
 from his chief aversion, the " digito monstrari," was 
 quite at his ease. Of Mr. Carlyle s conversation I 
 cannot call up a more accurate idea than by describ 
 ing his talk as of the same character as his writings. 
 Always forcible, often quaint and peculiar ; felicitous 
 in his occasional touches of fancy ; not unfrequently 
 sarcastic. When I edited the " Half Hours," his 
 "French Revolution" was his chief work, and I could 
 justly say of that book, as I might say of his " Crom 
 well " and his " Frederick the Great " " In graphic 
 power of description, whether of scenes or of charac 
 ters, he has not a living equal." 
 
CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 HE LAND WE LIVE IN, a monthly illus 
 trated publication, was commenced by me 
 in 1847. It had, to a certain extent, the 
 same object as " Old England," of describing 
 monuments of the past, but those notices were always 
 in connection with the aspects of our latest civili 
 zation. 
 
 Previous to the commencement of the publication 
 of " The Land we Live in," I had availed myself of 
 every opportunity to visit our great seats of industry, 
 chiefly with a view to observe the progress of Edu 
 cation and to inquire into the general condition of 
 the people. For several years I had contemplated a 
 literary undertaking, the materials for which could 
 not be wholly obtained from books. I aspired to 
 write "The History of England during the Thirty 
 Years Peace, 18151845." The publication of this 
 work was commenced in 1846, and a portion of it, 
 embracing the annals of 1816-17, was written by me. 
 The illness of my partner, and his consequent with 
 drawal from our business, in which he attended to the 
 financial part, rendered it necessary for me to devote 
 myself almost entirely to my commercial responsi 
 bilities. The "History of the Peace" was suspended 
 for some months ; and I then was fortunate in finding 
 one of the few persons adequately qualified, not only 
 
448 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 by the power of writing agreeably, but by unwearied 
 industry and a long course of observation upon the 
 social affairs of the country, to produce a book of 
 permanent value. The composition of this History 
 of Thirty Years was resumed by Miss Martineau, 
 and was completed by her with a success that I 
 might have been unable to attain. 
 
 In the Session of 1854, a Committee of the House 
 of Commons was sitting to examine witnesses upon 
 that question of the abolition of the Newspaper Stamp, 
 which had occupied the attention of the Legislature 
 twenty years before. After the Meeting of Parliament 
 in 1855, a very general opinion prevailed that the then 
 Penny-stamp would be entirely abolished, except for 
 the purpose of transmitting a newspaper by post. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Corne- 
 wall Lewis, through his private Secretary, Sir Alex 
 ander Duff Gordon, requested me to inform him what 
 was the greatest circulation of each number of the 
 Penny Magazine at any time. In giving this in 
 formation I referred him to a little book which Mr. 
 Murray had just published for me " The Old 
 Printer and the Modern Press," in which I had 
 taken a rapid view of the circulation and character 
 of penny periodicals at the beginning of 1854. I 
 had stated that of four of these a million sheets were 
 then sold weekly. In my letter, I thought it right 
 to convey fully my opinion upon the question of the 
 abolition of the Stamp, and in support of that opinion 
 I mentioned that Dr. Arnold was strongly impressed 
 with the notion that a Newspaper was the best 
 vehicle for communicating knowledge to the people ; 
 the events of the day, he maintained, were .a definite 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 449 
 
 subject to which instruction could be attached in the 
 best possible manner. An extract from the letter 
 thus written by me may fitly introduce the general 
 subject of the extension of the Newspaper Press 
 during the last eight or nine years, upon which I 
 propose to treat in this chapter. " The change in 
 the character of the Penny Periodicals during the 
 last five or six years, from the lowest ribaldry and 
 positive indecency to a certain propriety and of 
 which frivolity is the chief blemish is an assurance 
 to me that the cheapening of Newspapers by the 
 removal of the Stamp will not let in that flood of 
 sedition and blasphemy which some appear to dread. 
 The character of the mass of readers is improved. 
 In my little book I have opposed the removal of the 
 Stamp, chiefly on the ground that a quantity of local 
 papers would start up, that would be devoted to 
 mere parish politics, and sectarian squabbles, instead 
 of being national in their objects ; and that would 
 huddle together the worst of criminal trials and 
 police cages, without attempting to suggest any 
 sound principles of politics, or furnish any useful 
 information. To provide a corrective to this, I have 
 devised the plan detailed in the circular, which I left 
 with you. I sent out an intelligent traveller into the 
 Midland districts last week, confidentially to explain 
 this plan to active printers in towns that had no 
 local paper ; and his report shows that the principle 
 will be eagerly adopted." 
 
 The plan which I had devised was founded upon 
 my old newspaper experience, during which, for 
 several years, three-fourths of the local Paper of 
 Berkshire and Buckinghamshire were printed at the 
 
450 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 " Express " Office at Windsor, and one-fourth at a 
 branch office at Aylesbury. In connection with a 
 highly respectable printing firm, I commenced the 
 publication of the " Town and Country Newspaper " 
 immediately upon the repeal of the Stamp-duty in 
 1855. There were many elements of success in this 
 plan, but it was defeated by the complex and expen 
 sive organization necessary to supply small adven 
 turers into the new world of journalism with the 
 very few impressions each required at first to meet 
 his local demand. Nor was my belief that this sort 
 of publication might be made the vehicle for com 
 bining, not only a well digested body of news, but 
 sound practical information upon many subjects of 
 public interest, destined to be realized. The readers 
 in very small towns, in which the one printer was 
 generally the first to make the experiment which I 
 proposed, did not very anxiously desire to see the 
 newspaper made an instrument of education, or for the 
 advancement of objects of public improvement. The 
 undertaking was not remunerative, and J had no 
 desire to press upon my partners the continuance of 
 a scheme that did not pay as quickly as was expected. 
 The plan became very extensively adopted after the 
 establishment of penny local Journals had created a 
 demand, and they were found to supply t a public 
 want. Four hundred such provincial Papers are said 
 to be now partly printed in London ; but I am in 
 formed by a friend, who is perfectly well-acquainted 
 with the curious facts connected with the present 
 state of local and other Newspapers, that the plan of 
 printing one side of a weekly sheet in London is now 
 going out of use. There is another mode adopted, of 
 making the same information, and the same labour of 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 451 
 
 setting up the types, available for many papers, which 
 is a striking example of the effect of new combina 
 tions of industrial art and science, for the diminution 
 of expense of production. There is an enterprising 
 proprietor of a local newspaper in one of our large 
 manufacturing towns, who has a stereotyping office 
 in London, and supplies small journals throughout 
 the country with stereotyped matter at a low rate per 
 column, of which he will send any number of columns 
 up to twentv.-four. The plan is so simple and so 
 convenient that his customers are very numerous, 
 and he is considered to be making a much better 
 profit out of his stereotype plates, than by his well- 
 circulated Journal. This system is one of the many 
 instances, with which we are becoming more and 
 more familiar, of co-operation for Production. Per 
 haps a more striking example is furnished in the 
 economical management of some daily papers in 
 England and Scotland, published out of London, of 
 which number there are now nearly forty. Several 
 of the proprietors of these large local journals have 
 associated for the establishment of an office in London, 
 with a literary staff, compositors, and stereotype- 
 founders. There are five or more papers which par 
 ticipate in this arrangement. Each paper belonging 
 to this league uses the stereotypes according to its 
 especial wants and convenience, sometimes all that is 
 dispatched ; more frequently a selection is made. I 
 have before me a Provincial Daily Paper, of October 
 20th, 1864, a large well printed sheet, price Id. 
 My friend has marked for my information the matter 
 which has been thus transmitted to this journal, as 
 to others, by express trains, generally leaving London 
 at 5 p.m., and reaching places two hundred miles 
 
452 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 distant by 11 p.m. The matter which I thus find in 
 this paper comprises eight folio columns, and neces 
 sarily contains the very latest news and comment. 
 What a power do the Managers of this journalistic 
 Confederacy possess for the direction of public opinion, 
 and how real a matter of congratulation it is that the 
 time is past when the influence of the Newspaper 
 Press was too frequently inimical to quiet and good 
 government ! Dr. Arnold wrote to the Archbishop 
 of Dublin in 1833, " I think that a newspaper alone 
 can help to cure the evil which newspapers have 
 done and are doing." 
 
 In considering the feasibility of carrying forward 
 upon a large scale, the plan of printing the general 
 portion of a newspaper in London, to be completed 
 by the publisher in a country town, I was careful to 
 inform myself of the exact number of Local Journals 
 in every county. The materials were to be collected 
 from a very useful publication, " The Newspaper 
 Press Directory," by C. Mitchell, which had then 
 been established nine or ten years. It is continued 
 annually at the present time ; and a comparison 
 merely of the quantity of printed matter in the 
 volume for 1855, and that for 1864, will at once 
 point to the vast increase in Journalism. I find 
 amongst my papers a voluminous abstract of the 
 state of the Local Newspaper Press, which I drew 
 out six months before the abolition of the Stamp. 
 In the forty English counties there were 120 cities 
 and towns, omitting London, in which Newspapers 
 were then published. But in these there were 261 
 papers, the more important places having, in many 
 instances, more than one such organ of intelligence. 
 To my abstract I appended the number of inhabi- 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 453 
 
 tants of each town. The result of my examination 
 was, that there were 350 populous towns without any 
 Local Paper, viz. 
 
 99 Towns with population above 2000 under 3000. 
 
 106 3000- 5000. 
 
 63 5000 7000. 
 
 82 ,, ,, ,, 7000 and upwards. 
 
 These were statistical facts of deep significance. 
 
 The amount of the change which has been pro 
 duced in eight years by the abolition of the News 
 paper Stamp and the Advertisement Duty in some 
 degree also by the repeal of the tax upon paper is 
 sufficiently indicated by the following figures : 
 There were published in England, at the commence 
 ment of the present year, 919 journals. Of these 
 240 belonged to London ; and these included 13 
 daily morning papers, 7 evening, and 220 published 
 during the week and at intervals. But these London 
 Journals, not daily, comprise the purely literary and 
 scientific papers the legal and medical, and more 
 numerous than all, the religious journals. Further, 
 since I made my abstract of Local Papers, there have 
 started into flourishing existence no less than 32 
 district journals of .the Metropolis and its suburbs. 
 Taking these 240 metropolitan and suburban papers 
 from the total 919 published in England, I find that 
 there are now 679 Country Newspapers, instead of 
 the 261 which I found existing in 1855. I may 
 infer, therefore, without going into a minute exami 
 nation of the matter, that the 350 populous places 
 which, at that time, had no newspaper of their own, 
 are now not left without a vehicle for the publication 
 of their local affairs, whether important or frivolous, 
 whether affecting a nation or a parish. To finish this 
 
454 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I 
 
 summary, I may add that Wales has 37 journals ; 
 Scotland 140 ; Ireland 140 ; the British Isles 14 ; 
 making up for the United Kingdom a total of 1250. 
 Of the aggregate circulation of these Journals, it is 
 impossible to arrive at any accurate estimate. At 
 the beginning of the century, the annual circulation 
 of newspapers in England and Wales was 15 millions. 
 In 1853, as was shown by the Stamp-Office returns, 
 the annual circulation of England and Wales was 
 72 millions, and of Scotland and Ireland, each 
 8 millions. Even the circulation in 1853 was an 
 astounding fact, and I then wrote, " Visit, if you can, 
 the interior of that marvellous human machine the 
 General Post Office, on a Friday evening from half- 
 past five to six o clock. Look with awe upon the 
 tons of newspapers that are crowding in to be dis 
 tributed through the habitable globe. Think silently 
 how potent a power is this for good or for evil. You 
 turn to one of the boxes of the letter-sorters, and 
 your guide will tell you, this work occupies not 
 half the time it formerly did, for everybody writes 
 better. " Some of the elder country newspapers and 
 some that have started into life since the repeal of 
 the Stamp, have a circulation that is to be numbered 
 by thousands. But if we only assign a sale of 1000 
 each to the 679 country papers in England, we have 
 a total annual circulation of 235 millions. The Scotch 
 and Irish Journals will probably swell the aggregate 
 annual circulation of the United Kingdom to 250 
 millions. Taking the entire population at 30 millions, 
 this estimate would give eight newspapers in the 
 course of the year to every person : and assuming 
 that every newspaper has six readers, there is no 
 present want in these Kingdoms of the literary 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 455 
 
 means of keeping the entire mass of the people 
 informed upon every current event and topic. But 
 there may be other wants to be met besides those 
 which are supplied by the vast increase of journalism 
 before the newspaper can be within the reach of the 
 whole of the adult population. There are thousands 
 growing into men and women who, during the last 
 decade, when newspapers have been rising up for an 
 almost universal use, have acquired the ability to 
 read. The numbers of those wholly uninstructed 
 must be very few in populous districts compared 
 with the days when the newspaper was the most 
 highly taxed article of necessity or luxury. Now 
 that it has become one of the cheapest of inventions 
 for the supply of a general want, it may be well to 
 inquire into the causes which interfere with an 
 universal supply. 
 
 An ingenious and instructive " Newspaper Map of 
 the United Kingdom," accompanies Mitchell s News 
 paper Press Directory. It is suggestive of several 
 important facts in our social condition, which we are 
 apt to pass over in looking at its multifarious details. 
 The several districts of the kingdom are indicated 
 by different colours, not only as manufacturing, 
 mining, and agricultural, but by other colours, where 
 two or more of these large classes of occupation are 
 combined. When we glance at the Agricultural 
 Counties, twenty-three in number, extending from 
 Somersetshire to Lincolnshire, and bounded by the 
 inland Manufacturing and Agricultural Counties, five 
 in number, we feel something like wonder that 
 amongst these agricultural communities there should 
 appear so great a number of towns having one or 
 more newspapers. It is no matter of surprise that 
 20 
 
456 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE : [Ch. VIII. 
 
 the Manufacturing and Mining Counties, with their 
 enormous populations, should be dotted with a circular 
 mark, indicating the publication of one paper, 
 or with a square mark, indicating more than one. 
 Nor are we surprised that where there is a mixed 
 population, in which farms, and factories, and under 
 ground operations, supply the funds for the main 
 tenance of labour, the newspapers should be as 
 numerous as in the seats of the Woollen and Cotton 
 Manufacture, and in the great ports associated with 
 them. A minuter investigation into this map will 
 show how the purely Agricultural Districts so abound 
 with Local Newspapers. The places in which they 
 are published are, with scarcely an exception, situated 
 on the lines of railway. The Railway and the Local 
 Newspaper seem to have sprung up together into an 
 extension which, even ten years ago, it would have 
 required some effort of the imagination to consider 
 possible. How is it, then, that the agricultural 
 labouring population must be held as very imper 
 fectly supplied with the same means of information 
 as the residents in towns ? Look at this Newspaper 
 Map, and observe what large blank spaces lie between 
 every thread of the great network of railways. In 
 the North Riding of Yorkshire, which is almost 
 purely agricultural, these blanks are as remarkable 
 as those of Wales when we get away from the Mining 
 Districts, or Scotland, when we have passed from the 
 seats of manufactures and commerce into the moun 
 tainous districts. In the blank spaces thus indicated, 
 where dwell the great food-producing population, in 
 small villages and hamlets, the newspaper never 
 comes except by the post. The extension, of late years, 
 of the operations of the Post-office, has rendered the 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 457 
 
 number of those partially excluded from communi 
 cation with the outer world, much less than it was 
 long after the introduction of Penny Postage. But, 
 with the extension of the Post, the delivery of news 
 papers by special messengers from the towns has 
 almost ceased. Bearing in mind the cost of communi 
 cation, whether by direct delivery or by a postage 
 stamp, we need not be surprised that the newspaper, 
 London or provincial, is not often to be found in the 
 labourer s cottage. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 HE narrative of my publishing enterprises 
 was, in Chapter XXIIL, brought up to 
 1855; with the exception of the two most 
 important works of my later years, the 
 " English Cyclopaedia " and the " Popular History of 
 England." In these undertakings I had a pro 
 prietary interest, although, as I stated in the 
 Preface to the present book, " I had to become 
 more a writer and an editor than a publisher." 
 I have reserved a brief account of these works until 
 I should arrive, in the natural sequence of these 
 Passages, at the periods of their completion. 
 The eight years that were occupied by the super 
 intendence of the Cyclopaedia during seven of 
 which I was also occupied in writing the History 
 bring me to the termination of the Half Century 
 of my Working Life. 
 
 One of the most interesting novels of Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton is entitled " What will he do with 
 it ? " When, in 1848, after the completion of the 
 " Penny Cyclopaedia," I had parted with the stock 
 and stereotype plates, the copyright remained in my 
 hands. It had cost a large sum of money; of its 
 literary value no one doubted ; but its commercial 
 value remained to be tested. " What will he do with 
 it ? " said the Trade: I turned it to account in an 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 459 
 
 abridgment entitled the " National Cyclopaedia." In 
 this the original work was melted down to one- 
 fourth of its dimensions. It was a useful book, but 
 it was far from satisfying the requirements of those 
 who sought in a Cyclopaedia to supply the place of a 
 small library. From this " National Cyclopaedia " of 
 too scanty dimensions, I turned my attention towards 
 producing one of larger proportions even than the 
 original work. The " Imperial Cyclopaedia/ of which 
 a Prospectus was largely circulated, was proposed to be 
 divided into eight or ten great compartments, each of 
 which was to be prefaced by a treatise by some emi 
 nent writer. It would have been a large undertaking, 
 but I had assurances of support from persons of 
 influence, encouraging enough, but not sufficiently 
 numerous to lead me onward to a great risk. Some 
 of the letters of these supporters are before me. 
 One of them is so characteristic of a nobleman who 
 had an hereditary love of science, and a natural 
 devotion to literature, that I may be pardoned the 
 egotism of its insertion. Lord Ellesmere writes to 
 me on the 19th of June, 1850 : " I shall direct my 
 bookseller to furnish the volumes as they come out, 
 as I look upon your professional labours as among 
 the best exertions of the day for fighting the devil 
 and all his works." Lord Ellesmere s cordial letter 
 to me was his answer to my proposal to publish by 
 subscription. This plan, by which authors and pub 
 lishers took hostages against evil fortune, was in 
 general use during the first half of the eighteenth 
 century. Like most other human things it was 
 subject to abuse; but it was founded upon a true 
 estimate of the peculiar risks of publishing. It is 
 manifest that, if a certain number of persons unite 
 
460 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 in agreement to purchase a book which is about to 
 be printed, the author may be at ease with regard to 
 the issue of the enterprise ; and the subscribers 
 ought to receive what they want, at a lower cost than 
 when risk enters into price. For more than half a 
 century nearly all the great books were published by 
 subscription; and the highest in literature felt no 
 degradation in themselves canvassing with their 
 subscription receipts. The plan which, upon the 
 face of it, was a just one for all parties a fair ex 
 change between seller and buyer came in process 
 of time to be regarded with suspicion. The practice 
 of soliciting subscriptions which, in Pope, and Steele, 
 and Johnson, and fifty other eminent authors, was 
 legitimate and honourable, was in the next century 
 either treated with cold neglect, or regarded with the 
 same suspicion as the devices of the begging-letter 
 writer. I quickly found out my mistake, and united 
 myself with a publishing house who had the means 
 of largely circulating a serial work throughout the 
 kingdom. 
 
 I have already devoted two Chapters to the history 
 of the " Penny Cyclopaedia." I have there described 
 the labours of the various Contributors, and have 
 recorded some characteristic traits of the eminent 
 persons who were associated in this work. It was 
 completed in 1844. In the nine years that elapsed 
 between that period and the commencement of the 
 "English Cyclopaedia," knowledge of all kinds had 
 been accumulating at a rate of marvellous rapidity. 
 
 The geographical descriptions, for example, of 
 the " Penny Cyclopaedia," had stopped short of the 
 wonderful development of the Australian colonies. 
 The new Cyclopaedia was arranged in four divisions, 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 461 
 
 Geography, Natural History, Biography, Arts and 
 Sciences. The two first of these Divisions were pro 
 ceeding at the same time, and were each completed 
 in two years and a half. What a store of new 
 materials had been gathering together, for the use of 
 the Geographer and the Naturalist, that required to 
 be set forth in the remodelled Cyclopaedia ! These 
 two Divisions were succeeded by that of Biography. 
 If no other additions had been required than the 
 introduction of names of living persons, the new lite 
 rary labour would have been of no small amount 
 sufficient indeed to form a separate book, not so 
 large but essentially as complete as the Biographic 
 des Contemporains. This Biographical Division, in 
 six volumes, was completed in 1858. The Division 
 of Arts and Sciences included a great amount of 
 miscellaneous subjects, not capable of being intro 
 duced into the more precise arrangement of the three 
 previous departments. It was completed in eight 
 volumes in 1861. In my Introduction to the eighth 
 volume, I said " it has been produced the last in the 
 series, that nothing of new invention and discovery in 
 Science nothing of progressive improvement in the 
 Arts might be omitted." 
 
 In the conduct of this work I adopted two prin 
 ciples ; first that not an article, not a page, not a 
 line, should be reprinted without revision ; secondly, 
 that every new Contributor should be so reliable in 
 his talents and his acquirements, that his articles 
 might be safely adopted without undergoing that 
 superintendence which the Useful Knowledge Society 
 professed to undertake for the " Penny Cyclopaedia," 
 and which was often very judiciously exerted. 
 Noticing the Contributors to the earlier work, when I 
 
462 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 was writing these " Passages" in 1863, 1 was looking 
 back twenty years. There was a sort of historical 
 interest attached to many of these names, and I 
 could speak of them unreservedly and without any 
 invidious distinction. It is not so with the Contri 
 butors to a work which was only completed three 
 years before the time when I am now writing. My 
 own duties in the conduct of the work involved little 
 more than a general superintendence. In the Pre 
 face to the Natural History Division I acknowledged 
 my obligations to Dr. Edwin Lankester, who had 
 brought the original articles into a more systematic 
 shape ; who had removed much that was obsolete ; 
 and who, having access to the opinions, and securing 
 the assistance, of the best living authorities, had 
 neglected no new materials that were at that time 
 available. I had further, at the close of the work, to 
 thank my fellow-labourers during many years Mr. 
 A. Ramsay and Mr. J. Thorne for the active and 
 intelligent share they had taken in its management, 
 by which the regularity of publication, and the 
 correctness of the text, had been mainly secured. 
 
 I might probably have been induced to say more 
 of the plan and conduct of this book which, without 
 arrogance, I may call a great book, had I not been 
 able to refer for further details to one of the most 
 learned and interesting articles that ever appeared in 
 a critical work " The History of Cyclopaedias," in the 
 " Quarterly Review " for April, 1863. Of the com 
 mendation of this writer I have just cause to be 
 proud, for it is founded upon an acquaintance, little 
 less than extraordinary, with the Cyclopaedias of all 
 countries and languages, of far-removed or of recent 
 times. I am satisfied that he speaks from an honest 
 
THE TRIED EPOCH. 463 
 
 conviction alone, when he says " the English 
 Cyclopaedia is a work that as a whole has no superior 
 and very few equals of its kind ; that, taken by 
 itself, supplies the place of a small library; and, 
 used in a large library, is found to present many 
 points of information that are sought in vain in any 
 other cyclopaedia in the English language." The 
 " Quarterly Review " is chiefly addressed to those who 
 have leisure and abundant means ; but there is an 
 other class to whom the "English Cyclopaedia" is 
 strongly recommended as a book for those who labour 
 with their hands, and have little time for systematic 
 study. In the " Working Men s College Magazine " 
 for November, 1861, there is an article signed V. 
 Lushington, for which I have abstained from offering 
 my thanks, for I feel that to express personal grati 
 tude to a critic is to imply that other considerations 
 than those of truth and justice may have suggested 
 his praise. I cannot probably, however, better con 
 clude my notice of a work which has brought me 
 abundant honour, than by giving an eloquent passage 
 from this notice. It will be seen that Mr. Lushing 
 ton is not one of those who think it necessary to 
 write down to the comprehension of working men : 
 " Perhaps the first sensation of the reader on opening 
 these massive volumes will be one of bewilderment, 
 and unwillingness to traverse any such mountain of 
 knowledge. But on better consideration he will feel 
 two things ; first, that kind of reverence which the 
 spectacle of any great human labour cannot but call 
 forth ; and secondly, that this (or indeed any) Cyclo 
 paedia is a witness to the inexhaustible interest of 
 reality and simple truth. He will see that it is in 
 fact a record of a thousand thousand conquests over 
 
464 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 thick night, won in many generations by far-reaching 
 industry, and patient intelligence, in many cases 
 even say the discovery of America by downright 
 unmistakeable valour : and so gazing on these 
 columns, there may come flashing through his mind 
 something of the exultation with which a people 
 greets a victorious army returning homeward. At 
 least he cannot but observe how the age in which we 
 live is assiduously minding and doing her business ; 
 everywhere extending and consolidating positive 
 knowledge ; with honest sober eyes scrutinising the 
 past of human history, studying the starry heavens, 
 the solid earth, and all living things, tracking every 
 where the dominion of stedfast laws, then recording 
 what is found, for ourselves and for those who come 
 after. A Cyclopedia witnesses that all these things 
 are being done." 
 
 In 1854 I was instigated by an article in " The 
 Times" seriously to contemplate the task of writing a 
 general history of England. Lord John Russell had 
 delivered an address at Bristol on the study of his 
 tory, and the leading journal took up the subject of 
 the noble speaker s complaint " that we have no 
 other history of England than Hume s" that "when 
 a young man of eighteen asks for a history of 
 England, there is no resource but to give him 
 Hume." I had published " The Pictorial History of 
 England" some years before in many respects a 
 valuable history, but one whose limits had gone far 
 beyond what, as its projector, I had originally con 
 templated. I altogether rejected the idea of making 
 an abridgment of that history. Many materials 
 for a History of ike People had been collected by me 
 
THE THIBD EPOCH. 465 
 
 without any immediate object of publication. The 
 remarks of " The Times" led me to depart from my 
 original design of writing a Domestic History of 
 England apart from its Public History. Upon a 
 more extended plan, I would endeavour to trace 
 through our long continued annals the essential con 
 nection between our political history and our social. 
 To accomplish this, I would not keep the People in 
 the background, as in many histories, and I would 
 call my work "The Popular History of England." 
 
 For more than a year I was gradually preparing 
 for my task, and was ready to begin the printing at 
 the end of 1855. It was to be published in monthly 
 parts. My publishers desiring that the first part 
 should contain an introduction, setting forth the 
 objects of a new history of England, I was induced 
 to explain my motives for undertaking it, with a sin 
 cerity which perhaps may be deemed imprudent. It 
 may be as imprudent for the historian as for the 
 statesman to make any general profession of prin 
 ciples at the onset of his career. The succession of 
 events in either case might modify his past con 
 victions. But I have no reason to depart in letter or 
 spirit from what I wrote : " The People, if I under 
 stand the term rightly, means the Commons of these 
 realms, and not any distinct class or section of the 
 population. Ninety years ago, Goldsmith called the 
 middle order of mankind the People, and those 
 below them the Rabble. We have outlived all 
 this. A century of thought and action has widened 
 and deepened the foundations of the State. This 
 People, then, want to find, in the history of their 
 country, something more than a series of annals, 
 either of policy or war. In connection with a faithful 
 
466 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 narrative of public affairs, they want to learn their 
 own history how they have grown out of slavery, 
 out of feudal wrong, out of regal despotism, into 
 constitutional liberty, and the position of the greatest 
 estate of the realm." 
 
 In the summer of 1858 I had completed four 
 volumes of my history, reaching the period of the 
 Revolution of 1688. In the postscript to the fourth 
 volume I endeavoured to illustrate the principle, so 
 well defined by my friend Mr. Samuel Lucas in a 
 Lecture on Social Progress, that the history of every 
 nation " has been in the main sequential " that 
 each of its phases has been " the consequence of 
 some prior phase, and the natural prelude of that 
 which succeeded it." I pointed out that the early 
 history of the Anglican Church was to be traced in 
 all the subsequent elements of our ecclesiastical 
 condition ; that upon the Roman and Saxon civiliza 
 tion were founded many of the principles of govern 
 ment which still preserved their vitality ; that the 
 Norman despotism was absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon 
 freedom ; and that the recognition of the equal rights 
 of all men before the Law was the only mode by 
 which feudality could maintain itself. " From the 
 deposition of Richard the Second to the abdication 
 of James the Second, every act of national resistance 
 was accomplished by the union of classes, and was 
 founded upon some principle of legal right for which 
 there was legal precedent. Out of the traditional 
 and almost instinctive assertion of the popular privi 
 leges, have come new developments of particular 
 reforms, each adapted to its own age, but all springing 
 out of that historical experience which we recognise 
 as Constitutional." 
 
THE TRIED EPOCH. 467 
 
 In November, 18 62, 1 completed the book upon which 
 I had been employed unremittingly for a seventh part 
 of my working life. I then stated in a postscript that, 
 with the exception of three chapters on the Fine 
 Arts, " The Popular History" had been wholly written 
 by myself. Being the production of one mind, I 
 trusted that the due proportions of the narrative, 
 from the first chapter to the last, had been main 
 tained. I again set forth the principles which had 
 enabled me to carry it through with a consistent 
 purpose. " Feeling my responsibilities to be increased 
 by the fact that my duty was to impart knowledge 
 and not to battle for opinions, my desire has been to 
 cherish that love of liberty which is best founded 
 upon a sufficient acquaintance with its gradual de 
 velopment and final establishment amongst us ; to 
 look with a tolerant judgment even upon those who 
 have sought to govern securely by governing abso 
 lutely ; to trace with calmness the efforts of those 
 who have imperilled our national independence by 
 foreign assault or domestic treason, but never to 
 forget that a just love of country is consistent with 
 historical truth ; to carry forward, as far as within the 
 power of one who has watched joyfully and hopefully 
 the great changes of a generation, that spirit of im 
 provement, which has been more extensively and 
 permanently called forth in the times of which 
 this concluding volume treats than in the whole pre 
 vious period from the Revolution of 1688." 
 
 " The Popular History of England " to the period 
 of the Revolution embraced a class of subjects that 
 was once considered extraneous to history the pro 
 gress of manufactures and commerce the develop 
 ments of literature and the arts the aspects of 
 
468 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: 
 
 manners and of common life. The same principle 
 was constantly kept in view in the succeeding four 
 volumes, which brought up the history to 1849 an. 
 epoch marked by the final extinction of the Corn 
 Laws. This large class of subjects, so essentially 
 connected with our civil, military, and religious annals, 
 was treated by me, " not in set dissertations under 
 distinct heads, separated from the course of events by 
 long intervals, bat in frequent notices, either in 
 special chapters at periods marked by characteristics 
 of progress, or occurring as incidental illustrations of 
 the political narrative." The experience of -the pre 
 sent generation may be sufficient to trace the con 
 nection between the progress of good government, 
 following the gradual discomfiture of corrupt or igno 
 rant government, and the progress of industry, art, 
 and letters, maintaining and carrying forward the 
 power and influence of political improvement. 
 
 The proportions of those chapters of my Popular 
 History of England which have reference to the 
 national Industry and the progress of the Arts, as 
 compared with the chapters on our Civil, Military, 
 and Religious History, scarcely warrant me in accept 
 ing the title which has been conferred upon me, that 
 of " The Boswell of Birmingham." It is a very 
 pretty piece of alliteration, and has the true ring of 
 that small wit which goes a good way towards the 
 making of a periodical critic of the insolent order. 
 In the four first volumes, which bring the history 
 down to the Revolution, one-tenth only of the whole 
 matter is occupied with the subjects of Commerce 
 and Manufactures, of Science and Art, of Literature, 
 of the Condition of the People. In the second half 
 of the work about one-fifth of the whole text is 
 
THE THIKD EPOCH. 469 
 
 devoted to these subjects. Of the eight volumes, 
 comprising four thousand pages, an amount equal 
 to one volume is devoted to these various manifesta 
 tions of the progress of a people. Such details were 
 once considered extraneous to history proper ; and even 
 now, some who think, or affect to think, that history 
 should confine itself to the concerns of Courts and 
 Cabinets, regard them as vulgar. Such, especially, 
 is their opinion about Commerce and Manufactures. 
 Modern statesmanship has a different creed. It has 
 been compelled to guide its course of political action 
 by a broad view of the social condition of the entire 
 population, rather than by the interests or prejudices 
 of a party or a class. Never in our own country, 
 and to a certain extent in other countries, had the 
 claims of industry not upon patronage, not upon 
 protection, not upon bounties, but simply to be left 
 free to work out its own good been more regarded 
 in the highest places, as the one great foundation of 
 national prosperity. The slightest glance at the early 
 history of England will show that with the prosperity 
 of industry, and that security of property, which was 
 necessary for its more general distribution, gradually 
 came internal tranquillity, in spite of disputed suc 
 cessions and constant attempts to put the neck of 
 one class under the heel of another. The "hostile 
 armies" were, in every succeeding generation, be 
 coming reduced in numbers, and more and more 
 open to the reconciliation of their conflicting preten 
 sions. As the mediaeval castles gradually became 
 mansions ; as the privileges of a caste were put away, 
 like " unscoured armour hung by the wall ;" as there 
 grew, out of feudal exclusiveness, an aristocracy not 
 alien to the commonalty ; the yeoman, the merchant, 
 
470 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I 
 
 the artisan, and last of all the peasant, came to be 
 regarded as integral portions of the state. Then, 
 and not till then, was society secure in the established 
 reign of law and order. Then, and not till then, 
 could those who did not labour with their hands sit 
 secure in their homes, even should an occasional 
 demagogue attempt to re-kindle the lights and fires 
 of the fourteenth century to the tune of 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman ? " 
 
 I might run over every era of our modern history 
 to show how, with the development of Industry and 
 the accumulation of Wealth, those who have been 
 seeking " to diminish or destroy oppressive and 
 tyrannous privileges and customs" have been con 
 strained to employ other weapons than physical force. 
 There was a time when " resistance was an ordinary 
 remedy for political distempers a remedy which was 
 always at hand, and which, though doubtless sharp 
 at the moment, produced no deep or lasting ill 
 effects." The historian marks the difference of our 
 own times ; when " resistance must be regarded as a 
 cure more desperate than almost any malady that 
 can afflict the state." But there is something better 
 than the sword, if occasion should arise for uttering 
 again the ancient demand for "redress of griev 
 ances ;" and Macaulay shows us the alternative : 
 " As we cannot, without the risk of evils from which 
 the imagination recoils, employ physical force as a 
 check on misgovernment, it is evidently our wisdom 
 to keep all the constitutional checks on misgovern 
 ment in the highest state of efficiency ; to watch 
 
THE THIRD EPOCH. 471 
 
 with jealousy the first beginnings of encroachment, 
 and never to suffer irregularities, even when harmless 
 in themselves, to pass unchallenged."* The old army 
 of resistance has become a Constabulary Force, 
 equipped only with the staff that is the symbol of 
 Law and Order. 
 
 Here, strictly speaking, terminates the narrative of 
 my labour and my observation during half a century. 
 This Chapter records the principal employment of 
 my time, to the end of 1862. I regard the chief part 
 of that occupation, during seven years, as having 
 been to me a source of happiness. Removed, in a 
 great degree, from commercial labours and anxieties, 
 that continuous direction of my mind to a subject so 
 interesting and engrossing as a General History of 
 England, had a tranquillizing influence ; and pre 
 pared me to look back upon my past career with some 
 thing like a philosophical estimate of its good and 
 evil fortune. 
 
 Until the Septuagenarian shall hear " kind 
 Nature s signal to retreat," Rest and Retrospection 
 properly succeed the excitements of "a Working 
 Life." The task of writing these " Passages " has 
 been at once Rest and Retrospection. It has in 
 volved no laborious research ; it has compelled no 
 violent suppression of natural egotism to forbear 
 speaking of personal matters that could have no 
 interest for others ; it has demanded little more than 
 an accurate memory of former events, and a candid 
 and charitable estimate of rny contemporaries. Taken 
 altogether, this also has been a pleasurable task ; 
 
 * Macaulay, " History of England," 1st. ed., Vol. 1., p. 36. 
 
472 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE: 
 
 and, to compare small things with great, the " sober 
 melancholy " which Gibbon felt when he wrote " the 
 last lines of the last page " of his immortal History, 
 comes over me, as I contemplate taking a final leave 
 " of an old and agreeable companion." 
 
 The fiftieth anniversary of my marriage has just 
 "passed. Half a century of congenial wedlock is a 
 blessing accorded to few. It brought with it the 
 further blessing of a family united in love ; of a 
 home where cheerful faces ever welcomed me. 
 During forty years I had known no great sorrow. 
 I had not been bereft of any one of those who were 
 the joy of my manhood, and the comfort of my age. 
 A dark cloud has cast its solemn shadow over my 
 Golden Bridal; but I feel that our griefs, and the 
 consolations which should come with them, are for 
 ourselves, and not for the outer world. Taken as a 
 whole, my life has been a happy one. 
 
 During the progress of these " Passages," I have, 
 as far as I could, steadily resisted the temptation of 
 entering upon any details of my private circum 
 stances or domestic relations. If, in closing this 
 narrative, I have stepped for an instant across the 
 boundary line which I prescribed to myself, and if 
 I look not beyond my own home for one to whom I 
 can offer a concluding tribute of affection, I must be 
 forgiven, in the consideration that " out of the 
 abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh :" 
 
TO MY WIPE; 
 
 TO HER WHO HAS BEEN THE BEST FRIEND, 
 
 THE ADVISER, THE SYMPATHIZER, THE CONSOLES, 
 
 DURING HALF A CENTURY OF MY WORKING LIFE, 
 
 I INSCRIBE THIS RECORD, 
 WITH A GRATEFUL HEART TO THE GIVER OF ALL GOOD. 
 
 January 16, 1866. 
 
**AND HEBR WILL I MAKE AN BND. AKD IF I HAVE DONE WELL, AND 
 AS IS FITTING THE STORY, IT IS THAT WHICH I DESIBED ; BUT IF SLENDERLY 
 AND MEANLY, IT 13 THAT WHICH I COULD ATTAIN UNTO." II. MaCCObeSS, XV., 
 
 87, 38. 
 
INDEX OF PERSONS 
 
 MENTIONED AS CONTEMPORARIES OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 AIRY, GEORGE B., 350. 
 Allen, William, 315. 
 Althorp, Lord, 321, 373. 
 Amelia, Princess, 74, 75. 
 Arnold, Dr, 157, 228, 335-6-7, 
 
 448, 452. 
 Arnott, Dr. Neil, 167, 313, 433, 
 
 434. 
 
 Auckland, Lord, 321, 324, 325. 
 Ayrton, William, 364. 
 
 BALDWIN, ROBERT, 180, 185. 
 Baley, Dr.,360. 
 Battiscomb, Mr., 44. 
 Beaufort, Captain Francis, 300, 
 
 301, 310, 359. 
 
 Beckford, William, 223, 224. 
 Bell, Sir Charles, 313. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 259, 361, 
 
 362. 
 
 Birnie, Sir Richard, 126. 
 Bisset, Andrew, 379. 
 Blackwood, William, 181. 
 Blaz de Bury, Madame, 425. 
 Bliicher, Marshal, 114. 
 Blunt, Rev. Walter, 195, 197. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 58, 59, 
 91, 107, 113. 
 
 Bosanquet, Mr., 40. 
 
 Britton, John, 31, 169, 188, 274. 
 
 Broderip, William John, 359. 
 
 Brooks, William, 135. 
 
 Brougham, Henry, Lord, 82-4, 
 99, 100, 135, 232, 233, 282-5, 
 293, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 
 308, 309, 311, 322, 323, 327, 
 346-8, 350, 373, 402, 403, 424. 
 
 Brownley, Mr., 88, 89. 
 
 Buckingham, J. S., 288, 289. 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 82. 
 
 Burney, Dr., 41, 43. 
 
 Burney, Fanny, 34, 41, 45. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 13, 15, 16, 85, 86, 
 134, 254, 255. 
 
 CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 185, 254. 
 Canning, George, 20, 66, 82, 84, 
 
 109, 187, 198, 289, 290. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 62, 446. 
 Caroline, Queen, 146, 166, 172, 
 
 173. 
 Carter, Thomas, 425. 
 
476 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 82, 84, 187. 
 Cattermole, George, 169, 225. 
 Chambonas, Marquis of, 109. 
 Charlotte, Princess, 119, 120. 
 Charlotte, Queen, 103. 
 Chitty, Mr., 165. 
 Clarke, Mrs. Cowden, 391. 
 Clarke, Thomas, 367, 395. 
 Clowes, William, 117, 340. 
 Coates, Thomas, 294, 300, 308, 
 
 332, 369. 
 Cobbett, William, 98, 130, 152, 
 
 157, 160. 
 
 Cochrane, Captain John Dun- 
 das, 263. 
 Colburn, Mr., 184, 189, 190, 275, 
 
 281. 
 
 Cole, John, 167, 168. 
 Coleridge, Derwent, 200, 209, 
 
 212, 219, 226, 240. 
 Coleridge, Hartley, 436, 437. 
 Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 202, 
 
 204, 212, 232, 388. 
 Coleridge, S. T., 141, 431-3. 
 Collier, J. Payne, 395, 396. 
 Colnaghi, Messrs., 252, 262. 
 Conolly, Dr., 319. 
 Constable, William, 192, 275, 
 
 278, 280. 
 Cooke, G.F.,45. 
 Copley, J. S., 117. 
 Coulson, William, 319. 
 Cowper, Edward, 352-4. 
 Craik, George Lillie, 322,323, 
 
 331, 379, 383, 424. 
 Creswick, Thomas, 51, 392. 
 Croker, J. W., 82, 188, 252, 390, 
 
 393, 396. 
 
 Croly, Rev. Dr., 265,276. 
 Cruikshank, George, 113, 159. 
 
 Cunningham, Allan, 292. 
 Cunningham, Peter, 87. 
 
 DALLAS, REV. ALEXANDER, 
 
 255, 257. 
 
 Dallas, Robert Charles, 255-8. 
 Daniel, J. F., 300, 319. 
 Davis, Sir J. F., 359, 424. 
 Davis, J. P., 89, 265, 356. 
 De la Beche, Henry, 319. 
 Delany, Mrs., 33. 
 De Luc, Jean Andre, 45. 
 De Morgan, Augustus, 317, 
 
 331, 349. 
 Denman, Thomas, 160, 321, 
 
 403. 
 De Quincey, T., 185, 186, 219, 
 
 234-7, 241, 242, 372, 394, 438, 
 
 439. 
 Dickens, Charles, 222, 404, 426, 
 
 431, 443, 444. 
 Dickson, Dr. Robert, 360. 
 Dodd, George, 352, 383, 407, 
 
 428. 
 
 Donaldson, Dr., 362. 
 Donkin, Mr., 117. 
 Drakard, Mr., 99. 
 Duncan, James, 277. 
 Dupin, M. Charles, 284. 
 
 EASTLAKE, SIB CHARLES, 356. 
 Edwards, George, 144, 145. 
 Eldon, Lord, 257, 258, 290. 
 Ellenborough, Lord, 99, 100, 
 
 102, 159. 
 
 Ellesmere, Lord, 459. 
 Ellis, Sir Henry, 55, 379, 
 
 388. 
 
 Ellis, T. F., 316. 
 Exmouth, Lord, 166, 167. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 477 
 
 FAIRHOLT, WILLIAM, 383, 384. 
 Falconer, Thomas, 320. 
 Fisher, Dr., 65. 
 Forster, John, 445. 
 Frere, John, 20. 
 Fry, Alfred, 159, 160. 
 
 GALT, JOHN, 182. 
 Gayangos, Pascual de, 363. 
 Gent, Thomas, 264, 265. 
 George III., 18, 24, 37, 38, 44, 
 
 45, 52, 74, 76, 77, 93, 126, 
 
 146-9. 
 
 George IV., 146, 172. 
 Gibbs, Sir Vicary, 82, 99. 
 Gillman, James, 431, 432. 
 Goldsmid, Isaac Lyon, 314, 315. 
 
 HALFORD, SIB HENRY, 107, 
 108. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur H., 372. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 309. 
 
 Hampton, Rev. James, 1. 
 
 Hanson, Mr., 257. 
 
 Harvey, William, 384, 408. 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 226. 
 
 Head, Sir Edmund, 356. 
 
 Heath, Joseph, 54. 
 
 Herschel, Dr., 44. 
 
 Herschel, Sir John, 72. 
 
 Heywood, James, 440. 
 
 Hill, Matthew Davenport, 170, 
 187, 222, 228, 232, 234, 238, 
 283, 284, 293, 300, 303, 305, 
 312, 323, 326, 373, 395, 402 ; 
 403. 
 
 Hill, Rowland, 312, 374. 
 
 Hobhouse, John Cam, 256 : 
 257. 
 
 Hogg, Mr., 44. 
 
 Holloway, Mr., 52. 
 
 Hone, William, 159. 
 
 Hood, Thomas, 185, 264, 276, 
 
 438, 440. 
 
 Homer, Francis, 82. 
 Horner, Leonard, 317. 
 Hunt, John, 70, 99, 100, 176, 
 
 177. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 70, 99, 100, 114, 
 
 119, 176, 210, 383, 388, 431, 
 
 438, 439. 
 
 INGALTON, Mr., 130. 
 Ireland, William Henry, 262. 
 
 JACKSON, COLONEL, 359. 
 Jameson, Mrs., 388, 407. 
 Jardine, David, 320, 350. 
 Jerdan, William, 81, 276. 
 Jerrold, Douglas, 264, 440-2. 
 Jesse, Mr., 392, 393. 
 
 KEATE, Dr., 144. 
 
 Keats, John, 134. 
 
 Kent, Duchess of, 295. 
 
 Ker, H. Bellenden, 311, 372, 
 
 376, 402. 
 Key, Thomas Hewitt, 317, 362, 
 
 402, 403. 
 
 Kindersley, R. T., 258. 
 Kitchener, Dr., 276. 
 Kitto, Dr. John, 332-4, 377, 
 
 378, 428. 
 
 Knight, Charles, sen., 20. 
 Krasinski, Count, 364. 
 
 LAMB, CHARLES, 185, 186. 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 431. 
 Lane, George, 79. 
 Lane, Mrs., 85. 
 
478 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lankester, Dr. Edwin, 360, 
 
 462. 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 254, 369. 
 Layard, Mr., 437. 
 Lefevre, Sir John Shaw, 316, 
 
 402. 
 
 Lewes, G. H., 424. 
 Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 
 
 320, 362. 
 Lind, Dr., 43. 
 Lindley, Dr. John, 330. 
 Locker, Admiral, 153. 
 Locker, Edw. Hawke, 153, 154, 
 
 164, 165, 172, 275. 
 Lockhart, J. G., 181, 280. 
 Lodge, Edmund, 372. 
 Long, Professor George, 316, 
 
 331, 346, 347, 362, 395, 402, 
 
 403. 
 Lubbock, John William, 300, 
 
 315. 
 
 Lucas, Samuel, 456. 
 Lupton, Mr., 372. 
 Lushington, V.,463. 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 357. 
 
 MACAULAY, T. B., LORD, 200, 
 
 209, 212, 216-19, 221, 228-31, 
 
 238, 437, 438. 
 Macfarlane, Charles, 331, 379, 
 
 380. 
 Maginn, Dr. William, 265, 
 
 390. 
 
 Major, John, 192. 
 Maiden, Henry, 209, 212, 219, 
 
 232, 238, 240, 317. 
 Malkin, Arthur, 316, 372. 
 Malkin, Benjamin, 316. 
 Maltby, Dr., 314. 
 Manning, James, 320. 
 
 Martineau, Miss H.. 168, 435, 
 
 448. 
 
 Martin, John, 428. 
 Means, Rev. C., 359. 
 Hellish, Mr., 40. 
 Merivale, John Herman, 320. 
 Mill, James, 309. 
 Moore, Thomas, 99, 254, 256-8. 
 Moore, General, 70. 
 Moultrie, Rev. John, 199, 201, 
 
 207, 208, 212, 215, 219, 221, 
 
 226, 229, 231, 241, 268, 291. 
 Mudford, William, 89. 
 Mudie, Robert, 261. 
 Mulready, William, 357. 
 Murray, John, 190, 256, 285. 
 
 306, 307, 369. 
 
 NELSON, HORATIO, LORD, 58, 
 
 153. 
 
 Nicholas, Rev. Dr., 54. 
 Norris, Edwin, 354-6. 
 Northumberland, Duke of, 117. 
 
 ORD, WILLIAM HENRY, 228, 
 
 375. 
 Owen, Robert, 434, 435. 
 
 PAGET, J., 360. 
 Palmerston, Lord, 82. 
 Parnell, Sir Henry, 321. 
 Parry, Fras. Charles, 135. 
 Parry, Captain William, 259. 
 Perceval, Hon. Spencer, 82,84. 
 Peter Pindar, 36, 50. 
 Phillips, John, 360. 
 Phillips, Samuel, 342,345. 
 Pickering, William, 192. 
 Pitt, William, 28, 42, 58 
 Place, Francis, 327. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 479 
 
 Planche, J. R.,383. 
 
 Platt, John Clarke, 383. 
 
 Pole, Mr., 40. 
 
 Ponsonby, G. B., 82. 
 
 Porny, M., 45, 56. 
 
 Porter, George Richardson, 325, 
 
 402. 
 Poynter, Edward (should be 
 
 Ambrose), 379, 384. 
 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 
 
 195-8, 201, 205-7, 210, 212, 
 
 219, 227, 228, 239-41, 244, 
 
 290, 291, 408, 438. 
 Priestley, Richard, 191. 
 Pringle, Thomas, 331, 332. 
 
 QUIN, MR., 89. 
 
 RAMMOHUN, ROY, 435. 
 Ramsay, Alexander, 338, 425, 
 
 463. 
 Reynolds, John Hamilton, 
 
 185. 
 Rham, Rev. William Lewis, 
 
 350, 351. 
 
 Rice, Spring, 321, 344, 375. 
 Ritter, Karl, 359. 
 Robinson, Frederick, 84, 275. 
 Rodd, Thomas, 386, 387. 
 Roget, Dr. P. M., 313. 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 82. 
 Rose, George, 82. 
 Rosen, Frederick Augustus, 
 
 364. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 308, 321. 
 Rutter, Mr., 223. 
 Ryder, Hon. Richard, 82. 
 
 ST. LEGER, BARRY, 236, 240, 
 241, 244, 248. 
 
 Saunders, John, 383,407,424, 
 
 429. 
 Scarlett, Robert, 101, 157, 232, 
 
 233, 
 
 Schmitz, Leonard, 362, 363. 
 Scott, John, 99, 180, 185. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 116,377,278, 
 
 280, 286. 
 
 Sheepshanks, John, 350. 
 Sheepshanks, Rev. Richard, 
 
 349. 
 
 Sheil, Richard Lalor, 88, 89. 
 Shelley, P. B., 44. 
 Sheridan, R. B., 82. 
 Siddons, Mrs., 86. 
 Simon, John, 360. 
 Smith, Henry, 359. 
 Smith, John, 20. 
 Smith, Philip, 362. 
 Smith, Robert, 20. 
 Smith, Dr. Southwood, 167, 361, 
 
 362. 
 
 Smith, Dr. William, 362. 
 Soane, Sir John, 232. 
 Southey, Robert, 127. 
 Spencer, Earl, 409. 
 Steer, John, 165, 187. 
 Sterling, John, 397. 
 Sumner, Rev. Charles Richard, 
 
 255, 267-9, 274, 280. 
 Sunnier, Rev. John Bird, 132, 
 
 161. 
 
 TALFOURD, MR. SERJEANT, 
 
 441. 
 
 Talma, Francois Joseph, 273. 
 Talbot, Fox, 358. 
 Taylor, Sir Herbert, 145, 146. 
 Tennyson, A., 431, 445, 446. 
 Thackeray, W. M., 443, 444. 
 
480 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thorns, William J., 382. 
 Thomson, Dr. Anthony Todd, 
 
 319. 
 
 Thomson, Christopher, 328. 
 Thorne, James, 407, 462. 
 Tierney, George, 82. 
 Tooke, William, 157, 308, 
 
 336. 
 
 Trench, Colonel, 253. 
 Turner, Rev. J. M., 165, 275. 
 Turton, Sir Thomas, 83. 
 
 UPCOTT, MR., 135. 
 Ure, Dr. Andrew, 354. 
 
 VICTORIA, QUEEN, 102, 295, 
 
 404. 
 
 Vieusseux, Andrew, 359, 363. 
 Vigors, Nicholas A., 319. 
 
 WALKER, WILLIAM SIDNEY, 
 
 114, 199, 200, 212, 268. 
 Walter, John, 116. 
 Ward, John, 336. 
 
 Weir, William, 359, 379, 383, 
 
 403. 
 
 Wellesley, Marquis, 84. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 70, 91, 
 
 103, 104, 106, 113, 115. 
 Whewell, William, 228. 
 Whitbread, Samuel, 82, 84, 87, 
 
 110. 
 
 Whittaker, G. B., 278. 
 Whittaker, T. B., 275, 276. 
 Wilson, Professor John, 181, 
 
 182, 213, 438, 439. 
 Winchester, Bishop of, 369. 
 Wittich, William, 359. 
 Woollcombe, Mr. H., 332. 
 Wordsworth/William, 134, 431, 
 
 435-7. 
 
 Wofnum, R. N., 356, 429. 
 Wrottesley, John, 300, 316, 402, 
 
 403. 
 
 Wyatt, James, 34. 
 Wyatville, Jeffrey, 274. 
 
 YORK, DUKE OF, 71. 
 Young, Charles, 86. 
 
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 BERKELEY 
 
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