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 FORTY YEAES' RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 fife, fifentture, mfo luWic %Mx&. 
 
 FROM 
 
 1830 to 1870. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES MACKAY, LL.D. 
 
 Al/THOR. Oi - "EGERIA," "A Man's HEART," "STUDIES FROM THE ANTIQUE," &C, &C. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1877.
 
 LONDON 
 BRADUURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHIXEFRIARS.
 
 H°ini 
 
 I 211 
 W / 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 f 
 
 PAGE 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844 60 
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY — 1838-1844 . 99 
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE REACH . , . . 143 
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL 15S 
 
 A PROPOSED LITERARY UNION . 16S 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT 175 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS 207 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL 221 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH 231 
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR 247 
 
 1845-6, THE FINAL YEARS OF THE ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE . 262 
 
 PROFESSOR J. P. NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUINCEY . . . 313 
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND 327 
 
 MACREADY IN GLASGOW 33G 
 
 35
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 EARLY EFFORTS IN THE CAUSE OF THE EDUCATION OF THE 
 
 PEOPLE 341 
 
 POOR LAWS AND DEER FORESTS ; — SHEEP AND GROUSE VERSUS 
 
 MEN AND SOLDIERS 378 
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847 402
 
 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 In the early summer of the year 1832 a young man 
 ■who had just completed his eighteenth year arrived in 
 London, from Brussels, where he had passed the previous 
 four years in study. He had high hopes, great ambition, 
 vigorous health, and immense inexperience. He had, 
 moreover, a few — a very few — pounds in his pocket, and 
 a small — a very small — credit at an army agency in West- 
 minster, which last was a fund which was only to be 
 available upon occasion of the utmost urgency. This 
 youth had come to London to make, or endeavour to 
 make, his way in literature and journalism. He had once 
 thought of studying law, but had abandoned the idea. He 
 had no taste for theology and divinity and did not think 
 that he was fitted for the pulpit. He had speculated on 
 the possibility of becoming a physician, but did not think 
 on cool reflection that that was his true vocation ; and he 
 had an unwise objection to trade. His ancestors, as far 
 back as he could trace them, had all been soldiers, but he 
 lacked interest to obtain a commission, or having had 
 interest it had slipped from his grasp, though he would 
 not have objected to a military career. His education had 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 been of the most miscellaneous kind — picked up by him- 
 self, rather than prescribed or enforced upon him by extra- 
 neous power or wisdom. He knew little Latin or Greek, 
 though he had painfully studied both, but to make amends 
 for this deficiency, he spoke and wrote French with the 
 fluency of a native ; could converse in German, and enjoy 
 a German book without the aid of a dictionary ; and 
 had taught himself to read and understand Italian and 
 Spanish. He was acquainted with all the best poetry in 
 the English, French, and German languages, and had 
 read whole libraries of romance. He had a brave heart, 
 though he did not know it at the time, and a self reliance, 
 which might either have been called sublime or ridiculous 
 by any wiser person who had studied his character. 
 
 This young man, so rash, so hopeful, so slightly in- 
 debted to fortune for any aids to climb up the slippery 
 heights of ambition, is the writer of the following pages. 
 The Recollections, which he brings before the public, both 
 as warning and incentive to others who unwisely depend 
 upon the rewards of literature for their daily bread — as he 
 unluckily has done — are not those of disastrous chances, 
 moving accidents, or hair-breadth escapes, like those 
 which so charmed the tender Desdemona, but those of a 
 student of men and books ; of one who, though sometimes 
 loving solitude, was never a recluse, and who realised 
 to some extent the dream of his youthful ambition by 
 playing a part in the politics and literature of his time. 
 
 In speaking of myself, it is not my intention to assume 
 the place of the hero of my story, but to appear in it 
 merely as the string on which I can collect and exhibit 
 such beads of memory and experience as may illustrate
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 the dangers as well as the successes of a literary career, 
 reflect the spirit and manners of the age in which my 
 lot was cast, and make better known to such readers as 
 may choose to be companions of my way, the great, 
 the good, and the brilliant men and women with whom 
 my avocations brought me into the contact, either of 
 business, of friendship, or of social intercourse. 
 
 I was born in the city of Perth, in the year 1814, but 
 in my early manhood I was so ambitious of the tardy 
 maturity that seemed to my impatient eagerness to be 
 much too long in coming, that I endeavoured to persuade 
 myself and others that I was at least three years older. 
 My father was an officer in the Royal Artillery, the second 
 son of Captain Hugh Mackay, of the Royal Marines, a 
 member of the great Clan of Mackay, that at one time 
 occupied nearly the whole county of Sutherland. He and 
 his ancestors came from that part of the district called 
 the "Reay Forest," and " the Mackay country." A few 
 words about this gentleman and my father may not be 
 out of place, as an introduction to the history of a life 
 cast in a mould and amid scenes very different from theirs. 
 
 My grandfather, when a stripling, served in the army 
 of the Duke of Cumberland, " the Butcher Cumberland" 
 of Jacobite story and song. In this respect he was true 
 to the training and traditions of his ancestors, for the 
 Mackays were one of the very few Highland clans who 
 sided with the Hanoverian dynasty and faithfully adhered 
 to the principles of the Revolution of 1688. My grand- 
 father, when in his teens, held the rank of ensign, and 
 was present at the battle of Druminossu' Muir, better 
 known as Culloden, in 1745, which finally shattered the
 
 4 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 fortunes of the Stuarts, and left the House of Hanover 
 in unmolested possession of the throne. At a later 
 period he exchanged the military for the semi-naval 
 service of the Crown, and attained the rank of Captain of 
 Marines. He commanded a company of that force on 
 board the " Royal George," under Admiral Kempenfeldt. 
 Though accustomed to the sword, he was not unaccus- 
 tomed to the pen, had decided literary tastes and acquire- 
 ments, which he exhibited by writing an epic poem — which 
 never saw the light — and whole volumes of songs and 
 sonnets to Miss Jeanie or Jane Rose, of Kilravock, near 
 Inverness. Although my grandfather's effusions never 
 blossomed into print, they served the, to him, important 
 purpose of gaining the heart and hand of an accomplished 
 and beautiful woman. The Roses of Kilravock, though 
 an untitled family, holding no higher rank than that of 
 country gentlemen, have since the thirteenth century 
 been known to their neighbourhood as "the Barons of 
 Kilravock." They never assumed the title, though they 
 might possibly, if so disposed, have obtained it for the 
 asking. By this lady he had a family of six children. 
 Captain Mackay had influential connections and fair 
 prospects of advancement when an accident occurred 
 which blighted a happy life, and put a sudden end to his 
 professional career, and all his worldly chances of success. 
 In consequence of some trivial dispute at the mess table, 
 leading to the interchange of angry words, he was chal- 
 lenged by Colonel Campbell, his superior officer, to fight 
 a duel. In those days it was impossible even for a pri- 
 vate gentleman to refuse a challenge without incurring 
 the social disgrace of being what is called " sent to
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 Coventry," and though a private gentleman might pos- 
 sibly choose to incur this risk, rather than the greater 
 risk of committing a murder, no officer in the King's 
 service could refuse a challenge without drawing upon 
 his devoted head an amount of obloquy and disgrace that 
 every officer and gentleman considered to be worse than 
 death. The duel was fought, in spite of the efforts of 
 the seconds to prevent it, and the unfortunate Colonel 
 Campbell received a mortal wound, of which he died 
 shortly afterwards. The result was that my grandfather, 
 who would have been ruined if he had not fought, was 
 ruined because he did fight. Thus one gallant gentleman 
 lost his life, and another gallant gentleman lost his 
 position and his peace of mind, all for a hasty word, 
 which, had it not been for unreasoning pride, might have 
 been forgotten, or apologised for, as soon as it was 
 spoken. A military investigation was held, the upshot 
 of which was that the challenged officer was recommended 
 to retire from the service on half-pay. In his disgust at 
 what he called the unmerited punishment visited upon 
 him, for what he considered more of a misfortune than a 
 crime, and partly perhaps from motives of economy, he 
 resolved to leave England and all his old associations, 
 and chose for his future residence the cheap little town 
 of Venlo, in Holland, where his poor half-pay could go 
 further than it would at home. He was attracted to 
 Venlo by previous knowledge, and by his acquaintance 
 with the Dutch Mackays, with whom he claimed kindred. 
 These were the descendants of the famous General Hugh 
 Mackay, of Scowry, the model hero and great favourite of 
 King William III., the same who fought the memorable
 
 6 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 battle of KUlicrankie, against the gallant Dundee — the 
 " bonnie Dundee " of Scott's dashing lyric. General 
 Mackay lost the battle, and Dundee lost his life, as all 
 readers of English history are aware. General Mackay 
 was afterwards killed at the battle of Steenkirk. My 
 grandfather had not been settled for many months in his 
 Dutch home, in close intimacj^ and friendship with his 
 Dutch relations, when news reached him (1782) that his 
 old ship, the " Royal George," had gone down suddenly 
 in harbour, with eight hundred — some accounts said a 
 thousand — souls, including the gallant Admiral Kempen- 
 feldt, and a great number of women and children, who 
 had been permitted to come on board to visit the sailors. 
 The admiral was writing in his cabin at the time, unsus- 
 picious of danger. As Cowper sang at the time, — 
 
 "His sword was in its sheath, 
 His fingers held the pen, 
 When Kempenfeldt went down 
 With twice four hundred men. " 
 
 It was the common belief of the day, and is so re- 
 corded in Cowper's ballad, that the timbers of the unfor- 
 tunate vessel were quite sound, and that she might at a 
 future time be raised to float again, and sound the martial 
 thunder-peals of England over the oceans of two hemis- 
 pheres. Investigation, however, brought out the disgrace- 
 ful fact that the wood-work was utterly rotten, and that 
 the weight of her guns, when they were all injudiciously 
 moved to one side, turned her over completely, and actu- 
 ally tore the side out of her worm-eaten hull. Admiral 
 Milbank declared at the Court of Inquiry that be had 
 seen the " Royal George " in dock at Plymouth, and that
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 her timbers were so rotten that the officers of the dock- 
 yard informed him they could scarcely find fastening for 
 the repairs which she had to undergo, a statement which 
 was confirmed by Admiral Jervis. This, too, was 
 Captain Mackay's recollection of his old ship, and my 
 father heard him more than once declare, quoting Shaks- 
 peare, that there was " a soul of goodness in things evil," 
 and that Ms lamentable duel, whatever ill consequences 
 it might have drawn upon his devoted head, had at least 
 been the means of saving his life, as, but for his dispute 
 with Colonel Campbell, he would in all probability have 
 been on board with his company, and gone to the grave 
 with Kempenfeldt. 
 
 In 1793, when he had attained the age of fourteen, my 
 father, who spoke Dutch, French, and English with equal 
 fluency, and had moreover picked up a little Spanish, 
 was told that the time had come when he must leave the 
 paternal roof and make choice of a profession. Great 
 Britain was at war with the French Republic, and needed 
 the aid of all her gallant youth to maintain her position 
 in the fore-front of the European powers, and as nry 
 father was of a martial family and race, his only difficulty 
 was to decide whether his future life should be passed in 
 the army or the navy. No idea of any other profession ever 
 entered his mind. It turned out afterwards that he had 
 to devote the best years of his youth to the navy, and the 
 best years of his manhood to the army. This, however, 
 he did not know. His first choice was the navy, and on 
 the evacuation of Toulon by the British and their allies 
 in 1793, he served as a midshipman on board His 
 Majesty's sloop, the " Scout," one of the fleet under the
 
 8 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 command of Vice-Admiral Hood. The " Scout" cruised 
 about in the Mediterranean, employed for inany months 
 in various duties, chiefly off the coast of Corsica, and was 
 present, with the remainder of the fleet, to assist General 
 Paoli in his attempt to throw off the yoke of the French 
 revolutionary government. The towns of St. Fiorenzo 
 and Bastia surrendered in succession to the combined 
 attacks of the British army and fleet, aided by a body of 
 Corsican volunteers under Paoli. In consequence of 
 these successes, the whole island, with the exception of 
 the citadel of Calvi, submitted to the British arms. The 
 citadel made an obstinate resistance for several weeks, 
 but finally capitulated, the garrison being allowed to 
 march out with the honours of war. The little middy of 
 fourteen and a half greatly enjoyed this kind of life, and 
 took a keen interest in all the events of the war. 
 
 In July of the same year, the " Scout " was appointed 
 to protect a certain number of boats destined for the 
 coral fishery. (These and the following facts are gleaned 
 from a " Narrative," written by my father, " of an Escape 
 from French Captivity in 1798, by a British Officer," 
 privately printed at Brussels in 1826.) "Having re- 
 ceived on board a four months' supply of provisions, we 
 weighed anchor with our convoy, which consisted of 
 about forty latine sailed boats, each manned with four 
 Corsican fishermen, and provided with a species of 
 dredge, for the purpose of disengaging the coral from the 
 rocks. Our outset was very agreeable, a vast concourse 
 of people being assembled on the beach to witness our 
 departure, invoking all the saints in the calendar to grant 
 us a prosperous voyage.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. » 
 
 " On the 14th of July we came to an anchor with our 
 convoy off the city of Cagliari — the capital of the island 
 of Sardinia, where we received a deputation from the 
 principal inhabitants, inviting us ashore. We were wel- 
 comed on our landing by the civil and military authori- 
 ties, all zealous in their protestations of respect for the 
 British flag— and all equally ardent in their expressions 
 of hatred towards the French Eepublic. * * * After a 
 few days' jollity on shore, we set sail towards Bona in 
 Africa ; and thence to Tripoli, intending to make that 
 place the rendezvous of our coral fishers in case of 
 separation. When about three leagues from Bona, the 
 man at the masthead descried two strange vessels to 
 leeward, which shortly afterwards were ascertained to 
 be frigates. These vessels hoisted Spanish colours as 
 they bore down upon us. Our captain knowing I could 
 speak a little Spanish, placed the speaking trumpet in 
 my hands, that I might answer such questions as the 
 ' Spaniards ' might put. When nearly within pistol- 
 shot, we were asked from whence we came, and whether 
 we had any news of the fleet under Lord Hood ? To which 
 I replied — in very indifferent — 'but still very intelligible 
 Spanish, eked out with French — that his lordship had 
 sailed with the squadron to Elba, and that we had left 
 Corsica with our convoy, after witnessing the surrender 
 of the fortress of Calvi. No sooner had I communicated 
 this unwelcome intelligence, than down came the Spanish 
 colours with a bang, and up went the French tricolor 
 like a flash of lightning, and we received a whole volley 
 of musketry from the enemy's marines. The vessels 
 proved to be two French frigates, the ' Alceste ' and the
 
 10 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ' Vestale,' by the crews of which we were speedily 
 boarded. Overpowed by vastly superior numbers, we 
 were forced to surrender, and were all taken prisoners. 
 We were scurvily treated on board — at least I was. The 
 captain of the ' Alceste,' to whose clutches I was unfor- 
 tunately consigned, on the way to the French prison at 
 Toulon, treated me worse than a dog, and took an especial 
 objection to me because I was fond of reading. Seeing 
 me with a book in my hand, he snatched it from me with 
 an oath, and threw it into the sea, exclaiming to his lieu- 
 tenant, ' Ces b gres d' Anglais sont tous des philo- 
 
 sophes.' Young as I was, I accepted the unintentional 
 compliment as more than an equivalent for the loss of 
 my book." 
 
 The capture of the " Scout" was an unfortunate incident 
 in my father's career ; and were I telling his story rather 
 than my own, I might, from his little printed volume — 
 which is now extremely scarce — extract many stirring 
 particulars of his life during four years as a prisoner of 
 war in the interior of France, and of his many unsuccess- 
 ful attempts to escape to England by way of Switzerland 
 and German}'. In these attempts — continually frustrated 
 by the ubiquitous French gendarmerie — he traversed 
 France on foot, from north to south, and from east to 
 west, living, as he trudged wearily along the road, thread- 
 bare and desolate, upon the kindness of the peasantry, to 
 whom he never hesitated to disclose his nationality, his 
 story, and his desire to return home, and from whom h:^ 
 invariably received the most generous aid and sympathy. 
 He sometimes varied his adventures, as Oliver Goldsmith 
 had done before him, by striking up on a pocket flageolet,
 
 INTRODUCTORY. II 
 
 which lie played very well, some of the tender melodies 
 of his native Scotland, for such fee and reward as his 
 performances might bring from the simple and kind- 
 hearted people. He forded rivers, let himself down from 
 dungeon walls by ropes of bedding, and ran innumerable 
 dangers for the sake of liberty, and the yearning, uncon- 
 trollable desire of revisiting home. After many adventures, 
 both painful and ludicrous, he succeeded at last in 
 reaching Stuttgart, where the British ambassador, Sir J. 
 Stuart, introduced him to the notice of his Serene Highness 
 the Grand Duke of Wirtemberg, the husband of the 
 Princess Matilda of Great Britain. The duke received 
 him very kindly, and listened with the greatest interest 
 to the story of his adventures in France, and was 
 particularly amused at a document given to him by the 
 famous General Kellerman. The general, intending to 
 give my father a free pass, asked him, somewhat suddenly, 
 what was the English for monsieur ? My father answered 
 " sir," and received a permit, commanding the authorities, 
 civil and military, to allow "Sir George Mackay" to pass 
 without let or hindrance. " His highness," says my 
 father in his Narrative, " was seized with such an 
 immoderate fit of laughter at my being knighted in this 
 absurd manner as to make me apprehensive lest he might 
 experience the fate of the fat licentiate while listening to 
 the comic adventures of Gil Bias. On my part,' I could 
 not repress a smile when I contrasted my almost fleshless 
 frame with the huge mass of mortality before me. 
 Certainly I thought if a superabundance of fat upon his 
 bones entitled a man to the appellation of great, his 
 Serene Highness was unquestionably the greatest prince 
 in Christendom. He was, however, exceedingly kind ;
 
 12 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and after conversing with me for nearly an hour, rang the 
 bell for refreshments. The gorgeous domestic placed so 
 large a quantity of eatables and drinkables before me, that 
 I thought he must have imagined I had an appetite as 
 greedy as his master's. Though I would have preferred 
 to take my repast elsewhere than under his highness's 
 eyes, I made the best of circumstances, and possibly 
 satisfied the duke that he had really fed a very hungry 
 man, and that the very hungry man had really enjoyed 
 the feast. As I was leaving his presence he slipped a 
 folded paper into my hand, which I judged by its weight 
 to contain gold ; then shook hands with me and said, 
 ' When 3 r ou arrive in England tell your countiymen that 
 the Grand Duke of Wirtemberg made you a present of 
 all the money he had in his pocket.' " 
 
 From Wirtemberg the wanderer made his way on foot 
 to Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Frankfort, Cassel, Gottingen, 
 Einbeck, Hanover, Bremen, and Cuxhaven, receiving aid 
 at all, or most of these places, from the British Consular 
 or Vice-Consular authorities to help him homewards ; 
 and finally took a passage from the last-mentioned port, 
 on board of a packet bound for Great Yarmouth, where 
 he arrived towards the end of the year 1798. His 
 object in coining to England instead of going to Venlo 
 was to report himself to the Admiralty, and learn whether 
 he was still to be considered in the naval service of his 
 Majesty, and had any chance of an appointment to another 
 ship. His maternal uncle, the Bev. Mr. Bose, was rector 
 of the parish of St. James's, Piccadilly, but on calling at 
 that gentleman's house in Clarges-street to ascertain news 
 of his father, he learned that Mr. Bose had died some 
 months previously, and that one friend on whom he had
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 relied for advice and support was removed from his path 
 for ever. On calling at the office of his father's agent he 
 learned that Captain Mackay had removed from Venlo, 
 had lost his wife, had married again, and gone to reside 
 at Diisseldorf. The loss of his mother — his first great 
 grief, and the fact of his father's second marriage — coupled 
 with that of his own penniless condition, decided him not 
 to go to Diisseldorf, hut to make every effort to procure 
 a ship, and get to sea as soon as possible. Men in those 
 days were urgently needed, both for the arary and nav} r ; 
 and my father, after a short struggle, and the use of all 
 the influence he could command, found himself once more 
 in the naval service of his sovereign. His ship was the 
 " Hydra," commanded by Captain, afterwards Admiral Sir 
 Francis Laforey. My father discovered, however, after 
 his four years' vagrancy on land, that his heart was not 
 in the sea-service, and he gradually grew more and more 
 discontented with it, and the prospects which it offered. 
 In after life he described the "Hydra" as a "hell upon 
 the waters," and the brutal flogging of the sailors for the 
 most trivial offences as something too horrible for con- 
 templation. "Often," he used to say, "have I wondered 
 that men, who were treated as if they had neither hearts 
 nor souls, should yet in the hour of danger and of duty, 
 forget their wrongs and indignities, act like true heroes, 
 and pour out their heart's blood with sublime unselfish- 
 ness for a country that treated them so detestably." It 
 was not, however, until he had had six years' experience 
 of a sea life that he finally abandoned it ; and, in a fit 
 of desperation, without home or friends, enlisted in the 
 army. The superiority of his attainments soon made him 
 known to the officers of his regiment, who, having learned
 
 14. FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 his family history and connections, exercised such influence 
 on Iris behalf that he was presented by H.R.H. the Duke 
 of York, at that time Commander-in-Chief, with an 
 ensign's commission. He served in the ill-judged and 
 unfortunate expedition to Walcheren, where, with many 
 hundreds of others, he was invalided with fever and 
 ague, caught amid the malaria of the marshes, and had 
 to return to England. Years after his restoration to 
 health he was on military duty in Perth, where he made 
 the acquaintance of, and married my mother, a lineal 
 descendant, as I have heard, of that famous Donald 
 Cargill, who ranks both as saint and hero in the spiritual 
 army of the Covenanters, and in that city I was born. I 
 unfortunately lost my mother in childhood, and had 
 what is, even under favourable circumstances, the dis- 
 advantage of being consigned to the care of strangers. 
 Yet I was not unfortunate; for of her who acted the 
 part of mother to me in my tender years, I have 
 eveiy reason to speak with respect and affection. She 
 was a Perth woman, whose maiden name was Grace 
 Stuart, and was married to sergeant Thomas Threlkeld, 
 of my father's regiment, a sturdy and stalwart Cumbrian, 
 who on leaving the army after the peace of Waterloo, had 
 settled in Woolwich, to pursue his original avocation of 
 a tailor. AYhile my father was still knocking about the 
 world, without a home to which he could bring his child, 
 good Mrs. Threlkeld took me to her home and heart, and 
 treated me with as true and as great a love and care as if 
 I had been her own. Thus, like Beranger, the great 
 lyrist of the French people, I passed my earlier years in 
 the house of a tailor. The French poet has told the 
 world in one of his songs that a fairy, born of his own
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 1 5 
 
 imagination, visited him in the tailor's shop, and pre- 
 dicted his future career. M}- fairy of the tailor's shop 
 -was a sonsie, buxom, comely Scottish woman, who spoke 
 the broad Doric of the Lowlands in all its purity, and 
 had a heart as true and tender as ever beat in a human 
 bosom. Years afterwards ere I had reached my teens, 
 she often expressed the notion that I too, like Robert 
 Burns, whom she was fond of quoting, " was a waly boy," 
 predicting, as she crooned the song, in a low sweet voice : 
 
 "Thou'lt hae misfortunes great and sma', 
 But still a heart aboon them a' ; — 
 Thou'lt be a ci-edit to us a' 
 
 We'll a' be proud o' Charlie ;" 
 
 or, as she pronounced it, Chairlie. Often in after years 
 has the kind woman's song re-echoed in my mind, when 
 encouragement, come whence it might, was a ray of sun- 
 shine on a dark place, and when even the remembered 
 echo of an old song was an aid to a tottering step, and to 
 a young heart that needed sympathy. 
 
 Grace Threlkeld, or, as her husband always called her, 
 " Girzie," taught me the alphabet, together with the tunes 
 of many scores, I might say hundreds, of Scotch songs, 
 which she was fond of singing. Among the rest was the 
 old Jacobite song of " Charlie is my darling, the young 
 chevalier." I imagined at the time that this was a song 
 about myself, and that I was the veritable young Chevalier. 
 I well remember my astonishment when I was about 
 six years old, at hearing a blackbird, whose cage hune 
 from a window in Powis Street, Woolwich, pipe this tune 
 very correctly as I passed along with a playmate. I 
 looked at the bird with infantine bewilderment, thinMnff
 
 16 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 that the creature was, as the Scotch say, " no canine," and 
 that the foul fiend himself had taken up his abode in its 
 tiny throat. The good " Girzie " laughed at my terror, 
 but it was many weeks before I was quite reconciled to 
 the possession of musical abilities by so small a creature, 
 or quite satisfied that it had not formed a deliberate pur- 
 pose by whistling that particular song, to turn me into 
 ridicule. 
 
 Having mastered the alphabet, I was consigned, for 
 more advanced instruction, to the care of one Mrs. Baxter, 
 the widow of a corporal in the Royal Artillery, who kept 
 a " dame school." Here I learned to read, and was in- 
 structed in the first mysteries of strokes, pot-hooks, and 
 round o's, those rungs on the ladder of penmanship which 
 we must all climb in our young days, if we would possess 
 the first tools of knowledge. I had great aptitude for 
 learning, and very speedily became dux of the dame 
 school. But on becoming dux, I became dissatisfied, and 
 thought the time had arrived when the schoolmistress 
 should hand me over to a schoolmaster. Possibly this 
 desire arose in me, quite as much from pride, as from 
 the thirst of knowledge, for I well remember offering to 
 fight a boy about my own age, who went to what he called 
 an "academy" for boys, for jeering me on the supposed 
 degradation which I suffered in attending a dame school. 
 
 I was, if I remember rightly, about eight years old, when, 
 with several other urchins, I ventured into an empty sugar 
 barrel that stood opposite a grocer's door in the High 
 Street, to scrape off the small remnants of sugar that 
 clung to the seams and sides. We had been thus engaged 
 for several minutes when the indignant grocer came out 
 with a cane, and put an end to the glorious feast. Running
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 as rapidly as I could to avoid the uplifted instrument of 
 correction, I stumbled and fell, and received the 
 fag end of a castigation, as the grocer passed me in 
 pursuit of a bigger boy. But I fell in luck's way, for as 
 I sprawled on the ground, my eye caught a glimpse 
 of something bright in the dirt, which turned out 
 to be half-a-crown. I speedily clutched at it, no other 
 boy being near to cry "halves." Unseen by any one, 
 I deposited it in my pocket, alongside of a top and 
 a few marbles. What was to be done with it? The 
 question was difficult to answer. Should I report my 
 " find " to Mrs. Threlkeld ? That was not to be thought 
 of, as the good woman would in all probability confiscate 
 my half-crown to her own uses. Should I go to the 
 pastry-cook's, and take what boys call a " tuck-out " of 
 jams and tarts and other sweets ? That was a bright 
 idea, and a sore temptation, but I manfully resisted it. 
 After much cogitation, being somewhat precocious, and I 
 suppose even then of a literary turn, I resolved to go to 
 the theatre, or, as I then called it, the " play." And 
 that I might not be so selfish as to take my enjoyment 
 alone, I resolved to ask my favourite playmate — he was 
 but a year older than myself — to accompany me. He, on 
 his part, was nothing loth — though he put in a word for 
 the pastry-cook's, if it were only to the extent of six- 
 pence ! This was agreed upon on my part, and as the 
 price of admission was but a shilling each, the precious 
 half-crown was sufficient for all the purposes to which we 
 had resolved to devote it. We went to the pastry-cook's, 
 had three penny buns each, and were at the door of the 
 theatre half-an-hour before the house opened. We were 
 
 VOL. I. n
 
 IS FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the first to enter, and though I was afraid the money- 
 taker might object to admit us on account of our infant 
 years, he made no demur, and we both passed in, with 
 joy not unmingled with dread. The theatre was cold, 
 dark, and empty; the lights were low, and threw but 
 a faint illumination on the dreary and, as it appeared 
 to me, vast arena. There was no one in the orchestra, 
 or in all the house that we could see except our small 
 and daring selves. Gradually five or six people dropped 
 in to the pit ; gradually three or four into the boxes ; 
 gradually about a dozen noisy boys into the galleries, 
 who began to kick and shout and whistle, impatient for 
 the performance to begin. To me it seemed manj 7 long 
 hours since I had taken my place in the sombre building, 
 and a draught at nry back made me shiver with cold. My 
 courage quickly oozed out of me. My companion was in 
 the same sad plight ; and after whispering together for a 
 minute, and taking counsel of each other, we resolved to 
 decamp. Like Wordsworth in the land of the Tweed and 
 Yarrow, " we had a vision of our own," but unlike Words- 
 worth, we made up our minds to " undo it," and leave 
 tragedy, comedy, and farce, " unseen and unknown." 
 The door-keeper offered us each a return ticket as we 
 passed out, but I threw mine away, and slunk home in 
 the dark evening, afraid of my truancy, and the punish- 
 ment that might follow it. Conscience had made a 
 coward of me, and finding the door ajar in its usual 
 fashion, I crept in softly like a guilty thing, and hid 
 myself under the great bed in a room that opened from 
 the sergeant's sitting-room and workshop. Here I heard 
 my absence discussed by the married couple, and great
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 alarm expressed by tender-hearted Mrs. Threlkeld, lest I 
 should have been kidnapped or run over. At last, the 
 sergeant determined to go in search of me, and to give 
 the alarm at the watch-house (there was no police force 
 in those days), and to send round the bellman if the 
 watch thought advisable. Mrs. Threlkeld was loud in 
 my praise. I was the " bonniest boy," the " best boy," 
 the " dearest baim " that ever was seen, &c. On hearing 
 these praises — and a whole torrent of them, uttered hyste- 
 rically — I coughed under the bed to attract attention. I 
 was speedily discovered, dragged ignominiously out, and 
 having showered upon me preliminary kisses without 
 number, and hugged me to her honest heart, she ad- 
 ministered with right good will and more Scottice a cas- 
 tigation that could break no bones, and which I bore 
 stoically until after I was put to bed, when my outraged 
 pride found vent in tears, which nobody saw. Such was 
 the first imping of my wings in the wide air of indepen- 
 dent action, and such its results — the loss of my two 
 shillings, the loss of the amusement I anticipated, and a 
 well deserved " skelping." 
 
 When I was ten years of age my father came from 
 Brussels where he was then resident, economising on 
 his half-pay, to remove me from the care of Mrs. 
 Threlkeld and her husband, and place me at school in 
 London. The worthy tailor felt unaffected sorrow at 
 my departure, and the tailor's wife shed genuine tears, 
 which she only dried on the solemn promise of my 
 father that I should always spend my holidays at Wool- 
 wich — the time being too short to permit of a visit to 
 Brussels, and the journey thither and back being much 
 
 c 2
 
 20 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 too costly for the slenderly furnished pocket of my father. 
 I felt on my part that a new world was opening before me 
 which I longed, yet was afraid to enter, and sobbed 
 grievously when the hour came that I was to leave those 
 who for the best years of my childhood had been more 
 than friends and protectors, and whose care and affection 
 no money could have purchased. I made rapid progress 
 at school, and before I was thirteen my master predicted 
 that I should infallibly become a great mathematician. 
 Arithmetic was to me no trouble but a positive delight : 
 the extraction of the square and the cube roots, which 
 was a sore vexation of spirit to my school-mates, was as 
 easy to me as the multiplication-table ; and I soared into 
 geometiy, trigonometry, and algebra, as a bird soars into 
 the air, and positively revelled in them. But, notwith- 
 standing the auguries of my master, all my love for the 
 mathematics, high and low, came to nothing; and though 
 Iliad begun to love the exact sciences, poetry and romance 
 stepped in the way, and throwing their glamour over me, 
 took my heart completely. I was at this time an 
 omnivorous reader. The poetical extracts in E wing's' 
 Elocutionist — I think that was the name of the school- 
 book to which I owed my first introduction to the 
 beauties of English literature — so took my imagination 
 that I read and re-read them till they were all as familiar 
 to me as my name. The quarrel of Brutus and Cassius, 
 Hamlet's famous soliloquy " To be or not to be," 
 Othello's account of his courtship, and other specimens 
 of the wild and wondrous, but clear and sagacious 
 Shakspeare ; the warlike odes of Thomas Campbell, then 
 in the full flush of his fame; Pope's " Dying Christian to
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 21 
 
 his Soul, "portions of his "Essay on Man;" copious extracts 
 from "Paradise Lost," episodes from Scott's "Mannion" 
 and the "Lady of the Lake," Goldsmith's "Deserted Vil- 
 lage," and a beautiful description of a shipwreck by Professor 
 Wilson, all took my fancy. Some of the juvenile pieces 
 of Kirke White also came home to my heart. Kirke 
 White's poems, from the accident that I had been presented 
 by my father with a complete copy of the works of that 
 author, exercised a peculiar fascination over me, which 
 was weakened but never wholly dispelled, as I gradually 
 made the acquaintance of the most celebrated English 
 poets of the past and of the actual generation. I scarcely 
 remember when I began to write verses myself, and to 
 take more pleasure in the art of composition than in 
 other study, or even in the attractions of the play-ground, 
 but I think I was between thirteen and fourteen when I 
 began to think, like Petrarch, and to say [though not in 
 Italian] " io anche son poeta," and to long for some 
 patient, sympathetic, and appreciative reader or listener, 
 who would encourage me in my favourite pursuits by the 
 expression of his approbation. And such listener I found 
 in the person of a man very eminent in his day, Mr. 
 Andrew Robertson, a fashionable portrait-painter and 
 Royal Academician, renowned for his miniatures on ivory. 
 This gentleman, a friend of my father, encouraged me to 
 call upon him at his studio in Gerrard Street, Soho, and 
 knowing the weakness of school-boys for pocket-money, 
 often gladdened my heart with what is now the fashion of 
 boys to call a " tip," which sometimes disappeared in 
 cakes, apples, and other dainties, and sometimes at old 
 book-stalls in the purchase of poems, fairy tales, bygone
 
 22 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 romances (all new to me), and now and then of more solid 
 and useful works. Among the treasures that I picked up 
 in this manner was a copy of Johnson's "Lives of the 
 Poets," in two small pocket volumes, the perusal of which 
 formed an era in my young life, and which sent me on 
 my half-holidays — when being a favourite with the master, 
 I received permission to go out alone — to Westminster 
 Abbey and St. Paul's, to 'muse in Poets' Corner, or to 
 admire the stalwart form of Samuel Johnson, standing 
 upon his pedestal in the Cathedral. But Poets' Corner 
 was my favourite haunt, where, in the contemplation of 
 the tombs, busts or statues of the poets, great and small, 
 but all of them great to me at that time, I fed the fires of 
 my youthful ambition, and formed the resolve that I too 
 should be known hereafter as one of the company of 
 the poets. I was, I dare say, a precocious little fool ; 
 but as I did not know it, both my folly and my precocity 
 administered to my pleasure, and possibly kept thoughts 
 out of my head that might not have been so innocent as 
 the desire to be enrolled among the illustrious men who 
 had glorified the English language. Mr. Robertson's 
 occasional coins, pleasant as they were, did not yield me 
 half the gratification that I experienced when, on his 
 invitation, I read to him my latest productions. He was 
 a kind but an impartial critic, and as freely pointed out 
 their faults as he generously praised what he considered 
 their merits. Happily these juvenile efforts have all 
 perished — consigned by my own hands to ignominious 
 destruction at a later period of my mind's growth ; but I 
 remember, generally, that they were all on very ambitious 
 subjects. One in particular, on which I greatly prided
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 23 
 
 myself, was entitled "Hamlet amid the Ruins of Palmyra." 
 I think I was induced to attempt this odd subject by the 
 perusal of Yolney's " Bums of Empires," which I had 
 picked up for a few pence at a book-stall, and which Mr. 
 Robertson took especial pains to inform me was a very 
 improper book, and one that I ought to commit forthwith 
 to the flames if I valued my immortal soul. Mr. Robertson 
 was a strict Presbyterian, and I think, one of the elders of 
 the Scottish Church, of which the celebrated Edward 
 Irving was the minister. He was very anxious that my 
 course of reading should not stray into what he called 
 " latitudinarian paths." He held all French writers in ab- 
 horrence, and looked upon Volney, Voltaire, and Rousseau 
 as the incarnation of all that was detestable in politics, 
 blasphemous in religion, and abominable in morals. He 
 was pleased to find that there was no " Volneyism" in 
 my poem : but urged me, as it sprang from so polluted a 
 source, to destroy it, adding, as an inducement for me to 
 do so, that he had mentioned my " poetical gifts " to his 
 friend Mr. Irving, and would introduce me to that 
 gentleman in a few days, if I would bring some pieces 
 which I had previously read to him. Mr. Irving was, he 
 said, an excellent judge of poetry, a beautiful elocutionist, 
 and, above all, an intimate friend of the great poet 
 Coleridge. On the prospect not only of seeing Mr. Irving, 
 but possibly Mr. Coleridge, I gave my "Hamlet in 
 Palmyra " to Mr. Robertson to do as he liked with it ; 
 and he forthwith put it in the fire, remarking, " You can do 
 ten times better than that." I felt that I could, and was 
 quite consoled for the sacrifice I had made, which was 
 not after all so great as it might have appeared to Mr.
 
 24 FORTY YEAES' EECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Robertson if he had known all, inasmuch as I remembered 
 the whole of it, and could have written it out afresh with 
 very little trouble. Of this, however, I said nothing. 
 
 It was with a beating heart, on the following Wednes- 
 day afternoon — the usual half-holiday — that, instead of 
 going to Poets' Corner, I knocked at Mr. Robertson's 
 door in Gerrard Street, with a selection of my verses in 
 my pocket for the great preacher's perusal. I so dreaded 
 the interview, that it was a great relief to learn that Mr. 
 Irving had not yet arrived— and yet I so longed to see 
 him that it was a satisfaction to hear that he was every 
 moment expected. Mr. Robertson took possession of my 
 manuscripts, and consigned me to the drawing-room, to 
 amuse myself as best I might with the books on the 
 table, while he awaited Mr. Irving's arrival in the studio. 
 But I was far too anxious to read. Every carriage, of 
 which I heard the rumbling of the wheels in the street, 
 seemed as if it bore the distinguished preacher, and when 
 it passed and the rumbling was lost in the distance, I 
 rejoiced that it had gone on its way without stopping at 
 Mr. Robertson's door. At last there came a rattling, 
 prolonged, sharp double knock — or series of knocks that 
 seemed to my anxious mind to shake the whole house. 
 I heard a foot upon the stair, and knew that the critical 
 moment was fast approaching, when I should stand face 
 to face with one of the most eminent men of the day — 
 not the least portion of whose glory and eminence, in my 
 youthful imagination, was the fact that he was the friend 
 of him who had written " Christabel " and the "Ancient 
 .Marnier." After an interval of five or six minutes, which 
 seemed to me to be as many hours, and during which I
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 25 
 
 had twice or thrice meditated an ignominious flight from 
 the premises, Mr. Irving and Mr. Kobertson walked into 
 the drawing-room. Mr. Irving held out his hand, and 
 shook mine kindly — I, on my part, receiving the friendly 
 pressure with fear and trembling, not unmixed with pride 
 and admiration. But he soon placed me at my ease. 
 His fine, tall, handsome figure, his dignified and beautiful 
 face, to which a slight obliquity of vision lent a weird- 
 like expression of power and genius, without the least 
 suggestion of unsymmetry, and the manner, unusual 
 with men at least in that day, of parting his luxuriant 
 black hair down the middle, after the fashion of women, 
 suggested to my youthful mind, fresh from the study of 
 the most poetical passages in the Bible — that here before 
 me stood an Isaiah or an Ezekiel, a Hosea or a Habak- 
 kuk. Indeed, for many 3 T ears afterwards, I thought that 
 if I were a great painter, and had to paint a picture of 
 the inspired prophet Isaiah, I should take Edward 
 Irving for nry model. There was something so tender 
 and paternal in the tones of his voice, as he patted me 
 softly on the head, that all my awe of him as a superior 
 being disappeared, and I thought I loved him with all my 
 heart, as he said, still holding my hand in his — " I am 
 pleased to see that 3-011 are a reader of your Bible. 
 Among all your compositions, which are full of future 
 promise, and as creditable to your heart, my dear young 
 friend, as they are to your head — that in which you have 
 attempted to dramatize the story of David playing the 
 harp before Saul, to soothe his broken spirit in a 
 paroxysm of madness — appears to me the best." My 
 face glowed, my hand trembled, and my heart beat so
 
 26 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 loudly with joj r , to be thus spoken to by such a man, 
 that after the lapse of many years I can truly say that 
 never again did I experience so much real happiness as I 
 did at that moment. Mr. Irving produced the manu- 
 script, and began to read my verses with so clear and 
 musical a voice — so perfect an emphasis — and with 
 such a variety of modulation as suited the changing spirit 
 of the poem, as to impress me vividly that I had never 
 heard reading before — and was never likely to hear it 
 again unless from the same lips. He brought out 
 beauties in my poor composition that I had never myself 
 suspected, and put meanings into my words which were 
 doubtless latent in them, but which had not been 
 apparent to my own mind, until he had enkindled 
 them. All this exalted me in my own opinion ; and 
 I now say it with something like regret, moulded 
 my future career, and made me a man of letters. Mr. 
 Irving invited me to call upon him on my half- 
 holidays, at his house in Claremont Terrace, Pentonville, 
 and if he were not at home, to walk into his library, 
 and amuse myself among his books, promising me that 
 if opportunity served he would introduce me to Mr. 
 Coleridge, warning me, however, that Mr. Coleridge was 
 somewhat of an invalid, and seldom went out. " Your 
 Wednesday half-holidays will suit me best," he added, 
 kindly, "for on Saturdays I am always busy with my 
 sermon." 
 
 I profited much by Mr. Irving's kindness, and re- 
 member how often he impressed upon my mind the fact, 
 which I have never forgotten to lay to heart, and act 
 upon, that " verse " and " poetry " are words that are
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 27 
 
 not synonymous — that good verse may not be poetry at 
 all ; that good prose consisted of the right words in the 
 right places, and not too many of them; that good verse 
 also consisted of the right words hi the right places, 
 with the addition of the musio of rhythm ; and that 
 poetry, as distinguished from mere verse, had to conform 
 to all the rules of verse, but to add soul, vigour, origina- 
 lity, animating fire, enthusiasm, concentration. "Verse," 
 he said, " may be a quiet fire in the grate ; but poetry is 
 the lightning flash, and must have thunder along with it." 
 I had turned fourteen years of age, and was at " home " 
 for the Midsummer holidays at Woolwich, at Mrs. Threl- 
 keld's, when the worthy tailor and his wife were surprised 
 by a violent rat-tat at the door of their humble little 
 house hi Thomas Street — a rat-tat such as is only 
 practised by fashionable footmen. Mrs. Threlkeld her- 
 self answered the summons, and saw a handsome carriage 
 and pair of grey horses drawn up before the door. Her 
 first idea was that it was a new customer — and likely, 
 from all appearance, to be a good one — when the footman 
 who had given so loud a knock, enquired for me. I was 
 not within at the time, but Mrs. Threlkeld said she knew 
 where I was, and would send for me. A venerable gentle- 
 man, with snow-white hair, got out of the carriage, and 
 said that with her permission he would wait indoors until 
 my return. He announced himself as Major-General 
 Robert Mackay, of the East India Company's service, 
 and uncle of my father. Mr. Threlkeld, who, having been 
 a sergeant, knew full well the awful rank of a major- 
 general, jumped from his shop-board, not to keep so 
 great a man too long in waiting, and hurried off to find
 
 28 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 me, engaged in a game of cricket in the open space of 
 ground behind the Sappers' barracks. I had often heard 
 of, but had never seen the General, and was no stranger 
 to his beneficent character, or to the interest which he 
 had promised to take in nry future welfare. He received 
 me with paternal kindness, made many enquiries as to 
 my tastes and the progress of my education ; and when 
 I divulged, b} T hazard rather than by design, that I had 
 read a great deal of poetry, and enjoyed it, he stopped 
 me, looked grave, and said, " A very good sign, my child, 
 but do not get too fond of it. The love of poetry is a good 
 thing. Have you ever attempted to write poetry yourself ? " 
 I owned that I had. " Continue to read poetry," he 
 added, " but don't write it, or you will never make a good 
 soldier. I suppose your father has told you that I intend 
 to procure you a cadetship in the Company's service ? " I 
 replied that I had heard of it, but that I was unaware of 
 the time when I should be eligible. He enlightened my 
 ignorance then and there, told me that if I would prepare 
 myself by study, he would, when I was sixteen years of 
 age, exercise all his influence to procure me a cadetship. 
 The kind old gentleman — the most placid, benignant- 
 looking man I ever saw — (his portrait, life-size, by Sir 
 William Beechey, is in my possession as I write, and I look 
 at it to refresh my youthful recollections) after slipping 
 a sovereign into my hand, informed me that I was to 
 leave London forthwith, and that arrangements had been 
 made, partly, if not wholly, at his cost, as I thought at 
 the time, and as I afterwards knew, that I should be 
 removed to a superior school at Brussels, under my 
 father's eye, and be fitted, more or less, for the military
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 29 
 
 profession. This seemed to be, and ought to have been, 
 a turning point in my career. But it was not so. It was 
 predicted that I should be a mathematician, and I might 
 have been, but I never became one. It was agreed and 
 arranged that I should become a soldier, and go to India. 
 But I never became a soldier, and never went to India, 
 but stuck fast, irrevocably, in literature, till it became 
 the occupation of my life thenceforth and for ever. 
 
 All arrangements having been completed — greatly to 
 my satisfaction, for I longed to see the world, even if it 
 were so small a portion of it as was then called Les 
 Pays Bas (the name has since died out, and been replaced 
 by Holland and Belgium) — I took sad farewell of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Threlkeld, and a blithesome farewell of my school- 
 master and schoolmates, and proceeded all alone, as if 
 I were a man — at the mere thought of which I was greatly 
 delighted— from St. Catherine's Wharf to Ostend. It 
 was the first time within my recollection that I had 
 beheld the sea ; and though my pleasure in looking upon 
 it was not marred by the penalty so often exacted from 
 those who have weak stomachs, by the demon of the deep, 
 m y J°y u P on the sea, great as it was, was not to be com- 
 pared to the rapture with which, the morning after my 
 arrival, I wandered upon the beach at Ostend, and heard 
 the sublime roar of the waves as they thundered upon the 
 shingle, and read from a pocket copy of the "Beauties of 
 Byron," which I carried about with me, the magnificent 
 lines, " Boll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean," &c. It 
 had been arranged that my father should meet me at 
 Ostend, but I arrived several hours before him, and 
 employed the interval in solitary happiness, gathering
 
 30 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 shells and sea-weed, and dreaming day dreams, which I 
 afterwards strove, with doubtless but ill success, to pre- 
 serve in poetry, or, at all events, in verse. When my 
 father arrived at the pre-appointed hostelry, he informed 
 me that he had made arrangements that he and I should 
 walk to Brussels through the ancient cities of Bruges, 
 Ghent, Antwerp, Malines, and Vilvorde, and that he 
 would despatch my portmanteau — a very lightly furnished 
 one it was, though provided with a second-hand " Shake- 
 speare," a well-thumbed copy of the " Arabian Nights," 
 and three or four other volumes — by the diligence to 
 Brussels. The country, as everybody knows, is not 
 beautiful, but flat and uninteresting, with long straight 
 roads, and a superabundance of windmills. The 
 novelty, however, made it beautiful to me. But possibly 
 it was the old historic towns, with their quaint archi- 
 tecture, that were the attraction and enjoyment, both to 
 my father and myself, though I believe that the mere 
 tramp was a source of pleasure to him. He had acquired 
 the habit of walking during his youthful wanderings in 
 France, and nothing gave him greater satisfaction than 
 a walk of twenty or thirty miles. We took a day to 
 Bruges, though but twelve miles distant, another to 
 Ghent, another to Antwerp, and another to Malines and 
 Brussels. Every day brought me a new jo} r at the sight 
 of the quaint and picturesque street architecture of these 
 brave old towns, their splendid Hotels de Ville and 
 cathedrals, and at the recital by my father of their early 
 history, of their struggles for liberty, and of the legends 
 of old romance associated with them. 
 
 I found my father comfortably situated in Brussels :
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 31 
 
 was introduced, for the first time, to a niother-in-law, a 
 very notable woman, and first-rate manager, who knew 
 how to make a small income produce more comforts than 
 some people can extract from a large one, and who, having 
 no children of her own, did not look upon me as an 
 unwelcome intruder at her family circle. My father having 
 no settled income beyond his scanty half-pay, having all 
 his time on his hands, and possessing much energy and 
 ability besides, turned his knowledge of languages to 
 account, by teaching Englishmen the French language, 
 and Frenchmen and Belgians the English. He had a 
 considerable number of pupils, among others the two 
 young sons of his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange. 
 The Prince was heir apparent to the tin-one of the 
 Netherlands, and universally beloved by the people of 
 Brussels, and as popular among the Belgians, generally, 
 as the king was the reverse. He knew my father to be a 
 connection of the Dutch Mackays, and took pleasure in 
 conversing with him in English, which he spoke very well, 
 and in learning from him the opinions and feeling of the 
 Belgian public on the unhappy differences which had 
 arisen between his father and the Belgian people — 
 differences which afterwards culminated in such intense 
 discontent, that a revolution and the separation of 
 Belgium and Holland were the consequences. 
 
 Soon after my arrival in Brussels I began the practice, 
 which soon hardened itself into a habit, of walking round 
 the pleasant little park that fills up the space between 
 the Rue Royale and the Bue Ducale on the parallel 
 sides, and between the king's palace and the Houses of the 
 Legislature on the other parallels, five or six times every
 
 32 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 morning before breakfast. On these occasions I frequently 
 met the Prince, engaged in a similar " constitutional," 
 and though I never had the honour of an introduction to 
 him — my father, I suppose, judging me to be too young 
 [in which judgment I did not agree], I always took off 
 my hat to him as I passed — a courtesy which he invariably 
 returned. I had met the Prince in this manner many 
 scores of times, and performed the same ceremony with 
 the same results each clay, when it suddenly flashed across 
 my mind that it must be a bore to his Eoyal Highness to 
 be continually saluted by the same school-boy, and that I 
 must either forego my walks — walk in the same direction 
 as the Prince, or ' cut him.' I chose the latter alternative, 
 and when I next passed his Eoyal Highness, pretended 
 not to see him. The Prince looked at me, and went his 
 way as I did mine. On the next day I pretended, or was 
 about to pretend the same absence of mind, when the 
 Prince looking fixedly at me, lifted his hat. Of course I 
 lifted mine ; but as I really thought it was a bore to him 
 to be confronted continually by one boy, I la}' in wait 
 perdu, as it were, and concealed behind a tree, until he 
 had passed the spot, and then came forth, following him 
 at a considerable distance, so that unless he suddenly 
 turned round and came full upon me from the opposite 
 direction, there was no chance of an interchange of 
 salutation. 
 
 There are three stages through which all must pass 
 who learn, or wish to learn, a language— first, the know- 
 ledge of the names of things, actions, and qualities ; 
 second, the power of connecting words into sentences on 
 one's own tongue ; and last, the immediate comprehension
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3-3 
 
 of these Avords and sentences when uttered by another. 
 Children of tender years seem to pass through all these 
 stages very rapidly, and learn to speak and understand 
 at one and the same time without any painful effort of the 
 mind. But after the age of childhood the acquisition of 
 a language becomes more difficult, and each of these 
 stages must be laboriously passed before the next stage 
 becomes possible. It took me about three months after 
 my arrival in Brussels to read and understand French. 
 In six months I was able to speak and write it without 
 understanding very clearly what was said to me in return, 
 in consequence of what I erroneously supposed to be the 
 undue rapidity with which the French and Belgians rattled 
 out their words. The mind understood, but the ear 
 required longer time to become familiarized with the sounds. 
 But all at once, and as if bj r lightning flashes of compre- 
 hension, and in much less than a twelvemonth after first 
 commencing the stud} r , I found myself a master of the 
 language to read, to write, to speak, and to hear. I had 
 some thoughts of learning Dutch and Flemish, as I had 
 found French so easy, but bethinking myself that these 
 were but offshoots of the great Teutonic or German, I 
 resolved to apply myself to the latter tongue ; and did so. 
 But German, though at first glance easy enough to an 
 Englishman, is not easy after the first entry into the 
 vestibule of the language, and a large temple has to be 
 traversed, in which the student gets no assistance by the 
 way from the corresponding words of his own speech as 
 he does in French. Nevertheless I found German a 
 delightful study, and soon began to revel in Goethe, 
 Schiller, Korner, Uhland; and, more than all, in a German 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 author with a French name, La Motte Fouque, the author 
 of the fanciful little romance of Undine. I next betook 
 myself to Italian, which, after French, I found comparatively 
 easy. I next tried Spanish, that I might read Don Quixote 
 in the original, though I must own that I found less 
 pleasure in reading Gil Bias in the original than hi making 
 the acquaintance of the prose and poetical works of Victor 
 Hugo, who was then budding and blossoming out into his 
 first fame in "Les Orientales," "Le Dernier Jour d'un 
 Condamne," and " Notre Dame de Paris." All this time 
 my devotion to poetry, both in the reading and what I 
 thought the writing of it, suffered no cessation or diminu- 
 tion ; and I had planned an epic poem, two or three 
 tragedies, and several tales, after the manner of Byron, 
 all of which projects happily came to nothing. As for 
 studies for the military profession they were never so 
 much as mentioned to me, nor did it appear necessary 
 that I should devote myself to anything of the land until 
 I got my cadetship. But my cadetship never came. My 
 sixteenth year arrived, but with it no news of my 
 approaching initiation into military life. How it came 
 about I never knew, though I sometimes enquired ; but 
 only learned in the vaguest and most unsatisfactory 
 manner that the kind-hearted General and nry kind- 
 hearted but somewhat irascible and impetuous father had 
 quarrelled about something or other. My father, though 
 sorry for the quarrel, would not admit that he was in 
 the wrong : he Avas a poor man, and his pride was certainly 
 equal if not superior to his poverty. So these two walked 
 for the future in separate paths, and my military prospects 
 ended in nothing.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 35 
 
 I was not disappointed. On the contrary, I was rather 
 glad; for my heart had long been finally set on the 
 literary career. I had read much of its glories, but had 
 heard little of its perils and pitfalls; or hearing, had 
 taught myself to despise them. 
 
 About this time, the General's remittances having, as 
 I supposed, ceased, or been rejected on a point of 
 temper, I was removed from my school, and informed 
 that the time had arrived when I must, if possible, do 
 something for myself. It was towards the close of the 
 year 1829, or the commencement of the year 1830, 
 when I thus, very greatly to my satisfaction, found that 
 I was considered to be a man, and fit to fight my own 
 battle. But it was not much of a battle that I had to 
 fight after all ; and I slid very easily into the harness of 
 work and business, finding myself, through my father's 
 influence, installed as secretary to an old English gentle- 
 man, who wanted a young man to keep his accounts, 
 answer his letters, read the French and Belgian news- 
 papers to him in English, and accompany him in Iris 
 drives. I was delighted, as the pay was liberal, the 
 labour light, and the hours of attendance not burden- 
 some. 
 
 This gentleman was a remarkable person in his way, 
 and one who has left his name in Belgium as one of the 
 worthies and benefactors of the country : no other than 
 the "William Cockerill who was among the first of 
 English working mechanics to cany the nascent machine 
 manufacture of England to the continent of Europe. 
 He was a man of strong natural powers of mind, but of 
 very imperfect education, and a sturdy specimen of what 
 
 D 2
 
 36 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 is now the fashion to call the " self-made man." He 
 was at this time about seventy-four years of age, and had 
 three sons — one, John Cockerill, the proprietor of the 
 famous iron foundry and machine works of Seraing, near 
 Liege — an establishment in which it was reported the 
 King of the Netherlands was a partner ; — the other, 
 James Cockerill, a wealthy proprietor of mines and 
 colleries, who resided at Aix-la-Chapelle, and was the 
 grandee of the place, famous for his hospitality, his 
 taste, and his love of horses and horse-racing ; — and the 
 third and eldest, William Cockerill, who resided at 
 Berlin, and was largely engaged in the manufacture of 
 iron goods. The old gentleman, who had constructed 
 {several engineering works in St. Petersburg and other 
 parts of Russia, besides establishing the iron-works at 
 Seraing, and some important woollen cloth manufactories 
 at Verviers, had long previously retired from business ; 
 and lived alone with his niece in a large house at the 
 corner of the Boulevard de Louvain. His accounts were 
 simple and easily kept, and his correspondence was not 
 very extensive. He cared nothing for literature, but 
 took a keen interest in Continental politics ; so that I 
 had but little to do except to read the French newspapers 
 to him. He cared little about English politics, but 
 thought that a great deal too much fuss was made about 
 Daniel O'Connell, Catholic Emancipation, and the 
 Reform Bill. The old gentleman was fond of a mild 
 joke ; revelled in the oldest of Joe Millerisms, however 
 often it might be repeated ; and invariably called an 
 English newspaper that was then published at Brussels 
 as a small rival of Galignani under the title of News
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 37 
 
 from Home, the "Knaves from home," which was the 
 pronunciation of the word "news" by the French and 
 Belgians, and which with a chuckle he affirmed to be a 
 true designation of the English colony that had taken up 
 its abode in Brussels. His own French was exceedingly 
 imperfect, so that it became my business to translate the 
 French news and French leading articles to him, which 
 I soon learned to do with as much ease and quickness as 
 if I were reading from an English paper. Like his son 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle, he was very fond of horses, and would 
 always purchase the best pair of greys or bays for his 
 numerous carriages that money could procure. He was 
 too feeble to walk, but every afternoon took a carnage 
 airing on the Boulevards, the Alice Verte, or on the 
 road to Waterloo and the Bois de Soignies ; sometimes 
 accompanied by me, and sometimes by his niece and 
 housekeeper, who was then about fifty years of age, and 
 expected, as report would have it, to inherit his large 
 property. 
 
 I had not been three months with Mr. Cockerill when 
 an adventure occurred. A gentleman who would give no 
 name desired to see him, and after some delay was 
 admitted. I asked him to take a chair, but he replied 
 that in consequence of an infirmity he could not sit 
 down ; that he had not sat for years, and that his usual 
 mode of resting was to lean upon a staff, which, with 
 permission, he would do now. He put a few questions 
 to Mr. Cockerill, which were of no particular significance 
 to me, bat which appeared to relate to the affairs of a 
 bygone period of his business life. Mr. Cockerill evidently 
 knew him, and as evidently mistrusted or disliked him ;
 
 38 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 answered some of his questions in a surly tone, and 
 others not at all ; and finally broke off the interview by 
 wishing his visitor good morning, and ringing the bell 
 for his niece to take his arm and lead him to his bed- 
 room. I was left alone with " the man who could not sit 
 down," and whose name I did not learn ; who speedily 
 took his departure, after a few remarks about the weather, 
 and an expression of sorrow that Mr. Cockerill was so 
 infirm. 
 
 I was aroused from bed at my father's house the next 
 morning about five o'clock by Mr. Cockerill's coachman, 
 who came to say that Mr. Cockerill was up at that 
 unusually early hour, and desired to see me immediately 
 on important business. Much wondering, I dressed 
 myself in all haste, and proceeded to the house on the 
 Boulevards, where I found Mr. Cockerill and his niece 
 at the breakfast-table. I was asked to partake, and then 
 told that I must get ready in an hour, or less if I liked, 
 to start for Seraing. I was to take one of his carriages, 
 and travel post all the way. Having gone to Seraing, 
 with a message to Mr. John Cockerill, I was to proceed 
 as quickly as possible to Aix-la-Chapelle, and deliver the 
 same message to Mr. James Cockerill. This done, I was 
 to return in the same manner to Brussels, with the answer 
 that each of them might give me. The message was a 
 verbal one, and was simply a command to his sons, 
 that if any person applied to them for particulars of their 
 business, or made any request to look at their books, he 
 should be peremptorily refused. I could not help asso- 
 ciating this singular message with the visit of " the man 
 who could not sit down." But I said nothing. Miss Yates,
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 39 
 
 his niece, produced two good-sized bags of five-franc 
 pieces in silver. Each bag was ticketed as containing five 
 hundred francs. With this money I was to pay the 
 posting and other expenses of the trip. If the sum were 
 not sufficient to bring me back, when I reached Aix-la- 
 Chapelle Mr. James Cockerill would let me have any 
 additional money I might require. I was delighted with 
 the prospect of the journey. I was to see the world, or 
 a little of it ; had what seemed almost fabulous wealth in 
 my possession ; and moreover, I was to travel in state, 
 like a grand seigneur. I thought to myself that if my 
 successive postilions did not make their whips crack more 
 merrily than usual at " my " entrance to every town 
 through which " I " had to pass, they should not receive 
 the extra trink-gelt, which the members of that now 
 defunct fraternity invariably expected in addition to the 
 usual fee per mile ; or at least that I would not behave 
 so munificently to them as I might do in other circum- 
 stances. 
 
 I was ready to depart in less than the hour ; had my 
 instructions emphatically repeated ; and was whirled out 
 of the Porte de Louvain amid a cracking of the postilion's 
 whip, which was pleasant to hear, and reached Louvain, 
 fifteen miles distant, in about an hour and three-quarters. 
 At the entrance to every village, I had the satisfaction, 
 not only to hear the postilion's whip ringing and cracking 
 lustily in the ah', as if he would announce a personage of 
 importance, but to overhear him tell the ostler at the 
 hotel in Louvain, as I alighted to take refreshment, and 
 to change horses and postilion, that I was a "jcune milord 
 Anglais." Of course, I made up my mind that that par-
 
 40 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ticular postilion should be duly rewarded for his descrip- 
 tion of me, especially if he passed on the secret of my 
 " lordship " to his successor. The only drawback to my 
 silly satisfaction was that, in obedience to instructions, I 
 had to hurry on as fast as relays of horses could carry 
 me, and that I was not permitted to stay a few hours in 
 such interesting old cities as Louvain, Tirlemont, St. 
 Trond, and Liege, and visit the cathedrals and other 
 public buildings. Shortly after nightfall, I found myself 
 on the bank of the Meuse, opposite Seraing, and in wait- 
 ing for the ferry-boat that was to convey me and the 
 carriage to the other side. I found Mr. John Cockerill 
 at home, a rare thing for that busy and restless man, 
 who was always flying to and fro between Liege and 
 Berlin, and between Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow, and 
 St. Petersburg. He received me most kindly, but was 
 very much puzzled at the oddity of his father's mes- 
 sage. He would not hear of my proceeding to Aix-la- 
 Chapelle that night, and arranged that I should leave in 
 the morning, after looking over the works, if I felt so 
 disposed. " You will be at Aix," he said, " by three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, and to-night you can rest your- 
 self, and tell me, if you can, what made my father take 
 this unaccountable fancy into his head." 
 
 I told him of the " man who could not sit down," and 
 that in my opinion his visit had some connection with 
 the matter. "I think so too," replied Mr. Cockerill, 
 " but my father need not have troubled his mind about 
 him. I know the man of old. He fancies he has a 
 grievance ; but his grievance has long ago been disposed 
 of, and lias nothing to do with me or my brother." What
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 41 
 
 the grievance was lie did not tell me, but I learned long 
 afterwards that it arose out of a trade dispute of many 
 years standing, by which the elder Mr. Cockerill had 
 bound himself not to establish a woollen manufactory in 
 the town of Venders, or within twenty miles of it, which 
 engagement this "man who could not sit down" con- 
 tended had been broken, in the spirit, if not in the letter, 
 by the encouragement which Mr. Cockerill had given to 
 a near relative to do that which he was forbidden to do 
 himself. Some legal proceedings had been taken, in 
 which Mr. Cockerill gained the day ; but the subject re- 
 mained a sore one in the mind of the unwelcome visitor 
 of the day previous. 
 
 In the morning, after having gone through the various 
 branches of this great establishment, at that time the most 
 celebrated on the Continent, I started for Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 travelling in the same luxurious fashion as before, and 
 feeling very much as if I had really been the " milord 
 Anglais " which my first postilion had represented. I 
 had an opportunity, ere the day was far advanced, of 
 airing my German in the Prussian town of Aachen, which 
 the French call Aix, adding La Chapelle, to distinguish 
 it from two other towns of the same name, Aix-en-Savoie 
 and Aix-en-Provence. 
 
 Mr. James Cockerill was as hospitable as his brother, 
 and, like him, expressed great surprise at his father's 
 message. This, however, was not my affair. I had had 
 a pleasant journey to Aix, and should have an equally 
 pleasant journey back again to Brussels, if all went well 
 on the morrow ; and in the meantime had leisure to look 
 about me in Aachen, to taste its disagreeable medicinal
 
 42 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 waters that smelt like rotten eggs, to visit its splendid 
 cathedral, sacred to the memory of Charlemagne, and 
 also to a piece of the supposed veritable toe-nail of the 
 Apostle Peter. Next morning I took my departure, 
 journeying as rapidly as I could, in order that I might 
 comfort the mind of old Mr. Cockerill with the assurance 
 that I had faithfully delivered his message to his sons, 
 and that both of them had promised implicit obedience. 
 It turned out, however, that there had been no necessity 
 for any hurry on my part. On the very day after my 
 departure, Mr. Cockerill, unable to contend any longer 
 with his alarm and anxiety, had, to " make assurance 
 doubly sure," started, along with his niece, for Seraing, 
 travelling post as I had done. How it was that I did 
 not pass him on the road, I was unable to explain, except 
 on the supposition that he had rested for the night at 
 Louvain, Thiemont, or St. Trond. Greatly I regretted 
 my enforced haste, and the consequent loss of the oppor- 
 tunity of profiting, however slightly, b} r my travel. It 
 was a fortnight before the old gentleman returned home. 
 On his way back the coachman drove against some acci- 
 dental obstruction in the road between St. Trond and 
 Tirlemont, and upset the carriage. Mr. Cockerill and 
 his niece were thrown violently to the ground. Strange 
 to say, the elder and weaker person escaped without a 
 bruise, while the younger and stronger was severely cut 
 about the head and face, and returned to Brussels a 
 pitiable spectacle. 
 
 This was not the only journey I was destined to take 
 with this couple. In the autumn of the year 1829 there 
 resided in Paris a celebrated oculist, who daily advertised
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 43 
 
 iii Galignani's Messenger, whose name I cannot recall ; 
 and Mr. Cockerill, who was fast losing the sight of one 
 of his eyes, and was afraid of losing the sight of both, 
 suddenly determined to take a journey to Paris to consult 
 him. It was also determined that I should go with him. 
 I was fresh from reading the history of the Great Revolu- 
 tion of 1789, and the " Reign of Terror " that succeeded 
 it, and promised myself great satisfaction from a visit to 
 the beautiful and historical city, where all these mighty 
 events had occurred. We were to travel by slow stages, 
 with Mr. Cockerill's own favourite greys ; and, as the 
 horses could not well accomplish more than forty miles 
 a day, if so many, we would have to stop for the night at 
 many celebrated towns and fortified cities. "We slept the 
 first night at Mons, the second at Valenciennes, the third 
 at Cambrai, the fourth at St. Quentin, the fifth at Com- 
 piegne, the sixth at Senlis, the seventh at Pontoise, and 
 on the eighth arrived at Paris. The old gentleman slept 
 the greater part of the day, rousing himself up now and 
 then, as I told him the names of the places through 
 which we were passing. Though frail, he was always very 
 ready for his dinner when the horses halted to bait and 
 rest at the way-side inns. I was not a connoisseur in 
 cookery in those early days. All was grist that came to 
 my mill, for health and hunger gave zest to the plainest 
 fare that was placed before me. But Mr. Cockerill, 
 as was natural at his age, was vastly more particular. 
 He required succulent and savoury dishes, and invariably 
 enquired, if we stopped at anything like a pretentious hotel 
 or restaurant, whether we could have Pate de fuie gras, 
 Tate de veau a la maltre d'hotel, or Oreilles de cochons a la,
 
 44 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Ste. Menehould. "We were generally successful enough in 
 finding the first dainty, though it was only once, I think at 
 Cambrai, that we were rewarded with the second or the 
 third. To me, a mere boy, to be treated like a full grown 
 man, to have a choice in ordering the dinner and the wine, 
 and to be allowed to drink of the latter ad libitum as if I 
 had been fifty instead of sixteen, was an acknowledgment of 
 my manhood that had great charms for my } r oung imagi- 
 nation. The distances, measured by time rather than 
 hy miles in those days when railways were the dreams 
 of enthusiasts, so different from our own swifter epoch 
 when we can dart from London to Paris in eleven hours 
 and a half, and send a message to America in a minute, 
 impressed most people with the magnitude of the world, 
 and not, as in our epoch, with its littleness ; and, by the 
 time I reached Paris, I was of opinion that I was a con- 
 siderable traveller. Old and mature as I thought myself, 
 I was by far too } T oung to take notice of the political 
 agitation in Paris at this time, or to hear even the faintest 
 rumblings of the storm that was destined to overturn the 
 throne of Charles X., and to prepare the wa} r for a series 
 of revolutions that are not yet ended, or likely to be 
 ended until the French learn that the first elements of 
 liberty are patience and self-control. But I revelled in 
 the sights of Paris ; visited all its historical buildings, 
 my mind full of the incidents which had rendered them 
 famous, and looking at every celebrated spot with a recol- 
 lection fresh from my reading of the events which had 
 ennobled, or, it might be, had disgraced it. 
 
 The great oculist — if great he were — failed to be of 
 service to Mr. Cockerill, and gave him no hope of the pre-
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 45 
 
 servation of the one affected e}-e, and little hope of the 
 preservation of the other ; so he resolved to return to 
 Brussels. A few days before our departure, a tall, 
 elderly gentleman sent in his card to our apartments in 
 the Eue St. Anne, on which was inscribed " Lord Blan- 
 tyre." Mr. Cockerill was indulging in his afternoon 
 siesta, and it became my duty to receive the visitor. His 
 lordship explained that he did not know Mr. Cockerill, 
 personally — but had heard that he was the proprietor of a 
 house in the Rue Royale, Brussels, fronting the park, 
 which he very much wanted to hire for a term of years. 
 Knowing all Mr. Cockerill's affairs, and that he never 
 interfered in the letting of his houses, I referred him to 
 the agent at Brussels. Lord Blantyre ultimately took 
 the house, and I only mention this trifling circumstance, 
 to narrate the melancholy fate of this amiable man, 
 which might have been other than it was, had he been 
 disappointed in hiring this particular mansion. In less 
 than a year after this time, during the short, sharp and 
 terrible struggle in the streets of Brussels, that accom- 
 lished the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Lord Blantyre 
 went up into an attic of his house to survey the conflict 
 that was raging at his door and in the park opposite, 
 between the Brussels mob and the troops of the King 
 of the Netherlands ; and unfortunately stretched his 
 head out of the window the better to observe what was 
 going on. A shot, that may have been accidental, but 
 that more probably was fired in mere wantonness, went 
 right through his neck, and he fell back in the arms 
 of his wife, immediately behind him, who had vainly 
 endeavoured to dissuade him from exposing himself.
 
 46 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The shot was fatal; and having seen much of him between 
 his first visit to Mr. Cockerili at Paris and his tragical 
 end, I felt his loss with all the keenness of a personal 
 calamity. 
 
 I had influence enough with Mr. Cockerili to persuade 
 him to return to Brussels through a different series of 
 towns than that by which we had reached Paris, hut 
 only remember, at this distance of time, that Arras, Lisle, 
 and Tom-nay were three of them, and that we were, 
 as before, eight days on the journey. The change of 
 route made no difference to him or Iris niece, but it made 
 the difference to me that I saw new places and gratified 
 my love of travel. 
 
 About this time the signs of political strife and 
 approaching convulsions in Belgium were manifest. My 
 father — a Tory of the old school, was a keen partisan of 
 the King of the Netherlands in his ill-judged attempts 
 to assimilate Belgium to Holland in everything, even in 
 the language — and spoke so much and so warmly on the 
 subject, that I could not choose but be fully informed 
 of all that was taking place. His early residence in 
 Holland, where his mother was buried, and his con- 
 nection with the Dutch Mackays, helped to strengthen 
 his Dutch predilections, and he was all for the king, 
 and against the malcontents. But, my sympathies were 
 with the Belgians. The leader of the Belgian or anti- 
 Dutch party was a M. De Potter, aided very materially 
 by a young lawyer and journalist, named Sylvain Van de 
 Weyer, one of the editors of the Courier Beige, after- 
 wards and for many years the highly respected Belgian 
 ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Among the most
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 47 
 
 eminent and most obnoxious leaders of the Dutch party 
 in Brussels was one Libri Bagnano, a bookseller and 
 publisher in the Rue Montague de la Cour, who wielded 
 the pen of a ready writer, and wrote a long-continued 
 series of very trenchant, witty, provocative articles and 
 pamphlets in defence of the policy of the king. This 
 gentleman had a hunch-back, and was diminutive in 
 person, for both of which misfortunes or defects he was 
 mercilessly held up to ridicule by the Belgian separatist 
 and revolutionary press. In an evil hour for him, it was 
 discovered, or at all events it was loudly asserted, that 
 he had in his youth been condemned to the galleys, 
 or bagnes; that his very name Bagnano, was given in 
 commemoration of the fact; and that he was marked on 
 the back, (burnt in the ordinary manner), with the 
 letters T. F., signifying travaux forces. This allegation 
 was treated as a calmnny by the friends of M. Bagnano, 
 and of the king ; but only met with the scornful response 
 " let him show his back." The war carried on against 
 Bagnano by the liberal and Catholic press, for the 
 Roman Catholics were liberal and revolutionary in 
 Belgium at that day, in so far, as they desired separation 
 from Protestant Holland; was bitter in the extreme; and 
 succeeded in making him the most unpopular man in 
 Brussels. Next to him, a Dutchman named Felix 
 Van Maanen, who served the high office of Minister of 
 Justice in the then existing administration, came in for 
 the greatest share of popular execration. The mal- 
 content Belgians with the exception of the priestly 
 party, did not at that time desire, or at all events ask 
 for the independence of the country. All they wanted
 
 48 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 was its legislative separation from Holland. It was 
 generally thought that even this might not be 
 necessary if the obstinate king would abdicate in 
 favour of the Prince of Orange, who was as popular 
 among the Belgians as among the Dutch, and who, it 
 was thought, would act in a conciliatory spirit and redress 
 all the real grievances of which the Belgians complained, 
 one of which was, that no one, however competent in 
 other respects, should be allowed to keep a school unless 
 he was able to teach the Dutch language. In the midst 
 of the Belgian excitement, and when the temper of the 
 people was rapidly becoming more hostile to the king 
 and his advisers, the French Bevolution of July, 1830, 
 exploded with sudden violence, and drove Charles X., 
 the stupidest and most obstinate of all the Bourbons, 
 from the throne which he was unworthy to occupy. The 
 French people contemptuously allowed him to leave the 
 country, an exile for the second time, too old and too 
 broken a man to expect that any turn of the great 
 wheel of Destiny would ever restore him to authority 
 or to home. He took refuge in Great Britain, as his 
 brother Louis XVIII. had done forty years previously, 
 and found an asylum in the melancholy Palace of 
 Holyrood, which was placed at his disposal by King 
 William IV., who had not long previously ascended the 
 throne. The news of the French Bevolution fell upon 
 the Belgians like a blazing torch into a powder maga- 
 zine, and created a commotion and perturbation in men's 
 minds that presaged inevitable explosion. Nor did 
 things at this time, Mr. Cockerill thought, look very 
 favourable in England, where the lleform Bill agitation
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 49 
 
 began to assume formidable dimensions. "All the 
 world is going mad," said the old gentleman, in a 
 despondent tone, " and though I am not surprised at 
 anything the French do, for I look upon them as a 
 nation of monkeys, I am surprised that the English 
 will not let well alone. As for that Daniel O'Connell, 
 and Hunt, the blacking-maker, I would hang them both 
 on the same gallows." It was one night in August, 
 not many weeks after the flight of Charles X., that 
 Auber's splendid opera of "La Muette de Portici," 
 better known to the lyric stage of Italy, England and 
 Germany as " Masanielio," was announced at the Theatre 
 de la Monnaie, then the principal theatre of Brussels ; 
 and my father proposed that he and I should witness 
 the performance. As the incidents of the well-known 
 opera show the progress and success of a democratic 
 uprising, and consequent revolution, there was a general 
 impression all over the city that a political demon- 
 stration of some kind or other was likely to be made. 
 Quiet and timid people in the cafes and places of public 
 resort were of opinion that no such too suggestive 
 performance should be allowed, and that the manager 
 ought to be called upon, in the interest of the public 
 peace, to substitute " Fra Diavolo," "Der Freischutz," 
 or some other harmless opera, that was void of political 
 allusion. But the hint was not taken. The crowd in the 
 Place de la Monnaie, half an hour before the opening of the 
 doors, was vast and uproarious. It was with the utmost 
 difficulty that m} r father and I obtained entrance to the 
 pit, where there was only standing room. The frantic 
 excitement that greeted the overture was such as I 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 should not have believed possible unless I had witnessed 
 it, and went on increasing as the performance proceeded. 
 More than once the whole audience started to their feet 
 as if by one simultaneous impulse, and cheered and 
 waved their handkerchiefs, and stamped, and roared, 
 and gesticulated as if they had been a congregation of 
 madmen and madwomen — the women, perhaps, being the 
 maddest of all. 
 
 At the finale of the opera, and just as the curtain 
 descended, someone in the boxes — some said it was a lady 
 and some affirmed it to be a student — suddenly displayed 
 and waved the French tricolour flag. At this signal, 
 which was doubtless preconcerted, the audience raised a 
 shout, which seemed actually to shake the house, as if 
 with the concussion of a mighty wind, and ere the sound 
 died away, was succeeded by a chorus of voices singing 
 the Marseillaise. This, too, was possibly preconcerted. 
 The effect was grand and terrible, and the crowd, still 
 singing the splendid revolutionary anthem, made its 
 way into the open space before the theatre, formed itself 
 into a wild irregular procession, to which some unknown 
 person, with a loud voice, gave a direction by shouting 
 " Chez Libri Bagnano. f " My father and I were in 
 the midst of the moving mass, and followed whither 
 it impelled us. " It will go badly with poor Bagnano," 
 said my father, " if they find him at home. I would not 
 give sixpence for his life's purchase." Arrived opposite 
 Bagnano's shop in the Hue Montagne de la Cour, the 
 crowd halted, broke the windows, and attempted to batter 
 in the door. Bagnano, forewarned b} r a few minutes, 
 escaped in his night clothes from a back window by the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5l 
 
 aid of the gutter-pipe, and got clear off. Speedily the 
 
 crowd burst open the door and swarmed into the house, 
 
 in search of the object of then hatred. They ransacked 
 
 his secretaire, tore down all the books from the shelves 
 
 in his library and shop, and threw the fragments into the 
 
 street, together with the furniture and utensils. There 
 
 was a cry to set fire to the building, but in consequence 
 
 of danger to the houses on each side, the design was 
 
 abandoned, and the mob contented itself with gutting 
 
 the house from top to bottom. Another ominous cry 
 
 was raised, "Chez Van Maanen ! " The distance to be 
 
 traversed was not great ; and again attuning their rough 
 
 voices to the Marseillaise, the crowd tramped heavily 
 
 along, keeping time to the music, to the house of the 
 
 Minister of Justice. Fortunately he was not at home, 
 
 or had managed to escape ; no one knew. But the doors 
 
 were rapidly forced in, and the mob poured in like a 
 
 torrent. The mirrors, ornaments, and pictures were 
 
 smashed, broken, and cast from the windows to the 
 
 garden, and the torch applied to the furniture and the 
 
 bedding. The house stood alone, so that there was little 
 
 or no danger of the fire extending. In less than ten 
 
 minutes the mansion was in flames, and thick volumes 
 
 of smoke poured upwards to the sky, succeeded by a 
 
 lurid glare that lit up all Brussels. Those who passed 
 
 the scene of devastation in the morning, discovered 
 
 amid the still smoking ruins a huge gallows, from which 
 
 depended the effigy of the Minister of Justice, with the 
 
 inscription above it, in large letters, 
 
 Felix Ixfelix ! 
 
 The King's palace would doubtless have been attacked, 
 
 s 2
 
 5:2 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and shared the fate of the hotel of the minister, but pre- 
 cautions had been taken, and all the military force' at 
 command was drawn up in the open space between 
 it and the park ; and the crowd had at that time 
 no desire to draw conclusions with the soldiers. The 
 gunsmiths' shops, however, were less fortunate than the 
 palace, and were speedily ransacked. The ironmongers' 
 shops shared the same fate, and people who could not 
 procure fire-arms contented themselves for the time 
 being with scythes, or with long poles to which they affixed 
 knives, and transformed them into rude but formidable 
 spears. The other damage done during the night was 
 inconsiderable, but in the upper or new part of the city 
 scarcely an eye was closed ; and dense crowds swarmed 
 into the streets as spectators of the mischief. The 
 animus of the people was decidedly anti-monarchical, 
 and shouts of Vive la Republique resounded on every 
 side. In the early dawn there were to be seen hundreds 
 of French tricolour flags, hastily improvised out of sheets 
 and table-cloths, smeared with red and blue stripes, 
 dangling from the windows in the Rue Royale and the 
 mercantile streets, though nothing of the kind was to be 
 seen in the aristocratic quarter of the Rue Ducale and 
 the Boulevards. As the morning wore on, the republican 
 feeling displayed itself unmistakably. Men climbed up 
 ladders, with paint-pots and brushes, and effaced the word 
 "roylae" from the corners where the name of the Rue 
 Royale was exhibited, and then demolished, or pulled 
 down the royal arms over the doors of the public buildings, 
 and called upon the tradesmen who announced that they 
 were bakers, butchers, grocers, fishmongers, or other
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 53 
 
 purveyors to the King, to score out the obnoxious words 
 " king and royal." One violent fellow, with more zeal 
 than knowledge, seeing the inscription Fabrique de 
 miroirs, mounted a ladder with a paint-pot and effaced 
 the letters roirs, with the notion apparently that the 
 peccant syllable was somehow or other connected with 
 royalty. One M. Leroy, a boot and shoemaker, was 
 waited upon by a crowd of lads armed with spades and 
 scythes — one of them, the leader of the band, brandishing 
 a pistol — and commanded to take down the board over his 
 shop, on which his name was painted Leroy — and M. 
 Leroy (King) had no choice but to obey, and the young 
 wags or scamps disappeared, shouting Vive la Re- 
 imbliaiic ! 
 
 The tumults of this and several succeeding days greatly 
 alarmed Mr. Cockerill. The King was at the Hague, and 
 manifested no disposition to submit to the dictation of 
 the mob, even when he learned that the disaffection was 
 not local and confined to Brussels, but general, and that 
 Louvain, Liege, and other cities had pronounced against 
 his government. A report was industriously circulated 
 that Iris Majesty had resolved to send a Dutch army, 
 commanded by the Prince of Orange, against rebellious 
 Brussels ; but the friends of the Prince took especial 
 pains to contradict it, and to make it known that under 
 no circumstances would that Prince consent to bear arms 
 against the Belgians. "Within a fortnight of the outbreak 
 and the establishment of a Provisional Government, it 
 would have been possible, had the King manifested any 
 disposition to yield, to have calmed the public excitement, 
 and saved Belgium and Holland, by the appointment
 
 54 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the Prince of Orange as Viceroy of Belgium, with 
 full powers to redress the grievances of the Belgians. 
 But the King was as obstinate as if he had been a Bourbon 
 or a Stuart, and, as his elder son would not lend himself 
 to the military coercion of the better half of the kingdom, 
 appointed his second son, Prince Frederick, to the com- 
 mand of a large force to besiege Brussels. Mr. Cockerill, 
 as soon as he became convinced that force was to be 
 employed, resolved to leave the country. His first 
 thought was to take refuge, with his son at Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle. But the mob of Aix-la-Chapelle shared in the 
 revolutionary fever of the time, broke out into open insur- 
 rection, and sacked and destroyed Mr. James Cockerill's 
 house without provocation or pretence, and for no other 
 reason than that he was the richest man in the town, 
 or that, as Marshal Blucher might have said, "his 
 house was a beautiful one to sack." But the Aix-la- 
 Chapelle disturbances soon subsided, and the King of 
 Prussia took effectual measures to prevent their renewal. 
 Old Mr. Cockerill, reassured on this point, abandoned a 
 hasty determination to go to London, and finally decided 
 to make his home, at least for a while, in Aix. He 
 asked my father to allow me to accompany him, and he 
 and I gladly consented. There was some difficulty in 
 procuring post-horses, as every available animal had been 
 put in requisition by the Provisional Government for the 
 wants of the army of defence, so Mr. Cockerill resolved to 
 travel by easy stages with his own team. We were nearly a 
 week in reaching Aix, and were duly installed in Mr. James 
 Cockerill's new mansion, one of the finest in the town, 
 which he had hired after the destruction of the one still
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 55 
 
 finer in which lie had previously resided. It did not 
 appear that any feeling of political hostility existed towards 
 him, or other leading citizens, or the Prussian Govern- 
 ment ; hut that the outbreak was that of the roughs 
 against the gentlemen, and that of the poor against the 
 rich. 
 
 Mr. Cockerill had left Brussels none too soon. A 
 division of the Dutch army, under the command of 
 H.B.H. Prince Frederick, bombarded the city a few days 
 after his departure, to the wild indignation of the in- 
 habitants. The proprietor of the Hotel de Belle Vue, hi 
 the corner of the Place Boy ale, was hi the market in the 
 Grande Place, opposite the Hotel de Yille, when he heard 
 the booming of the guns, and saw a shot strike against one 
 of the houses, and was seized with such terror that he fell 
 to the ground helpless, and never recovered. An English 
 lad, an apprentice to Mr. Legge, the English saddler of 
 the Prince of Orange, was killed at the door of the shop 
 by a chance ball, and several other fatal calamities 
 occurred, the news of which spread rapidly and increased 
 the exasperation of the people. When the bombarding 
 troops attempted to enter the city, they found that a 
 series of formidable barricades had been erected in the 
 Bue Boyale, and the streets that commanded the ap- 
 proaches to the palace of the King, the House of Be- 
 presentatives, the Hotel de Ville, and other buildings 
 of strategic importance, and that each barricade was 
 defended by hundreds of earnest volunteers, thoroughly 
 armed and provided with ammunition. Capable leaders 
 of the people seemed to spring up as if bj r magic, 
 and just at the moment when they were wanted, and
 
 56 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 one, especially a man with a wooden leg, only known 
 to the people as jambe da Lois, wrought wonders at the 
 head of a body of adherents in repelling the troops. The 
 fury of the fight was in the Rue Boyale and the park, 
 and all the houses in the line were riddled with shot and 
 bomb-shells, which, long after the struggle had ended, 
 were taken out of the walls, and again stuck in, after the 
 damage had been repaired, to show the indignity to which 
 the city had been exposed by the troops of its own king, 
 and to keep up the animosity of the citizens against the 
 Dutch. The Belgian revolution was not a mere insur- 
 rection, but an almost unanimous national movement, 
 as the King discovered when it was too late. On the 4th 
 of October, the King's troops — having evacuated Brussels 
 and other cities of Belgium, and retired to the citadel of 
 Antwerp, whither the French Government sent a force to 
 besiege them — the Provisional Government proclaimed 
 the independence of Belgium. The efforts of the veteran 
 general Lafayette in Paris having stemmed the re- 
 publican torrent that threatened to overwhelm France, 
 and diverted the raging waters into the channel of a 
 constitutional monarchy, of which the presiding genius 
 was to be a " Citizen King," the Belgian moderates 
 judged it the wisest and safest policy to imitate the 
 example, and direct all then- efforts to the establish- 
 ment of a monarchy. In the meantime the Chambers 
 appointed a Provisional President, or viceroy, with 
 powers as a king, to form a responsible ministry. 
 The choice fell upon a venerable country gentleman, 
 whose name few had ever heard of before, a M. Surlet 
 de Chokier, whose character inspired the respect of
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 57 
 
 all parties as a man of intelligence who would do his 
 duty, neither more nor less, and who did not possess. 
 the slightest taint of personal ambition. On the 26th 
 of December it was announced to the Congress, then 
 sitting in Brussels, that the allied powers of Europe 
 had recognized the independence of Belgium, and its- 
 permanent separation from Holland. This was the first 
 blow to the famous treaty of Vienna, solemnly agreed 
 to by all the great powers after the battle of Waterloo. 
 Henceforth that much vaunted document became of no 
 more value than waste paper, and was set at nought" by 
 every power whose interest or inclination it was to 
 ignore it. 
 
 Such news arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle of the damage 
 done by the Dutch soldiers in the houses of the wealthier 
 citizens, during their occupation of the town, that I was 
 despatched to Brussels to report on what had been done to 
 the house of Mr. Cockerill on the Boulevards, to instal some 
 responsible person to take care of it, and to bring to Aix 
 a favourite travelling carriage and pair of horses which 
 had been left behind. Report had not greatly exaggerated 
 the devastation committed b} r the troops. A hundred or 
 more had been installed in Mr. Cockerill's mansion ; had 
 drunk up or allowed to run to waste all the wines and 
 spirits in his cellar, amounting to at least a thousand 
 bottles ; had smashed all the drawing-room mirrors and 
 chandeliers ; had ripped up all the pictures on the 
 walls, and in the most outrageous manner defiled the 
 beds, and even the tables and chairs, refusing, with 
 disgusting malice, to make use of the conveniences which 
 every well-constructed house affords. The Augean
 
 58 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 stables could not have smelt worse than that luckless 
 house, which was but one of hundreds that had en- 
 dured the same foul indignities from the hands of the 
 infuriated blackguards who served in the army of the 
 King. The carriage had been so hacked and cut, and 
 •otherwise vilely treated by the soldiers who had made 
 their beds in it, as to be not worth the trouble of removal. 
 I was a fortnight in Brussels before I could get the 
 house purified, and place a trustworthy English mechanic 
 and his wife in possession, and was able, at the end of 
 that time, to make my wa}^ back to Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 Mr. Cockerill bore the recital of the mischief with 
 much equanimit3 T , consoling himself with the calcula- 
 tion that the war damage would doubtless have to be 
 paid for by the King of Holland, when the final settle- 
 ment was made between the King and his former subjects. 
 In casting about them for a king, the first choice of the 
 Belgians fell upon the Duke de Nemours, a younger son 
 of Louis Philippe, the newly installed King of the French. 
 But the King refused his consent on behalf of his son, 
 a minor, and the Belgians had consequently to proceed 
 to a new election. In order that the Crown should 
 not seem to go a-begging, the Provisional Government 
 prudently made sure beforehand that the person to whom 
 the perilous gift was to be offered would accept it ; and 
 this having been carefully ascertained, the choice of the 
 Legislature was duly announced to have fallen upon His 
 Royal Highness Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, 
 widower of the lamented Princess Charlotte, daughter of 
 George IV. The Prince had previously refused the throne 
 of Greece, but did not feel himself at liberty to refuse that
 
 INTROD UCTOB Y. 5 9 
 
 of Belgium, the acceptance of which would retain him 
 in the vicinity of England, which he loved so well, and 
 in which he for many years had found a home and friends. 
 The Prince of Orange had once heen a suitor for the 
 hand of the Princess Charlotte, hut had heen rejected in 
 favour of Prince Leopold. "Hang the fellow!" said 
 the Prince of Orange, when he heard upon whom the 
 choice of the Belgians had fallen. " He seems fated to 
 stand in my way ! Years ago he deprived me of a wife, 
 and now he has deprived me of a kingdom ! " 
 
 Prince Leopold ascended the throne in July, 1831, 
 under the title of Leopold L, King of the Belgians ; and in 
 the November following, Great Britain, France, Austria, 
 and Prussia, which had previously acknowledged the 
 independence of the little kingdom, concluded a treaty 
 with the King, which was signed at London, in which the 
 boundaries of Belgium were defined, and in which the 
 powers severally and collectively guaranteed to the King 
 the peaceful possession of his kingdom. 
 
 My father had, as already stated, always sympathized 
 with the Dutch King and his advisers in their endeavours 
 to retain Belgium, which they might easily have done if 
 they had been wise in time. Though he accepted the 
 fact of the revolution as well as he was able, he never 
 thoroughly reconciled himself to the reign of King 
 Leopold. I sent him from Aix-la-Chapelle some verses 
 which I had written in celebration of King Leopold's 
 accession and inauguration, to which he returned the 
 following reply : —
 
 60 FORTY YEARS RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " S3, MoNTAGNE DE LA CoUR, 
 
 " 15th September, 1831. 
 
 " My dearest Charles, — 
 
 " I received your letter containing the stanzas 
 upon the Inoculation (inauguration) of Leopold. With- 
 out flattery, allow me to say that they are much admired 
 even by better judges than myself. A copy of the poem, 
 illuminated and ornamented, is in the hands of a high 
 official, who has promised to place it under the royal 
 eye. You may suppose that with my opinions as regards 
 the revolution I care but little about this ; but you, 
 perhaps, may. We are all down in the mouth here, not 
 even excepting the King himself — et bonder semble etre 
 Vorclre du jour. Alas, the poor blouse ! The ci-devant 
 civic guard, hitherto the terror of the house of Nassau, 
 are now called by the populace the garde saure qui pent, 
 in allusion to their ignominious retreat from Louvain. 
 You have, no doubt, heard of the haystack of moustachios 
 left by these Trojans in their flight ? The Government 
 of King Leopold intends, it is said, to purchase the lot, 
 to stuff mattrasses for the military hospitals ! His 
 Majesty goes regularly to Laeken to dine, sup, and, 
 'perhaps, sleep. He does not appear to enjoy half as 
 good spirits as I do ; and I am quite sure I should be 
 very sorry to change places with him. Writs soon, and 
 believe me, 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " George Mack ay." 
 
 The health of Mr. C'ockerill began to fail in Aix-la- 
 Chapclle, and with the view of procuring him fresher 
 air, and greater quiet, he was removed to the Chateau de
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 61 
 
 Bernsberg, a kind of castle with a feudal tower, about 
 five miles from the city. The Chateau belonged to Mr. 
 James Cockerill, who had let the farm-house attached to 
 it and the farm to a worthy German, who made very 
 excellent butter and cheese and did a considerable busi- 
 ness in the rearing of cattle. But the change did not 
 operate so favourably as was expected on the health of 
 the invalid, and he sank gradually into so comatose a 
 state as to be scarcely sensible of passing events. He 
 took but the slightest interest in himself or any body else, 
 and listened to what was said or read to him without 
 appearing to understand it. During this interval, which 
 lasted until the commencement of the } r ear 1832, having no 
 duties to perform, I bethought myself that I ought not to 
 eat the bread of idleness at another's expense, and medi- 
 tated a return to Brussels. But I was over-persuaded by 
 Mr. James Cockerill to remain at the Chateau de Berns- 
 berg, to transact for his father such light business as had 
 to be transacted; for his niece, who was an excellent 
 nurse, was of very humble origin, and had not the edu- 
 cation to act as secretary. To overcome my scruples 
 about the bread of idleness, Mr. James Cockerill, who 
 had a large family, that increased b}' one annually, or 
 biennially proposed that I should give the elder boys and 
 girls, ranging from fifteen downwards, lessons in arith- 
 metic, the rudiments of mathematics, and English com- 
 position. I fell in cheerfully with this arrangement, and 
 devoted all the time that was required, two hours daily, 
 to this pleasant duty. My abundant leisure did not hang 
 heavily on my hands. I read a great deal in French and 
 German — for English books were not easily procurable,
 
 62 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 especially the new ones — and acquired for my years a wide 
 acquaintance with the masterpieces of both languages. 
 My favourite German poet at this time was Theodor 
 Korner, a young soldier, who had aroused the patriotic 
 fervour of the Fatherland by his stirring Avar song's, and 
 done even more than even Goethe himself to impress the 
 youth of Germany with the idea that it was nobler to be a 
 German than a Bavarian, a Wurtemburger, a Hanoverian, 
 a Prussian, or an Austrian ; and produced slowly, and 
 imperceptibly, the wide prevalence of that patriotic spirit 
 and national elan which enabled Bismarck and Moltke, in 
 1870, to overwhelm France and convert the kingdom of 
 Prussia into the empire of Germany. My favourite French 
 poets were Victor Hugo and Auguste Barbier. I am 
 unable to say which I admired the most, and oftenest 
 read, but I think the latter exercised the greatest influ- 
 ence over my mind, by the splendid fulminations and de- 
 nunciations of his Iambcs, a series of poems unequalled in 
 the whole range of French literature for manly vigour of 
 thought and style, and in the blazing light of which the 
 more popular effusions of Beranger, Delavigne,De Lamar- 
 tine, and other contemporary poets, are but pale lamps 
 compared with the effulgence of the sun. I thought 
 then, as I think now, that the description of the first 
 Napoleon riding the war-horse France, in the passage 
 commencing — 
 
 "0 Corse ! a, cheveux plats, que la France etaifc belle 
 Au beau soleil de Messidor ! 
 C'etait une cavale, indomitable et rcbelle, 
 Sans frein d'acier ni renes tl'or," 
 
 was one of the noblest images to be found either in
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 63 
 
 ancient or modern poetry, carried out perfectly in all 
 its parts, and to the smallest accessories of the 
 metaphor. 
 
 I endeavoured to be pleased with Beranger, but in 
 vain. The lack of dignity, except in five or six of his 
 many hundreds of songs, and his general frivolity and 
 indecency, either rendered me indifferent or offended me. 
 I remember reading for the first time his particularly 
 French and very lascivious song, " La Bacchante," 
 which, it is to be hoped, no Frenchman or Frenchwoman 
 ever sung ; and feeling indignant at such a prostitution 
 of talent — I could not call it genius — to so unworthy a 
 subject. I was lying on a sofa, on a very hot day in 
 July, at the Chateau de Bernsberg, and turned over the 
 leaves to find something better than the drunken Bac- 
 chante to reconcile me to the "poet of the French people," 
 when I lighted upon one entitled "Ma Grand'Mere." 
 Here the disreputable old woman is represented as im- 
 pressing upon her grand- daughters the necessity of 
 making good use of their youth and charms, and as 
 telling them the numbers of her lovers, and the manner 
 in which she had deceived their grandfather. I was no 
 prude, but this was too much for my modesty and sense 
 of decency. The poem, if it may be so called, appeared 
 to me such treason to the majesty of the poet's calling, 
 that I flung the volume through the closed window, 
 breaking the glass with a violent smash, and resolved to 
 read Beranger no more. Mr. Cockerill's niece was 
 walking in the garden below, heard the crash, and saw 
 the volume fall. She picked it up, and came into my 
 room with an angry frown and petulant voice, and asked
 
 64 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the reason of my conduct. I told her, offered to pay for 
 the broken glass, and declared I would have smashed the 
 whole window, instead of only one pane, rather than not 
 do what I had done. She was mollified, said she would 
 accept the offered payment, and said, not too angrily, I 
 thought, that I was a foolish bo}\ 
 
 My wrath against Beranger was somewhat appeased by 
 this relief to my feelings. I did not carry out my threat 
 of reading him no more, and speedily learned to admire 
 his satirical and moral pieces, of which the latter were 
 very few ; but came to the conclusion, inexperienced as I 
 was, that he was of his age only, and would not retain 
 either a large or very honourable place in the literature 
 of his country. 
 
 I not only read but wrote much at this time. I 
 translated Burns' song, "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie 
 Doon," into German ; and endeavoured to translate it 
 into French, but broke down hopelessly, not from 
 ignorance of French, for I wrote it as easily and correctly 
 as I did English, but from the poetic incompatibility of 
 the two languages. English and German are both highly 
 poetical languages, and can melt and fuse one into the 
 other in translation; but French is hard, dry, and 
 prosaic. Even our English Bible, so grand, so noble, 
 and so simple, loses its grandeur in French. Shakspeare 
 in French is but dry stubble, without leaves, or sap, or 
 fruit ; and Burns in French, translated by Loeve 
 Weimars, is ludicrously grotesque. Besides the labours 
 of translation, I indulged in original poetical composition 
 in both of these languages, as well as in English. But 
 to write French verses was to dance in fetters ; and I
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 65 
 
 resolved, after having proved the fact to the satisfaction 
 of my own mind, that I could write French poetry if I 
 liked, to devote myself exclusively to English composi- 
 tion. Ahout this time I translated, or rather para- 
 phrased, Beranger's song, " Mon habit " — a little event, 
 which in an unexpected manner hecame a turning point 
 in my career, and enabled me to stand on the first 
 rung of the steep and perilous ladder of the literary pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Old Mr. Cockerill's state of health was not likely 
 to improve. He never stirred out from the Chateau de 
 Bernsberg, never inquired after his favourite horses, 
 never inquired after anything ; scarcely ever spoke ; but 
 lay on his bed, alive, but so slowly dying, that his 
 physician said he might not die for two or three years. 
 I began to chafe at my position, and long for the day 
 when I might go to London, and embark on the great 
 ocean of authorship. The two younger Cockerills were 
 very kind, and had I been disposed to pursue a mercan- 
 tile life, a place would probably have been found for me 
 at Seraing with a fair chance of advancement. But as 
 the months wore on, this bright prospect, though I did 
 not consider it bright, darkened palpably before my eyes. 
 The revolution in Belgium had acted injuriously upon the 
 business of that great concern. Trade and manufactures 
 of all lands suffered, and the pessimists and adherents of 
 the House of Orange predicted that still worse times were 
 impending for Belgium. In this uneasy state of public 
 feeling, the magnitude of an enterprise only rendered it 
 the more liable to financial difficulty and possible 
 collapse. All kinds of sinister rumours were afloat, and 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 FORTY YEARS' KECOLLECTTONS. 
 
 I was ultimately led to understand, though not by any 
 one of sufficient authority, that the King of Holland had 
 given notice of his withdrawal from the partnership at 
 Seraing, and had made such a demand for a settlement 
 of accounts, as would severely test the credit of the great 
 house of Cockerill. Though pressed by my father to 
 make the most I could of the Cockerill connection, 
 and enter into the service of the firm at Seraing, and 
 possibly causing him to consider, like the description of 
 the lad in Pope, that I was 
 
 " A youth condemned his father's soul to cross, 
 Who penned a stanza when he should engross," 
 
 or keep accounts and write commercial epistles, I steadily 
 made up my mind to be aut poeta aut nullus ! I had to 
 atone for the pleasant delusion by years of disappoint- 
 ment and suffering; but fortunately for me, as for all 
 other men, I could not read the future ; and was happy 
 in the present time, and saw the world of fame and 
 fortune stretching before me and around me in a vast 
 panorama of glory and beauty. 
 
 The life at the Chateau de Bernsberg had grown 
 almost insufferably tedious ; and though in a certain 
 sense sorry to see the last of poor old Mr. Cockerill, 
 who had always been good and kind to me while his 
 faculties lasted, I was as impatient as a young bird to 
 try my wings, and finally took leave of Aix-la-Chapelle 
 and the Cockerill family. I had money in m} r pocket, 
 but I preferred to walk the whole distance from Aix-la- 
 Chapelle to Brussels, and pass the night at each of the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. G7 
 
 great towns on the road, sending on my personal effects 
 by the diligence. 
 
 I met with companions on the way, who, like myself, 
 were tramping it, and bound for Brussels. They were 
 two young Frenchmen of good family, who had been 
 smitten, after the accomplishment of the Revolution 
 of 1830, with a love for the Poles, then struggling 
 against the gigantic power of Russia for the restora- 
 tion of the independence of Poland ; and who, having 
 volunteered in the Polish army, had, after the final 
 collapse of the hopes of Poland, amid the smoke and 
 grape-shot of the Grand Duke Constantine, made the 
 best of their way homewards, very scantily provided 
 with ready money. They were both two or three years 
 older than myself, but we soon fraternised ; slept at the 
 same inns, and made the long way seem pleasant. One 
 of these is still alive, and ranks high in the diplomatic 
 service of his country. The other I long ago lost sight 
 of, though from his talents and high family connections, 
 it is possible, and most probable, that he found o 
 made a good position in his after years. 
 
 My father, finding it of no use to argue with me, and 
 
 perhaps being more or less of my opinion, that London 
 
 might, after all, be the best place for me, gave his 
 
 consent to my project ; and resolved to accompan}' me. 
 
 He had friends, kinsmen, and acquaintances in the great 
 
 city, to whom he wished to introduce me ; among others, 
 
 the late Lord Panmure, the late Earl of Dundonald, then 
 
 Lord Cochrane ; Eric Mackay, the seventh Lord Reay, 
 
 the head of the clan — very unpopular among his clansmen, 
 
 for having cut off the entail of his estates and sold the 
 
 .? 2
 
 68 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Mack ay country to the Marquis of Stafford, afterwards 
 Duke of Sutherland ; Mrs. Somerville, the celebrated 
 astronomer, and wife of Dr. Somerville, the physician ; 
 Mr. John Crawford, the well-known Asiatic traveller ; 
 and two or three publishers. He told me also that his 
 feud with General Mackay need not prevent me from 
 seeking him out, and cultivating his further acquaint- 
 ance, and if it were possible, his friendship. We arrived 
 in London in May, 1832 ; and "the world was all before 
 me."
 
 THE MOENING CHRONICLE— 1835-1844. 
 
 This once-famous and powerful journal was established 
 
 in 1769 by twenty gentlemen, got together for the purpose 
 
 by "William Woodfall — a reporter and printer. This was 
 
 nineteen years before the Times came into existence ; and 
 
 the specialty of the new journal was to be the publication 
 
 of the debates in Parliament. The reporter's gallery 
 
 was non-existent and undreamed of. Notes were not 
 
 allowed to be taken in either house, and the publication 
 
 of the debates was not only nominally but actually a 
 
 breach of privilege, at which the Commons sometimes 
 
 shut their eyes, and which at other times they angrily 
 
 resented. Woodfall, from his retentive memory called 
 
 Memory Woodfall, was able without taking a single note 
 
 to report or rather to summarize with accuracy and 
 
 tolerable fulness a long debate. But though established 
 
 for reporting the proceedings of Parliament, the Chronicle 
 
 could claim no monopoly in the practice, and speedily 
 
 had to encounter the competition of rival papers whose 
 
 reporters did not rely upon memory, but took notes, at 
 
 first furtively, and afterwards more openly, and who did 
 
 not depend upon a single reporter, however able and 
 
 industrious, but on a succession of hands. Among the 
 
 most noted of these early reporters was James Perry, a 
 
 native of Aberdeen, who twenty years after the establish-
 
 70 FORTY TEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ment of the Morning Chronicle which had not greatly 
 prospered under Woodfall's management, entered into 
 partnership with another Scotsman named Gray, and in 
 conjunction with him purchased the copyright of the 
 paper for £'150, part if not the whole of which was 
 advanced by Bellamy, the keeper of the refreshment 
 rooms in the House of Commons. Perry conducted the 
 paper with great spirit and success ; and made it what it 
 remained for many years, not only the greatest of the 
 Whig journals then in existence, but the leading journal 
 of Great Britain. Perry died in 1821, and his family 
 and representatives not finding in themselves any incli- 
 nation or perhaps talent for conducting the enterprise as 
 Perry had conducted it, disposed of the cop}Tight to Mr. 
 William Clement, proprietor of BclVs Life in London, 
 and the Observer. Under the management of this gen- 
 tleman its decline was steady, and he disposed of the 
 copyright in 1835 after fourteen years possession, for 
 more than a hundred times as much as Messrs. Perry 
 and Gray had given for it. 
 
 The publication of a small volume of juvenile poems, 
 now happily out of print, and a translation, or rather 
 paraphrase of Beranger's poem, " Mon Habit," procured 
 me in that year through the intermediation of Mr. 
 Robert McWilliam, one of the magistrates of Middlesex, 
 the acquaintance of Mr. John Black, "the Dr. Black" 
 of Cobbett's Register, who was at that time and for 
 several years subsequently, the working editor of the 
 Chronicle. Mr. Black spoke kindly of my paraphrase, 
 inserted it in the Chronicle, and gave me an order for 
 five guineas for it, saying, " That is as much as Milton's
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 71 
 
 first payment for ' Paradise Lost,' and I dare say more 
 than ever Beranger received for the original. It is given 
 not so much as a payment, but as a retainer." This 
 was the pleasantest money I ever received before or 
 since — pleasant yet to some extent fatal — for it tended 
 to fasten my inexperienced feet in the thorny pathways 
 of literature, and to confirm me in the confidence that 
 the profession of literature was as profitable as it was 
 noble. At that time the Chronicle, of which the circu- 
 lation had sunk so low as 800 copies a day, had just 
 been purchased from Mr. Clement by three gentlemen, 
 who determined if possible to infuse new life into it 
 and restore it to that high place in the political and 
 literary world, which it had occupied in the brilliant 
 days of Mr. Perry, when it was de jure by its talent, and 
 de facto by its circulation, the leading journal of Great 
 Britain. These gentlemen were Mr. John Easthope, a 
 stockbroker, who had once been member of Parliament 
 for St. Albans, and again aspired to legislative honours ; 
 Mr. Simon MacGillivray, a warm-hearted and impetuous 
 Highlander, who had been a prosperous merchant in 
 Mexico, and a leading spirit in the Canada and the 
 Hudson's Bay Companies; and Mr. James Duncan, a 
 publisher in Paternoster-row, who had become celebrated 
 and Avealthy by the publication of the most accurate 
 Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It has been said of 
 many publishers that they never cared to read the books 
 they sold ; but it was said with more truth of Mr. 
 Duncan that he was totally unable to read the books by 
 which he made his money. These gentlemen, on entering 
 into partnership, found John Black in possession of the 
 editorial chair of the Chronicle, and they resolved, prin-
 
 72 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 cipally on the emphatic decision of Mr. MacGiUivray, to 
 whose heart the fact of a man's Scottish birth was a sure 
 passport, that Mr. Black should continue in it. For 
 many years Mr. Black had performed single-handed the 
 whole editorial work of the Chronicle, lightened now 
 and then by the aid of Mr. Albany Fonblanque, of 
 Mr. Serjeant Spankie, Mr. Frederick Dubois, and 
 by that of any political or literary volunteer who 
 might happen to turn up, and whose pen Black was 
 always glad to welcome to the columns of his beloved 
 journal, provided the work was up to the standard of his 
 judgment. Black was a celebrity in his day, but he had 
 been overburdened with work, and his style had become 
 somewhat diffuse and rambling from the nightly necessity 
 of filling up a certain quantity of space with political 
 matter — space which he did not always occupy with the 
 work of the pen, but with the proceeds of the scissors and 
 the paste-pot, cemented by a running commentary. John 
 Black Avas a thorough journalist. His whole soul was in his 
 business. He was a keen politician, and an acute critic ; but 
 his mind had capacity for other things than politics and 
 criticism, and ran over the whole gamut of literature and 
 knowledge. He spoke with the strong border accent of 
 his native town of Dunse in Berwickshire, and had a fund 
 of homely humour, which he expressed in the homeliest 
 and sometimes the coarsest words. He was an accom- 
 plished linguist, and particularly fond of Greek, and used 
 to boast that he could read off at sight one of his own 
 or anybody else's leaders into that language. He would 
 occasionally recite Greek passages ore rotundo, and affirm 
 with great glee that the music of the language was so 
 sonorous and so magnificent as to afford pleasure to the
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE 1 835-1 844. 73 
 
 ear, even of one who could not understand a word of it. 
 But he was not merely a learned man ; he had a heart 
 overflowing with kindness, and a warm sympathy with all 
 literary talent. Nothing delighted him more than to 
 find a young man of genius and good conduct whom he 
 could help to ascend the steps of the difficult ladder of 
 worldly fortune. At this period of his life he resided 
 rent free with Mrs. Black on the upper floors of the 
 Morning Chronicle office, at No. 322, Strand, now the 
 printing-offices of the Weekly Times and the London 
 Journal ; and had hesides a little cottage at Lewisham 
 Hill, on the skirts of Blackheath to which he resorted 
 every Friday night, or rather Saturday at two or three 
 in the morning, when the material of the Saturday's 
 paper was in the printer's hands. He used to walk the 
 distance, whatever might he the season or the weather, 
 and remain in rural idleness until the Sunday evening, 
 when he walked up to town to resume his usual round at 
 the mill-wheel of his business. 
 
 I dwell thus particularly upon him, not only because 
 he was my first literary friend, but because he was the 
 last of the London editors of the old school, and had 
 made his way b} r sheer ability and force of character to 
 the influential position which he held. He used to tell 
 that he had walked with a few pence in- his pocket all the 
 way from Berwickshire to London to try his fortune in 
 the great metropolis, and lived on the way upon the hos- 
 pitality of farmers and farmer's wives, to whom he had 
 never hesitated to tell his story, and by whom he had 
 been generally made welcome to a slice of bread 
 and a bowl of milk or a night's lodging when he needed
 
 74 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 it. Mr. Black's abilities had been discovered early by 
 Mr. Perry, by whom he was rapidly advanced to posi- 
 tions of importance on the paper. 
 
 Mr. Black, at an early period of our acquaintance, told 
 me that he would do his utmost to procure me an engage- 
 ment, and urged upon me the desirability of cultivating 
 a good prose style to which he said the writing of verse 
 was an admirable apprenticeship. He had not only the 
 will, but he knew the way to serve me, and in less than 
 six months I was made through his instrumentality 
 assistant sub-editor. I had for my immediate superior 
 Mr. George Hogarth, the son-in-law of Mr. George 
 Thomson, widely known as the George Thomson to whom 
 so many of the letters of Robert Burns were addressed, 
 and as the editor of the famous Scottish songs, which 
 had helped to render the name of Burns immortal. Mr. 
 Hogarth was above all things a musician and a musical 
 critic, a most excellent, amiable, and accomplished man ; 
 and I worked under him with much pleasure as long as 
 he remained sub-editor. 
 
 The time at which Messrs. Easthope, MacGillivray 
 and Duncan assumed the management of the Morning 
 Chronicle was an important epoch in English history, 
 and especially in that of the Whig and Liberal party. 
 " It was a time " to use the eloquent words of Macaulay 
 in a speech on the Reform Bill, which had been carried 
 by a reluctant House of Lords, and consented to most 
 unwillingly by a still more reluctant king, "when every- 
 thing abroad and at home foreboded ruin to those who per- 
 sisted in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the 
 age — a time when the crash of the proudest throne of
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1841.. 75 
 
 the continent was still ringing in people's ears ; a time 
 when the roof of the Palace of Holyrood afforded an 
 ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings — 
 when on every side ancient institutions were subverted 
 and great societies dissolved, but when the heart of Eng- 
 land was still sound," and when king and peers — not a 
 moment too soon — warned b} r the fate of Charles X. had 
 prevented revolution by conceding reform. As Macaulay 
 had adjured, the old unreformed Parliament had " taken 
 counsel, not of prejudice — not of party spirit — not of the 
 ignominious pride of a fatal consistency, but of history, 
 of reason, of past ages and the signs of the living time, 
 and pronounced in a manner worthy of the expectation 
 with which the great Reform debates had been antici- 
 pated." He had called upon both houses to "renew the 
 youth of the state, to save property, divided against 
 itself; to save the multitude, endangered by their own 
 passions ; to save the aristocracy, endangered by its own 
 unpopular power ; to save the greatest, and fairest, and 
 most highly civilized community that ever existed, from 
 calamities which might in a few da} r s have swept away all 
 the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory." 
 The appeal — only one of a hundred others — made by 
 other statesmen and orators, with equal wisdom though 
 not perhaps with equal eloquence, had not been made in 
 vain, and Great Britain had just begun to enter upon a 
 new and hitherto untried career of popular government. 
 Though the Reform question had been settled for a time, 
 other questions almost as vital were looming dark and 
 large upon the political horizon. Under the leadership 
 of Daniel O'Connell, whose unwelcome aid was essential
 
 76 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to the ministerial existence of the Whig and Liberal party, 
 that would gladly have dispensed with it had that been 
 possible, Ireland was almost in a state of rebellion. 
 The labouring classes of England and Scotland, under 
 the pressure of bad trade, low wages, and high prices of 
 bread, were, if not exactly rebellious, very much inclined 
 to become so. Though the Roman Catholic Emancipation 
 Bill had long since happily passed, the Roman Catholics 
 of the South and West of Ireland, not content with poli- 
 tical and religious equalhty with the Protestants of the 
 North, thirsted for domination over them, and with a 
 view of acquiring it clamoured for a repeal of the Union, 
 while the masses of the British public, not satisfied with 
 the Parliamentary Reform from which so much had been 
 predicted, but which had as yet produced no improve- 
 ment in their social condition, began to demand other 
 and greater changes and to put forward pretensions which 
 seemed, even to persons not easily frightened, to partake 
 of revolution and to foreshadow a time when the three 
 estates of the realm should be reduced to one — and that 
 one, the uneducated and prejudiced multitude. The Corn 
 Law question had become troublesome to the minds of 
 easy-going men, though as yet it had made no great way 
 with the people, who it might be supposed were most in- 
 terested. Thomas Moore had written not long previously — 
 
 " What, still those two infernal questions, 
 That with our meals, our slumber mix ! 
 That spoil our tempers and digestions, 
 Eternal Corn and Catholics ! 
 
 " Gods ! were there ever two such bores ! 
 Nothing else talked of night or morn, 
 Nothing in doors, or out of doors, 
 But endless Catholics and Corn ! "
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 77 
 
 Lord Brougham and liis coadjutors in the " Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge " had broken ground 
 on the great question of the Education of the People, but 
 had scarcely done more. His happy phrase that " the 
 schoolmaster was abroad " was germinating, however, 
 in the public mind, and many earnest spirits were 
 awakening to the perception, that of all the tasks 
 reserved for a near future to accomplish, that of educa- 
 tion was the most important. The philanthropic legisla- 
 tion of later years for the abridgment of the hours of 
 labour and for the protection from undue and exhaustive 
 toil of women and children, had hardly gathered a par- 
 liamentary following. Few railroads had been constructed 
 be}'ond the little line connecting Manchester and Liver- 
 pool, at the opening of which Mr. Huskisson had lost 
 his life. The old semaphore still corresponded from the 
 top of the Admiralty with the old semaphore at Green- 
 wich, and that with a succession of other old semaphores 
 all the way to Dover ; the postage of a letter to Cornwall 
 was tenpence, and to Edinburgh one and twopence, and 
 to John o' Groat's house half-a-crown, for Mr. Rowland 
 Hill, even if he had imagined or planned the great 
 Reform for which the country was afterwards to bless 
 his name, had not yet brought it before the public. It 
 was a transition period from the old England to the new ; 
 and when the slow civilization of our grandfathers was 
 giving place to the far more active, prying, aggressive 
 civilization of the present day — the day of steam, elec- 
 tricity, and engineering, and of material rather than of 
 intellectual or moral progress. 
 
 The Chronicle, as the leading journal of the "Whig and
 
 78 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Liberal party, had abundance of work before it under its 
 new proprietary, and set about its task with vigour as 
 well as wisdom, to keep its party well together after its 
 long banishment from power ; and to educe out of the 
 Reform Act the social benefits for the sake of which far- 
 seeing minds had advocated a change which had been so 
 long and obstinately resisted. 
 
 "When I joined the Chronicle there was on its Parlia- 
 mentary staff a young reporter named Charles Dickens, 
 universally reputed to be the rapidest and most accurate 
 short-hand writer in the Galleiy ; and who was known to 
 a few, and among others to John Black, as an essayist 
 and humorist of highly original genius. It was proposed 
 in the summer of 1837, to establish an Evening as well 
 as a Morning Chronicle, and George Hogarth was ap- 
 pointed to the editorship. The proprietors were desirous 
 that the Evening Chronicle should not be a mere abridg- 
 ment and re-issue of the Morning Chronicle, but that it 
 should contain, in addition to the news of the afternoon, 
 some original article or articles of a political or literary 
 character, of a nature to attract the public attention. 
 There were five other daily evening papers then in exist- 
 ence, three of them in the "Whig and Liberal interest, 
 namely, the Sun, the True Sun, and the Globe, and two 
 in the Tory, namely, the Courier and the Standard. 
 Bethinking themselves that a fourth Liberal paper ought 
 to justify its existence, or in the literary slang of 1875, 
 its " raison d'etre," by some specialty, the proprietors 
 took counsel with John Black on the subject, and on his 
 recommendation entered into negotiations with Mr. 
 Dickens, who was then writing for the Monthly Magazine
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE 1835-1 S44. 79 
 
 a series of articles signed " Boz," to contribute under 
 the same signature to the Evening Chronicle. Mr. Ho- 
 garth was charged with the conduct of the negotiation, 
 and received from Mr. Dickens the following letter : — 
 
 "13, Fcrxival's Ink, 
 
 " Tuesday Evening, January 20tli. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " As you have begged me to write an original 
 sketch for the first number of the new evening paper, and 
 as I trust to your kindness to refer my application to the 
 proper quarter, should I be unreasonably or improperly 
 trespassing upon you, I beg to ask whether it is pro- 
 bable that if I commenced a series of articles, written 
 under some attractive title for the Evening Chronicle, its 
 conductors would think I had any claim to some ad- 
 ditional remuneration (of course of no great amount) for 
 doing so ? 
 
 " Let me beg of you not to misunderstand my meaning. 
 Whatever the reply may be, I promised you an article, 
 and shall supply it with the utmost readiness, and with 
 an anxious desire to do my best, which I honestly assure 
 you would be the feeling with which I should always 
 receive any request coming personally from yourself. I 
 merely wish to put it to the proprietors, first, whether a 
 continuation of light papers in the style of my ' Street 
 Sketches ' would be considered of use to the new paper ; 
 and, secondly, if so, whether they do not think it fair and 
 reasonable that, taking my share of the ordinary report- 
 ing business of the Chronicle besides, I should receive 
 something for the papers beyond my ordinary salary as a 
 reporter.
 
 80 FOETY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " Begging you to excuse my troubling 3-011, and taking 
 this opportunity of acknowledging tlie numerous kind- 
 nesses I have already received at your hands since I have 
 had the pleasure of acting under you, 
 " I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens. 
 
 "George Hogarth, Esq." 
 
 As I had repeatedly heard Mr. Black predict the future 
 greatness of the writer, I begged the MS. of Mr. Hogarth, 
 after he had answered it, and it has since remained in 
 my possession. The modest request which it preferred 
 was complied with, and in addition to his salary of five 
 guineas per week, as Parliamentary reporter, the embryo 
 novelist, who was destined to achieve the greatest popu- 
 larity ever enjoj-ed by any author of modern time, except 
 Sir Walter Scott, received an extra two guineas for his 
 " Sketches." These laid the firm foundations of his 
 future fame. In the preface to " Sketches hy Boz — 
 illustrative of every-day life, and every-day people," 
 forming one of the volumes of " The Charles Dickens 
 edition," the author makes no allusion to the Evening 
 Chronicle, but merely says, " The whole of these sketches 
 were written and published, one by one, when I was a 
 very young man. They were collected and republished 
 while I was still a very young man, and sent into the 
 world with all their imperfections (a good many) on their 
 heads." 
 
 At this time there was no daily paper in the British 
 isles, published out of London : and the London dailies 
 had neither the circulation, the wealth, nor the political
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1S35-1844. 81 
 
 power which they have since acquired. They were bur- 
 dened with a stamp duty of fourpence per copy, were 
 sold at sevenpence, and were not half their present size. 
 The Times and Chronicle, the two great rivals, were what 
 is called single papers — of four pages — and only pub- 
 lished eight pages at rare intervals on great occasions, or 
 when there was a pressure of advertisements. In ad- 
 dition to the stamp duty, there was an advertisement 
 duty of three-and-sixpence for each advertisement, long 
 or short; and an excise duty of three-halfpence per 
 pound upon the fabric of the paper. Their circulation 
 was small, though thought to be large at the time. I 
 well remember the consternation excited in the office of 
 the Morning Chronicle, of which the daily issue was 
 about nine thousand, when it was proved on the authority 
 of the Parliamentary returns, that the circulation of the 
 Times was eleven thousand. This was the first intima- 
 tion the public received that the Times had shot ahead 
 of the Chronicle. But the proprietors of the Chronicle, 
 though alarmed, were not disheartened; and after the 
 first feeling of disappointment had subsided, set them- 
 selves to work to improve their journal in all its depart- 
 ments. Their chief care was to secure the excellence 
 and extend the fulness of their reports of the proceedings 
 in Parliament, in which for many years the Chronicle was 
 far superior to its only rival, the Times. This was so 
 well known to all the Parliamentary celebrities, and to 
 the political public of the day, as to send them to the 
 Chronicle in the first instance to read the reports of all 
 great debates. The next care of the proprietors was to 
 secure the services of competent writers for their editorial 
 
 VOL. I. <J
 
 S3 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 articles, and to relieve Mr. Black of three-fourths of his 
 labour, leaving him, however, all the more time for the 
 supervision of his colleagues, and the harmonisation of 
 the labours of different minds into one consistent whole. 
 Among the Chronicle writers at, and after this time, who 
 had either obtained, or afterwards achieved, political 
 renown, were Mr. Charles Buller, M.P., who became 
 President of the Poor Law Board ; Mr. W. J. Fox, M.P. 
 for Oldham, the Unitarian preacher and lecturer, and 
 one of the most eloquent speakers as well as writers of 
 the day ; Mr. Albany Fonblanque, editor of the Examiner, 
 who wrote one leader per week for the Chronicle, for 
 which, it was reported in the office he received what was 
 considered the enormous fee of fifteen guineas ; Mr. Eyre 
 Evans Crowe, author of " A History of France ; " Mr. 
 James Wilson, M.P., a Scotsman, from Hawick, who 
 wrote the Cit} r or Money Article, and afterwards filled a 
 distinguished position in successive liberal administra- 
 tions ; Mr. Thomas Hodgskin, a well known political 
 economist ; and Mr. Thomas Gaspey, a voluminous 
 novelist, and formerly editor of the Sunday Times. 
 Among the parliamentary reporters were Mr. Thomas 
 Beard, who always ran in harness with Mr. Dickens 
 whenever there was special or extraordinary work to be 
 done at great public meetings, or other political celebra- 
 tions in the provinces ; Mr. John Payne Collier, the well 
 known antiquary and Shakspearean critic ; Mr. William 
 Hazlitt, son of the celebrated essayist and critic, and 
 afterwards and now a Registrar in the Court of Bank- 
 ruptcy ; Mr. W. B. MacCiibe, a novelist ; and at a later 
 period Mr. Alexander Mackay, author of the " Western
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 83 
 
 World ; " Mr. Angus B. Beach, and Mr. Shirley Brooks. 
 Mr. Thackeray long held a floating connection with the 
 Morning Chronicle, but was never on the staff. Among 
 the occasional contributors of poetical jeux cV esprit were 
 Thomas Moore and Thomas Campbell. 
 
 When the Chronicle and the Times were running a 
 hard and a close race for the premiership of ^the press, and 
 when it was difficult to decide which would win, an incident 
 occurred, which, had the Chronicle taken advantage of, it 
 might, perhaps, have given it the superiority. The 
 Americans had been making claims to the whole]"of the 
 great western territories on the Pacific, including what is 
 now called British Columbia, Vancouver's Island, and 
 Oregon, and agitating the question in so bad a spirit as to 
 render the relations between Great Britain and the United 
 States unpleasant, if not threatening. In those days, 
 when the electric telegraph was but a dream of science, 
 the annual Message of the President to Congress was 
 usually expected in London a few days before Christmas. 
 The Oregon difficulty had unsettled public opinion ; and 
 the money market was sensitive, lest, unfortunately, the 
 Americans should prove so unreasonable as to render 
 a war inevitable. The President's Message was con- 
 sequently looked for with more than usual anxiety, and 
 speculation was eager to know whether its tone would be 
 peaceable or hostile. One night, or rather morning, 
 about an hour and a half after midnight, when all the 
 staff of the Chronicle, except Mr. Black and myself, had 
 gone home to bed, an unexpected visitor appeared at the 
 office. Mr. Black had been dissatisfied with a leader sent 
 in by one of his colleagues, and finding it impossible to 
 
 a 2
 
 84 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 patch or alter it, lie had sat clown after midnight to write 
 a new one, with directions that he should not be disturbed. 
 It was my business to wait until Mr. Black had given up 
 his last page of " copy," and then to arrange with the 
 printer if he had more matter than would fill the paper, 
 what miscellaneous articles should be either abridged or 
 omitted. I was asleep on a sofa, when I was suddenly 
 aroused by the night porter, who announced that a 
 gentleman, in a great hurry, who had just arrived from 
 New York, desired to see the editor on urgent business. 
 The gentleman declared that he had not even a minute to 
 spare ; and the porter thought, after Mr. Black's strict in- 
 junctions to be left alone, that it was better to bring him to 
 me. I directed that he should be shown up to my room, 
 and invited him to take a chair, and explain his business. 
 He would not sit down : he had no time ; and proceeded 
 to say that he had a copy of the New York Herald in his 
 pocket, containing the President's Message. The steamer 
 from New York by which he was a passenger, had put 
 into Queenstown to remain for four hours, before pro- 
 ceeding on her voyage. At that moment an ordinary 
 steam-packet between the two ports was about to start for 
 Liverpool ; and without hesitation he had transferred his 
 luggage from the larger to the smaller steamer, carefully 
 secured the Neiv York Herald in his pocket, and sped 
 on his way. On arriving at Liverpool he had engaged 
 a special train all to himself, for which he had paid eighty 
 guineas ; and here he was, witli the President's Message, 
 at the service of the Morning Ch ronicle, for the sum of 
 500/. Fully alive to the importance of the oifer, I made 
 my way to Mr. Black, and told him the news. He became
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-184.4. 85 
 
 greatly excited. " I wish Mr. Easthope -were here," lie 
 said. " What am I to do? It is a large sum. Ask the 
 gentleman to wait ten minutes while I think it over." I 
 returned to the traveller, and told him what Mr. Black 
 had said. " I can't wait ten minutes," he replied. " If 
 the Chronicle won't do business with me I must do business 
 somewhere else ; but I like the politics of the Chronicle 
 and give it the first offer. But as I am thirsty and weary, 
 I will go to Short's tavern next door, and wait five minutes 
 while I have a glass of brandy and water. Not another 
 minute can I spare." I reported this to Mr. Black, who 
 was in a state of much perturbation of spirit, and walked 
 hurriedly up and down the room, speaking by fits and 
 starts. " I am afraid that I shall be blamed by the 
 proprietors if I agree to pay so large a sum. And after 
 all, it would be well worth 5007. to have the Message 
 exclusively ! We'll have it ! No ! I am afraid we 
 cannot ! It would be hard upon me to have my bargain 
 repudiated ! If MacGillivray were sole proprietor I would 
 not hesitate. What shall I do?" "Bisk it," said I. 
 And while we were talking the news-bearer came back, 
 was shown into the room, and exhibited the New York 
 Herald, containing ten or twelve long columns of the 
 important document. At the last moment Mr. Black 
 reluctantly refused the offer. The stranger folded up his 
 paper, curtly said " Good night," and vanished. He had 
 not been gone two minutes when Mr. Black asked me to 
 run after him and bring him back. I sprang down stairs 
 as fast as I could, but the stranger had jumped into a 
 cab, and was rattling away in the direction of Fleet Street. 
 There was no other cab on the stand, or I would have
 
 86 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 followed him ; but pursuit on foot was vain, so I returned 
 to Mr. Black and announced the fact. "It is just as 
 well," he said, " and now let me finish my leader." 
 
 That morning the President's Message appeared in the 
 Times, and procured for that journal an amount of com- 
 mendation for its spirit and energy, which, at that critical 
 moment was of the utmost value to its character, and 
 which in like degree was damaging to its rival. At the 
 usual four o'clock meeting of the Chronicle staff the 
 subject was discussed ; and though no blame was cast 
 upon Mr. Black, so much regret was expressed at the 
 victory of the Times, that he looked upon the remarks 
 that were made as equivalent to a reproof for his mistake. 
 " I tell you what it is, Mr. Easthope," he said, " if I had 
 been dealing with 1113' own money and not yours I should 
 not have hesitated a moment. Indeed I think I should 
 have paid a thousand pounds rather than have allowed the 
 Times to gain an advantage over the Chronicle. And it's 
 my opinion that every chief editor of a great London news- 
 paper ought to be a part proprietor, so that he might act 
 without hesitation in an emergency." Here the subject 
 dropped, and was not again revived in the councils of the 
 Chronicle. 
 
 It is curious and not flattering to the public to reflect, 
 that no newspaper ever yet published in London, or 
 England, or Scotland, or anywhere else within the com- 
 pass of our isles, has ever been able to pay its way by the 
 profits of its circulation. If for any reason the traders 
 of the country took it into their heads to spend no money 
 upon advertising, there is not an existing paper that 
 would be able to live. It is trade alone that supports
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. S7 
 
 political literature, that pays for all the news that arrives 
 from every part of the world, that enables newspapers 
 to keep reporters in the galleries of the Lords and 
 Commons, and in the law courts, and to make known to 
 civilization what is done and said in its centres, whether 
 at home or abroad. Even when the old stamp duties and 
 other taxes on knowledge, or the vehicles of knowledge, 
 were in existence, and when newspapers were small, and 
 conducted with less than half the spirit, and perhaps not a 
 tithe of the expenditure of the present time, the profits on 
 a sevenpenny paper, from which the State took fourpence, 
 were insufficient, without the aid of the advertiser, to keep 
 it in a state of solvency. Forty } r ears ago advertising had 
 not reached the large proportions which it has now as- 
 sumed ; but even at that period, there were some leviathans 
 of trade who considered advertising as one of the fine arts, 
 and who were the real patrons, and sometimes when the}' 
 dared — the controllers or masters of the newspapers. 
 Among these, George Robins, the famous auctioneer of 
 Covent Garden, stood conspicuous as a person who was 
 not to be offended without danger, and whose countenance 
 was to be courted by every means, as Burns says of 
 money, that were "justified by honour." It was said 
 that his weekly expenditure for advertisements of land, 
 houses, and estates, of which he had the disposal, some- 
 times amounted to as much as 5000?. There are no such 
 advertisements issued in our day as those which were 
 drawn up by George Robins, and which sometimes filled 
 a whole page of the Chronicle or Times, with flowery, 
 high-flown, and wordily profuse descriptions of the various 
 terrestrial paradises, bowers of bliss, and palatial man-
 
 88 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 sions, winch were to be knocked down to the highest 
 bidder at the tap of his potent and busy hammer. Among 
 other great advertisers of that and the preceding period 
 were Eobert Warren, the blacking-maker, of No. 30, 
 Strand, the site of whose house and premises is now 
 occupied by the court yard in front of the Charing Cross 
 hotel, where stands the beautiful fac-simile of the old cross, 
 erected by King Edward to the memory of Queen Eleanor. 
 It was Warren who boasted that he kept a poet to write 
 his rhymed advertisements, after the fashion of the floriline 
 advertisements of the present day. Warren expended 
 many thousands of pounds on making known the merits 
 of his commodity; and doubtless got them all back 
 again, with as many thousands more upon their backs in 
 the shape of profits. He carried on his business for 
 many years, and paid his poets so well, that, in the zenith 
 of Lord Byron's fame, in the second half of the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century, some malicious wag 
 spread abroad a report that the author of Childe Harold 
 himself did not disdain to write advertisements for Warren 
 at a guinea a line, a report at which, it is said, Lord 
 Byron was wise enough to laugh. Day and Martin were 
 also great advertisers of a similar article, as was one Henry 
 Hunt, a famous radical in the days when radicalism was 
 more perilous to the radical than to the nation, and who 
 was afterwards Member of Parliament for Preston. In 
 our day we may look in vain for the advertisements of the 
 blacking-makers. The columns of the newspaper, and 
 even the bill-posters of the street, and the walls of the 
 railway stations know them no more. Almost, if not the 
 very last of this race of advertisers are Rowland and Son,
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 89 
 
 who, forty years ago, rivalled George Robins and the 
 blacking- makers in his lavish expenditure in making 
 known to the admiring world the merits of his macassar 
 oil, his kalydor, and his odonto. It is not the fashion 
 for men in our day to anoint their hair with oil or grease. 
 Possibly the cultivation of the beard is one of the 
 reasons for the wholesome neglect of this ancient practice. 
 The fashion is going out even among the ladies, who 
 have discovered that nothing is better for the hair than 
 pure cold water. Macassar, however, is not wholly a 
 thing of the past, and has left its traces in the word 
 " anti-macassar," not yet admitted into the dictionaries ; 
 an article that supplies much elegant work to fingers that 
 might otherwise be idle, and that preserves from the 
 desecration of grease the arm-chairs and sofas of our 
 drawing-rooms. The advertisers, by profession, no 
 longer seek to polish our boots, or oil our heads, but 
 in the persons of the proprietors of Holloway's, Morri- 
 son's, and Old Parr's pills attack credulity on even 
 a weaker side than its head or its heels — the most 
 imaginative side of humanity — the stomach. 
 
 An early incident of my connection with the Morning 
 Chronicle was the sudden and mysterious disappearance 
 of John Black from his editorial chair ; and the equally 
 sudden and mysterious disappearance of Mr. Simon 
 MacGillivray from the daily meetings of the editors and 
 proprietors. There were many nods and whispers about 
 it, and various unsuccessful attempts to curb the curiosity 
 of those who were not in the secret. But it soon oozed 
 out that John Black had gone to fight a duel with Mr. 
 John Arthur Roebuck, member for Bath ; and that Mr.
 
 90 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 MacGillivray was to act as his second. Mr. Black was 
 the challenger, and the cause of offence was an attack hy 
 Mr. Roebuck in a series of pamphlets entitled, " Pam- 
 phlets for the People," then in course of publication, on 
 the whole body of editors, contributors, and reporters of 
 the London press, especially those of the Morning 
 Chronicle. In this attack he singled out Mr. Black hy 
 name ; and Black's impetuous friend MacGillivray decided 
 that nothingVas left for the honour of London journalism 
 but that Black should be its champion, and challenge Mr. 
 Poebuck. The duel took place on the 10th of November, 
 1835, near Christchurch, in Hampshire. Two shots 
 were exchanged; neither combatant was injured, honour 
 was declared to be satisfied, and Black and MacGillivray 
 returned to London to MacGillivray's rooms in Salisbury 
 Street, Strand, where they were reported to have cele- 
 brated the event in copious libations of mountain dew, of 
 the merits of which both of them were excellent 
 judges. 
 
 Black had a fine Newfoundland dog, named Cato, a 
 great favourite, who usually lay at his feet while he 
 wrote his articles, accompanied him home in the early 
 grey of the morning, and was always the companion of 
 his long Saturday and Sunday walks in Kent and Surrey, 
 when he forgot politics and literature, and every thing 
 but his keen enjoyment of exercise, fresh air, and rural 
 scenery. He was invited on one occasion to stay a week 
 at Fonthill, the seat of Mr. Morrison, head of the house 
 of Morrison, Dillon, and Co., of Fore Street, a rich mer- 
 chant, then in Parliament, and a constant visitor to the 
 Morning Chronicle office. Black, on accepting the invita-
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 91 
 
 tion, stipulated that his dog Cato might he allowed to 
 accompany him. His friend Mr. MacGiUivray, always 
 
 ready for a joke, or a tumbler of toddy, prevailed upon 
 Black's locum tcnens in the editorial chair, to give his 
 imprimatur to a paragraph under the head of " Fashion- 
 able Intelligence," to the effect that "John Black, Esq., 
 and Cato, Esq., had gone on a visit to Mr. Morri- 
 son, of Fonthill." The little joke passed unnoticed 
 until the following Saturday, when the Age newspaper, 
 very notorious in its day, happily long passed, and edited 
 by Mr. John Molloy Westmacott, appeared with a furious 
 article, denouncing the insult to the aristocracy of 
 England, committed by that vile, radical journal, the 
 Morning Chronicle. "Will it be believed," said the 
 
 indignant editor, "that Cato, Esq., is no other 
 
 than the Editor's big black dog? The intention to 
 insult not only the king, who is the fountain of honour, 
 but the whole aristocracy, is palpable." The logic of 
 this diatribe was not at all palpable ; but the attention 
 directed to the paragraph w r as exceedingly unpleasant to 
 Messrs. Easthope and Duncan, who called the acting 
 editor to account for the joke, and even went so far as to 
 threaten him with dismissal. Under these circumstances 
 Mr. MacGillivra} 7 came to the rescue, avowed himself the 
 originator of the jest, and took all the blame upon him- 
 self. The case was altered immediately. " That, which 
 in the captain's but a choleric word, is in the soldier 
 rank blasphemy ; " and the other co-partners came at 
 once to the conclusion that no harm had been done after 
 all, and that the editor of the Age was a blockhead for 
 trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
 
 92 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Black was accustomed to say that every man was the 
 better for the possession of a hobby ; and that devotion to 
 it gave a zest to life, which, unlike other condiments, 
 grew in flavour the more earnestly it was indulged. 
 His hobby was the collection of old books, of which he 
 had a vast and heterogeneous store, amounting, it was 
 said, to upwards of 50,000 volumes. In the later years 
 of his connection with the Morning Chronicle, when he 
 had apartments at the top of the great house in Salisbury 
 Street, the last on the right-hand side, overlooking the 
 river, now occupied as a private hotel, he had no space to 
 arrange his library, and could not easily find a bo'ok 
 when he wanted it. Sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, pantries, 
 closets, staircases, passages, every available inch of space 
 overflowed with books in all languages and on all subjects. 
 In one department of literature his collection was un- 
 usually rich — that which second-hand booksellers, with 
 a euphemism, call " Facetise " — but which a barrister, 
 prosecuting a delinquent under Lord Campbell's Act, 
 might appropriately describe by a harsher and correcter 
 word. Black had many thousands of such volumes in 
 Italian, as many in French, and a few in English. The 
 latter he did not greatly care about, as he alleged that 
 their grossness was too gross, and was unaccompanied 
 by any degree of wit, or even of humour, to atone 
 for their indelicacy. It was his design to bequeath 
 his whole library to his native town of Dunse, including 
 the facetiae — a design which he imparted to his particular 
 friend and crony, Mr. John Ramsay MacCulloch, the 
 well-known political economist and voluminous statistical 
 writer — afterwards Comptroller of the Stationery Office.
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1844. 93 
 
 " Lord save us, man ! " said MacCulloch, in broad Scotch 
 — much broader than Black's own ; "if you do, it's to be 
 hoped the provost and bailies will make a bonfire of your 
 books, or, at all events station a force of police constables at 
 the library door to prevent anybody from going in. Such 
 a collection is enough to poison the whole Border ! ' 
 
 "No, no ! " said Black, " there's not a soul in Dunse, 
 or within twenty miles of it, that can read either French 
 or Italian, and the facetiae will do no harm. There may 
 be a minister or two who can read French, and it's a 
 kind of literature that ministers like." 
 
 "Eliminate the facetia?," replied MacCulloch, "and 
 when you die they will ' roup ' at auction for a good 
 round sum, and excite a keen competition among the 
 rich old reprobates of London. Give the good books 
 to Dunse if you like, but keep your facetiae for your 
 executors ! " 
 
 Black employed the leisure hours of several years in 
 making a catalogue of his books, little thinking that 
 Dunse would never possess any of them, the good, the 
 bad, or the indifferent ; that the auction which his friend 
 MacCulloch foresaw in the dim distance would become 
 necessary during his life-time ; and that the beloved 
 volumes which he had taken such pleasure in. collect- 
 ing would have to come to the hammer to provide him 
 with bread in his old age. But Black was an easy 
 philosopher ; and if perchance he cared for the 
 morrow, seldom extended his thoughts so far into 
 futurity as the day after. It was fortunate for him that 
 he did not. 
 
 During the first and second periods of the premiership
 
 94 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of Lord Melbourne, it was Black's duty to wait upon his 
 lordship occasionally in Downing Street, to obtain in- 
 formation, or consult with him upon points of ministerial 
 policy, to be advocated in the columns of the Chronicle. 
 " Lord Melbourne has a very high opinion of Mr. Black," 
 said Mr. Joseph Parke s, who at that time acted as confi- 
 dential parliamentary agent for the Whig party, " and 
 wishes 'he would call upon him oftener than he does. 
 He likes to talk to him, and thinks he possesses a 
 greater fund of miscellaneous knowledge than any man 
 he ever met. And with all his knowledge, said his lord- 
 ship to me, he is as simple as a child. Lord Melbourne 
 frightened him a little the other day, and was quite 
 amused at his bewilderment. After a long and pleasant 
 talk, chiefly ethnological, his lordship said to him some- 
 what abruptly, 'Mr. Black, I think you forget who I 
 am!' 'I hope not, my lord!' replied Mr. Black, in a 
 tone of alarm ; ' I trust I have not said or done anything 
 to show that I am not fully aware of your position, or to 
 make you think I am wanting in proper respect.' ' Mr. 
 Black,' said his lordship, solemnly, ' you forget that I 
 am the Prime Minister, and treat me in a manner that is, 
 to say the least of it, somewhat uncommon.' Mr. Black 
 looked more puzzled than before as his lordship went 
 on. ' Yes, somewhat uncommon ! Here am I, as I have 
 said, in the position of Prime Minister, in confidential 
 intercourse with you, and always glad to see you. I 
 have patronage at my disposal, and you never so much as 
 hint to me that you would like me to give you a place. 
 And, Mr. Black,' he added, ' there is no man living to 
 whom I would sooner give a place than yourself.' ' I
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1835-1S44. 95 
 
 thank you, my lord,' said Mr. Black, with the utmost 
 simplicity and bonhommie, ' but I do not want a place. 
 I am Editor of the Morning Chronicle, and like my work 
 and the influence it gives me, and do not desire to change 
 places with anybody in the world — not even with your 
 lordship.' ' Mi*. Black,' said Lord Melbourne, shaking- 
 hands with him very heartily, ' I envy you ; and you're 
 the only man I ever did.' " 
 
 Mr. Parkes brought this story fresh from Lord Mel- 
 bourne's lips to the Chronicle office, from a dinner table 
 at which he, Lord Melbourne, and Mr. Simon MacGil- 
 livray were guests. At a later period, when it became 
 necessary that he should leave the Morning Chronicle, 
 Mr. Black's friends applied for the editorship of the 
 London Gazette, as a fitting reward for his long, con- 
 sistent, and arduous services to the party; but Lord 
 Melbourne was not then in power, and the application 
 was unsuccessful. 
 
 During the last two j*ears of the reign of William IV. 
 and the first five years of the reign of Queen Victoria, 
 Mr. Joseph Parkes was a constant visitor to the editorial 
 rooms of the Chronicle — a privileged interloper, who 
 brought the latest social news, and sometimes got poli- 
 tical news in exchange. Mr. Parkes had been an attorney 
 in Birmingham, and, like Mr. Black, had the honour of 
 being abused in " Cobbett's Register," where he was 
 always designated as "Pis allcr Parkes." He had played 
 a prominent part in the Reform Bill agitation in his 
 native town, where he or his leader, Mr. Attwood, had 
 proposed that the Birmingham people, to the number of 
 100,000, should march upon London, and demand the
 
 96 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Reform in Parliament, which the Duke of Wellington's 
 Government had offensively refused. After the passing 
 of the Reform Bill, Mr. Parkes settled in London as a 
 solicitor, and was trusted hy the leaders of the Whig and 
 Reform party as a confidential agent, or what the Ameri- 
 cans call " a wire puller," doing the work that had to be 
 done, and in which the hands of the real doers were not 
 to be seen. Mr. Parkes, who was a stanch friend and 
 admirer of Black, and who adhered to him loyally in bad 
 fortune as well as in good, had, as Black said, the luck to 
 have a hobby. His hobby was the mystery of the author- 
 ship of the "Letters of Junius," about which he was never 
 weary of talking. Upon the questio vexata of the identity 
 of Junius with Sir Philip Francis, with the Earl of Chat- 
 ham, with Colonel Barre, and others, he had collected a 
 considerable library ; omitting no book, or pamphlet, or 
 even newspaper article, that touched upon this, to him, 
 all-absorbing topic. He was also an industrious retailer 
 of the jokes and hon mots of society, and was always ready 
 to tell the last new story. At that time, 1837, many 
 stories were current about the good-natured king, who 
 had outlived the short and not very vehement popularity 
 that greeted his accession to the throne. It was the 
 custom to call him " Silly Billy," and " Poor old Billy 
 Barlow," and to hold him up generally to a ridicule 
 which he did not deserve. Two of these stories recur 
 to my memory, as told by Mr. Tarkes. 
 
 " Human nature," said he, "is the same in kings as 
 in other folk, and the long is a very good fellow, though 
 not the wisest of men. I have just heard a story of him 
 and his son, which tickled my fancy. One of the Fitz-
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE — 1 S3 5-1 844. 97 
 
 clarences was desperately in need, of £'100, and applied to 
 his father for a gift or a loan of that sum. The king 
 pleaded poverty ; but the son's poverty was still greater. 
 Wearied by his importunity, and in his heart desiring to 
 assist him, the king opened a secretaire and took out a 
 couple of rouleaux of sovereigns neatly done up in paper. 
 Counting out fifty sovereigns from each, he spread them 
 upon the table in piles of ten. He looked upon them 
 lovingly, as well as sadly, for a little time, and then took 
 them up quickly and put them back into the secretaire. 
 1 Dang it !' he said, 'I can't let you have the gold; I 
 really can't. I'll give you a cheuqe instead.' And he , 
 wrote out the cheque accordingly." 
 
 The other story concerned a deputation of the baronets 
 of Nova Scotia, who had waited upon his Majesty by ap- 
 pointment at "Windsor Castle, to prefer some grievance, 
 relative to their order, and petition for redress. When the 
 baronets arrived, the king was at breakfast alone, reading 
 the Morning Chronicle. The page in waiting announced 
 the baronets, who had come by appointment. The king 
 looked up from the paper, took a sip of tea, glanced at the 
 attendant, said nothing, and again began reading. After 
 an interval of twenty minutes, that doubtless to the 
 baronets appeared a very much longer time, the page, 
 prompted perhaps by the deputation in the ante-room, 
 ventured once again to remind his Majesty that the 
 baronets were in attendance. Again the king looked 
 up, poured out a cup of tea, and resumed his reading. 
 Another interval, and more impatience on the part of 
 the baronets. Next a third attempt on the part of the 
 page, goaded to action, it is to be presumed, by the 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 impatient dignitaries, to gain the king's attention. " The 
 baronets, please your Majesty, have come by appoint- 
 ment." "I wish," said the king quietly, and just lifting 
 his eyes for a moment from the broad sheet, " that you 
 would kick their ***** ; " using a phrase common among 
 the sailors amid whom his Majesty's youthful days had 
 been passed, but which is never heard in polite society. 
 
 On the 24th of May, 1838, a band of musicians 
 serenaded her Royal Highness, the Princess Victoria, 
 under her windows in Kensington Palace, where she 
 resided with her mother, the Duchess of Kent. The 
 occasion was that of her nineteenth birthday, and the 
 complimentary verses recited or sung on the occasion 
 spoke of her as the budding rose and expectancy of the 
 fair State. In less than a month afterwards the " budding 
 rose" of the State expanded into the full flower of royalty. 
 William IV., whose malady was reported to be hay fever, 
 expired on the 20th of June, in the seventh year of his 
 reign, and the sixth year of his unpopularity ; and the 
 young Princess ascended the throne amid universal good 
 wishes for her personal happiness and the glory of her 
 reign. The Liberal party were particularly elated ; for 
 the late king had been a very uncertain liberal, and 
 when he adhered to a Liberal measure, he had, like the 
 personification of Fear, in Collins's Ode, only struck 
 the string, " to back recoil, even at the sound himself had 
 made."
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE 
 PARTY— 1838-1844. 
 
 The new Sovereign had been trained in a different 
 school from that in which the last had been nurtured. 
 Her father, the Duke of Kent, was a Liberal in days 
 when Liberalism was dangerous ; had incurred the dis- 
 pleasure of George III., and had been allowed to pine 
 and wither in the cold shadow of disfavour. His widow 
 and daughter had found a friend and mentor in one of 
 the ablest and most fascinating men of his time, who hid, 
 under the gay and apparently cynical or careless exterior 
 of a man of the world, not only the wisdom, but the tact 
 of far-seeing statesmanship, and as kindly a heart as 
 ever beat in a human bosom. Under the guidance of 
 Lord Melbourne, the future Sovereign of Great Britain 
 had been carefully prepared to fulfil her high functions, 
 and taught how to reign without attempting to govern, 
 and to walk without deviation in the path of the Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 The circumstances of the time were not of happy 
 
 augury either for the country or its new ruler. There 
 
 were difficulties, obvious and palpable to all but the most 
 
 careless observers of events, which presaged a stormy 
 
 time in the near future. Lord Melbourne was Prime 
 
 Minister when William IV. died, and Queen Victoria 
 
 ii 2
 
 100 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 retained him in that position, as both duty and inclina- 
 tion hound, leaving it to the new Parliament, summoned 
 as a matter of course at the commencement of a new 
 reign, to decide by its votes whether the Minister or his 
 party possessed its confidence. The first Parliament of 
 Victoria had a Liberal majority, but not so large a 
 majority as the last Parliament of William IV. — a 
 circumstance which was not encouraging to the Whigs 
 and Liberals of the day, inasmuch as it proved that they 
 were losing the popularity acquired by the passing of the 
 Reform Bill, or that a Conservative reaction had com- 
 menced, as reactions always do in Great Britain when any 
 one party has long been in power. It is the tendency of 
 power, under a democratic or popular form of government, 
 to depopularise itself, as may be seen in the history of 
 Great Britain, the United States, and all free countries. 
 The tendency, however, works well for the public in- 
 terest ; for it gives the " outs " the chance of coming " in," 
 and thus keeps them in good humour ; and it impresses 
 upon the "ins" the certainty that sooner or later they 
 will be " out," and so teaches moderation in their pride 
 of place, and effectually imposes a certain amount of fair 
 play and courtesy in political warfare. 
 
 After the first novelty of the young Queen's accession 
 had worn off, and parties had marshalled themselves 
 under new circumstances to strive for the possession of 
 power, it became evident that politics would not rage 
 less violently than before, because the Sovereign was of 
 the gentler sex. The Reform acco lvplished in Parliament 
 was not wide and deep enough to satisfy the extremists, 
 who began to clanour for the five points of what they
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FEEE-TEADE PARTY. 101 
 
 called the "Charter;" and beneficent as the Reform 
 Act was, it had not yet produced any sensible improve- 
 ment in the condition of the people. Ireland, under 
 O'Connell's agitation, was a constant source of dis- 
 quietude to statesmen of both parties — to Lord Mel- 
 bourne as to Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Welling- 
 ton. The working classes throughout England were 
 dissatisfied with their condition, and vainly looked to 
 Parliament for relief from the combined pressure of low 
 wages and dear bread. The Free Traders had not yet 
 become a party, but a party was rapidly growing up of 
 which the first object was the repeal of the Corn Laws — 
 an object not to the mind either of the Whigs or the 
 Tories — a middle-class and manufacturers' question, 
 which did not find particular favour with the working 
 classes, whom it was so greatly calculated to benefit. 
 Ebenezer Elliott, the Sheffield poet and blacksmith, 
 every line of whose poems and songs were like thumps 
 upon his own anvil, and who poured out the full vials 
 of his wrath on the aristocracy, whom he called " the 
 bread-tax eaters," wrote a Coronation Ode for the new 
 Queen, which, perused by the lights of this generation, 
 seems harsh and ungrateful. He spoke of her as 
 " Victoria, cypress-crowned " — as " the Queen of new- 
 made graves," in allusion to the Canadian rebellion — and, 
 coming to the condition of the people at home, broke out 
 lugubriously into 
 
 " Here too, oh Queen, thy woe-won: people feel 
 The load they Lear is more than they can beai , 
 
 Beneath it twenty million workers reel, 
 While fifty thousand idlers rob and glare, 
 
 And mock the sufferings which they yet may share.
 
 102. FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " The Drama soon will end ; four acts are pass'd, 
 
 The curtain rises o'er embracing foes, 
 But each dark smiter hugs his dagger fast, 
 
 While Doom prepares his match and waits the close : — 
 Queen of the Earthquake ! wouldst thou win or lose ? " 
 
 " The embracing foes " in these lines meant the Whig 
 and Tory leaders, who agreed in their opposition to 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws. The poet's ire was 
 especially excited by the Marquis of Chandos — after- 
 wards Duke of Buckingham — who had recently said, 
 with something very like a sneer, that " he expected to 
 hear no more about the Corn Laws." But the Queen 
 was to be no " Queen of the Earthquake ; " but the 
 Queen of the peaceful solution of a difficulty that to 
 many earnest and fervid men at that time, to Ebenezer 
 Elliott among the rest, appeared unsurmountable, ex- 
 cept by violence and revolution. The men of the 
 present scarcely know how much they are indebted 
 to the men of the last generation for their skilful 
 conduct of this great question, and for the patience 
 and the ability with which the^y conducted it — through 
 storm and obstacle — through ill-report and contumely 
 — through every species of moral, as well as of phy- 
 sical, obstacle — to that triumphant issue the ines- 
 timable blessings of which the Empire is enjoying at 
 this hour. 
 
 The agitation for a repeal of the Corn Laws — or, as it 
 was the fashion in early days to call them " The Bread 
 Tax " — began long before the establishment or inception of 
 the Anti-Corn-Law League. There were warriors before 
 Agamemnon, and Free Traders before Messrs. Cobden 
 and Bright. Not to go so far back as Adam Smith,
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 103 
 
 there were first and foremost the small minority in the 
 House of Commons in the year 1815, who steadily, but 
 ineffectually, opposed the Corn Act of that year, which 
 endeavoured to perpetuate high prices, and consequent 
 high rents, by the creation of an artificial scarcity, and 
 the prohibition of the import of foreign corn to feed 
 the people, until the price of home-grown corn was 
 eighty shillings the quarter. Any one who desires to 
 read the early history of these selfish and unwise laws will 
 find the facts in " Knight's Political Dictionary," pub- 
 lished in 1845, to a time but shortly precedent to their 
 auspicious abolition, and the admission of corn into the 
 British Isles, free of duty, from all parts of the world. 
 Among the pioneers of that great reform, which pre- 
 vented a revolution that threatened to be sanguinary, 
 were Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Eicardo, General Pe}u-onnet 
 Thomson, who wrote " The Catechism of the Corn 
 Laws ; " Ebenezer Elliott, the sturdy poet of Sheffield ; 
 and the Eight Honourable Charles Pelham Villiers — all 
 of whom helped to prepare the way and facilitate the task 
 of Messrs. Cobden and Bright, who, in their turn, pre- 
 pared the way for Sir Eobert Peel, and provided him with 
 the arguments that justified him in deserting his party, 
 for the sake of saving his country. The utmost efforts 
 of such early reformers of the Acts regulating the impor- 
 tation of corn, as Mr. Canning and Mr. Charles Grant, 
 afterwards Lord Glenelg, went no further than the impo- 
 sition of such a sliding-scale as should keep out foreign 
 corn until the home price threatened a famine. If 
 home-grown wheat were to rise to seventy -three shillings 
 per quarter, foreign wheat might be admitted at a duty of
 
 104 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 one shilling ; but if the home price fell so low as fifty- 
 three shillings, all foreign supplies were to be subjected 
 to a duty of thirty-four shillings according to Mr. Can- 
 ning's plan, and of thiiiy- three shillings and eightpence 
 according to Mr. Charles Grant's of 1828. In the year 
 of the Queen's accession, the price of corn had so greatly 
 fluctuated that the sliding-scale of duties underwent no 
 less than thirty variations in eleven months, and in two 
 veeks in November was as low as one shilling, and as 
 nigh as ten shillings and eightpence. The agriculturists 
 continually complained of distress ; the working classes 
 of the great towns and cities as continually complained 
 of semi-starvation ; the corn trade partook more of the 
 character of betting at a horse-race, or on a game of 
 whist or ecarte, than of a legitimate business ; and 
 nobody was satisfied with the existing state of things, 
 except the statesmen and members of Parliament who 
 followed the lead of Sir Robert Peel, and possibly some 
 few farmers, who did not particularly like the operation 
 of the Corn Laws, but who would have stood aghast 
 at the suggestion of their total repeal, as something 
 fraught with all the horrors of the first French Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 The question of Corn Law repeal was prominently 
 before the country in the last year of William IV., but 
 gained a new impetus immediately after the accession 
 of Queen Victoria. The Honourable Charles Pelham 
 Villiers, M.P., brother of the Earl of Clarendon — the 
 ablest, almost the sole, champion in the House of 
 Commons, not alone of the repeal of these laws, but 
 of the freedom of trade — had done the cause great
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 103 
 
 service. He was not a trader or a manufacturer, and 
 had no interest in the question beyond that of a citizen, 
 a philosopher, and a statesman. He brought to its 
 consideration not only great talents and power of debate, 
 but the prestige of aristocratic connection ; so that 
 when he declaimed on the impolicy and injustice of the 
 Corn Laws, he argued with all the advantages of a 
 perfect disinterestedness, and from a serener sphere, than 
 the merchants and manufacturers, who afterwards, for 
 their own purposes, entered heart and soul into the 
 agitation. But valuable support was approaching for Mr. 
 Yilliers and the small band who voted with him in the 
 House of Commons. A public dinner was given in 
 Manchester on the 18th of September, 1838, to Dr. 
 (afterwards Sir John) Bowring, a friend, disciple, and 
 associate of Jerenry Bentham, and editor of the West* 
 minster Review. Dr. Bowring, though not in Parliament, 
 aspired to be, and was well known at the time for his 
 enlarged ideas on all subjects of foreign commerce ; and 
 had been employed by Earl Grey, and afterwards b}- 
 Lord Melbourne, as Commercial Commissioner to report 
 on the trade of France, Italy, the Germanic States of the 
 Zollverein, the Levant, and Switzerland, in which capa- 
 city he had drawn up several able reports, which had 
 been printed by order of the House of Commons. There 
 were between fifty and sixty gentlemen present at this 
 dinner — all Free Traders by conviction, and opponents 
 of the Corn LaAvs. Lord Melbourne, in this respect, 
 and perhaps only in this, behind his age, and imbued 
 with all the prejudice of the landowners, had declared 
 that the idea of the repeal of the Corn Laws was
 
 106 FORTY DEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " madness." These gentlemen were of opinion, on the 
 contrary, that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be 
 an act of the highest wisdom ; and before they separated 
 on that memorable evening, formed themselves into an 
 " Association for promoting the principles of Free 
 Trade." This was the germ of what afterwards became 
 the most powerful political bocty of its time — the " Anti- 
 Corn-Law League." Six days afterwards, seven of these 
 gentlemen, who had been appointed a Committee to do 
 the preliminary work, met to draw up a code of principles 
 and bye-laws. These being agreed to, and published in 
 the Manchester papers and the Morning Chronicle, up- 
 wards of a hundred of the leading men of Manchester 
 enrolled their names as members, and subscribed to the 
 funds. On the 25th of October, the first lecture for the 
 enlightenment of public opinion on the question of the 
 injurious operation of the Corn Laws was delivered by 
 Mr. A. W. Paulton, under the auspices and at the 
 expense of the Association. Similar lectures were 
 delivered at Birmingham and other large centres of 
 manufacturing industry ; and, in December, the Man- 
 chester Chamber of Commerce, after long debates, passed 
 a resolution by a majority of six to one, that in its 
 opinion, " The great and peaceful principle of Free 
 Trade on the broadest scale is the only security for our 
 manufacturing prosperity, and the welfare of every 
 portion of the community." A few days afterwards, the 
 Association, fortified by the resolution of the Chamber of 
 Commerce, issued and circulated an address to the muni- 
 cipalities and people of all the great towns, urging the 
 establishment of auxiliary associations, and the organiza-
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 107 
 
 tion into active bodies of all who held views favourable to 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws. The movement did not 
 greatly affect London, then, as now, a difficult place to 
 interest in anything, but spread rapidly elsewhere ; and 
 on the 22nd of January, 1839, a great public dinner was 
 held at Manchester, which was attended by six members 
 of Parliament, and by upwards of eight hundred dele- 
 gates from various towns and cities throughout the 
 country. Three hundred of these delegates, including 
 those of Manchester, proceeded to London about a week 
 later, to be present at the opening of Parliament ; and 
 on that occasion, for the first time, the Association 
 assumed the name, speedily destined to become his- 
 torical, of "The Anti-Corn-Law League.'" 
 
 But London held aloof. The newspapers, Tory, Whig, 
 and Radical, gave no ' encouragement to a movement of 
 which they either disapproved or to which they were in- 
 different.- The Tories were hostile, the Liberals, under 
 Lord Melbourne, followed in the same track. The Whig 
 leaders had not yet sufficiently studied the economic 
 principles which underlie the good government of nations, 
 or having considered them were not yet converted to Free 
 Trade, while the angry Piadicals seemed to be of opinion 
 that it was of no use to meddle with such small questions 
 as those of trade, while such great questions as Universal 
 Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Electoral Districts, Annual Parlia - 
 ments, the payment of members, and perhaps the abolition 
 of the House of Lords, and the monarchy of which it was 
 the ornament and the buttress, were all before the public, 
 awaiting decision. The Times gave no support to the 
 Free Traders; the Morning Chronicle gave a little, and a
 
 10S FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 very little ; and the manufacturers of Manchester, with 
 scarcely a newspaper to support tliern, had to do a work 
 which was truly national, and to perform, in their own 
 interest, a task which ought to have been undertaken by 
 higher agencies, in the interest of the whole State. But 
 the Manchester men were in earnest. They knew what 
 they were about, and where to look for the right men to 
 aid them with money, with intellect, and with labour. 
 These men appeared in due time, and among them three 
 stood conspicuously forward, — Mr. George Wilson, Chair- 
 man of the League, Mr. Richard Cobden, and Mr. John 
 Bright, all engaged in manufactures in Manchester, or 
 near it ; all young, or in the prime of life, energetic, 
 hopeful and eloquent ; and all determined to devote their 
 time, their talent, and their means, to the work which they 
 had undertaken. Mr. Villiers still remained the spokes- 
 man and leader of the free traders in the House of Com- 
 mons, while Messrs. Cobden, Bright, and the coadjutors 
 who rapidly gathered around them, carried on the work 
 out of doors, by means of public meetings, by the employ- 
 ment of lecturers, by a vigorous propaganda through the 
 press and the post-office, and by the establishment of the 
 Anti-Bread-Tax Circular, a newspaper wholly devoted to 
 the cause. For three years the League pursued its 
 course, undaunted by opposition, whether it came from 
 above or from below, — from the landed aristocracy, or 
 from the Chartists. The latter were especially trouble- 
 some. Either from ignorance of the importance of the 
 question ; or from the settled obstinacy of theorists, 
 that whether important or unimportant, right or wrong, 
 good or bad, Free Trade would have its best, if not its only
 
 THE AXTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 1U9 
 
 chance of consideration, when the five points of the Charter 
 had hecome the law of the land. Then, and only then, 
 they declared it could be fairly debated, and fairly carried 
 by a legislature competent to understand, and courageous 
 enough to establish it. 
 
 At the opening of the Parliamentary Session of 1839, 
 the three hundred delegates of the Anti-Corn-Law League 
 present in London, had taken measures to force discus- 
 sion in both Houses on the subject the}' had most at 
 heart. Lord Melbourne, in the debate on the address in 
 answer to the Queen's speech, could not avoid the topic, 
 but being still without a comprehension of its vast im- 
 portance, and still prejudiced b} T his early training in a 
 different school, declared that the question was an open 
 one in the Cabinet, in which various members had formed 
 different opinions, and that he wished to avoid any debate 
 upon it. " He would only state, for his own part, that, 
 though he was not prepared to pledge or bind himself to 
 the maintenance of the existing system (the sliding scale) 
 as the best possible, he was not, 'at the same time, pre- 
 pared, either as a member of Parliament, or of the 
 government, to pledge himself to any alteration." This 
 was discouraging to the League, as coining from a Liberal 
 Premier. Still more discouraging, perhaps, was a speech 
 in the House of Commons, made by Mr. "Wood, Chair- 
 man of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. This 
 gentleman had been selected by the Ministry to second 
 the address, expressly with a view to the conciliation of 
 the discontented manufacturers; but, though he advocated 
 in his speech the repeal of the Corn Laws as a matter alike 
 of good policy and justice, he went out of his way to
 
 110 FOETY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 demolish one of the great arguments upon which the 
 League depended ; and not only denied that the manu- 
 facturing interests were suffering, but asserted, on the 
 contrary, that they were in a state of progressive pro- 
 sperity. Sir Robert Peel, then leader of the Opposition, 
 and as yet unconverted to Free Trade principles, very 
 dexterously took advantage of Mr. "Wood's unguarded ad- 
 missions, and complimented him on his knowledge of the 
 facts, on the extreme clearness with which he stated 
 them, and on the delivery of " one of the ablest and most 
 conclusive speeches in favour of the existing system which 
 he had ever had the good fortune to hear." The indig- 
 nation of the League against Mr. Wood was bitter, 
 and all Manchester shared in the feeling. He was re- 
 moved from the chairmanship of the Chamber of Com- 
 merce, and the League, goaded by the taunt and the 
 temporary triumph of Sir Robert Peel, set still more 
 vigorously to work to extend and intensify the agitation, 
 not for Corn Law Repeal alone, but for the abolition of all 
 protection to native industry, whether displayed in the 
 pursuits of agriculture or of manufactures. Mr. Villiers, 
 in an able speech on the 19th of February, moved that 
 evidence should be received at the Bar of the House to 
 prove the injurious effects of the Corn Laws, not alone 
 on trade and manufactures, but on agriculture itself, and 
 unrolled and commented upon a voluminous mass of 
 statistics, to show how mighty were the interests at stake, 
 and how deeply the moral and physical well-being of the 
 whole people were involved. The motion was negatived 
 by a large majority; but Mr. A T illiers, nothing daunted, 
 and with the great power of the League at his back, gave
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. Ill 
 
 notice of a more direct motion on the subject, to the 
 effect that the House should resolve itself into committee 
 of the whole, for considering the laws that regulated the 
 importation of corn. The question came up for discussion 
 on the 12th of March, and the debates lasted for five 
 nights. On the fourth night, Sir Robert Peel, who said 
 all that could be said on the Protectionist side of the 
 question, admitted that " he considered the statement, 
 that the condition of the labourer had been rendered worse 
 by the operation of the Corn Laws a most important one, 
 and, for his own part, he had no hesitation in confessing that 
 unless the existence of those laws could be shown to be 
 consistent, not only with the prosperity of agriculture and 
 the maintenance of the landlord's interest, but also with 
 the protection and maintenance of the general interests of 
 the country, and especially with the improvement of the 
 condition of the labouring classes, he would look upon 
 those laws as practically at an end." The motion was 
 rejected by 342 against 195 ; but the League accepted 
 Sir Robert Peel's challenge, and undertook, by means of 
 renewed meetings, lectures, discussions, letters, pamphlets, 
 and all the most approved and effective means of political 
 and literary warfare, to prove what their own injudicious 
 friend, Mr. Wood, and the Protectionist leader denied, 
 that the effect of the obnoxious laws w r as clearly and un- 
 mistakably to do everybody harm, and most cruelly to 
 press upon the working people. 
 
 But while the maintenance or abolition of the Corn 
 Laws might have been the crucial question to decide the 
 fate of Lord Melbourne's administration, which, on tin* 
 admission of its chief, held divided opinions, the danger
 
 112 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 came from another quarter. Challenged on their Irish 
 policy, the government obtained a small majority of 
 twenty-two. Challenged again on the measure that in 
 the interest of the emancipated slaves of Jamaica it had 
 introduced, for suspending for five years the constitution 
 of that island, the government obtained a dwindled 
 majority of only five. Lord Melbourne, in the Lords, and 
 Lord John Russell, in the Commons, announced that with 
 such failing support they had found themselves unable to 
 carry on the public business with advantage, and had 
 resigned office. Sir Robert Peel was charged with the 
 duty of forming an administration. But the times were 
 impropitious for him. If Lord Melbourne had become 
 unpopular, — chiefly because the Queen delighted to honour 
 him, partly because he had been compelled to accept 
 the unwelcome support of Mr. O'Connell and the Irish 
 Roman Catholic party, and partly because he was not 
 able to make up his mind on the paramount question of 
 Free Trade and the feeding of the people, — Sir Robert 
 Peel could scarcely claim to be popular at all. Yet he 
 might perhaps have managed to form a ministry, with a 
 fair chance of stability, had he not wilfully, and indeed 
 ungraciously, run his head against a very hard wall that 
 he might easily have avoided. The Queen first applied 
 for advice to the Duke of Wellington, and, on his recom- 
 mendation, sent for Sir Robert Peel, to both of whom 
 her Majesty frankly declared that she had parted from 
 her late minister with regret, but that she would loyally 
 give her entire support to a new administration. The 
 list of the names submitted included the Duke of 
 Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, the Earl of Aberdeen,
 
 \ 
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 113 
 
 Lord Ellenborough, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, 
 Sir Hemy Hardinge, and Mr. Gonlbnrn. At their very 
 first council, these noble7nen and gentlemen, at the 
 instigation, as was believed and alleged, of Sir Robert Peel, 
 adopted a resolution which at once put them in the 
 wrong, as regarded then' young sovereign, and rendered 
 it difficult, if not impossible, for her to grant them her 
 cordial confidence. On the following day Sir Robert 
 Peel, in the name of himself and his colleagues, com- 
 municated to the Queen their joint opinion, that certain 
 offices in the royal household, held by ladies of the 
 highest rank, appointed by their predecessors, should be 
 vacated, although in some few instances the absence of 
 all political feeling might render a change unnecessary. 
 The two ladies more particularly obnoxious to Sir Robert 
 Peel and his colleagues, as he afterwards stated in 
 Parliament, were the Duchess of Sutherland and the 
 Marchioness of Normanby, the one a sister of Lord 
 Morpeth, Secretary for Ireland, and the other the wife of 
 the Viceroy of Ireland, who were objected to wholly and 
 solely for their relationship to those Whig noblemen. 
 The Queen, then unmarried, and having no friends 
 on whom she could rely for support and advice,, 
 except her mother and the very ladies who were 
 complained of, received the notification with surprise 
 and displeasure, and promised to send a written 
 answer. On the following morning, May 10th, 1839, her 
 Majesty wrote to say that, "having considered the pro- 
 posal made to her to remove the ladies of her bedchamber, 
 she could not consent to adopt a course which she con- 
 ceived to be contrary to usage, and which was repugnant 
 vol. r. i
 
 114 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to her feelings." Sir Robert Peel thereupon relinquished 
 the task of forming an administration, and Lord Mel- 
 bourne and his colleagues returned to office. These cir- 
 cumstances, partaking as thej^ did of the nature of a scan- 
 dal, excited much interest in all circles, and the Queen's 
 spirited protest against such unfair dictation, did much 
 to diminish the unpopularity which had gradually been 
 growing around her name, and which was destined, at no 
 distant period, to be splendidly replaced by an amount of 
 favour and respect which no previous sovereign ever 
 enjoyed. It was stated that on the first announcement 
 of the resignation of Lord Melbourne, certain Conservative 
 ladies of high rank, or if not Conservatives themselves, 
 the wives of eminent Conservatives, had spoken of the 
 event as a personal triumph over the Queen, as well as 
 over the Whigs, and that "the majority would now, for the 
 first time, be kept in order." These improper remarks 
 were communicated to the Queen before Sir Robert 
 Peel's official visit, and she 'naturally felt aggrieved at 
 the idea of subjection to a political party, and to a possible 
 cspionnage over her private conduct by the ladies who 
 were to be thrust, against her will, into her intimacy. 
 
 The Anti-Corn-Law League had some hopes of being 
 able to convince Lord Melbourne ; it had no hopes of 
 being able to convince Sir Robert Peel. The return of 
 the former to power was therefore agreeable, though the 
 accession of the latter would have made no difference in 
 their arrangements, unless perhaps it should have spurred 
 them on to redoubled exertion. But the spur was not 
 necessary. The hands of the leaders were upon the 
 plough, and the grip was not to be relaxed until the
 
 THE ANTI-CORN -LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 115 
 
 furrow was drawn straight to its end. But there were yet 
 several years of hard work before the League ; for errors, if 
 quick to grow, are difficult to uproot, and the particular 
 error which it was its business to destroy, had twined its 
 roots so deeply into the supposed interests of the most 
 influential and powerful classes in the state, that the 
 task was not so much the eradication of a tree, as of a 
 whole forest. 
 
 Viewed in the serener light of the public discussions of 
 the present time, it must be difficult for those whose 
 recollections do not go back to the last generation, to 
 imderstand the bitterness of party politics in the first 
 years of Queen Victoria. The Tories (for there were 
 Tories in those days, who were not, as in ours, merely 
 mild Conservatives) had enjoyed so long a continuance 
 of office under sovereigns who were as Tory as them- 
 selves, George III., George IV., and, in a modified degree, 
 "William IV., that they did not readily reconcile them- 
 selves to a new regime, which had received its colour from 
 the Reform Bill. They chafed at the idea of their possible 
 exclusion from office during a whole reign, not remember- 
 ing that the operation of the Reform Act, giving power 
 more than ever to parliamentaiy majorities, would, wholly 
 irrespective of the sovereign's private feelings and con- 
 victions, give them, if they had the country along with 
 them, as fair a chance as their opponents. They over- 
 rated the sovereign's influence, or wrongly judged it b}' 
 the standard of previous reigns, and, until the auspicious 
 marriage of the Queen, missed no opportunit}' to throw 
 discredit upon the sovereign. The unfortunate scandal 
 
 created by the thoughtless, if not cruel conduct of some 
 
 I 2
 
 1 16 FORTY years' recollections. 
 
 of the leaders of the Court, in the case of the hapless and 
 innocent Lady Flora Hastings, brought out party ani- 
 mosity in a matter which had really no concern with 
 party, with a virulence that was particularly unfair towards 
 the young Queen, and impressed all true gentlemen and 
 good subjects, whatever their politics, with the desirability 
 of her happy union to a man of her own choice. One of 
 the rabid politicians of the ultra Tory part}*, the member 
 for the City of Canterbury, went so far as to say that, 
 " brought up under the auspices of the citizen King of the 
 Belgians, who was the serf of France, and guided by his 
 influence, the Queen thought that if the monarchy lasted 
 her time, it would be enough. But he warned her that 
 the people of England would never consent that the crown 
 should be degraded and debased for the inglorious ease 
 of any created being, nor that the personal wishes and 
 caprices of the sovereign should direct the conduct of the 
 executive." How wrong all this was in point of fact, to 
 say nothing of its detestable bad taste, subsequent events 
 made manifest. Much more trash of the same hind was 
 spoken. " I believe, in my conscience," said the irate 
 member, "that the favourite equerries are younger and 
 better looking, and better dressed than Sir Iiobert Feel ; 
 that Lord Melbourne can tell a tale meet for a lady's 
 car, better than the Duke of "Wellington, and that neither 
 Lord Stanley, nor Sir James Graham, can compete with 
 Lord Normanby in getting up a pageant ; but are these 
 the qualifications which the people of England prize so 
 much, as to sacrifice to them their religion, their honour, 
 and the care of their ancient institutions ? " This, and 
 other utterances of the same kind, repeated by members
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 117 
 
 of liis party, gave great annoyance to Sir Robert Peel, 
 who strenuously set himself to work, both publicly and 
 privately, to denounce and discourage such displays of bad 
 taste, bad temper, and disloyalty. 
 
 When the announcement of the Queen's approaching 
 marriage to his Royal Highness Prince Albert of Saxe 
 Coburg and Gotha was made in November, 1839, the affair 
 of Lady Flora Hastings, and the persistent attacks made 
 on her Majesty's supposed political and personal predi- 
 lection for one party in the state, had left unpleasant 
 traces on the public mind. But the marriage was looked 
 upon favourably b} r all sensible and loyal people, the 
 more so as the high personal character of the bride- 
 groom became better known. It was felt that scandals 
 were not so likely to arise in the Court of a married 
 •sovereign as in that of a maiden; that it was not 
 good for the Queen to be alone, and that highly 
 placed as she was, in a sphere where equal friendship 
 with a person of either sex was difficult, if not impossible, 
 the friendship, the love, the support, and the guidance of 
 a good husband, was likely to prove a blessing both to 
 herself and to the state. But bitter party feeling was 
 not all at once to be sweetened. In the debate on the 
 Royal speech at the opening of the session of 1840, 
 the Opposition found fault, that the Royal message did 
 not explicitly state whether Prince Albert was a Protest- 
 ant. The bill for naturalizing the Prince was objected 
 to, because it was proposed to give him precedence over 
 all Englishmen except the possible heir-apparent of the 
 future ; and when it was proposed by Lord Melbourne's 
 ministry to settle upon the Prince an annuity of !'50,000,
 
 US FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 which was but half the sum settled upon Queen Adelaide, 
 the widow of William IV., the Opposition, led for the 
 occasion by Colonel Sibthorp and supported by Sir 
 Eobert Peel and all his party, as well as by a small 
 section of Liberals led by Mr. Joseph Hume, the Queen's 
 friend, but also the friend of economy in the national 
 expenditure, objected to the prodigality of the proposed 
 annuity. Lord John Russell complained severely of the 
 tactics of the Opposition, and said, notwithstanding the 
 expressions of extraordinary loyalty and respect that 
 came from the other side of the House, he could not 
 forget that no sovereign of this country had ever been 
 insulted in such a manner as her present Majesty. Sir 
 Eobert Peel vindicated himself and his party from the 
 charge of disloyalty and disrespect, and declared for him- 
 self that, " not one word, not one breath of disloyalty to 
 the Crown or any member of the Royal Family, however 
 adverse their political sentiments to his own, had ever 
 passed his lips." The Ministry were defeated on this 
 question, and the Prince's income was fixed at .£30,000. 
 After these small incidents, which seemed to relieve the 
 minds of the Opposition and cleanse it of the perilous stuff 
 of disaffection, few or no attacks were made, and few or 
 no insinuations and innuendoes were indulged in against 
 the sovereign, and Queen Victoria entered upon a new 
 and happy path, illuminated by the warm sunshine, first 
 of popular favour, and afterwards of popular respect, that 
 deepened, as the years rolled on, into popular affection. 
 
 In May, 1841, the Melbourne administration endea- 
 voured to settle the Corn Law question by the abolition 
 of the sliding scale, and the imposition of a fixed duty
 
 THE ANTI-COHN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 119 
 
 of eight shillings per quarter on the importation of 
 foreign cereals, whatever the price of the home-grown 
 commodity might be. Lord John Russell brought for- 
 ward a motion to that effect on behalf of the Ministry, 
 though forewarned by the Anti- Corn-Law League that 
 the compromise would not be satisfactory, and that 
 nothing less than total abolition would meet the 
 justice of the case and the growing necessities of the 
 country. The debate commenced on the 7th of May, 
 and was continued for eight nights. The Ministry were 
 defeated by 317 against 281, or by a majority of 36. 
 Lord Melbourne and his colleagues did not immediately 
 resign. Lord John Eussell gave notice of another 
 motion on the subject of the Corn Laws for the 4th of 
 June ensuing, and as it was believed to be the intention 
 to dissolve Parliament after laying a full exposition of 
 the new policy before the country, Sir Robert Peel resolved 
 to frustrate their policy by a direct vote of want of con- 
 fidence. He brought forward a motion to that effect 
 on the 27th of May and carried it by 312 votes 
 against 311, leaving Lord Melbourne in a minority 
 of one. This sealed the fate of the existing Parliament, 
 which was forthwith dissolved ; and the struggle between 
 Free Trade and Protection was transferred from the 
 House of Commons to the constituencies. 
 
 The contest was more than usually bitter. The 
 Whigs, and that large portion of the Liberals who had 
 not yet been been converted to the principles of Free 
 Trade, were disheartened, and, to a certain extent, 
 politically demoralized by a long lease of power, which 
 they had not exercised either vigorously or wisely ; while 
 the Conservatives were exultant and aggressive. Tiny
 
 120 FOETY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 had found their opportunity, and were resolved to make 
 the most of it, sparing no exertion in boroughs or coun- 
 ties to secure a majority. Between the two were the 
 Anti-Corn-Law League — hopeful, defiant, resolved not to 
 he utterly beaten, and doing its best by all the agencies 
 in its power, to impress upon Liberals that their best, if 
 not their only chance of regaining their lost place, was 
 to adopt cordially and fully the doctrine of commercial 
 freedom, and to narrow the issue to be decided to the 
 great and paramount question — of Free Trade or Protec- 
 tion. The one great victory of the League was the 
 election of its most eminent upholder, the very soul as it 
 were of the movement, Mr. Cobden, for the borough of 
 Stockport. Otherwise the Liberals suffered many and 
 sore reverses. The City of London, which returned four 
 Liberals to the preceding Parliament, returned two Con- 
 servatives and two Liberals, Lord John Russell, the 
 most eminent man of the party, being at the bottom of 
 the poll, with a majority of only seven above a third 
 Conservative candidate. Lord Howick and Lord Mor- 
 peth, shining lights of the Liberal party, lost their 
 seats. Mr. O'Connell, whose dangerous alliance had 
 worked much mischief to the reputation of the AYhigs, 
 was rejected for Dublin. Out of a hundred and fifty- 
 nine comity members, the Liberals only succeeded in 
 electing twenty- three ; and in the boroughs the Liberal 
 losses, though not so great, were more than sufficient 
 to prove that the Conservatives would muster a strong 
 majority. Lord Melbourne, though fully aware that 
 his administration could not long survive the meeting 
 of Parliament (1842), resolved that he would not retire
 
 THE ANTI-COKN-LAW AND FEEE-TEADE PAETY. 121 
 
 until compelled to do so by an adverse vote, which he 
 challenged, it was believed, on the inspiration of Lord 
 John Russell, by an emphatically Free Trade passage in 
 the Royal speech. " It has appeared to her Majesty, 
 after full deliberation," said the Ministry, through the 
 voice of the sovereign, " that you may at this juncture 
 properly direct your attention to the revision of the 
 duties affecting the productions of foreign countries. It 
 will be for you to consider whether some of those duties 
 are not so trifling in amount as to be unproductive to 
 the revenue, while they are vexatious to commerce . . . 
 Her Majesty is desirous that you should consider the 
 laws which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for you 
 to determine whether those laws do not aggravate the 
 natural fluctuations of supply ; whether they do not 
 embarrass trade, derange the currency, and by their 
 operation diminish the comfort and increase the priva- 
 tions of the great body of the community." These 
 passages were palpably intended to provoke an amend- 
 ment to the Address, to seal the fate of the Ministry, 
 and to lance a Parthian arrow to stick in the very ribs or 
 the heart of the Protectionist party. The proposal of 
 the amendment was entrusted to Mr. Stuart Wortley, the 
 successor of Lord Morpeth in the West Riding of York- 
 shire. Long and animated debates ensued, which were 
 rendered memorable by the maiden speech of Mr. 
 Oobden ; a speech that was simple, earnest, impressive, 
 and convincing, and made manifest to both sides of the 
 House that a master of debate had come amongst them, 
 and still further memorable from an admission of Sir 
 Robert Peel that he would not bind himself to the details
 
 L'2.1 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the existing Corn Law, but reserve to himself the 
 unfettered discretion of considering and amending that 
 law. The division on the Address showed 269 votes. 
 in its favour, and 360 in favour of the hostile amendment, 
 of the Conservatives — a majority of 91. The result had 
 been long anticipated, though not the magnitude of the 
 majority, and excited neither sensation nor surprise. 
 Lord Melbourne and his colleagues immediately resigned, 
 and Sir Robert Peel received Her Majesty's commands 
 to form an administration. He found no difficulties in 
 his way; the filling up of the various offices had been 
 long pre-arranged, and not a hitch occurred in the nego- 
 tiation. The Duke of Wellington accepted a seat in the 
 Cabinet, without an office, to strengthen the Ministry by 
 his great name and reputation, and, it was alleged at the 
 time, to please the Queen, who had the highest reliance 
 on his judgment, wisdom, and unselfish patriotism. 
 There was a suspicion among the most obstinate of the 
 old sticklers for Protection, that the new Premier had 
 leanings towards Free Trade in the abstract, if not in 
 the particular article of corn ; but when the Duke of 
 Buckingham, who, as Marquis of Chandos had declared 
 that he " expected to hear no more about the Coin 
 Laws," was offered and accepted the place of Lord 
 Privy Seal, even these gentlemen were satisfied with the 
 composition of the new Ministry, and prepared to yield 
 it unqualified support. 
 
 The League resolved to redouble all its previous 
 efforts. It saAv that Sir Robert Peel was impressionable, 
 that he was no bigot, and that if convinced by degrees 
 on smaller matters, he might, with time and patience on
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 123 
 
 the part of the commercial reformers, be convinced on 
 larger ones. They removed their head-quarters from 
 Manchester to London, converted the Anti-Bread-Tax 
 Circular into a weekly London journal, to be called 
 the " League," and edited by their first lecturer, Mr. 
 Paulton ; raised a subscription of upwards of £50,000 to 
 carry on the propaganda ; and arranged for a series of 
 public meetings, to be held once a week during the 
 sittings of Parliament, at which all its great orators were 
 to speak. The original £50,000 not being sufficient for 
 their operations, a further sum of £100,000 was raised 
 without difficulty ; and the Times, occasionally hostile, 
 and generally hike-warm in the cause, was compelled to 
 admit, in the words of the great American philosopher, 
 Ralph Wardo Emerson, that the League was "a great fact." 
 One of the first measures adopted by the League on 
 their removal to the metropolis, was to secure, if possible, 
 the aid of one or more of the great London daily journals 
 to disseminate their opinions and advocate their cause. 
 The hostility of the Times had been too marked to lead 
 them to encourage hope in that quarter ; but the Morning 
 Chronicle had always been friendly, if not enthusiastic, 
 and to that powerful journal they naturally directed their 
 attention. Their overtures were favourably received ; 
 the Chronicle became the avowed organ of the Free 
 Trade party, ' and the leaders of the League were 
 constant and friendly visitors to the office. In the dis- 
 tribution of work that was the consequence, it fell to 
 the lot of Mr. Black to write, or cause others to write, the 
 leading or editorial articles that were to influence and 
 ripen public opinion, to support friends, to controvert
 
 1:24 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 opponents, and to cany, as it were, the flag of the true 
 principle, high unfurled above the roar and crush of the 
 political battle. It fell to my lot to collect from all the 
 newspapers of the land the reports of Free Trade 
 meetings, the opinions of provincial journals, and all 
 the facts and speeches bearing upon the cause, that 
 •were sown broad-cast over the political literature of 
 the time, and marshal them daily into the columns 
 of the Hominy Chronicle, under the head of "Free 
 Trade and Commercial Reform." The performance of 
 this labour brought me into daily and nightly contact with 
 the leaders of the League, and enabled me to form the 
 friendship of Mr. Cobden, Mr. W. -J. Fox, and other 
 leading spirits of the party, and the acquaintance of many 
 others scarcely less distinguished. 
 
 It soon became evident, under the immense pressure of 
 
 public opinion that was brought to bear not only on the 
 
 one great subject of the Corn Laws, but on that of Free 
 
 Trade generally, that Sir Robert Peel was losing faith in 
 
 the principles of his party. The Duke of Buckingham 
 
 very soon became alarmed, and resigned his place in the 
 
 Ministry. The ultra-Protectionists in the press began to 
 
 hint their doubts of the Prime Minister's stability of 
 
 judgment, and some accused him, though darkly and 
 
 timidly, of approaching treachery to the cause on the 
 
 full tide of which he was wafted into office. Remaining 
 
 stanch to his old opinions on Corn and Corn Laws, he 
 
 cautiously marched in the direction of Free Trade on 
 
 all other questions except those of corn and sugar, and 
 
 made it quite clear to the leading spirits of the League 
 
 that his mind was running in the grooves of progress,
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 125 
 
 and would continue to run in them unstopped at last, 
 and when he had reached them by the sacred articles 
 which were the " be all and end all " of the Protectionist 
 party. He brought forward early in the session a modified 
 scheme of a sliding scale on the importation of foreign 
 corn, which was vigorously opposed by Mr. Cobden and 
 Lord John Pussell. Since the rejection of his own scheme 
 of a fixed duty of eight shillings per quarter, Lord John 
 had been approaching more and more closely to the 
 principles of the League ; and on this occasion, though 
 he did not go wholly with the Free Traders, he proposed 
 as an amendment that a fixed duty, not a sliding scale, 
 was the proper solution of the difficult}*. On a division 
 he was defeated by 349 votes against 226, or a majority 
 of 128. The League and its friends in Parliament 
 were not to be deterred, even by this majority, from 
 further propelling the little snow-ball of Free Trade, 
 soon destined, as it ran, and grew, and received accretion 
 on all sides of its course, to become an avalanche ; and 
 Mr. Charles Yilliers introduced his amendment in a 
 powerful speech, powerfully supported by Mr. Cobden, 
 in favour of Free Trade, pure and simple. The debate 
 lasted five nights. On a division, the Free Traders- 
 were in what might be considered a hopeless minority — 
 90 against 393. But discouraging as this result might 
 well have been considered, Mr. ViUiers and the League 
 were not alarmed, and still held on, bating no jot of heart 
 or hope, strong in the truth and justice of their cause ,- 
 and perhaps fortified a little by the side movements in 
 favour of commercial freedom, which the Protectionist 
 Minister was making in spite of his party, in spile of his
 
 12(3 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ancient self, and in obedience to the impulses of a clear, 
 capacious mind, that loved truth for its own sake, and 
 would follow in due, though perhaps in slow time, 
 wherever it might lead him. 
 
 These anticipations were soon justified, as in March, 
 
 1842, Sir Robert developed to the House his new scheme 
 of finance, the principal features of which were a reform of 
 the tariff, the abrogation of many onerous duties that 
 obstructed trade, and the imposition of a property and 
 income tax to provide the revenue relinquished, as not 
 worth the trouble of collection. Among the articles 
 which the Ministers proposed to admit into Great Britain, 
 free of the old protection and prohibition duties, were 
 live cattle and meat from foreign parts. This was 
 alarming to the farmers, who imagined that a 
 Minister who had gone so far would go still farther, and 
 that corn would be the next article that would come 
 under his reforming scythe. Early in the session of 
 
 1843, in a debate on Lord Howick's motion, for a Com- 
 mittee of the whole House to inquire into the distressed 
 state of the nation, Sir James Graham, the Home 
 Secretary, gave another warning, and administered 
 another fright to the ultra-Protectionists, by declaring 
 that Free Trade was the right and only right principle. 
 " By most men," he said, " the principles of Free Trade 
 were now acknowledged to be the principles of common 
 sense. The time had gone by when this country could 
 exist solely as an agricultural country. We were 
 essentially a commercial people. As long as Great 
 Britain remained the mistress of the seas, she must be the 
 emporium of the commerce of the world ; and he felt
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. J 27 
 
 perfectly satisfied that agricultural prosperity in this 
 ■countiy, if deprived of the support of manufacturing 
 prosperity, could not and would not long exist." This 
 was highly encouraging to the League, hoth in and 
 •out of Parliament. During this debate an incident of 
 a less pleasant kind occurred. A crazy fanatic of the 
 name of Macnaughten had not very long before shot 
 dead, near Charing Cross, Mr. Drummond, the private 
 secretary of Sir Robert Peel, mistaking that gentleman 
 for the Prime Minister. The circumstance had excited 
 great feeling and commiseration, not alone for the 
 family of the murdered man, but for the living statesman 
 for whom the blow was intended : and Sir Robert Peel 
 was naturally sensitive to the dangers of his position. 
 On the fifth and last night of the debate raised on Lord 
 Howick's motion, Mr. Cobden, in an eloquent, speech in 
 vindication of himself and the Anti-Corn-Law League, 
 had somewhat unnecessarily, if not ungraciously, gone 
 out of his way to state that the Ministry was Sir Robert 
 Peel, and Sir Robert Peel alone, that all his colleagues 
 were nonentities compared with him, and that conse- 
 quently on him personally " devolved the responsibility for 
 the continued distress of the country." Sir Robert Peel 
 was perhaps suffering from indigestion, or was otherwise 
 out of the even balance of his usually calm system when 
 this remark was made, and rose in a state of excitement 
 that was alien to his gentle and unimpressionable nature, 
 to call the attention of the House to Mr. Cobden's 
 attempt to fix an individual responsibilit}- upon him ; and 
 plainly insinuated that Mr. Cobden had marked him out 
 .as a victim for assassination ! Mr. Cobden indignantly
 
 128 FORTY YEAES' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 repelled the odious interpretation of his words, but the 
 feeling of the House was with Sir Robert, who, amid the 
 shouts of his party declared that "no responsibility 
 which Mr. Cobden could fix upon him, or induce others 
 to fix upon him, should deter him from the performam i 
 of his duty." Mr. Cobden was equally surprised and 
 pained at the rash charge and its ungenerous repetition, 
 for it was more of a charge than an insinuation ; but he 
 had the satisfaction of hearing, though not for some time 
 afterwards, that Sir Robert regretted the mistake into 
 which he had been betrayed, and would willingly have 
 expunged it from the record of his life. Ultimately, and 
 on another occasion, he made the amende honorable, 
 and amply atoned for the injustice he had done. 
 
 Mr. Cobden had been for two years in Parliament 
 before his colleague, Mr. Bright, was enabled to find a 
 seat in the legislature. The opportunity at last offered, 
 and in July, 1843, after a previous and unsuccessful 
 attempt at the same place, Mr. Bright was returned for 
 the City of Durham. At this time the League was. 
 represented in the Commons by five members, Mr. 
 Villiers, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. Milner Gibson, 
 and Mr. W. J. Fox. A strong and gradually augment- 
 ing phalanx of Free Traders and Liberals, at the head of 
 which was Mr. Charles Villiers, supported their views, 
 Mr. Villiers, in right of his long services, taking the 
 lead in all the parliamentary discussions which the 
 League desired to provoke. Mr. Bright soon made his 
 mark in the House, displaying an eloquence more im- 
 passioned than that of Mr. Cobden, but at the same tim< 
 equally logical and convincing. Mr. Bright always
 
 A FREE-TRADE FABLE. 121) 
 
 used the simplest, yet the strongest language, put the 
 right word in the right place, and hammered down his 
 arguments with ringing hlows of the sturdiest English, 
 plain, unpretending, and forcihle as the language of 
 J elm Bunyan or Daniel Defoe. 
 
 The leading spirits of the League, including the four 
 members of Parliament, Mr. George Wilson, the chairman, 
 Mr. Paulton, the editor of the " League," and many Man- 
 chester manufacturers who aided the cause with their 
 money and their powers of management and organization, 
 though unable to serve it by their oratory, were in the habit 
 of dining together two or three times a week during the 
 Parliamentary Session at rooms which they had hired 
 in one of the streets not far from the Morning Chronicle 
 office, and leading from the Strand to the Thames. I 
 w;is often a guest on these occasions, and remember that 
 once, in the course of conversation with Mr. Cobden, I 
 remarked, that as good an argument could be made in 
 justification of a legislative and parliamentary monopoly 
 of tailors and shoemakers, as for that of agriculturists. 
 " Quite as good," replied Mr. Cobden ; "you should work 
 the idea out. It might form a political fable, and be the 
 means of driving an idea into heads that might not other- 
 wise be converted to the true faith." 
 
 At the next meeting at which I attended the following 
 fable was produced and read aloud to the company : — 
 
 ''The Legislature of Tailors. 
 
 " In a certain powerful and populous country, there was 
 a great peculiarity in the mode of government. Thai 
 
 peculiarity was, that no man could sit in either House 
 
 Vl'l. I. K
 
 130 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of Parliament, of which, as in ours, there were two, who 
 was not a tailor. To be a tailor doing a great stroke of 
 business was to be eligible not only for a seat in the 
 Legislature, but for all the principal offices of State ; and 
 in fact the law was so framed, that if any man of talent, 
 not a tailor, was anxious to procure admission into 
 Parliament, he was compelled to do his conscience wrong 
 and hire a tailor's shop for a day, that he might swear at 
 the moment of his election that he did really and truly 
 belong to that eminent fraternity. The consequences of 
 this state of things may be easily anticipated. People 
 seeing that the tailors made , the law, looked up to the 
 tailors with becoming respect ; and the monarchs of the 
 country being in the power of the tailors from generation 
 to generation, conferred honours, dignities, and emolu- 
 ments, upon them. The tailors having so much power 
 and consideration, naturally endeavoured to turn both to 
 their own advantage, and made a law enacting that coats 
 and breeches, and every species of attire, should not be 
 sold under a certain large price. They also enacted other 
 laws for the protection and sole advantage of tailors. 
 But these were felt as nothing by them, compared to the 
 cruelty of making all sorts of garments excessively and 
 unnecessarily dear; great portions of the community, 
 unable to pay this price, and prevented by law from send- 
 ing to the tailors of other countries who had no such 
 powers and privileges, were obliged to wear very coarse 
 and insufficient raiment ; and many went without it 
 altogether, and perished from the inclemency of the 
 weather. The tailors, however, did not care what suffer- 
 ing the multitudes experienced for the want of covering;
 
 A FREE-TRADE FABLE. 131 
 
 how many old men and old women shivered in the 
 wintry blasts ; and how many little children were nipped 
 in the bud of existence, who might have lived to old age 
 if clothes had been as cheap and easily to be procured as 
 they ought to have been. The tailors accused those who 
 complained of such evils as men of no knowledge of the 
 true principles of Government — as men of no rectitude — 
 who wished to overturn the monarchy, bring about a 
 revolution, destroy religion, and render us dependent 
 upon foreign nations for our breeches. They refused 
 loudly to lower the price of their commodities, and main- 
 tained, with many specious arguments, that had it not 
 been for the great price of coats and other garments, the 
 nation would not have attained any rank or eminence 
 among the powers of the earth, and would have been 
 conquered and overrun by the people of neighbouring 
 states. These false and ridiculous doctrines were so 
 widely spread, and so zealously inculcated b}' the tailors, 
 and by people connected with them, that many well- 
 meaning men were convinced that the tailors spoke the 
 truth, and paid willingly the extortionate sums demanded 
 by them. The cry of the naked multitudes was heard 
 occasionally; but when the weather grew warmer, it was 
 hushed, and the tailors fancied that it was not the warm 
 weather, but their arguments, that had stilled the multi- 
 tude, and consoled themselves, during the hot and quiet 
 days, with the hope that all opposition had died away. 
 In these times, there arose a man of the name of Eel — 
 a very fair-spoken, intelligent man — who, though nut 
 bom among the tailors, had bought himself into their 
 fraternity by bis wealth, and acquired great ascendancy
 
 132 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 amongst them b} r his plausible character. This man Eel 
 had great tact, undoubted, prudence, and a sort of plain, 
 business-like eloquence that had great weight with all 
 the mediocre minds who did not like the labour of think- 
 ing for themselves, and who were very well satisfied that 
 so respectable a person should think for them. Now 
 Eel had the misfortune of connecting himself in earky life 
 with the tailors, in consequence of the facilities afforded 
 by their corporation of advancing his ambitious views of 
 power and influence over his fellow-men ; and although 
 the older he grew, the more sensible lie became that the 
 tailors had not acted justly to the community, and had by 
 their selfishness inflicted many evils upon the nation, he 
 had not the courage to renounce his allegiance to them. 
 Now, the nature of the man was acute, or more properly 
 speaking, cunning ; and when the tailors chose him for 
 their leader, there arose a great struggle in his mind 
 upon the coats and breeches question. The more he 
 thought upon the matter, and the more he listened to 
 the voice of reason, justice, and common sense, the more 
 convinced he became that the tailors were wrong, and 
 that the people were right. He was, to do him justice, 
 anxious enough that the monopoly of the tailors should 
 be brought to an end, and that the people should be 
 cheaply clothed ; but at the same time, he was anxious 
 not to vex his friends, who had brought him into so 
 responsible a position, nor to destroy the great party of 
 the tailors out of the country. In this perplexity, a 
 scheme was devised, that when the thermometer was ten 
 degrees below freezing-point, the poor people might send 
 for clothes to neighbouring states, and not be obliged to
 
 A FEEE-TRADE FABLE. 133 
 
 buy from the high-priced tailors of their own country. 
 This scheme, however, was not found to work well ; for 
 when the shivering people sent for their clothes, the 
 thermometer not unfrequently rose to twenty or thirty 
 degrees above the freezing-point, before the order could 
 be executed ; and when at last the clothes came, they 
 w r ere refused admission into the country unless such duty 
 were paid upon them as made them as dear as the home 
 manufacture. This scheme, therefore, did not work, and 
 great agitation sprung up from one end of the country 
 to the other against the tailors. At last a League was 
 formed, the object of which was to put the tailors upon 
 the same level with shoemakers and other artisans, and 
 with the farmers and owners of land, and generally all 
 those who were concerned in the growth of the people's 
 food. The tailors seeing this, endeavoured to raise an 
 •outcry against the League. They accused them o* 
 selfish and interested views ; and if there happened to be 
 a shoemaker, or stocking- weaver, or landlord among them, 
 raised a great hubbub, called them mercenaries and 
 lovers of mammon — reckless and unprincipled men, who 
 cared not for the throne or the altar provided breeches 
 were cheap — though what connection there was between 
 the price of breeches and the throne, they never properly 
 ■explained. It is not to be supposed that in Parliament, 
 where their influence was strong, they could be kept 
 silent; and Eel, who knew very well that they could not 
 open their mouths without betraying the weakness of 
 their cause, endeavoured to amuse them with other 
 subjects of discussion. They ivould speak, however, and 
 from time to time uttered such absurdities, especially one
 
 134. FORTY YEARS RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 man of the name of Goodwood, and another of the name 
 of Stow,* that the people, as miserable as they were for 
 want of clothes, could not avoid laughing at the ridicu- 
 lous tilings which these two uttered with all the pompous- 
 ness of truth and sincerity. Thus the matter remained 
 for two or three years — Eel all the while becoming in 
 Ids heart more and more estranged from the tailors ; 
 but hesitating with an excess of caution which was 
 characteristic of liim to do that which he knew to be 
 right, lest the tailors should be too rudely thrown down 
 from the bad pre-eminence they so long occupied." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Cobden, "there is quite as much to 
 be urged in favour of the one monopoly as of the other. 
 Publish the jest in the Morning Chronicle, and I dare say 
 all our friends in the press will quote it." 
 
 At one of the great meetings of the League at Covent 
 ( rarden, Mr. W. J. Fox took up the idea thus broached, 
 and attacked the supporters of the Corn Laws, not in 
 their capacity of aristocrats, but in their capacity of trades- 
 men and dealers in a particular commodity, which had 
 no more natural right to protection, according to free-trade 
 views, than any other commodity, whether breeches or boots, 
 cabinet work or upholstery. " A man," said he, " is not 
 to be protected if he keeps a chandler's shop, and cheats, 
 because he happens to be a member of the aristocracy. 
 This is what I complain of. They keep a great chandler's 
 shop ; and they enhance the price of every article in 
 their store, by means of the legislature which they con- 
 trol. There was a time when every sort of trading was 
 
 * The Dukes of Richmond ami Buckingham.
 
 THE ANTI-CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 135 
 
 thought to he inconsistent with the dignity of an aristo- 
 crat. Your feudal haron did not mind robbing with the 
 strong hand ; but he would have turned with contempt 
 from robbing by the short weight of a protective duty, 
 &c. But now, when nobles become tradesmen, when 
 dukes become dealers in corn, butter, beeves, grouse, 
 deer, and salmon, and protect themselves, as far as laws 
 can, against other traders who live in foreign coun- 
 tries, I think it is time for the people to cry out, and 
 proclaim that such dealing is unfair." 
 
 While Sir Robert Peel was busy in those reforms of 
 the Tariff which prepared the way for the abolition of the 
 Corn Laws — though doubtless he did not quite foresee 
 the end at which, following out his own principles, he 
 was bound to arrive — a subordinate member of his ad- 
 ministration gave him, according to all the reports of the 
 time, a great amount of assistance in preparing the 
 details of his measures. That subordinate was Mr. 
 Wm. Ewart Gladstone, Vice-President of the Board of 
 Trade and Master of the Mint. He was considered at 
 that time, as Sir Robert Peel had been considered five- 
 and-twenty years before him, as the rising hope of the 
 Tory party, and was thus described by Mr. Francis Ross, 
 of the Morning Chronicle, in a work entitled " Sir Robert 
 Peel and his Era," published early in 1843, in a sketch 
 of a " Night in the House of Commons :" — 
 
 " By the way, there is the rising hope of the Conserva- 
 tives, and Peel's right arm, William Ewart Gladstone, 
 Vice-President of the Board of Trade ami Master of the 
 Mint. In person he is of a good stature, and, like 
 Stanley, lias a pretty, good-natured, rather pouting
 
 136 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 mouth, while the upper part of the face, like Stand's, 
 has a ' knitted,' if not a frowning aspect. But what dis- 
 appoints me most is the smallness of the head. Under 
 Stanley's careless locks you can see hidden a good solid 
 mass of forehead ; hut this noted young man — this philo- 
 sophic worker-out of Church principles — I want for him 
 a more capacious skull and greater breadth, of face. Can 
 such a small head carry all he knows ? 
 
 "We must take men as they are, and not as we imagine 
 them. The head is small, but it is well-shaped. You 
 notice that the upper part of the face rather expresses 
 severity ; and I am told that old Gladstone, and the 
 famity generally, have been noted in Liverpool for what 
 is called a ' crust} r ' temperament. If this be so, and this 
 young man inherits it, he is an example of the poAver of 
 principle, for he seems to have his temper singularly 
 under control. His voice, too, is sweet and plaintive : 
 he has amazing clearness of speech and volubility of 
 utterance, but with a tendency to run into a mellifluous 
 monotony, which he will probably correct. 
 
 " Are his abilities as great as they say, or is he an 
 example of being ' cried up ? ' 
 
 "Oh, no man can doubt that his abilities are great. 
 I do not refer to his books on Church and State, witli 
 which he first established his reputation, but to his conduct 
 in the House. He proved ' a friend in need' to Peel in 
 conducting the tedious business and details of the New 
 Tariff: in fact everything devolved on the Prime Minister 
 and his Vice-President of the Board of Trade; and 
 though Peel's great business facility and long practice in 
 addressing the House enabled him to expound, state, and
 
 THE ANTI-COEN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. 137 
 
 ■defend the principles and details of the Tariff with more 
 fulness, force, and weight, it was universally acknow- 
 ledged that young Gladstone shone in the department of 
 * Facts and Figures,' and displayed a capacity for official 
 business of the very first order." 
 
 The two young men who were the hopes of the Tory 
 party — in 1818 and 1843 — were destined for other pur- 
 poses. The " hope " of 1818 — the reliance of the protec- 
 tionists — granted Free Trade and temporarily shattered 
 the fortunes of the party which trusted him ; and the 
 Tory " hope " of 1843 became the most distinguished of 
 the Liberal ministers of modern times, and the Liberal 
 premier of a brilliant Liberal administration, which held 
 power from 1868 to 1874 ; and fell by its own hand, 
 rather than by the assaults of its adversaries. 
 
 In the year 1841, Thomas Moore, the popular author 
 of the " Irish Melodies," " Lalla Rookh," and of political 
 squibs innumerable, was engaged by the Morning Chronicle 
 to contribute a poem per week on topics of the day to that 
 journal. A similar offer had been made by Mr. Perry, 
 more than half a century previously, to Robert Burns, 
 but was declined by the illustrious ploughman, lest accept- 
 ance should have brought him into disfavour with the 
 Board of Excise, with which he stood in the relation of 
 employed to the employer, and the members of which, 
 being ultra-Tories, were not likely to tolerate the publi- 
 cation of liberal rhymes in a London journal by a subor- 
 dinate in their service, and least of all by Burns, on 
 whose poetical gifts, when expended on politics, they did 
 not look with favourable eyes. But Thomas Moore was 
 under no such obligation of silence, and accepted the offer
 
 138 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 with eagerness. He stipulated, however, that his name 
 should not appear to these effusions, and that each as it 
 appeared should occupy the same place, namely, at the 
 head of the first column of the third, or opening page. 
 Thomas Moore was a Free Trader before the days of 
 Messrs. Cobden and Bright, and had done good service 
 to the cause in a more graceful way than Ebenezer 
 Elliott, but quite as effectually. Thomas Moore wielded 
 the lancet, Ebenezer Elliott the sledge-hammer, but both 
 drew blood. Moore foresaw, very speedily after the acces- 
 sion of Sir Eobert Peel to power, that the man who 
 had reformed the Tariff of Customs' Duties was on the 
 high road to Free Trade, and that the Corn Laws were 
 doomed. Under this impression he wrote, in February, 
 1842, the following verses, that appeared in the place 
 reserved for him in the Morning Chronicle of the 23rd of 
 that month : — 
 
 "A THRENODY ON THE APPROACHING DEATH OF OLD MOTHER 
 
 CORN-LAW. 
 
 ' ' I see, I see, it is coming fast, 
 Our dear old Corn-Law's doom is cast ! 
 That ancient Lady, of high degree, 
 Is as near her end as she well can be ; 
 And much will all vulgar caters of bread 
 Rejoice, when they see her fairly dead. 
 For never, from ancient Medea * down 
 To the late Mrs. Iirownrigg, of bad renown, 
 Has any old dame been known, they aver, 
 Who could starve and carve poor folks like her. 
 
 * This lady, as is well known, was in the agricultural line. See, for an 
 account of her farming operations, "Ovid, Metamorph.," vii., 285. Her skill 
 in "carving " is thus briefly described by the same poet — 
 
 " stricto Medea rccludit 
 
 Mm. e Benis jugulum ."
 
 THE ANTI-COKN-LAW AND FEEE-TEADE PAETY. 13? 
 
 " But, dear old damsel, they wrong her sadly, 
 'Twas all by law she behaved so badly ; 
 And God forbid, whate'er the event, 
 That free-born Britons should e'er repent 
 Wrongs done by Act of Parliament. 
 
 " But is it, indeed, then come to this, 
 After all our course of high-bread bliss ? 
 Poor, dear old Corn-Law I — prop of Peers, 
 And glory of Squires, through countless years, 
 Must all thy structure of Pounds and Pence, 
 Like another Babylon, vanish hence ? 
 Must towering Prices and Rents sublime, 
 Thus topple, like turrets touch'd by time, — 
 And all, for what ? that each shirtless oaf, 
 May bolt, for breakfast, a larger loaf ? ! 
 For this one vulgar purpose alone 
 Is all this inelegant mischief done. 
 For this poor Knatchbull — hard privation — 
 Must lower a peg his ' social station ! ' 
 For this even lords (distressing thought) 
 Will soon to short commons all be brought : 
 "Will fall with their wheat, so much per quarter, 
 And get to look blue as Bucky's garter. 
 And stars will grow pale, as prices fail, 
 And fees in tail will be cut off for sale, 
 And all will sink, by a sliding scale, — 
 As 'slips o'er its slime the sleek slug-snail,' — * 
 Nor leave one Corn-lord, high and hale, 
 Though they flourish now, to tell the tale ! " 
 
 Mr. Moore collected the stray verses, which for two 
 years he continued to contribute to the Morning Chronicle, 
 hut this either escaped his researches, or, for some reason 
 i >r other, he did not see fit to include it with the others in 
 
 * A line borrowed, with but little alteration, from one of the Lake poets, 
 the original being as follows: — 
 
 " Slow sliding o'er its slime the slippery, sleek, slug-snail."
 
 liU FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the one volume edition of his Poems, published in 1843 by 
 Messrs. Longman and Co. Another of the poems which 
 he contributed to the Chronicle at this time, has in like 
 manner dropped out from or been refused admission into 
 his collected works, and is as follows, now reprinted from 
 his own MS. : — 
 
 "APOLLO AT OXFORD. 
 
 " 'Twill charm all lovers of song to be told, 
 
 That their friend, Apollo, now grown rather old, 
 And a good deal, of late, from the world retired, 
 Since his Patent for Inspiration expired, 
 Is now, on a visit, from Pindus come down, 
 And may daily he met with incog, about town. 
 
 " Of late, though he once much loved notoriety, 
 Apollo but seldom goes into society ; — 
 A very wise policy, ev'n in a God, 
 When he finds that his Godship's beginning to nod ; 
 And 'tis pity the hint isn't yet found out 
 By another Immortal that's going about — 
 Though it doesn't, perhaps, exactly follow 
 That Mars should have quite as much brains as Apollo. 
 
 " Poor Apollo, — his luck in the art obstetrical 
 Is hardly much better than 'tis in the metrical. 
 He once, — as attending the Mu es his trade is, — 
 Was Accoucheur-General to all the Nine Ladies. 
 But now a young .Muse, to be well put to bed, 
 Sends for Longman, Murray, or Moxon, instead : 
 And, as for the offspring, though midwives Hatter, 
 And foes in disguise with praise bespatter, 
 Depend on't, the God lias no hand in the matter. 
 
 " No wonder the God, thus wrong'd, should sigh, 
 And think poor Poesy's day gone by, — 
 Nay, ev'n to the Muses a line should drop, 
 Advising those damsels to shut up shop. 
 But, no, — his glory had not yet set, 
 There was light and life; in his Future yet ;
 
 THE ANTI- CORN-LAW AND FREE-TRADE PARTY. Ill 
 
 And — what seemed most in the marvellous line — 
 
 From Oxford bards 'twas all to shine ! 
 
 Yes, Oxford, — spite of her famed Decree, 
 
 In the year Sixteen Hundred and Eighty-Three, 
 
 When her big-wig sages, of every degree, 
 
 And her then Professors of Poetry, 
 
 Pronounced John Milton's name to be 
 
 Not fit for Christian society ! — ■* 
 
 Yes, Oxford now would for all atone, 
 
 And, perhaps oblige us with the loan 
 
 Of a bran-new Milton of her own. 
 
 ..- 
 
 Such was the hope of better days 
 For college politics, college lays, 
 That o'er the God their illusion shed, 
 As he lay, one foggy morn, in bed, 
 Perusing The Sun, by a farthing taper, — 
 (That being Apollo's favourite paper) 
 And, lord, how it made his old heart caper ! 
 FJp jumped he, brisk as in younger days, 
 Tlrrew an old surtout around his rays, 
 And for Oxford instantly ordered a chaise. 
 
 " Poor credulous God, how he came to believe 
 In Oxonian poets, I cannot conceive. 
 One reverend bard they can boast, but, alack, 
 A Milman's as rare as a swan, in black. 
 
 " What befell the God afterwards, every one knows, 
 And should only be told in mournful prose ; 
 For, ne'er hath Immortal, of rhyming renown, 
 Experienced, on earth, such a prose set-down ; 
 Nor will poor Apollo, if spared to us yet, 
 Through his whole eternity e'er forget, 
 The shock that came o'er his ambrosial frame, 
 When, listening to catch some high-toned name, 
 Some sounding link of that chain sublime, 
 Which lengthens its music through all time, 
 
 * In some Latin verses written in commemoration of this Decree, the 
 following line occurs : — 
 
 "Miltonum, terris coeloque inamabile aomen."
 
 142 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 He heard no name but — what shall I say ? 
 
 How picture Apollo's face that day, 
 
 Or breathe into any initiate ear 
 
 The inglorious names he was doomed to hear ? 
 
 They were only two — but such a Two ! 
 
 It seem'd as from each an arrow flew, 
 
 To pierce his Godship through and through ; 
 
 And each had a label pinned thereto, 
 
 As if with deadlier aim to barb it, — 
 
 On one was ' Williams,' on t'other ' Gakbett ! 
 
 *' O'er the rest of the story we draw a veil, — 
 Let shocked Posterity finish the Tale."
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE 
 
 REACH. 
 
 It was one of my duties to open all the letters addressed 
 to the editor, to consign such as were silly, worthless, or 
 irrelevant to the waste-paper basket, to mark for publica- 
 tion such as were well written on points of general interest, 
 which contained valuable information, and which made 
 suggestions that were worthy of consideration, or which 
 preferred well-founded complaints of grievances that it 
 was of public importance to redress. Whenever any 
 subject, political, literary, or social, was prominently before 
 the public, the letter-writers, always active, pertinaceous, 
 and buzzing about the newspapers like flies at a horse's 
 head in hot weather, redoubled their useless and pro- 
 voking energies. None but those who have had some 
 experience in the matter can imagine the vast heaps of 
 drivelling inanity and offensive silliness sent hi the form 
 of letters to an influential journal, and which the writers, 
 though their lucubrations are ill-spelt, ungrammatical, 
 incoherent, and ill-reasoned, each and all think good 
 enough for publication. On any great public question, 
 such as Free Trade and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, or 
 any important and stirring debate in Parliament, the
 
 Ill FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 letter- writers, as far as my experience went, had very 
 little to say ; but on small social questions they generally 
 hurst forth like one of the plagues of Egypt. A cheating 
 case at whist at one of the clubs produced letters that 
 might, be counted by the thousand ; and the famous dis- 
 pute of Lord Cardigan, then Lord Brudenell, with one of 
 his brother officers, about wine in a black bottle at the 
 regimental mess at which he presided as colonel, produced,, 
 literally and without exaggeration, a cart-load of waste 
 paper dming the three weeks that the public interest in 
 the trumpery matter continued unabated. Sometimes, 
 however, though rarel} T , a letter woidd come from one of 
 the most prominent men of the time, from Lord John 
 Russell, from Lord Brougham, from Daniel O'Connell, 
 whose name for many } r ears appeared oftener in the public 
 journals, for praise or blame, than that of any contemporary, 
 or from others equally noted, which, of course, received 
 immediate attention. The Rev. S} r dne3 r Smith addressed 
 his famous letter to the Pennsylvanians, through the 
 medium of the Morning Chronicle, and brought it to th< 
 office himself. It had no caption in heading as originally 
 written ; and I asked him, in printing-office parlance, how 
 the letter should be headed. "Headit, 'Pay many money/' 
 he replied, " or simply, ' To the Pennsylvanians. 5 " The 
 letter was afterwards republished in his collected works. 
 Another letter with which about the same time he favoured 
 the Chronicle was addressed to Sir Robert Peel. Then 
 had been a shocking railway accident, which had excited 
 much indignation against the practice of railway officials 
 of locking people in the carriages, so that they could not 
 easily extricate themselves in case of danger. So much
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE REACH. 145 
 
 discussion had ensued in the newspapers — a discussion in 
 which Mr. Sydney Smith took part — that the subject was 
 mentioned in Parliament. Sir Robert Peel, remembering 
 the hard rubs he had from time to time received from his 
 reverend opponent, took occasion to ridicule one of 
 Sydney Smith's letters, and to attribute the interest he 
 took in the matter to " personal fear ." Thereupon the 
 canon of St. Paul's rushed into print with the following- 
 characteristic letter, which is here reprinted verbatim et 
 literatim from the original MS., without correction of its 
 offences against orthography : — 
 
 " To Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 " a Cruel attack upon me S r . Robert to attribute all 
 my interference with the arbitrary proceedings of Rail 
 Roads to personal fear. 
 
 "Nothing can be more ungrateful, and unkind: I 
 thought only of you and for you — as many Whigg Gentle- 
 men will bear me testimony who rebuked me for my 
 anxiety. I said to myself and to them our lovely and 
 intrepid Minister may be overthrown on the rail. The 
 Lock'd door may be uppermost he will kick and call on 
 the Speaker, and the Sergeant at arms in vain — nothing 
 will remain of all his graces, his flexibilities, his fascinating 
 facetious fury, his Social Warmth, nothing of his flow of 
 Soul, of his dear heavy pleasantry, of his prevailing Skill 
 to impart disorderly Wishes to the purest heart, nothing 
 will remain of it all but an heap of ashes for the parish 
 Church of Tamworth. he perishes at the moment that 
 he is becoming as powerful in the drawing-room of Court 
 
 VOL. I. j,
 
 14.6 FORTY YEAR'S RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 as in the house of parliament, at the Moment when 
 
 Hullah (not without hopes of ultimate success) is teaching 
 
 him to sing, and Melinotte to dance. 
 
 " I have no doubt of your bravery S r . Robert though 
 
 you have of mine, but then Consider what different Lives- 
 
 Ave have led, and what a School of Corage is that Troop 
 
 of Yeomany at Tamworth, the Tory fencibles : who can 
 
 doubt of your Corage who has seen you at their head 
 
 Marching up Pitt Street through Dundas Square on to 
 
 Liverpool Lane ? and looking all the while like those 
 
 beautiful medals of Bcllona frigida and Mars sine 
 
 Sanguine, the very horses looking at you as if you were 
 
 going to take away 3 per cent, of their oats. After such 
 
 Spectacles as these the account 3-011 give of your own 
 
 Corage cannot be doubted. The only little Circumstance 
 
 which I cannot entirely reconcile to the possession of this 
 
 very high attribute in so eminent a degree, is that 3-011 
 
 should have selected for your uncourteoiis attacks 
 
 Enemies who cannot resent and a place where there can 
 
 he no reply. 
 
 " I am, Sr, yr. obt. St. 
 
 " Sydney Smith." 
 " Junc20tL, 1842." 
 
 In another letter to the Chronicle, in which the reverend 
 gentleman had written ' skipping spirit,' the words were 
 printed ' stripping spirit.' He wrote to set the matter 
 right ; but the printer and the printer's reader could make 
 nothing of the words — so all but illegible was the manu- 
 script — but ' stripling spirit.' After this second failure the 
 facetious canon gave up the contest, confessing that the
 
 NEWSPAPER "WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE PEACH. 147 
 
 fault was entirely his own ; that he had wasted several of 
 the hest years of his life at the university ; that he knew 
 something of Horace and Homer, hut that he could not 
 spell decently ; could not write a hand that a printer 
 could read ; and could not work out correctly a simple 
 sum in elementary arithmetic. 
 
 Prior to the year 1841 the business of newspaper 
 reporting was not to be considered among the fine arts, 
 or one that required much literary ability. The great 
 things needful for a reporter were quickness, facility 
 in short-hand, and the faculty of abridgment so as to 
 omit judiciously from the speech of a long-winded orator, 
 all irrelevant matter, and all needless repetitions, to give 
 if necessary the spirit without the form of a speech, and 
 to be able to finish in print the sentences which too many 
 public speakers are unable to complete when addressing 
 an audience. The reporter was never called upon to 
 describe anything he saw or to indulge in language of 
 his own. His business was to hear and not to see, to 
 reproduce the meaning and the language of others, 
 whether in Parliament, in the Courts of Law, or in public 
 meetings. Some of the best reporters of that and a 
 previous time were short-hand writers only, and had no 
 more pretensions to literature than a scene-shifter had tc 
 tragic or to comic power. To obtain a connection with 
 journals of the highest class it was of course an advan- 
 tage to a man to be something better than a short-hand 
 writer, for the Parliamentary reporters being for the most 
 part engaged by the year, and Parliament being in recess 
 at least half that time, he who in the Parliamentary 
 vacation could review books or write notices of new 
 
 L 2
 
 148 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 pieces or new actors at the theatres, "was of greater value 
 to his employers than he who was but an echo of what lie 
 heard. But beyond these two spheres of usefulness, the 
 reporter was seldom or never required to travel. His 
 work was almost purely mechanical, and matters of 
 description were left to a very inferior class of men 
 known as "penny-a-liners," who were paid by the job, 
 and often personally unknown to the editors to whose 
 journals they contributed. It was their interest to spin 
 out then reports to the greatest possible length, and to 
 tell the story of accidents, fires, robberies, murders, and 
 executions which formed the specialties of their business 
 with a plethora of words and phrases that was always 
 wearisome and often abominable. But a change was 
 approaching. In the year 1841, a young Scottish gen- 
 tleman named Angus Bethune Beach arrived in London 
 from Inverness, and presented a letter of introduction at 
 the Morning Chronicle office. He was just of age, and, 
 finding his native town in the Highlands too small for 
 the exercise of his literary talents, determined to launch 
 into the wider sea of London, and try his fortune on the 
 daily press. He had had some little experience on the 
 Inverness Courier, and the letter he brought addressed to 
 myself was from Mr. Bobert Carruthers, the accomplished 
 editor of that journal. It was a desperate venture on 
 which he had entered, but he had a strong heart to 
 surmount strong obstacles. And his very obstacles did 
 him good service. His father, once the leading solicitor 
 in Inverness, had fallen upon evil da} r s, from the exercise — 
 it was reported — of a too generous hospitality in the enter- 
 tainment of distinguished strangers, who arrived in the
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE PEACH. 149 
 
 " capital of the highlands," and in his old age had found 
 it necessary to break up his home and with his wife 
 to accompany his son to London. It is usually hard 
 work for a young man in the metropolis without other 
 profession than literature to maintain himself; but poor 
 Angus Reach had a threefold burden — to him no burden 
 because his love, his hope, and his consciousness of 
 genius supported him. There was unluckily no vacancy 
 for him on the Chronicle. If there had been, he Avas too 
 young and inexperienced for political work, and for the 
 work of reporting in Parliament (for which there was 
 always a demand in those days when every London 
 morning paper had its own staff of reporters) he was 
 disqualified because he was unable to write short-hand. 
 This disqualification he immediately set himself to 
 remove, and in the meantime, thanks to one sympathising 
 spirit who knew his worth, and had the means in a 
 humble way of pushing him forward — he procured occa- 
 sional employment — in describing those events of minor 
 importance, but of general interest which the public liked 
 to read, and very speedily played havoc with the small 
 penny-a-liners on whom the Chronicle as well as other 
 papers had formerly been compelled to rely. His father, 
 too — Mr. Roderick Reach — a shrewd and able man, with 
 an excellent literary style, found employment as the 
 London correspondent of the Inverness Courier, of which 
 he was once the proprietor. Mr. Roderick Reach was 
 among the first to enter into this walk of journalism, 
 which has since been so largely trodden, and by means 
 of the wayfarers in which the public of the provinces arc 
 kept so much more, fully informed of the minor doings
 
 150 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the notabilities of the metropolis, and of all the 
 gossip and small talk of fashion than the Londoners 
 themselves. There was at last a vacancy in the report- 
 ing department of the Chronicle, consequent upon the 
 death of the gentleman who attended the Central 
 Criminal Court, and Angus Reach, pre-informed by 
 myself, was the first candidate in the field. The office 
 was not one of great emolument, hut it was a certainty ; 
 and Reach, to the great joy of himself and family, 
 obtained it. He had now got his foot on the first rung 
 of the literary ladder, and his upward progress was both 
 steady and rapid. A fortunate accident led to his 
 advancement to the Parliamentary gallery, where he 
 acquitted himself with distinction. One of the ordinary 
 staff had been suddenly called upon to leave London on 
 business of importance to remain absent for two or three 
 weeks, but had begged hard to be excused for 
 domestic and other reasons, to the great annoyance of 
 the editor. The difficulty was to procure a substitute 
 during the day, and it so happened that Reach was in 
 the writing room busy in transcribing his notes. His 
 name was suggested and found acceptance. Being 
 asked how long it would take him to get read}', he 
 promptly replied, " half an hour or less." " That's a, 
 man to get on! " said Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Easthope, 
 "a true Scotsman, always ready." 
 
 This fortunate circumstance raised him at once from a 
 subordinate to a superior station, and secured him the 
 favour of those who had power to advance him still 
 higher. 
 
 In the capacity of a narrator of events which largely
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE REACH. 151 
 
 interested the public, lie was constantly employed ; and 
 introduced a style till then unpractised, except in the 
 editorial articles, by means of which he brought before 
 the reader's mind a vivid picture, such as a novelist 
 would paint, of eveiy occurrence that passed under his 
 •eye — rapid, correct, graphic, and full of life and anima- 
 tion. Under his influence the reader could but see what 
 he saw, hear what he heard, and share all the emotions 
 and excitements of an actual spectator of the scene. 
 This was an immense advance upon the old reporting 
 style. It immediately found imitators in other journals, 
 -and picturesque reporting became thenceforward the 
 fashion, and has so remained to this da} T , when the 
 picturesque threatens to be swallowed up by the sensa- 
 tional. 
 
 The story of men of letters who are not born to the 
 inheritance of fortune, and are compelled to earn their 
 bread by the rewards of literary labour, is generally a sad 
 one. A man can make a shoe, or dig in a garden, or 
 plough in a field, sell cheese or cloth, or follow any other 
 trade or occupation day after day without interruption or 
 fatigue. It costs no more effort of the mind or body to 
 -sell a thousand cheeses or a thousand bales of cotton, than 
 to sell one ; but far different is the case of the author, 
 successful or unsuccessful. There is alwa} r s a market for 
 •commodities ; but if a man by airy possibility could write 
 a thousand editorial articles in a week, where would be 
 the market for more than one or two of them ? Even 
 popularity has its drawbacks, for if once the cry is raised 
 .against a popular author that he writes too much, his 
 popularity is from that moment on the wane. But he
 
 152 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 who writes for bread must continue to write for bread or 
 die, whatever may be the outcry against him for the 
 crime — so serious in critical eyes — of writing too much- 
 Happily it is not necessary in the great fight for daily 
 bread which those who without fortune to aid them, are 
 bound to fight if they enter the lists of literature, to sign 
 their names to all that they write, or the reiteration of 
 some names would be prejudicial to themselves and per- 
 haps distasteful to their readers. But, in the first 
 '.•xuberance of youthful success, and the consciousness of 
 power, this prudent consideration is apt to be disregarded, 
 and the young aspirant, aspiring too much, never thinks 
 how delicate are the tissues of the brain, or that, if he 
 overwork the fine faculties the exercise of which gives- 
 him subsistence in the present and promises him fame 
 in the future, he runs the risk of even worse than death. 
 And as for signing the name, it is, at the outset of a 
 literary career, the one thing that the youthful author 
 most desires. It is an advertisement, an aid to his 
 business if he do his business well, and a proof of the 
 growing popularity on which he expects to thrive. This 
 was especially the case with Angus Reach. No amount 
 of work seemed too much for him, and however appa- 
 rently overburthened, he seldom refused any task thai 
 came in his way in any department of journalism or 
 literature. He had not been three years engaged in the 
 hard and well-nigh exhaustive work of the Morning 
 Chronicle, which involved the sitting up till long past 
 midnight and often till daybreak, before his hand was. 
 seen in half-a-dozen magazines and periodicals. Every 
 subject seemed equally familiar to him. If never exceed-
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE PEACH. 153 
 
 ingly good, lie was never exceedingly bad, but always 
 respectable and up to the required mark. He was as 
 punctual as the clock, and always performed what he 
 promised by the time he promised. Whether he wrote 
 descriptive and always excellent accounts of daily events ; 
 whether he reviewed books in any department of literature ; 
 whether he criticised a play or an actor, an opera or a 
 prima donna; whether he wrote an original article, a 
 sketch, a parody, or a skit ; whether he wrote prose or 
 verse, or whether he took the longer flights of fancy and 
 imagination, and the hard work necessary to produce a 
 novel or romance ; he was always sure to write something 
 that was interesting, readable, and creditable to his head 
 and heart. It was said of his amazing fertility and 
 facility, by a friend, half in jest and half in earnest — "that 
 if Reach were asked to write a great historical tragedy and 
 given a month for the task, he would undertake it without 
 hesitation, and astonish his employer by bringing it to 
 him cut and dry in less than ten days." The calls upon 
 his purse were heavy, and were rendered still heavier 
 when he took to himself a wife ; and he never found 
 himself in a position with all his industry, to refuse a 
 literary job of any kind, or to be able to say that he was 
 fully a week before the world, and could lie fallow for 
 that time without production. If the day could not 
 suffice him he drew upon the night. If the night were 
 not enough, he drew upon the day, drew upon the hours 
 of sleep, exercise, and recreation, and ate his dinner 
 writing. And when sleep claimed the necessary rest for 
 the brain, he bribed sleep away by copious libations of 
 strong tea or coffee, borrowing time as it were at usurious
 
 154 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 interest. He wrote — besides articles uncountable, and 
 that have never been collected, and possibly never will 
 •or can be — three good novels, " Clement Lorimer," the 
 "Book with the Iron Clasps," and the "Buccaneers." He 
 also made an extended inquiry for the Morning Chronicle 
 into the condition of the working classes in the midland 
 districts of England, especially of Sheffield and the 
 neighbourhood ; and one still more extended and interest- 
 ing, into the condition of the wine-growers and vine- 
 labourers in the Garonne, which was afterwards repub- 
 lished in a volume entitled " Claret and Olives," and 
 dedicated to one whom it pleased him to call his " earliest 
 and kindest literary friend." For about fourteen years 
 lie carried on tins galloping trade, always ready and 
 willing, always facile, always delighting his readers and 
 •delighting in his work, always needing the rewards of 
 his work so laboriously but pleasantly earned, but never 
 thinking — or if thinking never allowing the thought to 
 •stop him — that the pitcher was going too often to the 
 well, that the mind was not like the widow's cruse, 
 inexhaustible, and that it had to be continually replen- 
 ished if it would continue to outpour, and that like 
 bountiful earth it required now and then to lie fallow for 
 the sake of its own fertility. " Let not the strong man 
 rejoice in his strength." Here was, if ever, a strong 
 man, and one who rejoiced in his strength, bold, buoyant, 
 hopeful, defiant, thinking no evil, and ready for all that 
 fate or fortune might impose upon him, cultivating the 
 intellectual at the expense of his physical faculties, and 
 taking no heed of the body without whose aid the mighty, 
 the majestic soul is nothing, — at least in this world.
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. ANGUS BETHUNE REACH. 155 
 
 One day — lie was only thirty-five years of age, and had 
 been about fourteen years in London — he went into the 
 shop of Colnaghi, the print seller in Pall- Mall, on 
 some business of art criticism for the Morning Chronicle. 
 He had not been there many minutes when he suddenly 
 felt a strange sensation in his head as if something had 
 snapped in his brain with a loud report, succeeded by a 
 dizziness, a half swooning, and a general haze, confusion, 
 and mistiness of thought. The sensation passed off in 
 & few minutes and he thought of it no more. But it was 
 the death warning, though he did not know it at the time. 
 Had he taken a holiday, had he climbed the mountain- 
 top, rowed his boat on the river or the lake, taken a 
 voyage to the Antipodes, or set off on a walking excursion 
 through the "lens of his native Scotland, or done any- 
 thing but write, he might have repaired the evil which he 
 had done to the delicate organism of the brain, repaired 
 the broken or snapped string of the harp of intellect, and 
 prolonged his useful days. But he treated the warning 
 as of no account ; did not, in fact, suspect that it was a 
 warning'; had no one to tell him that the alarm-bell had 
 sounded ; and went on recklessly, hopefully, triumphantly 
 as before. But not for long. After a couple of months 
 there was a second warning, louder than the first, and he 
 had to retire from the battle-field of his business, a 
 wounded soldier of literature. The Morning Chronicle 
 was mindful of his merits and his labours, though all or 
 nearly all were not expended in its service, and paid him 
 his salary as of old, in the hope of his recovery. Months 
 passed. He grew no better, some of his friends thought 
 worse, and his spirit began to chafe at the thought of
 
 156 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 accepting unearned money. His wife in this emergency- 
 came to the rescue and established a Berlin wool and 
 stationery shop in Albany Street, Regent's Park, and 
 appealed to her helpless husband's friends for support 
 and patronage. One of his literary friends (I will not 
 mention the name of this prosperous person — now no 
 more) took so much pity on his former colleague and 
 partner in many literary enterprises, as to buy all his 
 stationery, and especially his sealing-wax, of his unfor- 
 tunate brother. But the poor shop came to a sudden 
 end. A shop like everything else requires time to grow, 
 and it was expected by poor Beach's nearest and dearest 
 connections, though not by poor Beach himself, who was 
 by this time beyond hoping — almost beyond living — that 
 the shop would grow up, like Jonah's gourd in a night. 
 The Morning Chronicle salary was by this time becoming 
 a dubious and precarious reliance. The Chronicle was 
 not over prosperous; and it was not in the bond 
 to maintain even a good servant beyond a certain 
 reasonable time and a certain reasonable hope of his 
 recovery. There were ominous rumours that the salary 
 must surcease, collapse, end, and vanish into good wishes. 
 At this juncture Mr. Shirley Brooks — who himself owed 
 his connection with the press and with the Morning 
 ( 'hronicle to the good offices of Angus Beach — volunteered 
 to perform the duties of the sick man in addition to his 
 own, if the salary of the sick man were continued. This 
 noble arrangement lasted for nearly a twelvemonth, and 
 might have lasted longer, only in the meantime poor 
 Angus Reach died of softening of the brain, in the early 
 prime of his manhood, in the very fructification of his
 
 NEWSPAPER WORK. AXGUS BETHUNE BEACH. 157 
 
 genius ; died of intemperance in work and of ignorance 
 of the fact that the body is the soul's labourer, and that 
 if the labourer be neglected or badly used, the work must 
 suffer or stop. In the case of poor Angus Reach the 
 work stopped, and literature lost one who in happier 
 circumstances might have added to it a great name, and 
 written it on enduring stone or brass ; not as John Keats 
 said in his melancholy epitaph on himself — " in water."
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 
 
 In the summer of 1838, a Polish gentleman, who had 
 been introduced to me some time previously by Thomas- 
 Campbell, the poet, well-known for the zeal with which he 
 advocated the cause of Polish Independence, called at the 
 Morning Chronicle office, and asked me to present him to 
 Mr. Black. He had become possessed of the copy of a re- 
 markable Document, which had been deposited among the 
 secret archives of the Russian Court at St. Petersburg, and 
 the author of which had been munificently rewarded by the 
 Czar Nicholas. The French Revolution of 1830, followed 
 by that of the Belgians, and \>y the great revolt of the 
 Poles against Paissia, had greatly displeased and alarmed 
 the Czar. Nicholas refused to recognise the King of the 
 Barricades, as Louis Philippe was then called, refused 
 also to acknowledge the Independence of Belgium, and 
 the accession of King Leopold ; and put forth all his 
 strength to crush the Poles in their gallant attempt to 
 recover their independence. The Polish cause excited 
 great enthusiasm both in France and England ; but the 
 displeasure of the powerful Czar was chiefly vented 
 against France, as the fons ct origo of all the revolu-
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 151> 
 
 tionary excesses of Europe. The Document, based on 
 adequate knowledge of the Czar's hostility to French 
 democrac}', proposed a plan for the dismemberment of 
 France, and the creation out of its ruins of several 
 .small states, to be called " The Confederation of Gaul." 
 My Polish friend was of opinion that the Document 
 of which he had become possessed was of considerable 
 pecuniary value, and offered it for sale to the Morning 
 Chronicle. Mr. Black, though of opinion that the docu- 
 ment was interesting, if not very important, declined to 
 purchase it at the very high price which was put upon it. 
 My Polish acquaintance forthwith resolved to offer it to 
 the Times, and told me two days afterwards that he had 
 been very courteously received by Mr. Thomas Barnes, 
 the then editor of that journal, at his house in Soho 
 Square, who after perusal of his manuscript had coun- 
 selled him to publish it as a pamphlet at Bidgway's, and 
 had promised to direct public attention to it in the 
 leading columns of the Times, as soon as it made its 
 appearance. This advice was acted upon, the pamphlet 
 was shortly afterwards published, and Mr. Barnes kept 
 his promise by devoting a leading article of the Times to- 
 it, and thus spreading a knowledge of it through all 
 Europe. The Morning Chronicle, which at that time 
 made it a point to disagree with the Times in every thing,, 
 denounced the pamphlet as a forgery, chiefly because no 
 sane man like the Emperor Nicholas would have rewarded 
 any one for proposing a scheme so extravagant, and so 
 offensive. The Morning .Post, the Courier, and the 
 Globe, then called Cupid, and supposed to be under 
 the immediate control of Lord Palmerston, were all at a
 
 180 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 loss to decide whether the pamphlet were a forgery or a 
 joke; not considering that it might be neither, and that 
 there was nothing to prevent any clever or imaginative 
 diplomatist, young or old, in the Russian Foreign Office, 
 from drawing up such a plan, or the Czar' from being 
 pleased with and paying for it. The style of political 
 warfare in those not very remote days, differed greatly 
 from the more courteous methods of our time, when 
 rival newspapers do not call each other offensive 
 names, or indeed seldom trouble themselves to indulge 
 in controversy with each other. It would excite no 
 little wonder in the year 1875, if the Times were to 
 publish such a leader as appeared in its impression of 
 the 26th of July, 1838, in defence of the editor of the 
 *' Confederation of Gaul," and in wild and silly abuse of 
 all who differed from it in opinion as to the authenticity of 
 that production. It is here subjoined as a specimen 
 of the polemics of a bygone era, and of the amenities 
 of London journalism when Messrs. Barnes and Bacon 
 presided over the destinies of the Times, and were con- 
 stantly ridiculed b}^ Daniel O'Connell, as Messrs. "Beans 
 and Bacon." 
 
 " That many impartial and unprejudiced persons may 
 doubt the genuineness of the Russian diplomatic paper en- 
 titled ' The Confederation of Gaul,' we can readily believe ; 
 and although, as we have already stated, we strongly 
 incline to the contrary opinion, we certainly have no 
 desire to make converts of those who take a different 
 view of the document. Nor should we, now, at least, 
 trouble ourselves to make the attempt, even if we had
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 16] 
 
 been at first disposed to make it, — for the judgment 
 pronounced upon it by a portion of the press remarkable 
 chiefly for its ignorance and impudence, and the manner 
 in which the coxcombs have delivered that judgment, are 
 far more calculated than anything we could say to shake 
 whatever doubts may have been entertained respecting 
 the existence of such a paper in the Russian archives, 
 and to induce a conviction of its reality. Two Minis- 
 terial evening papers, and one morning print ' in the 
 same interest,' {The Morning Chronicle), insist that the 
 document is a forgery, and so does a would-be Conser- 
 vative print of low circulation {The Morning Post), and 
 of still lower character, which is not read anywhere but 
 in servants' halls, house-keepers' rooms, and butlers' 
 pantries, nor to any very great extent even in those 
 quarters, if we may judge by the stamp-returns. 
 
 " This kitchen-stuff journal assails the publisher of 
 the document in the true Mrs. Slipslop stjde, calling 
 him an ' impudent varlet,' and we know not how many 
 other jjolite names, borrowed from area railings ; while, 
 by a piece of facetiousness, which can be fully appre- 
 ciated only by those who happen to have been born within 
 the sound of Bow bells, the name of the author of the 
 document, though imperfectly given in the original 
 (' Ivan***,') is guessed to be Ivanhoff. ' The last syllable 
 of the name,' says this Cockney out of livery, ' is cut 
 (li)ofim the original (h original ?), ergo (//ergo ?), Ivanhoff 
 (HivanhofT?) must be the man! ' Now, of the authenti- 
 city of what document, alleged to be Prussian (if we 
 except the label on a pot of bear's grease), can such 
 a simpleton as this pretend to judge ? 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " That abject slave and unprincipled tool of the 
 Ministers, the Courier, follows in the wake of the print 
 we have been describing : quotes and adopts, as the 
 production of a ' lively vein,' the very joke we have just 
 cited, and honours us with the title of ' Blunderer.' "We 
 are not surprised at this. It would have been very 
 unnatural if the Courier had not attacked us, and patted 
 the preposterous joker on the head. 
 
 ' Blockheads, with reason, wicked wits abhor, 
 But fool 'gainst fool, is barb'rous civil war. ' 
 
 As a farther evidence of sagacity, the Courier adds — 
 ' at the first glance we recognized the parentage of the 
 work : the author is evidently a Frenchman.' Now, any 
 one who understands the French language, in which the 
 document is written, and will take the trouble to read it, 
 must discover, though not 'at the first glance,' that it 
 could not have been written by a Frenchman. So much 
 for wiseacre the second, who is as positive as wiseacre 
 the first, and with quite as little reason, that the docu- 
 ment must be a forgery. 
 
 " Our amusing cotemporary, Cupid, comes next, and 
 was apparently about to attempt some ground for his 
 opinion that the paper is a forgery, when the manner in 
 which the name of its author is printed (viz., ' Ivan***') 
 caught his eye. Ciqrid, characteristically enough, was at 
 once in nubibus. Clapping his hands at the asterisks, 
 the ' old boy ' exclaimed, ' Mr. Ivan with the stars — Mr. 
 Ivan with the stars — the fellow is as great an impostor as 
 Mr. Murphy; the whole thing must be an imposition.' 
 And with this ' the god of soft persuasion ' broke off,
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 163 
 
 much, we suspect, to the surprise of his readers, but 
 evidently perfectly well satisfied with himself a VordA- 
 naire, and looking, we doubt not, as he winged his way 
 to the Foreign-office, as contented and as intellectual as 
 a chubby- cheeked cherub carved on a country tombstone. 
 ''Lastly, we have the morning Ministerial organ, {The 
 Morning Chronicle) , which ' proceeds the entire swine ' for 
 the Government on all occasions, except when its own 
 pounds, shillings, and pence (railroads to wit*) are con- 
 cerned. Flippant and foolish as its brother blockheads, 
 it has moreover the ill-luck to assign two reasons for its 
 decided conviction that the document is not authentic. 
 The first is, that one of the articles says, ' The King of 
 Spain, Charles V., shall obtain Navarre,' &c. ; that the 
 plan is dated 15th of June, 1833, and that at that date 
 Ferdinand was still on the throne of Spam. This foolish 
 quibble is noticed in our columns b} r the editor of the 
 pamphlet in which the document appears. The second 
 reason is, that in the next article, which restores Le 
 Bresse and Le Bugay to the King of Sardinia, 'the allied 
 Powers recommend the King of Sardinia to give quite 
 a republican Government to this state, whose inhabitants 
 are well known for their attachment to freedom.' It is, 
 according to this print, the height of waggery to put 
 such language into the mouth of the parties to such 
 a scheme, but he forgets that nearly the same lan- 
 guage was constantly used by the despotic Powers 
 previous to the settlement of Europe in 1815, and 
 
 * This was an allusion to the connection of Sir John Easthope with the 
 London and Southampton Railway, of which he was a Director, and with the 
 Havre, Rouen, and Paris Railways, of which he was an energetic promoter. 
 
 m 2
 
 164? FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 that the three parties to the Holy Alliance bind 
 themselves ' agreeably to the words of holy Scripture, 
 which commands all men to love as brethren, and 
 remain united in the bonds of true and indissoluble 
 brotherly love ; always to assist one another ; to govern 
 their subjects as parents ; to maintain religion, peace, and 
 justice.'' Now, suppose the treaty of the Holy Alliance 
 had been surreptitiously obtained from the Russian 
 archives, instead of being officially promulgated, what 
 a wag the Grunticle would have thought the man who 
 declared that the words we have here quoted were to 
 be found in it ! 
 
 "Thus much, then, for the value of the judgment of 
 that part of the press which has been so foolishly for- 
 ward to pronounce the ' Confederation of Gaul ' a forgery. 
 Some of these scribblers, we observe, intimate that the 
 gentleman who has given this document to the world is 
 actuated by no other than selfish and sordid motives. 
 Can it be that he has paid them to advance his object 
 and push the sale of his pamphlet by their abuse ? " 
 
 The editor of the pamphlet wrote in far better taste 
 on this subject than Mr. Barnes, though it must be 
 admitted that the advocacy of Mr. Barnes was warm and 
 thorough; and to use his own phrase "proceeded the 
 entire swine " for his client. 
 
 " The Confederation of Gaul. 
 
 " To the Editor of the * Times: 
 "Sm, 
 
 " As you have so boldly stood forward in the 
 
 cause of truth, by expressing' in your widely circulating
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 165 
 
 columns your belief of the authenticity of the plan for 
 the partition of France, I think it but right to afford you 
 a further justification for your belief, while at the same 
 time I defend myself by answering the perverse reasoning 
 of a prejudiced morning paper. 
 
 "The mam question is this, — is the acknowledged 
 extravagance of this plan any reason why it should not 
 have been deposed among the archives of the Russian 
 empire, and why its author should not have been re- 
 warded ? If the writer in the Morning Chronicle is of 
 opinion that the Emperor Nicholas is too wise and too 
 unambitious to have been pleased with such a project, I 
 can only say that his ignorance of the character of that 
 Sovereign is unpardonable in a public journalist. Let 
 him remember the sane speech of the Emperor at no 
 very distant period, that if aroused to it he would not 
 leave a stone standing at Warsaw. This was said 
 openly (not deposed in the secret archives), and in the 
 face of Europe, which was filled with indignation at the 
 wickedness and extravagance of the threat. 
 
 " As to the pretended anachronism winch is to stamp the 
 document as a forgery, every unprejudiced reader will 
 immediately see that it is no anachronism at all. The 
 plan was a mere plan ; it was not a manifesto. It was to 
 be carried into execution, or it was not, at some distant 
 date. There is no expression hi it which would lead to 
 the belief that it was written to be immediately acted 
 upon. In June, 1833, when it was dated, the conflicting 
 claims of Don Carlos and the infant Princess Isabella 
 were the universal theme of European politicians. The 
 death of Ferdinand was looked for at no remote period,
 
 166 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and the civil war, which broke out a few mouths after- 
 wards, was prepared aud read} 7 to burst forth at the 
 slightest signal. Don Carlos had even then taken all 
 his measures. The document does not call him the 
 actual King of Spain, but the King of Spain that would 
 be when that plan should come to be acted on. 
 
 " In general I do not conceive the logic of some news- 
 papers, which think it impossible that Russia should 
 form a plan ' to cut France in pieces like a perigord-pie. r 
 How many instances we may quote from history hi which 
 powerful princes have cut up countries hi pieces as easily 
 as they would pies, meeting resistance where they did 
 not expect it — at the bones. I am quite as well aware 
 as anybody can be, that Paissia would have found France 
 a tougher dish to dissect with her sword than she found 
 deserted Poland to be, and that she might have so 
 hacked her weapon in the attempt as to have rendered it 
 altogether unfit for future service. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 
 " The Editoe. 
 
 "July 25." 
 
 Mr. Albany Fonblanque, of the Examiner, beyond all 
 comparison the wittiest as well as wisest English journalist 
 whom this country has produced, had his say upon the 
 " Confederation of Gaul." The Times in its first article 
 affirmed that the document was of " fearful importance," 
 upon which the Examiner, of the following Sunday, 
 declared " For belief in the genuineness of a document 
 called ' The Confederation of Gaul,' a confederation of 
 (lulls was absolutely requisite, which the Times has kindly .
 
 THE CONFEDERATION OF GAUL. 107 
 
 endeavoured to bring about.**** About the authenticity 
 of this document of 'fearful importance,' we think it 
 unnecessary to say one word ; but there will shortly be 
 published a plan for the partition of Great Britain, 
 being a copy of a diplomatic paper taken at St. Peters- 
 burg in 1836, from the secret archives of the Russian 
 Court. It is proposed to surrender the Isle of Thanet 
 to the Pope ; to give the rest of Kent and the whole of 
 Surrey to Colonel Sibthorp, under the name of the 
 Kingdom of East Anglia, the capital of the same being 
 St. George's Fields ; France to be contented with that 
 part of Westminster naturally destined for her, called Petty 
 France ; St. James's parish to be a republic ; the Seven 
 Dials also to be a republic, and their Diet to be held in 
 the street of that name ; Her Majesty Queen Victoria 
 to enjoy for herself the title of Queen of Pimlico, her 
 residence being fixed in the palace of the same, and her 
 dominion to be bounded to the east by the iron railings ; 
 to the north by Constitution Hill ; to the west by 
 Grosvenor Place, and to the south by Arabella Row. 
 The Emperor of Russia will be contented with the pig- 
 tail statue of George III. in Cockspur Street. Con- 
 sidering the services which the Duke of "Wellington, in 
 his long career, has rendered to the peaceful policy of 
 the Holy Alliance, and to all the monarchs who have 
 governed England for eighty years, Strathfieldsaye is 
 to be erected into an independent state, ^c.'' 
 
 This little squib made an end of " The Confederation 
 of Gaul," and neither the Times nor any other journal 
 returned again to the subject.
 
 A PROPOSED LITERARY UNION. 
 
 In the summer of 1842, an attempt was made — not for 
 the first time — to bring together the literary men of 
 London into a Union or Institute. The object was not 
 the formation of a club, but of an association, in which 
 authors, journalists, and critics might meet daily for 
 mutual support and assistance in the battle of life ; that 
 they might establish a hall or college of literature, which 
 should unite the purposes of a writing-room, a reading- 
 room, a library of reference, and a social and professional 
 rendezvous, at which translators, copyists, correctors of 
 the press, and working literary men who had not genius 
 enough to write original works, but who had industry 
 and skill enough to be able to render valuable as- 
 sistance to those whose time was more valuable, might 
 make known their wants and capabilities, and so obtain 
 chances of employment, that were otherwise unavailable. 
 It was proposed to give the Institute the name of Milton, 
 one who, all things considered, was the greatest profes- 
 sional man of letters whom England had ever produced ; 
 one who had held the torch of literature aloft in the 
 darkest of times, and had never sullied the purity of his 
 high vocation by word or deed, or printed opinion ; who
 
 A PROPOSED LITERARY UNION. 1G9 
 
 had never prostituted his divine gifts to unworthy pur- 
 poses, or spoken unkindly of the humble. The project 
 was communicated to several of the leading literary men of 
 the time, with some of whom I was, and with some of 
 whom I was not, personally acquainted — soliciting their 
 advice and co-operation. The first answer received came 
 from Mr. Charles Dickens : — 
 
 "Devonshire Terrace, 
 
 "Twenty-sixth July, 1842. 
 
 "My Dear Sir, 
 
 " In the principle of your note I heartily concur. 
 Of the chances that hang about its successful reduction 
 into practice, I am somewhat doubtful. These experi- 
 ments have been very often tried : and have almost as 
 often failed. 
 
 "Nevertheless I shall be exceedingly glad to talk with 
 you upon the subject ; and any morning this week that 
 may be convenient to you, I shall be happy to see you. 
 About one o'clock is usually the best time for such a 
 purpose with me, but choose your own time, and I will 
 make it mine. 
 
 " Faithfully yours always, 
 
 " Charles Dickens. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esquire." 
 
 Mr. Thomas Campbell, author of " The Pleasures of 
 Hope," Dr. Beattie, and others, promised their support. 
 Mr. John Britton, the eminent antiquary, author of an 
 attempt to prove that Junius was Colonel Barre, and of 
 a whole library of topographical, archaeological, and archi- 
 tectural works, looked upon the project with much favour
 
 170 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and exerted himself very zealously in its behalf. A 
 meeting was arranged to take place at the Clarence Club, 
 Waterloo Place, to meet Mr. Campbell, to which was 
 invited, among others, Mr. John Eobertson, formerly 
 editor of the Westminster Review. He wrote : — 
 
 " 12-2, Rill Mall, 
 ' ' Tuesday, 
 
 " My Dear Sir, 
 
 " Need I say that your note has given me great 
 satisfaction. I hail your elevated and manly views of the 
 literary profession with hope as signs of better days to 
 come. 
 
 " Of course I shall be happy to be at the Clarence on 
 Thursday. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 "John Robertson. 
 
 "To Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 Notwithstanding much verbal and epistolary encourage- 
 ment, very little progress was made beyond the drawing 
 up of a plan or prospectus. About eight months after 
 the promulgation of the project, Mr. Eobertson again 
 
 wrote : — 
 
 "122, Tali Mall, 
 
 "19 March, 1840. 
 
 " My deab Sir, 
 
 "I intended to have done myself the pleasure of 
 calling on you and Mr. Britton to-day, but could not 
 accomplish it. Carlyle, whom I saw last night, will 
 positively come on Saturday. He is stout against the 
 status clause. Craik also is resolute against it. Could 
 not the following be better: 'To adopt means to
 
 A PROPOSED LITEPAPY UNION. 171 
 
 strengthen each, other in forming and acting on the 
 noblest views of the literary profession.' I have written 
 an additional paragraph for the prospectus, which, to- 
 gether with my outline of the business for Saturday, I 
 am anxious to submit to yourself and Mr. Britton before 
 that day. 
 
 "I foresee some difficulties in reference to the position 
 of the lady authors. It will be a great kindness if you 
 will turn the matter over, and give us the benefit of your 
 views. Though inclined to make as little difference as 
 possible, we cannot make them councillors, and elect a 
 lady as well as a masculine secretary. 
 
 " Begging you to present my kind compliments to Mr. 
 Britton when showing him this note, 
 
 "I remain, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 John Robertson. 
 
 " To Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 The difficulty as to the status clause, to which Mr. 
 Robertson alluded, was to define who was an author. It 
 might seem at first glance that no such difficulty could 
 well arise ; but it lay at the very threshold of the enter- 
 prise. Sir Robert Peel found it difficult to define a 
 pound, when he held a sovereign between his finger and 
 thumb, and exhibited it to a wondering House of Com- 
 mons ; but his task was easy compared with that which 
 devolved upon us, when we endeavoured truly and satis- 
 factorily to define what we meant b}' an author. We 
 knew that an author was one who wrote and published a 
 history, a biography, a romance, a poem, a philosophical 
 or scientific treatise, who compiled a dictionary or wrote
 
 172 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 a book of travels ; but as a claim was put forward for the 
 writer of a sermon, a review, a leading article in the 
 newspapers, or of a casual and anonymous contribution 
 to a periodical, it became necessary to decide whether 
 such a claim could be allowed ; or, if allowed, whether 
 the composition and publication of one such literary 
 effort were sufficient, and if not, how many ? There also 
 arose, as Mr. Robertson stated it, the question of the 
 authoresses, and whether, if they wished to become 
 members of a Literary Institute, they should not form 
 an Institute exclusively for themselves. B} r this time 
 Mr. Dickens, from whose co-operation much had been 
 expected, had formally withdrawn : — 
 
 "Devonshire Terrace, 
 
 " Seventeenth February, 1843. 
 
 " My dear Mackay, 
 
 " I have such strong reasons to doubt the easy 
 working of your project, and to fear it will end in disap- 
 pointment, that I ' cannot ' — as the honest, and I am 
 sorry to add, very heavy servant in ' High Life Below 
 Stairs,' says, — ' make one among you.' Some of these 
 weighty arguments shall be yours, when I see you next. 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esquire." 
 
 Another serious and ultimately fatal difficulty arose. 
 Suppose an author, whom none could deny to be an 
 author, had published a book or books, of which the 
 tendency, avowed or latent, was immoral, revolutionary, 
 treasonable, or irreligious; or what some of the com-
 
 A PROPOSED LITERARY UNTON. 173 
 
 mittee micdit think as bad or worse than all these — a 
 book that was positively silly and contemptible — was he 
 to be admitted to the Union ? And if not, would not the 
 members of the Union virtually have constituted them- 
 selves into a court of criticism and judgment, and made 
 themselves a literary Yehmgericht ? And would not the 
 exercise of such judgment bring the members into con- 
 stant collision with all the rising and ambitious young 
 members of the literary class ? Another unexpected 
 difficulty arose in the question whether a publisher or 
 bookseller could be admitted, even if he were an author, 
 such as Mr. Moxon, who was both bookseller and poet. 
 These were among the weighty arguments to which Mr. 
 Dickens alluded, and which all received careful and con- 
 scientious attention. A conclusion was arrived at, that 
 authors were something like spiders. The}' could spin 
 silk as well as silkworms ; but, unlike the latter, they could 
 not associate peaceably together, or without endeavour- 
 ing to eat each other up. One of the committee told us 
 a story of a well-intentioned enthusiast, who, being con- 
 vinced that the web of the spider might be made as 
 available for commerce as that of the silkworm, confined 
 about a thousand spiders in a cage. He looked for his 
 busy workers the next morning ; but found that one half 
 of them had been devoured or slain by the other half. 
 At the end of a week only one big, bloated insect was 
 left out of the whole number. And to make the little 
 apologue more applicable to the case in hand, a violent 
 feud broke out amid our deliberations by the curt and 
 insulting refusal of one member of the commttt^e to have 
 any further to do with the project, unless another com-
 
 174 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 mitteeman, whom he named, were forthwith expelled, or 
 compelled to abdicate his place among us. Added to 
 this unlucky occurrence, our project, having but half-a- 
 dozen or a dozen supporters and half a hundred enemies, 
 fell through ; and a certain place, not to be mentioned to 
 ears polite, received a large paving-stone, in the shape of 
 our good intentions.
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 
 
 It was never iny good fortune to see Sir Walter Scott. 
 I was but a youth when he died; and one of nry early 
 recollections is, on arriving in London from the Continent 
 in 1832, to have come unexpectedly upon a long line of 
 carriages and a crowd of people in that portion of Jermyn 
 Street which stretches westwards from the Hay market. 
 I stopped to ask a policeman the cause of the crowd, and 
 he informed me, that " Sir Walter Scott was dying at the 
 St. James's Hotel, and that the string of carriages con- 
 tained people calling to make inquiries." I made my way 
 through the crowd, and stationed myself opposite the 
 hotel, that I might at least see the windows of the house 
 in which the great man was lying. Not knowing in which 
 room he lay, I asked a second policeman if he knew. He 
 replied that the bed-room was the second floor front ; 
 and though I thought at the time it was vain, idle, and 
 foolish of me to do so, I gazed at the windows reverentially. 
 But Scott lay in the back room, according to the memo- 
 randum of Dr. Fergusson, communicated to Mr. Lockhart, 
 who has inserted it in his well-known Life of his illustrious 
 father-in-law. " When I saw Sir Walter he was lying in 
 the second floor back room of the St. James's Hotel, in
 
 176 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Jermyn Street, in a state of stupor. I think I never saw 
 anything more magnificent than the symmetry of his 
 colossal bust as he lay on the pillow with his chest and 
 neck exposed. During the time he was in Jermyn Street 
 he was calm, but never collected, and in general either in 
 a state of stupor or a waking dream. He never seemed 
 to know where he was, but imagined himself to be still in 
 the steam-boat. The rattling of carriages and the noises 
 of the street sometimes disturbed this illusion, and then 
 he fancied himself at the polling-booth of Jedburgh." 
 This was nry nearest bodily approach to the great Sir 
 Walter, with whose immortal novels and poetry my mind 
 had been familiar during that sympathetic period of early 
 youth, when poetiy and romance exercise their greatest 
 fascinations. As all the world knows, he was taken home 
 to Scotland, and his beloved Abbotsford, where he died 
 in September, in the presence of his attached family, and 
 amid the universal regret and respect of his own and 
 foreign nations. 
 
 Twelve years afterwards it fell to nry lot to be greatly 
 occupied with the name and fame of Sir Walter Scott, 
 and to be placed in communication with people who had 
 known him personally, and with most of the leading spirits 
 of the day. The business had reference to the completion 
 of the beautiful monument which the Edinburgh people 
 had begun to erect in honour of the greatest man who 
 ever trod the pavements of their picturesque city. In the 
 month of February, 1844, the work had come to a stand- 
 still for want of funds, and the sum of 8000Z. was urgently 
 needed, to carry up to the height intended b} r the architect 
 the spire of the Gothic shrine, which enclosed the marble
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 177 
 
 statue of the poet, and otherwise to complete the monu- 
 ment. The shopkeepers of Edinburgh might well hare 
 subscribed the whole sum needed, if they had remembered 
 that the works of Scott had brought travellers into their 
 city, with money in their pockets, from all quarters of the 
 globe, to do honour to his memory, and visit the scenes 
 which his genius had hallowed. But the generosity or 
 justice of Edinburgh had been exhausted. The subscrip- 
 tion list had been sent round ; balls and entertainments 
 had been given, and considerable sums from time to time 
 received from these sources ; but the Scottish fountain 
 had run dry, and it was thought advisable to tap the 
 richer fountains of London, in support of that local work 
 which many people thought ought to have been made 
 national. At this time I was assistant editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle under my excellent and earliest London 
 friend, John Black, and through the introduction of a 
 relative in Edinburgh, the late John Alexander Mackay 
 of Blackcastle, I received a letter from Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lauder, the leading spirit of the Edinburgh committee, 
 requesting me to notice the deficiency in the columns of 
 the Morning Chronicle, and, if possible, to procure the aid 
 of Mr. Loch, M.P., the agent of the Duke of Sutherland, 
 in organizing a movement in London. An article forth- 
 with appeared in the Chronicle, for which a vote of thanks 
 was tendered to the Editor by the Edinburgh people. 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder subsequently wrote : — 
 
 "Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh, 
 "Feb. 19, 1844. 
 
 " Dear Sir.,— 
 
 " Mr. Loch's reply to my letter has just reached 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 N
 
 178 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 me, and I am sorry to say that, from the intensity of his 
 occupation he cannot undertake to follow up his wishes 
 to he of use in getting up a subscription in London, 
 though I have no doubt that if I speak to him he will do 
 all in his power to help us. If he could do no more than 
 get the Duke of Sutherland to take the chair of a meeting, 
 that of itself would be of use. 
 
 " I have now, as acting for the Committee here, for- 
 mally to request that he will kindly undertake the office 
 of (honorary) secretary to any Committee which he may 
 find it possible to organize. I enclose three letters which 
 3 t ou niay find of use — two of them to the members for 
 Edinburgh, and one to John Pdchardson, solicitor, of 
 Fludyer Street, a bosom friend of Scott, and who is 
 generally acquainted with the members of both Houses 
 of Parliament. 
 
 " I know your good will to be such that I need not 
 entreat of you not to allow the grass to grow at your 
 heels. 
 
 " Believe me ever, 
 "Dear sir, 
 
 " Yours most truly, 
 
 " Thos. Dick Lauder. 
 
 " To Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 I accepted the position which Sir Thomas marked 
 out for me, together with the work attached to it, which 
 I little expected would be so onerous as it became, and 
 applied in all quarters for co-operation. It was up-hill 
 work at first, but still progress was made, and several 
 very influential names were secured for the Committee,
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 179 
 
 including that of my friend and fellow-labourer, Mr. Charles 
 Dickens. On reporting what had been done, Sir Thomas 
 wrote me in reply : — 
 
 " Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh, 
 "2nd March, 1844. 
 
 " My Dear Sir,— 
 
 " Accept my kind thanks for your letter of 
 the 29th ult. I anticipated difficulties, aiid God knows 
 I have had enough of them myself. But we need 
 only remember that ' improbus labor omnia vincit.' Mr. 
 Charles Dickens is a host. Patrick Maxwell Stewart, a 
 particular friend of mine, will be valuable. Ask him to 
 get the Duke of Somerset to give you his name. The 
 Duchess will, I am sure, give a handsome subscription as 
 an old friend of Scott. 
 
 " One thing you should do, is to try and get some well- 
 known man connected with a Tory paper, to run in harness 
 with you (connected with a Whig paper), so as to 
 neutralize as far as possible, political feeling. 
 
 " I have written to Lord Dalhousie to ask him to give 
 his name to the Committee, and to try, if possible, to get 
 those of the Dukes of "Wellington and Buccleugh. 
 
 " Try if Loch will get us the Duke of Sutherland. 
 What more can I do to help you ? 
 
 " Ever, in great haste, 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 " Thos. Dick Lauder. 
 
 "Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 There were many accessions to the Committee. Among 
 the eminent literary men were Charles Dickens, Charles 
 
 N 2
 
 ISO FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Lever, Thomas Moore, Thomas Babington Macaulay (after- 
 wards Lord Macaulay), W. Harrison Ainsworth, Patrick 
 Fraser Tytler, William Jerdan, George Cruikshank, 
 and Angus Betkime Beach. Sir Peter Laurie, a shrewd 
 and sagacious Scotsman, who had served the offices of 
 alderman, sheriff, and Lord Mayor of London,* and had 
 been mainly instrumental in founding the Union Bank of 
 London, was very dubious, if not desponding, of the results 
 of the appeal, and threw cold water upon it in the follow- 
 ing letter : — 
 
 "Park Square, 
 
 "February^, 1SU. 
 
 " Sir,— 
 
 "I go out so early that I fear it will hardly be 
 possible to fix a day before Wednesday which would suit 
 your convenience. I shall be at No. 8, Moorgate Street 
 on that day from one to half-past two, and shall be happy 
 to see you. 
 
 " The Scottish monument question has been mooted 
 several times, and with the same want of success. All 
 the directors of our bank subscribed ; but the thing can- 
 not be got up here. The Abbotsford subscription in the 
 City was a failure, and between ourselves there is a very 
 
 * Sir Peter Laurie was originally a saddler, and had by thrift, industry, 
 foresight, and judicious enterprise accumulated a considerable fortune. In 
 1851, seven years after this time, one of the gentlemen proposed and elected 
 to the office of sheriff of Middlesex, was Mr. D. Nicoll, a tailor and clothier in 
 Regent Street. Sir Peter Laurie expressed an opinion that the election of a 
 tailor would be a degradation of the shrievalty. The observation was reported 
 to an active supporter of Mr. Nicoll, also a Scotsman, who said, " I don't 
 see the objection. If a saddler can be a sheriff, why not a tailor .' Indeed, 
 the tailor is the superior of the two. A saddler makes clothes for horses ; 
 but a tailor makes clothes for mm."
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 181 
 
 strong feeling here that the Edinburgh ' bodies ' should 
 pay for their own monuments, and that the real meaning 
 of a Scottish subscription is to form a London sub- 
 committee, with a clever head and hand for honorary 
 secretary to bleed the Cockneys. I have been connected 
 with charities for thirty-five years in London, and cannot 
 say a great deal for our countrymen in supporting the 
 metropolitan charities. Believe me, 
 
 " Your faithful servant, 
 
 " P. Laurie. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 In a subsequent letter Sir Peter wrote : — 
 
 " Pakk Square, 
 "March 15. 
 
 " My Dear Sir,— 
 
 " I shall be happy to join the Committee, which 
 should be as numerous as possible, though I am still of 
 opinion that we shall fail in obtaining the funds required. 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 " Peter Laurie. 
 
 "Chas. Mackay, Esq." 
 
 As Sir Peter Laurie was known to be intimately 
 
 acquainted with the Eight Hon. John "Wilson Croker, a 
 
 Quarterly Reviewer, and a great admirer — as who was 
 
 not? — of the genius of Sir Walter Scott, he was requested 
 
 by the committee to communicate with that gentleman, 
 
 and solicit his support. He did so, and the following 
 
 letter was the result : — 
 
 "West Molesey, 
 
 "24Ap., 1844. 
 
 " My Dear Sir Peter, — 
 
 " In return to your letter about the Edin-
 
 182 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 burgh monument, will you allow me to tell 3'ou candidly 
 that I long ago subscribed to a memorial of Sir Walter 
 Scott as much as I could afford, and I hope not 
 illiberally, and surely you will forgive me for adding that 
 I think when the Committee determined to make this 
 monument of so great a cost and size, and so prominent 
 a feature in the architectural embellishment of the city of 
 Edinburgh, that they in some degree absolved his more 
 distant admirers from concurring in an object so decidedly 
 local. I really think the Scottish nation, and particularly 
 the citizens of the Scottish capital, might feel jealous at 
 its being supposed that English or Irish assistance was 
 become a sine qua non for the completion of a work of a 
 character so peculiarly Scottish, and so exclusively to the 
 ornament of Edinburgh. 
 
 " It seems to me a very handsome though perhaps too 
 florid a design. I should have liked something simpler ; 
 but it will no doubt be fine, and, though not a Scotchman, 
 I think I should have subscribed my mite if I could hope 
 ever to see it. — Ever, my dear Sir Peter, very faithfully 
 yours, 
 
 "J. W. Choker. 
 
 "Sir Peter Laurie." 
 
 It was proposed by Mr. Jerdan, editor of the Literary 
 Gazette, that if Mr. Croker would subscribe, say 501., the 
 Committee would pay his expenses to and from Edinburgh, 
 to take a look at the monument, but as this was only a 
 jest it fell to the ground, and nothing more was heard 
 of Mr. Croker. 
 
 I was very anxious that Mr. Lockhart, the editor of
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 183 
 
 the Quarterly Review, should use his great influence, 
 social and literary, in support of the movement, but found 
 him very lukewarm, not to say cold. He objected to the 
 design of the monument altogether ; and said he would 
 have preferred an equestrian statue, as more appropriate 
 than the one which had been adopted. I reminded him 
 of the custom, tradition, or superstition — I did not know 
 which to call it, — that equestrian statues ought to 
 be exclusively reserved for military men, for conquerors, 
 heroes, kings, emperors, and kaisers, to which he replied 
 that Scott was a quasi military man, inasmuch as he was 
 quartermaster of the Edinburgh Volunteer Cavalry, and, 
 acting in that capacity, had looked exceedingly well on 
 horseback. I did not know whether he was serious in 
 this remark, but was ultimately convinced that Mr. 
 Lockhart would decidedly have preferred a bronze 
 equestrian statue in Castle Street, where Scott had for 
 many years resided, to the shrine which had been erected 
 in Princes Street. He asked me as a favour to keep him 
 informed of the Committee's proceedings, and promised 
 his aid, though he did not think it advisable, considering 
 his relation to the family, to appear publicly in the matter. 
 To a letter informing him what had been done at our last 
 meeting, I received the following reply : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — 
 
 " Many thanks for your kind communication in 
 all its parts. 
 
 "I was not aware till two or three days ago that the 
 j>erson who had taken so generous an interest in the 
 monument of Scott was himself a poet. In short, very
 
 184 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 stupidly, I had not guessed that I had been visited by 
 the person whom the name of Mackay ought to have at 
 once suggested to me. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "J. G. LOCKHART. 
 
 " 24, Sussex Place, 
 "July 15, 1844." 
 
 The Earl of Aberdeen, afterwards Prime Minister, who 
 contributed £50, wrote to Mr. Murray : — 
 
 " I will most readily join the Committee for the 
 purpose you mention, and I hope that by this means 
 some effectual assistance may be obtained. Our country- 
 men in the North have not acted very judiciously in this 
 matter, but it would disgrace us all if the monument of 
 Scott should remain incomplete." 
 
 The Duke of Sutherland, to whom Mr. Loch refused 
 to apply, answered the official letter which I wrote to 
 him in the kindest and promptest manner. " You 
 have," he said, " made an excellent choice of members 
 for the London Committee. I feel hesitation, however, 
 in accepting your invitation to have my name on the list, 
 as that ought to imply an expectation of assisting and 
 attending, which I shall not be able to do. Otherwise, I 
 approve of the formation of the Committee, and of you 
 as a most fitting secretary for attending to and arranging 
 the proceedings with a view to a successful result. If,
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. lt>5 
 
 however, my name should appear desirable to you, it is 
 at your service."' 
 
 To this I replied that his Grace's name seemed to me 
 of the highest importance ; and it was accordingly added 
 to the list. In about a fortnight afterwards the Duke 
 wrote — 
 
 "London, May 4, 1844. 
 
 " Sir — 
 
 " I hope that you are proceeding with the 
 business of the monument to Sir W. Scott as satis- 
 factorily as you may have expected. I should have been 
 more willing to have accepted your invitation to be 
 on the list of the Committee if the exceeding number of 
 claims on me would have allowed my subscribing to it 
 in any way that might have been useful in encouraging 
 the progress of the work. I do not wish to make any 
 unnecessary remarks on the design of the proposed monu- 
 ment ; and therefore it is merely to yourself (having occa- 
 sion to communicate on the subject) that I must confess 
 that it does not appear to me a judicious one ; but I am 
 unwilling to put obstacles in the way of the wishes of 
 others ; and when it becomes necessary to fill up the 
 subscription list, the inclosed order for £21 is hi your 
 hands to be added to it for me. 
 " I am, sir, 
 
 •' Very truly, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Sutherland."
 
 186 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 In a letter dated the 8th of March, Sir Thomas Dick 
 Lauder wrote — " You are getting on like a house on fire, 
 and I augur the most prosperous results." In a subse- 
 quent letter he wrote — 
 
 "Board of Manufactures, 
 "Royal Institution, 
 
 "Edinburgh, 14th March, 1844. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — 
 
 " Although it is likely that you may have heard 
 from Mr. George Anson and Lord Dalhousie, I think it 
 right to tell you that the former writes thus to me : — 
 ' Buckingham Palace, March 12, 1844. — My dear Sir 
 Thomas, — I have much pleasure in acquainting you that 
 the Prince will readily lend his name for the object 
 stated in 3 r our note to me of the 2nd instant. — Yours, 
 G. E. Anson.' Lord Dalhousie says that ' he will 
 readily give his own name to the Committee for Sir 
 Walter's monument, if it does not involve the gift of 
 time, which he really has not at disposal.' He declines 
 interfering with the Duke of Wellington, and says as to 
 the Duke of Buccleuch, that I had better write to him 
 myself. But this I decline. I forget whether I hinted 
 to you that John Gladstone, Esq., 6, Carlton Gardens, 
 should be ajiplied to for the Committee. A gentleman 
 avIio so very handsomely sent me unasked ;£50 for the 
 monument must be so brimful of patriotism, quoad hoc, 
 that he will be sure to enter heart and soul into your 
 matter, and he may get you all the most influential 
 names in London. 
 
 ' ' Pray let me know if I can do anything more for you,
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 187 
 
 and rely on niy doing all I can, and that with all manner 
 of promptitude. 
 
 " Yours most faithfully, 
 
 " Thos. Dick Lauder. 
 
 "Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 In consequence of the hint thus conveyed, I wrote to 
 
 Mr. Gladstone (afterwards Sir John Gladstone, Bart., of 
 
 Fasque), the father of Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of 
 
 the Exchequer in Lord Aberdeen's Administration, and 
 
 Prime Minister from 1868 to 1874), and received the 
 
 following reply : — 
 
 "Carlton Gardens, 
 
 " 4th April, 1844. 
 
 " Sir,— 
 
 " I have had the honour to receive your letter 
 of yesterday. In reply, permit me to assure you that no 
 one can revere the memory of Sir Walter Scott more 
 than I do, or can feel more indebted to him than I can 
 for the gratification I have received from his works ; but 
 unfortunately I am too old, with both my sight and 
 hearing so greatly impaired as to place it beyond my 
 power to render any active services in promoting the 
 objects of the Committee, to which you ask me to become 
 a member ; but as you are good enough to suppose the 
 appearance of my name as a member of it may probably 
 be of some service, should the other members be also of 
 that opinion, I willingly consent to your request ; and if 
 I should happen in my limited circle to have any oppor- 
 tunity for aiding the object, whether as member, or not, 
 I will not fail to avail myself of it. 
 
 " I hope you may be in error in estimating the still
 
 188 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 existing deficiency at .£3000, as that sum was named as 
 being so at the general meeting lately held in Edin- 
 burgh ; and I think a considerable amount has since been 
 subscribed. 
 
 "I have the honour to be, sir, 
 
 " Yours most truly, 
 
 " John Gladstone. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 Among the many eminent men who refused to aid the 
 cause, four alone declined without giving their rea- 
 sons — Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Richmond, the 
 Duke of Portland, and Lord Francis Egerton, afterwards 
 Earl of Ellesmere. Among those who declined, and 
 gave their reasons, was Mr. G. P. R. James, the 
 novelist : — 
 
 ' ' The Oaks, near Walmer, Kent, 
 "7th March, 1844. 
 
 " Sir,— 
 
 " I fear that you must think me very negligent 
 in not answering your letter sooner ; but I was desirous 
 of considering well before I declined to be upon the 
 Committee, and a severe attack of illness, as well as 
 much business, prevented my giving the subject atten- 
 tion so soon as I would have wished.. 
 
 " The only objection that I can possibly entertain to 
 putting my name on the Committee for raising the addi- 
 tional sum required to complete the monument to my 
 late revered friend, Sir Walter Scott, is this — that my 
 absence from London, and the very numerous engage- 
 ments which at present press upon me, would render me
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. ISO 
 
 perfectly inactive and inefficient in all matters of busi- 
 ness ; and I think it not right in any one to undertake 
 what he cannot perform. 
 
 "I need not say that, under any other circumstances, 
 it would give me high satisfaction to do anything to 
 honour the memory of that great and good man. 
 " Believe to be, sir, 
 
 " Your faithful servant, 
 
 "G. P. R. James." 
 
 I thought it highly desirable to secure the name of 
 Mr. E. L. Bulwer Lytton, himself an illustrious 
 novelist, with whom I was at the time personally 
 unacquainted, and wrote him the most pressing letter I 
 could frame. To this, in due course, I received the 
 following very emphatic reply, which, though it was 
 disappointing, contained some strong truths, very elo- 
 quently worded : — 
 
 " Knebworth, 
 
 "March 10th, 1844. 
 
 " Sir,— 
 
 "I regret that I cannot have the honour of 
 belonging to the London Committee formed to collect 
 funds for erecting a monument at Edinburgh for Sir 
 Walter Scott ; but I beg you to accept my acknowledg- 
 ments for the flattering terms in which you have made 
 the proposal. I entertain strong opinions on this 
 matter, regarding money spent on the monument, when 
 money spent on the living might have saved the struggle 
 and prolonged the days, if not a reproach to the 
 subscribers, at least a mockery of the Dead.
 
 190 FORTY DEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " For the world in general the sole monument Sir 
 Walter Scott needs is his works. If the Scotch wish 
 for a more exclusive monument, the Scotch, in my 
 judgment, should pay for it. It is a gratification to 
 their own national vanity, and I think they belie their 
 national pride, even in accepting, much more in seeking 
 elsewhere, pecuniary aid for an ornament to their capital, 
 and a testimonial to their countryman. I must add 
 further my conviction that the moment the Scotch 
 suffered Sir Walter Scott to leave Abbotsford with his 
 debts unpaid, they lost the only opportunity of rendering 
 practical homage to the man who had brought gold into 
 their country through a thousand channels ; and I have 
 no sympathy with attempts to repair that loss by the 
 erection of a stone gew-gaw. 
 
 " In the frankness of these remarks, my apology must 
 be found in my desire to place my refusal to serve on the 
 proposed Committee on its true grounds, and clear myself 
 from the suspicion that I might incur, if more reserved, 
 of wanting due reverence for an illustrious name. So 
 great indeed, on the contrary, is my reverence for that 
 name, that I feel if I were a Scotchman, I would sell the 
 coat off my back rather than ask a man not a Scot to 
 subscribe to the monument at Edinburgh. 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 " Sir, 
 " Your obedient and obliged servant, 
 
 " Edward Bulweb Lytton. 
 
 "To Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 The opinions so excellently phrased by Mr. Bulwer
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 191 
 
 Lytton were not confined to that gentleman, as I learned 
 from many sources, and especially from the following 
 letter from Mr. Dickens, whom I had asked to forward a 
 circular to Lord Brougham : — 
 
 "Devonshire Terrace, 
 
 " Seventh March, 1844. 
 
 " My dear Mackay, — 
 
 " I find (so far as I can judge from the few 
 friends I have talked with) that there is an idea abroad 
 that the Edinburgh people, or Scotch people, at all 
 events, should finish their own monument, and that 
 some prejudice is created by the incompleteness of the 
 testimonials to their two great men, Scott and Burns. 
 I would, therefore, prefer to leave men to their own 
 opinions in reference to joining the Committee, and have 
 sent Brougham's letter by post to him, without making 
 any addition to it. 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 Lord Brougham made no reply to the communication, 
 but, amid many failures and refusals, there was one ac- 
 cession recorded by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in his 
 letter of the 14th of March, which was felt to be a tower 
 of strength to the Committee — that of his Royal High- 
 ness, Prince Albert, who consented to be "Patron," on 
 the understanding that he could not, and was not to be 
 asked to, attend the meetings of the Committee. As 
 finally constituted, the Committee stood thus : — Patron, 
 H.R.H. Prince Albert ; Members— The Duke of Suther-
 
 19:2 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 land, the Duke of Buccleugh, the Marquis of Northamp- 
 ton, the Earl of Aberdeen, the Earl of Dalhousie, the 
 Earl of Dimmore, Lieut. -General Sir George Murray, 
 T. B. Macaulay, Esq., M.P., the Eight Hon. Holt Mac- 
 kenzie, the Hon. C. A. Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Esq., 
 John Auldjo, Esq., Adam Black, Esq., Lord Provost of 
 Edinburgh, The Chisholm, M.P., B. B. Cabbell, Esq., 
 George Cruikshank, Esq., Charles Dickens, Esq., John 
 Dickenson, Esq., Francis Grant, Esq. (now Sir Francis 
 Grant), John Gladstone, Esq., James Hall, Esq., Wm. 
 Jerdan, Esq., Pi. S. Lauder, Esq., Charles Lever, Esq., 
 James Loch, Esq., M.P., Sir Peter Laurie, James Mathe- 
 son, Esq. (now Sir James Matheson, Bart.,) Roderick 
 Impey Murchison, Esq., Daniel Maclise, Esq., Thomas 
 Moore, Esq., John Richardson, Esq., Clarkson Stanfield, 
 Esq., Patrick Maxwell Stewart, Esq., M.P., Patrick Fraser 
 Tytler, Esq., Charles Mackay, Esq. (Honorary Secretary), 
 and Angus B. Reach, Esq. (Assistant Secretary). As 
 Mr. Gladstone had expressed a wish to be informed 
 of the doings of a Committee to which he had given his 
 name, but which the infirmities of age in-evented him 
 from attending, Mr. Angus Reach communicated to him, 
 after each meeting, the heads of the business transacted. 
 In reply to one of these missives, he wrote : — 
 
 " Caklton Gardens, 
 
 " 19th April, 1844. 
 " Sir — 
 
 " I have your note of yesterday. Begging for 
 
 subscriptions in any case is an uphill and thankless busi- 
 ness. You have got a highly respectable, as well as 
 wealthy Committee ; all, I cannot doubt, highly zealous in
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AXD HIS MONUMENT. 193 
 
 the cause the}- have espoused. Permit me to suggest as 
 an eas} r and speedy way to bring* their labours to a close, 
 that they should each agree to add fifty per cent, to their 
 previous subscriptions. If this is agreed to, I am willing 
 to add £25 to mine or to double it if necessary. In 
 Edinburgh, I believe, they have made their full share of 
 effort ; let the Scotch in London — that city which is the 
 patron of mental power and the seat of the arts — not be 
 left behind. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, 
 " Sir, 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 
 " John Gladstone. 
 
 " Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 Notwithstanding the influential character of the Com- 
 mittee, and the subscriptions of every member, the 
 money came in but slowly, and there seemed a prospect 
 that the effort to give effectual aid would fail, as Sir 
 Peter Laurie had predicted. Mr. Gladstone's recom- 
 mendation met with no favour. But a brilliant idea was 
 suggested by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, who wrote : — "It 
 has struck me that a grand "Waverley Ball might be got 
 up hi London for behoof of the monument ; a fancy ball 
 of course, and the characters to be entirely from the 
 Scott poems and novels. I have accordingly written to 
 Patrick Maxwell Stewart to get his sister, my old friend, 
 the Duchess of Somerset, to set it agoing ; but I have 
 not had time to get his answer. I am sure we could get 
 the Queen to patronise it, and a most brilliant thing it 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 19-1 FOftTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 would be ; and if properly managed might be made most 
 productive." 
 
 I communicated the idea of Sir Thomas to the most 
 active and zealous member of the Committee, the Hon. 
 Charles A. Murray, who at that time held an appoint- 
 ment in her Majest} T 's Household. He entered into the 
 project with energy and spirit, and speedily procured the 
 patronage of the Queen and Prince Albert. This done, 
 success was assured. The Duchess of Somerset, as ex- 
 pected, entered heartily into the project; and all the 
 Duchesses, Marchionesses, Countesses, Viscountesses, 
 Baronesses — all the fashion of the town made it an 
 object of ambition to be present at a gathering so 
 splendidly supported and for an object so laudable. The 
 ball took place on the 8th of July, at Willis's Booms, 
 and was in every respect a brilliant success. Mr. Murray, 
 writing on the 9th, said : "I calculate we shall net £900 
 or little short of it by last night's ball ; but I will desire 
 Mr. Willis to send you a regular report, and desire him 
 to pay in the money received." Writing on the 10th, he 
 said: "By the enclosed abstract you will see that our 
 receipts from the ball will be nearly £1,100 net. Pi: 
 write an official letter to the Edinburgh Committee, 
 inquiring the exact amount of the present deficiency, 
 without stating to them what we have collected here, 
 and learn also the sum total of the subscriptions at the 
 different bankers, so that at our next meeting we may be 
 able to complete our work in a business-like manner." 
 
 The letter was written, and the reply was, that at least 
 £3,000 was necessary in all to carry up the monument to 
 the height intended, to rail it round, and to provide the
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 195 
 
 statuettes of the prominent characters in Scott's novels 
 and poems, which were to be placed in the niches of the 
 structure, according to the architect's design. The 
 London Committee ultimately decided to close then 
 labours. Though the ball was a decided success, the 
 subscription was a comparative failure, and amounted to 
 only £269. There was some doubt as to whether the 
 Edinburgh Committee had or had it not in contempla- 
 tion to expend some portion of the money raised in 
 London upon the statuettes, rather than upon the com- 
 pletion of the main design. Upon this subject Mr. 
 Murray wrote : — 
 
 ' " Windsor Castle, 
 
 "July 24, 1844. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — 
 
 " Since I last wrote to j-ou I have spoken on 
 the subject of our Scott Monument Fund to the Duke of 
 Buccleuch and Lord Aberdeen ; they seem to be of an 
 opinion (in which I coincide) that as our appeals in 
 London were made and our contributions raised for the 
 express purpose of completing the monument according 
 to the design exhibited to us, and b} r us to the sub- 
 scribers, we ought to withhold at present the remainder 
 of the Fund now in Messrs. Drummonds' hands, and to 
 refuse to apply it to meeting fanciful or superadded 
 expenses incurred without our sanction and without our 
 being informed of the purposes to which the Edinburgh 
 Committee propose to apply it. 
 
 " The two gentlemen above named, whose opinions are 
 certainly entitled to as much weight as any on our list, 
 hold that you, as secretary, should write to the Edin-
 
 196 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 burgh secretary to inform him of the view here taken, 
 and that you will probably not obtain authority from the 
 Committee to pay over the remaining fund, until the 
 Edinburgh Committee show that they have adequate 
 means to complete or nearly to complete the additions 
 that they have made to the original undertaking, the 
 necessity or propriety of which we do not at all re- 
 cognise. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " Ch. A. Murray. 
 
 "C. Mackay, Esq." 
 
 The Edinburgh Committee explained that the money 
 which we had raised would be expended on the main 
 design, and not on the statuettes or other accessories ; 
 and on this understanding the cheque was forwarded, 
 and the London Committee rested from its labours. 
 
 This, however, was not to be the last of the Scott 
 Monument. More than a quarter of a century after- 
 wards, the statues and statuettes of the niches being 
 still unprovided, I was appealed to, to act as chairman of 
 a London Committee, to do what Edinburgh should have 
 done long before. In consenting to occupy this position, 
 I resolved that I would not be a party to any appeal to 
 the public for funds ; for I was more than ever of the 
 opinion of Lord Lytton, that it was not respectful to the 
 memory of Scott, nor creditable to the people of Edin- 
 burgh to solicit subscriptions, and that if anything were 
 to be done in London — in default of Edinburgh — it was 
 <inly to be done by means of another Waverley Ball. A 
 new generation of wealth, beauty, and fashion had arisen
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 107 
 
 to manhood and womanhood since the date of the first 
 ball, and it was considered highly probable that the Prince 
 and Princess of Wales, if properly approached, would lend 
 the immense weight of their names and influence to the 
 project. All the members of the Committee, which was 
 formed under the active management of Mr. Colin Piae- 
 Brown, who accepted the post of Honorary Secretary, 
 were of the same opinion ; and Dr. Eamsay, a member 
 of the Highland Society of London, who had often been 
 in communication with the Prince on subjects relative to 
 Scotland and Scotch affairs in London, was deputed to 
 ask the patronage of his Eoyal Highness for the proposed 
 ball. The Prince and Princess entered heartily into the 
 idea ; the Marquis of Huntley took the post of Honorary 
 Treasurer, and the Duchess of Buccleuch and other ladies 
 of the highest rank, acted as patronesses; The ball took 
 place at Willis's Ptooms, on the 6th of July, 1871 ; the 
 year of the centenary celebration of Sir Walter's birth- 
 day. It was expressly stipulated on the part of an illus- 
 trious personage, without whose countenance the ball 
 would not have been a fashionable success, that the 
 number of tickets issued should not exceed eight hundred, 
 which was all that the Piooms could comfortably accom- 
 modate. In consequence, the net proceeds, after all 
 expenses were paid, were not equal to those of the first 
 Waverley Ball, in which the numbers had not been 
 limited, and only reached £'600. With this sum, and 
 other funds raised by the Edinburgh Committee, it was 
 resolved to proceed with the statuettes for the niches, and 
 commissions were given to the eminent Scottish sculptors, 
 Messrs. William Brodie, B.S.A., John Hutchison, R.S.A.,
 
 198 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Clark Stanton, A.R.S. A., George A. Lawson, Peter Slater, 
 D. W. Stevenson, Andrew Currie, and Mrs. D. O. Hill. 
 These artists had completed twenty-four of the statuettes 
 by the summer of 1874. 
 
 The following description of the parts assumed in the 
 ball by members of the royal family and others appeared 
 next morning in the Daily News, from the pen of an 
 eminent Scotsman, who had acquired renown as a war 
 correspondent during the Franco-German War of 1870, 
 and who has subsequently gained fresh laurels in other 
 fields of literary work : — 
 
 " Not less fair than the hapless original, but born to a 
 purer life and to a happier fate, the Princess of Wales, 
 as Marie Stuart, moved with a quiet, pensive grace that, 
 while it was all her own, was none the less true to the 
 character she had assumed. The Prince, her husband, 
 strode the floor gallantly .as Lord of the Isles — no as- 
 sumption on his part truly, for the Princes of Wales ever 
 since the union of the crowns are, too, the hereditary 
 Lords of the Isles — his bonnet crowned with heather, 
 the badge prescribed to his clansmen by the first Mac- 
 donald, in the ords, ' Put on your heads, that you dis- 
 tinguish each other from the foe, that which is growing 
 under your feet on the muir ;' above the heath the 
 raking feather from the pinion of an eagle of the 
 Hebrides. Prince Arthur was a gay and gallant Prince 
 Charlie ; what unutterable things would George II. and 
 'butcher' Cumberland have looked could they have seen a 
 child of their race personating the ill-fated hero of the 
 Jacobites ! 
 
 " But there are no Jacobites now, and in the veins of
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 199 
 
 our Boyal House flows the blood of the Stuarts as well 
 as of the Guelphs. Buxom Di Vernon with the auburn 
 tresses and the laughing eye leant on the arm of the 
 Master of Eavenswood, not yet engulphed in the 
 treacherous quicksand. In pale ethereal beauty flitted 
 the White Lady of Avenel; Annot Lyle seemed fan- 
 enough to exorcise the dark spirit from the gloomy 
 bosom of Alan Macaulay, without the need of recourse 
 to music. A daughter of the house of Campbell was in 
 character in every sense as the ' Maid of Lorn.' Here 
 were Edith Bellenden and 'Bloody Claver'se;' the Fair 
 Maid of Perth and Lochiel ; Brenda Troil and the reck- 
 less pirate Cleveland ; Bose Bradwardine and Bob Boy 
 — facile princeps of such rievers and cattle-lifters as 
 the old Baron of Tullieveolan's birses rose against ; 
 Catherine Seyton and Halbert Glendinning — all these 
 and many others — items in the population of the many- 
 scened worlds of fiction which the magic pen created 
 — dancing in one quadrille or pacing the floor together 
 in such strange fashion of amity as suggested the 
 advent of the millennial era when the lion shall he 
 down with the lamb. 
 
 " A rope had been stretched athwart the centre of the 
 ball-room, which served to part off the general company 
 from the special guests and those who were to take part 
 in the pre-arranged costume dances. What may be called 
 the unreserved space soonest yet gradually filled in a 
 great measure with ladies and gentlemen in character 
 dresses. There were troubadours in plenty — the costume 
 seemed a favourite one ; an Earl of Leicester flashed and 
 glittered in slashed purple and jewels, Darnley rubbed
 
 200 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 shoulders with Rizzio, and close to the orchestra the 
 ' Last Minstrel ' stood, in russet brown and long waving 
 locks of grey. Alice of Woodstock, Jenny Dennison, 
 Harry Ashton, and Rowena formed one group ; a Red 
 Cross Knight, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edie Ochilree, and 
 Charles the Bold of Burgundy, in crimson and jewels, 
 formed another. With those ladies who did not essay 
 any particular character, ' powder ' was much in vogue, 
 especially with brunettes, but it is a circumstance stimu- 
 lating foreboding as to ruined complexions that the com- 
 plement of powder seems to be paint. As regards the 
 gentlemen, of such as were not in character, a consider- 
 able proportion wore the Highland dress, for the most 
 part of such richness and splendour as materially to 
 impair the ' Puir Hielanman ' theory. Not a few were 
 in uniform — horse, foot, artilleiy, and nondescript — and 
 then came the ' ruck ' attired in all the various phases 
 which that curious remembrancer of the old twopenny 
 postman, the ' Windsor uniform,' can be tortured into. 
 Verily the Windsor uniform is an elastic institution. 
 One of the most noted arrivals in the outer circle was 
 that of Mr. Lowe, not attired as a fusee seller out of 
 work, or even with a philactery around his forehead 
 bearing the motto 'Ex luce lucellum,' but wearing the 
 sedate Windsor uniform of the pattern affected by 
 ministers. Inside the rope the scene was even gayer 
 than outside, for in the reserved space were congregated 
 those who took part in the special character dances, as 
 well as the leading guests. From a corner glittered the 
 cloth of gold and the brilliant tiaras of the Nawab Nazim 
 of Bengal and his son, the sheen of the stones no whit
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 201 
 
 weakened by the late denial of a Committee of Inquiry 
 to their owner ; foreign noblemen in dresses and uniforms 
 not to be named off hand by any insular reporter ; the 
 Turkish Ambassador (Musurus Bey) wearing, like a 
 staunch Osmanli, the costume of his country; Prince 
 Teck's blue and gold ; the Marchioness of Westminster's 
 glorious diamond aigrette, which flashed with a dazzling 
 glitter that was hard to look upon ; all these persons and 
 things lent brilliancy to a scene that changed every instant 
 like a kaleidoscope." 
 
 The hundreth anniversary of the birth of Scott was 
 celebrated inEdinburgh on the 15th of August, and in other 
 cities and in the border counties on the 9th of August, 
 1871. I received an imitation from the Edinburgh Com- 
 mittee to be present on the occasion, which I accepted, and 
 was furthermore asked to write, and afterwards to recite 
 an ode in honour of him whom it once — and still is the 
 fashion to call "the Wizard of the North." This, after 
 much hesitation, I agreed to do. But the ode though 
 written was never delivered. The speeches after the 
 banquet in the Corn Exchange were not only very long, 
 but very imperfectly heard, and nearly an hour before 
 the time appointed in the programme for the recitation 
 of my ode the patience of the vast audience was ex- 
 hausted, and hundreds of people were making their way 
 to the doors. Under the circumstances, I went away 
 with the early goers, and my ode remained unspoken. It 
 is here inserted — quemtam valeat — as a tribute to the two 
 Wizards of the North whose genius in different ages shed 
 light in such different ways on the history of their 
 country.
 
 202 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 "THE VISIONS OF MICHAEL SCOTT, THE WIZARD. 
 " An Ode for the Scott Centenary. — August 15, 1871. 
 
 " I, Michael Scott, endowed with power to see 
 Up to the dark vistas of futurity, 
 And through the veil that shrouds the bygone time, 
 With all its sorrow, suffering, and crime, 
 Behold two visions open on my sight — 
 Hazy and dim the one, the second bright 
 With all the purpling hues of life and light. 
 
 II. 
 
 "I see the days that were — the days that are — 
 Darkened by rapine, cruelty, and war ; 
 When over all this beauteous mountain land 
 Fraud and oppression rule with iron hand. 
 When the weak fall, the victims of the strong, 
 When right is crushed by the agressive wrong, 
 And good men groan — 'Oh Lord, our God, how long?' 
 
 III. 
 
 ' ' Because I'm wise — alas ! my wisdom's light 
 Is but a taper glimmering in the night ; 
 They call me wizard, who, with wicked skill, 
 Cleft into three the peak of Eildon Hill — 
 Dream that I blight the harvests of tbe plain, 
 Control the summer sun or spring-time rain, 
 And rouse or calm the tempests of the main. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " They deem I study in a magic book, 
 That I can maim or slay by word or look, 
 And call the unwilling lightning from the skies, 
 Hidden by fiends, to blast mine enemies. 
 Poor fools! they know not, and 'tis vain to tell, 
 Sunk in the depths of darkness where they dwell, 
 That knowledge comes from Heaven, and not from Hell.
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 203 
 
 Fade from my sight ! go back into the past 
 Ye mournful days wherein my lot is cast ! 
 And let my glad and grateful eyes behold, 
 Of the new mom the crimson and the gold, 
 When Knowledge, like the ripening rain, shall fall 
 Impartial on the great and on the small, 
 Cheering, adorning, and sustaining all. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " When true Religion's holy light shall shine, 
 And every child shall read the Book Divine — 
 And wakening Science in her second birth 
 Shall turn her piercing eyes o'er Heaven and Earth, 
 And work more magic with her wondrous hand, 
 In one short day, o'er all the happy land, 
 Than Fancy ever dreamed or Wisdom planned. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " And the dawning splendour, growing clear, 
 Shall the true Wizard and true sage appear, 
 In the great light of whose meridian prime, 
 Benignant, joyous, tender and sublime. 
 All other lights thai e'er our Scotland knew, 
 Great as they were, the many or the few, 
 Shall seem but torches flickering in the blue. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Lo ! from the vast recesses of his brain 
 Emerge the mighty dead to live again ; 
 He waves his hand, and lo ! they act their parts, 
 And open wide the portals of their hearts. 
 Their loves and hates, their inmost hopes and fears, 
 All that ennobles, touches, and endears, 
 Their grief or joy, their laughter or their tears.
 
 204 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Through glen and strath he walks in generous pride, 
 And fills with life the lonely mountain side, 
 Peoples the lucent Loch or craggy Ben 
 With lovely women and great-hearted men, 
 And with a magic key unlocks the gate 
 Of Time's dark temple, where he sits elate, 
 And lights it np again, in all its state. 
 
 X. 
 
 He takes a lowly maiden from the field, 
 And on her brow — no more to be concealed 
 While Scotland stands, firm rooted in the sea- 
 Places a crown of virtuous modesty, 
 Brighter and nobler in its simple sheen 
 Than any diadem of king or queen 
 That ever glittered since a king hath been. 
 
 XL 
 
 <( 
 
 Where'er he goes men venerate his name, 
 Remotest lands re-echo with his fame, 
 And his own Scotland, wild and bleak and bare, 
 Bobed in the light lie destined it to wear, 
 Becomes the jewel of the northern seas. 
 Where throng the pilgrims and the devotees, 
 As to a shrine of holiest mysteries. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " Then, from the world, his daily magic wrought, 
 He hies him home, ami shaking "If Ids thought, 
 Ploughs in his fields or plants the darling ground, 
 Or from his princely hand throws the largess round 
 To all who need ; or Bitting by the fire 
 llccipiiics I he lender husband and the i ire - 
 A good plain man to love and to admire.
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS MONUMENT. 205 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ct Alas ! alas ! on that majestic head 
 Gather the storms — the lightning bolt is sped — 
 Billows of sorrow surge on every side 
 With whitening crests to overwhelm his pride. 
 But he, in native dignity of soul, 
 Rises erect, and sighs ' Let God control ; 
 Duty's my fate, my pathway, and my goal.' 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " He sees not, feels not, fenced with courage in, 
 How fierce the conflict which he may not win ; 
 But fights the fight, defiant to the last, 
 As firm as Staffa in the northern blast, 
 And like its wondrous cave — Titanic piled — 
 Receives the raging waters undefiled, 
 Or answers back with music weird and wild. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " The end is hidden ; but I hear the cry 
 As of a mother when her children die ; 
 'Tis Scotland weeping for her noblest son. 
 His heart at rest, his race of glory run ! 
 Let her lament ! she may not hope to see, 
 In all the countless ages yet to be, 
 Another son so great and good as he. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " The sorrow passes like the teaiful mist 
 In a May morning, when the sun hath kissed 
 The mountain tops, and Scotland lifts her head, 
 Weeping no longer for her glorious dead, 
 And shouts aloud from rugged shore to shore — 
 ' The light remains, though not the hand that bore, 
 And in my heart shall shine for evermore. " :
 
 206 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 It will have been seen from the story of the Scott 
 monument in Edinburgh that the Scotch in Scotland 
 have not been very rapid in doing monumental honour to 
 the greatest literary genius -which their country has pro- 
 duced. But the Scotch at home are not nearly so Scotch 
 as the Scotch abroad, or nearly so patriotic or so wealthy. 
 What it has taken between thirty and forty years to do in 
 Edinburgh was hi the Scott centenary year, done in New 
 York in one night. Five or six Scotsmen in that 
 flourishing city met after dinner over a tumbler of the 
 national beverage, and then and there, before the party 
 broke up contributed among them as much money as 
 would suffice to erect in the Central Park a facsimile of 
 the Edinburgh monument. The city of Edinburgh 
 spent much money in celebration of the marriage of the 
 Prince of Wales. It did not spend a farthing in celebra- 
 tion of the centenary of the man who did more for 
 Edinburgh than all the kings and princes who ever set 
 foot in it.
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 
 
 It was in the year 1840 that I first made the acquaint- 
 ance of the venerable Samuel Rogers, hanker and poet, 
 whose name had been familiar to me from my boyhood, 
 and whose writings along with those of Thomas Campbell 
 had exercised very considerable influence upon my 
 imagination. I was prepared to find Mr. Rogers 
 hideously ugly, for I remembered many of the epigrams 
 and jokes upon his personal appearance, which had been hi 
 circulation ever since I began to read, and which his 
 former friend Lord Byron had taken a malicious pleasure 
 in repeating, and which were taken up by a succeeding 
 race of writers, notably by Dr. Maginn and Mr. Theodore 
 Hook, who in their turn were imitated by smaller 
 cynics of society with such little force as was at their 
 command. B}-ron had written some venomous lines 
 which did not see the light till after his death, which I 
 could not help remembering as I turned from St. 
 James's Street at 10 a.m. to breakfast with him at 22, St. 
 James's Place, a house which his long residence had 
 rendered classic ground, — 
 
 "Nose and chin would shame a knocker, 
 Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
 
 208 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Mouth which marks the envious scorner, 
 With a scorpion in each corner. 
 Turns its quick tail to sting you, 
 In the place that most may wring you." 
 
 There was much more of the same sort, which it was a pity 
 that a poet of such genius as Byron's, should have soiled 
 his pen, his paper, or his mind by writing. The prin- 
 cipal jokes against Rogers turned on the supposed fact 
 that his countenance was deathlike. It was said that he 
 was once refused exit from the catacombs at Paris with 
 the observation by one of the custodians of the place, 
 " on ne laisse pas passer les morts," and that at Byron's 
 funeral he was warned to keep out of the way of the 
 undertakers lest they should seize him also and put him 
 in a coffin. But my first look at the poet, then in his 
 seventy- eighth year, was an agreeable surprise, and a 
 protest in my mind against the malignant injustice which 
 had been done him. As a young man he might have 
 been uncomely if not as ugly as his revilers had painted 
 him, but as an old man there was an intellectual charm 
 in his countenance and a fascination in his manner which 
 more than atoned for any deficiency of personal beauty. 
 No man or woman can be positively good looking if bald 
 and toothless, but even the bald and toothless can be in- 
 telligent, benevolent, quick-witted, and agreeable in con- 
 versation. And Mr. Rogers was all these and more. 
 He received me with the greatest kindness and cordiality, 
 speedily put me at my ease, and increased my pleasure by 
 informing me that he had invited Mr. Campbell, whom I 
 already knew, to meet me. Mr. Campbell kept the 
 breakfast waiting about a quarter of an hour, during
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 209 
 
 which time Mr. Rogers pointed out some of the pictures 
 that adorned the wall of his cheerful morning room, look- 
 ing out upon the Green Park, and a little garden where 
 Moore and Byron once had, I believe, some sort of a 
 quarrel and reconciliation. He also took up a piece of 
 amber, with a fly in it. " There," he said, "that fly, as 
 Sydney Smith remarks, may have buzzed in the ear of 
 Adam." Taking up a female hand, exquisitely modelled 
 by Canova, he said, "You would scarcely believe it, but 
 that hand is so lovely that I have kissed it a hundred 
 times." Somehow or other our conversation turned upon 
 Lord Ifyron's poetry, of which I expressed my warm 
 admiration, especially of some passages in "Childe 
 Harold," "Cain," "Manfred," and the "Bride of 
 Abydos." I found that Mr. Rogers did not share my 
 enthusiasm, but met my praises with very emphatic 
 depreciation. " Byron," he said, " wrote too fast and too 
 much. Ben Jonson remarked of his friend Shaks- 
 peare, in reference to the statement that he had written 
 no line which dying he would wish to blot, ' Would to 
 Heaven he had blotted a thousand ! ' I think it would 
 have been better for Byron if he had blotted ten 
 thousand !" There was considerable argument on both 
 sides, but wishing to close the discussion, I wound up by 
 saying, ' ' At least, Mr. Rogers, you will admit that there was 
 fire in Byron ! " " Oh yes ! " he replied, " there was fire, 
 and plenty of it, but it was ' hell-fire.' Mr. Campbell 
 was shortly afterwards announced, and we proceeded to 
 breakfast, during which Mr. Rogers had nearly all the con- 
 versation to himself. Mr. Campbell said but little, and 
 looked very much as if he were listening for the second or 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 third time to the stories that his host was telling. But they 
 were all new to me, and I think I may say for myself, 
 that I acted well upon that occasion the not always 
 easy part of a good listener. 
 
 The conversation was led by Mr. Rogers to the subject 
 of Pope. " I like," he said, " when I meet with a young 
 author, to know what he thinks of Pope. I test him by 
 that. You, who so greatly admire Byron, what is your 
 opinion of Pope ? " I told him that I did not know 
 which of the two to admire most ; both so different, yet 
 both so excellent. I added that I thought " The Dying 
 Christian to His Soul " was the most perfect gem of 
 poetry in the language, and that it was impossible to add 
 to it, take away from it, or alter it, without damaging its 
 complete and rounded beauty. 
 
 "And the 'Essay on Man,' and the ' Essay on Criti- 
 cism,' " interposed Mr. Campbell ; " perfect in their way, 
 and containing more quotable and oftener quoted lines 
 than any other poems in the whole range of English 
 literature, Shakespeare excepted. Pope rivals Horace 
 in quotability, and that is saying a great deal. There 
 are hundreds of passages in Pope that might be quoted 
 with fine effect by our Parliamentary and other orators, 
 that are quite new, or at all events so new as not to be 
 threadbare. For instance, what can be finer than the 
 picture of the rich man who has outlived his appetite 
 and sense of enjoyment, who in his satiety 
 
 ' Called ' happy dog' the beggar at his door, 
 Ami envied thirst and hunger to the poor '. ' 
 
 "I very early learned to reverence Pope," said Mr.
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 211 
 
 Rogers. "I perfectly well remember when I was a boy 
 making more than one pilgrimage to No. 5, King's Bench 
 Walk, Temple, where Mr. Murray, afterwards Lord 
 Mansfield, had chambers, and where Pope often called 
 upon him. I was glad to tread over the very steps where 
 the feet of Pope had passed. Do you remember the 
 lines in the ' Ode to Venus,' in the ' Imitations of Horace,' 
 where he declares that at ' sober fifty ' he is too old for 
 love, and calls to the goddess 
 
 ' To number five direct your doves, 
 There spread round Murray all your blooming loves V 
 
 Murray at this time was but thirty-three, Pope being 
 seventeen years his senior." 
 
 " I don't know whether Murray, then a rising, and, 
 indeed, famous barrister, had any reputation for gal- 
 lantry," said Mr. Campbell ; "but whether or not, Pope 
 praised him for something better, though he scarcely 
 praised him in good verse. You know," he said, turning 
 to me, " the famous instance of bathos, 
 
 ' Graced as thou art, with all the power of words, 
 So known, so honoured in the House of Lords. ' ' 
 
 " These lines were well parodied," added Rogers, " by 
 a wit of the time, with very allowable satire and with 
 most excellent alliteration. 
 
 ' Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, 
 And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks.' ' 
 
 " Don't you think," I ventured to inquire, " that 
 
 P 2
 
 2J 2 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 alliteration, when not so overdone as to be tiresome, 
 is a very valuable adjunct to poetic expression, as in 
 that grand passage in Byron descriptive of the battle 
 of Waterloo, where he speaks of the Duke of Brunswick, 
 
 ' Who rushed into the field and foremost fighting fell ? ' " 
 
 " ' Foremost fighting fell ' is admirable ;" said Mr. Camp- 
 bell, " and I have sometimes thought that some future poet 
 might advantageously revive the alliterative blank verse 
 of the author of ' Piers Ploughman.' We are wearing 
 out the old rhymes rapidly, as Pope complained a 
 hundred years ago, when he spoke of the constant 
 iteration of the consonance of ' dove ' and ' love,' 
 ' trees and breezes,' ' eyes and sighs.' " 
 
 "I never," said Mr. Piogers, " derived any benefit from 
 the strictures of a critic but once ; and that was on 
 the occasion of an alliteration which I had not premedi- 
 tated. The second canto of the ' Pleasures of Memory,' 
 as published in the first edition, commenced with the 
 lines — 
 
 ' Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, 
 Oft up the tide of Time, I turn my sail." 
 
 The critic remarked on this passage that it suggested 
 the alliteration 
 
 ' Oft up the tide of Time, I turn my tail,' 
 
 and added that Time was not a tide, which ebbed and 
 flowe 1, but a stream constantly running down into the
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. £13 
 
 Great Ocean of Eternity. I took the hint in my second 
 edition, and wrote — 
 
 ' Oft up the stream, of Time, I turn iny sail ; ' 
 
 thus breaking the alliteration and improving the image." 
 "In which," said Mr. Campbell, "I think you acted 
 wisely." 
 
 I thought to myself, though I was too young, and 
 had too much respect for rny seniors to say so, that the 
 author of the "Pleasures of Hope" might have imitated 
 the author of the "Pleasures of Memory," in taking a 
 hint, and altered the well-known line, 
 
 " Like angel visits, feio and far between," 
 
 to "short" and far between; which would have been 
 much better. I did not know at the time that the line as 
 amended was that of an older poet, and that Campbell 
 had, no doubt, unconsciously conveyed it into his own 
 poem, and damaged it in the process. 
 
 It was on the occasion of this the first of many visits I 
 was privileged during ten years to pay to Mr. Rogers, that 
 he gave me what seemed a very cynical, but was possibly 
 a very prudent, piece of advice. " From your position as 
 a journalist," he said, " you will in all probability be very 
 often bored by foolish people who will send you books 
 of verse, which they will consider poetry (ninety-nine 
 persons out of a hundred scarcely know the difference), 
 with a view of extorting your favourable opinion. 
 Never allow a day to pass without acknowledging 
 the receipt of the book, thanking them for their
 
 2 U FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 courtesy, and saving that you 'anticipate much pleasure 
 in the perusal.' That will in most cases end the 
 matter ; and }'ou will he under no obligation to tell them 
 whether or not the anticipation was realized. But if you 
 allow a week to elapse before acknowledging the receipt, 
 they will imagine you have employed the interval in read- 
 ing their lucubrations, and will expect you to praise them 
 without stint, and to give reasons for your high opinion 
 of their merits. I have acted upon this plan myself for 
 many years, and have found great comfort and relief 
 from it." 
 
 But Mr. Rogers was only a cynic in theory, not in 
 practice, and was always ready to lend a helping hand, 
 either by good counsel or by more sterling and palpable 
 aid, if it were needed, to help young genius, or even 
 young talent, up the steep hill that leads to fame, and 
 may lead to fortune. In my case, when I sent him a 
 volume entitled " The Hope of the World," which I had 
 taken the liberty, in accordance with a practice now 
 going out of date, to "dedicate" to him, he wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Many, many thanks for your volume, which I found 
 upon my table the other day when I returned home. 
 I need not say how welcome it was ! You are one of 
 the very, very few who think before they write — not that 
 any of us think always to the purpose. 
 
 " To convince you that I have read you with some 
 attention, I will try to find fault, if one who is faulty 
 himself may do so. 
 
 ' Who left their hones for vultures.'
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 215 
 
 A flippant reviewer would say — ' Why leave for them 
 what they would leave themselves ? ' 
 
 ' To charm in youth, to captivate in age. ' 
 
 Are not the verbs too much alike in sense ? Would not 
 elevate do better, or, if no better word be found, would 
 not it be safer to say 
 
 ' To charm, to elevate, in youth, in age .' ' 
 
 What, I confess, I hate is a distinction without a differ- 
 ence. 
 
 " But perhaps you could convince me that they are 
 right, and to be justified, if you were at my elbow. 
 
 " And such lines as these — 
 
 ' Lo ! the first blood that sank into the sod, 
 Flowed in contention at the shrine of God,' 
 
 should strike me blind to all the faults in the world. 
 
 "There is a little poem, 'A Grave beneath a Tree,' 
 that is worth all the fine writing that the world has pro- 
 duced. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " S. Rogers. 
 
 "Dec. 24, 1840." 
 
 The little poem, which he admired so much, and which 
 Mr. Bates, the editor of " Maclise's Portrait Gallery," 
 from Frasers Magazine, reprinted, with additional notes, 
 in 1873, says that the old man remembered almost to 
 the last, and was wont to speak of in the language of
 
 216 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 his letter, scarcely, as the author thinks, merits his 
 eulogium ; but doubtless it appealed to his heart in some 
 way, and is here appended, with the supply of the 
 sixth line accidentally omitted in that publication : — 
 
 "A GRAVE BENEATH A TREE. 
 
 " When my soul flies to the first great Giver, 
 Friends of the Bai - d ! let my dwelling be 
 By the green bank of that rippling river, 
 Under the shade of yon tall beech tree. 
 Bury me there, ye lovers of song, 
 
 When the prayers for the dead are spoken, 
 With my hands on my breast, 
 Like a child at rest, 
 And my lyre in the grave unbroken." 
 
 The line which Mr. Rogers quoted with disapproba- 
 tion from the " Hope of the World," occurred in a 
 passage descriptive of the second Crusade : — 
 
 " Tell of the sacred crowds as mad as these, 
 Who covered earth and swarmed ujion the seas ; 
 When zealous Bernard waved his banner high, 
 ' The Cross,' ' Jerusalem,' ' The Lord,' his cry ; 
 And of the remnant of that countless host 
 Who left their bones for vultures on the coast. 
 Nor once beheld the shores they pined to see, 
 Bethlehem's green meads or waves of Galilee." 
 
 The next time I saw Mr. Rogers after the receipt of 
 his flattering letter, I did what little I could in de- 
 fence of the vultures and the bones ; stating that I 
 thought I was right, and that Iris criticism was some- 
 what overstrained. ""When men lie down to die, in 
 battle or elsewhere," I said, "there is flesh upon their 
 bo ik's, and that is what the vultures want." "You may
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 217 
 
 be right," he replied, good-humouredly ; " but if I had 
 taken a little more pains, and looked further into your 
 book, I should no doubt have been able to pierce your 
 armour in some more vulnerable point." 
 
 Mr. Rogers seldom invited more than four persons to 
 breakfast ; and during man}' years few of the notabilities 
 in literature, art, politics, science, or fashion in London, 
 or distinguished stranger visiting the metropolis, escaped 
 a summons to his hospitable board, at an hour and to a 
 meal which he asserted to be far more favourable to the 
 easy flow of conversation, and to sprightly and rational 
 intercourse, than the more ponderous, and too often 
 unsocial, dinner party. And few who were favoured with 
 invitations were not glad to accept them, and interchange 
 ideas with almost the only remaining relic of a bygone 
 age of literary culture — with one who, when a boy, had 
 knocked at the door of Dr. Johnson, in Bolt Court, in the 
 hope to see the great man, and had run away, recoiling, 
 like Fear in Collins' magnificent Ode, "even at the 
 sound himself had made ; " — a man who, until the 
 "Memory," whose pleasures he had, as Lord Holland 
 wrote, sung so well, began to fail, was full of anecdotes 
 of all the remarkable people who had flourished during 
 the previous half century, and who was on terms of inti- 
 macy with every living celebrity of his day. He was an 
 excellent story-teller, never missed the point of a joke, 
 and, though he was much addicted to punning, never 
 interrupted the conversation of another to thrust in his 
 own witticism. His good things were not so good in 
 themselves as those of Douglas Jerrold — beyond all com- 
 parison the richest, most copious, most rapid, and most
 
 218 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 original wit of the nineteenth century — but depended for 
 effect rather upon the character of the person of whom 
 they were said, than upon any brilliancy or pungency 
 of diction. He was very fond of quoting an epigram 
 which he had written upon Lord Ward, with whom 
 1; • had had a feud of some kind, which, is not an unfair 
 specimen of the calibre of his wit, and the not very 
 great depth or severity of his invective : — 
 
 " Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it — 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it." 
 
 It took him, he said, a fortnight to form this couplet, and 
 polish it so deftly that it could be polished no further. 
 Writing with great difficulty himself, he disparaged and 
 imdervalued all who wrote with facility; and boasted to me 
 that he had employed three weeks in writing a short note 
 to Lord Melbourne, to suggest the bestowal of a pension 
 on Carey, the translator of Dante. There was not a 
 word in it, he said, which he had not studied and weighed, 
 and examined, so as to assure himself that it could not 
 be omitted or exchanged for a better. " Imitate my 
 example in your writings," he added, in a paternal tone. 
 "Don't write much; take time over it; and aspire to 
 go down to posterity as a diamond, rather than as a 
 chaldron of coals, or a heap of bricks and mortar." 
 
 Rogers, though by no means insensible to the charms 
 of female beauty, but on the contrary fond of ladies' society, 
 never married — a circumstance which he often regretted. 
 I tut long after he had turned his eightieth year, he made a 
 proposal to a young lady of twenty, who rejected him 
 with ilu' curt reply, that such a union would be too
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 219 
 
 ridiculous. Long after lie had passed his ninetieth year, 
 and when he had almost wholly lost his memory, he 
 remembered, in a dim, faint manner, this particular lady. 
 " When Mr. Rogers was in an almost unconscious state," 
 said Lady Morgan to me, "I called at his house with 
 
 Miss , to whom he had offered marriage, in 
 
 order to inquire after his health, and leave our cards. 
 His carriage was at the door, and he was about to be 
 lifted into it for an ailing. His faithful valet suggested 
 that we should accompany him on his ride, adding that 
 he would surely recognize me, and that he would take it 
 
 kindly of me. Miss objected slightly at first, but 
 
 we both got into the carriage. After a time I took the 
 old man by the hand, and said, ' You don't know me, 
 Mr. Rogers, do you ? ' He looked at me with lack-lustre 
 eyes for a while, but gradually a little gleam of intelli- 
 gence appeared in them, and he said very slowly, ' Yes, 
 I think I know you, but I am not quite sure. Is it 
 Lady Morgan ? ' I told him he was right. ' Ah, 
 Lady Morgan,' he replied, ' it is very kind of you to come 
 and see me.' He then relapsed into unconsciousness, 
 and so remained for about ten minutes, when I again 
 took his hand, and said, ' And as you know me, Mr. 
 
 Rogers, perhaps you know this lady also ? ' Miss 
 
 sat on the seat opposite, and Mr. Rogers, who had not 
 previously observed her, looked at her attentively ; and 
 after an effort, as if he were recalling some fast-disap- 
 pearing train of thought, said slowly, * Yes, I know 
 her ; she has come to marry me.' My companion after- 
 wards told me that she felt as if she could have sunk 
 through the floor of the carriage ; but Mr. Rogers
 
 220 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 relapsed into utter unconsciousness, closed his eyes, and 
 never said another word, or bestowed a look upon either 
 of us, until we deposited him safely at the door of 
 Number Twenty-two, and to the care of his valet." 
 
 The reputation which Mr. Eogers enjoyed for cynicism 
 was undeserved. He said unkind things, but he did kind 
 ones in the most gracious manner. If he was some- 
 times severe upon those who were " up," he was always 
 tender to those who were " down." He never closed his 
 purse-strings against a friend, or refused to help the 
 young and the deserving.
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 During the five years preceding his death, I was in 
 frequent social intercourse with Thomas Campbell, 
 the author of " The Pleasures of Hope," and of the 
 magnificent lyrical poems, "The Battle of the Baltic," 
 " Hohenlinden," and " Ye Mariners of England." The 
 last of these poems appeared originally in the Morning 
 Chronicle, and was sent to Mr. Parry from Ptatisbon 
 shortly after the declaration of war against Denmark in 
 1801. During the long intervening period Mr. Campbell 
 had kept up an unpaid connection with his favourite 
 journal, and contributed an occasional epigram or political 
 squib to its columns. There was, however, but little 
 merit in these bye -plays of his fancy ; the humour was 
 but weak, and the wit consisted only of indifferent puns. 
 Witness his epistle to Horace Smith from Algiers, which 
 was one of them : — 
 
 " Dear Horace be melted to tears, 
 
 For I'm melting with heat as I rhyme, 
 
 Though the name of this place is All-jeers, 
 
 'Tis no joke to fall in with its clime." 
 
 There are fourteen stanzas of this calibre, each with a
 
 222 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 pun no better than the following, which is worn un- 
 commonly threadbare. 
 
 " The pain of my thirst is no sham, 
 
 Though I'm bawling aloud for champagne. 
 
 Campbell was a keen politician and a thorough Whig 
 of the school of Charles James Fox, and a Free Trader of the 
 school of Richard Cobden. His last contribution to the 
 Chronicle does not appear in his collected works ; nor is 
 it included with other similar squibs in his last volume, 
 " The Pilgrims of Glencoe," published in 1842. Some 
 political sensation was created in the clubs and in parlia- 
 mentary circles, during the height of the Anti-Corn-Law 
 agitation, by the secession from the Liberal party of a 
 Mr. Gordon, the member for Windsor, who, from his great 
 size (he was a man about as large as the Claimant of 
 1874), was irreverently called Bum Gordon. Mr. Campbell 
 felt sufficiently interested to write on this topic, and 
 sent the following to the Chronicle: — 
 
 "TORY LOGIC. 
 
 '' \'.(~ hushed, ye reformers abusive, 
 
 We'll see you all damned ere we grant 
 Your requests (ami our logic's conclusive), 
 We hate the amendments ye want. 
 
 " Is it timber, new law;- you would bring on? 
 We've plenty of wood, 'twill he seen, 
 For you gallows-faced Whigs all to swing on, 
 Ami a scaffold besides for the Queen.
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 223 
 
 ' ' Our Corn-Laws that make us so wealthy, 
 Against them how dare you complain ? 
 Your landlords to make the poor healthy 
 Are temperance teachers in grain. 
 
 " But the Whig cause is palpably frail, 
 Since Gordon to join us has come, 
 He had ne'er like O'Connell a tail, 
 But he always was famed for a bum. 
 
 " Religion you say would delight ye, 
 Uncorked by our clerical screw ; 
 But we know all about God Almighty 
 
 A thousand times better than you ! 
 
 " You atheist Whigs would oblige us, 
 In sceptical darkness to dwell, 
 And rob us of comforts religious, 
 Even down to a devil in hell. 
 
 " ' Death's sleep is eternal' in France, 
 'Twas said by those infidel slaves ; 
 If the Whigs were all buried, we'd dance 
 Eternally over their graves." 
 
 The author originally appended his initials to this 
 effusion, but sent late at night to the office a missive 
 by a special messenger to ask the editor to omit them, 
 for the reason assigned. 
 
 " Sir, — I should be obliged to you to omit my initials 
 when you insert my verses entitled, " Tory Logic," in the 
 Chronicle ; in case Mr. Gordon, on seeing that I had 
 mentioned his bum, should come and kick mine. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " Thos. Campbell."
 
 224 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 His request was of course acceded to. "Tory Logic" 
 gave general offence, and was the means of depriving the 
 Chronicle of at least one subscriber, as appears from the 
 
 following : — 
 
 "Upper Berkeley St., 
 "May 17, 1841. 
 
 "To the Editor of the 'Morning Chronicle.' — 
 By the desire of the Dowager Lady Dunmore I am to 
 inform you that she has discontinued taking your paper 
 in consequence of your admitting into your columns such 
 infamous trash as the enclosed. (Her ladyship enclosed 
 me some lines headed " Tory Logic," and begged me to 
 burn them as soon as I had read them.) 
 
 " I am, Sir, 
 
 "Your obedient servant, 
 
 "K. G. D. 
 (" Newsvender.") 
 
 Thomas Moore might have established a reputation 
 by his political squibs had he written nothing else ; 
 but Thomas Campbell, as may be seen from the above, 
 was not fitted to excel in that light, sparkling, and 
 ephemeral department of literature. His genius was of 
 too high and solid an order for these small efforts. 
 His " Pleasures of Hope " was not the poem, though long 
 and still a popular favourite, on which he rested his hopes 
 of fame; neither did his beautiful " Gertrude of Wyoming" 
 seem to him the work that would carry his name to 
 posterity. He rested his hopes of immortality on his 
 splendid war odes, and on " Lochiel's Warning," of which 
 it may be truly said that no change of taste, no variation
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 225 
 
 of literal'}' fashion, no lapse of time, will ever dim the sur- 
 passing lustre, or take them out of that inner circle and 
 nucleus of the great galaxy of English literature, where 
 the master-pieces of the master hards are destined to glow 
 in supernal light as long as the English shall remain either 
 a living or a dead language. Campbell's genius was 
 of earl)' growth and maturity. None of his poetical 
 works written when he was above the age of thirty-five, 
 equalled, or even approached in excellence those which 
 he composed in his youthful manhood ; and his last work, 
 " The Pilgrims of Glencoe," was a melancholy specimen 
 of decay : mere verse, without a scintillation of the 
 perfervidum ingenium of his youthful days. 
 
 One of his latest poems, " On getting home a Portrait 
 of a Female Child Six Years Old, by Eugene Latilla," 
 published with " The Pilgrims of Glencoe," but originally 
 contributed to the Morning Chronicle, shows how sus- 
 ceptible he was in his later years to the charms of infantile 
 beauty. He saw the portrait exhibited for sale, in a shop- 
 window, and was so struck with admiration of its arch and 
 piquant loveliness, that he gushed into song and into print 
 and purchased the picture at a price he could ill afford. 
 He had it engraved as the frontispiece to his last book, 
 and gave it the place of honour in his chambers at 61, 
 Lincoln's-inn-Fields. Some months later, he was struck 
 by the charms, not this time of a picture, but of a living 
 child, whom he met in St. James's Park, under the charge 
 of a nurse, and with whom he carried on a little innocent 
 flirtation for half the afternoon. He celebrated the 
 occurrence in a poem entitled "Lines on my New Child- 
 Sweetheart," commencing — 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 "I hold it a religious duty 
 To love and worship children's beauty. 
 They've least the taint of earthly clod, 
 They're freshest from the hand of God." 
 
 The old man, living alone in his melancholy chambers, 
 without wife or child, with no companions hut his club 
 friends, yearned for tenderer intercourse, even with a child, 
 and broke out into a pathetic lament — pathetic though 
 sadly prosaic in its phraseology : — 
 
 " Oh beauteous, interesting child, 
 Why asked I not thy home and name 
 My courage failed me — more's the shame. 
 But where abides this jewel rare, 
 Oh ye that own her, tell me where. 
 For sad it makes my heart and sore, 
 To think I ne'er must meet her more." 
 
 These very mediocre lines are scarce!}' better than the 
 impromptu of Isaac Watts in his eighth year, when his 
 father threatened to whip him if he persisted in rhyming. 
 Caught in flagrante delicto, the father seized young Isaac 
 to inflict the penalty, when the latter cried out in terror 
 and deprecation — 
 
 " Oh, father, do some L >ity take, 
 And I no more will verses make !" 
 
 It was on a Saturday afternoon when this little meeting 
 took place, and all the newspaper offices being closed, 
 .Mr. Campbell came himself to the editorial rooms of the 
 Morning Chronicle on the next day, bringing with him 
 the following advertisement, with an urgent request that 
 it should appear next day : —
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 227 
 
 " A gentleman, sixty-three years old, who, on Saturday 
 last, between six and seven p.m., met near Buckingham 
 ( rate with a most interesting looking child, four j-ears of 
 age, but who forbore from respect for the lad} r who had 
 her in hand, to ask the girl's name and abode, will be 
 gratefully obliged to those who have the happiness of 
 possessing the child to be informed where she lives, and 
 if he maybe allowed to see her again. A letter will reach 
 the advertiser, T. C, at No. 61, Lincoln's-inn-Fields." 
 
 The little charmer never re-appeared on his vision. 
 He received calls, he said, from scores of women, all with 
 children, who declared they had been in St. James's Park 
 on the day and hour specified, but who failed to satisfy 
 him that they were not arrant impostors. Some of 
 them were drunk, some exceedingly impudent, and some 
 evidently intent upon extorting money from him. One 
 woman brought a very pretty boy to present to the poet, 
 in hope he would adopt him ; but, said Mr. Campbell, 
 "though I was no doubt very foolish in being carried away 
 by my enthusiasm for the beautiful young face of an angelic 
 child, I was not so great a fool as not to know a boy from 
 a girl. I had a deal of trouble with that woman, and 
 had to threaten her with the police and an appearance at 
 Bow Street, before I could get rid of her." 
 
 This little episode was but the yearning of a lonely 
 man for the domestic life which he had once enjoyed, and 
 of which hard fate in his later 3'ears had deprived him. 
 There was a void in his heart which club companionship 
 and the flattery of society could not lill ; and he pined for 
 something lo love, something that might recall to him 
 
 q '2
 
 228 FOKTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the days of his youth and early prime, when he too could 
 see children's faces at his hearth, and hear the prattle of 
 children at his knee. At last he found the care and com- 
 panionship — without which his closingyears were becoming 
 wearisome and solitary — in the person of a young niece, 
 his brother's child, who came from Glasgow to soothe his 
 declining 3 r ears, and act as his housekeeper. He left his 
 lonely chambers in Lincoln's-inn-Fields, and took a small 
 house in Victoria Square, close to Buckingham Palace. 
 But he did not live long in his new abode. His health 
 had for years been foiling, and with the expectation that 
 the sea-air would be of temporary benefit, he went to 
 Boulogne-sur-Mer. But the anticipated benefit did not 
 come, and his friend and physician, Dr. William Beattie, 
 himself a poet, was suddenly summoned from London to 
 attend him. He obej'ed the call, and reached Boulogne 
 only to find Mr. Campbell dangerously ill, and to do all 
 that medical skill, combined with affectionate friendship, 
 could do, to soothe the last hours of the dying man. The 
 poet expired on the 15th of June, 1844, in the sixty- 
 seventh year of his age. 
 
 I had the honour to receive from the executors, Dr. 
 Beattie, his attached friend, and Mr. Moxon, his publisher, 
 an invitation to his funeral, which took place in West- 
 minster Abbey, with imposing ceremony. His pall was 
 held by six of the most eminent personages of the day: 
 one of them being Sir 'Robert Peel, who had recently 
 resigned office, but who in his fall from power was incom- 
 parably the greatest man in England of his day; the 
 others being dukes and earls, whose names I have ceased 
 i" remember. The ceremonial was marked by two
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 22& 
 
 incidents which were duly recorded in the newspapers of 
 the following morning. The one was the sudden outburst 
 of a thunder-storm, the solemn echoes of which reverberated 
 through the majestic aisle of the abbey, as the officiating 
 clergyman pronounced the deeply impressive words of the 
 funeral service, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty 
 God of his great mercy to take imto himself the soul of 
 our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his 
 body to the ground : earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust 
 to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection 
 to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ." A thrill 
 of visible emotion seemed to pass like a wave through the 
 crowd of mourners ; and Dr. Beattie, next to whom I 
 stood, pressed my arm as if to draw my attention to the 
 appropriateness of the thunder burst, at such a moment, 
 and the beauty as well as sublimity of the incident. 
 
 The second incident was equally dramatic. When the 
 solemn service came to a close, one of the mourners, a 
 Polish exile, stepped out of the crowd and sprinkled a 
 handful of earth upon the coffin, saying that it was earth 
 procured from Poland, to mingle with the English earth 
 over the grave of him who had written 
 
 ' ' Hope for a season bade the world farewell, 
 And Freedom .shrieked when Kosciusko fell." 
 
 Mr. Campbell from his earliest years had been a friend 
 of the Poles, and had never tired in prose or verse, in 
 speech or act it m, of expressing his indignation at the wicked 
 partition of Poland by the three allied robbers — Russia, 
 Austria, and Prussia. He was mainly instrumental in 
 founding the Polish Association of London ; and to be
 
 23G FORTY YEARS 5 RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 a Pole and in want, was to have a sure passport to his 
 sympathy, his good offices, and his scant}' purse. He 
 was one of the founders of the University of London, and 
 was also Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, from 
 which, his "Alma-Mater," he received the degree of 
 Doctor of Laws, a title which he never assumed, or 
 placed upon the title pages of his books. Dr. Beattie, 
 to whom he was fond of applying the lines of Pope to 
 Garth— 
 
 " Friend of my life, which didst not tliou prolong, 
 The world had wanted many an idle song " — 
 
 published, in 1849, a life of Campbell, in three volumes, 
 full of the gentle spirit and kindly appreciation of others 
 which was a characteristic of the benevolent and amiable 
 biographer. It would have been better, as Dr. Beattie 
 himself lived to confess, if he had restricted the memoir 
 to one volume, and so saved both labour and money, 
 while producing a work more likely to live than the too 
 voluminous one which his zeal and affection rather 
 than his sober judgment prompted him to write. There 
 is a well-known portrait of Campbell by Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence — a very flattering likeness, but not so true as 
 the excellent drawing by Maclise in Eraser's Portrait 
 Gallery, or the equally excellent bust by Paliva Park, 
 which long adorned Dr. Beattie's dining-room.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 It was about the middle of June, 1844, that Mr. Rogers 
 invited me to breakfast at 22, St. James's Place to meet 
 Mr. Wordsworth. I had long wished for a personal 
 introduction to this celebrated poet, and was consequently- 
 much disappointed when Mr. Rogers announced, as soon 
 as I arrived, that Mr. Wordsworth was unable to come. 
 The conversation, however, turned upon him all the 
 morning, and especially upon two sonnets which he had 
 written in deprecation of the projected Kendal and Win- 
 dermere Railway ; and upon a long letter upon the same 
 subject which he had just published in the Morning Post. 
 In one of the sonnets he indignantly asked if there was 
 " no nook of English ground secure from rash assault," de- 
 nounced the railway as a "blight" and a "ruthless change," 
 and called upon the "torrents and the winds," if "human 
 hearts were dead " or insensible, to " protest against the 
 wrong." In the second sonnet he declared that the 
 " thirst of gold " ruled o'er Britain like a baneful star, 
 (which, said Mr. Rogers, is rather a confused metaphor, 
 for how can thirst be like a star?) and called upon the 
 " mountains, vales, and floods," when they heard the 
 whistle of the locomotive, "to share the passion of a just
 
 232 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 disdain " of its unwelcome intrusion into the privacy of 
 the poet. 
 
 " I think PuncKs parody of the sonnet," said Mr. 
 Rogers, " is much more sensible and to the point than 
 the original. And as for his letter in the Morning Post, 
 I must regret, as his friend, that he ever wrote it, and 
 still more that he should have published it." In this 
 opinion I could not but agree, thinking as I did — and as 
 I had written — that there was poetry oven in the railway, 
 and that the marvellous triumphs of science in our 
 age were as susceptible of poetic treatment as an}' othci 
 subject. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Rogers, " a good poet, though not to 
 the taste of our day, and now almost wholly unknown — 
 Erasmus Darwin — treated of steam in a highly poetical 
 and prophetic manner, when there was not as yet a rail- 
 way in the land, or a steam-ship upon the ocean — 
 
 1 Soon .shall thy arm, imeonquered steam, afar, 
 Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car, 
 Or on wide waving wings expanded bear 
 The Bring chariot through the fields of air." 
 
 The last prophecy is not yet fulfilled — who shall be 
 io daring as to deny that it may be ? 
 
 The gist of the argument in Mr. Wordsworth's lettei 
 was that the people of Great Britain had no taste for fine 
 scenery, and that therefore a railway ought not to be 
 brought through such a district as that of "Windermere, 
 for the purpose of gratifying a taste that was non-existent. 
 II. attempted to jirove his assertion by quotations from 
 the works of Bishop Burnet, and others, who looked
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 233 
 
 upon the sublime scenery of the Alps with horror, and 
 not with delight ; and from some anecdotes of Burns, 
 tending to show that Burns had no eye for the pic- 
 turesque ! He also told a facetious story of a " shrewd 
 and sensible Keswick woman," who said that in her 
 youth such a thing asa " prospect " was never dreamed 
 of. He strenuously maintained that as the taste for 
 scenery was an acquired one, it was not likely that the 
 multitudes would ever possess it ! He expressed a horror 
 of any popular amusements on the quiet shores of the 
 lakes, of horse races on the land, or boat races on the 
 water ; and concluded his catalogue of the evils likely to 
 result from the railway, b}' the assertion that "the Sunday 
 in the towns of Bowness and Ambleside, and other parts 
 of the district, would be subject to much additional dese- 
 cration.'' " The imperfectly educated classes," he said, 
 " are not likely to derive much good from rare visits to 
 the lakes, paid in this way ; and surety on their own 
 account it is not desirable that their visits should be fre- 
 quent." He added his opinion that " as long as inequali- 
 ties of private property shall exist, there musthe privileges 
 in recreations and amusements, and that all cannot be 
 enjoyed by all." ''Leave the aristocracy," he went on 
 to say, " in unenvied possession of their privacies, and 
 be assured that, upon the whole, the extremely rich are 
 neither better, nor wiser, nor healthier, nor happier thai: 
 those who stand far below them in the social scale." 
 
 " I do not see," I remarked to Mr. Rogers, " why Mr. 
 Wordsworth should speak for the aristocracy in this 
 matter, for he is not one of them, either by birth or for- 
 tune, and is not even a landowner. "
 
 234 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " But," said Mr. Rogers, " he is a Tory, and he speaks 
 in the Tory fashion, and has not the advantage that you 
 and I have of being a Whig. It is a pity, however, that 
 he had no friend at his side to prevent him from rushing 
 into print, and Quixote like, attacking a windmill — or 
 something worse. His sonnet was bad enough, but the 
 ridicule attaching to it would have speedily died away. 
 His letter will both revive and perpetuate it, for which I 
 am truly sorry." 
 
 " What can be the reason that so great a poet should 
 lake so small a view ? " 
 
 "The reason," replied Mr. Rogers, "is not far to 
 seek. He lives too much alone. He does not associate 
 with his fellow men. He has shut himself up for years 
 among the mountains and the lakes, and worshipped 
 them ; he has ended by worshipping himself. He has so 
 continually brooded over his own genius in his darling 
 solitudes, that he has come to consider himself the centre 
 of the universe." 
 
 " Is he a vain — a conceited man ? " 
 
 " I should not call him a vain man, or even a conceited 
 man, by nature or original disposition, but he has become 
 conceited for want of intercourse with bis fellows. He 
 sees nobody at Grasmere who is not inferior to himself, 
 and he comes to the conclusion, unconsciously I have no 
 doubt, that everybody, everywhere else, is inferior to 
 him. If he would spend six months every year in London 
 this idea would be rubbed out of him by the wholesome 
 friction of society." 
 
 " lint is not self-appreciation a good thing? " 
 
 " A very good thing in its degree, but not in excess.
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 2 3 J 
 
 In fact, nothing is good in excess ; and excess of solitude 
 is one of the worst things in which a clever man or a 
 man of genius can indulge himself. It either leads to 
 madness or to a conceit which is next door to it. Did I 
 •ever tell you the anecdote of Wordsworth, when he was 
 called upon to make a speech at the Anniversary Dinner 
 of the Literary Fund Society ? " 
 
 I replied that he had not. 
 
 " He sat next to a gentleman at the dinner-table who 
 told him that Mr. Stephenson, the eminent engineer, was 
 present, and that Mr. Stephenson was accustomed to say 
 that his great delight, Avhen superintending the construc- 
 tion of the Skerrievore lighthouse on the west coast of 
 Scotland, was in the long summer evenings of those 
 latitudes to swing in a hammock and read the ' Excur- 
 sion." Mr. Wordsworth was highly pleased, and was 
 particularly anxious that Mr. Stephenson should he 
 pointed out to him. In the course of the evening, the 
 toast of ' the Poets ' having been proposed and responded 
 to by some one — I cannot call to mind who, but I think 
 it was Thomas Campbell — there was a call for Mr. 
 Wordsworth, who was generally known to be present. 
 Mr. Wordsworth made no sign, and the cries were re- 
 doubled. At last he rose slowly, and much against his* 
 will. ' My lords and gentlemen,' lie said, ' I cannot make 
 a speech. I never did make a speech, and am afraid I 
 never shall. l>ut there is a gentleman here present, Mr. 
 Stephenson, the great engineer, and if you will call upon 
 him to speak, he will doubtless tell you something 
 that will interest you more than anything I could say. 
 lie will tell you how he passed the long summer
 
 236 FORTY years' recollections. 
 
 evenings, when he was building" the Skerrievore light- 
 house ! " 
 
 " But is that true ? " I inquired. 
 
 " I know not what the truth may be," said Mr. Rogers. 
 " I was not present, but I tell the tale as it was told to 
 me, and can only say for myself that it sounds like the 
 truth, because so accordant with the mingled simplicity 
 and vanity of Wordsworth's character," 
 
 " A weak invention of the enemy, I suspect." 
 " I don't think Wordsworth has any enemies. People 
 may laugh at him now and then, but nobody dislikes 
 him. He only requires to mix a little with the world to 
 be one of the best fellows who ever lived. Who but a 
 very vain mam, spoiled by continually reflecting on his 
 own excellencies," continued Mr. Rogers, taking up a 
 volume of Wordsworth's poems from the side-table — well 
 filled with books and writing materials — " would give such 
 titles to his compositions as the following ? " And he read 
 from the Table of Contents, with a running commentary 
 on each : 
 
 " Written with a pencil upon a stone in the wall of tin 
 House (an out-house) on the Island (it Grasmere. Who 
 cures whether he wrote with a pen, or a pencil, on a stone, 
 or on a sheet of paper ! " 
 
 " Written with a slate pencil upon a sbme, the largest 
 of a heap lying near the deserted quarry upon one of the 
 islands <tt Rydal. Can anything be in worse taste? 
 Nobody wants to know how or where he wrote, but what 
 he wrote ! But the following is still more Wordsworthian 
 :is a specimen of the almost childish vanity that is 
 bis besetting sin." And .Air. Rogers rend the title
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 237 
 
 unci the lines with a comic intonation and strong- 
 emphasis : — 
 
 ■LINES WPJTTEN ON A BLANK LEAF IN A COPY OF THE AUTHOR'S 
 POEM 'THE EXCURSION,' ON HEARING OF THE DEATH 
 OF THE LATE VICAR OF KENDAL. 
 
 " To public notice, with reluctance stroii-', 
 Did I deliver this unfinished song ; 
 Yet for one issue ; and I look 
 With self-eongratuLdion on the book, 
 Which pious, learned Murfitt saw and read ; — 
 Upon iir thoughts his saintly spirit fed : 
 He conned the new-born lay with grateful heart, 
 Foreboding not how soon he must depart, 
 Uhweeting that to him the joy was given, 
 Which good men take with them from Earth to Heaven." 
 
 " In other words," said Mr. Rogers, " he was proud of 
 the poem, because the saintly vicar had read Words- 
 worth's thoughts, and taken them to Heaven along with 
 him." 
 
 "I think, after that,'' said I, " that I must believe the 
 story about Stephenson the engineer. Such vanity 
 amounts to a disease." 
 
 " Yes; and it grows upon him every day, and amuses 
 everybody." 
 
 It was not until nearly two years after this conversa- 
 tion at Mr. Rogers's breakfast-table that my long-wished 
 for introduction to Mr. Wordsworth took place. I was 
 returning from London to Glasgow in the summer of 
 1846, intending to parjs through the Lake District on 
 my way, and spend a week at Ambleside and the neigh- 
 bourhood, when a literary friend, Mr. Thomas Powell, 
 author of a poem entitled " The Blind Wife," asked me
 
 238 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to call upon Mr. Wordsworth, and take a message to 
 him from his daughter, Mrs. Quillinan. Mr. Powell 
 had been engaged with Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Words- 
 worth in modernizing some of Chaucer's Poems. He 
 volunteered to give me a letter of introduction, and 
 asked me to inform Mr. Wordsworth that his daughter 
 had made up her mind to remain in London a week 
 longer, before returning to Grasmere. I undertook the 
 commission with great pleasure, as it gave me the oppor- 
 tunity of making Mr. Wordsworth's acquaintance. I 
 sent up my letter by a messenger from Ambleside, and 
 received an answer to the effect that Mr. AYordsworth 
 would be glad to see me on any day that best suited 
 my convenience. I presented myself at B}*dal Mount 
 about noon on the following day, and found the poet 
 walking in his garden, commanding a beautiful view over 
 Grasmere and the hills, or rather mountains, that en- 
 closed and shut in that picturesque little lake. Mr. 
 Wordsworth at this time had turned his seventy-sixth 
 year, and walked somewhat feebly with the aid of a 
 stick. He welcomed me very courteously, and asked me 
 to excuse him for receiving me out of doors, as he pre- 
 ferred the open air, and for walking somewhat slowly, as 
 a few days previously he had strained his foot by 
 stumbling over a molehill. I reminded him that Wil- 
 Earn III. had died from an accident of a similar kind, 
 and expressed my gratification to see that in the present 
 cuse the result had not been so serious. He suddenly 
 said, I thought somewhat ungraciously, — 
 
 " I am told that you write poetry. I never read a line 
 of your poems and don't intend."
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 230 
 
 I suppose I looked surprised at the apparent rudeness 
 of this, for he went on to say; — 
 
 "You must not be offended with me; the truth is, I 
 never read anybody's poetry hut my own." 
 
 Again I suppose that my face must have expressed 
 what I certainly felt — a slight degree of wonder at a 
 declaration which I thought so very gratuitous. 
 
 "You must not he surprised," he added; " for it is 
 not vanity that makes me say this. I am an old man, 
 and little time is left me in the world. I use that little 
 as well as I may, to revise all my poems carefully, and 
 make them as perfect as I can before I take my final 
 departure." 
 
 It was quite evident from the frankness of this ex- 
 planation, that the old gentleman did not mean to wound 
 my self-love while explaining and vindicating his own ; 
 and I could hut take in good part the confidence he had 
 reposed in me. Desiring to turn the conversation, I 
 stopped a moment in our walk to admire the outline of 
 the picturesque mountain across the lake, and pointing 
 to it, asked him its name. 
 
 "Dear me!" he replied, "that's Nab Scaur. Have 
 you never read my poems ?" 
 
 It was on the tip of my tongue to retort, that I never 
 read anybody's poems but my own ; but I reflected that he 
 was old enough to be my grandfather, and not only that, 
 but how untrue the statement would have been. So I 
 refrained, and listened attentively as he spoke. " I haw 
 described Xab Scaur more than once in my poems. 
 Don't you remember the following?" (And here he 
 recited, in a deep bass voice, a passage of twenty or
 
 240 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 thirty lines, which was entirely new to me, though I did 
 not like to tell him so.) 
 
 "Are you a climber of mountains ?" he asked me at 
 the close of his recitation ; " because if you are, and can 
 spare the time, you should, now that you are in the 
 neighbourhood, climb to the top of Helvellyn." 
 
 I replied that I never saw a mountain without a longing 
 desire to go to the top of it ; that I had scaled Ben 
 Lomond three times, Ben Nevis twice, and Goat Fell in 
 Arran half a dozen times, and each time with new delight, 
 and that only two days previously I had mounted to the 
 top of Skiddaw (it was in July), and bad been enveloped 
 for three hours in a blinding snow-storm. 
 
 "Ah!" he said, "my climbing days have long been 
 over ; but, like you, I rejoiced in the sport, the exercise, 
 and the excitement. Are you an angler? " 
 
 "No," I said; "I do not go abroad on my mountain 
 rambles to kill anything— neither bird, nor fish, nor 
 quadruped." 
 
 " I am glad of that," said he ; " there is quite enough 
 of innocent excitement in the free fresh air, the exercise, 
 and the scenery, without the savage excitement of what 
 you justly call 'killing.' I too have been for hours on 
 the mountain tops enveloped in snow and mist, generally 
 alone, and have tasted some of my most refined pleasures 
 in such situations; above the world, literally as well as 
 metaphorically, and happy in the contemplation of such 
 sublime solitudes as only the mountain top can afford." 
 
 The mention of Skiddaw turned the conversation upon 
 the vale and town of Keswick, which lie so beautifully 
 under the feel of the climber, as he plods his weary way
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 211 
 
 to the top of the mountain ; and from Keswick to Words- 
 worth's friend and fellow poet, of what used to he called 
 "the Lake School," Robert Southey, who had died not 
 very long previously. I had visited Southey's house, 
 then empty and in the hands of the painters, preparatory 
 to the letting of the place to a new tenant, and had stood 
 in the apartment where he had closed his industrious and 
 honourable life. Seeing so favourable an opportunity of 
 putting the question, I asked Mr. Wordsworth if there 
 -was any truth in the current report of the time, that 
 Southey had died literally of over-work. 
 
 " There is no truth in it," said Wordsworth. " He 
 was a calm and methodical worker, and calm, steady 
 work never kills. It is only worry and hurry that kill. 
 Southey wrote a great deal; but he wrote easily and 
 pleasantly to himself. Besides, only those who have 
 tried, know what an immense deal of literary work can be 
 got through comfortably by a man who will work regu- 
 larly for only four, or even for three horns a day. Take 
 the case of Sir Walter Scott, for instance. What an im- 
 mensity of work he got through ; and yet he was always 
 idle at one o'clock in the afternoon, and ready for any 
 amusement, or for such change of labour as the garden 
 or the field afforded. Southey was like him in that 
 respect, and though he worked hard, he always contrived 
 to enjoy abundance of leisure. Scott died of pecuniary 
 trouble, not of work. Southey died of grief for the loss 
 of his wife." 
 
 Mr. Laman Blanchard, the assistant of Mr. Albany 
 Fonblanque in the editorship of the Examiner news- 
 paper, had not long before this conversation died under 
 
 VOL. I. „
 
 242 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 very painful circumstances in an aberration of mind, 
 caused by the death of a wife to whom he was devotedly 
 attached, and 1 recalled the fact to Mr. Wordsworth's 
 memory. It seemed to impress him painfully. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "it was grief, not labour, that laid 
 its heaviest burthen upon poor Southey, as it seems to* 
 have done upon your friend." 
 
 I told him I was not intimately acquainted with 
 Laman Blanchard, but that I had met him once at 
 breakfast at Mr. Rogers's. 
 
 " Aye, Mr. Rogers ! " he remarked. " He at all events- 
 will not die either of hard work or of sorrow. Nothing 
 will touch him in that way. He has a good income, a 
 good stomach, and a heart that is tender enough in a 
 small way ; but that no disappointment can either break 
 or seriously affect. I shouldn't wonder if he lived to he- 
 ft hundred." 
 
 At this moment an elderly lady was wheeled in a 
 garden-chair by another elderly lady very close to the 
 spot where Ave were talking. I wore at the time a 
 Scotch bonnet, known as a Glengariy ; and the lady in 
 the chair no sooner caught sight of me, than she struck 
 up in rather a shrill, but not unpleasant voice, the old 
 song, commencing : — 
 
 " A Highland lad my love was born, 
 The lowland laws he held in scorn ; " 
 
 and sang a couple of stanzas of it. 
 
 " Come away, Mr. Laman Blanchard," said Mr. Words- 
 worth ; " that's my 'poor sister — an unpleasant sight — 
 come away."
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 243 
 
 I reminded liini gently that I was not Laman 
 Blanchard, but lie replied, " Oh ! never mind, it's all 
 the same to her ; come away." 
 
 "Who is that man?" cried the lady, pointing to me. 
 
 " Only Mr. Laman Blanchard, my dear," he replied. 
 "Let us turn down here," he added, sotto voce, taking 
 my arm and leading me down a bye-path. " She does 
 not like the presence of strangers, and I would not pain 
 her for for the world." 
 
 I afterwards learned that this poor lady was the once 
 celebrated poetess, Miss Wordsworth, some of whose 
 exquisite little poems were quite equal to her brother's 
 best, and that the general opinion of the neighbourhood 
 was that her mind had gradually become affected by soli- 
 tude. She had nobody to talk to — no one with whom 
 she could interchange ideas ; for Mr. Wordsworth was 
 wrapped up in himself, and did not, as he wrote in one 
 of his poems, — 
 
 " Much or oft delight, 
 To season his fire-side with personal talk 
 Of friends who live within an easy walk, 
 
 Or neighbours, daily, weekly in his sight. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Better than such discourse did silence, long, 
 Long barren silence square with his desire ; 
 To sit without emotion, hope, or aim, 
 In the loved presence of his cottage fire, 
 And listen to the flapping of the flame, 
 Or kettle whispering its faint undersong. " 
 
 This was all very well for Mrs. Wordsworth, who had 
 taken her solitary husband for better or for worse ; but 
 not well for Miss Wordsworth, who pined for social in-
 
 244 FOETY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tercourse, and sought it, rather than not have it at all, 
 ■with servants and farm labourers, and finally broke down 
 under the weight of too much loneliness. 
 
 I spent about three hours in the garden, and was not 
 asked inside ; three pleasant hours, however, though I 
 could not but regretfully see that the fires of that once 
 clear and gentle intellect were burning somewhat dimly, 
 and that the end could not be far off. He bade me a 
 kindly farewell, saying " Good-bye, Mr. Laman Blan- 
 chard, and if 3'ou prolong your stay among the Lakes, 
 remember that I shall be very glad to see you again." 
 
 That evening, at the inn at Ambleside, there was an 
 American gentleman in the coffee-room who had a note 
 of introduction to Wordsworth, and was going to deliver 
 it on the morrow. He told me a story he had heard in 
 America of a countryman of his who had lost his way in 
 the vain attempt to discover Eydal Mount ; had taken a 
 wrong turn and gone three or four miles beyond or to 
 the side of the point he should have aimed at. Meeting 
 an old woman in a scarlet cloak, who was gathering 
 sticks, he asked her the way to Eydal Mount. She could 
 not tell him ; she did not know. " Not know," said the 
 American, "the house of the great "Wordsworth?" 
 "No." "What, not the house of the man whose fame 
 brings people here from all parts of the world ?" "No," 
 she insisted; "but what was he great in? was he a 
 preacher? or a doctor?" "Greater than any preacher 
 or doctor — he is a poet." " Oh, the poet ! " she replied ; 
 and why did you not tell me that before ? I know who 
 you mean now. I often meet him in the woods, jabbering 
 his pottery (poetry) to hisself. But I'm not afraid of
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF WORDSWORTH. 245 
 
 him. He's quite harmless, and almost as sensible as you 
 or me." 
 
 " Mai trovato e non vero," I replied. " I have dis- 
 covered during my stay in the Lake district that Words- 
 Avorth is no exception to the old rule ; no one is a hero 
 to his valet de chambrc, and no one is much thought of 
 in his own neighbourhood, unless he be a duke or an 
 earl, and very rich ; and not always highly thought of 
 even then." 
 
 "Wordsworth died in 1850, in his eightieth year. He 
 had been fairly rewarded by the Tory party to which he 
 belonged for the honour he had conferred upon the 
 literature of his country : was made distributor of stamps 
 with a salary of £700 per annum ; had besides a pension 
 of £300 a year on the Civil List ; and was poet laureate, 
 a place worth £150 per annum. Wordsworth seems to 
 have accepted this antiquated office on the understanding 
 that it was a reward for past efforts, and not a salaiy for 
 services to be rendered in adulation of the sovereign or 
 laments for the sovereign's family. His predecessor 
 Southey had thought it his duty to earn his money and 
 his wine by writing birthday odes, funeral songs for 
 Queen Charlotte and the Princess Charlotte of Wales ; 
 triumphal odes in celebration of the visit of George IV. 
 to Scotland and Ireland ; and worse than all, the por- 
 tentous " Vision of Judgment," in commemoration of the 
 death of George III., which Lord Byron turned into such 
 merciless ridicule. But Wordsworth did not imitate the 
 example. Perhaps at the time the office was conferred 
 upon him, old age had dulled or extinguished his poetic 
 fire ; or perhaps he objected to writing for hire on sub-
 
 240 FORTY YEARS RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 jects which did not spring up spontaneously in his own 
 mind, and did not care to pump up a fictitious enthusiasm 
 for either the joys or the sorrows of royalty. However 
 this may be, his laureateship was a silent one. He had 
 an advantage over his predecessor in the fact that, unlike. 
 Southey, who succeeded what Scott called " the poetical 
 Pye," who had made the office contemptible, he stepped 
 into the place of a great poet, whom not even the 
 laureateship, and the silly work attached to it, could 
 render ridiculous. It is much to be wished that the 
 office were abolished, and a pension of double or treble 
 is emoluments, awarded to such future Chancers, Spen- 
 cers, Miltons, as may arise to write above the heads of 
 an unappreciative public, the immortal verse, that may 
 bring no bread to its authors ; but that may perhaps be 
 the priceless heritage of future ages, and the glory of 
 English literature.
 
 THE BUENS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 
 
 Having found the labours and the late hours of the 
 Morning Chronicle injurious to my health, I left that 
 journal, after a pleasant connection with it, that had 
 extended over nine years. On leaving London for 
 Scotland, to assume the editorship of the Glasgow Argus, 
 I had the satisfaction of receiving the following letter 
 from Sir John Easthope, the principal proprietor of the 
 ^Chronicle : — 
 
 "19, Grafton St., Bond St., 
 " IS July, 1844. 
 
 " Dear Mackay, 
 
 " Mr. Dojde* had informed me of your desire to 
 leave the Morning Chronicle at the end of this month. 
 At this advanced period of the session I am not aware 
 that the suddenness of your determination will produce 
 any very extraordinary inconvenience ; but if it did, the 
 change being for your own advantage, I could not have 
 permitted any such objection to have interposed against 
 your interests. I very cordially hope that all the expec- 
 tations of advantage you contemplate will be most fully 
 
 * Mr. Andrew Doyle, who had married a daughter of Sir John Easthope 
 .and succeeded Mr. Black in the editorship of the Chronicle.
 
 248 FORTY YEARS RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 realised. I beg you will be assured that my honest 
 wishes of cordial good will and friendship most truly 
 follow you to your new engagement. It will always 
 give me pleasure to hear of your success, and to evince 
 the sentiments of friendship which I truly entertain for 
 you. 
 
 " I remain, dear Mackay, in great truth, 
 " Your well-wisher and sincere friend, 
 
 " John Easthope." 
 
 "To Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 The editorship of the Argus was superior in point of 
 position and of emolument to that of sub-editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle, and the labour was not half so 
 severe. Instead of one clay's leisure in the week, like a 
 mechanic, I had four days for such idleness or such change 
 of work as I desired. There w^as the additional advan- 
 tage — a very great and delightful one to me — of contiguity 
 to the sublime scenery of the West Highlands, to which 
 I could resort from Saturday to Monday, away from the^ 
 closely crowded and smoky city, to the breezy moorland 
 and the mountain top — to lake and glen, and rapid 
 stream — to all the rugged grandeur of Loch Long, and 
 the softer magnificence of Loch Lomond. 
 
 I gave myself a holiday of three months before settling 
 down to my new duties. Previously to leaving London, 
 T had received the following official invitation to attend, 
 in the town of Ayr, the great festival which had been 
 arranged in honour of Robert Burns, the immortal poet 
 of Scotland : —
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 249 
 
 "Ayr, 2nd July, 1844. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " We have the honour to communicate to you, 
 "by directions of the Committee, that a festival in honour 
 of the genius of the poet Burns, and to welcome his sons 
 to the banks of the Doon, is to take place near to the 
 Monument erected to his memory about two miles from 
 this, on Tuesday, the sixth day of August next; and 
 that Lord Eglintoun, the Lord Lieutenant of this county, 
 and Professor Wilson, of the Edinburgh University, are to 
 preside on the occasion. 
 
 " At a general meeting it was resolved that you should 
 be invited as a guest, and the Committe fondly hope that 
 the nature of your engagements are such as will enable 
 you to accept their invivation. 
 
 " Waiting the favour of your answer, 
 
 " We have the honour to be, Sir, 
 " Your very obedient servants, 
 "W. Bone, 
 " John Gray, 
 
 "Charles Mackay, Esq." 
 
 [ Sees. 
 
 " P.S. — On hearing that you are to be present, the 
 Committee will provide proper accommodation for you 
 in Ayr or its immediate neighbourhood." 
 
 I gladly accepted the invitation of the Committee, 
 
 and was very hospitably entertained at the house of 
 
 Mr. Miller, the Provost of Ayr — a town then, as 
 
 now, proud of the title given to it by Burns — the 
 
 town 
 
 " Of honest men ami bonnie las
 
 2~oQ FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Among the visitors from London, representatives of 
 the press and others, were Mr. Herbert Ingram, pro- 
 prietor of the Illustrated London News, with whom I was 
 not then acquainted ; Mr. Douglas Jerrold, Mr. and 
 Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mr. Alexander Mackay, author of the 
 " Western World ; " Mr. Patrick Park, the sculptor ; and 
 many others. Mi'. Alexander Mackay and Mr. Park had 
 been my companions in a previous ramble in the West 
 Highlands, and went to the Burns Festival solely because 
 I was going, and that we might not be separated before 
 their return to London. The two great orators engaged 
 for the occasion were the Earl of Eglintoun, the hero of 
 the Eglintoun Tournament and Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ayrshire, who was to occupy the chair ; and Professor 
 Wilson, the redoubtable Christopher North of Black- 
 wood's Magazine, who was to be vice-chairman, or, in 
 Scottish phrase, croupier. The three surviving sons of 
 Burns — the eldest, Robert, who had been a clerk in one 
 of the Government offices in Downing Street, and had 
 just retired from that position on a pension ; and Colonel 
 and Major Burns, who had recently returned from India, 
 after long service in the army of the East India Company, 
 were invited to be present. It was the accident that these 
 gentlemen were all sojourning for a time in the land of 
 their illustrious father that first suggested the idea of 
 the Festival. The project was warmly supported by 
 Lord Eglintoun and the leading literati of Scotland, and 
 xited great interest in every part of the world, wher- 
 ever Scotsmen were to be found. In England, whose 
 people in the large sense of that word take little pride 
 in their own poets, and scarcely understand the affec-
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 251 
 
 tionate love and fervent admiration which the Scotch 
 ■entertain for Burns, the interest was but languid ; and 
 not a single Englishman of any note was present, 
 except Mr. Douglas Jerrold and Mr. S. C. Hall, who 
 attended on professional business for the press. Mr. 
 •Charles Dickens, then in the full flush and glory of his 
 early fame, was invited — not for an English but for a 
 Scottish reason — because his name was accidentally 
 •connected with that of Burns, for he had married the 
 granddaughter of the George Thompson, for whose 
 musical publications Burns had written so many of his 
 songs, and to whom he had addressed the voluminous 
 correspondence that is usually printed as an appendix to 
 his works. Mr. Dickens, however, was unable to accept 
 the invitation as he was at the time travelling in Italv. 
 Among the Scottish literary men of note who took part 
 in the proceedings were Sir Archibald Alison, the histo- 
 rian, and sheriff of Lanarkshire ; Henry Glassford Bell, 
 the poet, who afterwards succeeded Sir Archibald in the 
 sheriffdom ; Colonel Mure, of Caldwell, the historian ; 
 Professor W. E. Aytoun, of Edinburgh; and several 
 dignitaries of the Scottish Bench and Bar. 
 
 It was my first visit to Ayr, and the banks of the 
 Doon; and on the day preceding the Festival, Mr. 
 Alexander Mackay, Mr. Patrick Park, and myself, set forth 
 on a torn- of inspection of all the objects in the town and 
 neighbourhood associated with the name and fame of the 
 poet whom Scotland most delights to honour. First, 
 there was the town itself, over which his youthful feet 
 had wandered ; then there were the " Brigs of Ayr," the 
 new and the old, which he had celebrated in one of his
 
 252 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 best poems ; and most interesting of all, the cottage, or 
 " clay bigging," where he was horn, two miles and a 
 quarter from the town. The hut was built by his father's 
 own hands, and rudely plastered with mud. On the 25th 
 January, 1759, the day of his birth, a sudden gust swept 
 over the country from the sea, and carried away the 
 gable-wall of the frail erection, to the great alarm of the 
 inmates, and especially of the mother, who was forthwith 
 carried, with her babe, through the storm and rain, to a 
 securer shelter. The place, after the removal of the 
 elder Burns, seven years afterwards, became the property 
 of the Corporation of Shoemakers of Ayr, who little knew, 
 when they bought the unexpired lease from the struggling 
 gardener and farmer, that the spot was destined one day 
 to rival, in the interest of its associations, the old house 
 at Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakspeare's eyes first 
 opened to the light. The cottage originally consisted of 
 two rooms, a kitchen, and a silence, or sitting-room, with 
 a recess in the wall for a bed. The Shoemakers 
 extended the building, allowing the original rooms to 
 remain, and let it as a way-side inn. In after years, 
 when Death had set the final sanctification upon the 
 glory of the poet, the little ale-house became a shrine to 
 which pilgrims and devotees resorted from all parts of 
 the world, to gratify their curiosity, and pay their homage 
 to departed genius. It was still an ale-house in 18-14, 
 asit was in 1870, when I last visited it. My companions 
 and I inscribed our names in the Book, inspected the 
 little niche in the wall where the simple wooden frame 
 bedstead had been placed, and were informed that a 
 stable-boy in Ayr had bought it for a few shillings at the
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 253 
 
 *' roup," or auction, of the elder Burns, when he 
 removed, in 1766, to the farm of Mount Oliphant, and 
 had kept it until the death of Burns in 1796, when he 
 parted with it for twenty guineas. From the cottage we 
 proceeded to " Alloway Kirk," the scene of the immortal 
 poem of Tarn o' Shanter — enough to stamp the author 
 as a genius of the highest order, if he had written 
 nothing else — written off at a heat in one day, in one hurst 
 of glowing and glorious inspiration, and containing within 
 its short compass a specimen of every feeling and emotion 
 which poetry can excite — the tender, the pathetic, the 
 mournful, the grotesque, the witty, the philosophic, the 
 horrible, the natural, the supernatural, and the sublime. 
 Our discourse as we went was of this wonderful poem, 
 which Park maintained was equal to anything in Shak- 
 speare, and showed the poet, if he had lived, to have 
 been capable of the very highest flight in literature. 
 
 " But how is it," I remarked, " that Scott, who was 
 as great a poet as Burns, perhaps greater, and whose 
 novels are the glory and pride of his country, has not 
 taken anything like the hold upon the heart of his 
 countrymen that Burns has taken ? " 
 
 " For many reasons," replied Park. " First of all, 
 Burns died young, when he had scarcely begun to put 
 forth his full powers. Second, Burns was not a fault- 
 less monster. He sinned and suffered, and was but too 
 human, and for this reason attracted the sympathy of others 
 who erred, and suffered as he did ; and third, he was a 
 man of the people, and a sturdy lover and preacher of 
 independence. He wrote ' A man's a man for a' that,' 
 and was a democrat to the back-bone. Scott was of a
 
 254 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 colder, though a greater intellect — he was not of the 
 people — lie was not a sinner like poor Burns, and was 
 too far above the crowd to attract their affection. The 
 crowd like a great man all the better for his faults, if the 
 faults are not mean ones. And no one can say that there 
 was a particle of meanness in the great soul of Eobert 
 Burns." 
 
 " Nor in that of Scott either. But I grant what you 
 say about Burns. Had he been a rich man and lived hi 
 a palace, acquired a title and associated with the high and 
 mighty rather than with the poor and lowly, he would 
 never have become the idol of the Scottish people." 
 
 " Aye ! aye ! a man's a man for a' that. Fancy Sir 
 Robert Burns, Baronet. Faugh!" said Park, "the 
 very idea has left a bad taste in nry mouth in pronouncing 
 it, and I'll take a dram of whiskey to remove it," which 
 he did from a pocket-flask with which he was provided. 
 
 \\'e soon reached the grave-yard of Alloway Church, 
 now a rum, and not much larger than a moderate sized 
 barn, capable at most of accommodating a hundred and 
 fifty or two hundred people. We particularly required 
 the guide to show us 
 
 " The winnock bunker in the East, 
 Where sat Auld Nick in shape o' beast." 
 
 This ivinnock-bunker, or seat in the window, was very 
 small, and the arch enemy of mankind was right in the 
 eye of the poet's imagination to have assumed the 
 dwarfish shape of a towzie tyke or rough terrier for the 
 occasion, on which from so confined a space he was to
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 255 
 
 play up the pipes for the dance of witches. The "bunker'" 
 ■was of stone, or it would long previously have been 
 removed, in common with every particle of the old wood- 
 work of the building, for conversion into snuff-boxes or 
 other relics of the little church, which the genius of Burns 
 had consecrated. Indeed it was asserted in Ayr that wood, 
 purporting to have belonged to Alloway Kirk, had been 
 manufactured into snuff-boxes and trinkets, sufficient in 
 their bulk to have formed all the woodwork existent in 
 the town. In the little cemetery we stopped opposite to 
 the grave of the poet's father, the hero of the beautiful 
 " Cottar's Saturday Night," and read the inscription 
 written by the poet himself. 
 
 ' ' Oh ye, whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 
 
 Draw near with pious reverence, and attend. 
 Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 
 
 The tender father and the generous friend : 
 The pitying heart that felt for human woe, 
 
 The dauntless heart that feared no human pride, • 
 The friend of man, to vice alone a foe, 
 
 For e'er his failings lean'd to virtue's side." 
 
 Were it not for the inappropriate word " stains " in 
 the first line, this composition might be considered 
 faultless. 
 
 The Monument to the memory of Burns, erected by 
 public subscription in 1820, at a cost of £'3,300, is visible 
 from old Alloway Kirk, and stands on the summit of the 
 eastern bank of the river Doon — the "bonnie Doon'' 
 of the well-known song. The edifice is about sixt} r feet 
 high, and is surrounded by an acre and a rood of garden 
 grounds very tastefully laid out and well kept. A fee of
 
 256 FORTY years' recollections. 
 
 twopence is charged to each visitor for admission, which 
 produces annually as much as pays the salary of the 
 curator and the expense of keeping the ground in order. 
 The interior of the monument is occupied by a circular 
 apartment, in the midst of which is a table with manu- 
 scripts, early editions of the poems and personal relics 
 of the poet, among others the Bible which he presented 
 to Highland Mary, the one object of his purest affection, 
 and whom he has immortalised in the tenderest and most 
 mournful love song in the language. 
 
 "I think," said Park, with a burst of enthusiasm, 
 " that as soon as I get back to London, I'll model a bust 
 of Burns and present it in marble to the monument. 
 'Twill be a poor man's tribute to the glory of another poor 
 man. Nasmyth's portrait" — and he pointed to a copy of 
 it as he spoke — " is good, and must have been like what 
 Burns was. I shall take it as my guide, but I will 
 idealize and ennoble it. I'll put my heart into the 
 work!" 
 
 Park was one of the warmest hearted and most generous 
 of men that ever lived, and though he could but ill afford 
 the time or the labour, or even the marble for the work, 
 I felt sure that he would carry out his intention. On 
 our way from the monument, to call upon Mrs. Begg, 
 the then surviving sister of the poet, Park returned to 
 the subject. I remarked that in my opinion a bust ought 
 not to be a likeness like a portrait, and that to atone for 
 the absence of colour and of the expression in the eyes 
 there ought to be the idealization and the nobility of 
 which he had himself spoken, so as to suggest the man 
 in the best and highest mood of which he was capable.
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 257 
 
 " Quite riglit," said Park ; " if a sculptor cannot make 
 his subject more or less heroic, he might as well be a 
 wood-carver or cut figure-heads for ships. When I 
 model the head of Burns, as I am fully determined to do, 
 I shall keep him before my mind in the act of composing 
 one of his best poems, such as ' A Man's a Man for a' 
 that.' " 
 
 " Do 3^011 think that poem the best for } T our purpose ? " 
 I ventured to inquire. " Is there not a touch of rough- 
 ness, of contempt, of scorn, and a land of rollicking self- 
 assertion about it, rather than of the heroic dignity you 
 would like to impress upon your marble ? " 
 
 -' Well, perhaps there is. But, stay, I have it ! I 
 know something better ! When I set to work, I shall 
 strive to bring before my imagination how Burns looked 
 when he was composing the grand patriotic chant, 
 ' Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled.' Sir Philip Sydney 
 used to say that the old ballad of Chevy Chace stirred 
 his heart as with the sound of a trumpet. ' Scots 
 wha hae ' stirs my heart as with the sound of a thousand 
 trumpets ! " 
 
 Park fulfilled his promise. In less than a twelvemonth 
 after this conversation he had completed a very noble 
 marble bust of Burns, which still stands in the place of 
 honour in the monument. The provost and magistrates 
 of Ayr entertained the sculptor at dinner, and he was duly 
 presented with the freedom of the burgh. It is not easy, 
 as Sydney Smith suggested to Sir Edwin Landseer, to 
 express in a portrait a sentiment of "hostility to the 
 Established Church;" and no one would surmise from 
 inspection of Park's bust that there was any expression 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of martial hostility to the English army in the manly 
 features which he has so successfully portrayed, but no- 
 one can look at it, whether it be a likeness or not, without 
 feeling that it is a work of genius, and one which any 
 sculptor might be proud to claim as his own. 
 
 We were courteously received by Mrs. Begg and her 
 daughter, who were living in modest comfort on an annuity 
 raised by public subscription in Scotland, the United 
 States, Canada, and India, in honour of the memory of 
 her brother. In the cottage we found Mr. Douglas 
 Jerrold and Mr. Herbert Ingram, proprietor of the Illus- 
 trated London News, then but newly started. It was the 
 first time I met the last-mentioned gentleman, in con- 
 nection with whom I was afterwards destined to pass 
 some of the best 3'ears of my life. 
 
 The Festival took place on the following day — Tuesday, 
 
 the 6th of August — in a large pavilion erected in a 
 
 meadow nearly opposite Alloway Kirk, and within sight 
 
 of the poet's monument. The pavilion, richly decorated 
 
 with flags and other ornaments, was planned for the 
 
 accommodation of 2,000 guests, and all the tickets to the 
 
 banquet, charged fifteen shillings for the gentlemen and 
 
 ten shillings for the ladies, were speedily taken up. For 
 
 the gratification of the immense crowds of people that 
 
 poured into Ayr from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dumfries, 
 
 Kilmarnock, and every town and village in the west of 
 
 Scotland, a great out-of-door procession was arranged, of 
 
 which fortunately the beauty and effect were not marred 
 
 by unfavourable weather, and the persistent downpour 
 
 which too commonly refreshes — and drenches — the west of 
 
 Scotland. The procession was composed of the magis-
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 259 
 
 trates and baillies of many important towns, with depu- 
 tations of their townspeople, of the Masonic bodies, 
 amongst whom, when living, Burns stood high in rank 
 and repute, and who were proud of his brotherhood in 
 the craft; and of Foresters, Odd Fellows, and many 
 other societies, preceded by bands of music, and bearing, 
 many of them, not merely the customary flags and 
 banners of Great Britain, but the ancient historic flag of 
 Scotland, under the gleam and glamour of which Bruce 
 fought and won the battle of Bannockburn. There was 
 also a grand procession of peasants and farm labourers, as- 
 sembled in honour of the greatest peasant — next perhaps 
 to King David of the Jews, a peasant, a poet, a patriot, 
 and a king — whom any age had produced, and who bore 
 high erected in the midst of them a gigantic thistle, eight 
 or nine feet high, and with a profusion of flowers, 
 which must have been the result of high cultivation. 
 As this national emblem made its appearance, with the 
 proud motto, " Nemo me impune lacessit " emblazoned 
 on a banner streaming over it, the applause of the im- 
 mense assemblage was loud and unrestrained, and was 
 repeated again and again as Christopher North took off 
 his hat in reverence to the symbol as it was borne past. 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon the banquet was served 
 in the pavilion, and I had the good fortune, as an invited 
 guest, to be assigned a seat of honour on the platform, 
 to the left hand of the distinguished vice-chairman of the 
 day. I was unable, from the distance and the want of 
 acoustic facility in the tent, to hear a word said by Lord 
 Eglinton on the occasion ; but I saw from the newspapers 
 in due time, that he had made a very eloquent and appre-
 
 260 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ciative speech, and done justice to the genius of the 
 bard whose memory they had all assembled to honour. 
 Professor Wilson's speech, of which I heard every word 
 that he was permitted to deliver, was still more eloquent, 
 and as the literary effort of a literary man, on a great 
 literary occasion, was equal to the Professor's reputation. 
 But he made a great mistake. He took no account of 
 time or space, and painting his picture of the great poet 
 on too extensive a canvas, fairly exhausted the patience 
 of his auditory before he had advanced beyond the 
 threshold of his argument. He dwelt upon the errors of 
 Burns : upon his over passionate youth, and Samson-like 
 enslavement to many Delilahs ; and to the excessive con- 
 viviality that brought him into bad company, and over- 
 clouded his day ere the noon had fairly come. The long 
 speech of Lord Eglinton, excellent though it was, had 
 not disposed the audience for a second speech of equal 
 dimensions, and after the Professor had expatiated for 
 about half-an-hour or more on the frailties of the bard, 
 the sounds of impatience, dissent, and disapprobation 
 grew so loud, so prolonged, and so often repeated, that 
 the Professor, seeing the hopelessness of proceeding, sat 
 down with the best part of his speech unspoken. He 
 turned to me, as he resumed his place, and said, "It is a 
 pity they Avon't hear me out. I only dwelt upon the 
 errors of Burns, that I might lift him out of them in 
 power and glory, as one of the veiy greatest of Scots- 
 men who ever conferred honour upon his country." 
 
 "Fortunately," I replied, "you can publish your 
 speech, as you intended to speak it, and so. put yourself 
 right."
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL AT AYR. 2G1 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " I'll shame the fools and print, 
 it." 
 
 In Mr. Forster's " Life of Charles Dickens " it is re- 
 ported that Lord Robertson (the famous Peter Robertson 
 of Edinburgh society) had told Mr. Dickens that Professor 
 Wilson had had the bad taste to insult the memory of 
 Burns in the presence of his sons at the Ayrshire Fes- 
 tival. But there was no insult in the case, as the pub- 
 lished speech abundantly showed. The Professor had 
 fallen into the error of writing a speech that was too like 
 a literary essay for his favourite Blackwood, and had 
 taken no account of the patience of his auditory. 
 And if the place of honour had been assigned to him 
 instead of to Lord Eglinton, and he had been allowed to 
 commence the proceedings, it is both possible and pro- 
 bable that he would have been heard respectfully to 
 the end, and that no misconception would have arisen.
 
 1845-6, THE FINAL YEARS OF THE ANTI- 
 CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 
 
 The Reform of the Tariff, the imposition of the Income 
 and Property Tax, and the other free-trade measures of 
 Sir Robert Peel in 1842, emboldened the Anti-Corn-Law 
 League to fresh and greater exertions to secure the total 
 repeal of the Corn Laws. Most people, except the ultra- 
 Protectionist party, saw that the Corn Laws were sooner 
 or later doomed to abolition, and some few went so far 
 as to suspect that Sir Robert Peel's hand would be that 
 which would deal them the death-blow. In 1844, the 
 repeal of the Corn Laws was not only the question of the 
 League and of the Free Traders, but of the Whig and 
 Liberal party, the only dissentients being the semi-Irish 
 and unreasonable Chartists. It was amusing to note how 
 the chiefs of the Protectionist party attempted to draw 
 the masses of the people to their side, on a false scent ; 
 how, as was said at the time, they drew red herrings 
 across the path, to bewilder the dogs of public opinion, 
 and let the fox of Food Monopoly escape. Lord John 
 Manners, remembering the beauty of the paternal estate of 
 Belvoir, imagined that if all England were one garden 
 and woodland such as that, the people would be more
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORX-LAW STRUGGLE. 263 
 
 happy thau when condemned to the enervating work and 
 close atmosphere of factories. Full of the idea, he wrote 
 a pamphlet and a poem, deprecating the existence of 
 large towns, describing, in glowing terms, the Arcadian 
 life of a rural population and a rural aristocracy, and 
 praying, as the commencement of a new era, that the 
 legislature would look to the sports of the people, and 
 lay out greens for cricket and leap-frog. Lord Ashlej^, 
 now Earl of Shaftesbury, was of opinion that the employ- 
 ment of women and children in mines and collieries 
 was the source of all the moral and physical ills which 
 weighed down the multitude ; and to this question he 
 directed all the energies of his mind, and made out a 
 case, which caused the sympathetic to weep, and the 
 universal press to resound with his praises. The removal 
 of these evils was liis panacea for all the rest. Another 
 philanthropist discovered that the people were unworthily 
 treated in the house of prayer ; that a rich man would 
 have a fine soft pew in a church by paying for it, but that 
 the poor man and his family had too often to stand 
 during the whole time of religious service ; and touched 
 with pity for this popular grievance, he ranged himself 
 on the popular side, and exclaimed, "Away with pews — 
 abolish all distinctions of rank and wealth in the house 
 of God, and Great Britain will not lose her place among 
 the nations ; the sun of her prosperity shall not set ; and 
 her people once more shall be happy and independent ! " 
 "When it was proposed to la} r out a park in Manchester 
 — the head-quarters of the troublesome League — for the 
 health and recreation of its hard-working operatives, Sir 
 Robert Peel, who as yet did not quite see his way to
 
 204 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 untax the bread of the aforesaid hard-working people, 
 wrote a letter, in which he "heartily approved of the 
 wise and benevolent design to provide for those who are 
 doomed to ahnost incessant toil, the means of healthful 
 recreation and harmless enjoyment," and contributed 
 ^1,000 in furtherance of the object. Lord Francis 
 Egerton, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, contributed the 
 like sum. But with all this liberality ostentatiously dis- 
 played by great landlords, the reflection forced itself upon 
 the mind of the Free Traders, that much as they heard 
 of the growing sympathy of the Tories as a party with 
 the unhappy, care-eaten multitudes of Great Britain, 
 their sympathy was always expressed on a very small 
 scale, and for some comparatively small grievance. These 
 lights of their party, who were so eloquent upon the fetid 
 atmosphere of cities — the healthiness and happiness of 
 the rural districts — the desirableness of public sports, 
 and a return to the good old times, when the poor man 
 could enjoy himself upon the green — the atrocity of 
 allowing a woman and child to work even for good wages 
 — and the necessity of " healthful recreation and harmless 
 enjoyment," — were wonderfully callous or hostile when 
 any great and comprehensive scheme was brought for- 
 ward for the improvement of the condition of the people. 
 They were benevolent in a small way for the sake of 
 popularity, but they would not be just on a great scale, 
 because they were trained in narrowness and short- 
 sightedness, and thought charity more graceful than 
 justice. If it were proposed to them, as a foundation for 
 all olhcr improvement, that every child born in the king- 
 dom should be not only entitled to food, but to education,
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-COEN-LAW STRUGGLE. 265 
 
 a clamour of hostile tongues was immediately raised ! 
 " He shall he fed out of my spoon, or he shall starve ! — 
 he shall he imhued with my religious opinions, or he shall 
 remain ignorant for ever ! " was shouted on every side ; 
 and the chance of a national scheme of education was 
 lost for another generation. If it were proposed as a 
 remedy for a falling trade, and an unemployed, and there- 
 fore unhappy and degraded population, that the country 
 should turn its national resources to better account, and 
 open its ports for the grain which was rotting in the 
 fields of the old and new world, because the Protectionists 
 would not let it come in ; these fine philanthropists, 
 thought over the possibility of falling rents and refused. 
 The famished artisan might play at cricket, and his 
 forlorn wife and little ones might breathe the fresh air of 
 the new park laid out for them ; but they must wait for 
 bread for the better times which were always promised, 
 but which never came. 
 
 But the most amusing instance of well-meaning 
 philanthropy was afforded about this time by the then 
 Duke of Norfolk. The potato crop had failed ; there was 
 great distress in the country, and there was a fear, but 
 too well founded, that it would increase as winter 
 approached. There was also a cry for the opening of 
 the ports, so that corn or bread-stuffs, even if only for a 
 temporary purpose, and to check a temporary evil, might 
 be admitted into Great Britain free of duty. The Duke 
 of Norfolk, struck with compassion for the sufferings of 
 the multitude, but not possessing even the glimmering of an 
 idea that a tax upon foreign food for the supposed benefit 
 of the British landowners was a real injury to the hard-
 
 r:C6 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 working classes, and that the abolition of such tax would 
 be a real benefit, announced his remedy — better, in his 
 opinion, than the cricket and leap-frog of Lord John 
 Manners, or the parks that found favour with Sir Robert 
 Peel. At a meeting in Sussex he said — " In consequence 
 of the badness of the potatoes, they should pay more 
 attention to the labourer this year than ordinarily. 
 There was one thing, — it was suggested in a letter by a 
 lady the other day — a thing which certainly was verj' 
 warm and comfortable to the stomachs of the people if it 
 ■could be got cheap. He endeavoured, the other day 
 when he was in London, to bivy it. He went to several 
 places to enquire, and he bought a pound or two of it. 
 But there was some difficulty attached to it rather than 
 otherwise. They had not been accustomed to it, and 
 might not like it. He liked it, however, himself. In 
 India it was to the people what potatoes were in Ireland. 
 He meant curry powder. It might be smiled at at first, 
 but it was a very warming thing for potatoes and things 
 >f that description. Now, if gentlemen would try it as 
 lie had done, merely taking a pinch and putting it into hot 
 ■rater — he did not mean to say that would make a soup — 
 a very good one ; but when a man came home and took 
 this and had nothing better, it would make him warm at Jiis 
 stomach, and he could go to bed better and more comfortable. 
 He might be ridiculed hereafter for what he was saying, 
 but he did not care one rap.'" 
 
 One universal peal of laughter may be said to have 
 resounded through the empire on the publication of this 
 panacea for famine, and though the Duke, to use his own 
 elegant phraseology, might not have cared "one rap" for
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN LAW STRUGGLE. 267 
 
 the ridicule he had drawn upon himself and his order, 
 the Anti-Corn-Law League and the friends of Free Trade 
 found reason to congratulate themselves that they had 
 such admirable and serviceable enemies. The Duke of 
 Norfolk was not the only man of the same high rank and 
 position who involuntarily aided the cause which he 
 wished to defeat. The Duke of Richmond, at the same 
 county meeting, said — " I believe that in parts of Europe 
 the disease in potatoes has existed. But I hear that in 
 one country, which is not far distant from our shores by 
 steam navigation — I allude to Portugal — there never was 
 n better crop of potatoes ; and if there should be a failure 
 in this country, there will be no difficulty in bringing" 
 potatoes from that country to this at a price which, though 
 the labourers cannot pay, we (the landowners) ought and 
 will." 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk showed folly — the Duke of Rich- 
 mond selfishness ; and with equal innocence of meaning 
 it, gave a blow to their darling monopoly, than which Mr. 
 Cobden could not have aimed a better. Why, it was 
 asked, should it be praiseworthy to take foreign potatoes, 
 and at the same time patriotic to refuse foreign wheat ? 
 And, more wonderful still, why should the Duke of Rich- 
 mond prevent the people from buying Polish or Russian 
 wheat, and yet insist on giving them Portuguese potatoes 
 in charity ? The fair conclusion seemed to be that the 
 Duke realised a handsome profit by his self-imposed con- 
 tract for supplying the British people with food, seeing 
 that when they were unable to buy bis dear wheat, he 
 would give them Portuguese potatoes for nothing, rather 
 than that they should buy corn cheaply from foreign dealers.
 
 268 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Two other dukes rendered themselves conspicuous by 
 denying the existence of the potato disease : proving what 
 is so often proved, that none are so blind as those who 
 will not see, and none so obstinate as those who quarrel 
 with facts that seem to run counter to their interest. One 
 was the Duke of Cambridge, the other the Duke of 
 Rutland. The first was known for his habit of speaking 
 to himself, and his frequent appearance at charity dinners ; 
 the second was not known at all, except as a duke. The 
 first almost pledged his royal word " that the report of a 
 potato famine was a false one," and the second deplored 
 the skyey influences at work in England, which made one 
 person out of every three, what he termed a " croaker.'' 
 Happy it was for these exalted personages that they were 
 not likely to experience, in their own persons, the evil 
 effects of a scarcity, which was not the less real, because, 
 like hunted ostriches, they hid their lofty heads in holes, 
 and refused to look at it. Unfortunately for the poor, 
 there was no doubt on the mind of airy one desirous of 
 discovering the truth, that there was a most lamentable 
 failure of the potato crop throughout the kingdom, and 
 Europe generally; and if there were exaggeration, 
 exaggeration was to have been expected. Serious 
 calamities always appear larger than they are to the timid 
 and the interested ; but in this case too much positive 
 mischief remained indubitable to allow any scope for the 
 efforts of the prejudiced or the heartless, who, on pretence 
 of exaggeration, denied it altogether. 
 
 There is an old nursery rhyme, which slates that 
 
 " The batcher and the Laker 
 
 Both fell out of a rotten potato."
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 269 
 
 The aristocratic dealers in those commodities, which 
 supply the trade of the butcher and the baker, were 
 exactly in this predicament in 1845 ; but it was of no use 
 quarrelling with their fate. They had to resign them- 
 selves to it. The potato did them no harm ; it only put 
 an end to the food monopoly. 
 
 The beginning of the end was at hand. Light had 
 long been gradually breaking into the honest and solid 
 but inert and slow mind of Sir Robert Peel. On the 4th 
 of December, 1845, great political excitement was created 
 in London and all the great cities, by an apparently 
 authoritative announcement in the Times, that Sir Robert 
 Peel had not only become a convert to the principles of 
 Free Trade generally, but had resolved to propose, at the 
 opening of Parliament in January, the total, immediate, 
 and unconditional abolition of the Corn Laws ; and that 
 Sir Robert in the Commons, and the Duke of Wellington 
 in the Lords, would publicly state the fact, and stake the 
 existence of then administration on the passing of the 
 measure. 
 
 Opinion was staggered by the announcement. Some 
 people thought they were imposed upon by an elaborate 
 hoax ; and the Glasgow Tories denounced it, in plain, 
 uncourteous speech, as a He ; and the Liberals, willing to 
 believe, Avere yet afraid to give it credence. On the fol- 
 lowing day the Times repeated its assertion in two separate 
 articles, so emphatically and seriously, that even the dis- 
 mayed Protectionists could doubt no longer. It was 
 generally believed that Ministers, after long hesitation, 
 had resolved upon this course; and that it would lead to 
 resignation of olhce by those members of the Cabinet who
 
 270 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 were either too ignorant to understand the urgency of the 
 case, or too vain of their consistency in error to lend their 
 aid to that paramount measure. Sir Robert Peel did well 
 for his country by the act. There was no other course 
 left open for him. He knew that the potato had destroyed 
 the Com Law; that his legislation had been evenrottener 
 than the unlucky esculent that smote it to the ground ; 
 and that if he did not make a virtue of necessity — one 
 year — one little year, but full of trouble, anxiety, and 
 distress — would have swept him from power and his part}' 
 with him. But there were yet difficulties in the way. On 
 the day that the Times made its memorable announce- 
 ment, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel wc 
 if not in very cordial, at all events, hi substantial agree- 
 ment as to the necessity of the course to be pursued- 
 The Duke, however, if current reports were to be believed, 
 was immediately assailed by the stanch Protectionists ; by 
 the real "croakers" of the Richmond, Rutland, and 
 Norfolk school; and so wrought upon by them as to 
 change his resolution, and inform his colleagues at a 
 second Cabinet Council that he had seen cause to alter 
 his purpose, and that he reverted to the position he had 
 previously occupied of hostility to any change in the law.. 
 Upon this Sir Robert Peel declared that he could no 
 longer carry on the Government; and on Saturday he 
 proceeded to Osborne House on a visit to her Majesty. 
 Lord John Russell was in Edinburgh at the time, and was 
 to have been entertained in Glasgow on Friday the 12th 
 at a grand civic banquet, and to receive the freedom of 
 the municipality under the auspices of my friend, Mr. 
 James Lumsden, an active politician, one of the proprietors
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 271 
 
 of the Argus, and Lord Provost of the city. On Monday, 
 the 8th, about ten o'clock at night, his lordship was about 
 retiring to rest, at his hotel in Edinburgh, when a Queen's 
 messenger, who had been sent express from Osborne, 
 arrived with an autograph letter from her Majesty, 
 requesting his immediate attendance in the Isle of Wight. 
 Lord John, without retiring to rest, took his departure, 
 and wrote from London to Mr. Lumsden, informing him 
 that as he was unexpectedly commanded to attend upon the 
 Queen, he could not then receive the compliment intended 
 for him by the city of Glasgow. 
 
 With regard to the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, it 
 was currently reported that the Duke of Wellington was 
 backed by the majority of the Cabinet ; and that throe 
 members only supported the policy of their chief, viz., 
 Sir James Graham, Lord Wharncliife, and the Earl of 
 Aberdeen. For a few anxious days the questions were 
 asked, Will Lord John Russell be able to form an 
 administration on the basis of the question raised by Sir 
 Robert Peel ? If he forms such an administration, will 
 Sir Robert lend him official or non-official support ; and 
 will the opposition of the Duke of Wellington be with- 
 drawn ? Will it be possible to carry the question without 
 a dissolution of Parliament ? If Lord John Russell refuse 
 to take office, will an ultra-Protectionist Ministry be 
 formed, with all the dukes in it ? or will Sir Robert Peel 
 resume office, and rid himself of the Duke of Wellington? 
 As for Sir Robert Peel himself, many ungenerous persons 
 expressed delight in a position hi which they saw the fit 
 punishment of his former transgressions and false pre- 
 tences. They did not think that no man could hare
 
 272 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 made such sacrifices without a bitter struggle. Whatever 
 his own disappointed party might say of him, the people 
 generally gave him credit for honesty and courage, and in 
 the eyes of the impartial world he stood in the high 
 position of one who made the most painful sacrifices 
 that it was possible for a man to make in support of what 
 he believed to be the truth. Like Lord John Russell, he 
 had recanted error ; and resolved to the best of his ability 
 
 • 
 
 to forward the right cause ; but unlike Lord John Paissell, 
 who pleased his friends and his party by his recantation, 
 Sir Robert Peel displeased both, and alienated from 
 himself nearly all the friends with whom he had ever 
 acted. Speculation was set at rest for a while by the 
 announcement that Lord John Russell had accepted the 
 task of forming an administration, of which the leading 
 object should be the total abolition of the Corn Laws, b} r 
 the aid of the actual Parliament if possible, or if that 
 were impossible, by an appeal to the country. As the 
 arrangements proceeded it was complained that the 
 administration was not to be composed of the most 
 popular materials that were available, and that somewhat 
 too much of an aristocratic colouring pervaded it. The 
 country would have been glad to have seen less of the 
 Whig family alliance, and sturdier Liberalism in the 
 more important offices. It would have rejoiced to see 
 .Mr. Cohden at the Board of Trade, or Mr. Villiers or 
 .Mr. Milner Gibson filling some of the many departments 
 in the Ministry to which their services and talents entitled 
 them to aspire. In omitting to strengthen his admini- 
 stration by such aid, Lord John Russell lost a great 
 ipportunitv. If lie had cordially identified himself and
 
 FINAL TEAB8 OF AUTI-OOKN-LAW STRUGGLE. 273 
 
 his party with the people generally — if he had relied upon 
 the people, and chosen some of his colleagues from arnon: - 1 
 their leaders — the people would haTe carried him safely 
 through the dangers that beset him, and made him a more 
 powerful Minister than his prede - r. But this was 
 no: t be. The family alliances that pervaded the p: - 
 posed Cabinet, and the attemr I I :: dude LordPalmerston 
 from the Foreign Office, led to an mgl ri as . .11 *] • 
 I he circumstances we: well lee :ibed in a letter written 
 at the time by Ifir. Alexander Maekay, author of the 
 "Western World." Hr -.11 — "The Russell Cabinet 
 was and is not. It came suddenly upon us. an unex- 
 pected event, and has as suddenly vanished — am - :k 
 in history. The Pc 1 Cabine: - ate lent ?jid subsequent 
 to it, have completely buried it in their common shade i 
 It blazed for a moment, like an ignis fai -. .\nd then 
 
 :ame extinct. With Peel again in p wer, it is alm^ -• 
 impossible now : realise the fact that, within the lasl 
 fortnight, we have been living under a Whig administra- 
 tion. Bu: - it has been, and the only prominent fa.: 
 which that administratj n fa - left on record, is the 
 melancholy one of its own utter want of vitality. There 
 ^"as pressure without : but, what was far more fatal, there 
 " mods within, which would not cicatrize. The 
 disease was not one at the extremities — but a disease at 
 the very heart, and, as in all similar ses, iis£ .ution 
 was both instantaneous and complete. Let i: not t 
 sag | - wh : I "..- write, that I regard with regr-.- 
 
 - mere fact of the termination of the Whis Ministry. 
 In every - - it was a desirable consummation, consider- 
 ing the precise | siti n of affairs. Bu: a desirable end 
 
 TCL. t
 
 274 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 maybe attained by faulty and reprehensible means. The 
 Wing Cabinet fell from political fratricide, not from the 
 successful assaults of its foes. The death-blow was dealt 
 by an aristocratic Whig [Earl Grey], whose crotchets 
 were too much for his patriotism. It would have been a 
 noble and gratifying spectacle to all the advocates of a 
 liberal commercial policy, to have seen the new admini- 
 stration unanimous on the great point at issue between 
 parties ; and then, when they surveyed the difficulties 
 around them, and became convinced of the utter impossi- 
 bility of carrying their measures, retiring upon that 
 understanding, and upon that alone. There could then 
 have been but one issue for the country to determine, and 
 in determining that the whole Free Trade force of the 
 country would have arrayed itself in a formidable phalanx, 
 for the reinstatement in power of the retiring Cabinet. 
 In the meantime a new Government would have been 
 formed, either with Peel or Buckingham at its head — no 
 matter which. With a Whig Government in the back- 
 ground, on whose unanimity and cordiality Free Traders 
 might have relied, Peel would have been virtually as 
 unacceptable as Buckingham. But where now is this 
 Cabinet ? It no longer presents an unbroken front. It 
 is defunct and dispersed, and the Liberals of the country 
 must try what the}" can manage to squeeze out of Sir 
 Robert Peel. To Earl Grey belongs the honour, and on 
 him should fall the odium of the disruption of Lord John's 
 Cabinet. It is a pity that, at this time of day, we should 
 have to record such things of him, who, as Viscount 
 Howick, in the House of Commons, took so early, so 
 unequivocal, and so manly a stand for the total repeal of
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 275 
 
 the Corn Laws. He is, however, one of those unfortunately 
 impracticable men, who, though clear in judgment, are 
 wrong-headed and. obstinate when called on to act. Earl 
 Grey was to have taken upon himself the duties of 
 Colonial Secretary in the new Cabinet, a post which 
 entitled him to advise, but not to dictate. He chose, 
 however, to do the latter, and his obstinacy has cost the 
 "Whigs their newly acquired places. He objected to Lord 
 Palmerston as Foreign Secretary, and rent the Cabinet 
 asunder, by insisting that that should be done which 
 could not be clone. What is the party, what is the country 
 to think of such conduct as this ?" 
 
 Upon the failure of the Whigs — considered a very 
 egregious and unnecessary one — Sir Robert Peel was 
 again sent for by the Queen> and consented to resume 
 office ; and the Duke of Wellington, knowing how to 
 yield as well as how to conquer, consented to waive 
 his theoretical objections to Free Trade, and assist his 
 bolder colleague in carrying a measure which at last 
 he saw to be inevitable. Lord Stanley was the sole 
 dissentient, and retired from the Colonial Office, to be 
 succeeded by Mr. W. E. Gladstone, then a young statesman, 
 in the thirty-sixth year of his age. In other respects, the 
 changes were unimportant. There yet remained three 
 weeks before the meeting of Parliament, during which 
 time both the Free Traders and the Protectionists prepared 
 themselves vigorously for the work of political agitation : 
 the one party to afford all possible aid to Sir Eobert Peel, 
 and the other to use every possible effort to embarrass 
 and thwart him. The Anti-Corn-Law League resolved 
 to raise a further subscription of a quarter of a million
 
 276 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 sterling to fight the battle of Free Trade, in case Sir Robert 
 Peel should introduce a partial or imperfect measure, and 
 be defeated in the then existing Parliament, if he proposed 
 unconditional repeal. To this munificent sum the Free 
 Traders of Glasgow contributed, as the result of one great 
 public meeting, about 10,000?. ; Liverpool contributed 
 upwards of 13,0007. ; the people of the "West Eiding of 
 Yorkshire, at a meeting in Leeds, contributed 34,000L ; 
 and Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Sheffield, Birming- 
 ham and other great towns and cities in like magnificent 
 proportion. 
 
 At the opening of Parliament, Sir Robert Peel, in a 
 manly and impressive speech, announced his complete 
 adhesion to Free Trade principles, and explained the 
 facts which led to his retirement from office, and his 
 re-acceptance of it, after Lord John Russell's failure to 
 form a Ministry. At the commencement of November, 
 when his mind had already begun to doubt the wisdom 
 of the Corn Laws, and to be more and more assured of 
 the wisdom of every advance in the direction of Free 
 Trade, which he had carried or sanctioned, the failure of 
 the potato crop in Ireland opened his eyes to the conse- 
 quences of a longer persistence in an erroneous system 
 of legislation. He proposed to his colleagues the opening 
 of the ports and a permanent change in the Corn Laws. 
 He was outvoted in the Council ; and the subject was 
 postponed for three weeks. During these three weeks 
 Lord John Russell published a memorable letter to the 
 electors of London, declaring his adhesion to Free Trade 
 hi corn, and hurried the solution of the great problem. 
 Sir Robert Peel, on the re-assembling of his colleagues,
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 277 
 
 brought forward his former proposition — was again out- 
 voted — and resigned office. Sir Robert Peel's speech 
 was a touching confession of past error, which earned for 
 him the gratitude and esteem of all sensible and unpre- 
 judiced men. One by one he took up all the arguments 
 that he had formerly used in defence of the Corn Laws, 
 and showed, from the results of his own more enlarged 
 experience, how untenable and how rotten they were, and 
 demolished every vestige of a reason for the longer con- 
 tinuance of the system. Every one of right feeling sym- 
 pathised with him in his noble, yet painful, position ; 
 and some good men, who were still opposed to his policy, 
 did justice to the loftiness and purity of Ins motives, and 
 appreciated the unexampled sacrifices he had made for 
 the cause that he believed to be the right one. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington, as was expected, explained 
 in the House of Lords the reasons that had led him, 
 contrary to his first judgment, to lend the aid of his great 
 name to the Prime Minister. He supported Sir Robert 
 Peel, and would support him ; — not because he under- 
 stood his policy, but because he had confidence in him, 
 admired his spirit, and would do airything for him — no 
 matter on what side of the Corn Law, or of any other 
 question, if by so doing he could but maintain the 
 Ministry in a firm position. Sir Robert wrote to him in 
 the countiy, informing ^him of the circumstances, and 
 stating that if he did resume office, he had determined, 
 happen what might — if he stood alone — that, as the 
 Minister of the Crown, he would enable her Majesty to 
 meet her Parliament. The Duke highly applauded his 
 right lion, friend on that occasion, and determined that
 
 278 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 he for one would stand by him. He felt it his duty ; 
 and thought the formation of a Government in which 
 her Majesty should have full confidence was of greater 
 importance than any opinions of any individual upon the 
 Corn Law or any other law. He knew, to use his own 
 words, "that in standing by Sir E. Peel, in the resump- 
 tion of his Government, he must be a party to the propo- 
 sition for a material alteration of the Corn Laws. He felt 
 that it could not be otherwise. He knew it, and he did it." 
 The Argus wrote apropos of the Duke's explanation : — 
 " Sir R. Peel should think himself happy in having such 
 a friend as the Duke. It is an inexplicable kind of 
 friendship, it is true. The men are very different ; but 
 in friendship, as in love, one person will sometimes form 
 a strong attachment for another for the possession of 
 qualities the most opposite to his own. A thin man often 
 likes a corpulent wife ; and a very small lady will not 
 'infrequently fix her affections upon a dragoon of six feet 
 six : — so is it with Wellington and Peel. The man who 
 does not study — who jumps to conclusions instinctively — 
 who sees nothing but broad, clear, plain, large facts ; — 
 who goes straight to his object, right or wrong; — and 
 who would snatch a victory rather than negotiate one, is 
 the stanch, unflinching friend, and ever has been, in 
 public and private life, of the man who thinks and reasons, 
 and arrives at his conclusions by logical process — who 
 sees small facts and the secret springs of large machinery 
 — who takes a round-about course if a straight one will 
 not answer — and who would rather resort to diplomacy 
 than to the strong arm. Certainly the reason for this 
 friendship will be a curious problem for the solution of
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 279 
 
 the future historian or psychologist; but we in the 
 present day have merely to take the fact as it stands, 
 and if we belong to the Free-Trade party, to rejoice in 
 it ; — as for our own part we do most cordially." 
 
 There was considerable doubt whether Sir Robert Peel 
 would be able to carry any Free- Trade measure through 
 the existing Parliament, though the ministerial and oppo- 
 sition whips of the day both seemed to reckon upon a 
 ministerial majority, ranging between forty and fifty. 
 The fear was that the Opposition in the House of Lords 
 would not be satisfied with any decision of the old Par- 
 liament, and without an appeal to the country. The 
 Duke of Richmond emphatically declared that whatever 
 the Commons might do, the Lords would throw out the 
 bill — that for his part he was not " over sensitive," and 
 that " he would use every means, even factious means, if 
 necessary, to defeat it." The papers of the party fol- 
 lowed the lead, and became all but rabid in abuse of 
 their former chief. He was called 'Merry Sneak," "Jim 
 Crow," and " Judas Iscariot." His speech was declared 
 to be " Peel rot," to be full of "fraudulent plausi- 
 bilities," " vulgar egotisms," " nauseous untruth," and 
 " unprecedented effrontery." 
 
 Sir Robert's measure, when propounded to the House, 
 dissatisfied the Free-Trade party, inasmuch as he pro- 
 posed to adjourn its operation for three years, to give the 
 landowners and farmers time to prepare for the change. 
 But it was not only the Free Traders who objected to 
 the delay, but many farmers and landowners, who, being 
 aware that Free Trade sooner or later must inevitably 
 become law, came to the conclusion that, like a surgical
 
 280 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 operation, it would be better done quickly than delayed. 
 Many of the farmers, so far from being frightened as they 
 were a few months previously at the bare proposal of a 
 repeal, were of Mr. Cobden's opinion, that it Avould be 
 much better for their interests if the repeal were imme- 
 diate. An extensive agriculturist, Mr. Paget, of Rud- 
 dington Grange, addressed the landlords of the United 
 Kingdom, through the columns of the Mark Lane Ex- 
 press, endeavouring to prove to them, as Mr. Cobden 
 had done, that it would be for their advantage to have an 
 immediate rather than a delayed repeal. The Mark 
 Lane Express, long the fanner's oracle, was of the same 
 opinion, and so far turned its back on the Protectionists 
 as to decline giving any further reports of their meetings. 
 The Banker's Circular — long an obstinate Protectionist — 
 preferred Mr. Cobden's proposal to Sir Robert Peel's. 
 Marvellous, indeed, were the events of the time ; — and 
 marvellously rapid was the progress of reason. The old 
 hag of Monopoly, who might long have withstood the 
 assaults of her enemies, seemed to be dying of spon- 
 taneous combustion ; and while her opponents were 
 looking for a fierce and protracted conflict, she doggedly 
 gave up the struggle and lay down to die. 
 
 Lord John Russell, in an excellent speech, in which 
 he again slew the often slam fallacies of the Protection- 
 ists, expressed himself in favour of immediate abolition, 
 and urgently requested Sir Robert Peel to reconsider 
 that part of his measure which postponed it for three 
 years. Mr. Sidney Herbert, afterwards to acquire so 
 much renown as a minister and statesman, and who at 
 thai time held office under Sir Robert Peel, delivered a
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 281 
 
 speech which had an electric effect upon the House. In 
 language of so much eloquence, truthfulness, and sin- 
 cerity, as were sure to win for him the respect and 
 admiration of the country, he confessed his past mistakes 
 and misconceptions. He admitted that a repeal of the 
 Com Laws would have come more suitably from Lord 
 John Russell than from Sir Robert Peel ; and was pre- 
 pared to have given his cordial support to the noble lord, 
 had he undertaken the settlement of the question. His 
 own ojnnion had been slowly, reluctantly, deliberately 
 changed, in obedience to a sense of duty ; and at a time 
 when public opinion was so much enlightened, he felt it 
 better to yield to reason now what might be extorted by 
 violence hereafter. He ridiculed the idea of the " Con- 
 stitution," or even the Tory party, being in any way in- 
 volved — denied that Protection was an "institution," and 
 denounced the original enactment of a Corn Law as the 
 greatest error that was ever committed b} r any govern- 
 ment in this country — a denunciation as true and beauti- 
 fully said as it seemed to be sincere, and which was 
 received in the House with a general burst of accla- 
 mation. 
 
 But the most important speech delivered during the 
 course of the often adjourned debate was, as was to have 
 been expected, that of Sir Robert Peel himself. The 
 great minister began his masterly oration by reminding 
 the House that the question for them to consider 
 was, not how a party was to be conducted, but how a 
 great public calamity was to be averted; and how the 
 future intercourse of Great Britain with the nations of 
 the earth was to be regulated. He frankly admitted that,
 
 282 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 as regarded his party, his measures were bad, — and con- 
 fessed that it was unfortunate that other hands than 
 his had not been entrusted with the task of proposing 
 and carrying them. He believed, however, that there 
 was impending over the country a calamity which was 
 perfectly appalling; and whilst there was a hope of 
 averting it, he did not think it consistent with his duty 
 as a public man to evade the difficulty which he saw ap- 
 proaching. He had not a word to say against the ex- 
 planation which Lord John Russell had made a few 
 nights previously ; but he read a letter to her Majesty, 
 written whilst Lord John Russell was engaged in the 
 task of endeavouring to form an administration, from 
 which it appeared that he had offered not only his indi- 
 vidual aid, but his whole influence, to her Majesty and 
 her new advisers, in carrying out the Free Trade principles 
 which Lord John Russell was to have proposed. His 
 own impression was, that if Lord John Russell had 
 undertaken the Government the cause of Free Trade 
 would have been successful; and he much regretted that 
 the noble Lord had not done so. He quoted letters from 
 Ireland to show the awful nature of the pending calamity 
 in that country, and put it to the friends of Protection, 
 whether it would not have been a wise course to have 
 opened the ports, and whether, if they had been once 
 opened, it would have been in the power of any Parlia- 
 ment or any Ministry ever again to have closed them. 
 He admitted to the party which had honoured him with 
 its support, that it was entitled to withhold from him its 
 confidence. But he asked whether it was likely that he 
 should have voluntarily sacrificed its support, unless he
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 283 
 
 had been influenced by strong motives of public duty ? 
 Be the consequences to himself what they might, he 
 would avow that his party could not rob him of the 
 conviction, that the advice which he had given to his 
 Sovereign and the Parliament was consistent with all the 
 duty which he owed to that party. In fact, he avowed, 
 that he would ever remember with pride the advice he 
 had given on the 1st of November that the ports should 
 be opened, and conjured the House to drop its person- 
 alities, and consider only whether the measure proposed 
 was right, irrespective altogether of their opinion of the 
 man or men who proposed it. 
 
 At last, on the 28th of February, at three o'clock 
 in the morning, after a debate winch lasted through 
 twelve nights, a preliminary victory was won. The 
 House of Commons decided by 337 votes against 240 — 
 a majority of 97 — in favour of going into committee. 
 By this division the end was clearly foreshadowed. The 
 commerce of Great Britain was virtually set free, and 
 the toiling millions received the certain promise of 
 justice at the hands of a once prejudiced aristocracy. 
 But the end was not yet. The bill had to pass through 
 the perils, not only of the committee, but of the second 
 and third readings — and not only the perils of the Com- 
 mons, but those that might prove more formidable of 
 the House of Lords. The immediate joy of the Free 
 Trade party throughout the country was great, especially 
 in Manchester and Glasgow ; and the number of the 
 Argas that announced the victory endeavoured to give 
 expression to the general satisfaction in the following 
 terms : —
 
 284 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " A great revolution lias been peacefully achieved ; 
 a revolution unstained by bloodshed — having for its 
 object no dethronement of a dynasty, no substitution 
 of one tyranny in the place of another — having no 
 punishment, no harshness, no evil of any kind in its 
 composition — was wrought by discussion alone, and by 
 the inherent and irresistible powers of Truth and Justice. 
 As a nation, we may well be proud of the great example 
 we have, by this act, set the whole of the world, by most 
 or all of the civilised nations of which, there is every 
 reason to believe, it will soon be imitated. Its influence 
 who shall calculate ? Who shall say what cruel estrange- 
 ment between classes in our own country it will remedy '? 
 Who shall tell the national jealousies, the sanguinary 
 wars, it shall prevent, and the increase of knowledge, 
 civilisation, wealth, and happiness of which it shall be 
 the prolific parent ? France, that has looked with ad- 
 miring eyes upon the preparations for the deed, will 
 approve it with joy, now that it is done, and prepare, by 
 the convictions of her most eminent statesmen, to do as 
 much for her own people at no distant period. The full 
 knowledge which the thinking men of Germany pos- 
 sessed, when the first announcement of Sir Robert Peel's 
 conversion reached them, that his proposal could have 
 but one result, and that, success, has prepared them for 
 it ; and events have already shown that the Zollverein 
 has not escaped the influence of these opinions, and that 
 it will shortly become a corporation of Free Traders. 
 The packet that on "Wednesday next will carry the 
 tidings over the Atlantic will be a messenger of peace 
 and goodwill to millions of our brethren, and turn their
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 285 
 
 thoughts from war into peace ; while, amongst our own 
 people, the poor, unhappy labourers of Dorsetshire and 
 Wiltshire will share the joy of busy Birmingham and 
 princely Manchester, and all the neighbouring hives of 
 enterprise and industry ; the largest landowners of Great 
 Britain will rejoice that their order is no longer in col- 
 lision with the necessities and the justice of the time. 
 The Queen, who so gracefully and kindly performs 
 her exalted functions, will have cause of thankfulness 
 that in her reign the cause which she is known to 
 favour has achieved so brilliant and so peaceful a 
 triumph ; and even those who now look upon the measure 
 as one pregnant with evil, will share a benefit which they 
 do not yet understand, and which we most sincerely hope 
 they will all live to be thankful for. 
 
 " Though the victory is virtually won, the struggle is 
 not at an end. It is deprived, however, of its bitterness. 
 It has been demonstrated to be hopeless ; and though, 
 for form's sake, and in consequence of many personal 
 necessities or party entanglements, it must yet be carried 
 on through all the various stages of the bill, it is con- 
 soling to reflect that the intensity of the struggle must 
 diminish from day to day ; and that, when these mea- 
 sures receive the royal assent, those who now doubt will 
 have become convinced; and those who condemn will 
 have become resigned — and the Lords themselves, if not 
 very hopeful, at all events will have learned not to 
 despond." 
 
 The joyous anticipations of this article have been all 
 fulfilled as regards the British people ; but not as regards 
 France, Germany, and the United States, which still, in
 
 286 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 spite of our triumphant example, cling with more or less 
 of pertinacy to the old ideas and fallacies of Protection. 
 But even these are yielding — slowly it may be, but 
 surely — to the unanswerable logic of the Free Trade 
 philosophy. 
 
 The original purpose of Sir Eobert Peel was to repeal 
 the Corn Laws gradually, and to impose a sliding scale 
 for three years. Mr. Charles Villiers brought forward a 
 motion for immediate abolition, which was rejected by 
 265 against 78. The debate was rendered interesting by 
 the announcement on the part of Mr. Bright, that 
 while a remnant of the Corn Laws existed on the statute 
 book, the League would exist to combat it. This decla- 
 ration, which came appropriately from the impetuous Mr. 
 Bright, somewhat startled his more philosophical and 
 cautious colleague Mr. Cobden. But he also agreed in 
 the policy and expediency of his friend's announcement 
 — arguing that in the then temper of the Protectionists 
 there would be no security during the proposed three 
 3 r ears of the sliding scale, that they would not attempt to 
 render the new system perpetual, and that it was there- 
 fore necessary to keep up the machinery of the League 
 to prevent mischief. Mr. Bright jumped to this con- 
 clusion intuitively. Mr. Cobden argued himself into it ; 
 and both were in the right. 
 
 During the whole period of the discussions, until the 
 bill finally passed to the House of Lords, a constant 
 volley of complaint was fired by the Protectionist press 
 and Protectionist speakers — that the all but countless 
 petitions presented in favour of Free Trade were not in 
 reality signed by a half or a third of the numbers whose
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 287 
 
 names purported to be appended to them, and that such 
 petitions were frauds upon Parliament. It was con- 
 veniently forgotten by the Protectionists that the more 
 truly popular a question is, the more is the right of 
 petition likely to be abused by the frolicsome, the mis- 
 chievous, and the unthinking. Butcher boys, of whom 
 some of the anti-free-traders made loud complaint, will, 
 upon occasions when a petition lies for signature at the 
 corner of a street, try their powers of penmanship ; and 
 the waggish will sign with names which do not belong 
 to them, and even take liberties with the titles of the 
 peerage, if they happen to have heard of them. But, 
 with all these drawbacks, a petition, signed by ten or 
 twenty thousand persons, is not to be invalidated for 
 such reasons, unless the right of petition be altogether 
 abolished, and the very members who raised objections 
 to such petitions against their own side, would not have 
 had a word to say if all the butcher boys of a town had 
 signed their names thrice to the same petition in their 
 favour. 
 
 A little incident occurred about this time in Glasgow, 
 which reflected some discredit upon a once great name, 
 and which proved, moreover, that it was not only mem- 
 bers of the Conservative, but of the Liberal party, who 
 were slow to become converts to the principles of Free 
 Trade. In January, before the House of Commons had 
 resolved to go into committee on the bill, a meeting of 
 Glasgow weavers, and of the working classes of the 
 suburban villages of Springburn, Auchenairn, and Bishop 
 Bridge, was held to petition against the Corn Laws. The 
 meeting was chiefly attended by working men ; — and the
 
 £88 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 chairman, one Robert Sinclair, was a weaver of Spring- 
 burn. The petition, unanimously adopted by them, was 
 well and even eloquently written, and told some home 
 truths of the Corn Law system in honest and fearless 
 language. The petitioners " begged leave to lay before the 
 Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, 
 a simple but honest statement of their severe and press- 
 ing grievances, arising from a s} r stem of political impolicy 
 which had been persisted in for a long series of years. 
 They had, however, the satisfaction to find that the senti- 
 ments and opinions in which they expressed themselves 
 many years past, regarding the cruel and iniquitous 
 system of taxing the food of man, and throwing barriers 
 in the wav of the free interchange of commodities with 
 their fellow men in other climes, were now seriously con- 
 sidered by every class in the community. The humble 
 operative, the middle-class employer, and the high and 
 titled statesman, had at last found out that they were 
 right when they told the House in their petitions at re- 
 peated times, during the last thirty years, that the corn 
 and provision laws were a foul blot upon the statute-book 
 of Great Britain, an outrage upon common sense, a dis- 
 grace and a libel upon the intelligent and progressive 
 progress of the policy of the present age. 
 
 " The petitioners were convinced, that to delay any 
 longer the repeal of the corn and provision laws would 
 prove ruinous to the commercial and manufacturing 
 interests of the country, and to all classes of the com- 
 munity, and, more particularly, to the petitioners, who 
 were then suffering at an inclement season of the year 
 all the misery and wretchedness which are the con-
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 289 
 
 comitants of ill-paid toil and high-priced provisions, 
 which have been raised fifty per cent, in consequence of 
 the failure of the potato crop, the staple food of j-our 
 petitioners for at least eight months in the 3 r ear. Hence 
 it is the opinion of your petitioners that no time should be 
 lost in eradicating from the statute-book of tins country 
 those laws which are the cause of poverty, starvation , 
 crime, disease, and death amongst them, and consequently 
 ruin and desolation throughout the various ramifications of 
 society.^ 
 
 This petition was entrusted for presentation to the 
 Commons by Mr. Denniston, member for Glasgow ; and 
 to Lord Brougham — selected for the honour on account 
 of his long services to the liberal cause — for presenta- 
 tion to the Lords. Mr. Denniston, as in duty bound to 
 a portion of his constituents, and agreeing with their 
 opinions, presented and supported the petition. Lord 
 Brougham never even acknowledged the receipt of the 
 document, and never presented it. This want of cour- 
 tesy somewhat astonished the weavers of Glasgow, who 
 naturally thought that, with all his eccentricities, Lord 
 Brougham practised that very common rule of answer- 
 ing every business letter. Lord Brougham, however, 
 had other notions. He did not practise this rule, but 
 left it to the Duke of Wellington, Sir Eobert Peel, Sir 
 James Graham, and all the gentlemen of Great Britain, 
 who invariably act upon it. The chairman of the meet- 
 ing having waited a long time, and fearing it might have 
 miscarried, looked with some interest through the news- 
 papers to see whether any allusion was made to it in the 
 House of Lords. He at last discovered a passage in the 
 
 VOL. I. TI
 
 290 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Parliamentary reports, in which Lord Brougham stated 
 that he had received a petition from some place (unmen- 
 tioned) alleging that the Corn Laws were the cause of 
 poverty, starvation, crime, disease, and death ; and that 
 
 he WOuld RATHER TUT IIIS HAND INTO THE FIRE UNTIL 
 IT WAS CONSUMED, THAN TOUCH SUCH A PETITION. As 
 
 the weavers knew full well that the Corn Laws were the 
 causes of those calamities, and that they had said so in 
 their petition, they naturally concluded that it was their 
 petition of which the eccentric lord had so much horror. 
 The chairman accordingly addressed the following letter 
 to him : — 
 
 "to the right honourable lord brougham and vaux. 
 
 "My Lord, 
 
 " By the instructions of my constituents, seeing 
 that you have returned no answer to the letter which I 
 transmitted to you, accompanied with a petition for pre- 
 sentation to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, praying 
 for an immediate repeal of the com and provision laws, 
 now whether your lordship has received the said petition 
 or not I am at a loss to know, as I have got no imme- 
 diate answer from you, which I think, in common cour- 
 tesy betwixt man and man, I should have received. 
 However, my constituents and I obtained information 
 through the press, that your lordship found fault with 
 the humble manner in which the language of our petition 
 was couched; and that your lordship had stated before 
 the right honourable house, that you 'would rather put 
 your hand in the lire until it was consumed, than touch
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-COEX-LAW STRUGGLE. 291 
 
 that foul document/ which, I am led to believe, was our 
 petition, because it contained that sentence which stated 
 that the corn and provision laws were the cause of 
 j)Overt}-, starvation, crime, disease, and death. Now, my 
 lord, your humble petitioners had no intention of offend- 
 ing* your lordship by any uncouth language, which 
 emanating from working men, ought, I think, to have 
 weighed in the balance of your master mind, which has 
 stamped your lordship as one of the brightest political 
 and literary luminaries of the present age. But allow 
 me, my lord, to state to your lordship, that I am no nice 
 discriminator of the language which ought to be used in 
 stating just grievances, or that necessary punctilio which 
 I ought to use in expressing my sentiments and my 
 sufferings, when addressing myself to one so far removed 
 above my humble sphere in life as your lordship ; how- 
 ever this may be, nry lord, I will affirm, that, as a working 
 man, I must be the best judge of what I suffer, what 1 
 see, and what I feel, from the effects of these heaven- 
 accursed corn and provision laws ; and I will attempt to 
 prove to your lordship that poverty, starvation, crime, 
 disease, and death, do really proceed from the effects of 
 these baneful enactments. Dare your lordship deny that 
 the corn laws do not enhance the price of food ? and is it 
 not an undeniable fact, that the wages of the class to which 
 I belong have long since been reduced to the starving 
 point of existence by the effects of these laws ? Now, 
 1113- lord, is not poverty one of the great causes of crime, 
 and does not starvation generate disease, and is not 
 disease the precursor of death ? I am not, however, my 
 
 lord, directed to argue these subjects with you, I have 
 
 v 2
 
 292 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 only to request your answer ; and as your lordship lias 
 not thought proper to present our petition, you will very 
 much oblige your very obedient and humble servant by 
 returning our petition to my address, Robert Sinclair, 
 weaver, Springburn, Glasgow. — Feb. 4, 1846." 
 
 Lord Brougham never answered the letter. Upon 
 this occasion the Argus observed, "It augured a want of 
 knowledge of the noble lord's character in Mr. Sinclair, 
 to expect that he would perform an act of gentlemanly 
 and ordinary courtesy to a weaver, or indeed to any 
 person whatever not moving in the narrow circle to 
 which his lordship thinks it proper to confine the civilities 
 which are essential between man and man. We trust 
 the working classes will for the future be better advised ; 
 and that they will let his lordship alone; He is not 
 their man, nor any bod}^'s man ; and will never again be 
 of service to their cause or to any other. Some people 
 exist who entertain a respect for the eloquent and honest 
 Henry Brougham of fifteen years ago, but their number 
 is daily diminishing ; and not a few of those who remain 
 incline to the belief, that the real Brougham was killed 
 at Penrith, some five years ago, by the upsetting of his 
 carriage, ns was announced in all the London papers at 
 the time ; and that the person who at present represents 
 himself as the identical Brougham, is a sort of Perkin 
 Warbeck, assuming a title that does not belong to him.*' 
 
 The discussion on the third reading of the Corn Law 
 Abolition Bill commenced on Monday the 11th of May. 
 The opposition was led by the Marquis of Granby, who 
 moved the reading of the Bill that day six months. His
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN -LAW .STRUGGLE. 293 
 
 speech was only remarkable for a poor parody on Shaks- 
 peare, in which he designated Lord George Bentinck — 
 who had made himself conspicuous by his hostility 
 to Sir Robert Peel — as the future leader of- the Conser- 
 vative party, and called upon his faithful adherents to 
 cry, 
 
 " God for the Queen, for England and Lord George ! " 
 
 The most remarkable speech in favour of the third 
 reading, was that of Sir James Graham, who adverted to 
 the progress of opinion in Parliament on the Corn Law 
 question, as a criterion for the fit appreciation of the 
 recent measures of Government. The Protectionist 
 party, he said, seemed to argue the question of Free 
 Trade as though the producers only were to be consulted, 
 whereas it was notorious that a larger and more important 
 class had to be considered. That class was the people, 
 and their interests were bound up with the abolition of 
 commercial restrictions. Referring to the Irish question, 
 he repeated his conviction of the want and misery pre- 
 vailing in that part of the empire, but avowed his belief 
 that sufficient reasons, beside the state of Ireland, 
 justified the adoption of the Free Trade policy of the 
 Government. He also adverted to the foolish and selfish 
 fears of the landlords, and defied any change of the law 
 to make worse the condition of the labourers. The 
 debate continued for three nights, and at four o'clock on 
 the morning of the 16th of May, the Bill passed the 
 Commons by a majority of ninety-eight. On the motion 
 of the Duke of Wellington — a great power not alone in 
 himself, but on account of the proxies in his pocket —
 
 .-:<>L FOttTY YEAES RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the Bill was read a first time in the Lords on the 19th. 
 of May, with but little discussion, its opponents reserving 
 themselves for the second reading, to open the flood- 
 gates of their discontent. Such opposition as there was 
 was confined to the Duke of Richmond. 
 
 Although the Duke of Wellington was in his place — 
 although Lord Papon, the original author of the Corn 
 Law of thirty years previously, was in his place also — and 
 although both these noble personages had changed their 
 opinions with reference to it, the Duke of Richmond had 
 not a word to say to them. They were there to answer 
 — but the Duke of Richmond was not anxious to be 
 answered. Sir R. Peel was not present — he could not reply 
 — he could be abused in safety — and he became, there- 
 fore, the sole object of attack. His Grace flatly accused 
 Sir Robert Peel of " dishonour," though he took care 
 afterwards to make the qualification that he was only 
 "publicly," not "privately," dishonourable. Lord 
 Brougham entered his solemn protest against such an 
 expression, and read the Duke a lesson on his own 
 political gyrations from one side to the other on 
 the Reform question. The Duke of Richmond, appa- 
 rently somewhat nettled, denied that he had ever opposed 
 the Reform Bill. The Marquis of Londonderry also 
 entreated him to confine himself to the merits of the 
 question ; and gave him an additional reminder, that 
 reproaches for change of opinion came with a very 
 ill grace from one who had changed so often as himself. 
 The Duke, in his reply, made the gratifying announce- 
 ment, that he had exhausted all his personalities the 
 first night, intending for the future to devote himself
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 29j 
 
 entirely to a more legitimate opposition. Lord Papon 
 expressed his satisfaction at the promise, not only on 
 general grounds, but on his own private account, im- 
 plying that, if personalities were to be bandied about, 
 lie, the author of the obnoxious law, would, if any rule 
 ■of proportion were observed, come in for a larger share 
 than Sir R. Peel himself — an implication which the 
 House received with much good-humour and considerable 
 merriment. 
 
 Prior to the second reading and with the object of 
 strengthening the opposition of their lordships, the 
 Central Society for the Protection of Agriculture, held a 
 meeting at "Willis's Rooms, which was graced by the 
 presence of the Dukes of Richmond and Buckingham, 
 Lord Beaumont, Lord George Bentinck, and others 
 equally well known for their strong opinions on the 
 question. " Xo concession " and " No surrender " were 
 the cries adopted, and the speakers indignantly denied 
 that the tenant-farmers as a body had been convinced 
 by the reasoning of the League, or had ceased to fear 
 that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be the ruin of 
 England. A good deal of indignation was also vented 
 upon Sir Robert Peel, but the speakers took especial 
 care to say nothing harsh of the Duke of Wellington, 
 who, if guilt there were, was at all events equally as 
 guilty as the Prime Minister of changing his opinions 
 and betraying his party. A Mr. Bull, of Cambridge- 
 shire, specially exempted the Duke from blame, though 
 upon what grounds it was difficult to discover. He 
 stated " that the only mode in which the Bill could be 
 carried in the House of Lords would be by abusing
 
 296 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the influence of the name of the Duke of Wellington 
 — a name most clear to the whole country, and which 
 none but a base and falling party would venture to make 
 use of for such despicable and unconstitutional purposes." 
 A Mr. Allnatt of Berkshire "proclaimed his firm reli- 
 ance on Lord George Bentinck — that great man 
 whom Providence itself, still smiling on them, seemed 
 to have selected as the champion and firm defence of 
 British agriculture." The most curious assertion, how- 
 ever, that was made during the proceedings, was hy a 
 Mr. Heale}^ from Lincolnshire, who said " that the 
 farmers were a century ahead of their landlords, and 
 two centuries ahead of the landlords' stewards." This 
 elicited considerable merriment ; hut there was more 
 truth in it than the meeting was aware of. Landlords 
 dreaded the repeal of the Corn Laws ; hut the farmers 
 had so little to fear of injury to their business that 
 not one farm in the whole country was known to 
 have let for a less sum in consequence of the im- 
 pending change, while very many had let at increased 
 rentals. 
 
 The Standard newspaper, as the organ of the Protec- 
 tionists, was enraptured with the meeting, and wrote with 
 uncontrolled delight of the manly strength and beauty of 
 the farmers that attended it, asserting, at the same time, 
 their intellectual to he equal to their physical superiority 
 over Free Traders. It did not, however, mention, even 
 by a line of report, that on the very same day a meeting 
 still more significant was held in another part of the 
 country, — a meeting of a totally different character 
 composed <>f men equally in earnest, and having as great
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 207 
 
 a stake in the prosperity of the country as those who 
 assembled under the presidency of the Duke of Rich- 
 mond. That meeting was held at Manchester, and was 
 composed of the members of the Chamber of Commerce 
 of that city ; men of all shades of political opinion 
 — men averse from agitation — men who desired nothing 
 better than to spend, as they usually did, hundreds of 
 thousands of pounds per week in wages, but who knew 
 that the rejection of the Ministerial measure would re- 
 duce many a busy hive of industry to a bankruptcy of 
 owners, and the destitution of operatives ; and who feared 
 that even the delay in passing it would be productive of 
 the most injurious consequences. 
 
 The debate in the Lords on the second reading was 
 animated ; and all the speeches delivered in its support 
 were worthy of the occasion, especially those of Lord 
 Grey, Lord Dalhousie, Lord Lansdowne, and the 
 Duke of Wellington. Not a fallacy, not an error, that 
 had been brought forward, not a fear that had been 
 expressed, that was not met by one or other of these 
 speakers, and triumphantly refuted. The speech of 
 the Duke of Wellington was of a different kind. It 
 did not go into the arguments of the case, but boldly 
 and honestly met all difficulties by an assertion in 
 which the nation acquiesced, that he and his col- 
 leagues acted from a sense of imperative duty — and 
 that he, for his part, so far from regretting what he 
 had done, would, under similar circumstances, if again 
 placed in them, act in the same manner. Clear, un- 
 equivocal, and manly, the words of the illustrious 
 Duke not only gave satisfaction and inspired resped
 
 298 FORTY YEARS RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 for his character throughout the country, but influenced 
 such of the Peers as were still wavering, and helped to 
 increase the numbers of the final majority. 
 
 The second reading was carried by a majority of forty- 
 seven, to the great disgust of such members of the Con- 
 servative press as had not seen lit to follow the lead of 
 Peel and Wellington, and had cast in their lot with Lord 
 George Bentinck and his lieutenant, Mr. Disraeli. The 
 Morning Herald, now defunct, and the Standard, still 
 alive under new auspices and conditions, were particu- 
 larly wroth. The Herald discovered that the Lords in 
 the majority for Free Trade were chiefly of paupers ! 
 — lords having no houses — impoverished men, having 
 nothing to lose. 
 
 " The majority of the Lords," said that journal "would 
 lo well to 'put their house in order' — we mean the 
 House of Lords (for few of tlie majority rejoice in the pos- 
 session of 'private mansions) — for the end is not distant. 
 The pauper peeks, by whose votes the industrious classes 
 of Englishmen arc to be ruined, have, it is true, little or 
 nothing to lose, but they have thrown away that little or 
 nothing. **** The Free Trade lords generally have 
 nothing — true, but they are tin-owing away that nothing. 
 Name and privilege are properly nothing ; but they are 
 the little all of our pauper Peers, and this little all they 
 throw away." 
 
 This must have been rare news to such men as the 
 Dukes of Sutherland, Hamilton, Wellington, Bedford, 
 and Devonshire; and Earls Fitzwilliam, Essex, Derby, 
 and oilier paupers with unencumbered estates of a plum 
 or two a-year. But the Herald, not satisfied with taunt-
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. 299 
 
 ing these Peers with their poverty, called out for a reform 
 in their House, in which cry the writer was joined by his 
 confrere of the Standard. The latter journal, which 
 formerly would have worshipped a lord, had other notions 
 as soon as a majority of the Lords became converts 
 to Free Trade — and Fergus O'Connor himself could not 
 have spoken of them in more disparaging terms, than 
 were emploj'ed in that aristocratic sheet : — 
 
 " The struggle," says the Standard, " is suspended for 
 the present. The Corn Bill was read in the House of 
 Lords, b} r a majority of 47 — more than we anticipated, 
 because ice thought ivell of the House of Lords. "We hope 
 their lordships will accept the apology, though to he 
 thought ivell of by any one cannot he much the object 
 of their ambition. The Duke of Wellington, in the 
 unhappy speech in which he apologised for pressing 
 the measure on the House, hinted that it is not irre- 
 vocable. This is true, the measure is not irrevocable ; 
 <ind as sure as the sun sliall rise upon the year 1850, 
 it will have been revoked before that year, but not re- 
 voked until it shall have occasioned such wide-spread 
 desolation, and such tremendous danger as this country 
 has never experienced — a ruin, of which a national bank' 
 ruptcy will not be the greatest evil! But though the 
 Bill will be repealed, what is to repair the tattered 
 reputation of the Houses of Parliament, as was so 
 eloquently said by the Karl of Eglinton, at the 
 elose of his splendid speech — 'I would remind your 
 lordships that though laws may be re-enacted and 
 statutes repealed, character once gone cax never 
 I5E regained. I beseeeh your lordships not to permit
 
 ^00 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 this House to share in the general degradation which the 
 ill-omened measure before it has brought upon the character 
 of British statesmen, and which, I fear, will cast a foul 
 blot on our time, in the eyes of future generations.'' 
 
 " This is the great and the permanent evil inflicted 
 upon the constitution, hut even this will bring a compen- 
 sation — a Radical Inform of the House of Lords, and as 
 the effect of that reform, an extinction for ever of the 
 red tape school of politicians, and their dry nurses, the 
 sect of political economists." 
 
 It is amusing, more than a quarter of a century after 
 the event, to look hack upon these gloomy forebodings 
 and absurd predictions of evil ; so triumphantly falsified 
 in every particular ; and pleasant at the same time, when 
 the violence of party feeling in those days is compared 
 with the calmer ngitations of our own — to reflect on the 
 improvement which time has operated] in the conditions 
 of public life and parliamentary controversy. 
 
 The third reading of the Bill was carried by a sweeping 
 majority, on the very night in June when the Peel admi- 
 nistration was defeated on the Irish Coercion Bill by a 
 majority of 292 against 219. The vote in the Commons 
 led to the resignation of the Peel Ministry, at the very 
 time when its Free Trade polic} r received the final sanc- 
 tion of the Upper House. AYith regard to the Free 
 Trade discussions, it was felt as soon as the measure had 
 received the royal assent, that the British people, all 
 things considered, had true reason to rejoice at the 
 character <>!' their institutions, and their efficiency for 
 meeting every question that might arise, when a change 
 o momentous had been effected in a manner so strict! v
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORN-LAW STRUGGLE. SOI 
 
 •constitutional. Heats and animosities there were ; 
 severance of political and private friendship there were 
 also — crimination, and recrimination, and much more 
 than the usual malignity of party-spirit — but, upon the 
 whole, considering the magnitude, no less than the 
 suddenness of the change, and the inappropriateness 
 of the instruments b} r which it was wrought, there was 
 much less irritation than might have been expected. 
 Two very striking results were especially noticed as 
 worthy of public approval — and, indeed, of national 
 congratulation ; firstly, the entireness and cordiality of 
 the support given to Sir Robert Peel by the great Whig 
 and Liberal party whom he supplanted in power; and, 
 secondly, the calm good sense — the rational dignity and 
 the true wisdom with which the House of Lords avoided 
 the error which, it would have fallen into, if on a question 
 so peculiar it had placed itself in opposition to the other 
 branch of the Legislature. 
 
 The Glasgoiv Argus, in commenting upon the result, 
 expressed itself as follows in a passage that proved to be 
 prophetic : — 
 
 " The British nation may indeed be proud of itself. 
 It has set a great example to mankind. It has proved 
 the value of free institutions in a manner more striking 
 than this age or any other has seen ; and it has entered 
 upon a new course of policy which will change the face of 
 the world — promote the free intercourse of nations ; and 
 give a mighty impetus to the progress of civilisation. 
 The year in which it was accomplished will be memorable 
 in the history of the world, and the reign of the Sove- 
 reign — who is known to approve of it from heart and from
 
 302 FORTY YEARS* RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 conviction, and not to accept it coldly as a necessity of 
 state — will be rendered illustrious in all future times by 
 this triumph, even had it no other to shed a glory 
 upon it. 
 
 " Never, in fact, has the power of truth to conquer 
 error been more beautifully exhibited than in the origin, 
 progress, and triumph of this cause ; and the day is 
 coming, we fervently trust, that even the minority in both 
 Houses will confess to themselves, if not to the public, 
 that their fears were groundless — their calculations built 
 on false data — their reasoning unsound — and all their 
 policy erroneous. The national well-being increasing 
 with the freedom of trade will, it is to be hoped, convince 
 them of their error, and make them participators, not in 
 a ruin of which they have so eloquently and affectingty 
 spoken, but of a prosperity which at present they may 
 think Utopian to imagine, but which the}' will then be 
 convinced of by the surest of calculations — that of actual 
 experience." 
 
 On the 29th of June the resignation of the Peel ad- 
 ministration, consequent upon the hostile vote of the 
 Commons on their Trish policy, was announced by the 
 Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and by Sir 
 Robert Peel in the House of Commons. Sir Robert 
 made a forcible and eloquent vindication of his conduct, 
 not so much to justify himself to his party, for he knew 
 that such men as Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Disraeli, 
 and others, who had attacked, and continued to attack, 
 him with personal, rather than political, bitterness, would 
 accepi no justification which lie could make, but to set 
 himself light, once for nil, with his country, with men
 
 FINAL YEARS OF ANTI-CORX-LAW STRUGGLE. 30)3 
 
 ■who soared above party, and, most of all, with posterity. 
 He contemptuously thrust aside the insinuation that love 
 of power and place had been the motive of his actions ; 
 declared that the object of his ministry in the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws was to avert dangers which were imminent, 
 and to terminate a political conflict which, according to 
 the belief of himself and his colleagues, was calculated to 
 place in hostile collision great and powerful classes in the 
 country. The maintenance of himself and friends in 
 power was not a motive, for he knew that whether accom- 
 panied by success or failure, the certain issue would be 
 the downfall of his administration. Smarting perhaps a 
 little, under the attacks of the chiefs of the great party, 
 that he had once led, he ignored altogether the aristocratic 
 friends who had aided in the accomplishment of the great 
 work — forgot even the Honourable C. P. Villiers, who was 
 a pillar of the cause before the name of Mr. Cobden was 
 ever heard of — and said, in words that have become 
 historical, " The name that ought to be associated with 
 the success of these measures is not the name of the 
 noble lord (Lord John Russell), the organ of the party of 
 which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which 
 ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of 
 those measures, is the name of one who, acting, I believe, 
 from pure and disinterested motives, has, with untiring 
 energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced 
 those appeals with an eloquence, the more to be admired, 
 because it was unaffected and unadorned, the name which 
 ought chiefly to be associated with the success of these 
 measures is the name of Richard Cobden." The pero- 
 ration of this speech — one of the best he ever delivered —
 
 S04 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and prompted, as all good speeches are, by personal 
 feeling* and emotion, was touching in its earnest sim- 
 plicity. "In relinquishing power," he said, "I shall 
 leave a name, severely censured, I fear, by many who on 
 public grounds deeply regret the severance of party ties. 
 I shall surrender power, severely censured also by others, 
 who from no interested motives, adhere to the principle 
 of Protection, considering the maintenance of it to be 
 essential to the welfare of the country. I shall leave a 
 name execrated by every monopolist who for less honour- 
 able motives clamours for Protection because it conduces 
 to his own individual benefit ; but it may be that I shall 
 leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of 
 goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, 
 and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, 
 when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with 
 abundant and untaxed food ; the sweeter because it is 
 no longer leavened with the sense of injustice." 
 
 This impressive speech was, though not exactly 
 the last, the last great speech he delivered in the as- 
 sembly of which he had so long been the ruling spirit. 
 He became thenceforth an almost historical personage. 
 His work was done. He had no longer any personal 
 interest in the strife of politics. He had set himself 
 above parties in the second, as well as in the first, great 
 act of bis life, and had become a kind of umpire in 
 struggles in which lie no longer cared or deigned to par- 
 I icipate. His last speech, on the miserable affair of Don 
 Pacifico, which threatened to involve the honour of Great 
 Britain in a paltry squabble with Greece about the house- 
 bold furniture and warming pans of a quasi-British subject,
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. 305 
 
 was delivered in the evening of the 28th of June, 1850. 
 On the following day he was thrown from his horse on 
 Constitution Hill, when proceeding homeward to White- 
 hall Gardens, after inscribing his name in Her Majesty's 
 visiting book at Buckingham Palace, and fell heavily 
 upon his side. The injuries he received proved to be 
 fatal, and, amid the universal regret and sympathy of the 
 whole nation — his political opponents not excepted — this 
 great statesman expired on the evening of the 2nd of 
 July. His death was looked upon as a public calamity : 
 he was only in his sixty-second year, and might have 
 looked forward to many years of public usefulness and 
 private happiness, and his clear, calm, though cold, 
 intellect, was unclouded and serene till the moment of 
 his unhappy accident. I wrote within a few months after 
 his death the following humble tribute to his genius and 
 his memory, which, after the lapse of five-and-twenty 
 years, seems to me to be quite as just as it appeared to 
 me to be then, and to have been rendered, if possible, 
 more true by the lapse of time. 
 
 THE DEATH OP SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 " Notwithstanding all the animosities which some of 
 his greatest measures excited — animosities which had by 
 no means subsided when he died — his contemporaries 
 were not blind to the eminent virtues of his character, to 
 the greatness and purity of his aims, and to the immense 
 influence of his opinions and acts upon the destinies of 
 Great Britain. Even those who raised the greatest out- 
 cry against him for abandoning his party, admitted, when 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 his ear was altogether deaf to popular censure and ap- 
 plause, his personal integrity, and the greatness of the 
 sacrifice which he made from a sense of imperative duty. 
 Before he was conveyed to the simple burial-place of his 
 family, enmity towards him was extinct in every breast, 
 and a halo of affectionate interest, which might not other- 
 wise have surrounded his name, gathered upon it as soon 
 as people heard of his untimely death. All bitter feelings 
 against the individual were allayed : for no man could 
 look down upon such a grave ' without a compunctious 
 throb ' — that he should ever have imputed unworthy 
 motives to one so disinterested, so sagacious, and so un- 
 fortunate, as he who slept beneath it. His loss was 
 regarded by millions as a national, and by many thou- 
 sands as a private and personal, calamity. It administered 
 a shock to the feelings of all classes of the people, which 
 did not speedily subside, and read the world a deeply 
 impressive lesson on the instability of human power and 
 greatness, and on the transitory nature of all the blessings 
 which men most enthusiastically prize, and for which 
 they most ardently struggle. 
 
 " It was the peculiar misfortune of this great states- 
 man, when considered simply as an individual, but per- 
 haps it was an advantage for his country when he is 
 considered in his public capacity, that he began life under 
 the auspices of a party, with whom his heart and his 
 intellect had less sympathy the older and more expe- 
 rienced he became. The bulk of the members of that 
 aristocratic party, submitting, perhaps unwillingly, to the 
 li'iidi'i'ship of a man of plebeian extraction, and not pos- 
 sessing either his intellect or his conscientiousness, or,
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. 307 
 
 as individuals, the responsibility which attached to him, 
 could not change opinions at his command, or by his 
 example ; and the cry of treason which they raised was 
 rendered more virulent by allusions to his birth. Even 
 in the very height of his power and fame, there were not 
 wanting men who submitted to his leadership in despite 
 of themselves : who sneered at, while the} r followed him ; 
 aifected to patronise him, at the very time that their 
 position and fate were in his hands, and who could no 
 more have stirred in politics without him than a ship 
 could have directed its own course. But in every change 
 of opinion, it was not the violent plucking out of the fruit 
 of his mind, and the arbitrary substitution of an alien 
 produce, of which he could be accused. It was the 
 natural ripening of the seeds of a slow but steady convic- 
 tion, and those who complained of, and were deceived by 
 it, had themselves to blame for their want of penetration 
 in not foreseeing the inevitable result. In his famous 
 speech on the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, 
 a measure in which his convictions, as regards the mere 
 theory, do not appear to have been so matured as on the 
 great question of the commercial intercourse of nations, 
 he explained himself in a manner, which, if it did not 
 conciliate the prejudiced of his own party, was not his 
 excuse, but his glory, in the estimation of the practical 
 men of his age and country. ' I have,' said he, ' for years 
 attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics 
 from Parliament and the high offices of the State. I do 
 not think it was an unnatural or an unreasonable struggle. 
 I resign it in consequence of the conviction that it can no 
 
 longer be advantageously maintained, from believing that 
 
 x 2
 
 80S FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 there are not adequate materials or sufficient instruments 
 for its effectual and permanent continuance. I yield, 
 therefore, to a moral necessity which I cannot control, 
 being unwilling to push resistance to a point which might 
 endanger the establishments that I wish to defend.' 
 
 " On the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws, in 
 which he stood in a position to himself painfully similar 
 to that which he occupied on the question of Catholic 
 Emancipation, the part which he acted was even in a 
 higher degree useful to his countiy. Though he broke 
 up a part}'} he saved a nation. Though he attracted to 
 his own defenceless head the lightnings of the bitterest 
 political storm that ever raged in this countiy, he rendered 
 those lightnings harmless against the State. lie offered 
 up his feelings, his friendships, his very heart, as a man, 
 when he sacrificed his party ; but in knowing that he 
 prevented a violent revolution, in which all the best 
 interests of the country might have been wrecked, he had 
 his reward, both as a man and a citizen. 
 
 " Throughout his career he may be said to have acted 
 the pre-eminently useful part of a break-water against 
 the floods of democratic change. The men who com- 
 menced the struggle for Catholic Emancipation and for 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws, were men before their thne ; 
 and, had those great questions been carried without the 
 opposition which they encountered, they might, perhaps, 
 have been carried in vain, or carried only that a future 
 time might see their re-enactment. His resistance 
 ripened public opinion and his own ; and when both had 
 simultaneously arrived at maturity, he yielded at the very 
 moment when to refuse would have been madness, and
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. 309 
 
 when to yield was to conquer. His wise resistance until 
 the point when resistance became foolish, and his wise 
 concession when not to have conceded would have been 
 perilous or fatal, enabled him to accomplish for those 
 great causes what their professed friends could never 
 have accomplished without his aid. Whilst his poli- 
 tical opponents were too often mere men of theory, he 
 was the man, not of theoiy, but of practice ; a man 
 who was sometimes upon a wrong track, but who always 
 steadify kept marching to a right one ; a man who 
 was always pressing forward, but never too hastily; 
 and who never once, in any change of opinion, changed 
 without long, patient, earnest, and honest considera- 
 tion. 
 
 "No man knew better than Sir Robert Peel how evanes- 
 cent and worthless a thing was the applause of the mob ; 
 and, at the same time, no man more ardently longed for 
 applause than he did. Yet it must be said, that he 
 looked far beyond the loud voices and the clapping of 
 hands of to-day. He looked like 'mighty Verulam,' — 
 a man whose greatness he almost equalled, and whose 
 virtues he far excelled, — to foreign nations and to pos- 
 terity, to confirm the verdict of his own time, if it should 
 happen to be favourable ; or to reverse it, if it should 
 happen to be against him. As regards foreign nations, 
 his wish was abundantly gratified before he died. His 
 was the name that represented alike the common-sense, 
 the business-tact, and the enlightened statesmanship of 
 England. Europe rang with his fame ; and nations who 
 never heard of his rivals or his enemies were familiar 
 with his actions, and respected England in his person. 
 But though he valued the approval of foreign nations —
 
 310 FOKTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 as the verdict of contemporaries who could judge coolly 
 and impartially upon matters upon which there was too 
 much heat among his countrymen at home to permit 
 them to judge impartially — a fair page in the history of 
 his country was the dearest object of his ambition ; and 
 although we, his contemporaries, living amid the suffoca- 
 ting dust of the yet unended conflicts in which he was 
 a leader, are not entitled to speak for those who shall 
 come after us, and who shall see more clearly than we 
 can, we do not run any great risk of committing an error 
 when we assert, that the unborn historian, who shall 
 write the full and impartial history of the first half of 
 the nineteenth century in Great Britain, will find in civil 
 life no purer or higher reputation to identify with it than 
 that of Sir Robert Peel. 
 
 "As an orator, Sir Robert Peel cannot be placed in the 
 highest rank. His was not the eloquence that could 
 arouse the passions of a multitude ; or that, having 
 aroused them like an angry sea, could say to them, 
 'Peace, be still.' He could not govern an impulsive 
 crowd, or awe an impatient senate by his winged words, 
 or hurl the thunderbolts of oratory, like the Jupiters of 
 the Forum or the Market Place ; but what lie wanted in 
 this impetuous vigour, he supplied by his logical power, 
 his patient research, his exhaustive argument, his dis- 
 arming candour, and his thorough mastery of his subject. 
 As an orator, he was surpassed by many of his contem- 
 poraries, both in and out of parliament ; but as a debater, 
 lie had no superior, and but few equals. To expound 
 and to persuade were his favourite tasks; and when he 
 put forth bis strength in cither department, it was very 
 dense ignorance indeed, that could not, or would not, be
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL. 311 
 
 enlightened; and very obstinate prejudice that would not 
 be convinced. On some rare occasions in his parliamen- 
 tary life, he soared beyond the useful cleverness which 
 was the general characteristic of his style of debate, into 
 the higher regions of eloquence and feeling ; and some 
 passages in his celebrated oration of 1846, when he 
 retired from office, and took a final farewell of its 
 anxieties and responsibilities, will bear comparison with 
 the most noted displays of British oratory. 
 
 " The private and domestic virtues of this great states- 
 man were not much known, until death removed a veil 
 from his secret histoiy, and men could speak out who 
 had hitherto remained silent for fear of flattery or mis- 
 conception. His own family, and the circle of his more 
 immediate friends, loved him with a depth of affection 
 and respect which could only have been prompted by his 
 virtues and kindliness. He was considered a cold man ; 
 but, like many others against whom the same objection is 
 raised, the coldness was in the manner, and not in the 
 matter. He was timid and shy in well-doing, and con- 
 cealed his real enthusiasm of character under a thin 
 mask, which true and intimate judges could easily draw 
 aside, but which, to the outer and distant public, 
 remained impenetrable. 
 
 " He was a kind friend, and an unostentatious but liberal 
 patron of merit in whatever walk of intellectual eminence 
 it was displayed ; and, during his later years more espe- 
 cially, he showed an appreciation of literature, and of 
 the claims of literary men — who in their life and conduct 
 respected themselves and their high calling as much as 
 he thought they ought to be respected — which augured 
 favourably of his discrimination, and his power to read
 
 312 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the signs of the times in which he lived. Even in the 
 midst of the thickest turmoil of politics and of business, 
 he always found leisure to attend to every reasonable, 
 and indeed unreasonable, claim upon his time. He was 
 never in a hurry; he took everything coolly and philoso- 
 phically — and neglected nothing — not even the imper- 
 tinent requests of people who had no right to intrude 
 upon his attention or his privacy. Misery never sued to 
 him in vain ; and his generous conduct towards the 
 painter Haydon — accidentally disclosed to the world by a 
 short and grateful record in the diary of the unhappy 
 man, which was made public at the coroner's inquest 
 upon his body, and which forced a tribute of admiration 
 wherever it was made known — was but one instance out 
 of many in which his secret generosity and kindly feel- 
 ing were exerted towards the unfortunate. His conduct 
 towards the poet Southey in a time of affliction, and 
 towards many others still living, whose names may there- 
 fore not be mentioned, was of the same character, and 
 combined generosity with delicacy. 
 
 "A judicious patron of literature and the arts; an 
 exemplary citizen ; an elegant scholar ; a good and 
 humane man, unsullied in his life and morals ; and a 
 statesman who loved truth and his country better than 
 the applause of men, and who, in times of difficulty and 
 danger, strengthened the institutions and preserved the 
 internal peace and security of his native land, when less 
 judgment and firmness might have imperilled and lost 
 them all ; such, in a few words, is the character of Sir 
 Hubert Peel. His fame will grow purer with the lapse of 
 time; and shine — where he wished it — among the 
 brightest names of English history."
 
 PROFESSOR J. P. NICHOL AND THOMAS DE 
 
 QUINCEY. 
 
 -* — 
 
 Dr. John Pkingle Nichol, professor of astronomy 
 in the University of Glasgow, and superintendent of the 
 Observatory, author of the "Architecture of the Heavens," 
 and other works, that helped in their day to render the 
 study of astronomy popular, by ridding it for educa- 
 tional purposes of its abstruseness, and of the mathema- 
 tic difficulties that the bulk of the public have neither 
 time nor inclination to surmount, was a man of an 
 imaginative and poetical mind, and an admirable lecturer. 
 He was also one of the leaders of the liberal party in 
 Glasgow, but not a violent politician. He tempered his 
 imagination with his reason, and came down from his 
 contemplation of the stars, to look upon the things of 
 this world with a calm and practical judgment. He was 
 a firm believer in that dream of science — a dream here, 
 that may be proved to be a reality hereafter — that all the 
 orbs of heaven are habitable or inhabited worlds, fitted to 
 be the abodes of happy and rational creatures. He was also 
 a firm supporter of what, in that day, was called the 
 "nebular hypothesis," which was, that the nebulas — those 
 apparently thin fleecy clouds in the remotest depth of
 
 314 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 space were inchoate worlds, existing in the form of vapour, 
 not yet hardened, but to be hardened in thousands, or it 
 might be millions of years, into substances as solid as 
 the earth or stars ; and that the earth and the stars had 
 all originally existed hi the same form of chaotic vapour. 
 The idea was of ancient growth, but received new cur- 
 rency from its adoption by Sir William Herschel. 
 Thirty }*ears ago it had a large following of astronomers 
 who believed hi it, and possibly a still greater number 
 who held, with Sir David Brewster, that the so-called 
 nebulae only appeared nebulous because no existing 
 telescopes were of sufficient power to resolve them. 
 Great interest was felt by Professor Nichol in the pro- 
 gress towards completion of the gigantic telescope of the 
 Earl of Rosse for use at his Observatory in Oxmantown, 
 and the intention expressed by his lordship to direct the 
 instrument to the great nebula in Orion as a test of its 
 capabilities of piercing into the as yet unfathomed pro- 
 fundities of the sidereal universe. One of the most 
 intimate of the Professor's friends, hi 1845-6, was the 
 celebrated Thomas I)e Quincey, known to fame as the 
 " Opium-Eater," and known to the present generation, 
 as he will be to future times, as one of the purest writers 
 of the rich and copious English language. He was at 
 this time near upon, or upwards of, eighty years of age, 
 and after a course of abstinence, extending over a con- 
 siderable period of failing health and energ}-, had returned 
 to the practice of opium eating, or, to speak more 
 correctly, of laudanum-drinking, with, as he said, the 
 most beneficial effects both upon his mind and body. 
 The Professor had introduced him to me, and he paid
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QU1NCEY. 315 
 
 me not unfrequent visits at the office of the Argus — 
 visits which were generally concluded by the request on 
 his part of the loan of sixpence or a shilling to purchase 
 laudanum — a whole wine-glassful of which he was 
 accustomed to drink with as little compunction as if it 
 had been claret. I had often dined with him, or rather 
 he with me, glad of the opportunity of listening to per- 
 haps the greatest and most eloquent talker of his time, 
 whose learning and whose memory were alike, as Dominie 
 Sampson might have said, " prodigious ;" whose mind 
 was no jumble of heterogeneous knowledge, but a vast 
 store-house, from which he could draw at will the largest 
 or the smallest facts of history and philosophy at the 
 very moment that he wanted them. Though older men 
 than I was considered him tedious and prolix, from the 
 length of the monologues in which he indulged, and amid 
 which it was next to impossible for the listener to squeeze 
 in a word, either by way of dissent, of approval, or of 
 inquiry — his orations, for such they might be called, were 
 to me singularly attractive and instructive. With the 
 veneration which the young ought always to feel for the 
 wisdom of the old, I sat respectfully at the feet of this 
 venerable Gamaliel, and acted towards him the dutiful 
 part of an attentive listener. An incident occurred on 
 one occasion, in the summer of 1845, when I was asked 
 to meet him at dinner at the Observatoiy, which fixed 
 itself strongly on my memory. The party consisted but 
 of four, inclusive of the Professor's wife, and the conver- 
 sation was general, for the time of the monologue — that 
 of the dessert — had not arrived. De Quincey's talk ran 
 upon the great mysteries and discoveries of astronomy,
 
 316 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 on which subject, contrary to his usual wont on most 
 topics, he allowed the Professor and myself to take our 
 full share of the conversation. The particular theme of 
 discourse was the nebular hypothesis, in the truth of 
 which De Quincey seemed, as far as I could gather, to 
 be as firm a believer as the Professor, and which I too 
 was content to believe, when two such astronomers as Dr. 
 Herschel and Dr. Nichol lent it their countenance. The 
 hypothesis appealed to my poetical sympathies, and seemed 
 to open a door, through which the poor, weak, and limited 
 philosophy of man might pass into the secret laboratory 
 of Nature, and study the inner processes of creation, taking- 
 such countless myriads of years for their completion as to 
 render the very name of earthly Time a shadow of infinite 
 littleness. We were in the midst of dinner and conver- 
 sation when the servant brought in a letter for the 
 Professor. " Excuse me," he said, " if I open and read 
 it. I know the handwriting. It bears the post-mark of 
 Oxmantown, and comes from the Earl of Posse." The 
 Professor opened the letter, and as he read it passed his 
 hand nervously amid the hair that clustered on his fore- 
 head, and said, in evident excitement, " The dream is 
 ended. . . Farewell for ever to the nebular hypothesis ! " 
 Handing the letter to me, he asked me to read it aloud, 
 and I [did so. It announced that Lord Posse had 
 directed his telescope to the great nebula in Orion, 
 and that the nebula, as he had expected, was no fire- 
 mist, no star-dust, or inchoate mass of pregnant vapour, 
 but an immense assemblage of suns and stars — a universe 
 of itself. 
 
 " A magnificent discovery ! " said De Quincey.
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUINCE Y. 317 
 
 " Most magnificent," said the Professor ; it makes an 
 end for ever of what is called the nebular hypothesis, 
 not alone as regards the nebula in Orion, but as regards 
 all other and even more distant nebulae winch not even 
 the splendid instrument of Lord Rosse can resolve into 
 the suns and planets that compose them. " Lord, what 
 is man that thou art mindful of him ! " 
 
 "Aye!" said the Opium-Eater, " an undevout astrono- 
 mer is mad," as Pope says, " but you, my dear Professor, 
 are sanity itself." 
 
 "But what do you say of a sectarian astronomer?" 
 I asked, suddenly, remembering the bitterness of spirit 
 with which a noted member of the Free Church of 
 Scotland, also an astronomer, had lately assailed the 
 Established Church and all other sects of Christians who 
 differed from his own. "Is he not as mad as his undevout 
 brother?" 
 
 " Quite," replied Mr. De Quincey; " nobody can study 
 the stars without a profound pity or contempt for the 
 poor, petty, paltry, religious animosities and unchristian 
 hatreds of mankind. What a sublime science astronomy 
 is ! It expands yet dwarfs the intellect of men, and 
 shows us the more we learn, how little it is possible we 
 «an ever know. The stars always preach to me that I 
 am a prisoner, that I am condemned, possibly for some 
 sin I have committed in a previous, but now forgotten, 
 state of existence, to do penance in this cell, or dungeon 
 — the earth ; and to wear about me, until my term of 
 captivity is ended, the penalty of a body." 
 
 " The penalty of a body ! " said the Professor. " Do 
 vou not — do we not all — underrate and underestimate
 
 318 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the bod}', and over-exalt the soul ? How can soul display 
 itself ? how can it act at all, unless it have a bod)- through 
 which to act ? I may have one of the grandest souls 
 that it is possible for a dweller on this earth to be 
 possessed of, and something or somebody may come and 
 give me a crack on the skull, sufficient to injure my 
 brain, though not to kill me outright ; and what becomes 
 of my soul ? It is there where it was before, lodged in 
 its earthly tabernacle, but the earthly tabernacle is 
 damaged, deteriorated, and will not and cannot allow the 
 soul to display itself in its original brilliancy. A blow on 
 the brain may convert in a moment a man of genius into 
 an idiot or a lunatic ?" 
 
 "I grant you," said De Quincey. "The degradation 
 of the body is a mistake. The body is as divine as the 
 soul. The stars are bodies." 
 
 " Yes," I said ; " and as bodies, differing vastly as 
 they do from our bodies, in which our souls dwell for a 
 time, may they not have souls also that dwell in their 
 bodies for myriads of years, and not as our souls in our 
 bodies for threescore or fourscore years and ten ; and 
 having souls, is it too wild a fancy to imagine, that they 
 reason, that they think, that they may sorrow, and that 
 they may rejoice, and that star may speak to star, planet 
 to planet, as Ave three are speaking now; and feel, as we 
 feel, the beauty of life, the divinity and sublimity of 
 knowledge, and be endowed, as we are, with an infinite 
 craving to explore all the wonders of infinitude." 
 
 " I have sometimes thought so," said the Professor. 
 
 " And I also," added De Quincey. "What right have 
 we, arrogant, presumptuous, conceited little creatures
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUIXCEY. 319 
 
 that we are, who crawl upon this huge earth, that sustains 
 and feeds us, to say that we only can think, and that our 
 mother earth is spiritless matter. Suppose the little 
 insects that sometimes infest a beggar's doublet, or his 
 head, were to say that the beggar's body was their world, 
 especially created for their enjoyment, and that the 
 beggar had no mind, no soul, no thought, no reason for 
 his existence, except that they might live upon him. 
 Would not that be the most intolerable conceit ? And yet 
 it would not be a whit more contemptible than that of a 
 man who boasts, that not only the particular orb on 
 which he creeps, but all the countless hosts of heaven 
 were created solely to give him light, or perhaps to enable 
 silly astrologers to cast his nativity and tell his paltry 
 fortunes, whether he should marry a dark woman, or a fair 
 one; or whether he should be prosperous or unprosperous 
 as a huckster or a pedlar." 
 
 "Yes," said I. "And when we reflect that human eves 
 have never beheld the radiance of a millionth or a 
 billionth part of the stars that are scattered through 
 the awful infinitude of what we call heaven, and never 
 will, at least as long as we continue to be captives in this 
 prison of the earth, as Mr. De Quincey has truly named 
 it, our pride in ourselves, as of necessity the highest of 
 all intelligent beings, and for whom all the worlds were 
 created, would be contemptible if it were not so lofty, 
 and ludicrous if it were not so magnificently audacious. 
 Though I reject the idea, 1 admire it; and look upon it 
 as a kind of proof that man after all is other than he 
 seems ; and that possibly it may be his destiny, after he 
 has shuffled off this mortal coil, to make the circuit of
 
 820 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 infinitude, and wear a succession of new and more 
 beautiful bodies than he can wear on earth, with newer 
 and grander faculties, in planet after planet, star after 
 star, for ever, and ever, and ever ; learning, loving, and 
 adoring as he goes, and increasing alike in wisdom and 
 in happiness. 
 
 " Granting this," said the Professor, " a dream which 
 may not be altogether a dream, can you reconcile it to 
 the logic even of a dream, that your eternity should be 
 eternal only at one end — the future ? and that } r ou, or 
 your soul, should not have been eternal in the past ? To 
 me it seems that a one-ended eternity is no eternity at 
 all, and is a contradiction in terms." 
 
 "I like to imagine," I replied, "that I have always 
 been as I always shall be ; but I don't like to dwell upon 
 the thought too continuously, for ,' that way madness 
 lies.' Happy for us that we cannot look into the past 
 much more than into the future." 
 
 "But," said Mr. De Quincey, "we can see into the 
 past, or into that which seems present, but may be past. 
 For instance, the great nebula in Orion, which the tele- 
 scope of Lord Ilosse has shown to be a congeries of stars, 
 how long does its light take to reach this earth of ours ? 
 Some thousands of years, I believe! And is there not 
 another nebula, as yet unresolved, of which the light 
 takes fifty thousand years to travel to us ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the Professor. 
 
 " So that if we look through Lord Rosse's telescope, 
 we clearly see worlds which may no longer be in exist- 
 ence, and which may have perished forty-nine thousand 
 years ;igo or longer? "
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 3:U 
 
 " Not as you put it," replied the Professor, " for I 
 cannot grant that a star can perish, or that anything 
 great or small in all the boundless universe can cease to 
 be. All things change — but nothing dies." 
 
 " True," said De Quincey, " but what I mean is that 
 when we see the nebula to-day, or to-morrow, we see it 
 as it existed thousands of years ago, and that in the 
 interval it may have assumed a different shape, condition, 
 arrangement, and constitution, and from solid passed 
 into the fluid, or into the gaseous state, or been whirled 
 down — down — down into the abysses of space, so far 
 beyond its seeming position as to be out of telescopic 
 reach." 
 
 " There is no down — down — down in space ; and no 
 up — up — up," replied the Professor. " These words are 
 relative and not positive ; and are of the earth, earthy ; 
 but you are right in the theory that when we look upon a 
 star in the illimitable sky, we look upon it as it was, and 
 not as it may be at this moment." 
 
 " I grant," said De Quincey, " that ' up ' and ' down ' 
 are relative, and not positive words, and that if they apply 
 to things on our small planet, in reference to position on 
 that planet, they cannot apply to the heavenly hosts. 
 But all words, except substantives, such words as horse, 
 cow, or man, bread, wine, beef, &c, are more or less 
 vague. How glibly, for instance, we use the great words 
 infinite and eternal ! just as if we could understand any 
 thing that was either." 
 
 " I have often thought," said I, "of writing an article 
 to be called ' Quarrels with Words.' Take the word 
 ' morality ' for instance ; that also is a relative not a 
 
 TOL. I. T
 
 322 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 positive word ; in fact, a word that is modified or wholly- 
 changed in its meanings by geography, or by lapse of 
 time. Abraham, three thousand years ago, may have 
 been a strictly moral man ; but if he lived in our day, 
 and behaved as he did in his own, he would be considered 
 a very immoral man. If a man in England were to put 
 his good old grandfather to death, as too old to live, and 
 helped to eat him, he would not be considered a moral 
 man, and would assuredly be hung ; but if he committed 
 the same act in Fiji, he would strictly conform to the 
 morality of the place, and would be considered as per- 
 forming a work of grand filial duty in sending to Heaven 
 one who had no longer any chance of enjoyment on the 
 earth." 
 
 " Write the article," said De Quincey, " or let me do it. 
 Consider the word virtue. What does virtue mean? 
 Originally it meant manliness; but we scarcely know 
 what it means now. It is one epithet as applied to a 
 man, and another very different epithet when applied to 
 a woman. Indeed, we scarcely ever speak of a virtuous 
 man, and would not be understood in any unvarying and 
 fixed sense if we did ; but we all know what we mean by 
 a virtuous woman. Then there is the word education — 
 the abuse of which sometimes very sorely irritates me. 
 Education is the act of drawing out. What do we draw 
 out ? And if an educated man is a drawn-out man, how 
 has he been drawn out ? What has been drawn out ? 
 And lias not something been put into him? We talk of 
 a man as having been educated, or drawn out, at such a 
 ■ liool or university; whereas, we should say that he was 
 taught something, more or less, at his school or uni-
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 323 
 
 versity. We hear now and then of young ladies who 
 have ' finished ' their education. As if the drawing out 
 or education of the faculties of any rational human being 
 could ever he finished as long as he or she remained in 
 possession of his or her senses ! " 
 
 " And patriotism," said Professor Nichol; "the love 
 of the particular country in which a man happens to he 
 born. If we are to love our country beyond all other 
 countries, merely because we are natives of it, why should 
 we not love our county beyond all other counties ? And 
 if our county, why not our town or village ? And if our 
 town or village, why not the particular street in which 
 our ej T es first opened to the light ? And if the street, 
 why not the house ? And if the house, why not the 
 room ? " 
 
 " I wish you would write the article," I said to Mr. De 
 Quincey. " I resign all my copyright in the idea to you, 
 and shall look out for it in Maga." 
 
 I believe no such article ever appeared, though I ex- 
 pected it during many months. But I learned from Pro- 
 fessor Nichol, after De Quincey' s death, that many scores 
 of articles which he wrote for Blackwood were lost to the 
 world through the spiteful acts of a half-crazy woman. 
 De Quincey was long in sore pecuniary straits, and led a 
 single life, in temporary but not hostile or unfriendly 
 separation from his family, and took obscure lodgings, 
 sometimes in Edinburgh, sometimes in Glasgow, 
 sometimes in London. He was not always able to pay 
 for his lodging, and had to resort occasionally to very 
 ignominious shifts. He lived a long time in the house 
 of one woman in Edinburgh, whom he was never able to 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 FORTY YEARS' EECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 pay : a woman of a very sharp tongue and most irascible 
 temper, whose wrath at the last moment of grace which 
 she had allowed him, he had not courage enough to 
 face ; so he ran away, leaving his small chattels and 
 his manuscripts behind him. This woman knew his way 
 of life — knew the hours when he was accustomed to write, 
 and the hours when he went abroad for exercise and fresh 
 air, and the loose manner in which he left his papers 
 unprotected on his writing-table. With great trouble 
 and enormous pertinacity, she tracked him from lodging 
 to lodging, and took advantage of the hours Avhen 
 she knew he was not at home, to procure admission to 
 his rooms under one pretence or another, and very often 
 — a great deal too often — contrived to possess herself of 
 his manuscripts and carry them off. De Quincey put the 
 best face on a bad business, and represented to Professor 
 Nichol that the woman had conceived a violent but hope- 
 less attachment to him, which he could not reciprocate, 
 and that this was the method in which her rage and jealousy 
 displayed themselves ! 
 
 In one of his homeless intervals Dr. Nichol invited 
 him to stay at the Observatory for a week. De Quincey 
 gratefully accepted the invitation, and remained for six 
 months, untroubled by the avenging Hecate, who had 
 utterly lost the clue to his whereabouts, and secure in 
 the possession of his manuscripts. The last time I saw 
 him was in the streets of Glasgow, when I suddenly came 
 upon him at a turning. " I knew I should meet you," he 
 said. " Three streets distant, I was mysteriously aware 
 that you were somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that 
 <>ur two orbs were approaching each other. Have you
 
 PROFESSOR NICHOL AND THOMAS DE QUINCE Y. 325 
 
 never experienced such a presentiment, or thought of 
 some one in a sudden and inexplicable manner, whom you 
 had no particular reason to think about, a person who, 
 for all you knew to the contrary, might be a thousand 
 miles away, and come across him unexpectedly in the 
 streets a few minutes afterwards ? " 
 
 I owned that such a circumstance had happened to me 
 more than once, and that in the present instance I had 
 been thinking of him in the street, some time before I 
 met him. If I had been in haste to keep an appointment 
 this admission would have been unlucky, but I was in no 
 particular hurry, and had to stand and listen at the street 
 corner, while he poured forth a full stream of poetical 
 and philosophic talk, in explanation of what he called 
 the possibility of spirit meeting with spirit before body 
 met with body. Like the Ancient Mariner with the 
 wedding guest, in Coleridge's poem, the Opium-eater 
 " fixed me with his glittering eye," while in eloquent 
 language he expressed his belief that every human being 
 was surrounded with a spiritual atmosphere ; that the 
 body was but the nucleus of a comet, and that the soul 
 surrounded it with a light unseen by the physical eye ; 
 that the volume of this luminous atmosphere was in pro- 
 portion to the intellect, and that the light thus cast 
 before him into space by a man of genius, was vastly 
 greater than that projected b} r the dull ordinary man 
 or woman, and that the atmosphere which enveloped 
 the fool was so slight as scarcely to be considered an 
 atmosphere at all. Thus he said our atmospheres had 
 met and mingled that morning before we knew that we 
 were near each other, and had communicated to each of
 
 326 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 us, by means of an apparently spontaneous thought, the 
 intelligence that we were approaching, and would shortly 
 meet. I think he kept me listening to him for fully 
 twenty minutes, during which I could not, though I tried 
 two or three times, launch upon him a single word of 
 assent or dissent. He ended, by requesting the loan of 
 sixpence, for a draught of his beloved laudanum, which 
 having obtained he turned back on the way by which he 
 had come, doubtless to the shop of the chemist with 
 whom he was accustomed to deal, and who, knowing his 
 man, was not afraid to serve him with a potion which 
 would have been fatal to any one else, but which on him 
 only acted as a gentle and a beneficial stimulant.
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 In 1844-'45-'46, and '47 the Sunday or " Sabbath" 
 
 question excited much controversy as well as ill-feeling 
 
 in Scotland. Sunday in London is a day sufficiently 
 
 gloomy ; but it is cheerfulness itself compared with a 
 
 Sunday in Glasgow or Edinburgh. But the Scottish 
 
 Sabbatarians and idtra-Calvinists, not contented with the 
 
 deadness and dreariness of Glasgow, and the stoppage 
 
 of all the vehicular traffic of the poor — that of the cabs 
 
 and omnibuses — endeavoured to prevent the rich from 
 
 going to church in then* own carriages, and to stop all 
 
 railway and postal communication throughout the land 
 
 from twelve o'clock on Saturday night to twelve o'clock 
 
 on Sunday night. Tins was too much for the bulk of the 
 
 people to endure, although very numerously attended, and 
 
 very enthusiastic meetings were got together in support 
 
 of this very unnecessary stagnation. At one of these 
 
 meetings, in the City Hall, Glasgow, at which it was 
 
 computed that between four and five thousand persons 
 
 were present, a very suggestive incident occurred. The 
 
 principal orator of the evening was the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, 
 
 a well-known and highly esteemed clergyman of venerable
 
 328 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 age, who resided in the country about five or six miles 
 from his church, and who, not being able to walk the 
 distance to and fro, was accustomed to ride into the 
 city on a strong little pony. The doctor was in the full 
 flow and swing of his eloquence, and had spoken for more 
 than half an hour in denunciation of the grievous sin of 
 Sabbath-breaking, committed not only by the railway 
 companies in carrying, but by the British Government in 
 despatching, the mails for transmission through the 
 country on the day that was sanctified to " the Lord God 
 of Sabaoth, and of the Sabbath." He was eliciting loud 
 and frequent bursts of applause from his sympathising 
 and admiring auditory, when a stentorian voice suddenly 
 called out from the gallery, "Will the reverend doctor be 
 good enough to repeat the Fourth Commandment?" 
 The question excited a storm of hisses, cheers, and cries 
 of " Order ! order ! " But the man in the gallery was not 
 to be put down ; and at the first pause in the hubbub, 
 said in the same loud voice, " I mean no disrespect to 
 the reverend gentleman, but I must beg that he will 
 repeat the Fourth Commandment for the benefit of some 
 of us who may not perhaps understand it?" Renewed 
 uproar, and cries of " Order ! order ! " resounded through 
 the hall, in the midst of which Dr. Wardlaw himself 
 requested silence, and said that he had no objection 
 whatever to repeat the commandment. This he did, Avith 
 good accent and emphasis, until he came to the words 
 ' thine ox and thine ass," when he was interrupted by a 
 loud stumping of feet, and cries of "Hear! hear!" from 
 the gallery, with counter-cries of " Order! order!" from 
 the body of the hall. "With the permission of the
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND. 323 
 
 meeting," said the first interrupter of the proceedings, 
 " I will ask the reverend gentleman whether, in view of 
 the kind nature and whole spirit of the commandment, 
 the words ox and ass do not mean all animals and beasts 
 of burden ; and whether the divine law that applies to an 
 ass does not apply to a pony ?" 
 
 A loud burst of laughter and applause greeted the 
 question. Dr. Wardlaw replied unhesitatingly, "I do ;" 
 and concluded his speech without further interruption. 
 A series of resolutions was ultimately passed, calling 
 upon the railway companies to cease running their trains, 
 and upon the Government to cease despatching letters 
 upon the " Sabbath." There were many dissentients ; but 
 the great majority was in favour of Sunday solitude. 
 
 Next Sunday it was noticed by some of his congregation 
 that Dr. Wardlaw did not ride his pony as usual, but 
 walked to Glasgow from his country residence. The 
 same thing was noticed on the second Sunday ; but on 
 the third the reverend gentleman mounted the back of his 
 faithful animal as before. He took occasion to explain to 
 liis congregation that the question so unexpectedly put to 
 him in the City Hall had sorely exercised and troubled his 
 mind. The point was one to which he had not previously 
 devoted his attention, and which he resolved to study in 
 all its bearings, and by the light of all possible authority. 
 While still in doubt, he thought it his duty to walk ; but 
 now that his perplexities were removed he had recom- 
 menced, and intended to continue his rides. 
 
 "I consulted," said he, "the early Fathers of the 
 Church. I consulted the writings of the Genevan divines. 
 I consulted every authority that was open to me. I looked
 
 330 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 upon the matter with the impartial spirit of a judge, and 
 I hope with all the devout and conscientious feeling of a 
 Christian, and came to the conclusion, after earnest prayer 
 for enlightenment, that the institution of the Lord's Day, 
 as observed by all Christian Churches and sects what- 
 soever, applied to mankind only, and was for their benefit ; 
 and that in appointing the first day of the week to be the 
 Sabbath of the Christians — instead of the seventh day, 
 which was the Sabbath of the Jews — the intention was to 
 leave the Sabbath of the brute creation, as it originally 
 stood. Upon this principle I resolved to give my pony 
 its Sabbath rest on the Saturday, and to ride it, as my 
 increasing age and infirmities demand, on the first, or 
 Lord's Day, or Sunday." 
 
 It was the universal opinion of Glasgow that the 
 reverend gentleman deserved his ride for his ingenuity ; 
 but the principle was never applied to the horses hi the 
 case of the driving of cabs and omnibuses, or other 
 vehicles of the poor. Neither was it ever enforced in the 
 case of the rich, though it must be observed, in justice to 
 the Sabbatarianism of the city, that the rich only used 
 their carriages to convey them to and from church, and 
 that if they had employed them for any other purpose they 
 would have lost caste and social position, and, perhaps, 
 had to endure a reprimand from the Kirk Session. 
 
 Some of the Scottish people not only worshipped the 
 Sabbath, but they worshipped the Saturday evening, as to 
 a certain extent partaking of the Sabbatical character, 
 of which a curious instance fell under my observation. 
 A then celebrated English vocalist, still living, was 
 asked on a Saturday, when he had no engagement,
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND. 331 
 
 to take a trip down the Clyde to the beautiful island 
 of Arran, and stay over the Sunday. It was represented 
 to him that he could easily return on Monday morning, 
 with ample time to prepare himself for Iris advertised per- 
 formances in the City Hall on the Monday night. He 
 willingly agreed, and induced a mutual friend, a well- 
 known advocate of Glasgow, to accompany us. The 
 weather was fair at starting, and remained so, until we 
 reached Greenock, that famous town, where it is said 
 always to rain, except when it snows, when the rain began 
 to fall in torrents, and continued to fall until we arrived 
 at Brodick in Arran. The inn was near to the shore ; 
 but it had very imperfect and limited accommodation, for 
 the then Duke of Hamilton, to whom the greater part of 
 the lovely isle belonged, objected to the influx of travellers, 
 and doggedly refused to grant a site for a great hotel, or 
 allow an extension of the existing buildings ; and on 
 applying for admission we were told that the place was 
 full, and that even the barn was occupied. What were 
 we to do ? The sympathetic hostess told us that if we 
 would walk down to the village and apply at the post-office 
 we might possibly be accommodated. The ram was 
 pouring down, and we had no umbrellas, and the post- 
 office was a mile distant. The vocalist was in great 
 distress. He wore a pair of thin patent-leather boots, and 
 his feet sank into the miry road, above his instep at every 
 step he took. His great trouble was that the cold and 
 damp would affect his voice, and that he would lose his 
 G — one of the notes, on the purity of which he most 
 prided himself. But there was no help for it ; and we 
 trudged steadily onward to the post-office, arriving about
 
 332 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 eight o'clock in the evening, just as it was beginning to 
 grow dark. There was a blazing fire in the parlour, and 
 we were informed that we could have a room in which 
 there were three beds, and that we could be supplied with 
 food and other refreshments, exactly the same as if we 
 had been at the inn. The vocalist, cheered by the sight 
 of the fire, took off his wet boots, rubbed his hands 
 cheerily at the blaze, and began to try his voice to ascer- 
 tain if his G had suffered. He ran up the scale several 
 times, lingering lovingly at each repetition of the " G," 
 which seemed to be unimpaired, when the post-mistress, 
 who had been cooking some bacon and eggs for us in the 
 adjoining kitchen, suddenly rushed in with alarm depicted 
 upon her comely countenance, and said, "Gentlemen! 
 gentlemen ! ye may do what ye like in my hoose ; I will 
 do a' I can for your comfort, and am right glad to see 
 ye, but ye maunna sing ! " 
 
 The vocalist, more annoyed than amused, asked " Why 
 not?" 
 
 " Because ye maunna ! Ye may do ony thing else ye 
 please in my hoose, but ye maunna sing ! " 
 
 The vocalist gave a loud long whistle — a kind of stage 
 whistle in fact — expressive of his surprise, which only 
 seemed to alarm the landlady still more. " Aye, gentle- 
 men," she said, " the hoose is your ain, in one respect; 
 but j'e see I'm the mistress o't. Ye can do just what you 
 like in it; but ye maunna sing, and ye maunna whistle!" 
 
 "But why?" I inquired; " singing and whistling are 
 harmless, and I am sure our friend would do nothing to 
 annoy you if he knew it. Why do you object to singing 
 and whistling?"
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND. 333 
 
 "I dinna object to either of them, of theirselves," said 
 the landlady, " but I object to theni the noo. Its audit 
 o' the clock on Saturday night : only four hours to the 
 Sabbath ! and there's a minister in the next room ! " 
 
 But the agitation of the Sunday question in Scotland had 
 its serious as well as its ludicrous side, and more than justi- 
 fied the witticism of Mr. Albany Fonblanque, which had 
 passed into a proverb, that the Scotch desired the bitter 
 and not the better observance of the Sabbath. A striking 
 instance of the bitterness, rendered more striking by the 
 rank and social position of the person afflicted, occurred 
 in 1848. Although all the Scottish railway companies 
 were compelled to carry the mails on Sunday, but as none 
 of them were compelled to carry passengers, some of them 
 exercised their own discretion, and absolutely refused to 
 render themselves aiders and abetters of the sin, as they 
 called it, of Sabbath desecration, by permitting a single 
 passenger, however urgent his business, whether of 
 necessity or mercy, to avail himself of a Sunday train. 
 Early one Sunday morning a lady arrived at Perth, the 
 then ultimate limit of railway extension in the north. 
 She had travelled post all night from the far county of 
 Sutherland, and was just in time to catch the train that 
 was on the point of departure for Edinburgh with the 
 mails. She was told that she could not be permitted to 
 travel by the train. She said that she was the Duchess 
 of Sutherland, that she had received intelligence that her 
 father, the Earl of Carlisle, was lying at the point of death 
 in Castle Howard, and that she had travelled from Dun- 
 robin all night on purpose to catch this very train, and 
 begged and entreated that she might be permitted for
 
 381 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Christ's and pity's sake to take her seat and hasten to her 
 father. The officials were very courteous and very sorry; 
 but their orders were imperative. They could not allow 
 the desecration of the Lord's Day ; and the tram took its 
 departure, leaving the afflicted daughter weeping on the 
 platform. Resuming her journey with her wearied horses, 
 the Duchess took the shortest road towards Edinburgh ; 
 and on arrival at the ferry over the Firth of Forth from 
 Burntisland to Leith, was fortunate enough to persuade 
 a more truly Christian man, the captain of the ferry-boat, 
 to light his engine fires, and convey her across on her 
 errand of love and devotion. But her only opportunity 
 of reaching the bed-side of her dying father in time to 
 receive his blessing had been lost at Perth. "When she 
 arrived at Castle Howard the Earl had been dead for many 
 hours — his last moments unsoothed by the presence of 
 his child. Thus the railway directors, hi their endeavour 
 to be ultra- Christian became unchristian, and were guilty 
 of an act of cruelty which scandalized the whole country. 
 The rank of the sufferer gave their bigotry an amount 
 of publicity and of consequent condemnation that would 
 not have been elicited, though quite as much de- 
 served, in the case of a humbler person. It is probable 
 that many hundreds of instances, equally distressing, 
 may have occurred, that excited no notice. Possibly, 
 however, the guilt — for it was guilt — rested with the one 
 too rigid or too stupid station-master, and that if he had 
 been wise or tender-hearted enough to break through the 
 rule « >f the directors — the directors themselves would have 
 condoned his breach of their law — and have said, "Well 
 done, good and faithful servant ! "
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN SCOTLAND. 333 
 
 It was alleged at the time by some of the Scottish 
 newspapers, jealous of the character of their countrymen 
 for true Christianity, that the refusal of this particular 
 railway company to convey passengers along with the 
 mails on Sunday, was the act not of the Scottish hut of 
 the English shareholders ; and that the latter, misunder- 
 standing the true spirit of the Scottish people, thought to 
 make the line popular by making its management fanatical. 
 There was a legal question, and it was a pity it was not 
 raised by so jiowerful a family, whether the railway had 
 any right to refuse the Duchess a passage. The railway 
 company had monopolized the road, by authority of Par- 
 liament, it is true ; and by its monopoly only granted in 
 the public interest and for the public good, had ruined 
 and abolished the posting traffic between Perth and Edin- 
 burgh. It was urged that a Sabbatarian post-master in 
 the pre-railway days would not have dared to refuse relays 
 of post-horses to a traveller who demanded them, on the 
 plea of his conscience, or his respect for the sanctity of 
 the Sunday; and why, it was urged, should a railway com- 
 pany, who supplanted and superseded the post-master, 
 exercise a tyranny which would not have been tolerated 
 in the humbler official ?
 
 MACREADY IN GLASGOW. 
 
 Whatever may be the case at present, the drama did 
 not flourish in Glasgow during the three years of my 
 residence in that city. The two theatrical magnates 
 of the time were Mr. Miller, the manager of a theatre, 
 built on sufferance upon the green — that was green no 
 longer — and liable to be removed at any time by the fiat 
 of the magistracy, and Mr. Alexander, proprietor and 
 manager of a permanent and handsome building in the 
 heart of Glasgow, and in close proximity to Buchanan 
 Street — the fashionable promenade of the city. Mr. 
 Alexander was himself a clever performer, and enacted 
 every sort of part, from Richard III., King Lear, or Mac- 
 beth, down to the ghost or the grave-digger in " Hamlet," 
 or the walking gentleman in a farce. He was of eccentric 
 and irascible temperament, and it used to be the delight 
 of the gallery to provoke him to wrath, and make him 
 forget his part so far as to rush from the stage in the 
 full attire of Hamlet or of Rob Roy, to eject vi et armis 
 some irreverent and noisy wag who had interrupted the 
 performance, of malice prepense, in order to bring out the 
 manager's peculiarities. The motto of the city arms 
 is now "Let Glasgow Flourish." The full motto,
 
 M ALREADY IN GLASGOW. 337 
 
 derived from the Puritanic times of Peden, Cargill, and 
 martyrs of the Covenant was "Let Glasgow flourish by 
 the preaching of the Word." Though the last six words 
 are now omitted, the preaching of the Word has always 
 been more to the taste of the multitude than literature, 
 music, or the drama, and Glasgow in my time was con- 
 sidered the most unremunerative city in the three king- 
 doms for the magnates of the dramatic art. Nevertheless, 
 there was always a select audience to be obtained for any 
 London performer of high standing who honoured the 
 city with his or her presence. Miss Helen Faucit was 
 always a welcome guest ; and Miss Charlotte Cushman, 
 during her brief visit, had no occasion to complain of 
 empty or imappreciative houses. In the autumn of the 
 year 1846, Mr. Macready was invited by Mr. Alexander 
 to perform a series of his leading parts in Glasgow, and 
 great efforts were made in the press, and by social influ- 
 ence, to secure him large and fashionable audiences. Mr. 
 Macready brought a letter of introduction to me from my 
 old friend William Jerdan, then and for many years pre- 
 viously and subsequently the editor of the Literary Gazette, 
 and also to Sir Archibald Alison and Mr.H. Glassford Bell, 
 as representing bothrthe literature and the law of the city. 
 He also brought letters to some of the leading merchants 
 and to the Lord Provost, and two or three of the local 
 magistracy. The Lord Provost, a very excellent, hos- 
 pitable, and shrewd, though simple-minded person, was a 
 particular friend of mine, and consulted me as to what 
 he ought to do to honour the great tragedian. I told him 
 the best thing he could do was to invite him to dinner, 
 and ask all the principal people of Glasgow to meet him. 
 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 He said I was right, and that lie should call upon 
 Mr. Macready at his hotel, the " Queen's," at the corner 
 of George Square, near the railway station, and ask 
 him to name the day that would best suit him for 
 the purpose. The Lord Provost came to my office 
 two days afterwards to inform me that he had seen 
 Mr. Macready, who had promised to dine with him on 
 any Sunday he might appoint, adding that, as he had 
 to perform every other night of the week for a whole 
 month, Sundays were the only possible days on which he 
 could accept the invitation. 
 
 " "What am I to do ? " inquired the Lord Provost in much 
 perplexity, and speaking broad Scotch. " I'm no that 
 strait-laced mysel', and wad just as soon gie him his dinner 
 on the Sabbath as on ony other day ; but then I'm the 
 Lord Provost, ye ken, and bound to set a good example. 
 If I were to gie a dinner on the Sabbath, and to a player 
 too, I should raise such a hullabaloo in a' the pulpits of 
 the town, against me, as I could na stand against. If I 
 were na' the Provost I wadna mind ; and if the man were 
 na' a player, it wadna look half so bad against me. 
 What's to be done ? " 
 
 "Well," I replied, " I'm not a Lord Provost or a baillie, 
 and will brave all the terrors of the kirks and the pulpits 
 without giving them a thought. Suppose I ask Mr. 
 Macready to dine with me — will you come?" 
 
 " On, aye ! " said the Provost. " I'll come, and bring 
 my friends. But ye maun let me pay for the dinner and 
 the wine. I shall bring ten friends, and Macready and 
 mysel' will just mak' up the dozen. And you'll just 
 invite as many as your table will hold. Not a word
 
 MACREADY IN GLASGOW. 330 
 
 of contradiction ; the dinner shall be at ray expense, 
 only ye mustna let ony body ken it. I'd gie the dinner 
 in my ain house if I were na' the Provost." 
 
 The dinner was given accordingly, among the company 
 being Sheriffs Alison and Bell, and Mr. Sheridan Knowles 
 the dramatist. In his recently published " Recollections," 
 Mr. Macready says but little of his Glasgow engagement 
 and nothing of this dinner, though more than once in 
 after years he was accustomed to repeat with much glee 
 his remembrances of the Provost on this occasion. The 
 Provost sat next to the tragedian, and when the dessert 
 was served became very communicative, to Mr. Mac- 
 ready's evident amusement, though lie never smiled, but 
 sat grave and stiff, and looked as if a laugh would have 
 done him good, had he so far come down from the lofty 
 pedestal of his dignity as to indulge in it. 
 
 " I remember," said the Provost, " when I was a lad, 
 and travelling in 1113^ father's business, I made the ac- 
 quaintance of your father, who was manager of the 
 theatre at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He invited me to sup 
 wi' him at his lodgings. It was on a Sabbath — just as 
 this is — and he had no other da} T to receive his friends in 
 comfort. I was na' a baillie at that time, and went with- 
 out muckle scruple. There were eight or nine people, 
 and they drank and smoked and talked. At last a game 
 at whist was proposed. I was shocked for a while. All 
 my Scottish notions were outraged, and I thought I wad 
 gang awa ; but I did na'. I just lookit on, and wondered 
 a wee at the wickedness around me. Your father and I 
 were the only ones who did not play ; but we both lookit 
 on, and watched the game. 1 had had a lull share of gin 
 
 z 2
 
 310 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and water, and so I think had your father, but I was mi' 
 fou, nor near it, though I might as Burns says, ' have had 
 just a wee drap in my ee,' and I saw one fellow playing 
 so badly, and losing his money, that when the rubber was 
 ended, and he said he'd play no more, I just, without 
 muckle thought on the matter, resolved to take a hand 
 mysel'. I forgot a' about the Sabbath, and before a' was 
 done I had cleared close upon seventeen pounds by the 
 night's wark ! " 
 
 Macready's grim face relaxed, and he put his handker- 
 chief to his mouth to prevent a burst of laughter. 
 
 The Lord Provost was one of the most public-spirited of 
 the citizens of Glasgow, a man who " wore his heart upon 
 his sleeve for daws to peck at," but a shrewd hand at a 
 bargain, munificent when munificence was needed, and 
 always ready to do a kind or a generous action.
 
 EARLY EFFORTS IN THE CAUSE OF THE 
 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 As editor of the leading liberal journal in the west of 
 Scotland, I was for the first time in my life in the posi- 
 tion of being able to express my own opinions in my own 
 way on political and social topics — untrammelled by the 
 censorship of any literary or political superior. During 
 my residence in Glasgow, the mam topics of public inte- 
 rest in Scotland were the endowment of the College of 
 Maynooth, the recent disruption in the Church of Scot- 
 land, the struggles and establishment of the Free Church, 
 the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the attempt on the 
 part of a vigorous minority of rigid Calvinists to prevent 
 all locomotion by railways, and the conveyance of the 
 mails through Scotland on the Sunday — or the day which 
 the Scotch jewishly rather than christianly call "the 
 Sabbath." Upon all these subjects it was my duty, as 
 editor of the Argus, to be in the fore front of public 
 opinion ; but having full liberty of speech on every topic 
 which I chose to discuss, I made it my particular busi- 
 ness, as it was my particular pleasure, to place broadly 
 before the public the, to nry mind, greatest question of 
 the age — the systematic and national education of the
 
 oi'Z FOUTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 rising generation through the agency of the State, and at 
 the expense of the public. 
 
 The question was a very old one, and one that had 
 never ceased to occup} r the minds of great and good 
 men from a very early period of British history. " The 
 reforming of education," wrote the illustrious Milton to 
 his friend, Samuel Hartlib, " is one of the greatest and 
 noblest designs that can be thought on, and for want 
 thereof the nation perishes." And the nation had gone on 
 perishing, from Milton's time to our own, until there was 
 a greater amount of popular ignorance among the lower 
 strata of society, and a consequently greater amount of 
 vice and crime, than among the same classes in any other 
 civilized country. Many eminent men had written, 
 spoken, and agitated in favour of the elementary instruc- 
 tion of the whole people ; but the religious difficulty had 
 always blocked the way, and made that partial which 
 ought to have been general. I determined to make this 
 cause prominent in the Argus. I began my advocacy 
 of it in 1846, and it was not until 1871, under 
 Mr. Gladstone's administration and the immediate 
 auspices of Mr. W. E. Forster, that something was 
 done by the British Parliament to secure, or endea- 
 vour to secure, to eveiy child born within the realm the 
 right of instruction. Mr. Forster's measure is one of 
 those incomplete and halting movements which it is the 
 fashion to compliment as " a step in the right direction ;" 
 but it was only one step, when two or three might have 
 been taken, or when perhaps with a little more foresight 
 and ;i great deal more courage, the goal intended might 
 have been fairly reached. " Steps in the right direction" 
 are nol always to be commended, for right although their
 
 THE EDUCATION OK THE PEOPLE. 343 
 
 direction may be, these steps very often, and too com- 
 monly, have the effect of discouraging future and better 
 effort, and of making the timid and half-hearted satisfied 
 with, a little, when the whole might be obtained. The 
 payment of sixpence in the pound upon a debt is a 
 step in the right direction ; but few creditors are satisfied 
 with a step so short ; though in politics and social science 
 such small instalments are often received with more grati- 
 tude than they deserve. Writers in newspapers, unlike 
 members of Parliament, seldom obtain credit for their 
 efforts in a great cause which has to obtain Parliamentary 
 sanction. They sow the seed and leave the harvest to 
 be gathered by others. They prepare the way for triumph, 
 but do not always obtain a recognition of their services ; 
 though perhaps without such services — long continued 
 and widely operative — the great question, whatever it 
 may have been, would have failed to approach Parlia- 
 ment at all. With the view of showing, not so much 
 what has been done, but how much yet remains to be 
 •done, before the children of the British Isles can 
 be prepared by education for the performance of the 
 social duties which promise (or threaten) to be thrust 
 upon them in their maturity — when successive Reform 
 Bills shall have widened the bases of political power, 
 I reproduce here the main points of the plan, which in a 
 series of twelve letters, addressed to Lord Morpeth, 
 afterwards Earl of Carlisle, I placed before the people 
 more than a quarter of a century ago. I have the less 
 hesitation in republishing these broad outlines of a 
 scheme, which is not yet, but may become the law at no 
 very distant future — because, notwithstanding the lapse of
 
 344 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 time, all the arguments adduced and all the statement - 
 made are as pertinent to the rear 1875 as they were to 
 the year 1846. 
 
 A SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Knowledge is better than Ignorance ; an educated 
 people superior to an uneducated people ; and the natural 
 tendency of education is to make the educated better 
 and happier in all the relations of life than those who 
 are uneducated. There have been people who have dis- 
 puted this, but fortunately few of them are left in our 
 day. Scarcely one has the hardihood to assert that the 
 hewer of wood and the drawer of water should moil and 
 sweat from cradle to grave, and never know the words 
 of blessing, or read them for himself. That race is all 
 but extinct, and, it is to be hoped, will ere long become 
 entirely so. 
 
 This being conceded, we come to the inquiry — "An 
 the people of this country (the people in the widest sens* 
 of the word) sufficiently educated now, either physically, 
 morally, intellectually, or religiously ? " Our eyes tell us 
 that they are not. Our hearts bear witness to it. In 
 our streets, in our prisons, in our hulks, at every corner, 
 every day and every hour of our lives, we see around us the 
 evidence of wretchedness and vice, which might have been 
 removed, had we been wise, twenty years ago. We look 
 still further and still deeper, and we see a younger race, 
 boys and girls, just budding into manhood and woman- 
 hood, as degraded as their fathers and mothers were
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE FEOPLE. 345 
 
 before them — as ignorant of the value and significance of 
 human life as if they lived in an age of barbarism ; the 
 one sex ready to launch into the world with their hand 
 against every man, and the other ready to degrade 
 humanity more than man could ever degrade it. Going 
 deeper still, we see the young children, but with no 
 better prospect before them, and we say to ourselves, 
 " Little or nothing can now be done for their elders, but 
 much can be done for the children. These can be saved. 
 These can be made men and women worthy of the name. 
 These can be made wiser and better than those who 
 preceded them. These can be taught. These can be 
 placed in the way to become happy in time, and happier 
 through eternity." It is useless to go over statistical 
 tables to prove the ignorance of a great portion of our 
 population. The facts are patent — all but the mentally 
 blind can see them — all but the prejudiced and bigoted 
 can see, feel, hear, and understand that the deplorable 
 ignorance of no inconsiderable section of the youth and 
 childhood of Britain is a great and shameful reality, which 
 it behoves us to destroy. The great question then arises, 
 "Whose duty is it to attend to these children?" We 
 ask that question, and the hubbub immediately begins. 
 A thousand voices are heard in reply. The Church, b}' 
 law established, shouts with stentorian lungs, " Leave 
 them to me ; I will attend to them ; it is my peculiar 
 province — my duty— and no one has a right to interfere ' r 
 I will educate the people." But a voice of indignation 
 might reply, and lias replied, to this self-sufficient Church 
 — " The reality is against you ; if you had done what 
 you say yon can do, the question would never have been
 
 34G FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 asked. But you have done nothing ; you cannot do 
 anything ; and, unless 3 r ou hope to proselytize, you would 
 prefer ignorance to instruction. There must be better 
 and more zealous teachers than you, for you have been 
 false to your trust, and are unworthy of future confidence 
 or credence." Another sect exclaims, with louder voice, 
 and with more pride and exultation, if not inflation of 
 vanity and conceit — " I have done better. I have edu- 
 cated ; I have raised princely revenues ; I have saved 
 thousands from ignorance and its co-existent evils and 
 despairs; — leave them to me." The reply is — "You 
 have done much — you have done more than was expected 
 of you — your zeal is beyond all praise ; but you, also, 
 desire more eagerly to make religious proselytes than 
 to teach. For the first object you have done much, for 
 the second you have not done enough ; and you cannot 
 do enough were } r our means increased one hundredfold 
 and your zeal in the same proportion." A score of 
 others repeat the same cry, and may be answered with 
 the same answer. One reply serves all. The greater 
 their zeal and liberality have been, the greater proof is 
 there in the state of circumstances which we see around 
 us, that religious differences render them incompetent to 
 the task ; for still the young children perish, and there 
 are not hands enough outstretched to feed them and 
 instruct them. Who, then, shall take this mighty matter 
 in hand, if not the whole PEOPLE, acting through the 
 Government, which de facto represents the whole people? 
 We are all involved ; the humblest of us has a stake in 
 this great question, and an interest that no child born 
 shall be so neglected as to become a burden to society
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. ol7 
 
 when it grows into a man or woman, but a help and a 
 blessing. This is, however, the grand point — the point 
 of points — on which will turn the whole solution of our 
 difficulties. Wise and good men, while agreeing in the 
 abstract proposition, that a wise and good State should 
 care for and watch over the education of the whole people, 
 demur to the wisdom and goodness of any possible form 
 of Government, and allege that it is a Scylla and Cha- 
 rybdis risk which we are running in making any move- 
 ment whatever. They say that there are so mam' and 
 such grave dangers in allowing the State to have any 
 concern in the matter, that it is better to endure all the 
 multifarious and terrible evils which we see around us, 
 than to intrust the remedy to such hands. Innumerable 
 fears are started — fears for civil liberty — fears for religious 
 liberty — fears for the national intellect itself, which, it is 
 supposed, will be degraded to the low pitch sufficient to 
 bear the burden of a despotism, if once the State is per- 
 mitted to become drill-master to the souls of the people. 
 Simple as the question is, apprehension has so bemuddled 
 and bemystified it, that it is not easy to convince the 
 terrorists that their alarms are unfounded ; that educa- 
 tion is so good and so holy a thing that no Government, 
 however much it might wish to do so, could enslave an 
 educated people, but that its inevitable, its only natural 
 and possible result, is Enlightenment, and that the inevi- 
 table result of Enlightenment is Liberty, and of Liberty, 
 
 Progress. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The opponents of State education fear that, as there 
 are several kinds of education, the State, if once per-
 
 34-8 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 mitted to exercise this great power, may choose a wrong 
 system, and educate us into mental slavery. Men, as 
 we know, may be educated into airy belief — even into the 
 belief of some savage nations, that murder is a virtue, 
 and war the only rational and dignified employment of 
 human beings. It is urged by some who feel this keenly, 
 that if the State were allowed to educate our children, we 
 should have no security that it would not educate them 
 into a wrong belief in politics or religion, and thereby 
 destroy both civil and religious liberty. Let us meet 
 this objection fully and fairly. Let us see what it is 
 worth. Let us examine if this giant in the way is not an 
 imaginary giant altogether — a monster of mere unsub- 
 stantial vapour, that only requires to be closely looked 
 at to disappear, leaving no trace behind it. In the first 
 place, what do we understand by the word Education ? 
 If there are any friends of a system of State education, 
 by which the people should be taught the doctrines either 
 of one phase of politics or of one form of religion, I must 
 say, for myself, that I am not of the number — that I 
 uever knew one of the number who did not prefer igno- 
 rance to universal education, and who, pretending to be a 
 friend of popular enlightenment, was not in reality its 
 enemy. (Mi the contrary, 1 have invariably found every 
 person who lias studied the subject, and taken a real 
 interest in it, opposed to any general or national system 
 of teaching, that could by possibility warp the mind in 
 either of these directions. An education interfering with 
 the rights of conscience is not the kind of education 
 desired by the many philanthropic and earnest men who 
 have advocated the interference of the State to save the
 
 TEE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 349 
 
 masses of our population from ignorance. What then is 
 this system? I reply, that it is a system in which politics 
 shall he left to the fire-side and the free-will of each — 
 and in which religion, not professedly taught, hut not 
 undervalued, shall be left exclusively to voluntaryism, 
 and to such agencies as are at present at work. There 
 will be no interference — there can be no interference in 
 either respect in any system to be supported by the 
 people of this country. The first step in a national 
 system must of course be to provide instruction in 
 reading, writing, and arithmetic, for every child born 
 into this country — to be provided, not as a favour, but 
 as a right. These are the tools of knowledge, and must 
 be taught. The opponents of the Prussian system sneer 
 at these indispensable acquirements, and state that their 
 possession docs not suffice to make a virtuous and happy 
 population. Most assuredly they do not ; — but they are 
 the first steps, without taking which no higher ascent is 
 possible. Of essential value as the basis of an intel- 
 lectual education, they are not to be despised even as 
 moral agents. A man may lie, cheat, and steal behind 
 a counter when possessed of them ; but if he were not 
 possessed of them, the chances are, that with these seeds 
 of evils in his nature, his lying, cheating, and stealing 
 would assume more outrageous, offensive, dangerous, and 
 anti-social forms. Bad as he might be behind his 
 counter, he would be worse if be had not the tools of 
 education to raise him to, or keep him in, that position 
 of quasi respectability; and would, in all probability, 
 pass his days in violence, or end them on the scaffold. 
 The records of all our prisons prove this. It is impos-
 
 350 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 siblc to open a book of statistical returns relative to 
 crime without seeing that out of ten criminals nine are 
 either entirely ignorant of the commonest rudiments of 
 education, or imperfectly acquainted with them. Of 
 15,000 prisoners in Scotland last year, as stated in Mr. 
 Frederick Hill's report, only 1 in 15 was found able to 
 read and write well ; and only 1 in GO knew anything 
 more than mere reading and writing ; while upwards of 
 3,000 could not read at all, and upwards of 8,000 could 
 not write at all. I cite this as the latest instance, and 
 because the fact relative to the northern part of this 
 kingdom, where education is more diffused than in the 
 southern portion, is rather a favourable sample of the 
 whole nation than otherwise. But upon this it is need- 
 less to dwell. Heading, writing, and arithmetic are 
 moral agents. Though insufficient, they are worth 
 something ; and that something, little as it is, and 
 sneered at as it may be by the bigoted and prejudiced, 
 it is of importance to secure to all who, under the present 
 system, or rather non-system, have neither the means 
 nor the opportunities of procuring it. In addition to 
 instruction in these elementary branches, a good national 
 system of education should provide for the physical as 
 well as mental training and development of the young. 
 There should he baths, and large airy playgrounds at- 
 tached to each school, with facilities for athletic and 
 invigorating games — so that the mens sana in corporc 
 vino principle should be fully tried. It is a well-known 
 fact, that generally the inhabitants of our prisons are, 
 merely as animals, inferior to those who keep out of 
 prison. In the same valuable report from which I hav<
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 351 
 
 already quoted — the latest at my hand — Mr. Hill says 
 that the young prisoners are mostly inferior in physical 
 as well as mental development to people generally. He 
 says that this inferiority is " owing, no douht, to the 
 unfavourable circumstances of their birth and early 
 training, and to frequent exposure to cold and want, 
 often alternating as age advances, with the effects of dis- 
 sipation. Man) r who are committed, and liberated while 
 young, probably die before they reach manhood ; but the 
 same general inferiority is observable to a greater or less 
 extent in prisoners of all ages." This point is of great 
 importance ; — it has hitherto been grossly neglected both 
 by and for the young and the old ; and our crowded, 
 reeking, filth}', pestilential lanes, wynds, and alleys,, 
 have vear by year sent forth their swarms of stunted, 
 vicious, and reckless humanity to fill the land with igno- 
 rance, crime, and suffering ; and no effort worthy of the 
 name has hitherto been made to cope with the mighty 
 evil. We have at last awakened to the necessity of 
 sanatory legislation, and in any system of State educa- 
 tion the application of sanatory principles to the schools 
 must not be neglected. In addition to these means of 
 mental and physical training for the young of the nation, 
 which the Government, without alarming the jealousies 
 of any class or sect, might be fairly allowed to employ, 
 that of Music should not be forgotten. Its humanising 
 influence is well known by the rich, and felt by the poor. 
 It should not be omitted. Its preventive and reformatory 
 power is of immense value, and should be brought into 
 operation even in the commonest primary and elemental 
 schools. " In Prussia," says Mr. Horace Mann of Mis-
 
 332 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 sachusetts, in the interesting report of his Educational 
 Tour in Germany and other parts of Europe, " all the 
 teachers are masters, not only of vocal, but instrumental 
 music. One is as certain to see a violin as a blackboard 
 in every schoolroom. Generally speaking, the teachers 
 -could play upon the organ also, and some upon the piano- 
 forte, and other instruments. Music is not only taught 
 as an accomplishment, but used as a recreation. It is 
 found a moral means of great efficacy. Its practice pro- 
 motes health. It disarms anger ; softens rough and tur- 
 bulent natures ; socializes and brings the whole mind, as 
 it were, into a state of fusion, from which condition the 
 teacher can mould it into what form he will as it cools 
 and hardens." The man who really loves music cannot 
 be a thoroughly bad man ; and he has a heart more open 
 to all genial, kindly and religious influences than if he did 
 not love it. It would be easy to dilate upon this subject 
 were it needful to do so. But it is not needful. The 
 advantages, the blessings of music are familiar to every 
 cultivated mind ; and there is no reason why they should 
 not be extended to the humblest amongst us, until every 
 man who could read, could sing, or play some instru- 
 ment, and until the man who could do neither, should be 
 considered an extraordinary and disgraceful exception to 
 a common rule. These should be the means of physical 
 and mental improvement for the young, their religious 
 training being left where it now is, and, at all events, 
 with no worse chances than it has at present — to the 
 home circle, if there be such a circle for the child, or to 
 the efforts «>i' zealous religionists, who teach in Sunday 
 schools or from the pulpit; and who are not likely to
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 353 
 
 relax in their diligence in this particular branch of teach- 
 ing, in whatever way the Government may act with refer- 
 ence to intellectual training. In the more advanced 
 schools, there should be the same system, with the addi- 
 tion of geography, astronomy, history, mathematics, and 
 general science, with the same scrupulous avoidance of 
 religious teaching. 
 
 We are not, like the Prussians, a military nation ; and 
 will not tolerate a military system in educational matters. 
 We are a nation divided into various sects — a nation with 
 two Established Churches, which form a small majority 
 merely — with Roman Catholicism forming the great 
 majority in one important section of the empire ; and 
 Dissent, in all its multiplied varieties, constituting a 
 powerful minority in the other two. We are a free 
 people, jealous of our freedom — a religious people, 
 peculiarly sensitive upon religious matters, and inimical 
 to any, the very slightest, interference with the rights 
 of conscience. We are a people who have a greater 
 reverence for the Bible than any nation under the 
 sun ; and at the same time a people who dispute more 
 and differ more upon the doctrinal questions of the 
 Bible than any other hi existence; and who, however 
 much we disagree upon interpretations, agree in be- 
 lieving that education, without the aid of the Bible, 
 is of a very questionable value, if not altogether 
 useless. We are a nation, who, by means of voluntary 
 efforts amongst our sects, have done a great deal of edu- 
 cational good ; but who, hi consequence of our secta- 
 rianism, have left a great amount undone. We are a 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 nation at the head of the civilisation of the world, not- 
 withstanding all our faults and shortcomings ; and a 
 nation that, knowing this, is hut too apt to undervalue 
 any institution, however good and perfect, that comes 
 from a people less powerful, free, and independent than 
 ourselves. What system, then, can we adopt that shall 
 shape itself to all these twists and turns, and yet answer 
 its purpose of providing education for the whole people ? 
 I do not deny that the answer is difficult. I do not 
 pretend that I am qualified to give it. I merely state my 
 opinion as the result of earnest study and long considera- 
 tion — to be taken for what it may he worth — and at the 
 least as a contribution that may excite thought in some, 
 and, perhaps, help other minds to a far better solution. 
 Five years ago the answer would have been more difficult 
 to give than it is now. We have, in the interval, got rid 
 of a portion of our religious prejudice. The Established 
 Church does not speak with so much confidence and self- 
 sufficiency upon her exclusive right to teach the people 
 as she did then — and Dissent, though still showing some- 
 thing like a firm front against any teaching of which 
 religious doctrine is not the basis, begins to waver. Both 
 the Church and Dissent see, that if the people are left 
 in ignorance until they agree, there is great risk of their 
 remaining in ignorance for ever. Both have awakened 
 to the truth that each has a mission to fulfil — that each 
 can instruct its own people, and push its zeal to a much 
 greater extent than it does now or ever did, and 
 yet leave a large residuum, whom, if the State 
 care not for, no one will care for. The signs of this 
 abatement of the religious difficulties of the case meet
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 355 
 
 us on every side. Dr. Hook and Dr. Vaughan are not 
 
 solitary voices speaking in a wilderness, but orators who 
 
 sway each one his own multitude, and who will, should 
 
 there be a struggle in the cause, march to aid it at the 
 
 head of no inconsiderable band of attached adherents. 
 
 Neither the Church nor Dissent urge any exclusive right 
 
 over the residuum. The Church did so once — Dissent 
 
 never did ; and although there will yet be, in any system, 
 
 considerable difficulty in getting at this residuum and 
 
 teaching it, without exciting the fears or jealousies of 
 
 one or the other of them, the difficulty will be greatly 
 
 diminished if the basis of an educational system be 
 
 declared to be non-interference with any voluntary 
 
 effort. When I say non-interference, I mean that the 
 
 State shall not prohibit any existing school whatever ; 
 
 but I do not mean that the State shall not inspect all 
 
 schools, whether public or private, and that it shall not 
 
 require proof from every one engaged in the occupation 
 
 of teacher that he is duly qualified. There can be no 
 
 doubt in any reasonable mind, that it is the duty of 
 
 the State to take the most stringent measures to see 
 
 that the incompetent and ignorant teacher shall be no 
 
 longer allowed to follow a vocation so high and so sacred. 
 
 Here the subject naturally branches off into two parts. 
 
 First, — How all existing schools and schoolmasters are 
 
 to be improved without any interference with chartered 
 
 or natural rights, or voluntary exertion ; and, secondly, 
 
 — How primary and other schools are to be established 
 
 and maintained, wherever the absence of other schools 
 
 and the wants of the population show them to be 
 
 necessary. 
 
 a a 2
 
 356 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 To render existing schools efficient, we require — 
 
 A responsible Minister of Education. 
 
 A Board of Education. 
 
 An efficient Staff of School Inspectors. 
 
 A system by which Superintendence and Inspection 
 may be made complete. 
 
 A sufficient number of Normal Schools for the training 
 of Schoolmasters. And, 
 
 A law rendering any person, male or female, liable to 
 punishment for keeping a school, or teaching in one, 
 without a diploma from the Central or a properly con- 
 stituted Local Board. 
 
 The results of the emplo t yment of such means would 
 be the elevation of the character and status of the 
 schoolmaster ; the increased responsibility of every 
 person engaged in tuition ; and the greater efficiency 
 of all existing seminaries, public or private, endowed or 
 unendowed, proprietary or charitable. There would be 
 no interference with religious or political opinion — the 
 mode of instruction or the rights of private judgment; 
 — no despotism — nothing that could in any way shock 
 or jar upon the feelings of a perfectly free and earnestly 
 religious people. 
 
 The second part of the subject, namely, the provision 
 of primary and other schools, lets loose the elements 
 of discord ; or rather, would have let them loose some 
 years ago. I think the signs of the times give evidence 
 tli at now the elements will mix somewhat more kindly than 
 before ; and that if we are to have some warring — some 
 muttered thunder now and then — it will be but a harmless 
 storm, clearing and purifying the intellectual atmosphere
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 357 
 
 of the country, and enabling us to see and to enjoy a 
 finer landscape than we have yet been accustomed to. 
 Upon this part of the subject it will be sufficient to 
 sketch a plan, reserving the details for future considera- 
 tion. 
 
 The establishment of primary schools should be com- 
 pulsory. The duty of the School Inspector of the district 
 should be to notify to the Government the name of every 
 village, or parish, or portion of a parish, in which a 
 school is required by the wants of the population. This 
 done, the Board of Education should notify to the village, 
 the parish, or the district in which the deficiency exists, 
 that a school must be built, and that a portion of the cost 
 will be defrayed by the Government. If the notification 
 be not attended to, the Board should have power to order 
 the erection of the building, and to assess the district or 
 parish for the ivliole amount. 
 
 In these schools, reading, writing, arithmetic, music, 
 &c. should be taught ; and to each school should be 
 attached conveniences for physical education. Doctrinal 
 instruction should be excluded from the schools ; but, 
 as Dr. Hook proposes, a certificate of attendance at 
 some place of Divine worship should be expected from 
 every child receiving instruction, and the failure to 
 bring such a certificate should be considered an offence 
 requiring the earnest and public admonition of the 
 teacher. 
 
 These schools should, as far as possible, be made self- 
 supporting ; and the parents of every child attending 
 them should pay at a reasonable rate for the instruction 
 afforded, unless in cases where poverty is pleaded and
 
 35 S FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 proved, when the child should be admitted without 
 payment. The attendance of children should be made 
 compulsory, as far as compulsion is consistent with the 
 feelings of the people, and the freedom of our institutions. 
 Direct compulsion might perhaps be avoided. Mr. Mann, 
 in his Educational Tour, shows, that in the free State of 
 Saxony direct compulsion is submitted to as a necessary 
 portion of an efficient system ; but there are means 
 of indirect compulsion which have much to recommend 
 them. For instance, no man who cannot read and write, 
 whatever his other qualifications might be, should be 
 allowed the exercise of any local or parliamentary fran- 
 chise; and no man who, after notification of a school 
 inspector, that his child or children is or are of age to 
 receive primary scholastic instruction, should neglect to 
 send them to school, should be deprived of all franchises 
 whatsoever. Another means might be the reading, at all 
 the places of worship in the district, whether at Estab- 
 lished or Dissenting churches, of the names of all the 
 recusant fathers who refused to give their children the 
 benefit of the education provided for them. Such a 
 dereliction of duty might also be brought in evidence 
 against the parent, in aggravation of his punishment, 
 if arraigned before a tribunal for any offence against the 
 laws of property or the person. These are merely hints 
 thrown out for those who may be induced to study the 
 possible co-existence and concurrence of compulsion and 
 freedom ; but hints as they are, they will serve to show 
 that the task is not quite so hopeless as many at first 
 glance might be inclined to consider it. 
 
 Having thus very briefly sketched the outlines of a
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 359 
 
 plan, I return to the consideration, individually, of all 
 these various requisites of a complete system, taking 
 them in the order in which I have placed them. 
 
 Firstly, then, of the Minister of Public Instruction. 
 This minister, from the importance of Ins functions — far 
 more valuable and holy in an advancing state of society 
 than those of the judge — for he prevents, while the judge 
 only punishes — should in a right system be above the 
 influence of political parties — chosen for his undoubted 
 and universally acknowledged fitness for the office, for 
 the independence of his mind, and for the purity of his 
 character. It is not a necessary consequence of the 
 removability of such a high public servant on every 
 change of Ministry, that the office should become the 
 reward of political exertion or subserviency — but the 
 irremovability of such a minister, through all the mere 
 changes of party, would be a guarantee to the country of 
 his independence, and of his elevation into a serener and 
 purer atmosphere than that which usually surrounds the 
 statesman who is involved in the tactics and struggles of 
 a party : a guarantee not to be obtained in the ca^a of a 
 removable functionary. 
 
 The presence of this great officer in one or other 
 House of Parliament should be considered absolutely 
 essential to his continuance in office. To him should be 
 confided all educational and literary subjects — public 
 schools, public libraries, Museums, Athenaeums — all the 
 institutions for the education of the infancy, youth, an ( j 
 maturer age of the people, so that in the engrossing 
 struggles of a commercial nation the interests of art, 
 science, and literature should not be overlooked or jostled
 
 360 FORTY YEARS' BECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 out of notice by the fights of parties, the fierce scrambles 
 of railway or other projectors, and all the material 
 interests that in a material world are sure to force them- 
 selves into prominence. This Minister might be aided 
 by a Board, of which he should be the President — a 
 board constituted of men distinguished in Parliament — 
 in Literature — in Science — in the Church — and in the 
 general Christianity of the nation, without reference to 
 sect, and who, receiving no payment for their services 
 in connection with it, would of necessity be chosen from 
 the ranks of those who would receive honour from their 
 office and confer honour upon it. This Board and its- 
 President should form the great Educational Director 
 and Superintendent for the whole nation — making its 
 beneficial influence felt in the remotest corners of the 
 land, and spreading its ramifications to every count}-, 
 cit3% town, village, hamlet, and parish — so that the 
 smallest congregation or community of British subjects 
 should be within the sphere of its vigilant and kindly 
 operations — favouring no sect — teaching no doctrine — 
 promulgating no views of its own — but confining its 
 functions to making known the interest of the State 
 in an educated people, and putting in the power of 
 the humblest the opportunities and the means of in- 
 struction. 
 
 There is another part of the subject on which no- 
 sufficient attention has been bestowed. It is not enough 
 for the interests of a great nation like this, and amid the 
 commercial and manufacturing rivalry which we must 
 expect on every side, that the vice and crime of our
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. SGI 
 
 swarming cities should be reformed by education. This 
 is but the first step. If we teach our children reading, 
 writing, arithmetic, music, and gymnastic exercises — and 
 improve their minds and bodies to such a degree as 
 to make them sober, industrious, healthful, moral, 
 religious, and intelligent, we shall doubtless have done 
 very much. But though much, it will not be all that we 
 must do. The wants of society require schools of a 
 higher class for more advanced pupils. Primary schools 
 — secondary schools — and tertiary schools or lyceums, 
 will all be necessary, one after the other, for the improve- 
 ment of the same individuals before the}' attain manhood 
 or womanhood. These will be required in order that, in 
 the competition of the nations in this practical age — this 
 century of discovery and invention, and of immense 
 mechanical power, every day developing itself in newer 
 and more startling results and combinations — we may 
 not be outstripped in the race, and left in a poverty 
 from which our more vigorous rivals shall have long 
 before emerged. We have hitherto run in the career 
 of civilization, like the hare in the fable — very fast in- 
 deed, and greatly to our own satisfaction, and to the 
 wonder and delight of all beholders. We must not go 
 to sleep, however, upon the idea of our swiftness. The 
 tortoise is behind us, and will not lag or flag, what- 
 ever we may do. It may win the race, if we even so 
 much as doze. We must have Schools of Industry as 
 well as primary Schools — we must have Athenaeums, 
 Museums, and Libraries, at the national expense — 
 the latter not in London only, or in places inaccessible 
 to three-fourths of our population, but dispersed through-
 
 362 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 out the country, on a scale commensurate with the 
 wants of the people, and aided by the State, in propor- 
 tion to the voluntary support of the localities for the 
 immediate benefit of which they are to be established. 
 " The knowledge required for the scientific pursuit of 
 mechanics, agriculture, and commerce, must be pro- 
 vided to an extent corresponding with the demand and 
 the exigencies of the country. Of the necessity of our 
 immediate attention to this point, abundance of proofs 
 might be collected. I select a few that come readiest 
 to my hand. In the evidence given before the Poor- 
 Law Commissions by Mr. A. G. Escher, of Zurich, an 
 experienced engineer, who employs many hundreds of 
 workmen, it is stated, in reply to a question as to the 
 effects of a deficiency of education in success in 
 mechanical employments : — 
 
 " These effects are most strikingly exhibited in the 
 Italians, who, though with the advantage of greater 
 natural capacity than the English, Swiss, Dutch, or 
 Germans, are still of the lowest class of workmen. 
 Though they comprehend clearly and quickly any simple 
 proposition made or explanation given to them, and are 
 enabled quickly to execute any kind of work when they 
 have seen it performed once, yet their minds, as I imagine 
 from want of development by training or school educa- 
 tion, seem to have no kind of logic, no power of syste- 
 matic arrangement, no capacity for collecting any series 
 of observations, and making sound deductions from the 
 whole of them. This want of capacity of mental arrange- 
 ment is shown in their manual operations. An Italian 
 will execute a simple operation with great dexterity; but
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 3G3 
 
 when a number of them is put together, all is confusion. 
 For instance, within a short time after the introduction 
 of cotton-spinning into Naples in 1830, a native spinner 
 would produce as much as the best English workman ; 
 and yet up to this time, not one of the Neapolitan 
 operators is advanced far enough to take the superinten- 
 dence of a single room, the superintendents being all 
 northerns, who, though less gifted by nature, have had a 
 higher degree of order and arrangement imparted to their 
 minds by a superior education." 
 
 In reply to the question, whether education would not 
 tend to render the work-people discontented and dis- 
 orderly, and thus impair their value as operatives, Mr. 
 E scher states : 
 
 " My own experience and my conversation with emi- 
 nent mechanics in different parts of Europe, lead me to 
 an entirely different conclusion. In the present state of 
 manufactures, where so much is done by machinery and 
 tools, and so little done by mere brute labour (and that 
 little diminishing), mental superiority, system, order, 
 punctuality, and good conduct, — qualities all developed 
 and promoted by education — are becoming of the highest 
 consequence. There are now, I consider, few enlightened 
 manufacturers who will dissent from the opinion, that 
 the workshops, peopled with the greatest number of well- 
 informed workmen, will turn out the greatest quantity of 
 the best work, in the best manner. ' The better educated 
 workmen are distinguished, we find, by superior moral 
 habits in every respect.' 
 
 " From the accounts which pass through my hands, I 
 invariably find that the best educated of our work people
 
 364 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 manage to live in the most respectable manner, at the 
 least expense, or make their money go the farthest in 
 obtaining comforts. 
 
 " This applies equally to the work people of all nations, 
 that have come under my observations ; the Saxons, the 
 Dutch, and the Swiss, being however decidedly the most 
 saving without stinting themselves in their comforts, or 
 failing in general respectability. With regard to the 
 English, I may say, that the educated workmen are the 
 only ones who save money out of their very large wages. 
 
 " By education I may say, that I throughout mean, 
 not merely instruction in the art of reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, but better general mental development ; the 
 acquisition of better tastes, of mental amusements and en- 
 joyments, which are cheaper while they are more refined." 
 
 The report of the Poor Law Commissioners furnishes 
 many other instances equally striking. In the United 
 States the same effects flow from the same causes. In 
 the year 1841, Mr. Horace Mann, the Secretary of the 
 Massachusetts Board of Education, made a careful in- 
 quiry into the comparative productiveness of the labour 
 of the educated and uneducated manufacturing operatives 
 in that State. He gives the substance of the information 
 received from the manufacturers, and of the facts observed 
 by himself, as follows : — 
 
 " The result of the investigation is the most astonish- 
 ing superiority in productive power on the part of the 
 educated over the uneducated labourer. The hand is 
 found to be another hand when guided by an intelligent 
 mind. Processes are performed not only more rapidly, 
 but better, when faculties which have been cultivated in
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 365 
 
 early life furnish their assistance. Individuals who, 
 without the aid of knowledge, would have heen con- 
 demned to perpetual inferiority of condition and subjected 
 to all the evils of want and poverty, rise to competence 
 and independence by the uplifting power of education. 
 In great establishments, and among large bodies of 
 labouring men, where all services are rated according to 
 their pecuniary value, there is it found, as an almost 
 invariable fact, other things being equal, that those who 
 have been blessed with a good common school education, 
 rise to a higher and a higher point in the kinds of labour 
 performed, and also in the rate of wages paid, while the 
 ignorant sink like dregs to the bottom." 
 
 In agriculture, the same necessity for the instruction 
 of the labourer in the days of his youth is perhaps more 
 urgent. When our population is increased by ten, fifteen, 
 or twenty millions, as it must be, if it goes on at the 
 present ratio, we shall not be able to afford sustenance 
 for a vast body of unskilled agriculturists. They must 
 grow their own food on the best and most economical 
 principles — or we shall find ourselves in the very thick 
 of a most serious and appalling difficulty. It will not do 
 then to have four millions of waste acres in Ireland, 
 which might be cultivated if the people but knew how to 
 set about the work — nor in Scotland will it answer to 
 allow the bases of the mountains to remain undrained, 
 and to grow heather instead of turnips 'or oats. It will 
 not do to allow hundreds of thousands of acres to lie 
 waste in England, and a still larger surface of country to 
 be cultivated by men who know not how to drain or to 
 fence, or to manure on scientific principles. The hunger
 
 366 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of our increased millions — were they allowed to remain 
 in their present ignorance — would be something fearful to 
 grapple with when the days of adversity came. Lavoisier, 
 the celebrated chemist, by applying science to agriculture, 
 although he had not a minute knowledge of the art of 
 farming, doubled in nine years the produce in grain of 
 the same piece of land, and quintupled the number of his 
 flocks. Every farmer and farm-labourer should have the 
 advantage of the knowledge promulgated by Lavoisier — 
 and after him, still more successfully, by Liebig — so that 
 the smallest garden allotment might be made to produce 
 double what it brings forth at present, and the wild 
 brown moors become green with fertility. It would be a 
 cheap national expenditure which should lead to such a 
 result as this — and whilst the return would be super- 
 abundant in mere wealth, it would in virtue and happi- 
 ness be altogether incalculable. 
 
 Tit ^F 3J£ vfc t& $fc 
 
 A few words in conclusion with the believers in all and 
 every variety of religious doctrine. Let them have faith 
 in themselves, and in their own truths, and cease to look 
 upon secular education as unfavourable to religion. Let 
 them cease to talk of thraldom, while they themselves 
 remain under the unchristian thraldom of sectarian 
 jealousy. Let them make friends with the human intel- 
 lect, which is the ally and not the foe of religion and of 
 religious liberty. Let them assist the government in 
 providing education for the whole people, and if the 
 people gain much in civil and material benefits, let them 
 be assured that they will gain as much or more, religiously 
 and spiritually. Let them give human nature a chance
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 367 
 
 of being better in the next generation than it is in the 
 present. Let them rely upon the conviction that know- 
 ledge is the source of freedom, morality, and religion — 
 the mother of progress-, and the friend of man : and if 
 they should be disappointed in their own lifetime, those 
 who succeed them may perchance see and taste in the 
 fruit what they have beheld in the blossom. One gene- 
 ration is insufficient for the task ; but let us begin it, 
 and we shall arrive so far towards the goal we aim at, as 
 to be rewarded for the past, and encouraged for the 
 future. 
 
 A few words also on the question of compulsion. " We 
 will not be compelled to go to church," it has been 
 argued ; " and why should we be compelled to go to 
 school ? " The cases, however, are not parallel. There 
 is conscience to be respected in the one. Conscience has 
 no necessary connection with the other. The man who 
 has a tall chimney pouring forth offensive vapours to 
 poison the atmosphere and injure the health of the com- 
 munity around, might also complain of compulsion, when 
 forced under penalty of prosecution and punishment to 
 remove the nuisance. The disgusting vagrant exposing 
 his nakedness and his sores in the public way, might also 
 complain of compulsion, when removed by the arm of 
 authority, and forced to respect public decency ; — but 
 would any friend of civil liberty sympathise with these ? 
 Is it not a portion of our liberty that we should have 
 power to use compulsion towards those who would break 
 the laws established for the general benefit ? The man 
 who has a family of children, and will persist in bringing 
 them up in idlenesss, vice, and ignorance, when the
 
 368 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 means of instruction are placed at his very door — given 
 at the cheapest rate if his circumstances are humble — 
 given for nothing if he be too poor to pay anything — is 
 surely as great an offender against the public weal as the 
 man whose offences are merely physical. Yet is all our 
 sympathy to be given to him ? Is he not to be compelled 
 directly or indirectly — persuaded, if we can persuade him 
 — but forced, if Ave cannot — to remedy the moral 
 nuisance which he would fasten upon society ? An igno- 
 rant and degraded father may not know that he is inte- 
 rested in having an educated, moral, and well-disposed 
 offspring — but a wise State knows it, and has a right to 
 coerce such a father, if persuasion fails. It has a clear 
 right to make him conform to a regulation which the 
 welfare of the whole community requires. Compulsion 
 seems a hard word ; but, if we have borne the thing, why 
 should we complain so much of the name ? We are 
 compelled to pay taxes — we are compelled to obey the 
 laws — we are compelled to conform to police and sana- 
 tory regulations ; and in such compulsion there is no 
 outrage upon civil rights or the rights of conscience. 
 Neither would there be any outrage upon them in being 
 compelled to send our children to school ; — not neces- 
 sarily to the State school, but to some school — the school 
 of our own choice — the school of our own sect or deno- 
 mination — the school in the teachers of which we should 
 have most confidence. To rich and poor, to high and 
 Low, the same rule would apply. In the case of the 
 former, the law, though existing, would be de facto a dead 
 letter. The wealthy — the people in the middle classes of 
 society — the well-disposed of the working classes — do
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 369 
 
 not now, and would not then, require compulsion. All 
 these send their children to school, and for them Govern- 
 ment would do all that it could do in helping to raise the 
 social standing of the schoolmaster. But the ignorant — 
 the grossly, the dangerously ignorant — will not send their 
 children to the school merely because we build a school- 
 house in their neighbourhood, and tell them they may 
 come in. To use the eloquent words of Dr. Chalmers 
 in a lecture bearing upon this subject, which he 
 delivered in Edinburgh : — 
 
 " Ignorance never will bestir itself by a spontaneous 
 movement of its own for the acquisition of knowledge. 
 Irreligion will never bestir itself by a spontaneous move- 
 ment of its own for the acquisition of religious knowledge 
 or religious principle. The more the people are sunk in 
 irreligion or ignorance, the more careless they are about 
 either knowledge on the one hand, or religion on the 
 other ; and if we trust to a mere attractive power, and 
 say, here is an institute, the door of which is open, where 
 schooling may be had for all your children, or where 
 you may all hear Divine service, it will turn out a miser- 
 able failure. If you trust merely to the attractive in- 
 fluence of education on the one hand, upon the people 
 who are not wholly ignorant, but who don't care about 
 knowledge, — and if you trust merely to the attractive 
 power of religion on the other to people who are wholly 
 irreligious, and who don't care about their souls, you will 
 find that it will turn out a miserable abortion. The 
 ecclesiastical labourer may have to preach to empty 
 benches ; and the teachers may be destitute of employ- 
 ment, — neither scholars on the one hand, nor hearers on 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the other, will come of their own accord, either to the 
 schools or the places of worship, you have instituted." 
 
 The Reverend Doctor was well acquainted with the 
 poor, and described them truly. He asked "how are we 
 to mend this, — how get the better of this grievous inert- 
 ness and indifference that is abroad among the people ? 
 "Why, by what he would call the aggressive principle, 
 which is neither more nor less than this, — they won't come 
 to you for knowledge and religion ; but you may go to them, 
 and hy the moral suasion j-ou bring to bear on them, you 
 will at length prevail over them, either to send their chil- 
 dren to your school for knowledge, or to come themselves 
 for your religion to the services you provide for them." 
 Ministers of religion — teaching religion as well as secular 
 knowledge — may act upon this principle, and will save 
 many from perdition by so doing. But the State cannot 
 and must not act upon it, because it is not its province 
 to interfere with religion, and because religious opinions 
 differ so much amongst us. The State must regulate. 
 Rules are its only " suasion," and such rules for the pro- 
 tection of the good will be operative only against those 
 who do evil — the evil — the great, growing, and intolerable 
 evil of neglecting or refusing to give their children the 
 inestimable benefit of education. To those who merely 
 neglect this duty to themselves, to their offspring, and to 
 the community, and who are careless, but not wicked, a 
 first warning will, in most cases, prove sufficient — a 
 second, a third, as in free Saxony, invariably so. On 
 those who obstinately refuse after repeated and kindly 
 notice, compulsion will be well applied. They will de- 
 serve no sympathy, and will not obtain it; and will rank
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 371 
 
 in the estimation of their compeers in the same cruel and 
 degraded class as those who having food to give their 
 children, will not allow them to eat ; and who having 
 clothes to cover them, turn them naked into the streets. 
 Let the State say, that no child horn into this realm of 
 Britain shall be allowed to perish for want of the mental 
 food of education, — let it provide that food for all who 
 cannot provide it for themselves; and if the Britain 
 of the future be not a more free, a more intelligent, a 
 more moral, a more religious Britain than that of the 
 present and the past, there is no efficacy in education, and 
 the triumphs of civilisation are in vain. 
 
 The twelve letters to Lord Morpeth were reprinted as 
 a pamphlet, and contained, in addition to the plan, of 
 which the foregoing is but a brief abstract, a careful and 
 conscientious refutation of the prejudiced misstatements 
 of Mr. Samuel Laing, the well-known traveller and writer, 
 who had made himself prominent as the enemy of State 
 education. Mr. Laing's particular bugbear was Prussia, 
 and his terror was that a national system of education in 
 this country would inevitably Prussianize the English 
 people, and tend to the introduction of a military des- 
 potism. Mr. George Combe reviewed the pamphlet in 
 the Scotsman, and stamped it with the emphatic approval 
 of that powerful journal. On the subject of Prussia he 
 strengthened my arguments against Mr. Laing by stating 
 the results of his own personal experience. 
 
 "The author," he said, "successfully answers Mr, 
 Laing's disparaging remarks against the Prussian system 
 of education ; and from some knowledge of the system 
 and its effects, gained by intercourse with all classes of 
 
 B E 2
 
 372 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the German people during a residence in that country of 
 nearly two years, we offer our testimony in favour of the 
 author's views, and against the accuracy of the 
 'Traveller;' much as we esteem the acuteness and 
 authority of the latter on many other subjects. In our 
 opinion, the Prussian system, which, with slight modifi- 
 cations, has been adopted in nearly the whole of Ger- 
 many, with the exception of Bohemia and Austria, has 
 raised the German people from the condition of ignorant 
 indolent boors, to that of comparatively intelligent and 
 active men and women. It has nearly extinguished the 
 narrow patriotism which rallied round the prince of a 
 small territory, and regarded the subjects of every 
 adjoining state as natural enemies ; and in its place has 
 created a national spirit, embracing all who speak the 
 German language. One effect of this change is, that 
 Germany now presents to France on the one side, and 
 Russia on the other, the solid form and combined 
 strength of a nation, in place of a rickety assemblage of 
 rival sovereigns, each ready to sacrifice the general 
 interest to his petty jealousy of his neighbours. German 
 education has engendered moderation and reciprocal 
 forbearance between the different religious sects, — a love 
 of freedom and a power of combination among the 
 people, which have already secured representative consti- 
 tutions to most of the States, and are steadily labouring 
 to extort them from Prussia and the few others which 
 still withhold them ; — it has delivered the masses of the 
 people from the dominion of the priests, and substituted 
 the spirit of Christianity and reason in its place ; and it 
 now doing battle fur the liberty of the press : In short,
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 373 
 
 a few years more will, in our opinion, suffice to convince 
 the world that the Prussian system of education has 
 been one of the greatest boons ever conferred on a 
 country. 
 
 " If Mr. Laing, or any one else, desires to discover the 
 real effects of the education which has been bestowed on 
 the German people, we advise him to visit Hesse Hom- 
 burg, a very small territory, in which public instruction 
 has been much neglected. He will there find the common 
 people in that condition of stolidity and ignorance in 
 which we conceive the Germans of the last century uni- 
 versally to have existed. We conversed with at least 
 half-a-dozen of grown men, before we could leam from 
 them whether the majority of the inhabitants of the 
 town of Homburg, in which they lived, were Roman 
 Catholics or Protestants ; whether there were in the town 
 public schools ; by what tenure the land in the neigh- 
 bourhood was held ; and so forth ; and at last when a 
 person was found among the people who did know some- 
 thing about these simple matters of detail, it turned out 
 that he was a native of another state, had served his 
 three years in the army, and been at school during his 
 military service ! Contrasted with these uneducated 
 inhabitants of Homburg, the same class of people in 
 Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemburg, Bavaria, and Baden, 
 appear like philosophers and statesmen. The latter are 
 intelligent, possess the capachvv of observing and thinking 
 as well as reading, and many of them are companionable 
 persons. Among other effects which education has pro- 
 duced on the German mind, is a feeling of astonishment 
 when they hear that there is no system of national
 
 374 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 education in England ! This is increased when they are 
 told, farther, that in England, some persons consider 
 that their political freedom will be in danger, if a law 
 should be enacted to punish them for not sending their 
 children to school ! One German cabman, to whom we 
 communicated this information, exclaimed — ' Why, Sir, 
 they might as well complain of the magistrates for apply- 
 ing the fire-engines without their consent to extinguish a 
 conflagration in their houses.' To the common people 
 of Germany who have been educated, this objection appears 
 so wholly irrational, that they cannot comprehend its 
 being urged by any intelligent being ! " 
 
 Read by the lurid light of the war between Germany 
 and France in 1870, Mr. Combe's observations on what 
 popular education had done for Prussia twenty-four years 
 previously, seems prophetic of what was destined to be, 
 when an educated, was pitched in mortal combat against 
 an uneducated, nation. Compulsion — odious as its name 
 appears — is not so dreadful after all. The giant is not a 
 giant, only a mist and fog, which we can all walk through 
 if disposed to do so. 
 
 The educational efforts of Mr. W. E. Forster and the 
 Gladstone administration of 1873 fell far short, it will 
 be seen, of the plan sketched out in 1846, and advanced 
 little further than the elements of reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic — tools of education, but not education itself — 
 and a quasi, but scarcely a real compulsion brought to 
 bear against the neglected poor of the larger cities, but 
 which left the neglected poor of the rural districts 
 almost untouched, and very little cared for. 
 
 If it were allowable to speculate upon what might have
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 375 
 
 been, had certain events occurred, which have not 
 occurred, the lawgivers and administrators of to-day 
 might well ask themselves, whether if such a scheme of 
 popular education as that which was proposed and left 
 unheeded in 1846, had been passed within five years of 
 that date, there would have been the same amount of 
 drunkenness and brutality among the lower strata of the 
 labouring classes of the year 1875, as our judges deplore 
 and punish. It cannot justly be said of the English 
 people that as a race they are inferior to the Germans, 
 or that they are more naturally prone to moral evil than 
 the people of any other country. Yet the lower order of 
 English are grossly intemperate ; they use brutal violence 
 to one another, and to the weak and tender women and 
 children who are dependent on them ; and kick not only 
 their wives but their comrades to death. They no longer 
 think it unfair and cowardly to hit a man when he is 
 down ; and have little or no taste except for the most 
 brutal amusements. The educated Germans of the 
 same class, though they drink a good deal of beer, do 
 not get drunk. When they go to the bier-garten to hear 
 the excellent music provided for them, they are able to 
 appreciate and enjoy it, and they take their wives and 
 children along with them. They do not kick women, 
 and if they lift their hands against one another — which 
 is a rare occurrence — they do it in fair fight ; and, more- 
 over, they do not systematically and constantly make use 
 of foul and blasphemous language. They have been 
 taught not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but 
 vocal music, as mentioned by Mr. Horace Mann. Is it 
 too much to ask whether this teaching of music in their
 
 376 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 early youth has not softened their manners, disposed 
 them to enjoy rational and elevating amusements, and 
 exercised — with education generally — a refining influence 
 upon their hearts, minds, and language ? If the street 
 arabs, the roughs, the rowdies, born in our great towns 
 and cities twenty or twenty-five years ago, had been sub- 
 jected to the same training in their early and impres- 
 sionable days, might they not have grown into better 
 men than such Liverpool roughs as kicked an inoffensive 
 man to death, because he would not give them sixpence, 
 or such kindred ruffians as are every day brought up 
 before the police magistrates for acts of violence that 
 would disgrace savages. Education will not eradicate 
 vice and crime either in Germany or England, or any 
 other part of the world, but it will tend to dimmish both; 
 and if it have in the course of two generations rendered 
 the Germans the nation that we now behold them, might 
 it not in the same space of time have done as much 
 for the rude elements of our lower English ? It would 
 be a libel upon England and the English to doubt it, and 
 it is more than time that British statesmanship, to say 
 nothing of Religion and Philanthropy, should open its 
 eyes to the fact that delay in this paramount matter is 
 perilous to the best interests of the nation, and that it is 
 never too late to undertake a long neglected duty. 
 
 The secular education of the British people still 
 remains a work to be accomplished if we would retain a 
 place at the head of civilisation — at the head not only of 
 arms and arts, but of manners and morals. Our zealous 
 clergy of all denominations may be trusted, at least, 
 as much as they have been trusted hitherto, to look after
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 377 
 
 the souls of the people and fit them for the expectations 
 of the world to come. It is the business of statesman- 
 ship and philanthropy to look a little more after the 
 bodies of the people so as to fit them for work in the 
 world in which they live and in which they have duties to 
 perform towards themselves, towards their neighbours, 
 and towards the State ; to abolish the laws that tend to pro- 
 duce pauperism, or that by their stringency in preventing 
 harmless amusement at the only time when hard-working 
 men and women are able to take recreation, force them 
 down into lower strata of animal indulgences which the 
 law cannot reach ; to set before them an example of 
 model citizenship, and fit them to be what all recent 
 political movements foreshadow that they must be, the 
 first fountains of all authority, and all possible forms of 
 government. The squabbles of churches and chapels 
 must no longer be allowed to prevent the growth and 
 development of citizenship, for if they do, Great Britain 
 will sink into a lower rank among the nations than she 
 ought to occupy, and will become, like Spain or Turkey, 
 a third or fourth-rate power, overshadowed by Germany 
 and her own colonies, who will occupy in her default the 
 seat of empire which she unwisely abdicated.
 
 POOR LAWS AND DEER FORESTS;— SHEEP 
 AND GROUSE VERSUS MEN AND SOLDIERS. 
 
 At the close of the year 1844, and throughout the year 
 1845, and part of 1846, there was considerable agitation 
 in Scotland on the subject of the Scottish poor laws, and 
 the necessity for their amendment. In Scotland the 
 able-bodied poor have no legal title to relief. Only the 
 aged and the impotent have a vague and shadowy right to 
 be prevented from dying of famine ; and such relief is 
 administered with a doleful niggardliness that might excite 
 the wrath of the hardest hearted overseer, who ever 
 frowned at a pauper in England. The Times had devoted 
 much attention to the subject, and Mr. Philip Pusey, 
 M.P. for Berkshire, had travelled through Scotland to 
 investigate it personally in all its details, and had pub- 
 lished the results in a pamphlet. Both the writer in the 
 Times and Mr. Pusey indulged in many sneers at the 
 people of Scotland generally, and at Scottish landlords 
 and Scottish philosophers particularly. There was 
 nevertheless too much reason for the hard words in which 
 11 icy indulged and the pictures they drew of the lamentable 
 tate of the poor in every part of the country. But these 
 English censors had taken no initiative in the matter, and
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 379 
 
 liad only followed where Scottish writers had led the way. 
 Dr. Alison of Edinburgh had devoted many years and 
 great zeal, energy, and experience to the cause. In 1839 
 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland had 
 issued a report on the general management or mismanage- 
 ment of the poor in Scotland, which was presented to 
 Parliament, and ordered to be printed. A " pastoral 
 address " of that body, circulated in 1840, stated that the 
 treatment of the poor in Scotland " was such as it could 
 scarcely be conceived possible that a Christian country coidd 
 tolerate or that human nature could endure." In the session 
 of 1844 Commissioners were appointed by Parliament to 
 inquire into the whole matter, and take evidence. This 
 evidence, when printed, showed, in the words of one of 
 the clergymen who made his return, that " the state of the 
 law which permitted such a state of things as it disclosed, 
 or which did not authoritatively prevent it, was disgrace- 
 ful to a civilised countiy, and at variance with the spirit 
 and precepts of Christianity." That this was no 
 exaggerated opinion the following brief extracts from the 
 testimony of some of the witnesses will show : — 
 
 The Eev. J. Hunter, of the Tron Church, Edin- 
 burgh — " Could the poor of your parish possibly subsist 
 on their allowances from the Charity Workhouse without 
 other resources?" — " Certainly not." 
 
 " Are you aware of the resources on which they rely?" 
 — "Public begging; and I fear that leads to lying, and steal- 
 ing, and imposition on the public." " Is it your opinion 
 that the small allowance given b} r the Charity Workhouse 
 degrades exceedingly the character of those receiving it?" 
 — " Certainly." " And destroys their moral feelings?" —
 
 380 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 "Yes. In my parish, those who have no visible means 
 of subsistence prevail to a very considerable extent. 
 Except by begging, they have hardly any means of eking 
 out the little money they have from the Charity Work- 
 house. Some of them are almost absolutely famished. I 
 visited a very poor part of my parish on Friday last, and 
 in all the houses I found persons destitute of food, and 
 completely destitute of fuel, without an article of furniture, 
 without beds or bedding, the inmates lying on straw." 
 (Vol. I. p. 54.) 
 
 Eev. T. Guthrie, lately of St. John's, Edinburgh — 
 " Do you think the present allowances not enough?" — 
 " I think them miserably deficient. In many cases, people 
 have no choice but to steal or starve. I have trembled 
 often when I have gone, at the call of duty, to visit these 
 receptacles of wretchedness, because I felt that I could 
 not relieve the misery which I must look upon in such 
 cases ; and nothing but a sense of duty could compel me 
 to visit the poor." 
 
 " Is it common for parents to leave their children under 
 the present system ?" — " I find many instances in which 
 parents abandon their children altogether." " May not 
 that arise from the knowledge that the children will be 
 provided for by the parish?" — "No; I think it arises 
 from the wretchedly loiv state into which they have fallen — 
 so low, that I have sometimes seen parents glad ivhen their 
 children died" (Vol. I. p. 559.) 
 
 Mr. James Marshall, Treasurer of the Destitute Sick 
 Society, Leith — " Have you reason to believe that the 
 destitution existed for a considerable time previously to 
 the relief being given ?" — " Yes, in many cases it existed
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 381 
 
 until they were compelled from necessity to make their 
 cases known. We have found that they have been without 
 food almost entirely for days, and without knowing where 
 they were to find it, before making application for charity." 
 (Vol. I. p. 226.) 
 
 Captain Miller, Glasgow — " You refer to the report 
 of Dr. Cowan, where it is mentioned that a number of 
 persons died from want of nourishment. Have any cases 
 come under your knowledge of that kind ?" — "Yes, if I 
 am able to judge. Sometimes I have seen poor creatures 
 having no bed, nor a rag to cover them, but their miserable 
 scanty clothes, lying in a damp dwelling, and in fever. 
 It requires no medical man to give an opinion on this : 
 I have seen it frequently " (Vol. I. p. 328.) 
 
 Dr. Fleming, one of the District Surgeons, Glasgow — 
 "In the course of your visits, have you perceived a great 
 amount of destitution?" — "Yes, in some parts. Very 
 abject poverty in some cases." " Does it appear to you 
 that the amount of allowance received from the Hospital 
 fund has been sufficient to maintain them, either wholly 
 or with regard to other sources?" — "I should say that 
 there were many cases that came under my notice in which 
 it was quite insufficient" (Vol. I. p. 338.) 
 
 Mr. E. Steele, Ship-builder, Greenock — " There is 
 much begging in Greenock; particularly among the 
 destitute paupers. The poor get their support more from 
 begging than from the assessment. I hear the complaints 
 which the people make themselves, and I hear from 
 others who are in the habit of visiting and seeing them, 
 that they are in a state of great want and destitution, and 
 but for begging, they would starve." (Vol. I. pp. 530-31.)
 
 382 FOETY YEAES' EECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Mr. J. Dennistox, (lately a magistrate), Greenock — 
 "Are the parish allowances sufficient for the maintenance 
 of paupers who have no other means of subsistence ?" — 
 " They are never contemplated as sufficient." " How is 
 it contemplated that the pauper is to live, when he has 
 no other means?" — "Either by begging, or receiving 
 something from some charitable institution." " Are 
 many decent people among the destitute ?" — " Oh yes, a 
 great many." (Vol. I. p. 545.) 
 
 Hugh Miller, Esq., Provost of Ayr — " There is a 
 good deal of begging in Ayr, which is suppressed as much 
 as possible ; but it cannot be effectually put down, nor is 
 it attempted. The reason is, that people are quite aware 
 that the allowances which these poor people get are not 
 sufficient for them." (Vol. I. p. 693.) 
 
 Dr. Reld, Dumfries — " What is the condition of the 
 paupers on the roll?" — "I take them to be in a very 
 poor state ; generally with very scanty bedding, often 
 lying on a little straw, and sometimes on the floor, with 
 very few bed-clothes." (Vol. I. p. 571.) 
 
 Dr. "W. Welsh Forbes, Inverness — " I have seen a 
 great many of the poor receiving parish relief in a very 
 destitute state — their supply of food generally scanty. 
 A poor man has perhaps a suit of clothing in four, five, 
 or six years ; it becomes torn and worn out, and affords 
 very little protection from cold in winter. In regard to 
 female paupers, I have reason to know that several of 
 them have only one shift — and when that is washing, they 
 have none on their persons. Their clothing is very 
 inadequate to protect them during the winter season. 
 '1 hey have dunghills about their houses, and a great want
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 333 
 
 of cleanliness in and about them. The}- are very ill-off 
 as to bedding — generally they have a little straw or ferns, 
 some, perhaps, chaff, and, in a few cases, they have little 
 of these between them and the boards. I have seen some 
 of them lying on the floor, and only a little straw under 
 them." (Part II. p. 465.) 
 
 Dr. E. A. Manford, Inverness — " Is there anything 
 you think it important to mention to the Commission in 
 regard to the poor, or any suggestions to make in regard 
 to improvement in their treatment ?" — " I beg to suggest 
 that their clothing, their diet, their houses, and their 
 living, in general, should be better attended to. I believe 
 that the greater number of complaints we are called on to 
 treat in the dispensary and infirmary are brought on by 
 impoverished and scanty diet, and bad clothing, and ill- 
 ventilated and damp places of abode. They have not 
 been sufficiently attended to under the s}-stem of a 
 voluntary assessment. It is foimd that their allowance is 
 not sufficient, in many cases, to afford them that support 
 which is necessary." (Part II. p. 471.) 
 
 Bailie Forbes, Aberdeen — "What kind of houses do 
 the poor live in ?" — " In many cases, they are exceedingly 
 filthy and ill-ventilated, and not water-tight. In many 
 cases, the poor have only a shake-down of straw on the 
 floor, and three or four persons sometimes sleep upon it. 
 For bed-clothes, they have merely a coarse rug or coverlet; 
 and frequently the principal part of the bed-clothes are 
 their body-clothes spread over them. These, in many 
 cases, are very tattered, and hi a very filthy state." (Vol. 
 III. p. 599, et seq.) 
 
 Captain Grove, Perth County Police — "The poor here
 
 384 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 are a most miserable people — ivorse than in Ireland, where 
 I was quartered a considerable time. Their bodily 
 appearance is most miserable ; they are fully as dirty, 
 and, from their appearance, seem to have less food than 
 those in Ireland." (Vol. III. p. 243.) 
 
 But all the clergy of Scotland were not in favour of an 
 amendment of the law which had produced such results- 
 One of them — and one of the most gifted and the most 
 eminent, the Rev. Dr. Chalmers — happened to be a 
 political economist and philosopher as well as a divine, 
 and contributed to the North British Review an article 
 which opposed any s} r stem of poor laws whatsoever, and 
 maintained that by church collections and the charity of 
 the poor towards their still poorer brethren, all could be 
 done that was necessary. In this article, the Reverend 
 Doctor, after dwelling upon the degraded state of the 
 population of Scotland, both morally and physically, at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, as portrayed by 
 Fletcher of Saltoun, quoted a happier description by 
 Defoe, written in 1717, from which it appeared that 
 morals in the latter period were much mended. On this 
 the Doctor made his comments, attributing the fact to 
 the zealous preaching of the ministers of the gospel. 
 But, he added, that the economical improvements kept 
 pace with the moral, and that not only the disorders, but 
 the extreme destitution rapidly disappeared. He went 
 "ii to say that — 
 
 ( The only public charity then known throughout the 
 grent bulk of the nation, was that upheld by the free-will 
 offerings from Sabbath to Sabbath at the church door — 
 and these mainly contributed by the people themselves,
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 3 85 
 
 or by the commonalty of each congregation, not far 
 removed in their oicu circumstances, or rather pressing 
 hard on the very borders of pauperism. And all this 
 without any legal or economical expedient whatever, 
 without a poor-rate, without any allotment system, or 
 cottage system, or agrarian invasion upon property, or any 
 infringement whatever on the proprietary feelings of the 
 upper classes ; but due altogether to a change of habit 
 and character, which, along with the coming up of a new 
 generation, took place upon the families — a glorious 
 result of educational and ecclesiastical influences alone — 
 or, as we have said already, due singly and entirely to 
 the operation of moral causes. 
 
 " Nor should it be difficult to comprehend the process 
 by which this result was arrived at, and which, with the 
 revival or progress of Christianity, might be repeated 
 with the same result at all times, and in all countries of 
 the world." 
 
 Dr. Chalmers must have known the miserable state of 
 the Scottish poor in 1844, which was a time when there 
 was no lack of preaching, but a superabundance of it, 
 consequent upon the disruption of the Scottish church 
 into two hostile and jealous bodies, the Established and 
 the Free, each competing for the favour of the people ; 
 but he could scarcely have imagined that the evil could 
 be cured, or was in process of being cured, by preaching ; 
 — that poverty could be effectually relieved Avithout ex- 
 tension of trade ; — and, failing that, by a legal assessment 
 upon property. He could not think that the kindly dole 
 of those who are not far removed from pauperism them- 
 selves, could do more than merely prolong the misery 
 vol. r. c c
 
 S86 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 which it could not remove ? But it seemed that he 
 would rather allow the rich to go free, and do no violence 
 to their " proprietary feelings," even though the poor 
 should he miserably relieved by the poor, than forego one 
 iota of his favourite dogma, that ecclesiastical superinten- 
 dence was alone sufficient. But every page of the large 
 blue book of the Commissioners of Inquiry proved that 
 the ecclesiastical mode was not the mode in which the 
 poor of Scotland ought to be dealt with. Pauperism is a 
 sore too deep to be healed by preaching ; but the estab- 
 lishment of a national and humane, but compulsory, 
 system of poor laws — including the relief of the able- 
 bodied — would render it impossible for any future Com- 
 missioners of Inquiry to record with truth such deplorable 
 facts as those with which their volumes were crowded. 
 It was impossible at the time that Dr. Chalmers wrote to 
 pass along any of the principal streets of the rich and 
 thriving city of Glasgow without being solicited for aid 
 by miserable-looking women with squalid infants in their 
 arms, or followed by importunate children — half clad and 
 half starved. The streets, in this respect, were positively 
 :i disgrace to a civilised community; — the bridges swarmed 
 with mendicants, who stationed themselves in the most 
 public places day after day, without remonstrance ; — and 
 sturdy vagrants prowled 'about the thoroughfares to de- 
 mand charity, in tones of insult and menace, from women, 
 whenever they met them alone and unprotected. In the 
 neighbourhood of Glasgow — about a mile or a mile and a 
 half from the city — the state of matters Avas still worse. 
 There the beggar would take no denial ; — he exhibited 
 his filth and wretchedness in such hideous forms, that
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 337 
 
 his object seemed to be to excite disgust, as the surest 
 means of exciting* pity ; and often when it was attempted 
 to shut the door upon him, he used force to prevent it — 
 placed his foot inside, and launched imprecations against 
 trembling women when he suspected that they were alone 
 in the dwelling. Well fed and well clad citizens who 
 were sufficiently alive to the evil, but who did not see the 
 proper way to abate and get rid of it, urged that the 
 police should interfere and put down this practice of 
 begging, by punishing the offenders as rogues and vaga- 
 bonds. In the rural districts the assistance of the police 
 was not to be obtained ; — and in the towns, where the 
 squalid and miserable were more numerous than the 
 sturdy and insulting, the suppression of mendicity by the 
 police was not easy. But it was felt \>y the friends of an 
 amended Poor Law, that it would not be humane, or 
 politic, or just, to punish those who had no other means 
 of obtaining a livelihood for seeking one by beggaiy. 
 Many of those who resorted to this mode of maintaining 
 life were no doubt idle and dissolute characters, able but 
 unwilling to work ; — but how in the inforcing of such a 
 law against mendicity, as some wished, was the police to 
 distinguish between those depraved characters, and those 
 who were unable to toil, or to procure any kind of em- 
 ployment ? The evil called aloud for redress — but could 
 not be removed b}* the greater evil of inflicting punish- 
 ment on the guiltless : and enlightened public opinion 
 did not ask that laws against mendicancy and vagrancy 
 should be enforced — except in the case of the insulting 
 and violent — until there was adequate provision for the 
 
 poor — for those who were unable to work, or who, though. 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 FOETY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 able, could not procure it. Many who called for the aid of 
 the prison instead of the poor-house, forgot that the 
 authorities in many Scottish towns granted licences to 
 beg : that, instead of relieving the poor by assessment 
 upon the owners of property, they sent these wretched 
 people forth, armed with authority to levy contributions 
 from those who were not much better off than the beggars 
 they relieved, and that ministers of the gospel, with a 
 most pertinacious and pernicious, though well-meant 
 benevolence, actually set themselves against a legal and 
 compulsory relief to the poor, by maintaining, with Dr. 
 Chalmers, that spiritual superintendence and church-door 
 contributions were sufficient for their relief. Society 
 would not have dealt fair and even-handed justice to the 
 beggar, at one moment encouraged in his calling by the 
 warranty of civil and ecclesiastical authority, if in the 
 next he were punished, because, unwilling to starve, he 
 had sought the only relief that circumstances put in his 
 power, and a relief which he has been taught he was 
 justified in craving. 
 
 Upon the subject of legalised mendicity, legalised in 
 order to spare the pockets of the rich from the burden of 
 a poor rate, the Parliamentary Commissioners were em- 
 phatic in their denunciation of the evils it produced. 
 They stated in their report that in " the parish of Camp- 
 belton forty-nine persons were, in October, 1842, struck 
 off the roll by a Committee of Managers of the poor, and 
 badges were given to such of the number as chose to receive 
 than, as a licence to beg. Even without badges being re- 
 gularly granted, we find that in most of the burghs and 
 smaller towns the paivpers arc allowed to beg on one or
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 389 
 
 more days in the ivcck, as in Inverary, Dingwall, Thurso, 
 Perth, Kirkcaldy, and many others. At St. Andrews, in 
 lieu of licensed begging, a box has for many years been 
 carried through the town on Saturdays. The inhabitants 
 having complained of the annoyances to which they 
 were daily subjected by beggars, this plan was adopted 
 to get rid of their importunities. * * We 
 
 cannot close our report without remarking on the pre- 
 valence of mendicity in many parts of Scotland. The 
 evil is most observable in towns. In many of the country 
 districts we have reason to believe that it has been 
 checked to a considerable extent bv the establishment of a 
 rural police ; but it is still very prevalent in many parts 
 of the country." 
 
 These evils were not only dwelt upon in the Glasgow 
 Argus and a few other journals that Avere bold enough to 
 run counter to the feelings and prejudices of the great 
 landowners, but by the press of London ; and public 
 attention was so roused to the importance of the whole 
 subject, that shortly after the opening of the session of 
 1845, Sir James Graham, then a member of Sir Eobert 
 Peel's administration, announced the intention of the 
 Government to introduce a Bill for the better relief of 
 the poor of Scotland : a Bill that was to provide more 
 completely for the aged and the impotent, and to abolish 
 legalised mendicancy. The Argus, that by dint of hard 
 hammering on the subject had made itself an authority, 
 expressed its disapproval of any compromise which did not 
 provide for the relief of the able-bodied, and insisted that 
 the only remedy for the evils that had been so vividly 
 exposed on every side, except on that of Dr. Chalmers
 
 390 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and the philosophists, was a Poor-Law, as nearly as 
 possible similar to the amended Poor-Law then in opera- 
 tion in England. The Argus urged that it should affirm 
 the following principles : — 
 
 1st. That no man, woman, or child should be allowed 
 to die for want of food within the realm of Scotland — 
 unless somebody could be held responsible for the scandal 
 and the crime. 
 
 2nd. That the aged and impotent who were unable to 
 work, and the able-bodied who could not obtain work, 
 must be maintained in life, not as a favour, but as a right. 
 
 3rd. That the relief given should not be so large as to 
 make the condition of those who received it as comfort- 
 able as the condition of those who laboured for their daily 
 bread ; but that some indulgence should be allowed, under 
 proper advice, to the aged and impotent. 
 
 4th. That out-of-door relief might, in the discretion of 
 local officers, be given to the aged and impotent. 
 
 5th. That the able-bodied should receive in-door relief, 
 and that they should work for it — and that, whenever 
 independent work out of the workhouse could be pro- 
 cured by or for them, their relief should cease. 
 
 6th. That the law, which should thus provide every 
 one with l'ood sufficient to sustain life, obviated all neces- 
 sity for mendicancy, and would be justified in punishing 
 it as a crime. 
 
 7ih. That as the workhouse was merely to be con- 
 sidered a temporary home for the distressed able- 
 bodied, and was not to be made so comfortable as the 
 home of the working man : the able-bodied husband and 
 his wife should be separated while in the workhouse, as
 
 POOK LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. o91 
 
 an additional inducement to make them leave it as soon 
 as they could obtain work, and as a reason to make them 
 unwilling to return to it. 
 
 8 th. That, for a similar reason, children, while in the 
 workhouse should be separated from their parents, and 
 that this separation was necessary for their proper in- 
 struction and discipline. 
 
 9th. That as the children of the poor, if allowed to 
 grow up without instruction, were likely to be as burden- 
 some to the poor-rate as their parents before them — it 
 was necessary, not only for the safety of society, but for 
 the well-being of the children themselves, that they 
 should be instructed in the elements of knowledge and 
 some trade or handicraft besides. 
 
 But when the Lord Advocate of Scotland introduced 
 his bill, it was found that he had wholly omitted the 
 able-bodied poor, and that acting in the supposed interests 
 of the heritors, or landed proprietors, on whom, in the 
 rural districts, the burden of the rates would fall, he had 
 confined its operation to the better relief of the aged and 
 the impotent only. This was not the Poor-Law that 
 would meet the needs of Scotland, or stay the three evils 
 that afflicted the country ; first, the mendicancy of the 
 able-bodied, having no claim except on charity ; second, 
 the conversion of counties, or half-counties into deer- 
 forests, or into grazing farms, giving emplo}*ment to a 
 score or half a score of shepherds among the valleys, or on 
 the mountain slojies that had formerly maintained hun- 
 dreds, or even thousands of men in arable farms, and 
 when Great Britain was in sore need of soldiers to fight 
 her battles, had provided the very best soldiers who had
 
 Z22 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ever carried her name and fame over the world ; and third, 
 the exodus of the people into the great cities, where the}' 
 could not always find work or support ; or out of the 
 country altogether to the United States, Canada, Australia, 
 New Zealand, anywhere, so it was but away from the 
 land of their birth. About this time the Duke of 
 Sutherland, whose ancestors had been foremost in clear- 
 ing the count}- of Sutherland of the tenantry and the 
 peasantry by their famous " evictions," evictions which 
 would not have been profitable or possible if the owners 
 of the soil had been liable for the relief of the able-bodied 
 poor, under an efficient Poor-Law, wrote to me on another 
 subject, and took occasion to add : — 
 
 'I enclose you a short account relating to the state 
 of the county of Sutherland, which has been considered 
 as called for by late representations in the Times news- 
 paper. 
 
 " Poverty and its consequent evils are undeniable, and I 
 must confess that there, as elsewhere, the poor have not 
 had all the attention given to them which ought to have 
 been given. I shall be most desirous for all possible 
 improvement in this respect, and hope that all may be 
 obliged to do their duty, and that neither attention nor 
 money will be grudged by those who desire to serve their 
 country in the true sense of the term. 
 
 " Though not immediately connected with the county 
 of Sutherland, your parentage makes you sufficiently so 
 as to take an interest in what more particularly concerns 
 that remote district. 
 
 "The subject would lead me to write at great length,
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 393 
 
 and the printed account which I enclose might have 
 perhaps advantageously been made more full ; but it has 
 not been printed from any desire to boast, but in defence 
 against an unfair sort of attack which has been pub- 
 lished." 
 
 As the Duke had himself broached the subject, and 
 knew my position as Editor of the Glasgow Argus, and 
 also that I had advocated as strongly as I could the 
 assimilation of the Scottish to the English Poor-Law 
 system, I was emboldened to ask his opinion on the 
 Bill then before Parliament. I received the following 
 reply : — 
 
 "London, July 25, 1S45. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I feel much obliged for your considerately 
 putting in writing to me the question regarding ' com- 
 pulsory assessment of all parishes for relief of the 
 poor.' If I were obliged at once to give a vote which 
 might decide the question, I should certainly feel 
 it a most weighty responsibility, but my impression is 
 that in such case I should vote for it, notwithstanding the 
 apprehension of evil consequences, as represented by 
 Dr. Chalmers. I fear much the effects of the feeling 
 ' the parish is bound to provide us,' among the people, 
 and that their present virtuous attachments, and con- 
 sequent exertions in favour of each other, which in the 
 Highlands have been remarkable, and form a beautiful 
 feature of their character, may give place to selfish 
 disposition. 
 
 " But as a change of system of Poor-Law is necessary,
 
 394 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and as the maintenance of paupers must depend on the 
 resources of those in better circumstance, it becomes 
 necessary to consider how the charge can be thrown 
 as fairly as possible on all, that they may contribute 
 their fail- proportion according to their means, and it 
 seems to me that this can be most effectively done by 
 assessment. Those that are really benevolent and 
 charitable will still find occasion for the exercise of their 
 philanthropy. It would be sad to think that this may 
 be blunted by the operation of the proposed measure, 
 and may we hope that in Scotland this will not materially 
 take place ? 
 
 " Dryden remarks that the character given by Homer 
 to a Grecian, of whom he says, cpi\os byv avdpoiKoiai, iroanas 
 yap <pi\ee<TKev, could never have applied to a Roman. 
 Hitherto our poorest have been generally (as we know 
 from many particular recorded cases that the poor were 
 elsewhere 1800 years ago), admirably charitable, and 
 willing to share their pennies, or whatever they have, 
 with their neighbours, may we trust that this disposition 
 will still continue ? 
 
 " After having stated my impression that compulsory 
 assessment will be found generally requisite, it is right 
 that I should say that I may not desire it to be im- 
 mediately enforced, and that I think that in parishes in 
 Sutherland, it may be better to try at first a voluntary 
 sment, and endeavour to see our way. 
 
 " 1 thank you very much for what you tell me regarding 
 personal opinion ; I should wish to deserve to be well 
 thought of, though mere popularity can for myself be no 
 object. I have lately had an unexpected compliment
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 395 
 
 from Mr. O'Connell in consequence of a letter having 
 been communicated to him by a Mr. Mackay, whose name 
 had been put to a Report from their Association, in 
 which it was stated that ' some recent clearances in 
 Scotland, particularly in Sutherland, showed ' that the 
 Act for 'Letting Field Gardens' in England would 
 be useful in Scotland, I wrote to deny any recent clearance 
 in Sutherland, and to say that nearly every cottage had a 
 lot of land at a low rent. 
 
 "' Other kind demonstrations have given me much satis- 
 faction ; but whatever one's wishes and intentions may be, 
 the undeniable poverty and concomitant disadvantages, 
 the want of remunerative employment, and the precarious 
 nature of that on which they have mainly to depend, 
 make the present and future condition of the population 
 a subject of anxious consideration. 
 
 " I am, Sir, 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " Sutherland. 
 
 " P.S. — I sent this to London, but it has been brought 
 back, as you had left for Scotland. 
 
 " I hope to be able to return there too, in time to 
 assist in bringing the new law into operation." 
 
 In these letters the Duke, it will be observed, made no 
 allusion to the able-bodied poor, whose condition was the 
 gist of the whole controversy. And it was scarcely to have 
 been expected that he would. lie, as well as most of the 
 great landed proprietors of the Highlands, were English- 
 men and aliens, who did not mingle with the people or
 
 396 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 understand their language, who had for the most part 
 paid enormous prices for their Highland properties, and 
 preferred them to English properties, for the reason, 
 many of them, that they could do as they liked with 
 them, oust, evict the able-hodied, turn them out of their 
 holdings upon the highway, either to die or live upon 
 voluntary charity, make deserts and solitudes and call 
 them deer-forests ; and convert arable farms, employing 
 and feeding hundreds of people, into sheep-walks, giving" 
 work to one or two shepherds ; and reconverting the most 
 beautiful districts of Scotland into the primitive wilder- 
 ness to afford room for grouse. Although the want of a 
 Poor-Law on the English system works very oppres- 
 sively on such great towns and cities as Aberdeen, 
 Dundee, Greenock, Paisley, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, 
 into which the evicted tenantry and farm - labourers 
 flocked, if they did not take the wiser and bolder 
 step of crossing the Atlantic in search of the bread 
 denied them at home, and of the farms to cultivate, 
 which in the far AYest and the uncleared regions of 
 Canada might be had almost for the asking, the in- 
 habitants of the towns dreaded the compulsory poor- 
 rate, for the support of the able-bodied, and remained 
 either apathetic, or hostile to change. Public opinion in 
 Scotland was not full}- awake to the importance of the 
 subject ; the unhappy serfs, remaining to be cleared out 
 of the Highlands and islands had not advocates in 
 sufficient numbers, and with sufficient influence, to insist 
 upon a better Bill; — and the incomplete and illusory 
 measure, having the good wishes of the heritors, or 
 landed proprietors, as well as of the rich inhabitants oi
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 397 
 
 the towns and cities who were agreeably surprised at 
 being let off so easily, was passed into a law. The 
 results were such as were anticipated. Still, throughout 
 Scotland, the aged and disabled poor were relieved, by 
 a "weekly sum, considerably less than is usually paid 
 for the board of a dog ; " and still were the casual poor 
 •allowed to prowl about the streets and highways of the 
 country, the most abject, and yet the most impudent 
 beggars to be found out of Spain. Still were disgusting 
 objects allowed to exhibit their misery in the public 
 ways — still were lunatics and half-lunatics allowed to go 
 at large and beg — and still was Scotland suffered to lag 
 behind all other civilised countries in her encouragement 
 of habitual medicancy. The framers'of the Act had gone 
 upon no right principle, and had tampered with an evil 
 which they had neither the courage nor the skill to 
 cure. 
 
 Such is the Poor-Law of Scotland at the present time. 
 The prosperity of the Lowlands during the last twenty 
 years, and the increasing immigration of the able-bodied, 
 have greatly diminished the evils of mendicancy ; but 
 the Highlands remain in the state of wilderness. While 
 rich English sportsmen pay enormous rentals for deer- 
 forests and for grouse shootings, while sheep farmers dis- 
 pense with all but the smallest modicum of labour, 
 the wilderness pays the Scottish proprietors, whether they 
 be English or Scotch, better than cultivable and cul- 
 tivated lands, and gives no trouble with the people ; the 
 reason is, that there arc no people. General Xarvaez on 
 his death bed, was exhorted by his reverend confessor to 
 forgive his enemies. "I have no enemies," said the
 
 398 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS.- 
 
 dying man." "How so?" "I have killed them all." 
 And the Scottish landlords, if asked how they treat their 
 people, may reply in the same st}'le, " We have no people, 
 we have banished them to the ends of the earth." 
 
 At the anniversary dinner of the French Society in 
 London, early in 1875, the Count de Jarnac, the French 
 ambassador, nsed a happy phrase when he spoke of " the 
 disinherited classes." The Highlanders of Scotland are 
 truly a disinherited people. The land of the Highlands 
 — mountain and glen — was originally the property of the 
 whole clan, for whom the chief was but the trustee, the 
 steward, and the administrator — and the meanest mem- 
 ber of which had the same right to live upon it as he 
 had. On the abolition of the feudal s} T stem, the chiefs 
 were erroneously supposed to be the proprietors of the 
 fee-simple — and being in no wise loth to be recognised in 
 that character, they usurped possession, and in many 
 cases sold the land, without the slightest consideration 
 or thought of their clansmen. Had there been a Poor- 
 Law, recognising the right of the able-bodied, as in 
 England — even had the land been sold — it would have 
 been sold subject to the rights of the poor; and the- 
 English Dukes of Sutherland, formerly Marquises of 
 Stafford, who inherited much property from their maternal 
 ancestors the Scottish Earls of Sutherland, and who 
 bought the Ileay Forest and the Mackay Country from 
 Eric, seventh Lord Reay, for a very large price, would 
 not have been allowed to evict the clansmen of Lord 
 Reay from their farms and holdings without making* 
 themselves liable to maintain them in the destitution 
 to which they reduced a worthy people. But the Suther-
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 399 
 
 land family were not the first to commence the system of 
 evictions, and in cruel fashion "to disinherit the people." 
 The Scottish Dukes of Athole had set the example long 
 before, and had reduced the beautiful and fertile Glen 
 Tilt into a wilderness, in order that the Nimrods of their 
 day — deprived of English hunting grounds by the exten- 
 sion of trade and manufactures and the growth of large 
 cities, and by the legal obligation to maintain the poor, 
 able-bodied, or otherwise — might have " happy hunting 
 grounds ? ' within reasonable distance of London and their 
 country seats. There are glens that once contained many 
 hundreds of men capable of bearing arms, and others 
 that contained from two to five hundred, that have no 
 human occupants in our day — except a solitary game- 
 keeper or two or three shepherds : — 
 
 (i Nimrods and hunters are lords of the mount and the forest, 
 Men but encumber the soil where their forefathers trod ; 
 Though for their country they fought when its need was the sorest, 
 Forth they must wander, their hope not in man, but in God. 
 " Roaming alone o'er the heath ei*, 
 Nought but the bleat of the wether, 
 
 The bark of the colly or crack of the grouse -slayer's gun 
 Breaks on the lonely ear. 
 Land of the sheep and deer ! 
 
 Albyn of heroes ! the day of thy glory is done." 
 
 Should unhappily the day ever dawn when Great 
 Britain shall be forced into a war with any of the great 
 military powers of Europe, and have to struggle for her 
 national existence, or her place as a leading power, she 
 will find few or no soldiers in the Highlands, and among 
 the gallant people that in former days supplied her so 
 bountifullv with the best she ever had. In that day
 
 400 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 statesmen will perhaps regret that they had allowed it to 
 be possible to expatriate the strongest men of the country 
 — and made it impossible for hundreds of thousands of 
 such men to earn their bread in the land that gave them 
 birth. Perhaps, too, it will be found in that day that the 
 soil of Great Britain is too narrow and limited for deer 
 forests — and that if, to use the words of Dr. Chalmers 
 in reference to the Poor-Laws, we should not do violence 
 to the " proprietary feelings of the rich " by rendering deer 
 forests illegal — statesmanship may see its way to taxing 
 them and their produce to such an extent as to render 
 them too grievous a burden even for a millionaire to 
 support, and to make it cheaper for him, if he wants a 
 deer forest, to acquire it in the shadow of the Pocky 
 Mountains or the skirts of Manitoba. Even a Poor-Law 
 m the English system — though it would have prevented 
 evictions by rendering them too costly, and fixing the 
 support of the people on the pockets of those who pre- 
 vented the people from working for their bread — would 
 not now remedy the evil ; for the people are gone, never 
 to return. But a heavy tax upon deer forests and un- 
 necessary moorlands would tend to bring land into cultir 
 vation — and cultivation, if it would not bring back the 
 people, would retain the next generations, and the exodus 
 of the future would be stayed. Taxes upon luxuries are 
 universally admitted to be the most just of all taxes, and 
 a tax that would prevent unfeeling rich men from creating 
 wildernesses for their selfish enjoyment, would be ulti- 
 mately a boon to such rich men themselves, and an incal- 
 culable advantage to the whole community — either in 
 ace or war — and most perhaps in war, when the nation
 
 POOR LAWS, DEER FORESTS, ETC. 401 
 
 had need of stalwart arms, and stout hearts, to fight for a 
 land that had ceased to treat such arms and hearts with 
 cruel injustice. 
 
 [At the time (August, 1875) when this sheet is passing 
 through the press, it is announced in the Army and Navy 
 Gazette, and many other London newspapers, that " the 
 Duke of Sutherland has expressed his readiness to 
 import some of the distressed Norwegians into his county!" 
 This means that the Duke of Sutherland's ancestors, 
 having cleared the county of Sutherland of its brave 
 inhabitants, the Mackays, and forced them to emigrate 
 to the ends of the earth, it has become necessary or 
 expedient, to entice men into the desolated but beautiful 
 land, and that finding it impossible to re-import the 
 Mackays, the present Duke is glad to have the aid of 
 Norwegians, when Highlanders are no longer obtainable, 
 to turn to proper account the resources of a country, 
 which — wiser than those who preceded him — he has dis- 
 covered to need strong arms and intelligent minds for 
 its proper development.] 
 
 VOL. I. ED
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847. 
 
 — ♦— — 
 
 To be too early in important affairs is often as preju- 
 dicial as to be too late — an aphorism, if I may so call it, 
 the truth of which I was destined to prove in my own 
 person. At the commencement of the year 1847, I 
 conceived the idea, considering the growing wealth and 
 population of the great city of Glasgow, then, as now, 
 the second in the empire, that it would be a sound 
 enterprise to convert the Glasgow A rgtis, published every 
 Tuesday and Friday, into a daily newspaper. At that 
 time there was no daily paper published in any part of 
 Great Britain, except in London, and I thought the time 
 had come when such cities as Glasgow and Manchester, 
 and more especially Glasgow, were able to support a daily 
 journal, and that such a project, if aided, as I hoped it 
 might be, by a large advertising connection in so busy a 
 hive of trade and industry, might be successfully con- 
 ducted. I issued a prospectus to that effect for private 
 circulation, basing my calculations on a minimum daily 
 sale of three thousand copies, with two pages of adver- 
 tisements. Three of the proprietors of the Argus 
 thought well of the proposition, and were prepared to
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847. 403 
 
 give it their best attention. The remainder were not 
 only hostile, but bitterly so ; and one, who claimed to be 
 the spokesman of the malcontents, went about the city, 
 hinting that I must be insane to have thought of 
 a scheme so wild and so impracticable. Not meeting 
 adequate support, I suffered the matter to remain in 
 abeyance for some months. But meanwhile my pro- 
 spectuses were handed about, and discussed in various 
 quarters, and to such purpose, that, greatly to my 
 surprise, and, I may add, disgust, I saw one morning in 
 the advertising columns of the Argus, the announcement 
 of a new daily paper in Glasgow, to be called the North 
 British Mail. A wealthy, or supposed to be wealthy, 
 ironmaster had been favourably struck with my idea, and 
 seeing the field clear, resolved to be the first in it. The 
 new journal had to struggle against many difficulties, but 
 it succeeded in establishing itself ; and on the repeal of 
 the newspaper stamp duties, the advertisement duties, 
 and the Excise duty upon paper, became, perhaps by 
 slow, but certainly by sure degrees, a very valuable 
 property. The Glasgow Herald, a bi-weekly journal, 
 like the Argus, and edited by the late George Outram, 
 the author of some very clever comical legal lyrics, well 
 known in Scottish societ}', also became in due time 
 what the Argus was not destined to be, a daily journal, 
 and thrives exceedingly, as does an evening daily paper, 
 an off-shoot of the Glasgow Citizen, formerly pub- 
 lished only once a week. Thus I was not so very mad 
 in desiring to establish a daily paper — as incredulous 
 Glasgow once supposed — but only guilty of that self- 
 damaging species of folly, which consists in being before 
 
 D d 2
 
 401 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 my time, and seeing a little further ahead than my con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 The Argus was not destined in other respects to be a 
 source of much satisfaction to its editor, and came ulti- 
 mately to an inglorious collapse, the circumstances of 
 which may he interesting and instructive to future liter- 
 ary men who may accept the editorship of journals, 
 which are owned and governed by a numerous, and pos- 
 sibly an antagonistic, body of proprietors. In accepting 
 the editorship of the leading Liberal journal of the West 
 of Scotland, I stipulated, before leaving London, that I 
 was to be wholly untrammelled in the expression of my 
 literary and political opinions, subject only to the 
 restriction that I was to support the cause and policy 
 of the Whig and Liberal party. I did not imagine 
 that the ardent Whigs and Liberals who were proprietors 
 of the Argus would ever quarrel among themselves, and 
 would split into two parties, each of which would strive 
 to bring me over to its side ; and that in such a case, 
 side which way I would, I would certainly make an enenry 
 of the other. But such was to be my evil fortune. 
 Mr. John Dennistoun, one of the members for the city, 
 had made himself particularly unpopular among the 
 magistracy — all members of the Liberal party — and 
 especially with Mr. Lumsden, the then Lord Provost, 
 one of the principal proprietors of the Argus, my kindest 
 friend and staunchest supporter in Glasgow, whose 
 official position in connection with schemes for the 
 improvement of the city and the Clyde, and especially 
 with that noble project, happily accomplished, for 
 supplying Glasgow with the pure, clear, and abundant
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OP 1847. 405 
 
 waters of the beautiful Loch Katrine, led him frequently 
 to London with his brother bailies, during the sitting of 
 Parliament* He and his associates complained much of 
 the hauteur, inattention, and inaccessibility of their 
 member, from whom they could obtain neither civility 
 nor service ; both of which were freely and cheerfully 
 rendered by Mr. John Macgregor, the then Secretary of 
 the Board of Trade. They also complained that Mr. 
 Dennistoun seemed to look upon the representation of 
 Glasgow as his indefeasible right, belonging to him as 
 long as he lived as much as his coat, his hat, or his 
 purse. And not only these gentlemen, but the great 
 body of the Liberals of Glasgow, were dissatisfied, and 
 determined that, come what might, Mr. Dennistoun 
 should be opposed by a better Liberal at the next 
 election. Mr. Dennistoun, however, had a strong friend 
 in the proprietary of the Argus — a gentleman who had 
 a very small share, but a considerable amount of influ- 
 ence, and who happened to be the legal adviser and 
 electioneering agent of Mr. Dennistoun. The Lord 
 Provost and his friends determined to bring forward 
 Mr. Macgregor as their candidate — a choice that was 
 cordially welcomed by the great majority of the Liberal 
 party; and as cordially resisted by the agent of Mr. 
 Dennistoun, and a very small minority. "What was 
 the editor of the Argus to do under the circumstances? 
 He could not be neutral — he was compelled to take a 
 side — and he knew full well that whichever the side 
 might be, he would make an enemy of the other. Act- 
 ing upon his own judgment, agreeing with the majority 
 of the electors, and determined, moreover, on the asser-
 
 406 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tion of his independence, lie declared for Mr. Macgregor, 
 and supported his candidacy during several weeks to the 
 best of his ability. And this brought on an inevitable 
 crisis. Taking advantage of the absence in Ireland of 
 Mr. Lumsden, who had more interest in the Argus than 
 any other proprietor, a meeting of the financial and 
 governing committee was summoned, and the editor was 
 formally relieved of his duties, and the doors of the 
 editorial office were shut against him. The circum- 
 stances created a certain commotion in the political 
 and literary circles of the city, which was largely in- 
 creased by the publication of a voluminous correspond- 
 ence which there is now no necessity to reproduce : in 
 which I and my friend set forth all the facts of the case, 
 and in which I more especially set forth that in coming 
 to Glasgow I had taken " care to stipulate that there 
 should be no interference whatever with my opinions 
 on the part of any proprietor or proprietors. I added 
 that this condition having been agreed to, I on my 
 pail undertook to edit the paper on ' Liberal principles, 
 and as an auxiliary to the Reform party,'' as expressed 
 in the language of the proprietors themselves, and that 
 I never imagined at the time that disputes could arise 
 as to who constituted the Reform party of the city of 
 Glasgow." 
 
 The press of Glasgow, of all shades of politics without 
 a single exception, ranged itself on my side, and the 
 following article appeared in the Glasgow Citizen of the 
 following Saturday, June 19, 18-47, from the pen of Mr. 
 •liimes Hedderwick, the poet, who was both editor and 
 proprietor of that journal, and stood in the hajipy
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847. 407 
 
 position of being able to say his own say in his own 
 journal, with nothing to control him but his own sense 
 of what was right and befitting : — 
 
 "a recusant editor. 
 
 i. 
 
 The dulness necessarily attending an election in which 
 all the candidates threaten to be on the same side, has 
 this week been enlivened by a quarrel between the pro- 
 prietors of the Argus and their editor, Dr. Mackay. 
 The party pleasantly known as the " Clique " fell out on 
 the subject of the representation — Dr. Mackay refused to 
 be the tool of a section — and hence the grand explosion 
 which has been the seven days' tattle of the town. 
 
 "What, in the name of all that's discreet, could Dr. 
 Mackay mean ? Under some strange misapprehension as 
 to the nature of the literary office, he seems to have 
 attempted to act not as a simple manufacturer of 
 sentences, but as a promulgator of opinions. He, 
 the employed, had, we are assured, the hardihood to 
 sport sentiments of his own, in opposition to those of 
 some of his employers. Now, fancy the absurdity of a 
 stone-mason cutting and building in his own way with the 
 independence of an architect, or a block-cutter following 
 his own designs with the fearless licence of an artist ! 
 
 " In order to make the matter perfectly plain, we beg our 
 friend, Dr. Mackay, to imagine himself for the moment a 
 shoemaker. What could he expect if, when his employers 
 ordered shoes, he persisted in giving them boots ? The 
 misfortune is that Dr. Mackay could not put himself in 
 the position of a shoemaker at all, but believed, on the 
 contrary, that some of his employers were 'snobs.'
 
 403 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 " The case is as plain as that two and two candidates 
 make four candidates in all. A number of gentlemen, 
 not thoroughly accomplished in the rules of syntax, are 
 ambitious of enlightening the world with their political 
 views. They subscribe funds — purchase types and a 
 printing-press — and hire a person who has been at school 
 to put their sentiments into English. The types are of 
 the quality ordered — the press is precisely the press they 
 wished — all the materials are in fact thoroughly obedient 
 — ready either to tell truth with the unvarying accuracy 
 of a mile-stone, or to lie to all time with the infamous 
 audacity of the Gorbals clock. In one thing only are 
 they deceived. The doer-up of their leaders professes to 
 have a mind of his own — convictions and a conscience to 
 be consulted — a distinct idiosyncracy to be upheld — and 
 a right of independent action to be ; maintained ! 
 
 " Was ever conduct so perverse ? What could be more 
 annoying to gentlemen accustomed to carpet their rooms 
 and paper their walls according to whatever pattern the}' 
 pleased ? It was, in fact, an attempt to set mind above 
 money, by declaring that mind should cease to be its slave. 
 In like manner the cook in the ' New Waj' to Pay Old 
 Debts ' asserts his right of free action — rebels against the 
 orders of Justice Greedy — refuses to roast the fawn with 
 a Norfolk dumpling in the belly of it, or to dish the wood- 
 cocks with toast and butter ! What was to be done with 
 such a cook ? 
 
 " The ugliest part of this business is the terrible 
 revenge which the dismissed editor has taken on the 
 concern he has left. The boat he has been set adrift 
 in is the jolly-boat, and he chuckles audibly over the fact
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847. 409 
 
 of his having doomed the ship. No honest man will now 
 trust it. He has betrayed the rottenness of its timbers. 
 Puffing will be useless— all attempts at raising the wind 
 a jest — it may as well drop its canvas at once. If it move 
 it will be moved by a secret agency, leaving its new crew 
 to sing with the ancient mariner : — 
 
 ' Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
 Yet never a breeze did breathe : 
 Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
 Moved onward from beneath.'' 
 
 Ah, cruel Doctor ! thou hast left a fearful malison upon 
 the shrouds ! Whether any new Jason of this ill-fated 
 argosy may be successful in regaining the golden fleece 
 we know not ; but this we know, that, whatever be his 
 hope of success, he must avoid the error of his predecessor 
 — an error which not all the enchanted herbs of Medea 
 could repair — and refrain from taking the flame-breathing 
 bull by the horns. 
 
 "At the same time, we are free to confess that our 
 sympathies in this case are wholly with our professional 
 brother. Mean men with money in their purse may 
 occasionally take advantage of the necessities of men of 
 letters. For ourselves, however, rather than be worried 
 to death by a querulous and meddling proprietary, we 
 would submit to carry coals. Tools and sycophants will 
 never be wanting to accept the wages of unprincipled ser- 
 vility ; but we owe all praise to Dr. Mackay for the stand 
 he has made for the honour and dignity of a profession, 
 which will only attain its legitimate status in society when 
 its members have learned how to respect themselves."
 
 410 FORTY YEARS' RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 As I had always predicted, Mr. Oswald declined to 
 contest the representation of Glasgow. In his anticipated 
 default a coadjutor was found for Mr. Dennistoim in the 
 person of Mr. Dixon, a wealthy ironmaster, the glow of 
 whose furnaces upon the wintry sky is a familiar sight to 
 the Glasgow citizens. The Liberals, led by Mr. Lumsden, 
 brought forward Mr. Macgregor, and found a colleague 
 for him in Mr. Alexander Hastie, a merchant of the city, 
 and successor to Mr. Lumsden in the pruvostship ; and 
 to promote their election a temporary successor to the 
 now hostile Argus was created in a little weekly publica- 
 tion called The Glasgow Electors' Mentor, which I edited 
 and carried on until the conclusion of the contest. 
 Messrs. Macgregor and Hastie were elected by large 
 majorities ; and at the declaration of the poll those 
 gentlemen and myself walked to the Exchange amid the 
 plaudits of the multitude. But the victory, agreeable 
 as it was to me and my political and literary friends, 
 was the death-blow to the Argus. After the secession 
 from that journal of Mr. Lumsden and those who agreed 
 with him on the subject of Mr. Dennistoun, the Argus 
 languished and drooped. Its remaining proprietors lost 
 heart, and stopped it without note of warning. Every- 
 body expected the catastrophe. The Citizen, three months 
 previously, had predicted it, and a journal that had all the 
 elements of prosperity within it, except a united pro- 
 prietary, who could understand and act upon the fact, 
 that no newspaper could be successful that depended 
 not upon the great public, but upon a small coterie, 
 '"inio to an inglorious end. And at that time and since 
 I have often thought, and think still, that a newspaper
 
 THE GLASGOW ELECTION OF 1847. 411 
 
 cannot be conducted on the principle of a republic — 
 where many men have their say — but can only exist 
 as a despotism, with one will at the head, to whom all 
 other wills are bound to submit. Divided counsels are 
 fatal in journalism; and a true editor, worthy of the 
 name, ought to be the master and not the servant, and 
 be as imperial or imperious in his own sphere as the 
 Autocrat of all the Russias. 
 
 For some weeks after the collapse of the Argus I had 
 serious thoughts of remaining in Glasgow and establish- 
 ing another journal in that city ; but after long delibera- 
 tion and consultation with my friends, I at last decided 
 to return to London. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BRADBCRT, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
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