SOME 
 LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 LOST SIR MASSINGRERD ' 'BY PROXY' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1884 
 
 t^// rights reserved] 
 
55 
 
 TO 
 
 LESLIE STEPHEN 
 
 A CRITIC BLIND TO NO LITERARY MERIT SAVE HIS OWN 
 THESE RECOLLECTIONS ARE DEDICATED 
 BY HIS OLD FRIEND 
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 4958v^0 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The substance of this book has already 
 appeared under the same title in the ' Cornhill 
 Magazine,' but the work has been recast, and 
 now appears, with additions, in a somewhat differ- 
 ent, and, it is hoped, an improved form. 
 
CHAP. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. BOYHOOD — ETON — WOOLWICH ACADEMY — AT A 
 
 PRIVATE tutor's— GETTING INTO PRINT . . I 
 
 11. COLLEGE LIFE— W. G. CLARK DR. WHEWELL— DE 
 
 QUINCEY— GEORGE BRIMLEY 44 
 
 III. MISS MITFORD 
 
 74 
 
 IV. MISS MARTINEAU— WILLIAM ARNOLD. . • • 97 
 
 V. THE BROTHERS CHAMBERS— ALEXANDER RUSSEL— 
 
 DEAN RAMSAY — HILL BURTON — ALEXANDER 
 SMITH— EDITORIAL EXPERIENCES . . -137 
 
 VI. FIRST MEETING WITH DICKENS— CALVERLY— MY 
 
 FIRST BOOK— A LION TAMER ^79 
 
 VII. LONDON— THE VALUE OF A TITLE— PERSONAL NAR- 
 RATIVES— AN EXECUTION- LEECH— GILBERT A 
 BECKETT— JAMES WHITE — READE— TROLLOPE— 
 THACKERAY— DICKENS ^97 
 
 VIII. PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS-ANONYMOUS PUBLICA- 
 TIONS — LITERARY GAINS — TWO IMPOSTORS — 
 WHIST— FAME ...•••• ^34- 
 
-rf 
 
 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BOYHOOD — ETON — WOOLWICH ACADEMY — AT A PRIVATE 
 tutor's — GETTING INTO PRINT. 
 
 Above all writers, I envy and admire autobiogra- 
 '' phers. Unhappily the feat of narrating one's own 
 life in print can only be performed once. I should 
 like to do it ever so many times, regarding myself 
 in each case from a new standpoint ; but to me it 
 is marvellous how it can be done at all. It doubt- 
 less arises from modesty and the total absence of 
 egotism, but for my part I don't remember more 
 than half-a-dozen things that ever happened to 
 me, and still less ivhen they happened. There is 
 Scriptural authority for not thinking very highly 
 of the individuals who make a practice of observ- 
 ing ' days and months and times and years,' and 
 
 B 
 
2 ' ■■ sbk'E' LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 so far at least I am a Christian man ; but to be 
 able to put every event of one's life into the proper 
 pigeon-hole is nevertheless a gift I envy. 
 
 It is necessary, even for the autobiographers, 
 however, to have kept a diary, which unhappily I 
 never did, except for a week or two. I retain a 
 fragment written in boyhood : genuine, but for any 
 benefit I derive from it in the way of assistance to 
 the memory, it might be the Shapira manuscript. 
 
 Sunday, — Twice to church. Revs. Jones and 
 Robinson preached. A collection. Sixpence > 
 (I wonder why this note of interrogation.) 
 
 Monday. — Wet Improved my mind. Duck 
 for supper. Tommy. (Who was Tommy ? Or 
 was it an ejaculation } The name of a place never 
 mentioned to ears polite is sometimes associated 
 with the word Tommy to express a catastrophe. 
 Perhaps this was an abbreviation.) 
 
 Tuesday. — Called on Uncle B. ; grumpy and 
 unsociable. Accounts : lucifers and sundries, four 
 pounds. 
 
 I suppose I had always a distaste for detail ; 
 at all events I seem to have very soon ' dropped 
 off gorged ' from these personal memoranda, the 
 perusal of which makes turbid the stream of life 
 from its very source. I can't even remember who 
 
A DIARY. 3 
 
 Uncle B. was ; it was probably a pseudonym for 
 some person in authority of business habits, whose 
 individuality I have forgotten. In the next entry 
 I find a Bishop mentioned. 
 
 Wednesday. — (No month, or even year, are ever 
 stated ; the diary seems, like Shakespeare, to have 
 been ' for all time.') The Bishop called. 
 
 Did he t And if so, what did he want ? And 
 who was he } Our home was not so overrun with 
 Bishops but that I should have remembered him 
 had he been a real one. My conviction is that 
 this also was a pseudonym. Out of such materials 
 as these, though no doubt attractive to the com- 
 mentator, it is obviously impossible to construct 
 an autobiography. However * keen to track sug- 
 gestion to her inmost cell ' might be the writer, he 
 could not compress the thing within reasonable 
 limits : if, as usual, there is to be prefixed a narrative 
 of his ancestors during the civil wars (mine were 
 all there) and an ample description of his great- 
 grandmother — from whom he inherited his genius 
 — the work would assume portentous dimensions. 
 
 For these reasons, an autobiography (which 
 has been more than once requested from my 
 humble pen) is out of the question. On the other 
 hand, I have certain recollections. My mind, 
 
4 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 though a blank as to dates and even ordinary 
 details, retains personal impressions vividly enough; 
 and it is possible in the case of certain noteworthy 
 persons, with whom during a life of letters I have 
 come in contact, that my reminiscences of them 
 may have some interest They extend, alas ! over 
 many years, but I must premise that I have no 
 • scandal about Queen Elizabeth,' nor anyone else, 
 to communicate. This is, I feel, a drawback. 
 
 The cry — 
 
 Proclaim the faults they would not show ! 
 Break lock and seal ; betray the trust ; 
 Keep nothing sacred — 
 
 goes forth stronger than ever. But unhappily my 
 memory is so defective that I recollect nothing 
 against these good folk. There were matters amiss 
 with them, doubtless, for they were mortal ; but so 
 far as I was concerned— a very young aspirant to 
 fame — they gave me of their best. People talk of 
 the vanity of authors ; of their selfish egotism ; 
 of their crying out ' Whip behind ! ' when some 
 poor fellow would hang on to the footboard of the 
 chariot in which they themselves ride forth so 
 triumphantly. But then some people lie. My ex- 
 perience of men and women of letters— which has 
 been continuous and extends over thirty years— is 
 
KINDNESS OF LITERARY MEN 5 
 
 that for kindness of heart they have no equals. 
 The profession of heaHng comprehends, it is true, 
 natures as generous and as gentle, but in that 
 there is (technically speaking) a mixture. I have 
 never known but one absolutely offensive man of 
 letters ; and even he was said to be pleasant when 
 sober ; though, as I only met him some half-a- 
 dozen times, and his habits were peculiar, I never 
 had a fair chance of finding him in that condition. 
 As a very young man I remember expressing 
 this rose-coloured view of the calling I had made 
 up my mind to follow to Charles Dickens. He put 
 on that comical look of his — every feature full of 
 humorous significance — and turned to John Forster 
 with ' It is plain our young friend has yet to 
 
 know ' And it so happened that I never did 
 
 know , a circumstance which one can hardly 
 
 regret. ' But,' as the old novelists used to say, 
 ' I am anticipating ' — I suppose I must begin at 
 the beginning, and give some account of my early 
 predilection for story-telling and a literary life ; 
 though, for my part, I confess that, in perusing the 
 early chapters of similar biographies, I have gene- 
 rally had a tendency to * skip ;' the life of * literary ' 
 boys being very much like that of other boys, with 
 the disadvantage of being generally a miserable 
 
6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 one. Boys with a turn for humour (unless of the 
 practical joke description) fare worst of all, for 
 your average boy hates wit even more than other 
 kinds of intelligence, and licks its possessor with a 
 wicket, for being ' facetious.' 
 
 It was my unhappy lot in youth to have a 
 lively fancy, and to be much addicted to reading 
 works of the imagination ; and though I hated 
 lessons of all kinds as much as any of my con- 
 temporaries, they never forgave me this, and it 
 made me a very unpopular boy. It was hard upon 
 me, for I suppose in some sort I inherited these 
 disadvantages. My father was of a genial nature, 
 very well read, and with a turn for practical matters 
 also which I never possessed. He had led a life of 
 leisure for many years, but when it became neces- 
 sary for him to exert himself for the sake of his 
 family, he buckled to his work with amazing dili- 
 gence and success. The necessity I believe arose 
 from something like disinheritance. In the Town 
 Hall at Maidenhead there hangs a picture of my 
 paternal grandfather, in a stiff wig, and with a very 
 ' disinheriting countenance.' He was, at all events, 
 very rich, and left his only son very far from rich. 
 At his death my father bestirred himself, and by 
 help of troops of friends (for he was very popular) 
 
MY FATHER. 7 
 
 obtained certain appointments ; among them the 
 clerkship to the Thames Commissioners, at that 
 time an important post with large emoluments 
 attached to it. He could not, however, have been 
 entirely absorbed in business, for at the same time 
 he kept the Berkshire Harriers. I was so young 
 when I lost him that I have scarcely any remem- 
 brance of my father ; but he must have been an 
 attractive man. 
 
 Miss Mitford writes to me of him : ' Your father 
 and I were friends when I was a girl of fifteen, and 
 he a lad of your own age. I doubt if you know 
 the manner of man he was, for the cares of the 
 world had changed him much. In his brilliant 
 youth he was much like a hero of the fine old 
 English comedy (which you would do well to 
 read) ; the Archers and Mirabels of Farquhar and 
 Congreve ; not a poet, but a true lover of poetry, 
 with a faculty of reciting verse, which is amongst 
 the most graceful of all accomplishments.' Almost 
 my only recollection of my father is our reading 
 ' Macbeth ' together ; it always fell to my part to 
 rehearse the dagger scene with a paper-knife. This 
 r greatly enjoyed, but not so another amusement 
 which he expected me to appreciate. 
 
 Twice a week I had to go hunting ; this I 
 
8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 abhorred. I had a nice Httle bay bony {^Flash of 
 Memory, ' Lightfoot '), and could ride well enough, 
 but the proceedings were too protracted for my 
 taste, and I wanted to be at home to finish the 
 
 * Mysteries of Udolpho ' by the fire. There was 
 one thing I disliked even more than hare-hunting. 
 This was fox-hunting. All my family, except 
 myself, had sporting proclivities, and many a time 
 through mistaken friendship have I been given 
 ' a mount ' with ' The Craven,' or ' The South 
 Berks,' which I would much rather have declined, 
 had I dared to do so. It was not only my own 
 reputation, however, that was at stake, and I had 
 to go through with it. I remember on one occa- 
 sion getting some very bad language from a hunts- 
 man for feeding some young hounds with cake in 
 a wood. Sometimes the cold, and the waiting 
 about, and the having nothing to read, grew abso- 
 lutely intolerable ; there was then nothing for it 
 but to dismount, put clover or something in my 
 hair, smear my shoulder with mould, and ride home 
 
 * having met with rather a nasty tumble.' Of course 
 it was very wrong ; but why will people compel 
 poor boys to amuse themselves with things that 
 give them no pleasure? ,It would have been better 
 (and cheaper) to have let me enjoy * Peregrine 
 
MISERIES OF SCHOOL. 9 
 
 Pickle,' * Captain Cook's Voyages,' and the ' Ara- 
 bian Nights,' all day, without the temptation of 
 practising duplicity. My dearest mother— kindest 
 of women, and at that time one of the most beau- 
 tiful — was the only human being who understood 
 me. I was a home bird in every feather, and her 
 pet. 
 
 Never shall I forget the wretchedness I endured 
 at my first school from home-sickness ; fox-hunting 
 was nothing to it. When I used to wake in the 
 mornings, and find myself, after happy dreams, in 
 that land of exile, I thought myself the most mise- 
 rable of human creatures. I have the keenest recol- 
 lection of it even now. Nothing that I ever suffered 
 since— and I have suffered like other men, in many 
 vv^ays — has been comparable with the misery of 
 that time. I am well aware, of course, that I was 
 not a fair specimen of the British schoolboy ; but 
 when I hear what he calls ' old buffers ' talk of the 
 delights of school, and wish themselves back there, 
 I think of the Cretans to whom the Apostle has 
 given the palm for Lying. The author of ' Vice 
 Versa ' has of late, with as much truth as wit, ex- 
 ploded the whole delusion, and I thank him for it. 
 I always learnt my lessons, but without the least 
 interest in them. I pitied and liked the ushers. 
 
 \^/ 
 
ro SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The head-master I did not like ; he was a pom« 
 pous lethargic fellow. I remember on one occasion; 
 inquiring of him how Castor and Pollux could 
 have had immortality conferred upon them alter^ 
 7iately. 'You young fool/ he replied, 'how could 
 they ever have had immortality conferred upon 
 them at all}'' I was but seven years old, or so, 
 but I perceived from that moment — for how could 
 he otherwise have missed the whole point of my 
 difficulty? — that it was possible for a man to be 
 at once a scholar and an ass. That view has on 
 more than one occasion been since corroborated. 
 
 I was only popular at this school for one reason : 
 it was unhappily discovered that I invented stories,, 
 and thenceforth — miserable Scheherazade ! — I was 
 compelled to narrate romances out of my own head, 
 at night, till the falling asleep of my last lord and 
 master permitted my weary little body and cud- 
 gelled brains to seek the same repose. I remained 
 at this establishment, which was preparatory for 
 Eton, for several years. It was so hateful to me 
 (from no fault of its own, I am bound to say ; 
 school was antipathetic to me, that was all), that, 
 when the holidays were over, I used to bury things, 
 which would otherwise have been useful to me, in 
 the garden, so that I might dig them up, when I 
 
ETON. II 
 
 returned home, undefiled from any experience of 
 that classical seminary. 
 
 One morning, in the middle of the term, there 
 was a commotion in the house, to us smaller boys 
 unintelligible, except that there was no morning 
 school, which we appreciated as much as the big- 
 gest. A strange gentleman appeared at midday, 
 and informed us that the head-master had been 
 summoned abroad on urgent private affairs, and 
 that our parents and guardians had been communi- 
 cated with ; I knew nothing of what it all meant 
 except that the term had been miraculously and 
 providentially shortened, and that we were to go 
 home. Even when I got to learn that the 'urgent 
 private affairs ' meant bankruptcy and flight, I am 
 afraid I evinced a shocking equanimity, and only 
 thought of ' Lightfoot ' (for it was not the hunting 
 season) and my mother. 
 
 I suppose I was about eleven years old when I 
 went to Eton. I was at a dame's house, and my 
 tutor was Cookesley, a very eccentric but capital 
 fellow. I was probably too young to properly 
 appreciate even Eton : the fagging, though not 
 severe, was very offensive to me, and I resented the 
 ridiculous airs and graces of the upper boys. I 
 remember a fifth-form young gentleman (looking 
 
12 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 in his white tie like a miniature parson) inquiring 
 of me in a drawling voice, ' Lower Boy, what 
 anight your name be ? ' Though I never properly 
 understood the niceties of the Greek aorist, I did 
 understand the inflections of my native tongue, and 
 replied, ' Well, it might be Beelzebub, but it isn't,' 
 upon which the duodecimo divine altered his tone 
 very much, and even proceeded to blows. It was 
 only the proper punishment for ' cheek,' no doubt, 
 but I thought it hard that a repartee should be 
 so ill-received. 
 
 The fagging system of which Thackeray has 
 expressed such bitter scorn was at its height at 
 that time. Its defenders used to say that it pre- 
 vented bullying ; but, as a matter of fact, where 
 a fifth-form fellow was a brute, it authorised 
 
 it. One B , a boy at my dame's, was an 
 
 especial victim of this tyranny ; one of the heads 
 of the house had taken a particular antipathy to 
 him, and was always sending him on long errands 
 for mere cruelty. On one occasion, he sent him to 
 the end of the Long Walk (four miles away) to 
 fetch a brick from the statue of George III. A 
 moralist, or the gentleman in the Society journal 
 who solves the Hard Questions, may decide what 
 1^ ought to have done under such circum- 
 
'FIRST FAULT.' 13 
 
 stances. What he did do, was to bring a brick 
 from a much less distant spot, and take his affidavit 
 that it came from His Majesty's statue. Whatever 
 virtues the fagging system may have inculcated, it 
 certainly taught the Art of Lying. In spite indeed 
 of the general contempt in which, upon the whole, 
 I think that vice was held at Eton, there were many 
 exceptions. Nobody got 'swished,' for example, 
 if he could evade it by a tarradiddle. Swishing 
 was, and is, a grossly indecent performance, which 
 one illustration in the ' London News,' or ' Graphic,' 
 would assuredly put an end to for ever. Dr. Haw- 
 trey, who was the head-master in my time, detested 
 it. I can see him now in his cassock and bands, 
 holding the birch (as Lamb says of his master) 
 'like a lily,' in his jewelled fingers, while some 
 young gentleman, in the presence of a troop of 
 friends, was undoing his braces. ' Please, sir, y^rj-^ 
 faulty pleads the trembling boy (everybody was let 
 off the first time, unless for the most heinous 
 offences). ' I think I remember your name before,' 
 says the pedagogue in an awful voice. 
 
 ' My brother, sir,' suggests the culprit. (It was 
 a happy thing to have had, as I had, a brother 
 before you — and not too good a boy — at Eton.) 
 
 ' I'll look at my book,' was the stern rejoinder. 
 
14 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 And in the meantime— unless, alas ! he had had no 
 brother before him — the culprit fastened his braces ; 
 he was at least reprieved. A humorous lad I will call 
 Vivian, who had reached the rather unfloggable age 
 of seventeen, and was upon the point of entering the 
 army, was ' swished,' as he thought unjustly, the very 
 week before his departure from the school. In 
 those days a perquisite— and a very large perquisite 
 —of the head-master's was a ten-pound note given 
 to him by every fifth-form boy on leaving. The 
 etiquette was to call at the lodge, and drop the 
 note into a jar, or anything handy, where the 
 doctor could find it, after his dear pupil had gone 
 away. It was something like the visit of a delicate- 
 minded patient to a doctor of medicine. But Vivian 
 only pretended to drop his ten-pound note into the 
 jar, and reserved it for more agreeable purposes. 
 He pictured to himself with great satisfaction the 
 head-master's fruitless hunt after that bit of tissue 
 paper, after he had got over the emotion of wishing 
 him farewell. ' I can't flog him for flogging me 
 unjustly,' was his reflection,' *but, dash it, I can 
 fine him!' I have narrated this incident in 'Less 
 Black than We're Painted,' but it is possible that 
 some people (Philistines) may not have read the 
 book. 
 
 The cruellest thing that happened to me at 
 
A 'CRAMMING' SCHOOL. 15 
 
 Eton was a vain attempt to contribute to the school 
 magazine, called the ' Eton Bureau ; ' considering 
 my tender years, however, the disappointment was 
 hardly to be wondered at. 
 
 When I had been at Eton a year or so, I 
 received a ' nomination ' to the Royal Military 
 Academy and was removed to a preparatory 
 ■school at Woolwich, where I began my education 
 afresh, and remained many years. In the days 
 when I was young the word 'cramming,' as applied 
 to educational seminaries, was unknown, but the 
 thing itself was in existence, though not on so 
 large a scale as at present. When a boy received 
 ■a nomination for the Military Academy, though the 
 interval, as in my case, before he could be qualified 
 for admission might be a long one, he was sent at 
 once to one of the many schools at Woolwich, 
 which professed to educate him for that purpose, 
 ■and for nothing else. Some boys had very little 
 time to spare, and their education (especially if 
 they came from public schools, where little was 
 learnt at that date save Greek and Latin) was 
 necessarily carried on at high pressure. This 
 saved time, and to put the whole establishment on 
 the same footing saved trouble. I had never known 
 what work was till I went to Woolwich, and I had 
 much rather have remained in ignorance. We had 
 
i6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 really hardly any playtime, save on Wednesday and 
 Saturday afternoons, and yet our position was one 
 of ease and leisure compared with that of boys 
 at certain rival establishments. At one of them, 
 where the young gentlemen went especially late — at 
 fifteen, or fifteen and a half (the age of admission 
 to the Academy being sixteen) — they took their 
 lessons with their meals, like dinner pills, and 
 digested Euclid between the courses. It was taken 
 for granted (and I am bound to say in most cases 
 with good reason) that no one who came to Messrs. 
 Hurry and Crammem's had ever learnt anything 
 before : yet no explanation of anything was vouch- 
 safed to us. It was understood that we couldn't 
 swim, yet we were flung out of our depth into the 
 river of learning. I have tried all systems of educa- 
 tion, with the poorest results imaginable, but this one 
 was certainly the most hateful. For weeks I used 
 to learn Euclid by heart, without a soul to tell me 
 what was the meaning of it, or why I was punished 
 for my performances at the board. Languages 
 have been always as unattainable to me as the 
 science of music, and for many months I used to 
 copy my German exercises from a fellow-student* 
 till a catastrophe happened : I was so ignorant of 
 the German characters— in which they were written 
 
AN INVOLUNTARY FORGERY. 17 
 
 — that I actually signed his name at the end of one 
 of them, instead of my own. Detection, of course, 
 would have taken place much earlier had I been 
 nearer my examination, for the elder boys were 
 looked after sharply enough. Heavens, what a life 
 it was ! If a boy had died there, his existence 
 would have ended like that of an ' habitual criminal,* 
 in penal servitude ; and his friends would doubtless 
 have remarked that he had passed away in happy 
 boyhood, before he had known the ills of life. 
 Indeed, I was often told by my elders that I was 
 ' like a young bear, with all my troubles to come.' 
 It is difficult to decide whether your sanctimonious 
 fool, or your philosophic fool, deserves the palm for 
 folly. 
 
 What I especially resented at this place was 
 that, in the whirl and hurry of * cram,' there was 
 no time for reading and writing : for I was in 
 my youth an omnivorous reader, and, in spite of 
 the many mills of education through which (as 
 will be seen) I passed, contrived to learn some 
 things really worth knowing ; it is fair also to 
 say (though I derived little other benefit from 
 these seminaries) that their variety was very use- 
 ful to me, in the line of life I subsequently chose 
 for myself, and offered me a wide study of life 
 
 C 
 
 'V 
 
1 8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 at an unusually early age. As for writing, I was 
 never tired of setting down ' what I was pleased to 
 call my thoughts,' on paper, and generally in verse ; 
 and what is much more strange, I found a channel 
 (in the eye of the law at least) of ' publication ' for 
 them. A schoolfellow of mine, Raymond, had a 
 talent for drawing, and a third scarcely less gifted 
 genius, Jones, could write like print. These various 
 talents might have remained comparatively un- 
 known, but for one Barker, who had a genuine 
 turn for finance, and who hit upon a plan for 
 combining them. We were like poor and struggling 
 inventors, who in this young gentleman found their 
 capitalist, and thanks to him were enabled to 
 enlighten the world ; and the parallel, as will be 
 shown, went even further. His idea was that we 
 should start a weekly paper, full of stories and 
 poems. I was to compose the contents, Jones was 
 to write any number of fair copies, and Raymond 
 was to illustrate them. 
 
 ' Of course,' said Barker, 'we shall not do it for 
 nothing,' which I thought (even then) a very just 
 observation. The price of each copy was accord- 
 ingly fixed at sixpence. It did not strike me that 
 anyone would refuse to give so small a sum for such 
 admirable literature (not to mention the pictures, 
 
A FORCED CIRCULATION. 19 
 
 which indeed I did not think so highly of), but in 
 practice we found there were difficulties. Many- 
 boys were of so gross a nature that they preferred 
 to borrow their literature, and spend their sixpences 
 in the tuck shop ; and though the first number (as 
 often happens) was — to Barker — a financial success, 
 the second number fell flat, and there were several 
 surplus copies on our hands. Then came in our 
 proprietor's genius for finance ; he was the trea- 
 surer of the school, entrusted with the paying out 
 of a certain weekly pocket-money of two shillings, 
 which, though despised at the beginning of the term 
 when our purses were full, became before the end 
 of it of considerable importance. He resolved on 
 a coup d'etat, and calmly deducted sixpence from 
 everybody's two shillings, and gave them our paper 
 instead. It was the first instance with which I 
 became acquainted of ' a forced circulation.' 
 
 Experiments of a similar kind have been tried 
 by political financiers in many countries, but rarely 
 without great opposition ; ' the masses ' never know 
 what is good for them, and our schoolfellows were 
 no exception to the rule ; they called our pro- 
 prietor ' a Jew,' and, so to speak, ' murmured against 
 Moses.' He was tall and strong, and fought at least 
 half-a-dozen pitched battles for the maintenance 
 
 c 2 
 
20 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 of his object ; I think he persuaded himself, like 
 Charles I., that he was really in the right, and set 
 down their opposition to mere ' impatience of 
 taxation ; ' but in the end they were ' one too many 
 for him,' and, indeed, much more than one. He 
 fell, fighting, no doubt, in the sacred cause of litera- 
 ture, but also for his own sixpences, for we — the 
 workers — never saw one penny of them. 
 
 As I grew older, matters grew better with me 
 at Messrs. Hurry and Crammem's establishment, 
 or perhaps the improvement only lay in the fact 
 that I began to see the humorous side of them. I 
 learnt to do my work well, though I never liked it, 
 nor have I ever liked any work except of my own 
 choosing, though to that^ Heaven knows, I have 
 stuck closely enough. The Bohemian side of my 
 character now began to develop itself, and that so 
 strongly, that, considering the great respectability of 
 my family, I am almost inclined to think (like the 
 Irish hypochondriac) that I must have been changed 
 at nurse. I used to delight in running up to town on 
 short leave (from Saturda)- to Sunday night), and 
 * in spite of all temptations' of invitations from my 
 relations, preferred to do so on my own hook. It 
 was more agreeable to me to be my own master 
 than to sit in the lap of comfort. At that time ' a 
 
YOUTHFUL BOHEMIANISM. 21 
 
 sandwich and a glass of ale '—both, fortunately, of 
 great size — used to be advertised for fourpence, and 
 I have subsisted on that meal, rather than on the 
 stalled ox, and conventionalism therewith. When 
 money has been very ' tight,' I have even slept, I 
 fear, in a day cab, in a mews. At fifteen, in short, I 
 knew more of the queer side of life than many people 
 at fifty, but I became acquainted with it of my own 
 free will, which is a very different thing (and has 
 very different effects) from becoming acquainted 
 with it on compulsion. 
 
 I remember going to the Derby, and coming 
 back (from want of funds) a great portion of the 
 journey on an empty hearse, clinging not, indeed, 
 to the plumes, for it had none, but to bare poles. 
 Of course it was all very wrong, but I was never 
 mischievous, nor can I recollect ever having taken 
 the initiative in hurting any living creature. On 
 the other hand, if / suffered a gratuitous wrong at 
 the hands of any schoolfellow, and it was not apo- 
 logised for, I resented it exceedingly: what an in- 
 nate villain, I reasoned, must he be to attack so 
 harmless an individual ; and I generally contrived 
 not only to be even with the young gentleman in 
 question, but to strike a moderate balance in my 
 own favour. 
 
22 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I have followed this practice throughout life, 
 and, though it is not strictly a Christian virtue, I 
 venture to think it tends to the public advantage. 
 If offensive people could be generally made to 
 understand the theory of the turning of worms, 
 they would be more careful of putting their foot 
 down upon those apparently defenceless creatures. 
 In the matter of reprisals, one is apt, of course, to 
 make mistakes ; but I think, even at that early 
 age, I could recognise the difference between a 
 light-hearted scamp and a cold-blooded scoundrel. 
 That conciliation with the Base, and especially the 
 Cruel, is useless — is a lesson that I learnt as a 
 small boy, and have never forgotten ; I have gene- 
 rally managed — upon principle — to pay them out. 
 
 As the time grew near for the entrance exami- 
 nation to Woolwich, Mr. Hurry began, for the first 
 time, to take some interest in me, who had hitherto 
 been left to the ushers. ' Your father ' (he had 
 been deceased for many years) ' has been writing,' 
 he told me, ' very seriousl)' indeed about your 
 Euclid.' 
 
 Mr. Hurry knew all the tricks of his trade. 
 He was confident of m}- passing the ordinar}- 
 examination, but was very doubtful of m}- being 
 able to get through the medical branch of it, 
 
A MEDICAL EXAMINATION. 23 
 
 because I was so very short-sighted. He gave me, 
 however, the best advice. ' They will tell you to 
 look out of the window and describe the colours of 
 the horses on the common. Mind you say " bay," 
 very rapidly, for all horses are either " grey " or 
 "bay."' If not strictly well-principled, Mr. Hurry 
 was very good fun, and I am indebted to him 
 (though I was not aware of it at the time) for much 
 material for my first work, ' The P'oster Brothers.' 
 
 I thought myself very fortunate (though, as it 
 happened, it eventually came to nothing) when I 
 took the third place at the entrance examination 
 into the Military Academy. The humours of that 
 establishment at that date I shall not attempt to 
 describe ; they were fitted for the pen of a Smol- 
 lett, but scarcely adapted for a modern audience. 
 I have introduced some of them (after a certain 
 necessary refining process) into ' What He Cost 
 Her,' and the recollection of them has been doubt- 
 less of advantage to me, from a literary point of 
 view. Nihil hiimamnn a mealiemim piito is a motto 
 that belongs to the novelist even more than to 
 the poet ; and, indeed, life at the Military Academy 
 had very little to do with poetry. The govern- 
 ment of the place was a despotism, tempered, not 
 by epigrams, but by escapades. Its subjects were 
 
24 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 insubordinate, and demanded frequent fusillades — 
 expulsions. Our age, from fifteen to eighteen, was, 
 no doubt, a difficult one to legislate for ; we were 
 neither boys nor men, and though subject to mili- 
 tary discipline, like soldiers, we were sometimes 
 treated quite as small boys. On one occasion, in 
 order to check extravagance, it was ordained that 
 we should only have five pounds apiece, of pocket- 
 money, on rejoining after a vacation ; as one of 
 us notoriously kept a pack of beagles, this was not 
 an edict likely to have, at all events, a universal 
 application. 
 
 The authorities feared ridicule quite as much 
 as the cadets themselves did. I remember the 
 governor reading prayers to us in the dining-hall, 
 one wet Sunday. The chapter for the day hap- 
 pened to be the autobiography of St. Paul, in 
 which the words ' I speak as a fool ' occur more 
 than once, and those the reader left out, for fear 
 of exclamations of agreement. It was here that 
 ' Lord Bloomfield ' and ' The Earl of Moira ' 
 (signs of public-houses on Shooter's Hill) were 
 given by N. as respectable references, and it was 
 here (or, at least, while he was a cadet) that he 
 carried out that famous operation in sheep. A 
 story should never be told twice in print, at all 
 
A SPECULATION IN SHEEP. 25 
 
 events by the same man, but, in the interest of 
 those who have not read it, I must be excused for 
 repeating this one. 
 
 N. and M., cadets, tall and hairy, and looking 
 much older than they were, found themselves 
 one vacation with only five shillings between 
 them, and in need of capital. They were accus- 
 tomed to agricultural pursuits, and N. plumed 
 himself on his judgment of sheep. ' Let us go,' 
 he said, ' to the sheep fair at E., and buy a flock 
 and sell them at a profit' They attired them- 
 selves in appropriate raiment and went to the fair ; 
 after a general inspection of the pens, they bought 
 a hundred sheep at 39^-. a head — that is to say, 
 they agreed to buy them. M. went with one 
 of the drovers to a public-house, ostensibly to 
 hand him over the money, but really to gain time 
 and to spend his five shillings in treating him, 
 while N. remained with the other to dispose of 
 his bargain at a profit if he could. For a whole 
 hour he did no business, but in the end he sold the 
 flock at 40.$-. a head, realising ;^ 5 by the transac- 
 tion. We talk of a bad quarter of an hour, but 
 here were four of them for poor N. * Suppose 
 you had not sold them,' I said, ' would you not 
 have got into a frightful row ? ' ' Very likely,' he 
 
26 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 said. ' All the time I was thinking less of the 
 buyers than of Botany Bay.' For at that time 
 we had transportation. 
 
 I had some rather amusing experiences of my 
 own in those Woolwich days, though I am afraid 
 they did not redound to my credit. There was a 
 story told (but then people will say anything) of 
 my preaching on a tub in Hungerford Market, in 
 order to raise the necessary fund (eightpence) for 
 the return of self and friend to Woolwich by river 
 steamer. 
 
 I will confess to one adventure, which I suspect 
 would now-a-days be pronounced of a Bohemian 
 character. I was returning with a fellow-cadet 
 one evening in a Hansom cab, when it occurred to 
 us (for cards we had always with us) to beguile the 
 journey with a game at cribbage. As it was quite 
 dusk, we purchased an enormous and highly deco- 
 rated candle, such as are used for ecclesiastical 
 celebrations, and stuck it up between us. Having 
 always a very tender conscience, this gave me an 
 idea that we were committing a kind of sacrilege, 
 but there was no help for it. I remember, how- 
 ever, being a good deal startled when an awful 
 voice, as it seemed from the skies, suddenly thun- 
 dered down upon us, ' You have forgot his heels.' 
 
/ LEAVE WOOLWICH. 27 
 
 It was the cabman, who, interested in the game,, 
 which he had been watching through the Httle 
 door in the roof, thus reminded us of our inad- 
 vertence. 
 
 My mihtary career, though, as Avill be admitted, 
 not destitute of incident, was brief; it was cut 
 short, however, not in the usual manner, by expul- 
 sion, but by ill health ; and at seventeen I was 
 sent to a private tutor's, in preparation for the 
 University. 
 
 My school life, as may be gathered, had not 
 been destitute of fun, but upon the whole I 
 detested it. It was now for the first time that I 
 became acquainted with happiness. To me it is 
 curious that school life should have those attrac- 
 tions, which it certainly possesses for most boys, 
 independent of the imaginary ones with which the 
 glamour of ' the Past ' invests it. I suppose the 
 delight they take in sports of all kinds makes up 
 for the discomforts they endure, while, having no 
 particular literary bent, their dry mechanical 
 studies are not more disagreeable to them than 
 any other kind of reading would be. With the 
 exception of what Mrs. Caudle calls ' the fine old 
 athletic game of cribbage,' I, unfortunatel}', cared 
 nothing for sports ; and while I loved poetry and 
 
28 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 fiction, the lessons that were imposed upon me 
 were absolutely hateful. To find myself compa- 
 ratively my own master, with leisure for my 
 private pursuits, was, therefore, like escaping from 
 slavery. 
 
 My new tutor was one of the handsomest and 
 most agreeable men I have ever known, of the 
 most polished manners and charming social gifts 
 of all kinds, and his family were as pleasant as 
 himself He lived in a large house, once the resi- 
 dence of a great lord, in Devonshire, commanding 
 the most splendid views. After my previous ex- 
 perience of life, I seemed to myself (not unreason- 
 ably, I thought, if the theory of compensation was 
 to be accepted) to have gone to heaven. As a 
 young man, my nevv^ preceptor had been the pet of 
 the aristocracy ; had been private tutor to more 
 than one duke, and had educated earls and vis- 
 counts without number. Many of them had ex- 
 pressed an extravagant regard for him, but their 
 efforts to benefit him, when he came to need their 
 assistance, were certainly not extravagant. He was 
 comparatively a poor man when I first became 
 acquainted with him, and had the pride which 
 generally accompanies unaccustomed poverty. He 
 would have died rather than have asked his noble 
 
SELFISHNESS OF THE GREAT. 29 
 
 friends for anything, and they took great care, as 
 it seemed to me, never to inquire into his circum- 
 stances. One of them, a very great magnate 
 indeed, wrote to request his dear old tutor to come 
 up to Scotland and marry him. He did so, and 
 not only received no guerdon from his gushing 
 Grace, but was left to pay his own journey there 
 and back. He never uttered a word of complaint,, 
 though I think he felt it ; but it gave me a lesson 
 with regard to the selfish callousness of the rich 
 and powerful (with their motto of noblesse oblige^ 
 too !), which has never needed — though it has 
 amply received — the corroboration of experience. 
 
 The preparation for Cambridge was a mere 
 bagatelle, after what I had been accustomed to in 
 the way of lessons, and though I never cared for 
 University studies, I almost took a pleasure in 
 them for the teacher's sake. I can see myself now 
 doing Euclid with him in his sanctum, without 
 book ; he taught me to carry the figures, even of 
 the sixth book (which are much belettered), in my 
 head, and after a little practice I found no difficulty 
 in it, and even some self-satisfaction. 
 
 This, too, was the first and only time in my 
 life that I have derived any pleasure from what 
 seems to please so many people — outdoor exercise^ 
 
30 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I had some companions of my own age who 
 taught me the use of the leaping pole, in which I 
 became quite a remarkable proficient. We scoured 
 the country each with a fourteen-foot pole in our 
 hands, and rarely found brook or lane too broad 
 for us. Many a time, like Commodore Trunnion, 
 have I astonished a waggoner by flying from steep 
 bank to bank, over the heads of himself and his 
 horses. I could now, quite as easily, like the cow 
 in the nursery rhyme, fly over the moon. 
 
 I have never seen it remarked, with relation to 
 the effect of humour, that, notwithstanding the 
 stupidity of all so-called practical jokes, a material 
 drollery — something incongruous that actually hap- 
 pens — makes a more vivid and lasting impression 
 upon the human mind than anything spoken. It 
 has been my good fortune to have been familiar 
 with more than one great humourist, and to have 
 mixed generally with many utterers of good things. 
 I remember some with great pleasure, but the re- 
 collection of them does not tickle me with the 
 same irrepressible mirth as certain humorous in- 
 cidents, w^hich I can never recall, even in the silent 
 watches of the night, without laughter. They owe 
 something, of course, to the circumstances under 
 which they took place, and therefore always lose 
 
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 31 
 
 in the telling ; but to those who have experienced 
 and can appreciate them they are solid lumps of 
 -delight, which no time can liquefy. One of these 
 was vouchsafed to me while at my Devonshire 
 tutor's. I have often told it, but I do not remember 
 having ever put it into print. 
 
 On one occasion we had some private theatricals, 
 for which a great hall In the centre of the house, 
 approached by a long passage from the front door, 
 afforded great facilities. One of the plays was a 
 dress piece, exhibiting the Court of Queen Eliza- 
 beth. It was my frivolous disposition, perhaps, 
 that caused me to be selected as the Court jester. 
 A dear friend of mine (since dead, alas ! like most 
 of them) played Sir Walter Raleigh, and I well 
 remember he took advantage of my being In a 
 simple network garment to prick my unprotected 
 limbs with the point of his rapier. 
 
 It was a snowy winter's night, and the hall was 
 crowded with a very large audience, whose servants, 
 including those of the house, were standing on the 
 great staircase and in the galleries ; and Sir Walter 
 and I were In the long passage aforesaid waiting to 
 * come on,' when there came a ring at the front 
 door. There was no one to answer It, as we knew, 
 except ourselves. But who, at that time of night. 
 
32 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 two hours after the performance had begun, could 
 it possibly be ? 'By Jove,' whispered I, already 
 trembling- with the sense of the absurdity of what 
 must needs come to pass, ' it's the new pupil ! ' 
 
 My tutor, I knew, was expecting one (from 
 Wales) about that date, but in the hurry and bustle 
 of the theatricals we had clean forgotten all about 
 him. The bell rang again with increased violence. 
 We opened the door, and there stood a little man, 
 with a Bradshaw and a railway rug, just descended 
 from a snow-covered fly. His gaze wandered from 
 the knight in his doublet and hose to the fool in 
 scarlet, and back again, in speechless astonishment. 
 He had evidently a mind to turn and flee, but Sir 
 Walter, with gentle violence, constrained him to 
 enter. We led him along the passage, opened the 
 door of the great hall, and pushed him on to the 
 stage. The applause was deafening. The appear- 
 ance of a modern railway traveller, with rug and 
 guide among the Court of Elizabeth, was thought 
 to be part of an exquisite burlesque. The Queen 
 wept tears of laughter, the courtiers roared, not 
 from complaisance, but necessity ; the whole house 
 ' rose ' at the unexpected visitor, who faced it with 
 his mouth open. It was more than a minute before 
 my tutor could understand what had happened. 
 
MISS O'NEILL. 33 
 
 He came forward full of the politest apologies, 
 marred by fits of uncontrollable mirth. 
 
 * My dear Mr. D., I cannot express my sorrow ' 
 (which was very true), ' What must you have 
 thought of your reception, and of my house ? ' 
 
 The Welshman was plucky enough, and not 
 unnaturally in a frightful rage. ' I thought it was 
 a lunatic asylum, sir,' he answered bitterly. 
 
 Then we gave him three cheers, and one cheer 
 more. The hero of that evening fell at Balaklava 
 a few years afterwards ; my tutor and three-fourths 
 of that joyous company have long been dead ; but 
 when I think of that inimitable scene, the humour 
 of it sweeps wavelike over all, and for one fleeting 
 minute drowns regret. 
 
 The mention of theatricals reminds me that 
 under my tutor's roof I had the pleasure of meet- 
 ing the once famous Miss O'Neill. She stayed a 
 fortnight in the house with her husband. Sir William 
 Becher. Those, of ripe age, who saw her act used 
 to compare her, and not unfavourably, with Mrs. 
 Siddons. This was the more remarkable since she 
 left the stage on her marriage at a very early age. 
 At the date of which I speak she was between 
 fifty and sixty years of age : a tall, commanding- 
 looking woman, with a certain majesty in her mien 
 
 D 
 
34 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and movements. She talked of * the Garden ' and 
 ' the Lane,' and was very fond of recitation. I re- 
 member her giving us ' Hohcnlinden,' one afternoon 
 in the hall, in very fine style. 
 
 It was when I was a pupil in Devonshire that 
 the meadows of manuscript which I had written 
 began to produce their first scanty crop of print. 
 
 A curious chapter might be written concerning 
 the channels through which authors have first ad- 
 dressed the public. From the nature of the case, 
 they have been mostly of a humble kind. One 
 rarely writes for the 'Times 'or the ' Edinburgh' at 
 seventeen, or rather, though we may write /tr them 
 (for young gentlemen of the pen are audacious 
 enough), one's lucubrations are first ' accepted ' in 
 much more modest regions. Thackeray told me 
 that the first money he had ever received in litera- 
 ture (under what circumstances he did not say, but 
 they must have been droll ones) was from Mr. G. 
 W. M. Reynolds. For my own part, I may, so far, 
 have been said to have been born with a silver spoon 
 in my mouth, for my literary godfather was no less 
 a person than Leigh Hunt. In the flesh, I regret 
 to say, I never knew him ; but as a boy I had an 
 admiration for him that was akin to love. I suppose 
 no writer has ever preached the love of books so 
 
LEIGH HUNT. 35 
 
 eloquently as he has done, or gained more disciples. 
 He had a most kind and gracious nature, which 
 was cultivated to extremity ; culture is much more 
 common nowadays than it was in his time, but un- 
 less the nature of the soil is gracious, very little 
 comes of such ' top dressing.' Leigh Hunt com- 
 bined with the ' fine brain ' the tenderest of human 
 hearts. His ignorance of business matters and his 
 poverty made him to natures of the baser sort an 
 object of ridicule. Carlyle used to keep three 
 sovereigns in a little packet on his mantelpiece, 
 which he called ' Leigh Hunt's sovereigns,' because 
 he occasionally lent them to him, and was wont to 
 narrate the circumstance to all whom it did not 
 concern. Hunt would have lent him three thousand 
 sovereigns, had he possessed them, and never dis- 
 closed the circumstance. 
 
 There was nothing in his literary life which 
 Dickens regretted so much as the unintentional 
 wrong he did Leigh Hunt in his portrait of Harold 
 Skimpole. It was true that he drew one side of it 
 from his friend, but the other side — the selfishness 
 and the baseness — had nought to do with him. 
 They were indeed so utterly opposed to his cha- 
 racter, that it perhaps seemed to Dickens that no one 
 could associate them with the original of the picture. 
 
36 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Nothing is more common than for a novelist to 
 paint in this way, and for the very purpose of the 
 concealment of identity ; but in this case the like- 
 ness was, in some points, too striking to escape re- 
 cognition, and the others were taken for granted, 
 whereat both painter and sitter were cruelly pained. 
 The first composition of my own which I had 
 the bliss to see in print was a little poem called 
 ' The Poet's Death ' — a queer subject enough to 
 begin a poetical career with — published in ' Leigh 
 Hunt's Journal,' one of the many periodicals which 
 owed their being to his sanguine temperament and 
 the optimism of a publisher. It had a short life, 
 and I am afraid not a merry one. Soon after, 
 I wrote a series of ' Ballads from English History,' 
 in ' Bentley's Miscellany,' of which I think, at that 
 time, Harrison Ainsworth was the proprietor and 
 editor. When I ventured, after half a dozen of 
 them, or so, had made their appearance, to hint at 
 payment, I received a note from Mr. Ainsworth 
 explaining that * the circumstances of the maga- 
 zine were such that it could afford no pecuniary 
 remuneration to its contributors.' The word ' pecu- 
 niary ' was italicised, as though I had received 
 some remuneration of another kind. If I had had 
 to trust to my muse for subsistence (though upon 
 
'jock: 37 
 
 my word I still think I wrote very pretty poems), 
 I should have died early unless some Dr. Tanner 
 had communicated to me his secret of living with- 
 out food. One of the few poems I ever got paid 
 for was a humorous one which I had the pleasure . 
 to see the other day quoted in an American collec- 
 tion of ' anonymous and dead authors.' It was 
 written upon a great friend of my boyhood, a 
 pointer called 'Jock.' 
 
 - A roUicksome, frolicsome rare old cock 
 As ever did nothing was our dog Jock ; 
 
 ~" A gleesome, fleasome, affectionate beast, 
 As slow at a fight, as swift at a feast ; 
 A wit among dogs, when his life 'gan fail. 
 One couldn't but see the old wag in his tale, 
 When his years grew long and his eyes grew dim, 
 And his course of bark could not strengthen him. 
 Never more now shall our knees be press'd 
 - By his dear old chops in their slobbery rest. 
 Nor our mirth be stirr'd at his solemn looks 
 As wise, and as dull, as divinity books. 
 Our old friend's dead, but we all well know 
 He's gone to the kennels where the good dogs go, 
 Where the cooks be not, but the beef-bones be, 
 And his old head never need turn for a flea. 
 
 The proprietor of the object of this eulogy was 
 so pleased with it that he placed it over the dog's 
 
38 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 tombstone, and much to his annoyance found he 
 had a great deal more to pay the stonecutter than 
 I had received for the original manuscript. In 
 short, though at that time of my life, and long 
 afterwards, I much preferred verse to prose, it soon 
 became manifest to me that poetry would, in my 
 case, be its own reward. 
 
 My first prose article found acceptance in 
 * Household Words.' It was the forerunner of 
 scores and scores contributed to the same period- 
 ical, but no other gave me a tithe of the pleasure 
 this one did. A mother's pride in seeing her first- 
 born in long clothes is no doubt considerable, but 
 it is nothing to an author's delight upon the ap- 
 pearance of his first article in print. In this case, 
 the well-known line, ' Half is his, and half is thine,' 
 does not apply : the little creature is his very own, 
 and, small as it is, plays the part of master of the 
 ceremonies in introducing him to the world at 
 large. From that moment he is no longer a 
 private person, but an author. I don't know how 
 many attempts I had made to obtain that status 
 before I succeeded ; the perseverance of Bruce's 
 spider as compared with mine was mere impa- 
 tience. If I could have foreseen how long it would 
 be before I was fated to be successful again my 
 
MV FIRST HONORARIUM. 39 
 
 happiness would have been not a little dashed ; but 
 as it was I was in the seventh heaven. Up to this 
 day, when I look back upon the letter I received, 
 announcing the acceptance of ' Gentleman Cadet ' 
 (a short sketch of life at the Academy), it awakens 
 emotions. The writer was W. H. Wills, who 
 assisted Dickens in his editorship, a man of kindly 
 nature and (of this I was especially convinced just 
 then) of excellent judgment. He was devoted to 
 his chief, conscientious to his contributors, and an 
 excellent fellow, as I had afterwards good reason 
 to know ; but it was a disappointment to me that 
 I had not heard from ' the Master ' himself Even 
 that, however, I almost forgot when I received the 
 honorarhim (three guineas) for my little paper. It 
 seemed to me that fame and fortune had both opened 
 wide their gates to me at once. A lady novelist 
 has written rapturously of the feelings that were 
 aroused within her by the first kiss from her 
 beloved object, though he was but a Detrimental ; 
 I felt like her, with the additional satisfaction of 
 believing myself to have made an excellent match. 
 The first question that occurred to me was, 
 What should I do with the money } It was a sum 
 too small to invest, and too sacred to be frittered 
 away : in the end I bought a pig with it. This re- 
 
40 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 quires a note of explanation. In Devonshire there 
 are no pigs worthy of the name, only a kind of dog 
 with a pigskin on it — a circumstance which much 
 distressed my tutor, who was a judge of pigs, and 
 admired them exceedingly. Accordingly, when I 
 returned after my next vacation, I bought him a 
 genuine specimen of the animal from Berkshire. 
 Though country born and country bred, I was 
 always extremely ignorant of country matters ; a 
 fine landscape delighted me, yet I scarcely knew an 
 ash from an elm ; and though I liked animals, I 
 did so as a child likes them, without knowledge of 
 their habits. To this day one of my objections to 
 visiting at country houses is that so many of their 
 owners compel one to feel an interest in their horses 
 and cattle. 'Perhaps you would like to see the 
 stables,' &c. All that I have always hated, and of 
 course I knew nothing about pigs. 
 
 The animal in question was chosen for me by 
 an expert, and he (the animal) accompanied me, 
 in a large hamper, by train to Devonshire. It was 
 a very hot day in August, and it struck me, as I 
 got out at Bristol for some liquid refreshment, that 
 the poor pig must be thirsty too. I am now aware 
 that it was an error in judgment, but it arose from 
 
HOW I SPENT IT. 41 
 
 a natural tenderness of heart. We had ten minutes 
 to wait, but it was with some difficulty that I ob- 
 tained the services of a porter for this (probably 
 unique) performance. The station was in a state 
 of great confusion ; two excursion trains had come 
 in, and there was a cattle market below stairs, he 
 told me. However, we got my hamper and took 
 it down in the lift to an unoccupied apartment ; 
 my four-footed friend never uttered a sound during 
 this process — he was either dazed with unwonted 
 travel, or preparing himself for some coming 
 struggle ; but I regarded him with the tenderest 
 sympathy, believing him to be half dead with heat 
 and drought. The porter procured a pan of water, 
 and then proceeded to open the hamper. What 
 took place next I cannot describe, for it happened 
 in a mere flash of time : there was a cry of panic, 
 rage, and fear — a squeal is no word for it — a 
 broken pan, a prostrate porter, and a mad pig 
 ^o?ie ! If the door had been closed, he would 
 without doubt have bitten us both, but fortunately 
 the man had left it open. The next moment the 
 creature was in the market — the ' open market,' as 
 it is called, but altogether out of viy reach. He 
 had joined a great band of pigs (though the owner 
 denied it), and identification was out of the question. 
 
42 SOxME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Such was the fate of the pecuniary proceeds of my 
 first article. 
 
 In other respects, however, it was more fortu- 
 nate ; it made some Httle stir in the periodical worlds 
 and even in one region which may be fairly said to 
 be remote from it. It came under the notice of the 
 Governor of the Woolwich Academy, who wrote to 
 Dickens upon the subject, with some acerbity. 
 When the faults of any educational establishment 
 are indicated, I have always noticed that he who 
 points them out is the subject of one of two kinds of 
 attack. I. If he has been there in person he ought 
 to be ashamed of himself for suggesting that it 
 falls short of perfection ; he is a bird that fouls its 
 own nest. 2. If by some slight inaccuracy of detail 
 he betrays that he has received his information at 
 second hand, then he knows nothing about it. 
 
 ' If your correspondent had been a cadet him- 
 self,' wrote the general, ' I should not have addressed 
 you, but it is clear to me that he is an outsider.' A 
 courteous reply informed him that the writer of the 
 article Jiad been a cadet, on which the governor — 
 evidently still in doubt — demanded his name. This 
 was a course which, unless he had reason to believe 
 he had been wilfully deceived, Charles Dickens was 
 the last man to adopt, with respect to any con- 
 
FIRST CONNECTION WITH DICKENS. 43 
 
 tributor, without permission, and he wrote to me 
 to ask it It was the first of many letters that I 
 have received from that kind and gracious hand, 
 but none have given me so exquisite a pleasure. I 
 was fortunately able to reply to his communication 
 in a manner that not only satisfied himself, but the 
 irascible general ; and thus began an acquaintance 
 which presently ripened into friendship, none the 
 less sincere though the obligations in connection 
 with it were, from first to last, all on one side. 
 
44 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COLLEGE LIFE — W. G. CLARK — DR. WHEWELL 
 
 DE QUINCEY — GEORGE BRIMLEY. 
 
 It is generally understood — I suppose from their 
 each forming a part of our educational career — 
 that the difference between school life and college 
 life is (literally) one only of degree. This is by no 
 means the case ; it is greater even than the dis- 
 similarity so much insisted upon between life at 
 college and that in the world beyond it. The 
 undergraduate, though he may be far indeed from 
 having reached years of discretion, is his own 
 master, and has his time almost wholly — save the 
 necessity of keeping certain lectures and chapels — 
 at his own disposal. Even the chapels, I believe, 
 may now be omitted if the young gentleman is 
 ' advanced ' enough in his ideas to entertain a con- 
 scientious scepticism ; but even in my time we were 
 free enough, and the relief from the discipline and 
 the restraints of school was to me like a manu- 
 mission from slavery. One's whole surroundings 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE. 45 
 
 wear quite another aspect, and even the same 
 young men whom one has known as boys often 
 present quite a different nature, which is, in fact, 
 their true one. This is not so much the case, in- 
 deed, with ' reading men,' who, keeping the same 
 end in view which they had at first, preserve to a 
 great extent the same characteristics ; but for the 
 rest of us, though for the first term the old associa- 
 tions may Hnger and exercise some influence, we 
 soon drift away from the loose bond which bound 
 us to our school companions, and, keeping a few of 
 them for future intimacy, choose our friends from 
 the university world for ourselves by a natural 
 selection derived from common pursuits and plea- 
 sures. I am afraid that pleasure had a good deal 
 to do with my selection, and I don't regret it, for 
 some of those friends are as dear to me as ever. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that all pleasure is 
 necessarily selfish, or that the intimacies arising 
 from it vanish like * friendships made in wine.' 
 
 At this time also, thanks to my literary procli- 
 vities, I made acquaintance with persons of high 
 university standing in my college (Trinity) who 
 would otherwise have been out of the reach of an 
 undergraduate who cultivated neither the classics 
 nor the mathematics. My performances in the 
 
46 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 lecture-room or in the examinations would cer- 
 tainly not have recommended me to their notice — 
 the road of academical distinction which usually 
 leads to the favour of the dons was closed against 
 j;ne — but the publication of a little volume of 
 poems (' Stories from Boccaccio ') introduced me 
 to such of them as in my eyes were most worth 
 knowing, as it were, by a short cut. 
 
 These gentlemen, of course, were not merely 
 scholars, but men of wide human sympathies, to 
 whom (to put an old joke into a new bottle) the 
 particle de was not so absorbing as to shut out all 
 interest in the particle men. Among them I espe- 
 cially mention W. G. Clark, one of the most 
 accomplished and deservedly popular of men. As 
 Tutor of Trinity, and afterwards as Public Orator, 
 he had a wide university reputation ; as the au- 
 thor of ' Gazpacho ' and editor of the Cambridge 
 Shakespeare, he was known to the world without ; 
 but only those who had the privilege of his friend- 
 ship could understand that magic of manner and 
 charm of conversation which caused the late Lord 
 Clarendon to waive his own acknowledged claim 
 to be * the best of all good company ' in his favour. 
 ' I think W. G. Clark,' he said, ' the most agreeable 
 fellow— and he did not mean fellow of a college 
 
JV. G. CLARK. 47 
 
 only — I have ever met.' Clark was a conversa- 
 tionalist of the highest order, and the rarest. Wits 
 are still to be met with now and then ; good racon- 
 teurs are not uncommon — some of whom even 
 bring in their anecdotes in a natural manner, and 
 not by the head and shoulders — but as a rule they 
 are too much given to monologue. 
 
 Lever was a man of this kind — bright, genial, 
 cheery, and full of good stones ; he pleased one like 
 an embodiment of his own creations, but he did not 
 — in my judgment at least — understand conversa- 
 tion. I know men, also, who may be said to be too 
 good talkers. Their words are so well chosen, and 
 their periods so rounded, that to listen to them is 
 like listening to somebody reading aloud ; they hold 
 you with their mellifluous utterances so long that 
 before they reach the end of their league-long sen- 
 tence (the finale of which one can nevertheless 
 clearly foresee) you have forgotten what you wished 
 to reply to it. Clark had none of these faults ; he 
 had not only the means of pleasing, far beyond 
 what are possessed by most good talkers, but what 
 is often wanting in them, the desire to please. Nor 
 do I remember, among the many bright and pun- 
 gent sayings that fell from his lips, a single one 
 that had a sting in its tail. 
 
48 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 A characteristic retort of his just occurs to me^ 
 which, though of a personal nature, can assuredly 
 wound nobody by repetition. One of the Trinity 
 dons, though known to the world of learning as 
 the greatest of living Latin scholars, was, from his 
 gentleness and good nature, disrespectfully dubbed 
 by his intimates and associates ' the Ox.' One 
 night, after dining at the Master's ' Lodge,' he 
 happened to drop into Clark's room, and began to 
 speak of the occurrences of the evening. There 
 had been some discussion, he said, about Plato, and 
 it was clear to him, from the Master's observ^ations^ 
 that he had been indebted to certain ideas upon 
 the subject to Mr. Llewellyn Davies' recent trans- 
 lation of that author. * Ah,' said Clark, with that 
 quiet smile which always fell short of the merits of 
 \ the sally it heralded, * the Ox knoweth his Master's 
 Crib.' 
 
 Fortune has thrown me among a good many 
 bright talkers during my life, but I don't think I 
 ever heard a wittier thing, even from W. G. Clark 
 himself. He was the Amphitryon of Trinity, and 
 at his table I first learnt what that which Dr. 
 Johnson used to call * good talk ' was like. 
 
 To the Master (Whewell) I was also personally 
 introduced through the medium of my turn for 
 
AN EPIGRAM. 49 
 
 verse-making; the incident, however, was not alto- 
 gether to my credit, and reminds one of the ill- 
 considered boast of the gentleman to w^hom the 
 king had spoken, but, as it turned out, in no very 
 complimentary way. At college, of course, are 
 retained 
 
 All usages thoroughly worn out, 
 The souls of them fumed forth, the heart of them torn 
 out, 
 
 and, among others, that of commemorating the Re- 
 storation of his Most Christian Majesty Charles 11. 
 Finding on the hall ' screens ' one 29th of May an 
 account of the celebration far the day in Latin, I 
 ventured to write with my pencil some extempora- 
 neous lines on the subject immediately after the 
 word gratia : 
 
 For the sake of him who sold 
 
 Dunkirk to the French, 
 And gave away the gold 
 
 To a naughty little wench. 
 
 While I was still contemplating (and doubtless 
 with some youthful vanity) this inspiration of my 
 muse, the screen became darkened by an enormous 
 shadow, and to my extreme horror I perceived the 
 Master reading over my shoulder this revolutionary 
 
 E 
 
50 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 effusion. His grim face never relaxed, though I 
 had afterwards reason to beheve he was tickled. 
 * That screen, young gentleman,' he observed in 
 awful tones, * is not intended for the publication of 
 your political sentiments.' He at once gave orders 
 for the obnoxious epigram to be removed, and for 
 my part I was thankful that they were not for my 
 immediate execution. 
 
 The great Doctor was not, in undergraduate 
 eyes— or, at all events, in the eyes of those like 
 myself who were about ' only not to disgrace them- 
 selves by taking an ordinary degree' — an agree- 
 able person. His manners were rough, and his 
 temper, when he troubled himself to keep it at all, 
 of the shortest.^ I remember his looking out of a 
 window of ' the Lodge ' to address the head of the 
 police on some occasion when the great square 
 was en fete for some Royal visit, and noting how 
 very short it was. The inspector was at some 
 distance off, and the fall of the fountain drowned 
 the Master's voice, so that he did not hear it. 
 
 'Mr. Inspector Tanner!' This was delivered 
 
 » It is fair to state that my view of Dr. Whewell's character 
 was merely an undergraduate one. Friends of my own time, who 
 had entertained the same view, took a very different and much 
 more favourable one of him on later acquaintance. I am assured 
 by them that he had a large and generous disposition, and that the 
 rough husk contained a tender kernel. 
 
A SNORT TEMPER. 51 
 
 very courteously, just as Mr. Chucks the Boatswain 
 used to begin all /12s allocutions. 
 
 ' Inspector Tanner ! ' Here the prefix was sig- 
 nificantly omitted, and the voice grew perceptibly 
 harsher ; still no answer. 
 
 ' Tanner ! ' The faintest trace of civility was 
 now dropped ; Tanner might have been the name 
 of a bull pup who would not come to heel. 
 
 ' Von there ! ' was the final appeal delivered in 
 the tone of a screech-owl. Every note of the 
 brief gamut had been run through in about ten 
 seconds. 
 
 Whewell had quite a sublime manner, supple- 
 mented by a Northern burr of expressing contempt, 
 but it was often misapplied. His criticism upon 
 Tennyson's ' Northern Farmer ' was an example 
 of it. 
 
 ' It seems to me that the poet has wasted a 
 great deal of dialectic ingenuity in describing a 
 very wiithless pussonage! 
 
 Most people in his eyes were wiitJiless who were 
 not acquainted with the Inductive Sciences. His 
 presence was majestic, he made an admirable 
 figure-head for the collegiate ship ; but, though I 
 speak of course as a cabin boy, I never heard of 
 his troubling himself about the crew. 
 
\ 
 
 52 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 His sayings, however, were ' extremely quoted.* 
 I remember one (it was, at least, always attributed 
 to him) which struck me as admirable; I have 
 never heard it since, and it may be forgotten, 
 which it does not deserve to be. He was at that 
 time in controversy with Sir David Brewster about 
 the plurality of worlds, and took, as is well known, 
 the view that there was but one world, as was very 
 natural, considering the prominent place he occu- 
 pied in it 
 
 Some one slyly pointed out to him the passage 
 in the Vulgate, Nonne erant decern vuindi? To 
 which he instantly replied, * Very true, but look at 
 the next question, Uhi S7int novein ? ' ^ 
 
 My acquaintance with Thomas Chenery, the 
 late editor of the ' Times,' with whom I became 
 afterwards long and intimately connected, began at 
 Cambridge. We belonged to the same Shakespeare 
 club and many times heard the chimes at midnight 
 (from a good many churches) together. The same 
 tenderness and consideration for others distin- 
 p;uished him then which were his attributes in later 
 life, and endeared him to all with whom he was 
 
 ' For the benefit of the ' country gentleman ' and the ladies 
 whose shortcomings upon such matters I sympathise with and share, 
 it n>ay be well to state that the word 'mundus' stands for both 'the 
 world ' and * cleansed.' 
 
THOMAS CHENERY. 53 
 
 brought into contact. A man even then of some 
 reticence and reserve of manner, unusual in youth, 
 but which once broken through revealed one of the 
 kindest of human hearts. I am glad here to ac- 
 knowledge, what he himself would have been slow 
 to admit (for he never remembered his own kind- 
 nesses), that I am under great and lasting obliga- 
 tions to him. 
 
 Life at Cambridge in my time was admirably 
 described both by pen and pencil ; author and 
 artist were, however, rather my seniors, and to my 
 own loss I did not become acquainted with them till 
 after I left college. The author was J. Delaware 
 Lewis, whose ' Sketches of Cantabs ' is to my mind 
 the liveliest little book ever written by an under- 
 graduate ; its keenness of observation greatly im- 
 pressed Dickens, who told me that he had applied 
 to him in consequence to write for ' Household 
 Words,' and added that it was the only case in 
 which he had ever done so. The artist was John 
 Roget, whose ' Language of Mathematics ' and 
 ' Cambridge Sketch-book ' were the delight of my 
 Cambridge contemporaries. 
 
 Undergraduates who feel some wish to dis- 
 tinguish themselves, but to whom the studies of 
 the University are not attractive, generally turn 
 
54 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 their attention to oratory, for the exhibition of 
 which the debates at the ' Union ' give great oppor- 
 tunity, and if I came under any particular heading 
 in Mr. Lewis's classification of his fellow-students, 
 it was that of ' the Unionic Cantab.' 
 
 The debates were almost always upon political 
 subjects, and I remember having had the hardihood 
 on one occasion to place upon the notice board a 
 proposition for the sweeping away of the heredi- 
 tary aristocracy of our native land, which created 
 no little sensation ; there was an immense audience, 
 but those who came to laugh remained, I fear, to 
 carry out their intention, since the motion had but 
 eight supporters. Last year, I note that the same 
 proposition gained one hundred votes, which shows 
 that, though opinion at college moves like the 
 tortoise, it does move ; at school, its motion, if it 
 moves at all, is that of a glacier — imperceptible. 
 
 Charming as is undergraduate life at college, 
 with its youth, and health, and freedom from cark- 
 ing cares, it is outdone by the joys of a reading 
 party in the long vacation — especially when }'ou 
 yourself have no intention of reading. I joined 
 such a party in my second year, at Inverary, not 
 without invitation from the authorities (its two 
 * coaches ') of course, but very little I fear to its 
 
A DISTURBING ELEMENT. 55 
 
 advantage. When I had done with my own 
 Hght • studies, which was comparatively early in 
 the day, I became what the mathematical coach 
 termed ' a disturbing dement' I was like the boy 
 in the fable who, having a holiday on his hands, 
 requested the diligent animals to play with him ; 
 but we differed in this respect — in my case they 
 consented. ' I lost eight places in the tripos through 
 that fellow,' one of them was once heard to 
 murmur, in subsequent deprecation of poor me. 
 The idea of the tripos at Inverary indeed seemed 
 preposterous ; it was such ' a far cry ' from Loch 
 Awe. It should now be a comfort to him to reflect 
 that his friendship doubled forme the charms of that 
 delightful spot, and assisted the growth of my ideas. 
 For twenty years to come it was my custom 
 to visit, every summer, some picturesque locality, 
 which I have always found to give freshness to my 
 pen, but nothing ever surpassed that time at 
 Inverary. 
 
 Dhuloch, Queen of inland waters, 
 
 Virgin yet so near allied ; 
 Morn and eve with plaint and tremor 
 Sought for Ocean's bride ; 
 
 ' With Englishmen all literature in their own language is called 
 
 * light.' Shakespeare is light ; yEschylus, Euripides, and even Aris- 
 
 ophanes, are deemed not heavy of course (Heavens !), but serious. 
 
56 SOJ/E LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Never more I woo thine echoes, 
 Never let the oar blades glance, 
 
 Lightly as the wings of heron, 
 Not to break thy trance. 
 
 Those days arc gone, those places I shall never 
 revisit, but they still abide with me. 
 
 My heart leaps back to rock and fell, 
 The bridge, the quai, the streets uprise 
 To glass themselves in tearful eyes, 
 And all the haunts we loved so well. 
 
 In the ensuing summer, after the publication of 
 
 another volume of poems, I visited Edinburgh and 
 
 called upon De Ouincey, to whom I had a letter 
 
 of introduction from Miss Mitford. He was at 
 
 that time residing at Lasswade, a few miles from 
 
 the town, and I went thither by coach. He lived a 
 
 secluded life, and even at that date had become 
 
 to the world a name, rather than a real personage ; 
 
 but it was a great name. Considerable alarm 
 
 agitated my youthful heart as I drew near the 
 
 house : I felt like Burns on the occasion when he 
 
 was first about ' to dinner wi' a Lord ;' it was a great 
 
 honour, but something rather to be talked about 
 
 afterwards than to be enjoyed in itself. There 
 
 were passages in Dc Ouincey's writings which 
 
DE QUINCE Y. 57 
 
 showed that the English opium-eater was not 
 always in a dreamy state, but could be severe and 
 satirical. My apprehensions, however, proved to 
 be utterly groundless, for a more gracious and 
 genial personage I never met. Picture to yourself 
 a very diminutive man, carelessly — very carelessly 
 — dressed ; a face lined, careworn, and so expres- 
 sionless that it reminded one of ' that chill change- 
 less brow, where cold Obstruction's apathy appals 
 the gazing mourner's heart ' — a face like death in 
 life. The instant he began to speak, however, it 
 lit up as though by electric light ; this came from 
 his marvellous eyes, brighter and more intelligent 
 (though by fits) than I have ever seen in any other 
 mortal. They seemed to me to glow with eloquence. 
 He spoke of my introducer, of Cambridge, of the 
 Lake Country, and of English poets. Each theme 
 was interesting to me, but made infinitely more so 
 by some apt personal reminiscence. As for the 
 last-named subject, it was like talking of the 
 Olympian gods to one not only cradled in their 
 creed, but who had mingled with them, himself 
 half an immortal. 
 
 The announcement of luncheon was perhaps 
 for the first time in my young life unwelcome to me. 
 Miss De Quincey did the honours with gracious 
 
58 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 hospitality, pleased, I think, to find that her father 
 had so rapt a listener. I was asked what wine I 
 would take, and not caring which it was, I was about 
 to pour myself out a glass from the decanter that 
 stood next to me. 'You must not take that,' 
 whispered my hostess, * it is not port wine, as you 
 think.' It was in fact laudanum, to which De 
 Quincey presently helped himself with the greatest 
 sa7ig froid. I regarded him aghast, with much the 
 same feelings as those with which he himself had 
 watched the Malay at Grasmere eat the cake of 
 opium, and with the same harmless result. The 
 liquor seemed to stimulate rather than dull his 
 eloquence. As I took my leave, after a most enjoy- 
 able interview, to meet the coach, I asked him 
 whether he ever came by it into Edinburgh. 
 
 ' What ! ' he answered, in a tone of extreme 
 surprise ; ' by coach } Certainly not.' 
 
 I was not aware of his peculiarities : but the asso- 
 ciation of commonplace people and their pointless 
 observations were in fact intolerable to him. They 
 did not bore him in the ordinary sense, but seemed, 
 as it were, to outrage his mind. To me, to whom the 
 study of human nature in any form had become 
 even then attractive, this was unintelligible, and I 
 suppose I showed it in my face, for he proceeded 
 
ONLY AN OBSERVATION. 59 
 
 to explain matters. ' Some years ago,' he said, * I 
 was standing on the pier at Tarbet, on Loch Lomond, 
 waiting for the steamer. A stout old lady joined 
 me ; I felt that she would presently address me ;, 
 and she did. Pointing to the smoke of the steamer 
 which was making itself seen above the next head- 
 land, "There she comes," she said. " La, sir ! if 
 you and I had seen that fifty years ago, how won- 
 derful we should have thought it ! " Now the same 
 sort of thing,' added my host with a shiver, ' might 
 happen to me any day, and that is why I always 
 avoid a public conveyance.' 
 
 My interview with De Quincey I was not likely 
 to forget, but I never flattered myself that he would 
 have any remembrance of his youthful visitor. A 
 few years afterwards, however, I received from him 
 an entire edition of his works, with a most gracious 
 allusion (in the ' Autobiographical Sketches ' ) to my 
 poems. ' The Story of the Student of St. Bees,' 
 he says, ' has been made the subject of a separate 
 poem by my friend Mr. James Payn of Trinity 
 College. The volume contains thoughts of great 
 beauty, too likely to escape the vapid and irreflec- 
 tive reader.' This good-natured eulogy rang in my 
 ears for many a day, nor did my college friends 
 forget, at all events, one portion of it : with a 
 
•6o SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 monstrous misapplication of terms, they hencefor- 
 ward dubbed me ' the vapid and irreflective reader.' 
 I remember my mother showing, with pardonable 
 pride, this criticism of De Ouincey to a Dean of the 
 English Church, who was then at the head of the 
 High Church party at Oxford. ' Very flattering to 
 your son, madam, no doubt,' he said ; ' but who is 
 this Mr. De Ouincey ? ' 
 
 -^ Such ignorance was of course unpardonable in 
 my eyes, but it is quite amazing how ignorant so- 
 called scholars often are of matters connected with 
 the literature of their own country ; in many cases 
 they even fail to understand its beauties when they 
 are pointed out to them, while, on the other hand, 
 anything written in a dead language, however dull 
 and poor, they value at a fancy price. I was at 
 that time undergoing the infliction of ' The Seven 
 Against Thebes' in the Trinity lecture-room ; the 
 play was introduced to us under the most favourable 
 circumstances, for W. G. Clark was our lecturer, 
 who had the art of illustrating everything he had 
 to discourse upon in the happiest manner ; but 
 nothing could conceal its dulness. I questioned 
 him in private as to what he really thought of it. 
 * Do, pray, be honest with me,' I said ; ' the play is 
 by yEschylus, I know, but is it not rubbish t ' 
 
REJECTIONS. 6r 
 
 ' It is certainly not his masterpiece,' was all I 
 could get out of him, accompanied, however, with a 
 droop of the eye that spoke volumes. It was hardly 
 to be expected that an augur should have been more 
 frank save to another augur. 
 
 In addition to my two volumes of poems, I 
 wrote while at Cambridge for various periodicals ; 
 more often foi' them than in them. The article 
 I had written in ' Household Words ' no doubt 
 owed its acceptance to the peculiar information it 
 afforded rather than to its literary merits, and for 
 a long time I endured continuous rejection from 
 that quarter. It may be of some comfort to 
 youthful aspirants to hear that in one year I had 
 six-and-twenty articles rejected by various ' organs." 
 Improved and enlarged, they have all since seen 
 the light, but in those early years disappointment 
 was my constant mate ; it was never, however, 
 checkmate. I always felt that I had something to 
 tell worth hearing, if I only knew how to tell it, 
 and could get anybody (an editor) to listen to me. 
 I wrote in all sorts of ephemeral magazines ; one 
 of them, the ' Welcome Guest,' published a paper 
 of mine on college life, called * My Degree,' which 
 was placarded on all the walls of Cambridge. 
 That I thought was fame indeed, and I was pro^ 
 
'62 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 bably neither the first nor the last who has con- 
 fused reputation with advertisement. 
 
 The first notice I ever had in a newspaper was 
 a review of my ' Stories from Boccaccio,' by George 
 Brimley (at that time the Librarian of Trinity), 
 which appeared in the ' Spectator ; ' it was thirty 
 years ago, but I have not forgotten it, nor the 
 writer. It was Hke ten thousand tonics in a single 
 dose ; when I became a reviewer myself, and had 
 to deal with a young author who had genuine 
 merit in him, I never failed to recall the encourage- 
 ment I had myself received when I most needed 
 it. It is very easy to be scathing ; but if even a 
 morose-natured man could be aware of the torture 
 he inflicts — how with that easy wheel of his ' he 
 sets sharp racks at work to pinch and peel ' — he 
 would mingle a little of the milk of human kind- 
 ness with his gall : even if he be not conscious of 
 having ever possessed literary merit himself, he 
 has at least been young and can remember the 
 sensitiveness of youth. Let him spoil the rod on 
 "the author of well-seasoned skin (on vie, if he likes, 
 and welcome), but spare the child. 
 
 Reviewers, who are popularly supposed to be 
 the young author's enemies, are generally quite the 
 reverse. Their power to injure merit, where it 
 
REVIFAVERS. 63 
 
 really exists, has been absurdly exaggerated, but 
 not more than their will. The best of them are 
 often authors themselves, who (notwithstanding 
 the popular sneer) have not failed in authorship ; 
 and the same circumstances — the love of books 
 and the society of genial and cultured folk — which 
 mollify the mind of authors and prevent them 
 from becoming ferocious, have the same effect 
 upon themselves. For my part, with here and 
 there the exception of some young gentleman 
 trying his prentice hand in not very high-class 
 literary organs, I have always found reviewers at 
 least as quick to appreciate as to condemn. 
 
 There was a Mormon community in my time 
 at Cambridge which interested me. I sometimes 
 attended their chapel, and became acquainted with 
 one of their elders, whom I do not think was a 
 rogue. At all events, he did not take advantage 
 of his creed, for so far from having a plurality of 
 wives, he had not even one. He had not the 
 faintest spark of humour in his composition, but 
 one of his statements greatly tickled me. He 
 professed to have a great reverence for the Holy 
 Scriptures, to which Mr. Joe Smith's book was, in 
 his view, the supplement. I asked him how he 
 got over the text, ' If any man shall add unto 
 
64 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 these things,' &c. He reflected for a moment, and 
 then repHed, ' That refers to the Commentators.' 
 
 I have forgotten to say that after leaving 
 Woohvich I was intended for the Church, so that 
 my attendance at the Mormon Chapel arose from 
 no lapse from orthodoxy. It was only that I was 
 desirous of becoming acquainted with every phase 
 of human nature. I attended in due course the 
 theological lectures, but the recollection of them 
 has vanished ; the ' dust of creeds ' seems to have 
 confused me, to judge by an old examination 
 paper which I came across the other day, on the 
 back of which a few crude elements of faith are 
 written in verse. One of them runs : — 
 
 I believe in the fat Johnian whose face in the sun doth 
 
 shine, 
 And who, not looking in the least like a human being, I 
 
 conclude to be divine. 
 
 This could hardly have been a serious confes- 
 sion of faith. 
 
 I took my degree, however — a first-class ' Poll,'' 
 which my good folks at home believed to be an 
 honourable distinction. I learnt very quickly what 
 little was required'for this purpose, but it all passed 
 away like water from a duck's back. Greek was 
 
MV GREEK. 65 
 
 always ' Greek ' to mc, and its grammar I detested 
 with a hatred that I find it difficult to feel even 
 for my personal enemies ; there was the less 
 excuse for me, as I certainly knew little about it. 
 
 I remember dining with one of the examiners 
 after my work in the Senate House was over, who 
 was telling stories about the examinations of the 
 previous day. ' There is one young gentleman,' 
 he said, ' who, if he does not know more about 
 mathematics than classics, will most assuredly be 
 plucked. He has declined /xeVas- as if it were a 
 participle, fjLsyas, fxs^aaa, fis^av.' The table was in 
 a roar, and it was agreed on all hands that, 
 however he did the other papers, that dunce ought 
 to be plucked. It was a humiliating circumstance, 
 but I was compelled in honour to confess to that 
 examiner, in private, how the thing had occurred. 
 My next neighbour in the Senate House had been 
 in difficulties about that very word, and had applied 
 to me for assistance. ' My dear fellow,' I had 
 frankly replied, ' I know nothing about it ; I am 
 not going to touch jjLsyas, but if you ask me my 
 opinion about its declination, I should say it was 
 ^syas, fjLsyacra, fjisyav.^ I am glad to say this 
 explanation saved the second-hand offender. 
 
 Notwithstanding this stupendous ignorance, I 
 
 F 
 
66 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 suppose I had read more of one thing and another, 
 when I left college, than most men of the same age, 
 though apparently to little purpose. The nett 
 results of a very expensive education were almost 
 nil ; a ten-pound note would have represented their 
 value ; and yet for the object I had in view, and 
 which I afterwards pursued not without success, I 
 venture to think that I by no means threw my time 
 away. I had gained, for my years, a very sound 
 knowledge of human nature, and made acquaintance 
 with an immense mass of English literature of the 
 lighter kind. Languages, living or dead, I could 
 never acquire any more than music, for which I 
 have no ear. I spent many years over French and 
 German, but could never read, far less converse in, 
 either language with facility. This unfortunate cir- 
 cumstance has enabled me to speak of translations 
 with more familiarity and less contempt than is 
 usual. It is generally observed, by those who can 
 read foreign authors in the original, that ' everything 
 is lost in translation.' This assertion, while un- 
 doubtedly a slap in the face, as it is intended to be, 
 to the exclusively English reader, is not much of a 
 compliment to the foreign author. It can hardly 
 be denied that some works ' bear ' translation ; the 
 Bible, for example (though this is by no means 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 67 
 
 generally known), was not originally written in 
 English. There are but few of us who have read 
 ^ Don Quixote ' in the original, and yet it is much 
 admired. The fact is that some authors do lose 
 \ everything in translation ; but some do not, and in 
 some cases they retain a great deal. 
 
 Of ' Wallenstein ' it has been even said that the 
 translator has excelled the author, though, if he did 
 so, in my opinion he wasted his time. 
 
 The wits suffer the most (if one were to judge 
 of Greek Wit, for example, by the volume lately 
 published in English under that name, one would 
 say, ' These are quotations from Mr. Merryman of 
 the Circus '), and next to them the poets. Not ten 
 per cent, of their original merit is left to them. 
 But the ordinary prose writers, the historians, the 
 essayists, and even the novelists, are recognisable 
 enough in their new dress. Indeed, these last re- 
 tain some very respectable attractions which it is 
 mere affectation to deny them. Balzac, I admit, is 
 not translatable, or when translated is not readable ; 
 but Victor Hugo, even in foreign attire, is superior 
 to most novelists in their native garb ; and the 
 same may be said (at all events of his masterpiece, 
 ' Monte Cristo ') of Dumas. It is undoubtedly a 
 great deprivation to be near-sighted ; but it does 
 
 t 2 
 
68 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 not mend matters, and is also untrue, to say of 
 such a person, ' he is stone blind.' 
 
 Soon after I took my degree I married. It was 
 delicately said by a friend that, but for my intention 
 so to do, I should have read for honours and dis- 
 tinguished myself ; for what was the use of gaining 
 a fellowship (and taking it away from some poor 
 fellow who really wanted it) to lose it the next year 
 or so by matrimony } Success, however (when I 
 think of that ixz^as business), seems hardly to have 
 been a certainty, and it may be even thought by 
 some people that I did not sacrifice much acade- 
 mical distinction on the altar. 
 
 I am only setting down some reminiscences 
 more or less in connection with literature, so I say 
 nothing about my marriage. If I were writing 
 an autobiography, I should have to say a great 
 deal about it, or else leave out the source and 
 cause of the happiness of my life. I may remark, 
 however, to those who propose to themselves a 
 literary life, and can find a wife one-tenth as good 
 as has fallen to my lot, that they had better make 
 sure of her early ; for of a truth they will need a 
 comforter. There is no calling, it is true, so bright 
 and pleasant, so full of genial friendship, as well as 
 of far-off but touching sympathies, so radiant with 
 
THE LITERARY CALLING. 69 
 
 the glories of success ; but there is also no pursuit so 
 doubtful, so full of risks, so subject to despondency 
 and disappointments, so open to despair itself. It 
 will not be denied that I have confessed to igno- 
 rance enough, but I know a few things well, and 
 this is one of them. Oh ! my young friend with a 
 ' turn for literature,' think twice and thrice before 
 committing yourself to it ; or you may bitterly re- 
 gret to find yourself where that 'turn ' may take you. 
 Let every man be fully satisfied in his own mind, 
 and have a reason for the faith that is in him. The 
 calling (though by no means a phenomenal one, as 
 it is the custom to assert) is an exceptional one, and 
 even at the best you will have trials and troubles of 
 which you dream not, and to which no other calling 
 is exposed. I say again, verily you will need a 
 comforter, and the best of comforters is she who 
 sits by the hearth at home. Nevertheless, I need 
 scarcely add, however confident you may be of win- 
 ning your way to fame and fortune, be not so selfish 
 as to link your fate with hers upon the prospects of 
 an untried pen. For, if you do so, even though you 
 should have genius, it will be the genius that is 
 allied to madness. 
 
 One indirect but important advantage to a man 
 of letters in early marriage is that, if a happy one, 
 
70 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 it rescues him from Bohemianism. It is a charming^ 
 ' ism,' and he who has not a strain of it in his 
 character is to be pitied ; but it is but an ' ism ' — 
 a branch of dissent, and not the Catholic and Uni- 
 versal Church of Humanity. 
 
 If one must needs belong to a sect, it is — for 
 him whose business it is to depict human nature — 
 as good as any, and better than most ; but it as 
 little represents the world as does the most conven- 
 tional of ' genteel circles.' The Bohemian writer^ 
 who is called by the more charitable of square-toed 
 folks ' peculiar,' does not hold the mirror up to 
 nature much more than one of the genuine ' Pecu- 
 liar People ' might do, if he should essay to repre- 
 sent it. The Bohemian female writer in particular 
 — whose object seems to be to inform us that she 
 has never met a respectable specimen of her own 
 sex in her life — reflects for us the most distorted 
 images. 
 
 My first introduction, by-the-by, to the Bohe- 
 mians was very humorous ; and as the race — 
 except on paper — is fast dying out, it may be 
 thought worth while to mention it. An eminent 
 member of the guild asked me to dine with him at 
 one of the old Legal ' Inns.' I was very young, 
 and greatly flattered ; I thought I was about to 
 
TOO SPLENDID. 71 
 
 meet the most famous persons in the three king- 
 doms ; and though they were all of them of the 
 male sex, I felt it was incumbent on me to put on 
 evening attire. My host received me very cor- 
 dially, but with a certain cock of his eye which I 
 did not like. He was in his dressing-gown and 
 slippers. My fellow-guests, eight in number, were 
 all in shooting-jackets. This made me a little un- 
 comfortable ; but they were very agreeable, clever 
 fellows, and we all sat down to dinner in the 
 highest spirits ; no, not all, there had been ten, 
 there were now nine of us. 
 
 * What the deuce has become of A. } ' inquired 
 our host. 
 
 ' Oh, he has taken himself off,' explained one of 
 the party, looking hard at my shirt-studs ; ' he said 
 he would be hanged if he sat down to dinner with 
 a man who dressed in evening clothes.' 
 
 My position was exactly the reverse of that of 
 the guest who came to the marriage feast without 
 an appropriate garment : I was too magnificent 
 for the occasion ; but it was the very last time 
 anyone has had to complain of me in that respect. 
 
 All these things are changed ; the Bohemians 
 of to-day now wear purple and fine linen on all 
 occasions without the slightest provocation, and 
 
72 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 when even the Rabelais Club dine together, it is, 
 I understand, de rigiieur to wear evening clothes, 
 though I doubt whether ' the Master ' would have 
 quite approved of it. 
 
 My literary gains for the first year of my 
 married life were exactly thirty-two pounds fifteen 
 shillings ; upon which, if I had had to live, it would 
 have been cultivating literature upon oatmeal, in- 
 deed, and very little of it ; but the next year my 
 income was quadrupled, and from that time in- 
 creased, not indeed by arithmetical progression, 
 but certainly in a very unlooked-for and satisfac- 
 tory proportion. It was at first mainly drawn from 
 
 * Household Words ' and ' Chambers's Journal,' 
 from the conductors of which I began to receive 
 great encouragement. In the former periodical I 
 had often two contributions in one weekly number, 
 and I remember one occasion when there were 
 even three. For the latter I wrote almost every 
 week. Its editor was at that time Leitch Ritchie, 
 a man of somewhat severe culture and fastidious 
 taste, but of a most kindly nature. He welcomed 
 fun in any shape, even at his own expense ; it is 
 well known that Leitch the painter was called 
 
 * Leitch with the itch,' to distinguish him from 
 Leech the Punch artist ; and one person (but not a 
 
LEITCH RITCHIE. y^, 
 
 Scotch person) was so rude as to say of Leitch 
 Ritchie that ' he had the national complaint twice 
 in his name.' Even this he bore very good- 
 humouredly. He was in ill health, and endured 
 such suffering as might well have excused some 
 impatience with his contributors, but he took the 
 greatest pains with them. Even the rejected ones 
 (and this is perhaps the greatest triumph to which 
 courtesy can attain) had a good word for him ; 
 while those who had merit never failed to find it 
 recognised. He made many a young heart to 
 rejoice in his time, but never more so than when 
 he wrote to ask me to come up to Edinburgh and 
 share his literary duties as editor of ' Chambers's 
 Journal.' ' I have long felt the need of help,' he 
 / said ; ' will you come and be my ^^-editor ? ' I 
 suppose five men out of six would have written 
 S7ib-Qdiior ; but the natural graciousness of his dis- 
 position caused him to italicise the co. 
 
74 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MISS MITFORD. 
 
 I MUST now make a digression, or rather an 
 interpolation, to introduce two eminent literary 
 personages, to whom I owe a great deal, but the 
 world much more. My introduction to them 
 took place before I went to college, but mention 
 of them has necessarily been postponed, so as 
 not to interfere with the natural sequence of 
 matters. 
 
 A desk lies before me, of plain make, but 
 mighty size : one that used to hold all sorts of 
 things, from caterpillars (which never spun a thread) 
 to * cribs,' when I was a boy at school ; but which, 
 for more than a quarter of a century, has held, 
 ' those dead leaves which keep their green, the 
 noble letters of the dead.' Their writers were no 
 ordinary men and women ; they have all left name 
 and fame behind them ; but that which smells 
 sweeter to me and blossoms in their dust, is their 
 unfailing kindness. It is not because they are dead 
 
KINDNESS OF MEN OF LETTERS. 75 
 
 and gone that I feel so sure of this. With me 
 Death has never afforded, as it does with so many 
 folks, a cheap asylum for unpleasant people: I 
 think none the better of them for having gone, 
 though I am sincerely glad they went, for I am 
 sure they would not have gone could they have 
 helped it. But when I think of these my Mentors 
 (which most of them were), my heart brims full of 
 srracious memories. I contrast their behaviour to 
 
 o 
 
 the Young and Struggling with the harshness of 
 the Lawyer, the hardness o( the Man of Business, 
 / the contempt of the Man of the World, and am 
 proud to belong to their calling. 
 
 There are intelligent persons who make a living 
 out of their fellow-creatures by pretending to read 
 character in handwriting. It would be rather hard 
 upon their art to send them half a dozen letters out 
 of this desk. What would they make, I wonder, 
 for example, out of this delicate microscopic 
 writing, looking as if it were done with a stylus, 
 and without blot or flaw .^ The paper is all odds 
 and ends, and not a scrap of it but is covered and 
 crossed. The very flaps of the envelopes, and 
 even the outsides of them, have their message. 
 The reason of this is, that the writer, a lady, had 
 lived in a time when postage was very dear ; like 
 
76 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Southey, she used to boast that she could send 
 more for her money by post than any one else ; 
 and when the necessity no longer existed, the 
 custom remained. 
 
 How, at her age, her eyes could read what she 
 herself had written, used to puzzle me. She was 
 known to those of the last generation as having 
 written the most graphic and wholesome descrip- 
 tion of country life of her time ; she was known to 
 their fathers as a writer of historical plays which 
 were performed at the two great national theatres 
 with marked success — two of them, I believe, at 
 the same time. Conceive what a fuss would be 
 made nowadays about any woman in an obscure 
 country village whose dramas were being played 
 by the first actors of the day (Young and Macready 
 were her exponents) at Drury Lane and Covent 
 Garden ! Yet this was the case with Mary Russell 
 Mitford. 
 
 ' My " Rienzi," ' she says in a letter now before 
 me, ' ran a hundred nights in the best days of the 
 drama.' She used to tell a capital story anent this 
 play, illustrative of the ignorance of great lawyers 
 of matters outside their own profession. One of 
 her Majesty's judges was calling on her in her 
 village home, and congratulated her upon the per- 
 
TALFOURD. 77 
 
 formancc of her ' Rienzi,' which he had just been 
 to see. ' It's an admirable play,' he said. ' Has it 
 any foundation in fact ? ' ' Well, of course ; you 
 have surely read of Rienzi } It's all in Gibbon 
 yonder,' and she pointed to that author's works 
 upon her crowded bookshelves. ' Is it, indeed ? ' he 
 answered ; ' then I should like to read about him.' 
 And he took away \.\\g first voliune. 
 
 To hear her narrate that story was as good as 
 any play. I seem to see the dear little old lady 
 now, looking like a venerable fairy, with bright 
 sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a laugh 
 that carried you away with it. I never saw a 
 woman with such an enjoyment of — I was about to 
 say a joke, but the word is too coarse for her — of a 
 pleasantry. She was the warmest of friends, and 
 with all her love of fun never alluded to their 
 weaknesses. For Talfourd (who, we may be sure, 
 did know about * Rienzi ') she had a very affec- 
 tionate regard. I once told her what was at that 
 time a new story about his ' Ion ; a Tragedy.' He 
 was very vain of that drama, and never missed an 
 opportunity of seeing it acted, whether in town or 
 country. Some wit, who had this narrated to him, 
 observed, ' But surely he does not go to see " Ion '* 
 now that he has become a judge ? ' 
 
78 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 How she laughed, and then how grave she 
 looked ! * You would not have told me that story, 
 I am sure, my dear,' she said, laying her hand upon 
 my arm reprovingly, ' if you had known that Tal- 
 fourd is a great friend of mine.' 
 
 She had a right to rebuke me, for there was 
 half a century or so between our ages. I had been 
 introduced to her when a very young man, and had 
 sought her advice about literary matters, with the 
 intention, as usual, of taking my own way at all 
 events. I well remember our first interview. I 
 expected to find the authoress of ' Our Village * 
 in a most picturesque residence, overgrown with 
 honeysuckle and roses, and set in an old-fashioned 
 garden. Her little cottage at Swallowfield, near 
 Reading, did not answer this picture at all. It was 
 a cottage, but not a pretty one, placed where three 
 roads met, with only a piece of green before it. 
 But if the dwelling disappointed me, the owner did 
 not. I was ushered up-stairs (for at that time, 
 crippled by rheumatism, she was unable to leave 
 her room) into a small apartment, lined with books 
 from floor to ceiling, and fragrant with flowers ; its 
 tenant rose from her armchair with difficulty, but 
 with a sunny smile and a charming manner bade 
 
M7SS MITFORD. 
 
 79 
 
 me welcome.^ My father had been an old friend 
 •of hers, and she spoke of my home and belongings 
 as only a woman can speak of such things. Then 
 we plunged in inedias res — into men and books. 
 
 She seemed to me to have known everybody 
 worth knowing, from the Duke of Wellington (her 
 near neighbour) to the last new verse-maker, whom 
 I had just superseded ; he had become the last but 
 one. She talked like an angel, but her views upon 
 poetry, as a calling in life, shocked me not a little. 
 I was in love, of course, and she shocked me even 
 more upon that subject. She said she preferred a 
 
 ' In the desk above mentioned there is a letter of Charles 
 Kingsley's which describes Miss Mitford very graphically as 
 follows : — ' I can never forget the little .figure rolled up in two 
 chairs in the little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up 
 to the ceiling, on to the floor— the little figure with clothes on, of 
 course, but of no recognised or recognisable pattern ; and some- 
 where out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming under a great 
 deep globular brow, two such eyes as I never, perhaps, saw in any 
 other English woman— though I believe she must have had French 
 blood in her veins, to breed such eyes, and such a tongue, for the 
 beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it was that) face ; 
 and the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live coals —perfectly 
 honest the while, both lips and eyes— these seemed to me to be 
 attributes of the highest French— or rather Gallic— not of the 
 highest English, woman. In any case, she was a triumph of mind 
 over matter ; of spirit over flesh, which gave the lie to all Material- 
 ism, and puts Professor Bain out of court — at least out of court with 
 those who use fair induction about the men and women whom they 
 meet and know.' 
 
So SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 marriage de convenance to a love match, because it 
 generally turned out better. ' This surprises you,' 
 she said smiling, ' but then I suppose I am the 
 least romantic person that ever wrote plays.' 
 
 She was much more proud of her plays (which 
 had even then been well-nigh forgotten) than of the 
 works by which she was so well known, and which 
 at that time brought people from the ends of the 
 earth to see her. I suppose she was one of the 
 earliest English authors who was 'interviewed' by 
 the Americans. She was far from democratic, but 
 always spoke of that nation with great respect. 
 What surprised me much more was her admiration 
 for Louis Napoleon, upon which point, as on many 
 others, we soon agreed to differ. She even approved 
 of the coup d'etat ; concerning which she writes to 
 me a little apologetically, * My enthusiasm is always 
 ready laid, you know, like a housemaid's fire : * 
 which was very true. 
 
 Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she 
 loved. If I had not known all about him (from 
 my own folk of another generation who had known 
 him well), 1 should have thought her father had 
 been a patriot and a martyr. She spoke of him as 
 if there had never been such a father — which in a 
 sense was true. He had spent his wife's fortune, 
 
AN IRREPARABLE LOSS. 8r 
 
 and then another which had fallen in to him, 
 and then the 10,000/. which ' little Mary ' herself 
 had got for him by hitting on the lucky number in 
 a lottery, and was rapidly getting through her own 
 modest earnings, in the same free-handed manner^ 
 when good fortune removed him ; but she always 
 deemed it an irreparable loss. ' I used to contrive 
 to keep our house in order,' she would say speaking 
 of her literary gains, ' and a little pony carriage, 
 and my dear dear father.' To my mind he seemed 
 like a Mr. Turveydrop, but he had really been a 
 most accomplished and agreeable person, though 
 with nothing sublime about him except his 
 selfishness. 
 
 She had the same exaggerated notions of the 
 virtues and talents of her friends (including myself), 
 nay, her sympathies extended even to their friends, 
 whom she did not know. Of course she had her 
 prejudices by way of complement ; and when she 
 spoke of those who did not please her, her tongue 
 played about their reputations like sheet lightning 
 — for there was much more flash than fork in it. 
 
 Literature in those days monopolised its dis- 
 ciples much more than it does now, when ' cultured ' 
 persons of all kinds favour the world with their 
 lucubrations. Miss Mitford lived and breathed and 
 
 G 
 
82 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 moved in an atmosphere of books ; and when she 
 was not writing books, she was writing about them.' 
 There is hardly any work of merit of that time — I 
 am speaking of thirty years ago — which she does not 
 discuss in these letters, and always with a vehe- 
 mence of feeling and expression as though it were a 
 thing of life. A bad book — I mean one with dis- 
 tinct faults of style or tone — made her as indignant 
 as a bad man. Her views in this respect were of 
 immense service to me. A young writer who has 
 high spirits (and mine were mountains high in 
 those days) is almost always flippant, and needs the 
 pruning knife. ' Be careful as to style,' she writes ; 
 * give as much character as you can, and as much 
 truth, that being the foundation of all merit in 
 literature and art.' 
 
 My earliest efforts in story-telling were of a 
 very morbid character ; an undisciplined imagi- 
 nation, with ill-health to help it, caused me to 
 dwell upon the eerie aspects of life. She warned 
 me against all such monopolising influences. ' Let 
 me tell you what Charles Kingsley told me the 
 first time we ever met. He said that he had flung 
 himself into a remote and bygone historical subject 
 
 ' * This is the twelfth letter I have written to-day,' she says on 
 one occasion, apologising to me for a shorter epistle than usual. 
 
LOVE OF THE COUNTRY. 83 
 
 ("Hypatia ") in order to escape from the too vivid 
 impressions of the social evils of England at the 
 present day. They pressed upon him, he said, 
 unceasingly and dangerously, and he felt he could 
 not get too soon out of their influence. Once 
 before he had been so carried away by the meta- 
 physics of the elder Coleridge (Derwent Coleridge 
 was his tutor), that he for some years read nothing 
 but science and natural history. So there is a fear.' 
 Her own mind was a most wholesome one. 
 She delighted in simple pleasures, kind natures, 
 and enthusiastic people ; her love for the country 
 approached idolatry. 
 
 ' So you do not write out of doors ? I do — but 
 in a very anti-pastoral manner, sitting in a great 
 chair at a table. I am writing so at this moment 
 B-t a corner of the house under a beautiful acacia 
 tree with as many snowy tassels as leaves. It is 
 waving its world of fragrance over my head, 
 mingled with the orange-like odours of a syringa- 
 bush ; and there is a jar of pinks and roses on the 
 table. I have a love of sweet smells that amounts 
 to a passion. My chief reason, however, just now 
 for being here, is that it is a means of enjoying the 
 fresh air without fatigue. I am still unable to ob- 
 tain it in any other way than this, and by being led 
 
84 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 in the pony- chair most ignominiously at a foot's 
 pace through the lanes.' 
 
 The smallest object in nature was not beneath 
 her notice, and any occurrence of the simplest sort 
 connected with natural beauty impressed itself on 
 her mind. ' A night or two ago my maid K. (that 
 initial, by which she is always called, stands for her 
 very Scriptural but most unmusical name of Keren- 
 happuch), while putting me to bed, burst into a 
 series of exclamations which it was impossible to 
 stop : her attention, however, was clearly fixed upon 
 the candlestick, and, following her eyes, I saw what 
 seemed a dusky caterpillar ; it moved, and then 
 appeared the bright reflection of a tiny spot of 
 greenish light, now increasing, now diminishing, 
 according to the position of the insect. It was a 
 glow-worm. Upon the table were two jars of 
 flowers, and one of wild woodbine from the lane 
 had only just been taken away. With one or other 
 of those flowers it doubtless came. But was it not 
 singular ? Extinguishing the candle, I sent the 
 candlestick down to the little court in front of the 
 house, where it was deposited upon the turf, and in 
 ten minutes my visitor had crawled out upon the 
 grass, where it will, I trust, live out its little life in 
 peace. K., who has lived with mc fifteen years 
 
KEREN-HAPPUCH. 85 
 
 (and whom you must learn to know and like), said, 
 knowing how fond I used to be of these stars of 
 the earth, that, '' now I could not go to them, they 
 came to me." ' 
 
 She was exceedingly attached to this domestic, 
 and had therefore, as usual, the highest admiration 
 for her. ' K. is a great curiosity ; by far the clever- 
 est woman in these parts, not in a literary way 
 [this was not to disappoint me, who was all for 
 literature], but in everything that is useful. She 
 could make a court dress for a duchess, or cook a 
 dinner for a Lord Mayor ; but her principal talent 
 is shown in managing everybody whom she comes 
 near, especially her husband and myself. She keeps 
 the money of both, and never allows either of us to 
 spend sixpence without her knowledge, and is quite 
 inflexible in case she happens to disapprove of the 
 intended expenditure. You should see the manner 
 in which she makes Sam reckon with her, and her 
 contempt for all women who do not manage their 
 husbands.' 
 
 This is surely a homely picture, very character- 
 istic, and appropriate to the authoress of ' Our 
 Village.' She detested everything affected and 
 artificial, of course, and what she would have said of 
 the ;:esthetic and classical writers of the present day 
 
86 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 who call our old acquaintances, in despite of custom, 
 by new-fangled names (such as Kikero for Cicero), 
 I tremble to think ! 
 
 I suppose in my brand-new University ' culture,* 
 I had found something amiss with the pronuncia- 
 tion of the names in one of her plays, for she writes : 
 ' The false quantity in " Foscari " is derived from 
 the Kembles : John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, Charles 
 Kemble (I don't know about Mrs. Fanny), all 
 Anglicised proper names as Shakespeare did before 
 them. Indeed it is the best way to avoid dis- 
 crepancies, and I have always found the most 
 accomplished persons doing it whenever they can, 
 and eschewing foreign pronunciation as they eschew 
 French phrases — one of those worst vulgarities that 
 smack of Theodore Hook and the silver-fork school. 
 Remember, too, that my play was written before 
 the publication of Lord Byron's.' 
 
 What an impression of the lapse of time does 
 that sentence give us ! Here is another. Speaking 
 of Haydon, whose Life by Tom Taylor had just 
 appeared, she says : ' When I and Wordsworth and 
 Keats, and many others, my betters, first knew him,, 
 and were writing, as if in concert, sonnets to him,' 
 &c. : it makes me feel a veteran, indeed, to remem- 
 ber that I once was intimate with a contemporary 
 
LOCAL ASSOCIATION. 87 
 
 of such writers. De Quincey, however, to whom 
 Miss Mitford was afterwards, as I have mentioned, 
 so good as to introduce me, though born in the 
 same year, was connected with a still earlier race 
 of literary giants. 
 
 Besides her general admiration for good books 
 of all sorts, Miss Mitford had an especial fondness 
 for those writers who had sung the beauties of the 
 neighbourhood in which she dwelt, or were other- 
 wise connected with it. I believe she loved Gray 
 the better because Stoke Pogis was the churchyard 
 he immortalised ; that Pope was dearer to her for 
 his lines on her beloved Windsor Forest ; that her 
 favourite, Burke, had a greater attraction for her 
 from his having chosen Beaconsfield for his place 
 of retirement ; and that she admired Milton, even 
 more than her fine taste inclined her to do, from 
 his having lived at Chalfont. 
 
 It was for this reason, perhaps, though he had 
 very real merits of his own, that Thomas Noel's 
 verses so delighted her. He was the only man of 
 letters whom at that time I knew, and all that I 
 could tell her about him was interesting to her. He 
 lived a very retired life in a secluded cottage at 
 Boyne Hill, near Maidenhead, where he cultivated 
 his garden and his muse. I believe he was related to 
 
88 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Lord Byron, a circumstance which, combined with 
 certain * peculiar views ' (as they were then called) 
 upon religious matters, caused him to be regarded 
 somewhat askance by his more commonplace neigh- 
 bours. There was a rumour — whether true or not, 
 I cannot say — that on the death of a favourite child 
 he preferred to bury it in his own grounds rather 
 than in the churchyard, which disturbed the minds 
 of the good folk in those parts not a little, and 
 caused me, until I came to know him well, to feel 
 a 'fearful joy' in his society. 
 
 He was a very dark, handsome man, of reserved 
 demeanour, and, so far, might have sat for one of 
 his relative's stagey heroes, but he was in reality of 
 a most gracious nature. I have letters from him, 
 written to me when quite a boy, of a very interest- 
 ing kind. He lived more out of the world than even 
 the little lady at Swallowfield, and quite as much 
 in books. These, however, were of a less modern 
 kind. I never knew a man so well acquainted 
 with the Elizabethan dramatists, or who could 
 quote from them so opportunely. From one of 
 them, perhaps, he drew his inspiration for the some- 
 what old-fashioned inscription on the spring in his 
 garden, but the lines have a freshness of their 
 own : — 
 
A GARDEN SPRING. 89 
 
 Toads, and newts, and snails, avaunt ! 
 
 Come not near, nor dwell, 
 Where the dapper Fairies haunt, 
 
 By this crystal well. 
 But upon the moss-tufts damp 
 
 In the summer night, 
 Let the glow-worm from her lamp 
 
 Sprinkle starry light : 
 And the butterfly by day 
 Here her painted wings display ; 
 And the humming bee be heard, 
 And the pretty lady-bird. 
 Clad in scarlet dropt with jet. 
 Here her tiny footsteps set ; 
 And the russet-suited wren, 
 Ever skipping out of ken. 
 And, in gayer plumage vested, 
 His wee brother, golden-crested, 
 Plying each his busy bill, 
 Hither come, and peck at will ; 
 And the redbreast on the brink 
 Of this basin, perch and drink. 
 Elf- folk such in favour hold : — 
 And if aught of human mould, 
 Wending hitherward its way, 
 
 Haply here awhile should linger. 
 Let it heed this rhymed lay. 
 
 Harmless keep both foot and finger 
 And propitious glances fling 
 On the smiling Fairy-Spring. 
 
90 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Thomas Noel's mind invested all the scenes 
 about him — and indeed they were fair enough to 
 evoke it — with its own poetry. In the ' Recollec- 
 tions of a Literary Life ' Miss Mitford has devoted 
 a chapter to him, but unfortunately these two friends 
 on paper never met. The one was too much of an 
 invalid, the other of a recluse, to surmount even 
 the few miles that lay between them. They were 
 both passionately attached to river scenery, and 
 Noel's ' Thames Voyage ' was one of her favourite 
 poems. His description of the swan and her family 
 used to strike her as very tender and graphic. 
 
 Lo ! a sailing swan, with a little fleet 
 
 Of cygnets by her side. 
 Pushing her snowy bosom sweet 
 
 Against the bubbling tide ! 
 
 And see — was ever a lovelier sight ? 
 
 One little bird afloat 
 On its mother's back, 'neath her wing so white I 
 
 A beauteous living boat. 
 
 The threatful male, as he sails ahead 
 Like a champion proud and brave, 
 
 Makes, with his rufiling plumes outspread, 
 Fierce jerks along the wave. 
 
RHYME CRAFT. 91 
 
 He tramples the stream, as we pass him by,— 
 
 In wrath from its surface springs, 
 And after our boat begins to fly 
 
 With loudly flapping wings. 
 
 Thomas Noel's lines on ' Clifden Spring' should 
 be known to every lover of the Thames ; but they 
 are not known. Poetry did not even bring him 
 fame, though it was its own exceeding great 
 reward. 
 
 Rhyme-craft, many-hued mosaic 
 Of the mind, which souls prosaic 
 Sneer at in their cold conceit. 
 Is it not a pastime sweet ? 
 Oh ! what twirling of the' brains ! 
 Painful pleasures ! pleasing pains ! 
 Oh ! what making, marring, mending ! 
 Patching, paring and perpending ! 
 Oh ! what hope, and fear, and doubt, 
 Putting in, and pulling out. 
 Till a word is found to fit ! 
 Then what joy is like to it ? 
 
 Brother bards, and bardlings all. 
 Ye, who up Parnassus crawl, 
 Ye who, at a rate surprising, 
 " Set your brains teetotum-ising — 
 Boldly I appeal to you ; 
 Say, is not my picture true ? 
 
92 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 Ye, whom mammon-slaves deem daft, 
 Have I slandered sweet rhyme-craft ? 
 
 What Thomas Noel was known, far and wide, 
 for, was his ' Pauper's Drive,' of which the second 
 verse often rings in my memory. 
 
 Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas ! there are none \— 
 He has left not a gap in the world now he's gone ; 
 Not a tear in the eye of child, w^oman, or man : — 
 To the grave with his carcase as fast as you can. 
 
 ' Rattle his bones over the stones ; 
 
 He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns ! ' 
 
 This poem, until Miss Mitford rescued it from the 
 almost stillborn little volume of poems entitled 
 * Rymes and Roundelayes,' was always attributed 
 to another Thomas — Thomas Hood. 
 
 It has been conjectured, from the extreme 
 polish and attraction of her letters, that Miss Mit- 
 ford wrote them with a view to their publication ; 
 but this I am sure was not the case. She often 
 described to different correspondents the same 
 occurrence ; and indeed I think that very incident 
 of the glow-worm, above mentioned, is narrated in 
 another place. In her day, letter-writing was an 
 art of itself, and literary folk, not being so con- 
 tinuously employed in their profession as they are 
 
A LETTER-WRITER. 93 
 
 now, could afford to practise it. In the next 
 ^reneration authors did not write long letters, very 
 seldom indeed wrote letters at all, with the excep- 
 tion of Charles Dickens, whose genius was so 
 superabundant that he gave of it in all kinds, and, 
 as it were, with both hands. 
 
 Miss Mitford herself never knew him ; ill health 
 and, I am sorry to add, poverty, kept her for many 
 years remote from society of all kinds, which was 
 another reason doubtless why she devoted herself 
 so much to letter-writing. She corresponded with 
 scores of persons whom she had never met face to 
 face. In this way she had very considerable influ- 
 ence in the world of letters, which was always at 
 the service of her friends. She was never tired of 
 thus furthering my own ends, even when she did 
 not quite approve of them. I have set down, 
 elsewhere, the admirable advice with which she 
 favoured me ; the endeavours she made to turn a 
 very young gentleman, of unsettled prospects and 
 feverish hopes, to embrace some calling less preca- 
 rious than that which (as poor Leitch Ritchie used 
 to say), ' I hate to hear called '' Light Literature." ' 
 Never had a Telemachus so wise and kind a 
 Mentor ; but it was all of no use. I made my own 
 bed, and have lain upon it ever since with tolerable 
 
94 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 comfort. At last she gave it up, and helped me as 
 I wanted to be helped, not with the apostle's luke- 
 warm assent, * You will have trouble, but I spare 
 you,' but with the liveliest interest. ' I should like 
 to spoil you, my dear, very much, if I had the 
 means,' she writes ; ' as it is, I am like Ailie Din- 
 mont, who, when accused of giving the children 
 their own way, replied, ' Eh, puir things, I hae 
 nothing else to gie 'em ! ' 
 
 I had been brought up in the country, without 
 the least link to literature in any direction, and she 
 gave me introductions to everybody I wanted to 
 know. They were of immense advantage to me, 
 but one of the greatest gratifications they afforded 
 me was that through one of them I became the 
 humble means of establishing friendly relations 
 between her and another large-hearted woman of 
 letters, of whom Miss Mitford had at that time an 
 unfavourable opinion — Harriet Martineau. 
 
 At first she seems to have hesitated to put her- 
 self in communication with her sister authoress. 
 ' I never saw Miss Martineau but once in my life, 
 and have not happened to know, or to care for, the 
 same people. Moreover, dear friend, without being 
 in the slightest degree bigoted or prudish, I have, 
 to say the least, no sympathy with her. . . . The 
 
AjV introduction. 95 
 
 truth Is, although a clever woman, there is nothing 
 about her that tempts one into a forgetfulness of 
 faults as in George Sand. She is not, to my 
 fancy, a woman of genius ; all her works are in- 
 complete. Indeed, the only things of hers I ever 
 liked were her political economy stories, which I 
 used to read, skipping the political economy. Fifty 
 years hence she will be heard of as one of the 
 curiosities of our age, but she will not be read. 
 This is my Harriet Martineau creed. Neverthe- 
 less, if you still wish an introduction, why, you 
 have a thousand claims upon me, and at a word I 
 will put my prejudices into my pocket, and send 
 you the best I can concoct.' 
 
 In spite of this, I had the audacity to be impor- 
 tunate. I had a great desire to be acquainted 
 with the authoress of ' Deerbrook,' and I was goino- 
 up to Lakeland, where she lived. To my reiterated 
 request, Miss Mitford, with her usual kindness and 
 good nature, gave way at once. 
 
 ' I cannot bear to think, my dear friend, that 
 you should have such good reason to believe me 
 Avhat in reality I am not, a ferocious bigot or a 
 starched prude ; so I do what I ought to have done 
 before, and send you a note to Miss Martineau, 
 who is beyond all doubt a remarkable woman. I 
 
96 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 have never read her History, and did not fancy her 
 novels, especially the one where she compares (?) her 
 black hero with Napoleon, and even accuses the 
 great Emperor of killing him by cold and starva- 
 tion ; but I agree with you that her boys' stories 
 are charming — how could I ever forget them ! — 
 while her papers on Deafness and Invalid Life are 
 full of thought and feeling. I have, at all events, 
 now done my best for her in presenting to her a 
 very different sort of visitor from those who com- 
 monly present themselves at our doors with letters 
 of introduction.' 
 
97 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MISS MARTINEAU WILLIAM ARNOLD. 
 
 Byron places the best part of human life as respects 
 enjoyment at two-and-twenty ; ' the myrtle and 
 ivy of sweet two-and-twenty,' he says, ' are worth 
 all your laurels, however so plenty,' and he is pro- 
 bably right. If one has meat and drink enough 
 (which at that age is important), and our tailor's 
 confidence in us is still fresh, that is indeed the 
 palmy time with most of us. But young gentlemen 
 with a turn for poetry (or what they confidently 
 believe to be such) have a still better time than 
 others at this happy epoch. 
 
 Verse a breeze mid blossoms straying. 
 Where Hope clung feeding like a bee, 
 
 Both were mine, life went a-maying 
 With Nature, Hope, and Poetry, 
 
 When I was young. 
 
 One need not be a Coleridge to appreciate the con- 
 ditions of existence under such circumstances, and 
 
 H 
 
98 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I verily believe there was not a happier being upon 
 the earth's surface than I when I went up to Lake- 
 land at two-and-twenty with the avowed intention 
 and malice prepense of writing my second volume 
 of poems. A humorous expedition enough as it 
 now appears to me, but then the kaleidoscope of 
 life has shifted a little. Of what rainbow hues was 
 it not then composed ! 
 
 There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
 The earth, and every common sight 
 
 To me did seem 
 Apparelled in celestial light ; 
 
 as to my betters. Moreover, they were not meadows 
 but mountains, not streams but fine tumbling becks, 
 which I had come to dwell amongst, and, being a 
 south-country lad, these noble aspects of nature in- 
 toxicated me. I think the first snow on the fell in 
 October is the most charming sight that can greet 
 the eye of a lowlander. I have seen it in many an 
 October since, but I am thankful to say it still stirs 
 in me something of the old delight — 
 
 I see, I see, with joy I see, 
 
 albeit my soul is bowed beneath her 
 
 earthly freight, 
 And custom lies upon me with a weight 
 Heavy as frost and deep almost as life. 
 
AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT. 99 
 
 It was in the early autumn that I first visited Lake- 
 land with fifty pounds in my purse, which my dear 
 mother had given me to make holiday with (as 
 though all life were not then a holiday !), and an 
 introduction to Miss Harriet Martineau, The Knoll, 
 Ambleside, from Mary Russell Mitford, in my 
 pocket. 
 
 I had read many of the fornier lady's books, 
 including a later one which was just then ^ making 
 no little noise in the world, to the great detriment 
 of her reputation among the orthodox ; but I had 
 never seen even her portrait ; and, though very de- 
 sirous of her acquaintance, I felt a little frightened 
 at her. 
 
 Though I was able to understand that the 
 authoress of ' Life in the Sick-room ' must needs 
 have a loyal and gentle heart, whatever appearances 
 might be against her, I pictured to myself a tall 
 masculine woman (rather bony), with the air of a 
 lecturer ; and the portrait was about as much like 
 the original (i.e. differed from it in totd) as the 
 portraits of others evolved from our consciousness 
 generally are. 
 
 ' I am almost sure that it was 'just then,' but I repeat once and 
 for all that my dates are not to be relied upon ; I only profess to give 
 my impressions, which, however, are distinctly marked enough. 
 
 H 2 
 
loo SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 On the morning after my arrival in Ambleside 
 I inquired the way to The Knoll, a charming cottage 
 on an eminence, but quite shut out from the road, 
 and looking on the Rothay valley, with Loughrigg 
 for a background. A residence, I thought, as I stood 
 within its pretty porch, much more fitted for a poet 
 than a political economist. The bell was answered 
 by a neat serving-maid, who, although by no means 
 beautiful, had her attractions for me, for she had 
 been the subject of certain scientific (mesmeric) 
 experiments which had aroused much discussion. 
 
 ' Is Miss Martineau at home ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' She is, sir,' said the maid. Fashionable tarra- 
 diddles were not permitted under that conscientious 
 roof; but, if ever a face said 'Not at home!' it 
 was the face of that domestic. 
 
 * The fact is, sir,' she continued, looking at my 
 card, and certainly drawing no exceptional deduc- 
 tions from its perusal, ' Miss Martineau never sees 
 visitors in the morning. She writes in her study 
 until dinner-time.' 
 
 I could not, in fact, have committed a greater 
 solecism had I called on the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury on a Sunday during the hours of divine 
 service. I felt at once the full extent of my crime, 
 and with a stammered apology, and putting my 
 
AfV HOSTESS. loi 
 
 note of introduction into the maid's hand, I fled 
 down the Httle carriage drive abashed. It was 
 not, however, I must confess, without a sense of 
 rehef that I thus found my visit to one whom a 
 leading organ of popular opinion had designated 
 * a female atheist of European reputation ' post- 
 poned ; and when, just as I had reached the gate, 
 the handmaiden came flying after me with ' My 
 mistress will see you, sir,' I wished she had not 
 been quite so light-footed. I knew of course that 
 I was indebted for this unusual favour to some 
 monstrous exaggeration of my merits contained in 
 the letter I had brought from Swallowfield, which 
 only made the matter much worse ; but there was 
 nothing for it but to return with the mesmeric 
 maid. 
 
 In the porch stood Miss Martineau herself. A 
 lady of middle height, ' inclined ' as the novelists 
 say ' to embonpoint,' with a smile on her kindly 
 face and her trumpet at her ear. She was at that 
 time, I suppose, about fifty years of age ; her 
 brown hair had a little grey in it, and was arranged 
 with peculiar flatness over a low but broad fore- 
 head. I don't think she could ever have been 
 pretty, but her features were not uncomely, and 
 their expression was gentle and motherly. 
 
I02 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ' I am so sorry, Miss Martineau,' I began : but 
 of course I might just as well have addressed the 
 scraper. However, she gathered from my face that 
 I was making an apology for my untimely visit. 
 ' Don't say a word about it,' she said ; ' of course 
 you didn't know that I was engaged in the morn- 
 ings. How should you .? A poet, Miss Mitford 
 tells me.' 
 
 And she held my hand and shook it with 
 genuine interest, but also with some amusement,, 
 much as a visitor at the Zoological might feel on 
 being introduced to a new arrival ' born in the 
 gardens' of a rare and unusual type. I am sure 
 the notion of a young gentleman, not over rich, 
 being about to pursue the Art of Poetry as a pro- 
 fession tickled her. 
 
 ' You are in Lakeland all alone it seems ; that 
 is a claim upon my hospitality — even in the morn- 
 ing — which] cannot be resisted ; not to mention 
 Miss Mitford's pressing recommendation of you to 
 my care. She^seems very fond of you.' 
 
 Then I told her how very kind my friend at 
 Swallowfield had been to me. 
 
 ' I am glad to hear it,' she said, ' but it does not 
 at all astonish me. She must have a tender nature. 
 What strikes one about her as a writer is that one 
 
THE KNOLL. 103 
 
 likes her books so much more than one's judgment 
 approves of them.' 
 
 I could hardly help smiling when I called to 
 mind the mitigated admiration which the other 
 literary lady had, though in another way, expressed 
 of this one. I was not so foolish as to contend 
 about what was after all a matter of taste, but 
 confined myself to speaking of Miss Mitford's 
 personal qualities, mode of life, &c., which interested 
 by hostess very much. We were by this time in 
 her library (though indeed there were bookshelves 
 everywhere at The Knoll), the view from which 
 naturally extorted my admiration. 'Yes,' she 
 said, ' the look-out is charming ; it is sometimes 
 indeed so beautiful that I scarcely dare withdraw 
 my eyes from it for fear it should melt' 
 
 She said this with great enthusiasm and with 
 her face lit up with pleasure. ' My little home,' 
 she went on, * is full of pleasant associations. It 
 was the dream of my life to build such a house in 
 such a place ; Wordsworth greatly admired my 
 choice of situation — he suggested the motto " Light, 
 come, visit me " for my sun-dial yonder.' ' Then 
 you knew him ? ' I said. It was a foolish question 
 to drop into an ear-trumpet, but it was the first in- 
 strument of the kind I had ever met with, and it 
 
I04 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 disconcerted me extremely ; her offering it to me 
 was like a churchwarden stopping with his collect- 
 ing plate in front of one at church, where one 
 would like to be generous in the face of the congre- 
 gation, but cannot find one's purse. Moreover, the 
 idea of knowing Wordsworth, for whom I had an 
 immense reverence, rather overpowered me ; it 
 seemed like having a personal acquaintance with 
 Milton. 
 
 * Why, yes, of course. He lived only a mile 
 away at Rydal, you know. He was good enough 
 to take an interest in me when I first came to live 
 here, and gave me ' (here she smiled) ' much excel- 
 lent advice. He said that I must make up my 
 mind to be lionized. " People will come to see you, 
 though of course not so many as come to see ;;/^, 
 whether you will or no ; strangers, tourists, and all 
 sorts ; if they are such as you must entertain, give 
 them tea ; but if they want meat, let them go to the 
 inn." It was very wise and prudent advice, but 
 you shall take an early dinner with me to-day for 
 all that' 
 
 I was delighted, of course ; I was not the least 
 afraid of my hostess by this time, but felt that I 
 was encroaching on her hours of work, and said so. 
 
 * It is true you have made me idle,' she said, 
 
A POACHER'S GIFT. 105 
 
 *but it is such a lovely morning that I forgive you. 
 Let us come into the garden.' We went out accord- 
 ingly. * My friend Mr. Greg ' says that when it is 
 fine in the Lake country one should never work, 
 but though there are so many wet days, I cannot 
 afford to be idle.' 
 
 I praised the freshness of her little lawn. 
 
 * Yes/ she said, ' but you have no idea of the 
 trouble it took me to get the turf You would 
 think, perhaps, with these green mountains so near, 
 that it was a common commodity, but the fact is, 
 where once it is taken away it never grows again ; 
 the place is left bare. I could get no turf, in fact, 
 for love or money, and was at my wit's end for it, 
 when a very curious circumstance happened. One 
 morning I found a cartload of turf lying on the 
 gravel yonder, where it had been pitchforked over 
 the wall. A bit of paper was pinned to a slab of 
 it, with these words written on it in a vile scrawl : 
 " To Harriet Martineau from a lover of her Forest 
 and Game Law tales A poacher." ^ I dare say 
 
 ' The author of the Creed of Christendom, then living at 
 Bowness, on Lake Windermere. 
 
 - I subsequently heard that on the morning after the event in 
 question, Miss Martineau went over to P"ox Howe (the house Dr. 
 Arnold had built under Loughrigg) to narrate the event. Arch- 
 bishop Whately, who hated her, was a guest there at the time ; he 
 
io6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 it was stolen, but that dishonest tribute to my merits 
 always gave me great pleasure.' 
 
 We continued our tour of her little territory, 
 and inspected the stall-fed cows, which were them- 
 selves not unknown to fame, as having been sub- 
 jected to the influences of mesmerism. 
 
 For my own part I have never believed in these 
 marvels. I entertain a Philistine scepticism upon 
 the subject of most ' isms,' and at that time was 
 very much inclined to laugh at them in a disrespect- 
 ful manner ; but I never laughed at Harriet Mar- 
 tineau, though often with her. There was a tender 
 as well as earnest gravity about her when expressing 
 her views that nipped ridicule in the bud. Her 
 belief in spiritualism was indeed a severe trial to 
 me, but as she took the epidemic in a very favour- 
 able form — ' I believe in spiritualism,' she used 
 to say, ' but not in the Spirits,' just as my 
 other friend took her Political Economical tales 
 without the political economy — so much of con- 
 sent to it as arises from silence was possible for 
 me to give. Unlike Miss Mitford, who, without 
 altering her opinions one jot, was ready at once 
 to agree to differ. Miss Martineau revelled in 
 
 did not join in the general admiration of the poacher's conduct; he 
 only shook his head. Some one privately inquired of him whether 
 he doubted the genuineness of the letter. ' Doubt it ? of course I 
 doubt it ; the woman wrote it herself.' 
 
AN UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE. 107 
 
 argument, and from an early period of life I have 
 had the prudence to abstain from argument with 
 ladies of whatever rank, or age, or genius. Only 
 once or twice in my long intimacy with the lady of 
 The Knoll did I ever get into hot water with her. 
 One occasion was very nearly fatal to me, when I 
 made an unfortunate mistake, which, painful and 
 embarrassincf as it was to me at the time, I can 
 never think of without half-choking with laughter. 
 In her study was the portrait of a scientific gentle- 
 man she greatly honoured, but who in my humble 
 judgment influenced her mind for evil, and injured 
 her reputation as a writer and thinker exceedingly. 
 She asked me one day of whom the picture (to me 
 unknown) reminded me. It was a striking counte- 
 nance enough, full of restrained enthusiasm : but as 
 it happened I remembered no one like it. ' Look 
 again,' she said, 'you surely must see the resem- 
 blance.' 
 
 I hazarded ' Robespierre.' 
 
 It was most unfortunate, for as it turned out she 
 saw a most striking likeness in the portrait to the 
 founder of the Christian religion. 
 
 'That,' as Anthony Trollope says more than 
 once in his autobiography, ' was a bad moment 
 for me.' 
 
 A ludicrous incident fortunately happened, the 
 
io8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 same day, which restored her good humour. I had 
 by that time got so well accustomed to her ear- 
 trumpet that I began to look upon it as a part of 
 herself. It was lying on the table a good distance 
 away from her, and, having some remark to make 
 to her, I inadvertently addressed it to the instrument 
 instead of her ear. Heavens, how we laughed ! She 
 had a very keen sense of fun, of which however 
 she was quite unconscious. I remember her point- 
 ing out to me a passage in some leading article in 
 the Times which amused her excessively. It was 
 upon the subject of protection, and the country 
 gentlemen were depicted as foreseeing the nation 
 dependent for its corn upon ' the Romans, the Co- 
 lossians, and the Thessalonians.' * How I wish I 
 could write like that,' she said, ' but unhappily I 
 have no humour.' She could not create it indeed, 
 but she could appreciate it very fully. 
 
 No one who reads these recollections can be 
 more conscious than myself that they are very 
 rambling. I have already wandered a long way 
 from the day of my first introduction to The Knoll. 
 As it is difficult to * get on ' with some people, to 
 make any way into their minds and hearts, so that 
 we remain as much outside them after a twelve 
 months' acquaintance as after the first twelve hours. 
 
IMPRESSIOA^. 109 
 
 SO there are others with whom intimacy comes on so 
 soon that it is difficult to replace oneself in * the 
 first position ' of acquaintance. This is one of the 
 reasons why a diary is so indispensable to an auto- 
 biography. 
 
 Among the many foolish things that the 
 cuckoos of the human race repeat with the idea 
 that it has the wisdom of a proverb, is the remark 
 that before a traveller can describe a place to others 
 he must have lived there and known it thoroughly, 
 whereas the fact is just the reverse ; after a day or 
 two, or even less, the first impressions (which are 
 the very thing he wishes to convey) vanish from 
 his mind. So it is with a new acquaintance when 
 he becomes our friend : his salient points are lost 
 through our becoming familiar with them. I feel 
 this very much in describing Harriet Martineau, 
 whose friendship I had the privilege to enjoy for 
 twenty years. My general impression of her is 
 very different, I find, from the particular impression 
 which she left on others who only saw her once or 
 twice. 
 
 For example, with respect to that ear-trumpet 
 (which had a great public reputation in its time) I 
 have heard stories from persons as eminent as its 
 possessor herself, which, though humorous and 
 
no SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 interesting enough, seem to me without foundation. 
 Her enemies looked upon it as a weapon of defence. 
 It was in fact literally used in that fashion on 
 one occasion. A right of way was in dispute at 
 one time through certain fields (a portion, I think, 
 of Rydal Park) in the neighbourhood of Ambleside, 
 and the owner closed them to the public. Miss 
 Martineau, though a philanthropist on a large scale, 
 could also (which is not so common with that class) 
 pick up a pin for freedom's sake, and play the part 
 of a village Hampden. When the rest of her 
 neighbours shrank from this contest with the lord 
 of the manor, she took up the cudgels for them, and 
 'the little tyrant of those fields withstood.' She 
 alone, not indeed with ' bended bow and quiver full 
 of arrows,' but with her ear-trumpet and umbrella, 
 took her walk through the forbidden land as usual. 
 Whereupon the wicked lord (so runs the story, 
 though I never heard it from her own lips) put a 
 young bull into the field. He attacked the tres- 
 passer, or at all events prepared to attack her, but 
 the indomitable lady faced him and stood her 
 ground. She was quite capable of it, for she had 
 the courage of her opinions (which was saying a 
 good deal), and at all events, whether from aston- 
 ishment at her presumption, or terror of the ear- 
 
'ALL HER EAR-TRUMPKTS: iii 
 
 trumpet (to which of course he had nothing to say), 
 the bull in the end withdrew his opposition (drew 
 in his horns) and suffered her to pursue her way in 
 peace. I wish I could add that she had the good 
 fortune of another patriotic lady ' to take the tax 
 away,' but I am afraid the wicked lord succeeded 
 in his designs. More than once, however, I have 
 had pointed out to me over the wall — for the bull 
 was. still there — the little eminence wherefrom, with 
 no weapon but her ear-trumpet (for she had her 
 umbrella over her head all the time to keep the sun 
 off), this dauntless lady withstood the horrid foe. 
 
 A great philosopher (but who did not share her 
 tenets) used to insist upon it that Miss Martineau 
 could always hear when she liked, and only used 
 her trumpet when she wanted to hear ; whereas at 
 other times she laid it down as a protection against 
 argument. Nothing could be more untrue, though 
 I admit that she had degrees of deafness ; it varied 
 with her general health. 
 
 Again the author of the ' Vestiges of Creation ' 
 used to contend that Miss Martineau never wanted 
 her ear-trumpet at all, not because she could hear 
 without it, but because she did not care to hear 
 what anybody had to tell her. He said to me 
 once, in his dry humorous way, ' Your friend Miss 
 
112 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Martineau has been giving me the address in town 
 where she gets all her ear-tnnnpets. Why, good 
 Heavens ! what does she want of them ? Does she 
 mean to say that she ever wore one ear-trumpet 
 out in all her life in listening to what anybody 
 had to say ? ' 
 
 She was no doubt somewhat masterful in 
 argument (which is probably all that he meant to 
 imply), but I always found her very ready to 
 listen, and especially to any tale of woe or 
 hardship which it lay in her power to remedy. 
 Her conversation indeed was by no means mono- 
 logue, and rarely have I known a social companion 
 more bright and cheery ; but her talk, when not 
 engaged In argument, was, which is unusual in a 
 woman, very anecdotal She had known more 
 interesting and eminent persons than most men, 
 and certainly than any woman, of her time ; the 
 immense range of her writings, political, religious, 
 and social, had caused her to make acquaintance 
 with people of the most different opinions and of 
 all ranks, while amongst the large circle of her 
 personal acquaintance, her motherly qualities, her 
 gentleness, and (on delicate domestic questions) her 
 good judgment, made her the confidant of many 
 persons, especially young people, which enlarged 
 
*/ SUGGEST THE (2UARRY: 113 
 
 her knowledge of human h'fc to an extraordinary 
 degree. I never knew a woman whose nature was 
 more essentially womanly than that of Harriet 
 Martineau, or one who was more misunderstood 
 in that respect by the world at large. She had 
 excellent friends in her neighbourhood (in par- 
 ticular the accomplished family at Fox Howe), but 
 those who knew her by reputation were afraid of 
 her. At that time, especially, she had fluttered 
 the doves in the conventional cote by the publi- 
 cation of ' the Atkinson letters ' very considerably, 
 and I found myself looked upon with some dis- 
 favour as her constant visitor. She was supposed, 
 I think, to be initiating me into the mysteries of 
 Atheism : whereas, unless she was invited to do so, 
 I never heard her utter one word to any human 
 being with respect to her peculiar opinions. It 
 was believed, however, that she was compassing 
 sea and land for proselytes, and people were warned 
 against her from the pulpit. There was even some 
 correspondence in the local paper as to the im- 
 propriety of her being buried in the churchyard, 
 which was, to say the least of it, premature. 
 
 * I suggest the quarry,' she once said to me with 
 a humorous twinkle of her kind eyes ; ' but Mr. 
 Atkinson says that I should spoil the quarry.' 
 
 I 
 
114 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 She was too used to unpopularity to be disturbed by- 
 it, and cared more for what simple ignorant but 
 honest folks said about her, than for what was 
 printed by those who should have known better. 
 * When you have come to my time of life, and have 
 obtained a reputation (as I hope you will),' she 
 would say, ' you will know how little it matters.' 
 
 I have learnt that lesson by this time ; but, 
 ah me ! what would I not give to have those haU 
 cyon days again, when ' the hebdomadal conferrors 
 of Immortality,' as poor James White ^ used to call 
 them, could make one wince in every nerve with an 
 unfavourable critique ! 
 
 The only personal reference to her in print, 
 save her brother's well-known essay against her 
 in the ' National Review,' that I ever knew to 
 annoy Miss Martineau was an article in (I think) 
 the 'Leader.' It appeared at all events in some 
 periodical of the kind to which she had herself 
 contributed papers {Flash of Memory, ' Yes ; the 
 " Letters from the Mountains " in the " Leader " '), 
 and there was, therefore, something especially dis- 
 loyal and ungraceful in its publication. It pointed 
 
 ' The Rev. James White, author of Nighls at Mess, Latidmarks 
 oj English History, and of the King of the Commons, and other 
 fine historical plays in which Phelps appeared with great success : 
 the pleasantest parson that ever filled (or I should rather say 
 avoided) a pulpit. 
 
THE LEADER: 
 
 "5 
 
 out that since she had declared her disbch'ef in a 
 future state her testimony would not be received in a 
 court of justice, and that consequently, if any burglar 
 broke into The Knoll, and maltreated her, he would 
 do so, so far as she was concerned, with impunity. 
 
 The article was no doubt written in the cause 
 of civil and religious liberty, and with a disregard 
 of personal considerations which, had they affected 
 the writer, would have been greatly to his credit ; 
 but under the circumstances it was brutal enough, 
 and Miss Martineau felt it deeply. 
 
 To my kind friend at The Knoll I was in- 
 debted not only for my introduction to Lakeland — 
 for in her company, as will be narrated, I explored 
 the whole of it — but even for the selection of a 
 lodging. She was as good an authority upon 
 small practical matters as though she had passed 
 her life in attending to domestic affairs. In her 
 youth she had been famous for her plain needle- 
 work, and made not only her own clothes, but even 
 her shoes ; and when from illness she had ceased 
 to write, she applied herself to Berlin-wool work, in 
 which she attained a great proficiency. She took 
 a great interest in things about her, knew some- 
 thing of all the lodgings in the neighbourhood, the 
 •extent of their accommodation, which afforded the 
 
ii6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 best view, and in most cases even their terms. At 
 that time tastes were more simple, and persons 
 who, like Dr. Syntax, came in search of the pic- 
 turesque, were content with cleanliness and home- 
 liness. Nevertheless, the whole district even then 
 laid itself out for ' the visitors.' The irruption of the 
 cheap trippers which Wordsworth feared (though 
 he did write 'The Excursion') had not yet come, 
 but in summer and autumn the district was thronged 
 with strangers, who generally made a considerable 
 stay in it. When any of these were clergymen, 
 the local divines got them to preach for them, and 
 I remember at Bowness Church a curious incident 
 arising from this circumstance. There had been a 
 good deal of dry weather in the south, and an 
 Oxford man who occupied the pulpit began to read 
 the prayer for rain, when the clerk pulled at the 
 skirts of his surplice. 
 
 ' You mustn't read that, sir,' he whispered ; ' we 
 don't want it' 
 
 * But it's a prayer for a good harvest, my man,' 
 reasoned the minister. 
 
 'That's just it ; the visitors are our harvest, and 
 we want none of your rain.' 
 
 I need not say that this occurrence amused 
 Miss Martincau (who had her own views about the 
 rainfall) not a little. 
 
HIGH CLOSE. 
 
 117 
 
 ' As to lodfrings,' she said, * though I am sorry 
 to send you so far afield, there is nothing more suit- 
 able for your purpose ' (and I was sorry to see she 
 smiled, for I knew that it was the idea of my coming 
 to Lakeland to write poetry that was again tickling 
 her ; it seemed like opening a small coal-store in 
 the heart of Newcastle) ' than the farmhouse at 
 High Close. It is an out-of-the-way spot, but 
 commands more charming views than any house 
 save one ' in Westmoreland. 
 
 Upon this spot has since been built a lordly 
 pleasure-house, with grounds to match, but when I 
 lodged there it was a very unambitious dwelling, 
 with a noble sycamore for its sole garden ornament, 
 and a bull that loved its shade, and made the com- 
 position of verses under it a most hazardous opera- 
 tion. The house was on the summit of Red Bank, 
 between Grasmere and the Langdales, and in 
 addition to the whole stretch of the latter valley 
 with its well-known ' Pikes,' looked forth on Diana's 
 looking-glass (as Loughrigg Tarn was then called) 
 and Windermere. Many a time did Miss Martineau 
 bring friends to see that view while I was there, 
 
 ' She was always most precise and particular as to the facts 
 within her personal knowledge. The exception she referred to was 
 •a certain house in Troutbeck, where the visitors were not its har- 
 vest, and where the principal windows looked point-blank into its 
 farm-yard. 
 
ii8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and dilate on it to them with ever-fresh admiration ; 
 but I am afraid I had very little to offer them in 
 the way of refreshment beyond what Wordsworth 
 had recommended. To herself, however, eating 
 and drinking mattered nothing ; she had no sense 
 of taste whatever. ' Once,' she told me with a smile, 
 when I was expressing my pity for this deprivation 
 of hers, ' I tasted a leg of mutton, and it was 
 delicious. I was going out, as it happened, that 
 day, to dine with Mr. Marshal at Coniston, and I 
 am ashamed to say that I looked forward to the 
 pleasures of the table with considerable eagerness ; 
 but nothing came of it, the gift was withdrawn as 
 suddenly as it came.' The sense of smell was also 
 denied her, as it was to Wordsworth ; in his case, 
 too, curiously enough, it was vouchsafed to him, 
 she told me, upon one occasion only. ' He once 
 smelt a beanfield, and thought it heaven.' 
 
 It has often struck me that this deprivation of 
 the external senses (for she lost her hearing very 
 early) may have had considerable influence in form- 
 ing Miss Martineau's mental characteristics ; but if it 
 turned her attention to studies more or less abstruse^ 
 and which are seldom pursued by those of her own 
 sex, it certainly never ' hardened ' her. Her heart 
 was as kind and gentle as though the song of the 
 
DEAFNESS V. BLINDAESS. 119 
 
 birds, and the sigh of the sea, had fallen not only 
 upon open ears, but upon ears attuned to them, while 
 her patience when conversation was going on about 
 her in which she was so well fitted to join, but could 
 not, was touching to witness. 
 
 She could never understand why deaf people 
 should so often be considered morose and impa- 
 tient, while those who w^ere afflicted with blindness 
 enjoy a reputation for the contrar}'- virtues. An 
 acquaintance of hers once explained it to her in 
 a manner entirely satisfactory to himself ' Blind 
 people, my dear madam, being entirely dependent 
 upon their fellow-creatures, are obliged for their own 
 sakes to be always civil and agreeable to every- 
 body.' 
 
 ' I see,' she answ^ered, withdrawing her trumpet 
 from her ear (to show the conversation was closed) 
 and pressing one tooth tightly on her lip, as her 
 habit was when displeased ; ' a very charitable 
 view.' 
 
 Once only did I ever see her exhibit any active 
 indignation. It was soon after her translation of 
 Comte appeared, all the proceeds of which — and, 
 considering the nature of the work, they were con- 
 siderable — she sent, by-the-by, to that philosopher, 
 whose affairs were at that time in a far from 
 
I2Q SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 flourishing condition. In proportion to her admira- 
 tion of his theories, she despised those of the 
 metaphysicians who ' did not know what they 
 thought/ and at this inopportune epoch a meta- 
 physician of celebrity happened to call upon her. 
 She asked him to luncheon, and in ignorance, I 
 believe, of his hostess having had anything to do 
 with Comte whatever, he blundered upon the 
 dangerous topic. I gave him a hint of his peril, 
 but it is very difficult to stop a metaphysician, or 
 perhaps I was beneath his notice. At all events, he 
 delivered quite a lecture against Comte and his 
 creed. When he had quite done, Miss Martineau 
 put this question to him with chilling gravity : 
 ' Pray, sir, have you ever read Comte ? ' 
 The wretched metaphysician changed colour, 
 and stammered out, ' Well, yes, at least I have 
 dipped into him.' 
 
 ' Dipped into him !' exclaimed Miss Martineau, 
 with sublime contempt (which reminded me, never- 
 theless, of Mr. Swiveller's condemnation of the 
 practice of sipping beer). ' No, sir, you have only 
 dipped into some review of him. When you have 
 looked at that shelf yonder,' and she pointed with 
 her trumpet to the bookcase behind her, ' you may 
 then say, for the first time, that you have seen 
 Comte's works.' 
 
CRIDBAGE. 121 
 
 I am obliged, for the most part, to tell what I 
 remember of Miss Martineau in place of letting her 
 speak for herself (which would be far better), for a 
 certain reason. I have very many letters from her 
 upon all sorts of subjects, written, as she spoke, 
 with excessive frankness ; but she had a great dis- 
 like to the publication of her private correspon- 
 dence. It is a great pity, for she discussed people 
 and things that have an interest for everybody with 
 a personal knowledge of them that is most unusual ; 
 1 regret this veto the more, since but for it I could 
 cull many an extract illustrative of a side of her 
 character the least understood and appreciated — 
 namely, its tenderness and domesticity. A year 
 after my first introduction to her I came to Amble- 
 side a married man, and my first child was born 
 there, in the winter. Her kindness to my wife and 
 myself I shall never forget ; I went in and out of 
 The Knoll as I pleased, like a cat which has a 
 hole cut in the door for it ; and her library was not 
 only placed entirely at my service while on the 
 premises, but I was permitted to take home with 
 me v/hatever books I wanted. In return, I had the 
 pleasure of teaching her whist and cribbage, which 
 she enjoyed excessively, though I am bound to say 
 that at the former game she was not A i, or rather 
 * Major A i.' Like Metternich, she took to it too 
 
122 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 late in life, but at cribbage she rivalled Sarah Battle. 
 A Mr. Shepherd, an excellent fellow, the Ambleside 
 doctor, was usually our fourth, and many a merry 
 evening have we passed together. I think I so far 
 undermined her principles, which were fixed against 
 gambling, as to induce her to play for penny points. 
 
 Miss Martineau was very fond of my dear wife, 
 and anxious that we should come and stay with 
 her, when the advent of the child was expected, so 
 that it should be born in her house. This, how- 
 ever, we did not do. She sent a message to our 
 cottage that December, when the event took 
 place : — 
 
 ' I send to the back door (for quiet's sake) for 
 a bulletin, and shall continue to do so instead of 
 coming, so long as quiet is necessary. Oh ! your 
 news makes me so happy. Your little Christmas 
 rose! I am glad it was a clear, bright morning 
 when it began to blow ! How happy your dear 
 wife must be — only not too happy to sleep, I hope. 
 My dear love to her the next time you see her [a 
 little hint of the necessity for rest]. Come here, 
 you know, as much as you like, and make any use 
 of me and mine.' 
 
 The child, who ^vas named after her, she never 
 forgot, but for many years continued to write to her 
 
LOVE OF CHILDREN. 123 
 
 upon her birthday in terms comprehensible to her 
 small wits, and always sending her some book 
 suited to her age. When we were moving south 
 from Scotland, in thanking the child for a book- 
 marker she had worked for her, she bids her never 
 to forget Edinburgh, ' Arthur's Seat and the fair 
 city,' nor her affectionate old friend, Harriet 
 Martineau. 
 
 She could write thus to a child, though her 
 hands were at that time full of work, and her heart 
 of sorrow, for some one at the same date had failed^ 
 which deprived her of ' a great lump of her earn- 
 ings,' which might well have depressed, or even 
 embittered her. 
 
 As regards money matters, I suppose no woman 
 in the world ever regarded them from the same 
 point of view. It is well known that a pension was 
 offered to her by three Prime Ministers in succes- 
 sion — Earl Grey, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Glad- 
 stone — which (like Caesar) she ' did thrice refuse,' it 
 being against her principles to burden the State 
 with any such obligation. And yet she was entirely 
 dependent upon that reed, the pen, for subsistence. 
 She liked to have things neat and comely about 
 her, but her tastes were simple ; she loved the 
 country and its homely ways. In writing about an 
 
124 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 early book of mine called ' Melibceus in London/ 
 she speaks of town life being very 'dreary ' to her, 
 and of it being impossible for rural folk to be too 
 thankful for their particular privilege ; and she ex- 
 presses her opinion that the least desirable existence 
 is that passed in a country town, by which both 
 sorts of privileges are lost. It struck her as most 
 curious that elderly and even sickly people go on 
 craving for the same amusements they enjoyed when 
 young and in health, and she instances an old lady 
 far beyond seventy who could not remember any- 
 thing for one hour and could hardly stand, who 
 was expecting her full share of pleasure from the 
 Exhibition. 
 
 This must have been of course in 1862. P'or 
 many summers after my first acquaintance with 
 Miss Martineau I always spent a month or two in 
 her neighbourhood, as much from regard for her as 
 from my love for Lakeland, and she became very 
 intimate with me and mine. Nevertheless, owing 
 to her keen intelligence, I found it difficult to 
 realise her extreme deafness,' and used often to 
 
 ' Our intercourse reminded me of Tennyson's lines, for 
 ' Thought leapt out to wed with thought, 
 Ere thought could wed itself with speech ; ' 
 or of Poj^c's, from whom perhajis he unconsciously echoed the idea : 
 ' When thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part. ' 
 
THE TOBACCO CURE. 125 
 
 address her when she was not prepared for it. She 
 never lost her sense of the absurdity of this practice, 
 and I can see the laughter in her kind eyes now as 
 she snatched up her trumpet. She loved a good- 
 natured pleasantry even at her own expense. On 
 one occasion when she was bewailing her disability 
 for music, of which she had been so intensely fond, 
 I reminded her that she was better provided for in 
 that way than most people, having both a drum and 
 a trumpet always in her ear ; and twenty years after- 
 wards I note, in one of her letters, a pleasant 
 allusion to this little joke. 
 
 The degree of deafness, as I have said, varied ; 
 and she tried all sorts of remedies. No one who 
 knew her would suspect her of anything ' fast ' or 
 unfeminine, but, under the advice of some scientific 
 person or another, she tried smoking. I had the 
 privilege of providing her privately with some very 
 mild cigars, and many and many a summer night 
 have we sat together for half an hour or so in her 
 porch at The Knoll smoking. 
 
 If some of the good people, her neighbours, had 
 known of tJiat^ it would, we agreed, have really 
 given them something to talk about. She only 
 tried this remedy, if I remember right, for a few 
 months, but she fancied it had a beneficial effect 
 
126 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 upon her hearing. For my part, I enjoyed nothing 
 so much as these evenings. It is my fixed opinion 
 that the conversation of even a dullard is mitigated 
 and rendered tolerable by tobacco— he can't talk 
 long without letting his cigar out for one thing, and 
 there is less temptation to him, when he has a 
 cigar in his mouth, to talk at all, for another — 
 while all that is thoughtful in a man is brought to 
 the surface by that benign influence, and one hears 
 him at his best. 
 
 I need not say, then, what a charming com- 
 panion, under these favourable circumstances, was 
 Harriet Martineau. 
 
 It was about this time, 1 think, that, chancing 
 to be in London, she consulted Mr. Toynbee, the 
 aurist, upon her ailment. He did her little or no 
 good, but was very kind and gracious to her, which 
 (it not being a usual habit with him, as I have 
 heard) made a great impression upon her. She 
 was so pleased indeed with the interest he had taken 
 in her case, that she resolved to leave him, by testa- 
 mentary bequest, her cars. She announced this 
 intention in the presence of Mr. Shepherd, who, to 
 my infinite amazement, observed, ' But, my dear 
 madam, you can't do that : it will make your other 
 legacy worthless.' The fact was, in the interests o f 
 
\ 
 
 HEADLESS. 127 
 
 science, Miss Martineau had already left her head to 
 the Phrenological Society. I asked the doctor how 
 he came to know that. * Oh,' he said, ' she told me 
 so herself ; she has left ten pounds in her codicil to 
 me for cutting it off.' 
 
 There was nothing of course improper in such 
 a bequest, but it was certainly very unusual ; and 
 I never afterwards felt quite comfortable — even at 
 cribbage — in the society of the testatrix and her 
 doctor. I don't think I could play cribbage with a 
 lady upon whom I had undertaken to perform such 
 an operation, but then I am neither a philosopher 
 nor a man of science. As it happened, the doctor 
 died before his patient, who subsequently altered 
 her intentions altogether. I never, at least, heard 
 of their being carried out. 
 
 On the rare holidays in which she indulged 
 herself, Miss Martineau delighted in little excur- 
 sions, and especially in introducing her visitors to the 
 beauties of her beloved Lakeland. With two of 
 these, whom I will call Messrs. A. and B. (not so 
 much from delicacy as because I have forgotten 
 their names), I once went round the Langdales in 
 her company, when rather a curious circumstance 
 happened. The rain, as is not uncommon in that 
 country, came on very heavily, and we had to close 
 
128 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the curtains of the car ; then, in default of any- 
 thing better to do, she proposed that each should 
 write down on a piece of paper their favourite 
 incident in fiction. I forgot those which she and 
 Mr. A. selected ; but my own choice was that scene 
 in ' Ivanhoe ' where the disinherited knight enters 
 the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouche : the challengers 
 have carried all before them, and the populace (who 
 hate them) good-naturedly recommend him to 
 touch the shield of Ralph de Vipont as 'he has 
 the less sure seat.' Notwithstanding this warning, 
 he ' strikes with the sharp end of his spear [to show 
 that he means business] the shield of Brian de Bois 
 Guilbert till it rang again.' Mr. B. selected the 
 selfsame incident, which we all thought not a little 
 surprising. 
 
 It was in the third or fourth summer of our 
 acquaintance that Miss Martineau undertook to 
 write her Guide to the Lake District : it was very 
 literally a labour of love, nor did the pleasure to be 
 derived from it come, I think, short of her expecta- 
 tions. We made up a little party together, and 
 'did' the district (with which, however, we were 
 most of us already acquainted) in ten days or so. 
 Besides ourselves there were C. (a barrister) and 
 his wife, D., a clergyman, and E., a senior classic of 
 
AN UNKNOWN SMELL. 129 
 
 Cambridge ; and very merry we all were. We 
 journeyed in a sort of covered wagonnette, and 
 sometimes over roads that were scarcely adapted for 
 wagons. We were once caught in a mountain mist 
 above the Duddon valley, and, after much wander- 
 ing round and round, found ourselves in the same 
 place from which we started. ' I wish we had 
 brought a compass,' cried Miss Martineau, and 
 when somebody suggested that we had ' fetched ' 
 one, I never saw an elderly lady more moved to 
 mirth. 
 
 The most humorous incident of this tour, hov/- 
 ever, was, by the nature of the case, outside her 
 perceptions. We had put up for the night at a 
 little inn at Strands, near Wastwater, where the 
 accommodation was but scanty. On retiring to 
 her couch, Mrs. C became conscious of some evil 
 odour. * It is terrible to think of, John,' she said 
 to her husband, ' and I am bound to say it looks 
 clean enough, but can it be the bed } ' And from 
 the bed, though it was as white as snow, the smell 
 certainly came. Though as a rule Mrs. C. objected 
 to smoking, she adjured her husband to light his 
 pipe and puff the smoke in all directions ; but, as 
 Mark Twain observes in a case not wholly dis- 
 similar, this device only seemed to awaken the 
 
 K 
 
I30 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 smell's * ambition ; ' it grew worse and worse, till it 
 became unbearable. ' I'll go to Miss Martineau's 
 room,' cried Mrs. C. in despair, ' and ask her 
 whether she happens to have a bottle of scent.' 
 
 It was a proof of the utter disorganisation to 
 which they had both arrived that she proceeded to 
 do this ; for how should a lady who had no sense 
 of smell encumber herself with a scent-bottle 1 
 Moreover, though she knocked at Miss Martineau's 
 door repeatedly, it was of course labour thrown 
 away, since she couldn't hear her. Then Mr. C. 
 went to D.'s room upon the same errand. He 
 found him sitting up in bed with a silk nightcap 
 on, sniffing as though he would sniff his head off. 
 
 * Do you smell anything ? ' inquired C. super- 
 fluously. 
 
 ' I should think I did ! I have a horrible sus- 
 picion it's the bed.' 
 
 The fact was that the beds, which were ' home- 
 made,' had been stuffed with feathers, the quills of 
 which had been insufficiently dried ; they gave us 
 a bad night, but formed a very mirthful topic the 
 next day ; indeed I don't think I ever laughed so 
 much as upon that journey. 
 
 The economy with which the trip had been 
 effected (for we had lived everywhere on the best) 
 
LETTING IT LEAK OUT. 131 
 
 very much astonished Miss Martineau, who con- 
 gratulated C. (who had ' financed ' us) upon his ar- 
 rangements. * I shall certainly go over the ground 
 again,' she said, ' next summer.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't do that if I were you,' said the 
 man of law ; ' these things lose by repetition.' 
 
 * But the cost of the pleasure is so moderate,' 
 she argued. 
 
 ' Well, it mightn't be so cheap next time. I 
 took care, you see, to let it leak out that you were 
 on a professional tour, and I think it had an effect 
 upon the charges.' 
 
 I had rarely seen Miss Martineau so indignant 
 
 ' Then you have spoilt a most important item 
 of my book, sir.' 
 
 I had some difficulty in restoring peace between 
 them ; for the man of law would argue that he had 
 not been writing a guide-book, but financing the 
 company ; and was bound to do it to the best of 
 his ability, independent of all private considerations, 
 I need hardly say that he has since risen to great 
 eminence in his profession. 
 
 Under Miss Martineau's roof I met at various 
 times many remarkable persons, with most of 
 whom I have since been on more or less intimate 
 terms ; to her I owe my first introduction to 
 
132 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Matthew Arnold — 'looking,' as old Crabb Robinson 
 described him at that time, * disgustingly young 
 and handsome.' He is happily still with us, but 
 the world has lost his brother William, one of the 
 kindliest and brightest of men. I had been de- 
 lighted with his fine Indian novel, * Oakfield,' but 
 the expectations it had aroused were fully realised 
 in him. His appearance even at that time sug- 
 gested delicacy of constitution, but he was very 
 active and energetic. I took one expedition with 
 him in winter on foot through Borrowdale. We 
 talked of everything, from politics to sonnets, and 
 agreed on most, but differed very widely upon the 
 merits of the monitorial system. I had been for 
 some time at the Military Academy at Woolwich, 
 where, at that date, the system (with * corporals ' 
 in place of * monitors ') was in full flow, with far 
 from beneficial results. My companion, on the 
 other hand, had of course an hereditary respect 
 for it. At the time in question some letters were 
 appearing in a London newspaper upon the subject, 
 with leading articles for commentaries, of which, as 
 he knew, Miss Martineau was the writer. * She 
 knows nothing whatever about it,' he said. 
 
 * But, my dear fellow,' I argued, * there are the 
 letters.' 
 
A CONFESSION. 133 
 
 * It is my firm belief,' he answered, ' that she 
 writes the letters too. You may smile,' he continued, 
 * but I assure you nothing is more common. It is 
 a mere newspaper device for the dead season. No 
 one who has ever been at a public school of any 
 kind ' 
 
 * My dear Arnold,' I put in, * it is I who wrote 
 those letters.' 
 
 ' Not really ? ' 
 
 * Yes, upon my honour.' 
 
 How we both roared with laughter ! I doubt 
 whether those eternal hills, at all events with their 
 snow shrouds on them, had ever echoed such mirth. 
 
 It was to Harriet Martineau that I owed my 
 first introduction to heavy metalled literature. She 
 tells us in her autobiography that, with the excep- 
 tion of Mrs. Marsh's ' Two Old Men's Tales,' ' I 
 have never once, so far as I remember, succeeded 
 in getting a manuscript published for anybody. 
 This has been a matter of great concern to me, 
 but such is the fact. ... I have striven hard on 
 behalf of others, but without the slightest success.' 
 
 Notwithstanding this disclaimer, I cannot but 
 think I was somewhat indebted to her for my 
 appearance, at what was certainly an unusually 
 early age, in the columns of the ' Westminster 
 
134 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Review.' The article was called ' Ballads of the 
 People,' and I got twenty guineas for it, which 
 seemed to me a princely remuneration. 
 
 There is a great deal of misconception as to 
 what can be done for the literary neophyte, as I, 
 alas ! (since in an evil hour I wrote a certain paper 
 upon the Literary Calling in the 'Nineteenth 
 Century' Review) have good cause to know. 
 Unless a young gentleman has a natural calling 
 (not only a fancy, or even a taste) to the literary 
 profession, 'not all the king's horses and all the 
 king's men ' can set him up in it. By some im- 
 proper exertion of private friendship it is possible 
 indeed he may get something into print, and that 
 — the extreme limit of outside assistance — is 
 necessarily the end of him. His hash is settled, 
 and generally not without some sauce piqumite of 
 unfavourable criticism. But if a young fellow has 
 genuine literary talent, there is no doubt that his 
 success may be hastened by friendly hands ; even 
 the praise of those who are well qualified to judge 
 of such matters is of immense assistance to him. 
 It is not so much the whip that makes the mare of 
 literature to go, as the encouraging pat upon the 
 back, nor is the sieve of corn held in front of the 
 steed, who has once had his nose in it, without an 
 
A LAST WISH. 135 
 
 exhilarating effect. Those twenty guineas, for 
 example, from the ' Westminster,' at that time were 
 to me as good as five hundred ten years afterwards. 
 That they came to me so early was certainly owing, 
 indirectly, to my old friend at Swallowfield, and I 
 told her so by letter. She wrote back to me, 
 racked by pain and exhausted by weakness, from 
 what was fated to be her death-bed : ' Ah ! I wish 
 I could have done a twentieth part of the good I 
 wish you.' And a few days afterwards she was at 
 rest. 
 
 Little did I think that in a very brief time my 
 other friend, and I may say Miss Mitford's also — 
 for the two ladies had kept up a warm and kindly 
 correspondence — was destined to receive her N7inc 
 dimittis^ not indeed, as it turned out, from life, but 
 from the world in which she took so active a part. 
 Miss Martineau had been ailing for some time, and 
 on going to London for advice received the news 
 that she was suffering from an incurable malady ; 
 the sentence, in fact, was Death, and though it was 
 deferred for many years, she never tasted of the 
 old life again. She still continued to write for her 
 newspaper (the ' Daily News '), but for nothing else. 
 Her very last bit of authorship, she told me, was the 
 article on ' Convict Life ' in the ' Edinburgh.' 
 
136 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Throughout the invalid existence which she 
 was doomed henceforth to lead, she was resigned 
 and cheerful ; not a word of complaint, though she 
 suffered much pain, fell from her lips or from her 
 pen ; but she never recovered her old spirits. Our 
 simple junketings and merriment were over. Year 
 after year I used to come to see her, and every 
 time there was a distinct decay of strength. Her 
 intelligence remained as keen as ever, and her 
 interest in the affairs of the world from which she 
 was cut off; but to me, with the remembrance of 
 other days in my mind, those visits were very sad. 
 
 At first I was admitted at the same familiar 
 door, on the same terms as usual ; then only an 
 hour's interview was allowed by the doctor's orders ; 
 then only half an hour. She wrote to me, however, 
 though even letter-writing had become toilsome to 
 her, pretty frequently. Her own increasing ailments 
 were dismissed with a word or two ; but all that 
 pertained to those she loved was interesting to her, 
 even to quite trivial details. 
 
 ' Love to Tiny [the worker of the book-marker 
 so many years ago], and all of you, from your 
 affectionate old friend ' were the last words I had 
 from Harriet Martineau. 
 
^Z7 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BROTHERS CHAMBERS — ALEXANDER RUSSEL — DEAN 
 RAMSAY — HILL BURTON — ALEXANDER SMITH — EDI- 
 TORIAL EXPERIENCES. 
 
 When I first went to Edinburgh, it had for years 
 ceased to be ' the Modern Athens ; ' the exodus to 
 London had set in ; and men of letters no longer 
 made it their residence by choice. There were 
 many persons, however, still remaining who would 
 certainly not be designated as ' local celebrities,' 
 and who could not have been found in any provincial 
 town. They were also of various types. Robert 
 Chambers, and Alexander Smith ; Aytoun, and 
 MacCuUoch ; Russel (of the ' Scotsman'), and Dean 
 Ramsay ; Hill Burton, and Gerald Massey, could 
 hardly have been said to run in couples, or to be 
 tarred with the same literary brush. But these of 
 course were exceptional people. Society in general 
 seemed to the Southerner, like the whisky toddy 
 which had such an inexplicable attraction for the 
 natives, a little stiff. Leitch Ritchie had warned 
 
1.38 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 me that I should find it so. Though a Scotchman 
 himself, he had, until within the last few years,, 
 passed his life in England, and among folk the 
 reverse of * square-toed ; ' his nature was frank and 
 emotional ; his humour was delicate rather than 
 robust ; he had no sympathy with the national 
 observances and superstitions, and unjustly, though 
 under the circumstances not unnaturally, took the 
 formalism of his neighbours for hypocrisy. He 
 was a great admirer of Edinburgh, but it was of 
 the place rather than of the people. In looking 
 on the Castle, or the Calton Hill, or Arthur's Seat, 
 ' all, all save the spirit of man is divine,' was his 
 favourite quotation. This was a misfortune on both 
 sides ; for all who knew him liked him.^ For my 
 part, some of the best friends I have are Scotchmen,, 
 and it would be as ungrateful in me, as impertinent,, 
 to say one wdrd against them ; but, as a rule,. 
 ivJien they ai'e in their ozvn country they need not 
 culture indeed, but cultivation ; it is difficult to 
 make friends with them off-hand ; they have no 
 demonstrativeness ; and one seems, as the agricul- 
 tural gentleman said of claret, as a liquor, * to get 
 
 ' Even B. — I will call him B., for indeed he was busy enough, 
 though he made no honey — speaking to Thackeray of Leitch 
 Ritchie, admitted that he was ' a very gentlemanly man ; ' but 
 ' How does B. kuoiu ? ' said Thackeray. 
 
ROBERT CHAMBERS. I39' 
 
 no forrarder with them,' even when you are getting 
 'forrarder.' With Scotchmen out of Scotland 
 this is not the case, or not nearly so much the 
 case ; but when they are at home it is so. They 
 are difficult of access, and not like those imprudent 
 damsels who are said to meet the other sex ' half- 
 way ! ' This is no very serious defect, nor one to 
 be resented with such bitterness as Sydney Smith 
 has spoken of it ; but to a stranger in Edinburgh, 
 like myself, it was undoubtedly a drawback. 
 
 As to hospitality, there was nothing to complain 
 of in that respect, for Robert Chambers not only 
 opened his own doors to me at once, but introduced 
 me to his literary friends. He had long known 
 me, of course, as a contributor to the ' Journal,' 
 though I had met him only once before under 
 Miss Martineau's roof His manner was dry, and 
 though his eye twinkled with humour, I did not 
 immediately recognise it as such. It was, in fact, 
 the first acquaintance that I had made with a man 
 of his type, and he puzzled me. I never fell into 
 the Englishman's error in connection with northern 
 ' wut : ' of epigram and repartee the Scotch have 
 indeed very little ; they do not understand the use 
 of the rapier ; but their humour, generally grim as 
 that of the Americans (though not the least like 
 
140 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 it), yet sometimes very good-natured, I did not 
 fail to appreciate from the first. Robert Chambers's 
 humour was of the good-natured sort. His nature 
 was essentially ' good ; ' from the pleasure he took 
 in the popularity of his friends, I used to call him 
 * the Well-Wisher ; ' nor did he confine himself, as 
 so many benevolent folks do, to wishing. I was 
 intimately connected with him for twenty years, 
 every one of which increased my regard for him, 
 and when he died I lost one of the truest friends I 
 ever had. 
 
 His manner, however, on first acquaintance, 
 was somewhat solid and unsympathetic. He had 
 a very striking face and figure, as well known in 
 Edinburgh as St. Giles's Cathedral, but a stranger 
 would have taken him for a divine, possibly even 
 for one of the ' unco' guid.' In London his white 
 tie, and grave demeanour, caused him to be always 
 taken for a clergyman ; a very great mistake, 
 which used to tickle him exceedingly. * When I 
 don't give a beggar the penny he solicits,' he used 
 to say, ' he generally tells me after a few cursory 
 remarks, that " the ministers are always the 
 hardest." ' He could appreciate a joke even upon 
 a subject so sacred as the ' Journal ' itself. Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe had been visiting Edinburgh, and 
 
THE BROTHERS CHAMBERS. 141 
 
 had had some talk, he told me, with his brother 
 William. She spoke of various periodicals, and 
 presently remarked, in an off-hand manner, ' You 
 publish a magazine yourself, don't you ? ' So 
 might a visitor to Rome have observed to the Pope, 
 ' You have a church here, have you not — St. Peter's 
 or some such name ? ' 
 
 As these reminiscences only concern themselves 
 with literature, there is no need, save in justice to 
 another, to speak in them of William Chambers : 
 he v/as in no sense a man of letters ; his style was 
 bald, and his ideas mere platitudes ; but because 
 he had started the ' Journal ' it was difficult for him 
 to understand that its subsequent and permanent 
 success was owing to his brother. Being childless, 
 and of great wealth, he was enabled to perform 
 certain public acts, which cast Robert, who was 
 weighted with a large family, comparatively into 
 the shade. But there was really no comparison 
 between them. 
 
 I know no man who did so much literary work 
 of such various kinds, and upon the whole so well, 
 as Robert Chambers. There is now no doubt — 
 indeed it was always an open secret — that he 
 wrote the famous ' Vestiges,' though, until the 
 late disclosure of Mr. Ireland, I had conjectured 
 
142 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 from the style that the book might have been 
 written in collaboration. His scientific and anti- 
 quarian works were numerous ; his essays of 
 themselves fill many volumes, and admirably re- 
 flect his character— humour mixed with common 
 sense. 
 
 He held two pews, each at different churches. 
 I asked him why he had them in duplicate. 
 ^ Because,' he replied, ' when I am not in the one, 
 it will always be concluded by the charitable that 
 I am in the other.' 
 
 My friends, his daughters, were very lively and 
 full of fun, and on one occasion, on their coming 
 back to Edinburgh from some stay in London, 
 their father was thus congratulated by an old 
 church-goer on their return : 
 
 ' We were glad to see them back again,' he 
 said. * Yours is such a merry pew.' 
 
 William was always talking of the poverty of 
 his youth, and hinting — very broadly — at the 
 genius which had raised him to eminence. He 
 was fond of holding forth upon the miseries of a 
 poor lad, who had had to ' thole ' and toil for his 
 livelihood, and had afterwards, by diligence and 
 merit, made a great figure in the world ; and the 
 peroration — for which everybody was quite pre- 
 
■ 'WE CAME IN THE ''FLEA:'' 143 
 
 pared {i.e. with their handkerchiefs, not at their 
 •eyes, but stuffed in their mouths) — used to be 
 -always ' I was that Boy' 
 
 All this was hateful to Robert, and gave him, 
 as well it might, extreme annoyance. I remember 
 being applied to by the proprietors of an American 
 magazine to write a sketch of the lives of the two 
 brothers, and applied to Robert for the materials. 
 He laid his hand upon my shoulder, and after ex- 
 pressing in the kindest manner his regret at being 
 obliged to refuse me any favour, declined to give 
 me his assistance. * I am sick of the twice-told — 
 nay, of the two-hundred-times-told story/ he said ; 
 * apply to my brother William, and he will be de- 
 lighted to tell you the whole truth about it — and 
 more. He will be sure to say that we came bare- 
 footed into Edinburgh ; whereas, as a matter of 
 fact, we came in the " Flea." ' * It was very funny, 
 but also very pathetic, and I need scarcely say that 
 the article never was written. 
 
 To my thinking there is no example of the 
 undue influence of wealth in this country more 
 convincing than the manner in which a good, and 
 one may fairly say, a great man, like Robert 
 
 ' The * Flea ' was the name of the coach which at that time ran 
 between Peebles and Edinburgh. 
 
144 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Chambers was dwarfed in the public eye beside 
 his brother. When he died there was a paragraph 
 or two in the papers commenting on the event ; 
 while the decease of William was dwelt upon as 
 a national calamity, though indeed no one went 
 quite the length of saying that ' the gaiety of 
 nations had been eclipsed ' by it. 
 
 It is five-and-twenty years since I lived in 
 Edinburgh, and no doubt great changes have since 
 taken place there in social matters ; but what 
 struck a stranger most at that time was the extra- 
 ordinary disregard of the precept that the Sabbath 
 was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 
 A man might do many things much worse and be 
 regarded with much charity ; but if he broke the 
 Sabbath no one had a good word to say for him. 
 The only parallel to such a state of things occurs 
 in a certain narrative of a pious stockbroker who 
 about that time was taken by Italian brigands. 
 They were thieves and murderers of the deepest 
 dye, superstitious to the last degree, and speaking 
 a language of which he understood nothing ; yet a 
 great deal of his captivity was spent in the attempt 
 to teach them to observe Sunday. He made 
 no other missionary effort, but at that he worked 
 away, until he was ransomed, with the greatest 
 
A SABBATH MORN. 
 
 145 
 
 perseverance : and I have no doubt he was a 
 native of Edinburgh. 
 
 About this period a majority in the House of 
 Commons had been ' snatched ' in a division 
 against the Sunday post, which prevented the 
 whole country from sending or receiving letters on 
 the seventh day ; as no post went out from London 
 on Sunday, and there was no telegraph, this made 
 two consecutive days of failure of correspondence ; 
 the inconvenience was insupportable, and after six 
 weeks the old regime was again adopted, but there 
 was not, and I believe there never had been, any 
 Sunday post in Edinburgh. The only alleviation 
 permitted was that for one half-hour on Sunday 
 morning the Unregenerate were allowed to send 
 for their letters to the General Post Office. The 
 scene beggared description ; though I made an 
 effort to describe it — not in the ' Journal ' of course, 
 but in ' Household Words,' under the descriptive 
 title of 'A Sabbath Morn.' Hun4reds of men, 
 women, and children crowded the Great Hall, call- 
 ing out their names and addresses at the top of their 
 voices, while the letters addressed to them were 
 thrown at their heads by unwilling and scandalised 
 officials. It was a Pandemonium which even the 
 ' awakening ' sermons of the day could hardly rival 
 
 L 
 
146 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 in their descriptions of what was awaiting those 
 who read their letters on a Sunday. 
 
 This open exhibition of the Sabbatarian yoke 
 was nothing, however, as compared with its secret and 
 unacknowledged sway. In the street where I first 
 resided, it struck me that, to judge by its drawn- 
 down blinds, the people spent a good deal of their 
 time upon the seventh day in bed ; on my second 
 Sunday, however, I was undeceived, for my land- 
 lady came up, and informed me that, though she 
 had not spoken of it last Sunday, she must now 
 draw my attention to the fact that it was not usual 
 in Edinburgh to draw up the window blinds on the 
 Sabbath, and that the neighbours had begun to 
 remark upon the 'unlawful' appearance of her 
 establishment, which had heretofore been a God- 
 fearing house. 
 
 What astonished me even more than this 
 example of fetish-worship itself, was that I found 
 persons, otherwise sensible enough, to endorse, or 
 at all events to excuse it. Hill Burton, for 
 instance, a man of exceptional intelligence, to 
 whom I expressed my sentiments upon the sub- 
 ject pretty strongly, replied that a ' national pre- 
 judice was always worthy of respect,' or something 
 to that amazing effect. An Englishman will listen 
 
ALEXANDER R US SEE 147 
 
 unmoved, and even amused, to a description of the 
 weaknesses of his fellow-countrymen, but a Scotch- 
 man, like the Greenvv^ich pensioner of old, who 
 would never allow ' the Hospital ' to be found fault 
 with except by himself, resents it. 
 
 This was the case even with so robust a man 
 as Alexander Russel, of the ' Scotsman ; ' a great 
 personage in those days in Edinburgh, and far 
 beyond it. I remember saying something about 
 the stiffness of social life in Edinburgh in his 
 presence, and instantly apologising for it in rather 
 a maladroit manner. ' You have so little of it 
 yourself,' I said, ' that I quite forgot you were a 
 Scotchman at all.' 'Sir,' he said, 'I want no 
 ■compliment at the expense of my country.' When 
 I ventured to reply, however, that he ought to 
 accept it as being, probably, the very first thing 
 that ever had been done at the expense of his 
 country, his sense of humour at once came to the 
 rescue, and we became great friends. He even 
 stood a sly reference to the fact that no return 
 tickets were at that time issued from Edinburgh to 
 London, but only the other way. 
 
 I have never met a man with a keener sense of 
 drollery than Alexander Russel : and in his hands 
 it became a powerful engine. Readers looked for 
 
 L2 
 
148 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 his articles in the ' Scotsman ' with expectations 
 altogether different from those which the ordinary 
 leader-writer awakens. They were not only logical 
 and convincing, but had a strain of good-natured 
 irony running through them which — save to the 
 subjects of their satire — was universally acceptable. 
 His anecdotes were admirable, and those who 
 figured in them were drawn from the life. He used 
 to call me ' that interloping Englishman,' and 
 would expatiate with great humour upon the un- 
 natural and unparalleled condition of affairs which 
 had brought one of my countrymen up to Scotland 
 to take the bread out of native mouths. We soon 
 grew to be so intimate that he would joke — and 
 by no means ' with difficulty ' — upon the national 
 peculiarities in my presence, just as though I had 
 not been ' an interloper.' 
 
 Besides the humour of his stories there was 
 almost always some graphic illustration of cha- 
 racter in them. In Sutherlandshire and some other 
 northern counties of Scotland, the Church was at 
 that time ruled by certain elders of a Puritanic sort, 
 but who had also an eye to the main chance. A 
 young man in whom they were interested came 
 down to practise the law in Edinburgh, and after a 
 month or two one of the elders followed him and 
 
A TRULY MORAL MAN. 149 
 
 inquired of Russel how their young friend S. was 
 getting on. ' I think,' he said, ' he will succeed, for 
 he is a truly moral man ! ' 
 
 ' He's well enough,' returned Russel rather 
 contemptuously ; ' but as for his morality, I am not 
 aware, though he does come from your part of the 
 country, that he is more moral than other people.' 
 
 ' Hoot, man ! ' was the unexpected rejoinder ; 
 
 V * I dinna mean drink and the lasses, but gambling 
 and sic things as you lose money by ! ' 
 
 A still more characteristic story of his was in 
 connection with his own affairs. The Liberal 
 party in Scotland, who were under great obli- 
 gations to him for his advocacy as a journalist, 
 had subscribed very handsomely to present him 
 with a testimonial in hard cash. He was not a 
 rich man, but he had doubts as to whether he 
 should accept a gift which might destroy or weaken 
 his prestige ; and he consulted a fellow-countryman 
 upon the point. The advice, as he told it me with 
 infinite relish, was as follows : — 
 
 ' If it is five thousand pounds, my man, tak' it ; 
 
 V if it's less than five thousand, don't tak' it; and 
 say yott wouldn't have taken it if it had been fifty 
 thousand ! ' 
 
 Unfortunately, from my inability, already al- 
 
150 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 luded to, to master, or even to imitate, an alien 
 tongue, I [am obliged to relate these things in 
 English, whereby I am conscious they lose much 
 in the telling. As Russel delivered them, with 
 appropriate expression and ' mouthing out his 
 hollow o's and a's,' they were infinitely more 
 diverting. 
 
 The former editor of the ' Scotsman,' when he 
 retired to enjoy his well-earned leisure, was so 
 good as to give Russel some particular advice. 
 ' The conduct of a newspaper,' he said, ' is always 
 a very serious thing, full of dangers and difficulties ; 
 but in addition to its usual anxieties j/^?/, my friend, 
 will every night have to keep the most vigilant 
 watch lest that man Hill Burton should contrive to 
 insert his theory about Scotch cheeses into your 
 columns.' 
 
 It is not necessary to particularise what it was ; 
 it will suffice to say that this theory— based upon 
 the exposure of Scotch cheeses in front of the 
 shops, and the treatment to which they were con- 
 sequently exposed — was not complimentary or 
 likely to recommend them to the purchaser. ' Day 
 and night,' said Russel, ' for fifteen years, I never 
 forgot my predecessor's warning ; a hundred times 
 that theory endeavoured to gain admittance into 
 
PRINTED AT LAST. 151 
 
 my columns, and by most unlooked-for channels ; 
 sometimes it lurked concealed in an article upon 
 the Crimean War, sometimes in one on the Divorce 
 Laws, sometimes in one on the divisions of the 
 Free Church of Scotland, or even on the Disrup- 
 tion itself : but it was always detected and struck 
 out It was a duel to the death ; for I knew that 
 Hill Burton would never relax his efforts to get his 
 views upon Scotch cheeses into print while there 
 was breath in his body. On the morning of the 
 last day of the fifteenth year, he ran into my office, 
 waving a paper in his hand, and crying out, " It's 
 in, it's in ! " 
 
 ' " What," cried I, " you persevering devil, not in 
 the ' Scotsman ' surely ? " 
 
 ' " No," said he, " in ' Chambers's Information for 
 the People.' " 
 
 ' My relief of mind is not to be described, and 
 I must also confess (here Russel turned to me with 
 a chuckle) that it gave me no little satisfaction to 
 think that it was your friends the Chawmerses 
 after all who'd got it.' 
 
 Russel was not a Radical, far from it ; indeed 
 he had that somewhat exaggerated respect for 
 hereditary rank which often accompanies Scotch 
 Liberalism ; bilt, apart from its political bearing, he 
 
152 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 could see the absurdity of its claims as clearly as 
 any one. At that time there were two Lords of 
 Session in Edinburgh of similar sounding names, 
 Lord Neaves and Lord Deas. A young sprig of 
 the former's family once informed Russel that he 
 * belonged to the oldest house in England — Neaves 
 is in fact the elder branch of the house of Neville.' 
 
 ' Dear me,' was the dry reply ; ' then in that 
 case, reasoning by analogy, Lord Deas may claim 
 a still more ancient origin.' 
 
 The wit and wisdom of Alexander kussel 
 would indeed fill a volume. Few men made a 
 more striking figure in local society than he did in 
 the times I speak of ; and albeit they were not the 
 great times of Edinburgh, he had many note- 
 worthy contemporaries. 
 
 Dr. Simpson, though he was not then Sir 
 James, was at the summit of his reputation. His 
 appearance was remarkable ; Gerald Massey has 
 graphically described it in his dedication to one of 
 his poems, 'Body of Bacchus with the Head of 
 Jove.' Like many of his noble profession, he was 
 very generous, and always took into account the 
 means of those who consulted him. He was fond 
 of literature and literary men. I met him first at 
 the bedside of Leitch Ritchie, whotn he attended 
 
S//^ JAMES SIMPSON. 153 
 
 assiduously, notwithstanding the much more profit- 
 able patients that were always awaiting him. I 
 doubt indeed whether he ever took a guinea from 
 him. Simpson, too, was a great teller of stories, 
 of a different kind indeed from those of Russel, 
 but not less interesting, for the pages of human 
 life which lie open to the intelligent physician are 
 the most attractive of all reading. I remember no 
 one in his profession who more impressed me as 
 being a man of genius than he did. If not a wit 
 himself, he was, at all events on one occasion, the 
 cause of wit in another. He had, of course, an 
 immense practice in Edinburgh, but it seemed to 
 me a world too narrow for the exercise of his 
 powers, and I once inquired of a great English 
 doctor how it was that Simpson had never come 
 to London. ' My dear sir,' he replied with a dry 
 smile, ' he is quite right to stop where he is ; there 
 are no coroners' inquests in Scotland.' The Faculty 
 has a large collection of professional jokes, but few, 
 I think, better than this one. 
 
 Simpson had a warm admiration for the sim- 
 plicity and tenderness of Leitch Ritchie's charac- 
 ter, as indeed had everyone with whom he was 
 brought into close connection. He was one of the 
 last survivors of a school of literary men now 
 
154 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 almost, if not quite extinct ; it had the culture of 
 the silver-fork school without their affectation, and 
 the simplicity of the Bohemians without their dis- 
 reputableness. The author of ' Wearyfoot Common ' 
 had been one of the hardest workers of his time ; 
 ' as a young husband,' he told me, ' I have often 
 written for the press for hours, while at the same 
 time my foot has rocked the cradle of a child ! ' 
 Composition — especially invention — under such 
 circumstances seemed to me to be an impossibility^ 
 and I said so. * Yet necessity, my young friend,' 
 was his half-grave, half-gay reply, ' is said to be the 
 mother of invention. You do not know what it is 
 to live by your pen only! And indeed the differ- 
 ence between this and merely supplementing one's 
 income by one's pen is enormous. 
 
 In his time Leitch Ritchie had written upon 
 almost every subject under heaven. His total 
 ignorance of any matter was no obstacle to his 
 undertaking it ; he cheerfully sat down to the task 
 of reading it up. To store the mind with general 
 information he held to be sheer extravagance ; to 
 acquire what might never be wanted was a waste 
 of time, and he had no time to spare ; it was only 
 rich men who could afford to fritter away their in- 
 telligence in that lavish way. On the other hand, 
 
A MANY-SIDED MAN. 155 
 
 if he wanted to write upon a particular subject he 
 would contrive to know more about it in twenty- 
 four hours than any man of general information 
 could possibly know. He was, as is well known, the 
 companion of Turner in his Continental travels,, 
 and an authority on matters of art ; and he once 
 wrote a pamphlet on the ear, for an aurist, which 
 made that gentleman's professional reputation. 
 
 As an editor, this many-sidedness was of great 
 advantage to him, and still more to his contri- 
 butors ; scientific or poetic, imaginative or matter- 
 of-fact, he could sympathize, more or less, with 
 them all. It was a matter of boast with its pro- 
 prietors that, during the long course which the 
 ' Journal ' had run, its contributors formed of them- 
 selves a public ; and they were at least as various 
 as they were numerous. I remember three re- 
 markable contributions coming in one day, which 
 my Co. tossed over to me, with a nod of introduc- 
 tion in each case : ' That comes from an arch- 
 bishop,' he said (naming himj ; ' that from a 
 washerwoman, and that from a thief 
 
 Until a man becomes an editor he can never 
 plumb the depths of literary human nature ; the 
 position affords an opportunity for the most sur- 
 prising studies, especially among the Rejected^ 
 
156 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 who form nineteen-twentieths of his constituency. 
 Vanity, as might be expected, is the leading feature 
 of this class; but the monsters it begets in the 
 way of suspicion and duplicity are almost incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 It was by no means uncommon to find an 
 article, after the first few pages, gummed together ; 
 the writer's notion being that his paper would go 
 through a very perfunctory examination indeed, 
 and that he would thus be in a position to prove 
 what insurmountable obstacles he had had to con- 
 tend against ; it never struck him that, even if his 
 device was not discovered, the first few pages would 
 have been amply sufficient data for his condem- 
 nation. 
 
 Others, however, would admit that their con- 
 tributions were not uniformly admirable. 'After 
 the first ten chapters,' they would write, 'you will 
 find, Mr. Editor, that my story grows intensely 
 interesting.' When these precious MSS. came 
 back to hand, their proprietors were of course 
 positively convinced that the eleventh chapter had 
 never been reached, and so far at least they came 
 to a just conclusion. 
 
 Others, again, were really modest as to their 
 talents ; they looked for acceptance on quite other 
 
WOULD-BE CONTRIBUTORS. 157 
 
 grounds than literary merit ; because they were 
 only seventeen years of age, or because they were 
 more than seventy ; because they had an aged aunt 
 dependent on them for subsistence ; because their 
 husband was a clergyman, and wanted his chancel 
 repaired ; or because they were of Royal descent. 
 Some would-be contributors did not confine 
 their efforts to ' make the thing that is not as the 
 thing that is ' to story writing ; I am sorry to say 
 they stooped to deception. Their articles, they 
 would assure us, had been written with a view to 
 our ' particular needs,' and ' had been sent to no 
 other periodical ; ' which was not always true. We 
 ' Wes ' have an almost infallible test for ascertaining 
 whether our magazine is the first love of a con- 
 tributor, and I have known language of virgin 
 passion to be applied to us, after it had been 
 addressed — in vain — to several other quarters. The 
 most amazing of these hypocritical appeals were, 
 however, personal, and directed to my coadjutor 
 himself The writers had known his works from 
 their childhood ; had admired his genius from the 
 first moment they had begun to appreciate literary 
 excellence ; and held his name as a household 
 word — yet never by any accident did they spell it 
 right. 
 
158 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 The discovery of these lapses from the path of 
 rectitude in persons of my own calHng, or who, at 
 least, aspired to it, shocked me not a Httle. It is a 
 comfort to reflect that I am narrating incidents of 
 a quarter of a century ago, since which (as is well 
 known) human nature has become another thing 
 altogether. Moreover, if some of my editorial 
 experiences were disenchanting, there were many 
 more of quite an opposite nature, and which gave 
 great zest and interest to m,y new calling. With 
 such an example of conscientiousness and good-will 
 as I had before me in Leitch Ritchie, it would have 
 been difficult indeed to take a cynical view of 
 things, even had I been so disposed ; unhappily I 
 was but a short time under his tutelage ; ill-health 
 compelled him to resign his duties and remove to 
 London, when our partnership (as he always called 
 it, though I was but in statu piipillari), had lasted 
 barely twelve months. 
 
 While I am upon the subject, I may mention 
 one or two cases — the individuals connected with 
 them being long dead and gone — illustrative of the 
 curiosities of editorship. I had been in the habit 
 of receiving from a certain contributor some admi- 
 rable sketches of low London life ; graphic, though 
 without offensive coarseness, they convinced the 
 
A CASUAL. 159 
 
 reader of their absolute reality ; and as the visiting 
 of the dens of the metropolis was not at that time 
 so fashionable an amusement as it as present, my 
 amateur explorer interested me very much. It 
 struck me, I remember, that a large proportion of 
 the payment he received for his sketches must find 
 its way into the pockets of the policemen employed 
 as his bodyguard. 
 
 One day, after a long interval, he sent me a 
 paper called ' A Night in the Thames Tunnel ; ' 
 he described himself as being without the twopence 
 that ordinarily procured him a lodging, and as re- 
 sorting to the Tunnel — at that time a penny foot- 
 way — for warmth and shelter. The same idea, he 
 said, had occurred to others ; for on the occasion in 
 question he had found several homeless persons, 
 like himself, by no means of the lower classes, 
 huddled under the gas-lights, and waiting wearily 
 for the dawn. The preface, as well as the article, 
 was so life-like, that for the first time it occurred 
 to me that my contributor might really be as poor 
 as he professed to be. I therefore wrote to ask 
 him if his affairs were indeed so unprosperous, and 
 making no apology if they were not so, since my 
 mistake was evidently, in that case, due to his 
 marvellous powers of description. I got in reply 
 
i6o SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 one of the saddest revelations I ever received ; it 
 is sufficient here to say that my correspondent was 
 utterly destitute. 
 
 That a man possessed of such talents should be 
 in such extreme necessity seemed almost appalling. 
 I went at once to Alexander Russel, whom I knew 
 to be just then in want of literary assistance, and 
 laid the case before him. 
 
 ' Of course there is something wrong,' he said 
 grimly : ' probably drink ; but I'll give yowx protege 
 a trial.' And the Thames Tunneller came up to 
 Edinburgh forthwith at a salary of 200/. a year. 
 
 The end of the story was almost as strange as 
 Its commencement ; my contributor (who did 7tot 
 drink, I am happy to say) kept his place for twelve 
 months or so, and then departed elsewhere, when I 
 lost sight of him altogether. I thought he had 
 ' gone under ' for good and all. Ten years after- 
 wards a work on London life, purporting to be 
 written by a Scripture Reader, made a great sensa- 
 tion. I read and admired it like the rest of the 
 world, but my interest in it was vastly increased on 
 receiving a presentation copy of the second edition, 
 with * my first success ' in a well-known handwriting 
 on the title-page. It was the Thames Tunneller 
 emerged to light for the second time. 
 
A YOUNG POET. i6i 
 
 There was a young poet among my contributors 
 who also immensely interested me. His effusions 
 were not only far above the average of magazine 
 verse, but of great merit and still greater promise. 
 He was not twenty-one, and yet there was nothing 
 morbid in his compositions. They were so hopeful 
 and wholesome, indeed, that it was impossible to 
 have supposed, what was in fact the case, that he 
 was suffering from an incurable disease and knew 
 it. We corresponded pretty frequently. One day I 
 received a reply from his father, instead of himself, 
 announcing his son's death. It is too sacred to 
 quote here, but what he said of the intense pleasure 
 the young man had derived from the encourage- 
 ment I had been able to afford him gave me a 
 lasting satisfaction. 
 
 On addressing, on another occasion in the 
 course of business, a pretty constant contributor, I 
 found that she also — for it was a young lady — had 
 passed into ' the sunless land.' In her case again 
 the father wrote, but in utter ignorance that his 
 daughter had ever been an authoress. * The con- 
 siderable sums,' he said, ' which she seemed to have 
 at command for charitable purposes had for some 
 time astonished 'US ; but her disposition was as reti- 
 cent as it was benevolent, and she never let us into 
 
 M 
 
i62 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 her harmless secret.' The vanity which is supposed 
 to be almost inseparable from a young author's 
 character certainly did not exist in this case. 
 
 There were sadder incidents even than these. 
 Some one lost to his friends, or at all events to one 
 friend, either mother or lover, had written a poem 
 in the ' Journal,' which, meeting her eye long after 
 its publication, had apparently betrayed to her his 
 identity. 
 
 * I fear that what I am about to request,' she 
 wrote, ' is beyond your power to grant, but I 
 make it with an extreme yearning .... Can you, 
 zvill you tell me who wrote or sent to you the 
 
 lines entitled ? Was there a name or initials ? 
 
 Was it sent from England or Australia ? . . . . 
 Try, try, sir, to remember : a broken-hearted and 
 dying woman will ever bless you ! For pity's sake, 
 endeavour to satisfy me ! ' 
 
 Worse, though less pathetic cases than these 
 meet the editorial eye. The system of anonymous 
 publication is, in my opinion, far superior to thait 
 of signed articles, if only for the reason that it 
 gives the u^nknown author his best chance ; but it 
 has, of course, its drawbacks, and one of them is 
 that it affords the opportunity for misrepresentation 
 and fraud. Mere vanity often induces weak natures 
 
LITERARY CHEATS. 163 
 
 to lay claim to compositions which have attracted 
 notice. I have known dozens of instances of it, 
 some of which have had the most painful results. 
 The lie once told requires a score of other lies to 
 corroborate it, but detection in the end is certain. 
 
 ' I hope I am not taking too great a liberty,' 
 writes one unhappy father, ' in asking about an 
 article written in your " Journal," of such and such 
 a date ' (let me once more say I am speaking of 
 things that happened more than twenty years ago, 
 and which can hardly therefore now offend any 
 one). ' I have been told — and by himself— that it 
 was written by a son of mine. I fear — I fear that 
 vanity has induced him to tell us a falsehood. Will 
 you be good enough to write the word " Yes," or 
 the word " No " inside the enclosed stamped 
 envelope } ' 
 
 This young gentleman had only deceived his 
 family, but there were some cases in which posi- 
 tive frauds were committed, and money taken for 
 articles written by another hand. I remember a 
 very well-informed individual doing me the honour 
 of a personal visit and bringing with him an article 
 on ' The Literature of Cuba,' in which island he 
 described himself as being a resident. It was an 
 interesting paper, and as I had never happened to 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 hear of Cuban literature, I accepted it. A kw 
 days afterwards he called again, announcing him- 
 self as being about to depart for his native isle, and 
 inquired whether it would be convenient to let him 
 have the payment for the paper in advance, a 
 request which was at once complied with. When 
 the paper appeared, months afterwards, I got one 
 of those letters, half playful, half satirical, with 
 which all editors are familiar, from ' A Constant 
 Reader,' pointing out that it was advisable in a 
 journal professing to publish only original articles 
 to mention the fact when any exception was made, 
 as in the case of the ' Literature of Cuba,' the whole 
 of which, ' as you are doubtless aware,' said my corre- 
 spondent, ' is copied verbatim and literatim from (I 
 think) " Murray's Foreign and Colonial Library." ' 
 This was reprehensible enough ; but not so bad 
 as copying stories — of course not recent ones — out 
 of other magazines, and not only getting money 
 from us under false pretences, but embroiling us 
 with our contemporaries, who in their turn borrowed 
 with equal unconsciousness from us. One of them 
 revenged itself by printing the name and address 
 of the rascal, but the name was a false one, and the 
 address he had changed. On one occasion a wretch 
 sent us a story (of course, under another title) pub- 
 
IMPATIENCE. 165 
 
 lished twenty years beforp in the ' Journal ' itself ! 
 This was seething a kid in its mother's milk indeed. 
 
 Serious as these fraudulent transactions were to 
 ourselves, they were much more terrible to the 
 relatives of the criminals, who were in most cases 
 young people. ' I cannot conceive,' writes a father, 
 * what induced my unhappy son to take this course, 
 as he did not require money, and his conduct in 
 other respects has been most satisfactory. I have 
 just learned from him the details of his misconduct 
 towards you. ... I beg to send you a cheque for 
 the various amounts he has thus unworthily obtained 
 from you, and earnestly hope you will see your 
 way to accept it, without inflicting on him (and me) 
 a public exposure.' 
 
 One of the characteristics of most young 
 authors, or would-be authors, is their impatience ; 
 they are in a great hurry to be accepted, and when 
 they are accepted, they are in a still greater hurry 
 to be printed. They have not the least idea of the 
 exigencies of publication, and do not understand 
 why their contribution which was sent in on the 
 20th of the month should not be in type upon the 
 27th. I had experienced this feeling of impatience 
 myself, and had had cause to regret it. When I 
 was a very tender stripling indeed — not more than 
 
i66 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 sixteen or seventeen at most — I had sent an article 
 to the ' People's Journal,' and received the joyful 
 tidings of its acceptance. It was the first paper 
 that I had ever had accepted, and I was wild with 
 triumph and delight. Rather to my annoyance, 
 however, when I purchased the next Saturday's 
 number, I did not find in it what I looked for. 
 However, I managed to exist for seven days longer 
 without bursting, bought the succeeding number 
 within the first hour of its appearance, tore it open 
 without waiting for a paper-knife — and was disap- 
 pointed again. Then I wrote to the editor, very 
 calmly and dispassionately, pointing out that there 
 had been a mistake, and begging, in the most 
 courteous manner, that it might not occur again. 
 It did, however, occur again, whereupon I wrote 
 him another letter, not so dispassionate, and in 
 course of post received — most deservedly — my MS. 
 declined. With this recollection in my mind, I ot 
 course felt no surprise at the impatience of contri- 
 butors. The forms it took were, however, some- 
 times very peculiar. That the subject was as old 
 as the hills did not make the slightest difference. 
 The same anxiety for instant publication was mani- 
 fested for some essay upon the character of Queen 
 Cleopatra as though it were on a topic of the day ; 
 
NO NAME. 167 
 
 it never seemed to strike these writers that what 
 the world had done without for a thousand years 
 or so, it might still do without for another fortnight ; 
 they hoped to see their contribution towards the 
 History of the Visigoths * in our next issue,' with 
 the word * next ' underlined. 
 
 One gentleman, who had sent us a pressing 
 paper of this kind (I think on the Round Towers 
 of Ireland), was especially unfortunate ; he was an 
 Irishman himself, he told us, which however was 
 somewhat superfluous, for in his precipitancy he 
 had omitted to give his address. A week after- 
 wards he wrote in a great state of excitement to 
 know why he had not heard from us, which nothing 
 but the appearance of his Round Towers in print 
 could, in his opinion, excuse ; but in this case, too, 
 he gave no clue, save the postmark, which was 
 Dublin, to his private address. Then he wrote to 
 say that flesh and blood could stand such neglect 
 no longer, and that he was coming over to 
 Edinburgh to demand a personal explanation ; 
 and still he omitted to say where he wrote from. 
 Eventually he actually arrived, livid and foaming, 
 and on being confronted with his headless corre- 
 spondence, only burst into a roar of laughter, and 
 observed that it was ' mighty queer.' 
 
i68 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Strange as are the ways of the rejected con- 
 tributor, they are not more pecuHar than those of 
 the voluntary correspondent. The interest he is 
 so good as to take in a periodical is of course 
 flattering to those who conduct it, but also involves 
 some loss of time in the endeavour to satisfy his 
 inquiries. Some are matter of fact beyond any- 
 thing which the imagination can conceive. I 
 remember publishing a romance of a certain island, 
 not in the geographies, where things took place 
 which do not happen every day, and arousing an 
 unexpected desire in one of these gentry to visit it. 
 * I shall be obliged,' writes the intending emigrant, 
 if you will kindly answer the following questions : — 
 
 ' I. The date at which the account of this 
 interesting spot was written. 
 
 ' 2. Under what Government it is placed. 
 
 * 3. Price of land, and method of obtaining it. 
 
 * 4. Language spoken. 
 
 ' 5. Average summer heat. 
 
 ' 6. Kind of sponge referred to ; honey-comb or 
 cup. 
 
 ' 7. Occupations or trades most in request in the 
 island.' 
 
 Another correspondent finds that a story, 
 published in the 'Journal' some years ago, is 
 
ECCENTRICITIES. 169 
 
 founded upon a real incident in the life of his 
 great-grandfather, and therefore demands that it 
 be ' reprinted in an early number. Many friends 
 would take a sufficient number of copies of the 
 magazine to fully reimburse you for any expense ; 
 and it would attract more attention if brou"-ht out 
 in one of the numbers for this year.' 
 
 A good many of the casual correspondents of 
 a periodical are evidently downright mad ; they 
 use it as an escape-pipe for their lunacy, and 
 thereby, no doubt, prevent themselves from 'jump- 
 ing on their mothers,' or destroying their family at 
 a blow : to extract their communications would be 
 like quoting from a diary kept in Hanwell ; but 
 the semi-sane ones are really noteworthy. These 
 are generally scientific persons who differ from the 
 usual deductions which science has drawn, and who 
 have marvellous systems of their own, only awaiting 
 development to revolutionise the face of civilization. 
 
 One of them had a ' mechanical hippogriff,' 
 only requiring a little gas to inflate it, to go career- 
 ing over the fields of space ; moreover (though, 
 like ' the two little boys who only learn Latin ' 
 in the items required of a governess, ' it was 
 scarcely worth while to put that in '), it had in- 
 cidentally * a method of expelling vitiated air by a 
 
I70 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 succession of revolving fans, which, if thought 
 advisable, would discharge the whole atmosphere of 
 one coimtry into another.' 
 
 Another of these quasi-scientific gentlemen was 
 furious with us because we thought the world was 
 round. ' I suppose, sir,' he writes, ' that there is no 
 periodical in the kingdom which has done more to 
 sustain the infidel imposture of the Newtonian 
 theory than yours. Are you still determined to 
 defend what you knozv to be the grossest fraud 
 invented by man } It is perfectly scandalous that 
 a parcel of critics and editors should persist in 
 fooling the public with the idea of a globulous 
 world.' 
 
 The grounds upon which acceptance is demanded 
 by the would-be contributor are most curious and 
 unlooked for. One lady offers, in return for the 
 satisfaction of seeing herself in print, * to take in a 
 dozen copies of your esteemed periodical ; ' another^ 
 * being the daughter of a colonel, has a large circle 
 of friends who, in case of publication, would pur- 
 chase the magazine ; ' another has the literary re- 
 commendation of * one of the clergy.' 
 
 Now and then these applicants grew serious 
 even to devoutness. ' Time,' observes one of them, 
 ' is the gift of Heaven, not to be frittered away in 
 
GRIEVANCES. 171 
 
 the composition of mere medley rhymes,' but ' the 
 torrent of imagination which impels her' can 
 hardly fall short of positive inspiration ; if she is 
 wrong, 'God forgive her waste of His precious 
 time ; ' if right, ' a post-office order will oblige.' 
 
 Some correspondents have grievances of the 
 most unimaginable type. It occurs of course to 
 more than one native of Erin that ' we have a 
 settled purpose to caricature and misrepresent 
 Irish characteristics,' otherwise in our Irish stories 
 'such mistakes would never be made in the 
 brogue ; ' but such complaints were sometimes 
 not only national, but local. One writer inquires 
 why the town of which she is an inhabitant is not 
 represented in our columns by its local geniuses. 
 ' I and a few other ladies,' says the writer, ' are 
 desirous of informing you that this town is full of 
 native talent. We have two poets of very high 
 character and widespread fame— Mr. A. and Mr. B. 
 —next Mr. C ; and next Mr. D., and Mr. E. The 
 first is a gentleman of fortune ; his poetry is a 
 little strained, but very fine. There would be no 
 chance of your getting anything from him, if (as I 
 understand) you don't allow your contributors* 
 names to be put to their productions. Mr. B. is 
 one of our chief literary characters, a member of 
 
172 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 several of the learned societies in London, and who 
 has published many things. Nothing could be had 
 from him upon the terms stated above. The next 
 is Mr. C, a tradesman, and a very fine pastoral and 
 descriptive poet ; Mr. D. is very fair, and has put 
 forth a book of verse ; Mr, E. is a wealthy retired 
 solicitor, out of whom there would be no chance of 
 getting any of his productions without money. . . . 
 I have no motive but your own good, and to show 
 how our city is neglected.' 
 
 I could tell stories without end of my editorial 
 experience, some humorous, some pathetic; but 
 the impersonality of the mysterious ' We ' ought, I 
 feel, to be respected. If the reader wishes for 
 more revelations of this description, I refer him to 
 the ' Editor's Tales ' of Anthony Trollope, which 
 are not only very charming in themselves, but un- 
 consciously betray the kindness of heart of the 
 writer, and the tender conscientiousness with which 
 he discharged his trust. I may add, considering 
 the slenderness of his material, and the strong im- 
 pression that each narrative produces on the mind, 
 that the volume is as convincing a proof of the 
 genius of the author as anything he ever wrote. I 
 once expressed this opinion to Trollope, who 
 assented to my view of the matter, but added, 
 
THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE. 173 
 
 with a grim smile, that he doubted whether any- 
 body had ever read the book except myself, by 
 which of course he meant to imply that it had had 
 a very small circulation as compared with that of 
 his novels. 
 
 I have shown, I think, that the gravity of 
 Edinburgh life was greatly mitigated by humour, 
 but still it was very serious. Everybody must 
 remember Dean Ramsay's story of the dissipated 
 young man * who went to too many funerals ; ' and 
 there was certainly something of austerity even in 
 its pleasures. With a large section of the com- 
 munity everything that had relation to pastime 
 was considered wicked ; and the booksellers they 
 patronised sold nothing but improving books. 
 Wishing to have some theoretical knowledge of 
 the national game, I ordered of one of them a 
 handbook of golf, and in due course received a neat 
 little volume entitled 'The Hand of Providence, 
 exemplified in the Life of John B. Gough ' (the 
 teetotaller). I took it complainingly to Robert 
 Chambers, who laughed till the tears ran down his 
 cheeks, and rather grudgingly observed, ' Now, why 
 should this have happened to you and not to me ?' 
 So seriously did society at large regard matters, 
 that the droller side of things escaped their obser- 
 
174 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 vation. A beggar man had stood on the old bridge 
 for the last ten years with a placard on his breast, 
 with this inscription : — * Blind from my birth ; I 
 have seen better days : ' and no one ever seemed 
 to perceive that it was a contradiction in terms. 
 
 In Princes Street it was in contemplation (nay, 
 for all I know it was done) to erect a marble 
 cattle fountain with the motto : — * Water was not 
 meant for man alone ; ' but it utterly escaped 
 public notice that such an inscription would be an 
 encouragement to whiskey-drinkers. 
 
 In my case, besides the general gravity of tone, 
 there was an especial reason, which, in spite of the 
 many attractions of Edinburgh, prevented my ever 
 feeling quite at home there. From native dulness 
 — or to whatever other cause the inability to catch 
 an alien tongue may be ascribed — I had always a 
 difficulty in appreciating the niceties of language. 
 The study of character — which is the only study I 
 ever really cared for — was consequently debarred 
 from me. Many English authors have depicted 
 Scotchmen in their own country ; Saxon chiels 
 have gone amongst them making notes and after- 
 wards printed them — though I don't remember, by- 
 the-by, that the likeness has been ever acknow- 
 ledged by the originals — but I felt that I had not 
 
PROFESSORS. 175 
 
 their gift ; that I could only see things skin deep. 
 This annoyed me to an extent which to most 
 persons would seem impossible and incompre- 
 hensible. I felt like a man seeking for gold, and 
 who knows that it is beneath him in large quan- 
 tities, but who has unfortunately neither spade nor 
 pickaxe ; I resented the mere roughness and nodo- 
 sities of the ground. 
 
 What struck me as a curious feature of Edin- 
 burgh society was the extraordinary respect paid to 
 professors of all sorts, though they were almost as 
 numerous as colonels in the United States. In 
 England we seldom speak of them (except in such 
 cases as that of Professor Holloway) as professors, 
 and still more rarely address them by that title, 
 but in Edinburgh it was not so. I remember an 
 amusing example of this. At a large party, at 
 which Alexander Smith the poet (he had just 
 been made Secretary to the University) was pre- 
 sent, I happened to speak of him to our hostess. 
 
 ' Notwithstanding all the praise that has been 
 showered upon him,' I said, * what a modest young 
 iellow he is ! ' 
 
 She shook her head with gravity. ' I am sorry 
 to say I cannot agree with you ; for I have just 
 heard him actually call Professor Soanso, Soanso, 
 
176 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 which I consider to be a great liberty in a person 
 of his position.' 
 
 The notion of a poet being in an inferior 
 position to a professor tickled me exceedingly, 
 but it was not easy to find people to share the 
 joke. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Alexander Smith was one 
 of the most modest of men. The appearance of 
 his ' Life Drama ' had evoked a tumult of acclaim 
 sufficient to have turned the heads of most men of 
 his age ; a pattern-drawer at some commercial 
 house in Glasgow, he awoke one morning to find 
 himself the most bepraised of poets ; but it altered 
 his simple character not one whit ; and when the pen- 
 dulum swung the other way, he took detraction with 
 the same good-natured philosophy. ' At the worst,' 
 he said, quoting from his own poem, ' it's only a 
 ginger-beer bottle burst.' The epithet ' spasmodic,' 
 so freely applied to him by the critics of the day, 
 was singularly out of place ; he was full of quiet 
 common sense, mingled with a certain Lamb-like 
 humour. In these respects, though of a widely 
 different character, he resembled another Edin- 
 burgh notoriety of that day, the gentle and 
 hospitable Dean Ramsay. 
 
 The simplicity of the lattcr's character extended 
 
DR. JOHN BROWN. 177 
 
 to his diction ; in the last letter he wrote to me on 
 quitting Edinburgh, he is so good as to say, after 
 speaking of our intercourse, which was mutually 
 agreeable, ' You are just the sort of person I find 
 so pleasant,' and adds, * Do you remember dining 
 here with poor Aytoun ? Something was wrong 
 with him that night, and he was rather grumpy.' 
 I am afraid he must have been ve^y ' grumpy,' to 
 cause the Dean to mention it ; but it is only just 
 to the reputation of the Professor as a good com- 
 panion to add that I had no recollection of the 
 circumstance. 
 
 The acquaintance of Dr. John Brown in Edin- 
 burgh I did not happen to make, and have always 
 regretted the fact. He writes to me on the eve of 
 my departure, a propos of a review I had written 
 on his book ' Our Dogs,' in which I had termed him, 
 to his great content, ' the Landseer of Literature : ' 
 'You must let me thank you most cordially for 
 your generous, pleasant, and altogether capital 
 notice of " Our Dogs." It made me more than ever 
 reproach myself for not having made your personal 
 friendship. I have been cheated twice this week 
 out of meeting you, once at Russel's, on Wednesday, 
 and at Lancaster's to-morrow.' (Lancaster was a 
 young advocate of great promise, of whom Dickens 
 
 N 
 
178 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 writes to me, from Edinburgh, long afterwards, 
 ' He is the most able fellow I have met in these 
 parts,' and whose early death was greatly deplored.) 
 < I shall watch your career through life with sincere 
 interest, and if you get all that I wish you, you 
 need not greatly grumble.' 
 
 If the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, 
 the wish of so excellent a fellow as Dr. John Brown 
 was surely not to be despised. 
 
179 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIRST MEETING WITH DICKENS— CALVERLY— MY FIRST 
 BOOK — A LION TAMER. 
 
 It was in 1856 that I first made the personal 
 acquaintance of Charles Dickens — a circumstance 
 which to me was an epoch in my existence. Like 
 all young persons devoted to literature, I had had 
 my idols. As a boy I used to have visions of un- 
 told wealth, with the power of laying it at the feet 
 of this or that writer, sometimes to be used for the 
 amelioration of the human race (I had often given 
 Thomas Carlyle a million or two, in trust, for that 
 purpose), and sometimes for their own benefit. 
 Tennyson I had thus enriched beyond the dreams 
 of avarice ; Browning I had made exceedingly 
 comfortable ; but the chief figure in my literary 
 Pantheon had been always Dickens. 
 
 For one thing (though that was not the chief 
 thing), he had given me more pleasure than any 
 writer — a circumstance which I have noticed often 
 arouses no personal gratitude : when a book pleases 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ordinary folks, they no more think of the author 
 than when a landscape pleases them they think of 
 Him who made it ; but with bookworms, even of the 
 most superficial type, the heart warms to the man. 
 My late friend Calverly, the C.S.C. of ' Poems 
 and Translations ' and 'Fly Leaves,' when lecturer of 
 Christ's College, issued a paper on ' Pickwick ' after 
 the model of the usual classical examination papers, 
 containing the most out-of-the-way details, and 
 forming a crucial test of scholarship. He was so 
 good as to oblige me with a copy of it, only a few 
 weeks before his lamented and unexpected death, 
 and gave me permission to make use of it in these 
 Reminiscences. Little did I think at the time that 
 he himself would find any place in them as one 
 who had joined the majority. He was my junior 
 by some years, so that I had not the privilege of 
 knowing him at Cambridge, but in after-years I 
 often met him. We were neighbours at Grasmere 
 for a whole summer, when I saw a great deal of 
 him. His classical attainments were of course far 
 beyond me, but not more so than his physical gifts. 
 He was the best runner and jumper I ever knew ; 
 but my admiration never led me to imitate him. 
 Nevertheless, in company with W. and S., his almost 
 equally athletic friends, and himself, I was once 
 
SHAM HIGHWAYMEN. i8r 
 
 persuaded to climb Scawfell from Wastwater. 
 They went up it like mountain cats, while I (like 
 panting Time) toiled after them in vain. * The 
 labour we delight in physics Payn,' was his appro- 
 priate quotation. 
 
 On another occasion S. and he were returning 
 with me very late one night, on foot, from some 
 * sports ' at Ambleside, where somebody, I am 
 afraid, had entered himself as a competitor for the 
 mile race as William Whewell, Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, under which name he afterwards ap- 
 peared among the winners in the local paper. It 
 was exceedingly dark, and being very near-sighted 
 I found it difficult to keep up with them, and was 
 constantly denouncing them for the pace they put 
 on. ' Now, S.,' cried Calverly (whose spirits were 
 always those of a schoolboy), ' let us break away 
 from this abusive miscreant, hide in the wood 
 yonder, and pretend to be robbers.' And off they 
 went. Their abominable intention was to ambush 
 in the wooded pass between Rydal and Grasmere 
 and jump out upon me where it was darkest. But 
 though scant of wind I was not destitute of intelli- 
 gence. I found, with difficulty, the short cut over 
 the hill, by the Wishing Gate, which they had left 
 out of their calculations, and, while they still lay in 
 
i82 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the thicket bent on their nefarious scheme, their 
 proposed victim was at home in his bed. 
 
 Whenever I think of Calverly I think of fun 
 and good-fellowship ; of the 'wild joys of living; 
 the leaping from rock up to rock ; the cool silver 
 shock of the plunge in the pool's living water ; ' of 
 health and youth and strength. Alas, alas ! 
 
 Here are some extracts from the famous exami- 
 nation paper. 
 
 Christ's College, Christmas, 1857. 
 
 THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK 
 CLUB. 
 
 I. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that the Fat 
 Boy was not asleep ; and that (i) Mr. Pickwick and (2) Mr. 
 Weller, senr., ran. Deduce from expressions used on one occa- 
 sion Mr, Pickwick's maximum of speed. 
 
 3. Who were Mr. Staple, Goodwin, Mr. Brooks, Villam, Mrs. 
 Bunkin ; ' old Nobs,' ' cast-iron head,' ' young Bantam ? ' 
 
 9. Describe the common Profeel-machine. 
 
 10. State the component parts of Dog's-nose ; and simplify the 
 expression ' taking a grinder.' 
 
 II. On finding his principal in the Pound, Mr. Weller and the 
 town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately 
 eliminated, and state the number of rounds in the square which is 
 not described. 
 
 12. 'Anything for air and exercise; as the wery old donkey 
 observed ven they voke him up from his deathbed to carry ten 
 gen'lmen to Greenwich in a tax-cart,' Illustrate this by stating any 
 remark recorded in the Pickwick papers to have been made by a 
 (previously) dumb animal, with the circumstances under which he 
 made it. 
 
 17. Give Weller's Theories for the Extraction of Mr. Pickwick 
 from the Fleet. Where was his wife's will found ? 
 
A 'PICKWICK' EXAMINATION. 183 
 
 18. How did the old lady make memorandum, and of what, at 
 whist ? Shew that there were at least three times as many fiddles 
 as harps in Muggleton at the time of the ball at Manor Farm. 
 
 23. ' She's a-swelling wisibly. ' When did the same phenomenon 
 occur again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the 
 latter case ? 
 
 24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds ; and what 
 view did he take of reduced Consols ? In what terms is his elastic 
 force described when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the Meeting ? 
 Write down the name of the Meeting. 
 
 25. ^ TrpofiaToyi/ioijLuv : " A good judge of cattle ; hence, a good 
 judge of character.'" Note on yEsch. Ag. — Illustrate the theory 
 involved by a remark of the parent Weller. 
 
 30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn 
 gaiters ? 
 
 The prizes were a ' first edition ' of ' Pickwick,' and 
 it will be interesting to many to learn that the two 
 prizemen were Walter Besant and Professor Skeat. 
 If ' Pickwick ' were to-day made a text-book for 
 ' exams.' in general, the replies would no doubt be 
 satisfactory, for there is now a concordance for the 
 whole of Dickens ; but in 1857 there was no need 
 of cramming, for every one knew the book and 
 quoted it. I have the vanity to believe, had I been 
 qualified as a candidate, I should have gained a 
 prize : at all events, I had my Dickens at my 
 fingers' ends, and the notion of feeling him there 
 in the flesh — of shaking hands with him — was 
 positively intoxicating. He came to Edinburgh to 
 give his public readings for the first time, and had 
 
1 84 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 little time to spare of course for private intercourse. 
 On the evening after his arrival he was so good, 
 however, as to propose a meeting. 
 
 * The hours and days,' he writes, ' run away, 
 while I am thus occupied, so imperceptibly that 
 I do nothing that I propose to myself to do. I 
 thought we should have walked ten miles together 
 by this time. To-morrow morning I am going to 
 take my daughters out to Hawthornden, and it 
 occurs to me to ask if you could spare time to go 
 with us on the expedition.' 
 
 If I had had only twenty-four hours to live I 
 should have ' spared time ' for such a purpose, which 
 did not indeed seem to trench upon my earthly span 
 at all, but to be a foretaste of Paradise. Such en- 
 thusiasm is unknown in these days, wherein Dickens 
 himself, as an American writer informs us, ' is no 
 longer to be endured,'^ and will doubtless excite 
 some ridicule ; but for my part I am not one whit 
 ashamed of it. Nay, contemptible as the confession 
 may appear, I feel the same love and admiration 
 for Charles Dickens now as I did then. What 
 indeed astonished even me, I remember, at the 
 
 ' The statement in a recent publication that 4,239,000 volumes 
 of Dickens's works have been sold in England alone since his death, 
 seems to ])e at variance with this gentleman's view. 
 
DICKENS'S TALK. 185 
 
 time, was that personal acquaintance witli him 
 increased rather than diminished his marvellous 
 attraction for me. In general society, especially if 
 it has been of an artificial kind, I have known his 
 manner to betray some sense of effort, but in a 
 company with whom he could feel at home, I have 
 never met a man more natural or more charming. 
 He never wasted time in commonplaces — though a 
 lively talker, he never uttered a platitude — and 
 what he had to say he said as if he meant it. 
 On an occasion, which many of my readers will 
 call to mind, he once spoke of himself as ' very 
 human : ' he did so, of course, in a depreciatory 
 sense ; he was the last person in the world to affect 
 to possess any other nature than that of his fellows. 
 When some one said, ' How wicked the world is !' 
 he answered, ' True ; and what a satisfaction it is 
 that neither yon nor I belong to it' But the fact 
 is, it was this very humanity which was his charm. 
 Whatever there was of him was real without pad- 
 ding ; and whatever was genuine in others had a 
 sympathetic attraction for him. 
 
 The subject, however, which most interested him 
 (and, in a less degree, this was also the case with 
 Thackeray) was the dramatic — nay, even the melo- 
 dramatic — side of human nature, tie had stories 
 
1 86 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 without end, taken from the very page of life, of 
 quite a different kind from those with which 
 he made his readers famihar. There are, indeed, 
 indications of this tendency in his writings, as in 
 the tales interspersed in ' Pickwick,' in the aban- 
 doned commencement of * Humphrey's Clock, ' and 
 more markedly, in his occasional sketches, but they 
 were much more common in his private talk. 
 
 When visiting the exhibition of Hablot Browne's 
 pictures the other day I was much struck by the 
 fact that, when indulging his own taste, the subjects 
 chosen by the artist were not humorous but sombre 
 and eerie. This, I feel sure, was what made him 
 so acceptable an illustrator to Dickens. He could 
 not only depict humorous scenes with feeling, but 
 also such grim imaginings as the old Roman looking 
 down on dead Mr. Tulkinghorn, and the Ghost 
 Walk at Chesney Wold. The mind of Dickens, 
 which most of his readers picture to themselves as 
 revelling in sunshine, was in fact more attracted to 
 the darker side of life, though there was far too 
 much of geniality in him to permit it to become 
 morbid. 
 
 On the occasion of our first meeting, however, 
 I saw nothing of all this : he was full of fun and 
 brightness, and in five minutes I felt as much at my 
 
HAWTHORNDEN. 187 
 
 €ase with him as though I had known him as long 
 as I had known his books. It was not one of the 
 days on which Hawthornden was open to the public, 
 and we had much difficulty in obtaining admittance 
 at the lodge ; and when we got to the house we 
 were detained there again, and there was a diffi- 
 culty about seeing the glen. I went within doors 
 and expostulated, but for a long time without 
 success : the inmates, I am sorry to say, did not 
 seem to be acquainted with Dickens's name — a cir- 
 cumstance which, though it would only have made 
 him laugh the more, I did not venture to disclose. 
 The fancy picture which he drew of my detention 
 in that feudal abode, and of the mediaeval tortures 
 which had probably been inflicted upon me, made 
 ample amends, however, for what I had suffered on 
 behalf of the party. In the end, we saw all that 
 was to be seen ; and never shall I forget the face 
 of the hereditary guide and gatekeeper when 
 Dickens tipped him in his usual lavish manner. 
 This retainer had not thought much of him 
 before — indeed, had obviously never heard of him 
 — but his salute at parting could not have been 
 more deferential had the author of ' Pickwick ' 
 been the Lord of the Isles. The humours of the 
 day must have made some impression upon Dickens 
 
1 88 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 himself, for in a letter two years afterwards he re- 
 minds me of the imprisonment I had suffered for 
 his sake in the gloomy cells of Hawthornden. Late 
 that night I supped with him — after his reading — 
 at his hotel, alone ; after which I discarded for ever 
 the picture which I had made in my mind of him, 
 and substituted for it a still pleasanter one, taken 
 from life. 
 
 In the following year I published my first book, 
 a collection of ' Stories and Sketches,' taken from 
 my contributions to ' Household Words ' and 
 ' Chambers's Journal. ' I have been often asked by 
 young authors whether ' it pays ' to republish such 
 articles. Directly, it certainly does not pay, for 
 the venture is almost always a pecuniary loss ; but 
 indirectly, if the articles are really good, it is very 
 remunerative. It introduces the writer not only to 
 the public (who, of course, have hitherto never 
 heard of him), but to editors in general, who thus 
 obtain a good specimen of his powers. In old 
 days this system of advertising one's literary 
 wares was not so common as at present : it was 
 generally resorted to only by geniuses in humble 
 life whose works were published by subscription ; 
 and whatever advantages they derived from the 
 system were more than counterbalanced by the 
 
PUBLISHING BY SUBSCRIPTION. 189 
 
 latter fact. One of them, who afterwards became 
 very famous, observed to me that he had bought his 
 first reputation at a much higher price than those 
 who had paid for it — i.e. who had pubh'shed at their 
 own expense. ' Every one who subscribed five 
 shilHngs to that book of mine is in a position to 
 say that but for him I should never have been 
 heard of; and about two out of three do say so/ 
 But this is only to admit that the possession of 
 spare cash in literature is as useful as it is in all 
 other professions. 
 
 Before leaving this subject, I should add, for 
 fear of being thought to recommend * rushing 
 into print,' that while many writers have been bene- 
 fited by early publication, quite as many (even of 
 those who have afterwards made their mark in the 
 world) have lived to repent it. In youth — though 
 I think this is not the case with us in maturity — we 
 are not such good judges of our own work as other 
 people ; we are apt to make comparisons between 
 it and that of other writers, instead of estimating 
 its intrinsic worth, which alone ought to guide us.^ 
 
 ^ A similar feeling causes some contributors to endeavour to 
 recommend themselves to the notice of an editor in the following 
 conciliatoiy manner : ' Without self-flattery, I think I may venture 
 to say that the paper I send to you, however modest in merit, is at 
 all events superior to the majority of the articles in your esteemed 
 
I90 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 My next book was a narrative of school and 
 •college life, called the ' Foster Brothers' which had a 
 very fair success, and was republished, as everything 
 I subsequently wrote has been, in America. My 
 works have also been translated into various lan- 
 guages. Perhaps nothing gives a young author so 
 much pleasure as to see the product of his brain 
 in a foreign tongue, even though (as in my case) he 
 cannot read it. To the satisfaction I derived from 
 the ' Foster Brothers ' there was, however, a terrible 
 ■drawback, in the form of a most scathing notice in 
 the ' Saturday Review.' It was headed — on account 
 of certain democratic opinions the volume had dis- 
 played — the * Bloated Aristocracy,' and made me 
 most thoroughly miserable. The writer, now one 
 of her Majesty's judges, has laughed with me since 
 about it, but I am never so tickled with the reminis- 
 cence as he is. I have a great personal regard for 
 him, but note with pleasure that the newspapers 
 describe him as ' a hanging judge.' 
 
 In acknowledging the receipt of this book in 
 his usual kind and cordial manner, Dickens mis- 
 spells it ' Forster Brothers,' and apologises for the 
 mistake by saying 'this is because I am always 
 thinking of my friend John Forster.' I afterwards 
 received (as will be mentioned in its proper place) 
 
A PATTERN HERO. 191 
 
 a still more curious proof of his devotion to one 
 who, from many points of view, one would have 
 judged to be little in sympathy with him. 
 
 By this time I had made some success as a 
 writer of lively sketches and humorous articles ; 
 rejection, so far as they were concerned, had become 
 as rare with me as acceptance had formerly been ; 
 and my aspirations began to be more ambitious. 
 It struck me that I might one day write a success- 
 ful novel. This is not quite so easy, however, as to 
 express your opinion about a novel written by 
 somebody else. The proper construction of such 
 a work comes by experience, and never by intuition : 
 when a young writer attempts it, he succeeds at 
 best in writing a narrative and not a novel ; he 
 takes a character, generally more or less like him- 
 self, and describes his career from the cradle to the 
 altar, which he considers to be equivalent to the 
 grave. It is, in fact, an autobiography of a person 
 of whom no one has ever heard, and the only 
 chance, therefore, for its success is that the incidents 
 in the hero's life should be of a striking- kind 
 
 Fortune was so good as to favour me with quite 
 a pattern hero for this purpose, in a gentleman who 
 had achieved a reputation as a tamer of wild beasts. 
 What his real name was I never knew, but his pro- 
 
192 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 fessional one was, if not romantic, at least remark- 
 able. It was Tickerocandua. I made his acquaint- 
 ance when visiting a travelling menagerie of which 
 he was the pride and ornament, and we became very 
 friendly. His life up to the time he had entered 
 upon his present dangerous calling had been un- 
 eventful enough ; but I perceived in him the 
 materials of excellent ' copy.' I thought that he 
 would make a capital example of a family scape- 
 grace, of pluck and spirit, who, more sinned against 
 than sinning, had run away from his friends and 
 taken to tiger-taming. On every 'lawful day,' as 
 the Scotch phrase runs, he was engaged with his 
 animals— witching the world with feats compared 
 with which the noblest horsemanship sank into 
 insignificance. So he came to supper with me on 
 a Sunday. Our little servant-maid's difficulty in 
 announcing him as * Mr. Tickerocandua ' was con- 
 siderable : and when he began to talk of his tooth- 
 and-claw experiences, I thought her eyes would 
 have come out of her head. He was the politest 
 person I ever met with, for, having helped himself 
 to oil (thinking it to be white vinegar) with his 
 oysters, he consumed them without a syllable of 
 complaint, and even with apparent relish. 
 
 This gentleman was so good as to show me his 
 
A LION TAMER. i93 
 
 left shoulder scarred in a hundred places by the 
 claws of the leopards as they ' took off ' it every 
 day in their leaps, during the * unparalleled per- 
 formance of the wild leopard hunt.' He had the 
 mark of a bite on his arm which cost a lion its life, 
 and his proprietor three hundred pounds. ' It was 
 a case of which was to go,' he said — ' the lion or 
 me — and I struck him over the nose with my loaded 
 whip handle.' There is only one principle by which 
 the wild beast world can be ruled, he told me — that 
 of fear ; and should one of them once cease to fear 
 him, he added, his life would not have been worth 
 an hour's purchase. He had been twice dragged 
 off insensible from an abortive performance of ' the 
 Tiger King,' and only preserved from being torn to 
 pieces by the interposition of a red-hot bar ; yet 
 directly he recovered himself in he went again, whip 
 in hand, and subdued the beasts. ' It was simply 
 a question of showing myself their master then 
 and there, or of giving up my situation.' He gave 
 me these details (which were afterwards corro- 
 borated by the evidence of others) with great 
 simplicity, and without the least approach to boast- 
 fulness ; and they interested me immensely. When 
 this is the case with any subject, I have always 
 found — after due consideration of the matter — that 
 
 O 
 
194 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I can make it interesting to my readers, and in the 
 ' Family Scapegrace ' I scored my first success. It 
 came out originally in serial form — as every novel 
 I have ever written has also done — and has passed 
 through many editions, but I believe it is as popular 
 to-day as it was twenty years ago. For me, how- 
 ever, it has always a melanchol}^ association, for the 
 brave young fellow who suggested it to me met, in 
 the end, with the fate which he had so long tempted. 
 He was not indeed, like the bad boy in the fable, 
 absolutely ' eaten by lions,' but he was killed by a 
 stroke of the paw of one, though the blow, I believe, 
 was not given in malice. I am not sure whether 
 the publication of the ' Family Scapegrace ' in the 
 columns of the ' Journal ' increased its circulation, 
 but it was certainly well received. Mr. William 
 Chambers, however, objected to it upon the ground 
 of its 'lightness.' He would have preferred the 
 subject of wild beasts to have been more ' intelli- 
 gently treated ; ' their various habitats to be de- 
 scribed, and some sort of moral to be deduced from 
 them ; but Robert stuck loyally to his young friend 
 and his story. 
 
 I took infinite pleasure in my editorial occupa- 
 tion, and had every reason to be content with my 
 surroundings. My family, however, were delicate, 
 
THE THERMAL LINE. 195 
 
 the climate of Edinburgh proved too vigorous for 
 their constitutions, and after a year or two I was 
 compelled to announce my intention of going south. 
 Robert Chambers was so good as to express him- 
 self much concerned at this resolve, and character- 
 istically endeavoured to combat it, upon the firm 
 ground of science. ' You talk of cold, my dear sir, 
 but let me tell you that the thermal line is precisely 
 the same in Edinburgh as it is in London.' I re- 
 plied, with as great truth as modesty, that I knew 
 nothing about the thermal line, but that so far as 
 I was aware the east wind had never blown a four- 
 wheeled cab over in London— a circumstance which 
 happened to have just taken place opposite our 
 house in Edinburgh. As he saw my resolution was 
 quite fixed, he presently said with a kind smile, ' I 
 am thinking of going to live in London myself ; 
 suppose we go together, and you shall edit the 
 " Journal " there instead of here.' Which struck me 
 as a most excellent arrangement. The only draw- 
 back to my satisfaction was an undertaking I now 
 entered into to confine my contributions to the 
 ' Journal' only. It was not, indeed, an unreasonable 
 requirement on his part, while it was in some sort 
 a compliment to myself ; but I regretted that my 
 literary connection with 'Household Words,' or 
 
 o 2 
 
196 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 rather with its chief, which had been so long and 
 constant, was now to cease ; that I was no longer to 
 serve under the banner of him whom Bret Harte, 
 in the most imperishable of his stories, has called 
 * The Master.' I wrote, of course, to tell him of the 
 arrangement. ' I have received your letter,' he re- 
 plied, 'with mingled regret and pleasure. I am 
 heartily sorry to have lost you as a fellow-workman, 
 but heartily glad to have gained you as a friend. 
 ... I hope that you will both [my wife and myself] 
 come and see us at Gadshill, and compare the 
 Kentish hops and cherries with the Scottish 
 peachings.' 
 
197 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LONDON — THE VALUE OF A TITLE — PERSONAL NARRA- 
 TIVES — AN EXECUTION— LEECH — GILBERT A BECKETT 
 — JAMES WHITE— READE — TROLLOPE — THACKERAY — • 
 DICKENS. 
 
 It was ill-naturedly said by Dr. Johnson that the 
 finest prospect that could meet the eyes of a Scotch- 
 man was the road to England, and, though I was 
 no Scotchman, I felt something of this exhilaration 
 of spirit as I took my ticket from Edinburgh to 
 London. It was not a single ticket by any means, 
 for we had a family sufficiently large to excuse our 
 having a saloon carriage to ourselves ; but their 
 numbers did not alarm me, for I had by that time 
 not only gained a footing in literature but was 
 confident of my power to climb. Though I had 
 been born and bred far out of hearing of Bow Bells, 
 and had only visited the metropolis occasionally, I 
 was extremely fond of it, mainly because it pre- 
 sents the broadest field of human life. Young as 
 
198 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I was, I was already possessed with the conviction 
 that for the calHng I had chosen for myself London 
 was the only place to live in, or at all events the 
 best place ; and after a quarter of a century's ex- 
 perience I see no reason to change that opinion. 
 The poet, the philosopher, and the man of science 
 can live where they like, and pursue their studies 
 equally well, but the novelist should reside where 
 humanity presents its most varied aspect. 
 
 For years I studied London and the Londoners 
 as a botanist studies the flora of his neighbourhood, 
 and with unspeakable interest and delight ; I have 
 written several works upon that subject only. One 
 of them, ' Melibosus in London,' is still a favourite, 
 such as an author, unlike a father, is privileged to 
 make of one of his own children without rousing 
 the jealousy of the rest. Its publisher took the 
 same view of it, and, much to his credit, always 
 spoke of it in high terms, though it was, as regards 
 the public favour, not so fortunate as the like 
 offspring of the same pen. He ascribed its want 
 of popularity to a cause which at that time I 
 thought fanciful, but which I have long been per- 
 suaded was the right cause — namely, its title. * It 
 is not everybody,' he said, * who has ever heard of 
 Meliboeus, and those who have not arc disinclined 
 
THE VALUE OF A NAME. 
 
 [99 
 
 to inquire for him, because they don't know how 
 to pronounce his name.' 
 
 Even Shakespeare occasionally erred, and never 
 more so than when he wrote that celebrated dictum 
 about the unimportance of a name. In books it 
 has almost the same weight in this country as a 
 title has in the case of an individual. A good 
 name may not be ' better than riches ' on the back 
 of a good book, but it greatly enhances its pecuniary 
 value. The name of the author, if he is a popular 
 one, is also a tower of strength. Again and again 
 have well-known writers, having composed a work 
 which has especially taken their fancy, attempted 
 to make a new departure with it, and by publish- 
 ing it anonymously to gain a second reputation. 
 Bulwer, for example, tried it, and Trollope tried 
 it, both with unsatisfactory results. No one can 
 afford to give up the momentum of their popularity 
 and start afresh without it, up the hill. I hope I 
 shall not be accused of comparing myself with the 
 eminent writers I have mentioned in stating my 
 own experience in this way. 
 
 Some years after I had obtained popularity I 
 wrote a novel which I flattered myself was of con- 
 siderable merit, and which I knew to be at least of 
 greater merit than any which had preceded it from 
 
200 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 the same hand. It was called ' A Perfect Treasure/ 
 In order to completely conceal my identity, I 
 published it at the same time, and from the same 
 house, as another novel under my own name called 
 ' A County Family.' There was no comparison as 
 to which was the better of the two books, and I 
 will do the critics the justice to say that they per- 
 ceived this. The former story was spoken of in 
 high terms, and (just as I had hoped) as the pro- 
 duction of a new author from whom great things 
 were to be expected. The latter story was received 
 less favourably — indeed (for there is a medium in 
 all things), rather too consonantly with my expecta- 
 tions in that way. But when it came to balancing 
 accounts matters were very different. ' If it had 
 not been for the success of the " County Family," * 
 said the publisher, ' your " Perfect Treasure " would 
 have let us into a hole.' 
 
 The omission of the author's name was of 
 course the main factor in this unlooked-for result ; 
 but even if both works had been anonymous, I am 
 convinced, from the attraction of its title, that the 
 * County Family ' would have shown a better 
 balance than its more meritorious rival. Even in 
 the case of so marvellously popular a writer as 
 Dickens I have always thought that the want of 
 
BLACK MAIL. 201 
 
 favour with which (at starting) ' Martin Chuzzlewit* 
 was received was to be attributed to its infelicitous 
 name. We are so accustomed nowadays to regard 
 it as one of his best, if not the very best of his 
 novels, and the name has been so long familiar to 
 us, that it is difficult to replace ourselves in the 
 position of having heard it for the first time ; but 
 such is to my mind the explanation of what is 
 otherwise little less than a literary phenomenon. 
 
 While on the subject of book titles I may say 
 that it is essential to choose one that has not been 
 used before. The law is in this matter very un- 
 reasonable, for, while establishing a copyright in 
 titles, it affords no means of discovering whether 
 the one you have decided upon is original or not. 
 While compelling an author to register his book in 
 Stationers' Hall, it makes no proviso for the 
 exhibition of the name of the book ; and, as the 
 register — from some miserable economy — only 
 shows the author's name, the information desired 
 cannot be obtained. Hence proceeds a regular 
 system of robbery. In the case of a known novel 
 of course there is no difficulty ; no author would 
 take ' Never Too Late to Mend ' or ' The Woman 
 in White ' for his title ; but a totally unknown book 
 may have a good name, which occurs quite natu- 
 
202 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 rally to more than one person. Who can remember 
 the names of the still-born novels of the last forty 
 years ? Nay, every week, there appears in the 
 ' Penny Storyteller,' or the ' Penny Novelist,' some 
 tale the name of which is protected by copyright. 
 And what possible precaution can prevent this 
 right being involuntary infringed ? 
 
 Enterprising publishers of worthless books are 
 always on the look-out for a coincidence of this 
 kind, and exact their black mail from the un- 
 fortunate author. There is no pretence of any 
 harm being done to them ; indeed, nothing but 
 good, of course, can result to the still-born novel 
 from its having the same name as a new and 
 much better one ; but the law is on the side of the 
 rogues. As I have written many novels, and have 
 been obliged to give them names, I have suffered 
 from this sharp practice more than most people. 
 I have given twenty pounds, and on one occasion 
 even forty pounds, for the privilege of calling my 
 own book by its own name ; but that was when I 
 was comparatively a young writer. I should not 
 fall so easy a victim to these literary brigands now. 
 Though the law is, as I have said, unreasonable, 
 the judges are not so, and if any such case as I 
 have mentioned should be tried upon its merits I 
 
AN ADVENTURE. 203 
 
 should have no fear for the result. A trial is the 
 very last thing that our persecutors desire ; what 
 they want is ransom. My advice to my literary 
 brethren is to resist all such extortioners ; it is not 
 necessary to be rude to them (' the Court,' if the 
 case proceeds, does not approve of that) ; instead 
 of saying outright, ' Go to the devil,' use a synonym : 
 refer them to a solicitor. 
 
 In a few years I knew my London better than 
 most Cockneys born. On one occasion I compared 
 my own experiences of it with those of Dickens. 
 He told me in his graphic and dramatic way some 
 amazing things, with some of which I, in my time, 
 though with far inferior powers of narration, have 
 occasionally thrilled a select audience. In return 
 for his gold I had only silver to offer him, but I 
 remember that the following incident, which once 
 happened to me, interested him very much. 
 
 I was returning home one summer night 
 through a fashionable street out of Piccadilly, when 
 there came on a violent thunderstorm. It was 
 very late, not a cab was to be seen, and I stepped 
 under a portico for shelter. There was a ball 
 going on in one of the great houses in the street ; 
 the drawing-room had a huge bow window, which 
 was open, and now and again figures flitted across 
 
204 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 it, and the dance-music made itself heard through 
 the storm. I had been under my shelter some 
 time before I noticed that there was another person 
 in the street, also under a portico. He was nearer 
 to the house where the ball was going on tha n I 
 was, but I could see him quite distinctly. He 
 looked like a beggar and was dressed in rags. 
 Suddenly he ran across the street in the pouring 
 rain and stood beneath the open window, at which 
 appeared some lady in a ball dress ; she threw out 
 to him her bouquet, the gilt handle of which I saw 
 glitter in the gaslight. He strove to catch it, but 
 it fell, and I heard it clang upon the pavement. 
 He picked it up, nodded twice to the lady at the 
 window, and then ran off at full speed. The whole 
 thing took only a few seconds, but made a picture 
 that I shall never forget. 
 
 I took it for granted that the man was her 
 lover, and expressed to Dickens my astonishment 
 at the perfection of the man's disguise. 
 
 * No,' he said, as though the facts were all 
 before him, 'he was not her lover ; he was merely 
 a messenger waiting for the bouquet to be thrown 
 to him, a signal that had been agreed upon before- 
 hand.' 
 
 This conclusion I believe to have been the 
 
'POOR SAM ROGERS? 205 
 
 correct one ; but I had forgotten, as usual, the 
 precise date of the occurrence, and was therefore 
 unable to discover from the newspapers whether 
 any ' incident in high life ' took place about the 
 same time. 
 
 There was another experience of mine, which I 
 should have narrated earlier, but which I now re- 
 member in connection with Dickens, for it especially 
 tickled him. Speaking of the deep and narrow 
 grooves in which life runs, and of the impossibility 
 of its wheels ever getting out of them into other 
 grooves, I told him the following anecdote. When 
 I was quite a boy I happened to sit at a luncheon 
 table between a lady of literary instincts and a 
 sporting captain who was anxious to ingratiate him- 
 self with her ; only, unhappily, they had not a single 
 interest in common. At last he thought he had 
 found one. 
 
 ' Sad thing. Miss B ,' he suddenly remarked, 
 
 *■ about poor Sam Rogers.' 
 
 A robbery had just occurred at Rogers's bank, 
 resulting in the loss of a very large sum of money. 
 
 'Yes, indeed,' returned the young lady sym- 
 pathisingly ; ' however, it won't ruin him.' 
 
 * Well, I don't know — not so sure of that,' said 
 the captain, pulling doubtfully at his moustache. 
 
2o6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 * It's a great blow, no doubt ; but Rogers is 
 very rich.' 
 
 * I think you are mistaken there,' he put in, 
 * though I dare say he has feathered his nest pretty 
 well. It is a serious thing his being forbidden to 
 ride for two years.' 
 
 * Forbidden to ride ! ' ejaculated the young lady, 
 laying down her knife and fork in sheer astonish- 
 ment. 'Why shouldn't he ride ? ' 
 
 * Well, because of what he has done, you know. 
 The Jockey Club has suspended him.' 
 
 ' The Jockey Club > Whom on earth. Captain 
 L , can you be talking about ? ' 
 
 ' Why, about Sam Rogers, of course. Did I 
 not saj/ Sam Rogers — Sam Rogers the Jockey ? ' 
 
 A more complete example of cross purposes 
 probably never occurred. 
 
 It so struck Dickens's fancy that I should not 
 have been surprised had he made some literary use 
 of it ; but he had a very delicate sense of copyright, 
 and probably thought that I might use it myself. 
 It has always been a satisfaction to me, however, 
 to believe that certain incidents I communicated to 
 him, which had come within my private experience 
 — and were therefore ladoo so far as my own pen 
 was concerned — were made excellent use of in 
 
THE CRUEL. 207 
 
 * Great Expectations/ where Miss Haversham ap- 
 pears for the second time to my eyes, as large as 
 life indeed, but not one whit exaggerated. 
 
 In pursuit of my profession in town (for cer- 
 tainly I had no natural liking for such sights) I 
 went to see the execution of the five pirates of the 
 ' Flowery Land.' There was nothing in their case 
 to excite pity. They had, without provocation, cast 
 their captain and officers into the sea, and thrown 
 champagne bottles at them while they were drown- 
 ing. They were not, I am glad to say, English- 
 men (they were natives of Manilla), but even if 
 they had been I should have been in no way dis- 
 tressed at their fate. 
 
 Considering the universal unhappiness caused 
 by the Cruel, one would be amazed that they are 
 so lightly dealt with but for the reflection that our 
 laws are made by those who do not suffer from 
 their outrages. The life-long miseries they inflict 
 upon those about them — defenceless women and 
 children — are often far worse than murder ; and 
 when they culminate in that crime it is almost a 
 matter for congratulation, for the victim then is 
 freed and the villain at last is hung. I have no 
 sympathy whatever with the spurious philanthropy 
 that would keep such wretches alive to be a curse 
 
ro8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to their fellow-crcaturcs, but I am rejoiced that the 
 just punishment of their brutality is no longer a 
 public spectacle. The worst part of the execution 
 to which I refer was not the hanging of the 
 criminals, but the behaviour of the mob, to whom 
 it was certainly no * moral lesson.' Like Lord 
 Tomnoddy I took a room with some friends (for 
 which we paid twenty guineas) to see the sight. 
 My description of it was thought too realistic for 
 the 'Journal,' and, as at that date I had undertaken 
 to write for no other periodical, it did not appear 
 elsewhere. It is true it w^as afterwards published, 
 but in an expensive form, and had few readers ; 
 and, as public executions have long been things of 
 the past, I give a short extract from it. 
 
 ' At three o'clock or thereabouts there was heard 
 a rumbling of some heavy carriage, and there broke 
 forth a horrid yell, half cheer, half groan, from the 
 people without. This was the arrival of the scaffold, 
 a mere block of wood (to all appearance) painted 
 black and drawn by three cart-horses. Then there 
 ensued a horrid knocking, compared with which 
 the knocking in ' Macbeth' was but as the summons 
 of a fashionable footman ; they were putting up the 
 gallows. By this time the snow had begun to fall, 
 flake by flake, but without diminishing the concourse ; 
 
AN EXECUTION CROWD. 209 
 
 on the contrary, it grew and grew, so that the dawn 
 presently broke upon a pavement of human heads 
 extending as far as the eye could reach. Hats, 
 because they obstructed the view, were not per- 
 mitted, and the effect of this sumptuary law was 
 certainly picturesque. Those who had been de- 
 prived of their head-gear had substituted for it 
 particoloured handkerchiefs, while caps of every 
 hue made the shifting scene like a pattern in a 
 kaleidoscope. Bakers' white caps, soldiers' blue caps, 
 provident persons' night caps, and chimneysweepers' 
 black caps were now become very numerous, and 
 the mass of mere thieves and ruffians only leavened 
 the multitude instead of forming its sole constituents. 
 The chimney sweepers were extremely popular, 
 and encouraged to beat one another, so that the soot 
 should fly freely upon their neighbours ; and the 
 military were so far respected that I never saw one 
 of them pushed up from the surging crowd and 
 rolled lengthways over the heads of the company, 
 to which the members of all other professions were 
 continually subjected. Many gentlemen of volatile 
 dispositions (and of physical strength enough to 
 ensure impunity) would themselves leap upon the 
 shoulders of those about them and run along upon 
 all fours on the surface of the crowd ; and nobody 
 
2IO SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 seemed to resent it, even including the softer sex, 
 except now and then a personal friend, who seemed 
 to consider it as a liberty, although perfectly allow- 
 able in the case of strangers. 
 
 ' 1 am sorry to say there were many women, 
 although in no greater proportion to the males than 
 one to ten. They were mostly young girls, who 
 took no part in the rough amusements of their 
 neighbours, unless under compulsion, but kept their 
 gaze fixed on the Debtors' Door. One in particular, 
 with roses in her bonnet and cruel eyes, never looked 
 anywhere else : she reminded me horribly of the 
 girl in Bulwer's " Last Days of Pompeii " who was 
 so greedy to see the man devoured by the wild 
 beast. No touch of pity, or even of awe, could be 
 read in any countenance. When a black cloth, 
 some two feet high, was placed round the edge of 
 the scaffold, there was a yell of impotent rage, 
 because a portion of the sight — the lowering of the 
 dead bodies into their coffins — would be thereby 
 lost to them. They cheered the hangman when he 
 came out to adjust the ropes, as the herald of their 
 coming treat ; they grew impatient as the clock 
 grew near the stroke of eight, and some called, 
 " Time ! " I am afraid an idea crossed my mind 
 that if all the people there present (except those 
 
A MORAL LESSON. 211 
 
 at the windows) could be put out of the way, Hke 
 those whose last agonies they had come to see, it 
 would be no great loss. 
 
 ' It is not eight o'clock, but it is very near. A 
 little dog in danger of being trodden to death is 
 rescued by the police, amid approbation, and placed 
 in safety upon the pitching-block — where the 
 porters rest their burdens — at the top of the street. 
 That is a good sign ; perhaps it is better to pity 
 dogs than murderers. St. Sepulchre's bell begins 
 to toll, although the inarticulate roar of voices 
 almost drowns its solemn boom ; there is a sharp 
 and sudden cry of "Hats off!" and the particoloured 
 carpet shows like a white sheet instantly. Where 
 the barriers are not, in Newgate Street, the con- 
 course bends and swells like the waves of a stormy 
 sea ; and where the barriers are, they are only dis- 
 tinguishable by their living burdens. There is a 
 dreadful thronging of officials at the prison door, and 
 five men are brought forth, one after another, to be 
 strangled. 
 
 ' Let us turn our backs upon that scene, my 
 friends, if you please, and look rather upon the 
 forty thousand eager faces receiving their moral 
 lesson. They are not so impressed as to be silent — 
 no, not for one instant — but emit a certain purring 
 
 p 2 
 
212 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 satisfaction, like that of a cat over its prey. Then 
 a hiss breaks forth, and here and there the word 
 ' cur ' is heard— that is because one of the wretched 
 victims has fainted, and must needs be seated in a 
 chair — and then there is a tempest of applause 
 because the fifth man goes to his doom with as 
 jaunty an air as his pinioned arms will permit. The 
 priest is speaking the last few words that these 
 wretches shall hear from mortal tongue ; they are 
 kissing (through those terrible caps) the crucifix he 
 holds in his hand, and in a few seconds they will 
 have crossed the threshold of life and entered upon 
 the mysteries of eternity. Surely if the moral lesson 
 is to give any visible sign of its working it must be 
 now. It gives no sign whatever. The babblement 
 never ceases ; there is no hush, no reverence, no fear. 
 Only after a certain dreadful grinding noise — which 
 is the fall of the drop— a flood of uproar suddenly 
 bursts forth, which must have been pent up before. 
 This, the truth is, is the collective voice of the 
 Curious, the Fast, the Vicious, spell-bound for a 
 little by the awful spectacle, while the ceaseless 
 though lesser din arises from the professional 
 scoundrels, the thieves /;/ esse, the murderers in 
 posse, who arc impressed by nothing save by the 
 touch of the fatal slip-knot under their own right 
 
A REPRIEVE AND ITS EFFECT. 213 
 
 ears. Singularly enough, the crowd increased after 
 the execution, persons of delicate temperament 
 joining it, I suppose, who had not nerve enough 
 for a hanging, but who knew how to appreciate a 
 cutting down.' 
 
 It has often been said that Dickens was in 
 favour of the abolition of capital punishment. It 
 was certainly not the case at this date, nor do I 
 believe it ever was, though he wrote strongly 
 against public executions. Speaking of the vil- 
 lainous crew of the ' Flow^ery Land,' he told me 
 that the sheriff had given him a very characteristic 
 account of them. There had been originally seven 
 condemned to death, but two were reprieved. 
 Reprieved criminals are generally much affected, 
 and the fact of their escape is broken to them with 
 great care by the officials. In this case, when the 
 two men were told they were not to be hung, one 
 received the news with total apathy, but the other 
 with great vivacity exclaimed, ' Then can I have 
 Antonio's shoes (Antonio, was one of his less 
 fortunate friends), ' because they exactly fit me .' ' 
 
 Dickens had been present at the execution of 
 Mrs. Manning and knew something of the lady. 
 With the exception of Mrs. Brownrigg she was 
 perhaps the wickedest of her sex ; but she had her 
 
214 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 attractions. He told me that when arrested in 
 Edinburgh she so worked upon the feelings of the 
 police officer that accompanied her in the train to 
 town — though he was an elderly man with a family 
 — that he could never forgive himself the hand he 
 had in her subsequent fate, and that when she was 
 executed he committed suicide. The ^^%y of her 
 in Madame Tussaud's, in Baker Street, was very 
 like, and I went to see it in consequence. The 
 great annual cattle show was being held under the 
 same roof, and I remember — such was my eye to 
 ' copy ' at that time — that I wrote an account of 
 both exhibitions on the occasion, under the not in- 
 appropriate title of ' Wax and Tallow.' 
 
 It was about this period that the ' Comic History 
 of England ' was being published, with its admirable 
 illustrations by Leech. I often met that artist, a 
 gentle pleasant fellow, beloved by all who knew 
 him, but certainly one who disappointed expecta- 
 tion in the way of comedy. He was very silent, 
 and his air was generally one of settled gloom. He 
 was, no doubt, however, a great observer, and when 
 he heard alively story that 'lent itself to illustra- 
 tion he would sometimes inquire ' whether it was 
 copyright.' 
 
 Gilbert a Beckett I only met once, at a little 
 
JAMES WHITE. 215 
 
 dinner party given by one of the founders of 
 ' Punch ; ' his talk was very entertaining and cha- 
 racteristic. There was some guava jelly at dessert, 
 which pleased my youthful palate. ' I am glad you 
 like it,' said my hostess. ' We rather plume our- 
 selves upon it. Some people make it of apple and 
 call it guava ; they think there is no harm in a false 
 name.' 
 
 'You should rather say an appellation,' mur- 
 mured a Beckett. 
 
 The Reverend James White I have already 
 mentioned. I had known him in my boyhood, at 
 Shanklin, where we used to crack jokes together, 
 though mine of course were hazel nuts (and often 
 with nothing in them), while his were from the 
 cocoa-tree. He had a kindly as well as a humorous 
 nature, and protected me from the many snubs (I 
 daresay well deserved) which my precocity evoked 
 from my elders. Detraction, flickering with its 
 serpent tongue, went so far as to say that he spoilt 
 me ; a statement which bore falsehood on the face 
 of it. He was the first man I knew who was inti- 
 mate with literary men and who told me anecdotes 
 about them. He was a great friend of Dickens 
 and of Tennyson. I remember his reciting to me 
 a sonnet the latter had written, describing a sail he 
 
2i6 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and White and Peel (the author of 'The Fair 
 Island ') took together one day. Respect for the 
 laws of copyright, and also my forgetfulness of all 
 the lines but one, prevent my quoting the entire 
 poem ; but the first line, I remember, ran thus : 
 
 ' Two poets and a mighty dramatist,' 
 
 at the utterance of which last word he struck his 
 breast theatrically and observed parenthetically, 
 'That's me^ young gentleman.' Indeed White's 
 dramas from Scottish history were of great merit, 
 and one of them, ' The King of the Commons,' was 
 played by Macready (at the Princess's) with great 
 success. He also wrote ' The Landmarks of 
 English History,' ' Eighteen Christian Centuries,' 
 and a very good ' History of France.' I have 
 heard that when at Oxford, though too lazy to 
 write for ' the Newdigate,' he converted in a single 
 evening the severely classical poem that gained the 
 prize into something, if not superior, at all events, 
 very different, by interpolating alternate lines of 
 the most humorous character ; and the high spirits 
 of his youth very frequently asserted themselves in 
 maturity. I remember his reproving a very talka- 
 tive young woman for her garrulity at the same 
 time that he corrected her grammar. They were 
 
CHARLES READE. 2x7 
 
 going into dinner one day, and he expressed his 
 hope that she had a good appetite. 
 
 ' I always have,' she said, ' my motto is toiijours 
 pret: 
 
 ' It should be toujour s prcte, my dear,' was her 
 companion's reply. 
 
 He was an excellent story-teller, and I well re- 
 member his describing to me a particular evening 
 with Douglas Jerrold, and some social wits, which 
 made me yearn to be in such company. It was at 
 the time of some threatened French invasion, and 
 one man (he told me) announced his intention of 
 * locking himself in the cellar and arming himself 
 with a corkscrew ; ' another, who had taken a suffi- 
 ciency of champagne, of 'joining the Toxopholite 
 Society,' whereupon Jerrold flashed out, like a 
 rapier from its sheath, that the /^/toxopholite So- 
 ciety would better suit him. 
 
 The novelist last taken from us, Charles Reade, 
 I saw less of than of his literary brethren. My 
 acquaintance with him did not begin till his in- 
 firmity of deafness had grown to be a source of 
 much inconvenience to him ; but it certainly had 
 not the effect, often attributed to it, of making him 
 impatient or morose. His hollowed hand and 
 smiling, attentive face are always present in the 
 
2i8 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 picture which my memory draws of him. He 
 expressed himself very strongly upon matters in 
 which his feelings were moved, but they were always 
 moved in the right direction, and though, when 
 contending with an adversary on paper, he did not 
 use the feather end of his pen, his heart was as soft 
 as a woman's. He was never moved by those petty 
 jealousies which (with little reason, so far as my 
 experience goes) are attributed to his craft, and the 
 last time he spoke to me on literary subjects was 
 in praise of one who might well have been con- 
 sidered a rival — Wilkie Collins. ' I can imagine/ he 
 said, ' that his work fails to appeal to some people, 
 otherwise good judges, but he is a great artist' 
 
 The last time I saw him he was painfully 
 ascending the stairs of the London Library, look- 
 ing very old and ill. I waited for him on the 
 landing, where he noticed some books in my hand 
 which I was carrying away for a professional 
 purpose. 
 
 ' How hard you work ! ' he said ; then added 
 with pathos, ' so did I at your age.' 
 
 His tone and manner recalled to me those of 
 another and greater writer on an occasion when I 
 was instancing to him Walter Scott's inability to 
 compose when he wished to do so, and his bursting 
 
LEVER. 219 
 
 into tears in consequence, as the most pathetic 
 incident in the annals of Hterature. ' For God's 
 sake don't talk of it,' he said, ' it is what we must 
 all come to.' But he never did come to it, never- 
 theless. 
 
 Lever I met very seldom, and never when he 
 was at his best. He had fallen into ill health and 
 premature old age. Yet at times he was a charm- 
 ing companion ; not a conversationalist, but an 
 admirable i'aco7iteur. When once set a-going he 
 fairly bubbled over with good stories ; but they 
 were for the most part Irish and connected with old 
 times. He had lived so long out of England that 
 he was not en rapport with people and things of 
 the day. His nature was as genial and careless as 
 that of the heroes of his earlier books, and he had 
 no notion of practical affairs even when connected 
 with his own calling. He told me, only a few 
 years before his death, that he had never received 
 sixpence from the sale of his advanced sheets any- 
 where. To me, whom circumstances compelled to 
 look after such matters pretty keenly, and who, if I 
 had not ' surveyed mankind from China to Peru ' 
 with an eye to advanced sheets, had ' placed ' them 
 on occasion even in Japan (at Yokohama), this 
 neglect appeared inexplicable. 
 
220 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 It is probable that his pubHshers made these 
 outside arrangements for him, and took them 
 into account in their transactions with him. In 
 Trollope's case, who told me almost the same thing 
 — ' I never got a farthing from the Americans,' he 
 said, ' save 50/. for " Ayala's Angel " ' — it seems 
 certain that he laboured under the same mistake, a 
 far more extraordinary one for him to make, who 
 plumed himself upon his business habits, than for 
 Lever. It may be of interest to the public (as it 
 certainly will be to the budding novelist) to learn 
 that the serial works of our popular writers appear 
 coincidently not only in America, but in many of 
 our colonies.^ Australia is the most Hberal and en- 
 terprising in this respect, and Canada (a fact which 
 is partly explained by its being overshadowed by 
 
 * The following case, by no means an uncommon one, illustrates 
 the system of ' distribution ' as regards fiction which now prevails. 
 A novel is published in serial by a ' syndicate ' of eight or ten pro- 
 vincial newspapers, the Saturday issues of which (in which it ap- 
 pears) have an average circulation say of 25,000. The novel 
 simultaneously appears in America and Australia, say in Harpcr''s 
 Weekly and the Atistralasian, which have both immense circula- 
 tions. This gives at least 300,000 buyers; but it is calculated, 
 with good reason, taking into account the family, the club, the 
 mechanics' institute, and friends to whom the novel may be lent, 
 that there are six readers for every buyer. Thus the readers of the 
 popular novelist of to-day may literally be reckoned by millions. 
 Moreover, this does not include the readers of the various editions 
 of the book itself, or of its translations. 
 
BARON TAUCHNITZ. 221 
 
 the Great Republic) the least. The works of our 
 story-tellers are also to be found in every European 
 tongue : with Russia, Holland, and Sweden there 
 is, however, no international copyright, so that no- 
 thing is to be got out of them but thanks and fame ; 
 and with France and Italy, although there is a 
 treaty, there might almost as well not be one, so far 
 as any material benefit to the English author is con- 
 cerned. Germany, however, though poor, is honest, 
 and sends some slight contribution to the British 
 author's purse in return for the right of translation. 
 The edition of Baron Tauchnitz, which is of 
 course in English, is quite another affair. There is 
 a notion abroad — or rather at home — that the Baron 
 does not purchase the works he publishes in his 
 Continental series. This is a gross mistake. He 
 did so even when there was no necessity (i.e. when 
 there was no copyright treaty, as -he does now in 
 the case of American authors), and I have always 
 found him to be not only an honourable but a 
 most liberal paymaster. 
 
 Trollope was the least literary man of letters I 
 ever met ; indeed, had I not known him for the 
 large-hearted and natural man he was, I should 
 have suspected him of some affectation in this 
 respect. Though he certainly took pleasure in 
 
222 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 writing novels I doubt whether he took any in 
 reading them ; and from his conversation, quite as 
 much as from his own remarks on the subject in 
 his autobiography, I should judge he had not read 
 a dozen, even of Dickens's, in his life. His manners 
 were rough and, so to speak, tumultuous, but he 
 had a tender heart and a strong sense of duty. He 
 has done his literary reputation as much harm by 
 the revelation of his method of work as by his 
 material views of its result. He took almost a 
 savage pleasure in demolishing the theory of 
 * inspiration,' which has caused the world to deny 
 his ' genius ; ' but although he was the last, and a 
 long way the last, of the great triumvirate of 
 modern novelists (for Bulwer is not to be named in 
 the same breath and George Eliot stands per se\ he 
 hangs ' on the line ' with them. 
 
 If I may venture to express my own opinion 
 upon a matter to which I have at least given more 
 attention than most people, there seems to me 
 this noteworthy difference between the above- 
 named three authors and their living contempo- 
 raries : the characters they have drawn are more 
 individualised. Dick Swiveller, Colonel Newcome, 
 and Mrs. Proudie, for example, are people we know 
 and speak of as having had a real existence. 
 
THE LITERARY TRIUMVIRATE. 223 
 
 The works of other novelists are (with certain 
 exceptions, however, for who does not recall Count 
 Fosco ?) known by their names rather than by the 
 characters they have created. 
 
 I take, merely as a specimen (and I trust Mr. 
 Blackmore will forgive me for so doing), that 
 admirable romance ' Lorna Doone ; ' none of the 
 three men we are considering could have written it 
 to save their lives, yet I doubt whether ten of the 
 thousands of readers who have delighted in it could 
 give the names of its dramatis personcs. There is 
 nothing so cheap (and nasty) as detraction ; and in 
 stating this opinion, detraction is the last thing, 
 Heaven knows, which I wish to convey. I have 
 the heartiest contempt for that school of critic- 
 asters (as Charles Reade called them) who are 
 always praising the dead at the expense of the 
 living ; and there are probably few readers who 
 take such pleasure in the works of living writers as 
 I do. There is, I readily admit, more poetry and 
 natural truth in some of them than in Dickens ; 
 more dramatic interest than in Thackeray ; more 
 humour and pathos than in Trollope ; but, to my 
 mind, the individualism of character is much less 
 marked than in those three authors. 
 
 I first saw Thackeray at the house of my 
 
224 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 brother-in-law/ with whom I was then staying in 
 Gloucester Place ; they had lived together as 
 young men at Weimar, but had never seen one 
 another since, and their meeting was very interest- 
 ing. Their lines in life had been very different, 
 but the recollection of old times drew them 
 together closely. A curious and characteristic 
 thing happened on the occasion in question. 
 There were a dozen people or so at dinner, all 
 unknown to Thackeray, but he was in good spirits 
 and made himself very agreeable. It disappointed 
 me excessively, when, immediately after dinner, he 
 informed me that he had a most particular engage- 
 ment and was about to wish good night to his host. 
 * But will you not even smoke a cigar first } ' I in- 
 quired. * A cigar } Oh, they smoke here, do they ? 
 Well, to tell you the truth, that ivas my engage- 
 ment,' and he remained for many hours. There was 
 an ancient gentleman at table who had greatly 
 distinguished himself half a century ago at college, 
 by whom the novelist was much attracted, and 
 especially when he told him that there was nothing 
 really original in modern literature ; everything, he 
 
 ^ Major Prower. At his home, Purton House, in Wiltshire, I 
 spent many of the happiest clays of my early life ; would that his 
 eye could note the acknowledgment ! 
 
HOSPITALITY EXTRAORDINARY, 225 
 
 said, came indirectly more or less from — I think he 
 said — Pindar. 
 
 * But at all events Pindar did not write " Vanity- 
 Fair," ' I said. 
 
 * Yes, sir,' answered the old gentleman, ' he 
 did. In the highest and noblest sense Pindar did 
 write it.' 
 
 This view of affairs, which was quite new to 
 
 him, delighted Thackeray, who was so pleased 
 
 with his evening that he invited the whole company 
 
 — fourteen in all — to dine with him the next day. 
 
 I mention the circumstance not only as being a 
 
 humorous thing in itself, but as illustrative of a 
 
 certain boyish and impulsive strain that there was 
 
 in his nature. He told me afterwards that when 
 
 he subsequently went to the club that night he had 
 
 felt so dangerously hospitable that it was all he 
 
 could do to prevent himself 'asking some more 
 
 people ; ' and as a matter of fact he did ask two 
 
 other guests. He had been very moderate as to 
 
 wine-drinking, and was only carried away by a 
 
 spirit of geniality, which now and then overmastered 
 
 him. The guests who had so much taken his fancy 
 
 — or perhaps it was only the ancient Classic, whom 
 
 he could not well have invited without the others 
 
 — were of course delighted with their invitation, 
 
 Q 
 
226 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 but many of them had scruples about accepting it. 
 They called the next afternoon, in pairs, to know 
 * what we were going to do about it,' and ' whether 
 we thought Mr. Thackeray had really meant it* 
 For my part, I said I should go if I went alone , 
 and go we did. An excellent dinner we got, not- 
 withstanding the shortness of the notice ; nor in 
 our kind hostess's manner could be detected the 
 least surprise at what must nevertheless have 
 seemed a somewhat unlooked-for incursion. 
 
 Trollope has been hard on Thackeray — just as 
 the public have been hard on Trollope — because 
 his mode of composition did not chime in with 
 his own, and was indeed diametrically opposite. 
 Thackeray's habits were anything but methodical, 
 and he found the duties of editorship especially 
 irksome. Communications from his contributors, 
 and especially the would-be ones, annoyed and even 
 distressed him to an almost incredible degree. I 
 remember his complaining of one of them with a 
 vigour and irritation which amused me exceedingly. 
 A young fellow had sent him a long story, for 
 which he demanded particular attention ' from the 
 greatest of novelists,' upon the ground that he had 
 a sick sister entirely dependent upon him for 
 support. Thackeray was touched by the appeal, 
 
AN UNGRATEFUL CONTRIBUTOR. 227 
 
 and, contrary to his custom, wrote his correspondent 
 a long letter of advice, enclosing also (which was by 
 no means contrary to his custom) some pecuniary 
 assistance. ' I feel for your position,' he said, * and 
 appreciate your motive for exertion ; but I must 
 tell you at once that you will never do anything 
 in literature. Your contribution is worthless in 
 every way, and it is the truest kindness, both to 
 her for whom you are working and to yourself, to 
 tell you so outright. Turn your mind at once to 
 some other industry.' 
 
 This produced a reply from the young gentle- 
 man which astonished Thackeray a great deal more 
 than it did me. It was couched in the most offen- 
 sive terms conceivable, and ended by telling ' the 
 greatest of novelists ' that, though he had attained 
 by good luck ' the top of the tree, he would one 
 day find himself, where he deserved to be, at the 
 bottom of it' 
 
 ' For my part,' said Thackeray (upon my show- 
 ing some premonitory symptoms of suffocation), 
 * I see little to laugh at. What a stupid, ungrateful 
 beast the man must be ! and if ever I waste another 
 half hour again in writing to a creature of that sort 
 '' call me horse," or worse.' He was not so ac- 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 customed to the vagaries of rejected contributors 
 as I was. 
 
 Though the views of life entertained by Dickens 
 and Thackeray were as different as the poles, it 
 has always been the fashion to draw comparisons 
 between them ; some disciples of the latter have 
 even thought they did their master honour by 
 speaking of Dickens as his rival and then depre- 
 ciating him. I wonder whether these gentry knew 
 what Thackeray really thought of Dickens's genius. 
 They certainly could hardly have read what he 
 wrote of it, and especially of the pathetic side 
 of it. 
 
 ' And now,' says Thackeray (I think in his * Box 
 of Christmas Books '), ' there is but one book left 
 in the box, the smallest one ; but oh, how much 
 the best of all ! It is the work of the master of 
 all English humourists now alive — the young man 
 who came and took his place calmly at the head of 
 the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all 
 we owe him — the store of happy hours that he has 
 made us pass ; the kindly and pleasant companions 
 whom he has introduced to us ; the harmless 
 laughter, the genial wit, the frank, manly love he 
 has taught us to feel. Every month of these years 
 has brought us some kind token from this delight- 
 
THACKERAY ON DICKENS. 229 
 
 ful genius. . . . What books have appeared that 
 have taken so affectionate a hold of our English 
 public as his ? ' 
 
 Of the ' Carol ' he wrote : ' Who can listen to 
 objections regarding such a book as this ? It seems 
 to me a national benefit, and to every man and 
 woman who reads it a personal kindness. The 
 last two people I heard speak of it were women ; 
 neither knew the other, or the author, and both 
 said by way of criticism, " God bless him ! " . . . 
 As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the 
 book regarding that young gentleman about which 
 a man should hardly speak in print, or in public, 
 any more than he would of any other affliction of 
 his private heart. There is not a reader in England 
 but that little creature will be a bond of union 
 between author and him ; and he will say of Charles 
 Dickens, as the women did just now, " God bless 
 him ! " What a feeling is this for a writer to be 
 able to inspire, and what a reward to reap ! ' 
 
 Lest it should be imagined that this opinion of 
 Thackeray's respecting the merits of his great con- 
 temporary was extorted by his admiration of his 
 ^Christmas Books' alone, or was expressed upon 
 his earlier writings only, I append a much later and 
 less known criticism to the same effect. 
 
230 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS, 
 
 ' As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiphed 
 kindnesses which he has conferred upon us all, upon 
 our children, upon people educated and uneducated, 
 upon the myriads who speak our common tongue, 
 have not you, have not I, all of us, reason to be 
 thankful to this kind friend who so often cheered 
 so many hours, brought pleasure and sweet laughter 
 to so many homes, made such multitudes of children 
 happy, endowed us with such a sweet store of 
 gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, 
 hearty enjoyments ? I may quarrel with Mr. 
 Dickens's art a thousand and a thousand times ; I 
 delight and wonder at his genius. I recognise it — 
 I speak with awe and reverence — a commission from 
 that Divine Beneficence whose blessed task we 
 know it will one day be to wipe every tear from every 
 eye. Thankfully I take my share of the feast of 
 love and kindness which this noble and generous 
 and charitable soul has contributed to the happi- 
 ness of the world. I take and enjoy my share, 
 and say a benediction for the meal.' 
 
 I should especially recommend this criticism to 
 ' the drawing-rooms and the clubs '—the people who 
 don't think and the people who don't feel — when 
 they are inclined to speak of Dickens's * morbid 
 sentimentality.' 
 
AMATEUR CRITICISM. 231 
 
 While I am upon this subject, I cannot refrain 
 from saying a word or two about the insolence, not 
 of the critics — for I have already expressed my 
 high opinion both of their ability and their appre- 
 ciativeness — but of a certain class of amateur critics 
 in relation to fiction. * Everyone can poke a fire and 
 drive a gig,' and, it would also seem, can criticise 
 a novel. * Although,' says Miss Austen, speaking 
 of her own trade, ' our productions have afforded 
 more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those 
 of any other literary corporation in the world, no 
 species of composition has been so much decried. 
 From pride, ignorance, and fashion our foes are 
 almost as many as our readers, and while the abili- 
 ties of the nine hundred and ninety-ninth abridger 
 of the History of England are eulogised by a 
 thousand pens, there seems a general agreement to 
 slight the performances which have only genius, 
 wit, and taste to recommend them.' 
 
 Novelists are certainly not ' slighted ' now, but 
 *the nine hundred and ninety-ninth abridger," or 
 anyone else who has distinguished himself in quite 
 another line of literature, thinks himself qualified 
 to sit in judgment upon the genius of Dickens. 
 Only a few months ago I read a criticism (as I sup- 
 pose he would call it) from a person of this kind, 
 
232 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 to whom no one ever imputed the possession of a 
 single grain of humour or pathos, which may well 
 serve as a warning to all such trespassers upon a 
 domain of which they know absolutely nothing. 
 * I could never read Dickens with any pleasure,' 
 he candidly confesses, without the least conscious- 
 ness of writing himself down an ass ; and then he 
 proceeds to discuss his works. Of course there are 
 many intelligent persons to whom the power of 
 appreciating fiction of any kind is denied ; what is 
 amazing is that they should rush into print to say 
 so. Their opinion should be entertained in silence, 
 or expressed to their friends as it were in cainerd, 
 so that the fact of their intellectual incompetency 
 should be concealed. What Thackeray — a well- 
 qualified critic indeed — wrote of Dickens he also 
 certainly felt. I had once a long conversation with 
 him upon the subject : it was before the shadow 
 (cast by a trivial matter after all) had come between 
 them, but I am sure that would not have altered 
 his opinion. Of course there were some points on 
 which he was less enthusiastic than on others ; the 
 height of the literary pedestal on which Dickens 
 stood was, he thought, for some reasons, to be 
 deplored for his own sake. ' There is nobody to tell 
 him when anything goes wrong,' he said ; ' Dickens 
 
RECONCILED. 233 
 
 is the Sultan, and Wills is his Grand Vizier ; ' but, 
 on the whole, his praise was as great as it was 
 generous. 
 
 It is a satisfaction to me to remember that our 
 two great novelists became friends again before 
 death took all that it could take of one of them 
 away ; I walked back with the survivor from the 
 other's funeral at Kensal Green, and from what 
 Dickens said on that occasion— though the touch- 
 ing ' In Memoriam ' from his pen in the ' Cornhill ' 
 was proof sufficient — I can bear witness to the 
 fact. 
 
234 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS— ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS 
 LITERARY GAINS — TWO IMPOSTORS — WHIST — FAME. 
 
 I WAS thirty-two years of age, and had written 
 many books and a very large number of miscel- 
 laneous articles, before I made my first success in 
 literature. I had advanced, I think, as regards the 
 art of story-telling, and certainly in public favour, 
 but only in a moderate way. There had been no 
 ' leaps and bounds ' in my progress ; but the appear- 
 ance of ' Lost Sir Massingberd ' was an epoch in my 
 literary life. The idea (as I have mentioned else- 
 where) occurred to me on the top of a coach ; and it 
 was the best day's journey I ever took. The story 
 appeared, of course, in the 'Journal,' and very 
 largely increased its circulation. Its proprietors — 
 for in such a case it would be ungenerous to dis- 
 sociate them — behaved with great liberality towards 
 me. I mention the matter (though some may 
 consider it a private one) not only because it reflects 
 credit on the firm in question, but because it casts 
 some light on the relation between publishers and 
 
PUBLISHERS. 235. 
 
 authors generally. There is a notion abroad that 
 the latter are almost invariably the victims of the 
 former, and that, while Justice has but a legal 
 foothold in Paternoster Row, Generosity has none 
 at all. My experience, which on such matters is 
 probably as large as that of any man alive, is to 
 the contrary of all this. There are bad publishers, 
 of course, skinflints ('scaly varmints,' as a cab- 
 driver once called a friend of mine, who was so 
 delighted with the term that he at once gave him 
 half-a-sovereign), but in what other profession are 
 such characters unknown ? I have met with some 
 sharp practice with publishers myself, and have 
 never hesitated to say so, or to give piquancy to 
 the narrative by the disclosure of their names ; 
 but such experiences have been quite exceptional. 
 Upon the whole I am convinced that I have been 
 handsomely treated. 
 
 Talking of this subject upon one occasion with 
 a brother novelist, he gave me the following extract 
 from his literary note-book. ' My first work,' he 
 said, ' was published by Blank & Co., who gave me 
 a decent sum for the first edition, not one half of 
 which was sold. When I became popular I dis- 
 posed of the copyright of the volume elsewhere, 
 and feeling indebted to them for their liberality. 
 
236 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 and also sorry for their loss, I sent them half the 
 money I received for the book. You never saw 
 such a letter as Blank sent me. One would have 
 thought I had given him a fortune instead of only 
 a small portion of what I had lost him. He could 
 not have expressed more astonishment if it had 
 dropped from the clouds.' 
 
 I have no doubt Mr. Blank was very much 
 astonished. And yet it is far from uncommon for 
 publishers to give very considerable sums to suc- 
 cessful authors beyond what they have bargained 
 for. Of course it may be urged — for there are 
 some people who never will give the devil his due 
 — that this has been done as a retaining fee in order 
 to keep their clients. I can only say that I have 
 known cases where such a motive could not pos- 
 sibly have been imputed, and as they have hap- 
 pened — among others — to myself, I may venture 
 to be quite positive upon the point. 
 
 While upon the subject of publishers, I will 
 narrate a story told me by one of that useful and 
 innocuous class called Readers. He was in the 
 great house of Paternoster, Row and Co., but (one 
 cannot but think fortunately for him) Row was 
 dead. One day my friend received one of those 
 charming brocJmres so common now-a-days, full of 
 
A READER'S ERROR. 237 
 
 ill-natured gossip about literature and its disciples. 
 Among other disagreeable things, it said that 
 that eminently successful work ' Disloyala : or the 
 Doubtful Priest,' which had run through fifty 
 editions, had been rejected by his house some years 
 ago. He showed this libel with much indignation 
 to his friend and employer, Mr. Paternoster. 
 
 ' Is not this,' he cried, ' an infamous statement ? * 
 'What does it matter?' was the quiet reply; 
 ' this sort of gentleman will say anything.' 
 
 ' But I really can't stand it,' persisted the 
 Reader. ' It is a gross libel upon us both, but 
 especially upon me ; I shall write to the man and 
 give him a piece of my mind.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't do that if I were you,' said Mr. 
 Paternoster, still more quietly than before. 
 
 ' But why not } I really must ' 
 
 There was a twinkle in Mr. Paternoster's eye, 
 and a smile at the extreme corners of his mouth, 
 which attracted the other's attention, and inter- 
 rupted his eloquence. 
 
 * Is there any reason why I should not contradict 
 this man ? ' 
 
 * Well yes ; the fact is we did reject the book.' 
 'What? Do you mean to say I rejected 
 
 " Disloyala > " ' 
 
238 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 ' I am afraid so ; at all events we did it amongst 
 us. I don't blame you ; I think it even now a 
 ■dullish book.' 
 
 * And you never told me ? Never let fall a word 
 of it all these years ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not. I thought it might distress 
 you. I should not have told you now, but that I 
 was taken unawares.' 
 
 This to my mind is one of the prettiest stories 
 I have ever heard. I should like to see the General 
 who could be equally reticent, when the Chief of 
 his Intelligence Department had omitted a pre- 
 caution that would have secured him a victory ; or 
 the Solicitor who had lost his cause through the 
 neglect of his Counsel ; or the Politician who had 
 missed his point in the House through the short- 
 coming of his Secretary. Yet Mr. Paternoster was 
 a publisher, one of that fraternity who, if we are 
 to believe some people, are incapable of a generosity. 
 For my part (who have collected a considerable 
 number of anecdotes of the human race) I have never 
 heard a more creditable story, even of a Divine. 
 
 Dissatisfaction with honest publishers indeed 
 rarely takes place, except with very young authors. 
 These have great confidence in their own work, and 
 when it does not succeed are prone to blame every- 
 
FIRST BOOK. 239 
 
 body but themselves. But the fact is, even if a new 
 book is a good book, it is very rarely successful. 
 To make it known to the public requires advertis- 
 ing, and that process is expensive, and soon swallows 
 up a small profit, even if profit is made. Upon the 
 whole, it behoves the young author to look upon his 
 first venture as itself an advertisement, and not 
 reckon to make his fortune by it. And yet if it 
 be successful, even if it does not ' pay ' (for the 
 things are quite compatible), it may really make 
 his fortune ; for it paves the way (although not 
 with gold) for its successor. My own experience of 
 this matter has been already narrated. I had very 
 good reason to be satisfied with my first produc- 
 tion, though it was a pecuniary loss. On the other 
 hand, I did not achieve by it any sudden repu- 
 tation. 
 
 * Lost Sir Massingberd ' was, I think, my fourth 
 book ; from that time my position as a story- 
 writer was secure, and I began to receive con- 
 siderable sums for my books. Even then, how- 
 ever, my progress, though always upward, was 
 slow, and it must have been at least ten years 
 before I reached those ' four figures ' which are sup- 
 posed in the literary market to indicate the position 
 of the * popular author.' After that, things bettered 
 
240 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 with me, and much more rapidly ; but what a 
 beggarly account do the profits of literature present 
 beside those of successful men at the bar, in 
 medicine, or in trade ! The most popular novelist 
 alive does not realise per annum what is every 
 year pocketed by a second-rate barrister, or a 
 physician in moderate practice. His term of 
 prosperity is also shorter, for the gift of imagination 
 generally fails us long before those talents which are 
 sufficient for ordinary intellectual toil. And yet 
 nothing is more common than to hear otherwise 
 sensible people talk of the large incomes made by 
 popular writers. 
 
 Trollope and Scott were exceptionally quick 
 workers, but there are few men who can write a 
 three-volume novel, worth reading, under nine 
 months ; in the same time a popular painter can 
 produce at least three pictures, for each of which 
 he gets as large a sum as the popular writer for his 
 entire book. Nor does his work take out of the 
 artist as it does out of the author. Indeed, if a 
 man looks for wealth, the profession of literature 
 is the very last I would recommend him to embrace. 
 On the other hand, such guerdon as the novelist 
 does receive is gained very pleasantly and accom- 
 panied by many charming circumstances. He can 
 
FAME, 241 
 
 choose his society where he likes, for all doors are 
 open to him. If fool enough to prefer swelldom 
 to comfort, he has no need to struggle for it, as men 
 in other callings with ten times his income must 
 needs do. At the tables of the great he is not 
 placed according to the degrees of rank (or Heaven 
 knows where he would be), but enjoys a status of 
 his own. In ordinary society, too (which is much 
 more * particular ' than the ' best circles ' ), he 
 is regarded with an exceptional charity. His 
 position, indeed, among the most respectable 
 people always reminds me of a lunatic among the 
 Indians : ' the Great Spirit ' has afflicted him with 
 genius, they think (or at all events with something 
 of that nature), and it behoves them to wink at his 
 little infirmities. Nobody dreams of asking whether 
 he is High Church, or Low Church, or even No 
 Church. However much he may be ' at his ease in 
 Zion,' nobody accuses him of irreverence. It has 
 been said of a certain personage that a great many 
 
 more people know T. F than T. F knows ; 
 
 but the number of people who want to know your 
 popular novelist is almost incredible. His photo- 
 graph is sighed fon^by literary maidens beyond the 
 seas, and by professional photographers (who take 
 him for nothing) at home; his autograph is demanded 
 
 R 
 
242 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 from some quarter of the world by every post. 
 Poems are written on him, books are dedicated to 
 him, paragraphs about his failing health (often when 
 he is quite well, which makes it the more pleasant) 
 pervade the newspapers, as though he were a bishop 
 who gives hopes of a vacant see. If vanity is his 
 ruling passion (a circumstance not altogether un- 
 precedented), he should indeed be a happy man. 
 
 What, however, he is really to be congratulated 
 upon is his work itself, which, always delightful to 
 him, can be pursued anywhere and at any time ; 
 he is tied to no place, and can take holiday when 
 and where he will ; while, above all, the nature of 
 his occupation brings him into connection with the 
 pleasantest and brightest people. In this last re- 
 spect, if in no other — for my little book, though a 
 successful story, made no great noise in the world 
 — I had reason to be grateful to ' Lost Sir Massing- 
 berd.' It attracted the attention of some of my 
 masters in the art of fiction, and among them that 
 of my friend Wilkie Collins. He has probably 
 long forgotten the gracious words which he bestowed 
 upon it, but I remember them as though they were 
 spoken yesterday instead ofj^twenty years ago. 
 Accustomed as was the author of ' The Moon- 
 stone ' to strike at the root of a mystery, he told me 
 
A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE. 243 
 
 that he could not guess what had become of my 
 missing baronet — in which lies what dramatic 
 interest the book possesses — till he came on the 
 page that told him. My old friend at The Knoll 
 of course wrote to congratulate me, though my 
 story, she said, was far too exciting for her, and in 
 her failing health had given her more discomfort 
 than pleasure ; and Dickens touched my trembling 
 ears with praise. What was really remarkable 
 about the book was that I had, of course uncon- 
 sciously, taken for the name of my hero the very 
 name (Massingberd) of a gentleman who had been 
 missing for years, and to this day (I believe) has 
 never been heard of by his friends. 
 
 Among those in another sphere of life with 
 whom literature has brought me into connection, 
 was the late lamented Duke of Albany. Years 
 ago, long before he took that title, one of my works 
 was so fortunate as to beguile some hours of pain, 
 and led to my introduction to him. I visited him 
 at Boyton Manor, the house he had in Wiltshire, 
 and subsequently at Clarcmont, and elsewhere. He 
 was a most cordial and kindly host, and never 
 could have been mistaken, even by the most cynical 
 nature, for a patron. His love of literature was so 
 great and genuine as to excuse my mention of him 
 
 R2 
 
244 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 in this place, even if the interest'attaching to his 
 memory were less deep and general. He had an 
 hereditary talent for languages, and the passion of 
 his race for music. These things were lost upon 
 me and he knew it, and (as if I had been the 
 Prince and he the Courtier) took pains to avoid 
 those topics in my company. It was the same in 
 politics, in which we had not an opinion in common. 
 I remember visiting him at the time of the Turco- 
 Russian war, and he observed on receiving me (in 
 playful reference to my wrongheadedness in other 
 matters), ' I do hope, Payn, you are at least a good 
 Turk.' And when I was obliged to shake my 
 head, he said, ' Well then, we won't talk about it ; ' 
 and we never did. If this courteous reticence were 
 more generally observed, a new charm would often 
 be given to hospitality. As a host, indeed. Prince 
 Leopold was almost faultless. He never forgot, 
 however great might be the interval between their 
 visits, the little peculiarities of his friends. In 
 royal residences the early hours, which are essential 
 to my private comfort, are not usual, nor is it 
 customary to retire before the master of the house. 
 But long before it grew late he would make some 
 pleasant observation about the habits of those who 
 were not night birds, which left me free to go to 
 
PRINCE LEOPOLD. 245 
 
 roost. He was not a student in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, though his knowledge of science and 
 philosophy was probably much superior to mine, 
 but he was well acquainted with the lighter branches 
 of literature, and took great pleasure in them. I 
 had the satisfaction of introducing him to the 
 works of Lefanu, and his admiration of that author 
 (so strangely neglected by the general public, not- 
 withstanding the popularity of some of his imitators) 
 vied with my own. He was fond of humour, 
 though not of the boisterous kind (which perhaps 
 requires physical health for its appreciation), and 
 his favourite modern author was Thackeray. In 
 Scott, too, he took great delight, and pointed out 
 to me with pride a memento which had been given 
 him by his hostess at Abbotsford, the bog oak 
 walking-stick which Sir Walter brought away with 
 him from Ireland, and of which he made such 
 constant use. He had had his choice of richer 
 relics, but had the good taste and sense to know 
 what to choose. 
 
 ' Lost Sir Massingberd ' (which W. G. Clark 
 would always call ' Found Sir Missing Bird ') was 
 published, like many of its successors, anonymously, 
 an example which I would earnestly dissuade my 
 literary brethren from following. If one has any 
 
246 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 personalty belonging to one (whether it is spelt with 
 an i or not), it is just as well to claim it, otherwise 
 some one is sure to do so. A literary gentleman 
 in Glasgow, upon the strength of the authorship of 
 this very book of mine, collected money from the 
 charitable for some weeks. He said that the writer 
 of the work in question had been very ill re- 
 munerated, and appealed with confidence to the 
 spirit of fair play inherent in every British breast. 
 Nay, curiously enough, so late as last year there 
 was another Richmond in the field ; for my friend 
 Walter Besant writes to me from a North-country 
 inn as follows : ' I met a man in the coffee-room 
 here who gave me many mysterious hints of his 
 great position in the world of letters, and, finding 
 him very anxious to be interrogated, took care 
 not to trouble him with any questions. I asked 
 the landlady, however, who he was. " Oh ! " said 
 she, " he is quite a famous literary gent ; he wrote 
 * A Confidential Agent' " ' My correspondent con- 
 cludes his letter : ' I have always suspected this ; 
 he is a much more distinguished-looking fellow, 
 and more likely to have done it than you.' Such 
 are the so-called friendships between literary men 
 in the same line of business. 
 
 Speaking of impostors reminds me of two very 
 
AN IMPOSTOR. 247 
 
 fine specimens with whom, about this time, I became 
 acquainted, one of whom adorned, and, for all I 
 know to the contrary, may still adorn, my own 
 profession. One evening a gentleman called at my 
 house and requested to see me upon very particular 
 business. As I was absent from home, he asked 
 to see my wife. He was a gentlemanly-looking 
 person of delicate appearance, and very shy, hesi- 
 tating manners. ' It is most unfortunate,' he stam- 
 mered, ' for they told me at the office I should be 
 sure to find Mr. Payn at home, and he is the only 
 friend in London on whom I can rely under certain 
 circumstances — pressing ones — in which I find 
 myself.' 
 
 ' You know my husband then } ' 
 
 *No, Madam, I do not ; but my name — Henslow 
 — would not be unfamiliar to him. I am a novelist, 
 and the author of a serial now running in the 
 " Phoenix Magazine." ' 
 
 His hostess smiled politely, but could not go so 
 far as to say that we took in the * Phoenix.' Could 
 she give any message for him to her husband ? 
 
 He shook his head. ' The fact is, Madam, my 
 difficulty is very urgent ; it is of a domestic and 
 not of a literary character. I came up to town 
 from Gloucestershire this morning with my poor 
 
248 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 sister to consult a London physician upon her 
 account. She is dying, but there are hopes of 
 alleviation and mitigation. At Swindon Station I 
 got out to get her some refreshment, and left my 
 purse on the counter. We are absolutely without 
 a penny between us.' 
 
 ' Good heavens ! But where is your sister ? * 
 ' She is in the second-class ladies' waiting-room 
 at Paddington Station. She has been there for 
 eight hours. I have been all day waiting for the 
 only acquaintance I had in town, but in vain. 
 Then I thought of your husband, who, being of the 
 same calling, and knowing me at least by name, 
 would, I felt sure, lend me a few shillings.' 
 
 The question to have asked, no doubt, would 
 have been, ' Why not have gone to the Editor of 
 the "Phoenix " } ' But my wife was touched by his 
 evident distress of mind and the idea of the invalid 
 in the waiting-room, and she gave him a sovereign 
 on loan. 
 
 I naturally looked upon that sovereign as lost. 
 It might indeed produce interest to my wife in 
 Paradise, where all good deeds are said to fructify ; 
 but so far as I was concerned I felt sure I should 
 never see either it or Mr. Henslow again. 
 
 The next morning, however, to my extreme 
 
DONE AGAIN. 249 
 
 surprise, he called. A few words convinced me 
 that he was the person he professed to be, and 
 made me ashamed of my suspicions. ' Your wife's 
 kindness,' he said, ' has enabled my sister to pro- 
 cure comfortable lodgings ; our return tickets were 
 fortunately not in my lost purse, and now we are 
 going back again.' 
 
 * But your sister has not seen the physician } ' 
 ' No,' he said with a faint flush ; ' we must come 
 up again for that.' Of course I understood that he 
 referred to his want of cash, and forgetting in my 
 turn, for the moment, that he might just as well 
 apply to the ' Phoenix ' as to me, I advanced him 
 another loan. He accepted it with such modest 
 hesitation as would have destroyed the last remnant 
 of suspicion had any still survived within me, and, 
 promising to return it by the next day's post, took 
 his departure— for ever. No one that I know of 
 has seen Mr. Henslow since. A week or so after- 
 wards I called at the ' Phoenix ' office, and found 
 that I had not been imposed upon so far as his 
 identity was concerned. He had, however, been 
 paid beforehand for his serial story, and since then, 
 as many callers testified, had levied contributions 
 on the Charitable upon the strength of that literary 
 achievement. If these lines should meet the gentle- 
 
250 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 man's eye, I should like him to know that he 
 is forgiven, and that if he will only sit to me for 
 his character I should like to have further pecu^ 
 niary dealings with him. Such an idiosyncrasy as 
 his must be would be well worth my professional 
 attention. 
 
 The next greatest impostor I ever came across. 
 
 was F , the famous spiritualist. Home beings 
 
 on the Continent at the time (though an imperative 
 message from a court of law brought him shortly 
 
 afterwards to England), F was then at the head 
 
 of his profession in London, the very top of the 
 table-turners. I met him for the first time at a 
 large party where there were many persons distin- 
 guished in literature ; not a few of whom, to my 
 great surprise, were believers in him. I had 
 thoroughly investigated the spiritual business (for 
 copy), and knew it for what it was ; it has long 
 been exploded among all persons of intelligence,, 
 and is now only represented by its bastard offspring,, 
 thought-reading, but at that time it enjoyed con- 
 siderable credit. As I was known to be sceptical,, 
 
 F undertook to tackle me. He promised that 
 
 any dead friend of whom I should think would 
 indicate his presence in the usual manner — like a 
 postman. F rapped out my friend's surname 
 
SPIRIT-RA PPING. 2 5 1 
 
 accurately enough, though I did my best to delude 
 him by not hesitating at the proper letter, but he 
 was wrong in the Christian name. He made it 
 William instead of Henry, and I positively declined 
 to hear any communication from a departed spirit 
 who did not know the name given to him by his 
 godfathers and godmother. There was in fact a bit 
 of a row. The next day I mentioned the circum- 
 stance to H , a common friend of mine and the 
 
 dead man's, and he at once said, * But you were 
 wrong, my dear fellow ; our friend's name zvas 
 William. It was his brother [whom we had also 
 known] who was Henry.' 
 
 The circumstance somewhat staggered both of 
 
 us, and we thought it only right, in justice to F , 
 
 to let him know how the case stood. We accord- 
 ingly called upon him in Seymour Street, where 
 he gave his seances, and I made my apology. He 
 was very dignified about it, and not at all 
 triumphant. ' I have no power over these things 
 myself,' he said ; ' they are revealed to me ; I am 
 merely an instrument ' (and so he was, a stringed 
 one). He condescended so far, however, to combine 
 business with his * mission ' as to suggest a seance 
 then and there at a guinea a head, to which propo- 
 sition we acceded. 
 
252 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I can see him now, a very fat, white-skinned 
 man, with a face something like that of the first 
 Napoleon, and I should think as great a scoundrel. 
 His mode of procedure was to direct us to write 
 down the names of a dozen dead friends on pieces 
 of folded paper, and place them on the table. 
 Then he would take one up in his large white hand, 
 and inquire whether the spirit named therein was 
 on the premises ; and, after two or three trials (for 
 success was never achieved the first time), the re- 
 ply came in the affirmative. H , though a man 
 
 of great acquirements and intelligence, was of an 
 exceptionally reverent nature, and he did not much 
 like dealing with his dead friends so lightly ; but 
 eventually he did what was required of him. He 
 wrote down, among others, the name of some one 
 I had never heard of It was a woman's name — 
 let us call it Lucy Lisle — and, of course, I was 
 unaware that he had done so. Suddenly the table 
 at which we sat was violently perturbed — indeed, 
 
 it was almost thrown upon us — and F , in 
 
 something like convulsions, raised his sleeve and 
 displayed, written in letters of blood upon his arm, 
 the words Lucy Lisle. 
 
 H , greatly agitated, got up at once, and we 
 
 left the house and took a walk together in Hyde 
 
THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE. 253 
 
 Park, where we discussed the matter. As luck 
 would have it, there we met W. G. Clark, of Cam- 
 bridge, and confided to him what had occurred, 
 and he agreed to take a guinea's worth of 
 
 supernatural information from F , in my 
 
 company, the next morning. What had happened, 
 as we both agreed, was that the conjuror, while 
 ' making hay,' as it were, of the dozen pieces of 
 paper, had contrived to possess himself of one of 
 them, and afterwards of its contents (this was 
 afterwards found to be the case, but he had also a 
 blank slip, which he dropped when he took up the 
 other, so that there should always be the right 
 number upon the table). What puzzled me, and 
 delighted Clark, were the letters of blood. 
 
 The very same thing took place as on the 
 
 former occasion. F pitched upon one of 
 
 Clark's friends, and produced * Henry James ' upon 
 his naked arm in gory characters. 
 
 ' That is very curious,' said Clark in his dulcet 
 tones. You have reproduced quite accurately the 
 name that I wrote down ; but I see that, by a 
 mistake, no doubt arising from my official position 
 (he was Tutor of Trinity at the time), ' I have 
 written it with the surname first ; the deceased 
 gentleman's name was James Henry. That you 
 
254 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 have read my slip of paper is certain ; for that Mr. 
 Henry, even in his disembodied state, should not 
 know his surname from his Christian name is 
 incredible. I shall not hesitate to say what has 
 happened here wherever I go, and I should recom- 
 mend you to leave London.' 
 
 F took this excellent advice within twenty- 
 four hours. It was afterwards found, by experi- 
 ment, that letters written by a stylus upon a 
 white skin will remain, and apparently in blood, 
 for more than a minute. It was certainly a very 
 effective performance. 
 
 Among other eminent individuals imposed upon 
 by this specious personage was the author of ' A 
 Strange Story,' who was even reported to have 
 said that ' if there had been no revelation, Mr. 
 F would have convinced him of the ex- 
 istence of another world.' I had had some corre- 
 spondence with Lord Lytton concerning Leitch 
 Ritchie's pension, his claims to which he had (as 
 it seemed to me curiously enough) refused to ad- 
 vocate upon the ground that he (his Lordship) 
 was in opposition to Her Majesty's Government ; 
 but the first time I met him was at the gathering 
 at Knebworth in connection with the Guild of 
 Literature and Art, which, though intended to 
 
THE GUILD OF LITERATURE. 255 
 
 become historical, was, to confess the truth, Httle 
 short of a failure. 
 
 Some houses were built at Stevenage for the 
 accommodation of decayed authors, in which none 
 of them could be induced to live, even rent free. 
 They pointed to the local train bills, and showed 
 that it was impossible to reach their proposed 
 homes after the performances at the theatres. 
 This difficulty had not been taken into account by 
 the patrons of the scheme, and there were others 
 also— 'What are you going to pay us for being 
 buried alive at Stevenage } ' for one. 
 
 The festival which was to inaugurate this new 
 Arcadia of Literature was itself not a promising one. 
 It was emphatically ' a scratch entertainment ; ' 
 almost every author of eminence in London was in- 
 vited to it, and a great many others ; and ' the 
 county ' were asked to meet them. It was our host's 
 idea to introduce these two classes to one another, 
 50 that, should any of the authors become ' decayed' 
 (which was highly probable), they would be re- 
 ceived with open arms by their landed neighbours. 
 The two parties did not amalgamate. I was 
 talking to Charles Collins, who with many others 
 was staying in the house, when he was accosted by 
 a fellow-guest of the * exquisite ' type. ' What a 
 
2 56 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 dem'd funny set of people ! ' he said ; * 'pon my 
 life, before I was told who they were, I thought it 
 was the Foresters! 
 
 Charles Collins, brother of the novelist of that 
 name and son-in-law to Dickens, was himself an 
 excellent writer. His 'Cruise upon Wheels' is 
 one of the most charming books of travel ever 
 written, and his short sketches — notably those two 
 accounts of a visit to the Docks, one supposed to 
 be written under local influences, and the other the 
 next day in all statistical sobriety — testify to his 
 great powers of humour. He was in weak healthy 
 and endured with admirable patience more 
 physical suffering than his friends were aware of. 
 He, however, sometimes exhibited a whimsical 
 finicality. * No one gives less trouble than myself,* 
 he once observed to a friend of mine who was his 
 host, ' but I like my little tastes consulted. Your 
 bacon at breakfast is not very streaky, and ivould 
 you be so kind as to ask your man to hang up my 
 great coat by the loop t ' 
 
 I shall not easily forget his delight at the 
 following little social fiasco which took place at the 
 house of a dear, but somewhat fastidious, friend of 
 
 ours in Westbourne Terrace. C , a musical 
 
 critic famous for his good dinners, happened to be 
 
M NICE LITTLE PLAN: 257 
 
 calling at the same time as ourselves ; he, too, was 
 fastidious, but in a much greater degree 'than our 
 host, devoted to music, painting, and the fine arts, 
 despising everyone who did not come up to his 
 standard of culture, and I need hardly say, there- 
 fore, with a great horror of boys. Male children 
 were smuggled away at his approach, lest they 
 should put the accomplished creature out of tune. 
 He was not in general ver>' affable to anybody, 
 but on this occasion he was exceptionally gracious, 
 and especially to our host. 
 
 ' My dear L ,' he exclaimed with effusion, 
 
 ' are you engaged for Thursday week — Thursday, 
 the twentieth ? If not, I have a nice little plan.' 
 L dived into his breast-pocket for his engage- 
 ment list. He scented the best of dinners, and 
 also excellent company, none the worse for the 
 circumstance that the host would sometimes retire 
 to his bed to compose something (or perhaps 
 himself) and leave them to their own devices. 
 
 ' I am happy to say,' he answered, ' that on 
 Thursday week I am free.' 
 
 * That is capital. Then on Thursday week I 
 will come and dine with you.' 
 
 ' Very good,' returned L , though with a de- 
 cided falling off in the enthusiasm of his manner. 
 
 s 
 
258 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 'Yes, I will come, and I will bring with me — 
 what do you thmk ? a Bluecoat boy. The fact is/ 
 he proceeded to explain with an air of great relief 
 and satisfaction, ' that I have promised his friends 
 to see him into the mail train at Paddington, which 
 is a long way from my house ; while from West- 
 bourne Terrace, you see, it would be no trouble to 
 me at all.' 
 
 The whole scene, much embellished by the 
 chagrined countenance of our host, formed one of 
 the prettiest bits of genteel comedy I ever saw on 
 the stage of real life. 
 
 A still droller incident of by no means a ' genteel ' 
 kind — since it implicated me in a very serious 
 criminal offence — took place about this time. A 
 great jewel robbery was committed at the West 
 End under very ingenious circumstances. A gentle- 
 man and lady staying at a fashionable hotel had 
 ordered a large quantity of valuable goods — chiefly 
 diamonds — to be brought to them for their inspec- 
 tion. They drugged or chloroformed (I forget which) 
 the jeweller's assistant who brought them, and got 
 clear away with all the swag. It so happened that 
 the whole adventure had been, as it were, prefigu red 
 in * Chambers's Journal ' twelve months before ; a 
 contributor had imagined and written the incident 
 
A JEWEL ROBBERY. 259 
 
 just as it afterwards occurred, and the story had 
 so recommended itself to some member of the 
 criminal class that he had put it into practical 
 execution. The jeweller thereupon wrote to the 
 editor of the 'Journal' (poor me), charging him, 
 not indeed with actual complicity with the crime, 
 but as having been accessory to it before the fact. 
 * Under the pretence of elevating the masses/ he 
 indignantly observed, ' you suggest to them inge- 
 nious methods of robbing honest tradesmen.' My 
 answer to this gentleman was, I flatter myself, 
 complete. I pointed out to him that if honest 
 tradesmen would only read the respectable periodical 
 I had the honour to edit — a moral duty not neg- 
 lected, it seemed, even by the lowest classes — they 
 would put themselves on their guard against such 
 catastrophes. My position compelled me to appear 
 to sympathise with the offenders, but I have always 
 thought that they showed themselves miserably 
 deficient in gratitude in never sending my contri- 
 butor the least acknowledgment — not even one of 
 the rings of which they had so many — for what he 
 had done for them. 
 
 Their putting into practice the offspring of his 
 imagination was certainly a curious thing to do. 
 But Nature herself does not scorn to stoop to similar 
 
26o SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 acts of plagiarism. We story-tellers are often the 
 first to suggest an occurrence which, after it has ac- 
 tually happened, goes, most unjustly, to strengthen 
 the popular superstition that truth is stranger than 
 fiction. 
 
 Some years after the publication of ' Lost Sir 
 Massingberd ' the following paragraph appeared in 
 the ' Philadelphia Ledger : '— 
 
 'A Curious Discovery. — The hurricane which 
 passed over the Miami Valley on July 4 tore down a 
 number of old trees, and amongst them a large oak. 
 The owner of the property, a Mr. Rogers, on examining 
 the extent of the damage done by the storm, discovered in 
 the hollow of the fallen oak a human skeleton, with some 
 brass buttons and shreds of clothing, and among other 
 things a pocket-book with a number of papers. A com- 
 munication to the " Miami County Democrat," signed J. 
 F. Clark, relates : — " The man's name, as gathered from 
 the papers, was Roger Vanderburg, a native of Lancaster, 
 Pennsylvania, and a captain in the Revolutionary Army. 
 He was an Aid to Washington during the retreat across 
 the Jerseys, and served a time in Arnold's head-quarters 
 at West Point. In 1791 he marched with St. Clair 
 against the North-western Indians, and in the famous 
 outbreak of that general on the Wabash, November 3 of 
 the year just written, he was wounded and captured. 
 But while being conveyed to the Indian town at Upper 
 Piqua he effected his escape, but found himself hard 
 
PLAGIARISM. 261 
 
 pressed by his savage foes. He saw the hollow in the 
 oak, and despite the mangled arm, and with the aid of a 
 beech that grew beside the giant then, he gained the 
 haven and dropped therein. Then came a fearful dis- 
 covery. He had miscalculated the depth of the hollow, 
 and there was no escape. Oh, the story told by the diary 
 of the oak's despairing prisoner ! How, rather than 
 surrender to the torture of the stake, he chose death by 
 starvation ; how he wrote his diary in the uncertain light 
 and the snows ! Here is one entry in the diary :— 
 'November 10. — Five days without /^^^! When I sleep 
 I dream of luscious fruits and flowing streams. The 
 stars laugh at my misery ! It is snowing now. I freeze 
 while I starve. God pity me ! ' The italicised words 
 were supplied by Mr. Rogers, as the trembling hand oft- 
 times refused to indite plainly. The entries covered a 
 period of eleven days, and in disjointed sentences is told 
 the story of St. Clair's defeat. Mr. Rogers has written 
 to Lancaster to ascertain if any descendants of the ill- 
 fated captain live ; if so, they shall have his bones." ' 
 
 Again, in ' Murphy's Master,' I got rid of a great 
 number of disagreeable characters on an island in 
 the Indian Seas, by the simple, though startling, 
 device of submerging the island itself; the few 
 respectable persons who inhabited it (including the 
 hero and heroine) being most properly and providen- 
 tially saved in a fishing-boat. Some critics thought it 
 audacious ; but Nature was so favourably impressed 
 
262 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 by my little plan, that she used it herself two years 
 afterwards, and in a more comprehensive way than 
 I should have dared to invent ; an island in the 
 Bay of Bengal, with the Kinshra lighthouse upon 
 it, with seven scientific assistants, being submerged 
 in a precisely similar manner. 
 
 I do not wish to be hard upon Nature, and, 
 without giving details which could not but wound 
 her amour propre, will merely remark that she 
 committed a similar act of piracy in the case of my 
 novel ' Found Dead.' 
 
 Though by no means a humorous story itself, 
 that book, by the way, was the cause of a very fine 
 stroke of humour. It was the custom with the 
 very respectable firm of publishers with whom I 
 did business at that time to pay my cheques to 
 the names of my immortal works, instead of to 
 myself; and since it suited their convenience so to 
 do, I never complained of it, though it sometimes 
 put me in rather a false position, when I presented 
 my demands in person, as, for example, in the case 
 of the '■ Family Scapegrace.' When I came for the 
 proceeds of * Found Dead,' it was too much for the 
 sense of (professional) propriety of the banker's 
 clerk, who gravely observed, * It is very fortunate, 
 sir, that this cheque is not payable "to order,"" 
 
SYMPATHY WITH LITERATURE. 263 
 
 or it would have to be endorsed by your exe- 
 cutors.' 
 
 This incident, I remember, delighted Dickens, 
 who remarked, however, with a sudden access of 
 gravity, ' I should not like to have much money at a 
 bank which keeps so clever a clerk as that.' 
 
 He was himself an excellent man of business, 
 though in early life he made great pecuniary 
 mistakes by an impatience of disposition, a desire 
 to get things settled and done with, which is shared 
 by many men of letters to their great loss ; he was 
 painstaking, accurate, and punctual to a fault ; and 
 the trouble he took about other people's affairs, 
 especially in his own calling, is almost incredible. 
 Young men of letters are especially fortunate as 
 regards the sympathy and assistance they receive 
 from members of other professions. Almost all 
 of us have our Dr. Goodenough. The lawyers, 
 too, are always ready with their advice. I remember 
 mentioning a legal difficulty, which I had come 
 across in the plot of a novel, in the presence of one 
 who is now perhaps the foremost man at the 
 English bar. The next morning, though at that 
 time we had only a mere club acquaintance, I re- 
 ceived from him half-a-dozen clearly written pages 
 explaining in the most lucid manner the law of the 
 
264 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 case in point. The chiefs of our own calling 
 are always ready to give a helping hand to their 
 juniors ; but Dickens looked upon it as an impe- 
 rative duty so to do. Many a time have young 
 would-be contributors called upon me, and pro- 
 duced from their breast-pockets as passport to my 
 attention a letter of rejection, torn and frayed, and 
 bearing tokens of having been read a hundred 
 times, from the Master. 
 
 ' He wrote me this letter himself,' they would 
 say, as though there were but one ' He ' in the 
 world. It was generally a pretty long one, though 
 written at a time when minutes were guineas to 
 him, full of the soundest advice and tenderest 
 sympathy. There was always encouragement in 
 them (for of course these were not hopeless cases), 
 and often — whenever, in fact, there seemed need 
 for other help besides counsel — some allusion, 
 couched in the most delicate terms, to ' the en- 
 closed.' Dickens not only loved his calling, but 
 had a respect for it, and did more than any man 
 to make it respected. With the pains he took 
 to perfect whatever proceeded from his own pen 
 everyone who has read his life must be conversant ; 
 but this minute attention to even the smallest 
 details had its drawbacks. When an inaccuracy, 
 
JOHN FORSTER. 265 
 
 however slight, was brought home to him, it made 
 him miserable. So conscious was I of this, that I 
 never liked to tell him of a mistake in ' Dombey 
 and Son,' which has escaped the notice of ' readers,' 
 professional and otherwise, in every edition. The 
 Major and Cleopatra sit down to play piquet ; but 
 what they do play — for they ' propose to ' one 
 another — is ecarte. 
 
 In friendship, which in all other points must 
 needs be frank and open, this problem often remains 
 unsolved — namely, the friendship of one's friend 
 for some other man. D. and E. have the most 
 intimate relations with one another, but for the life 
 of him E. cannot understand what D. sees in F. to 
 so endear him to him. This w^as what many of D.'s 
 (Dickens's) friends, and certainly the world at 
 large, said of F. (John Forster). It is not my 
 business, nor is it in my power, to explain the 
 riddle ; I rarely met them together without witness- 
 ing some sparring between them — and sometimes 
 without the gloves. On the other hand, I have 
 known Forster pay some compliments to 'the 
 Inimitable ' in his patronising way, which the other 
 would acknowledge in his drollest manner. It is 
 certain that Forster took the utmost interest in 
 Dickens, even to the extent of seeing everything 
 
266 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 he wrote through the press, and as to the genuine- 
 ness of Dickens's regard for him I have the most 
 positive proof. I have already said that Dickens 
 once wrote to me spelling the word Foster (in 
 Foster Brothers) with an r ' because I am always 
 thinking of my friend Forster.' Long afterwards, 
 in acknowledging a service, which I had been for- 
 tunately able to do for him, in terms far more 
 generous than it deserved, he actually signed the 
 letter, not Charles Dickens, but John Forster ! 
 
 When the biography of the former appeared, 
 and its editor was accused of representing himself 
 as standing in a nearer relation to Dickens than he 
 really was, I thought it only fair to Forster to send 
 him those two letters, with which — though, of 
 course, he had no need of the corroboration of such 
 a matter from without — he expressed himself 
 greatly pleased. 
 
 In 1 87 1 I lost my old friend Robert Chambers, 
 and with it, after a short interval, the editorship of 
 the * Journal.' My separation from it was a fore- 
 gone conclusion. My relations with the surviving^ 
 proprietor — always what the diplomatists call 
 * strained ' — were severed within twelve months, 
 notwithstanding the good offices of his nephew,. 
 Robert's son. My late contributors were so good 
 
A PRESENTATION. 267 
 
 as to present me with a silver inkstand, suitably 
 inscribed, which I value beyond any possession I 
 have in the world. Their spokesman (a humourist) 
 whispered as he handed it to me, ' Attenborough's. 
 is the place,' but it has never gone there. 
 
 My literary life from that time has gone on 
 very smoothly — perhaps more smoothly than I 
 deserve. I have been especially fortunate in find- 
 ing friendship where I might naturally have only 
 looked for business relations, nor do I believe 
 that I have an enemy in my own calling, nor even 
 among my ' ndcural foes,' the critics. On the other 
 hand, I am well aware that there are a good 
 many people who dislike me very cordially. If 
 they do so for a good reason, I exceedingly regret 
 it ; but there are some folks whose animosity is. 
 the highest of compliments. There is, in my 
 opinion, no more fatal weakness in human nature 
 than the desire to be thought well of by every- 
 body. 
 
 When good fortune has once set in, the record 
 of a man's life (especially a literary life) is apt to 
 get uninteresting, and for that reason alone I 
 should be disposed to end here, at all events for the 
 present, what is after all rather a string of literary 
 anecdotes (some of which, however, I venture to 
 
268 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 think have some interest) than a literary auto- 
 biography. Moreover, the last decade of the life 
 of a living person is rather a delicate matter to 
 deal with. 
 
 It will be observed by those who have done me 
 the honour of reading them, that these remi- 
 niscences have scrupulously avoided all mention, 
 beyond a ' passing allusion,' to authors who are 
 happily still with us. I should have had nothing 
 but good to say of them, which would have sadly 
 disappointed some people, but in omitting. them I 
 am well aware that I have deprived my narrative 
 of what would otherwise have been its chief 
 attraction. It is unambitious enough, Heaven 
 knows, and will interest, I fear, such persons only 
 as are interested in literary matters, and those but 
 of the lighter kind. It is, in fact, the literary 
 rather than the general public that I now address 
 — a reflection which causes me to add a few words 
 by way of postscript. 
 
 A personal experience to which I have already 
 alluded has taught me, ' by harsh evidence,' that 
 young persons who would embrace the literary 
 calling are very prompt to see its attractions and 
 very slow to understand its difficulties. From 
 the somewhat light and airy tone (of which no 
 
WORK. 269 
 
 one can be more conscious than myself) in which 
 these Recollections have been written, they may 
 conclude perhaps that the profession of literature 
 requires little pains or study, and that such a 
 moderate success at least as has been here de- 
 scribed may be attained by a small amount of 
 work. I can only say, for my part, that when 
 I hear what are held to be hard-working men 
 in other callings talk of ' work,' I smile. I have 
 often found that what they mean by work (when 
 they are not in the enjoyment of a more or 
 less long vacation) is the remaining within the 
 same four walls for a certain large number of 
 hours per diem. Even when they do work, they 
 have something to work upon : they have not to 
 spin the very threads of their work out of their 
 own brains before they begin business. I have not 
 indeed been so close a prisoner as some of them, 
 for the necessities of my calling (so far as novel- 
 writing is concerned) have often compelled me to 
 seek change of scene, for * local colouring ; ' but 
 for the last five-and-twenty years of my life I have 
 only had three days of consecutive holiday once a 
 year ; while all the year round (from another ne- 
 cessity of the pen) the Sundays have been as much 
 working days with me as the week days. 
 
270 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Such from day to day labours, though not, it 
 is true, extending to long hours, would perhaps 
 have been impossible but for the relief afforded by 
 some favourite amusement ; this, in my case, as it 
 has been in that of much greater men, has been 
 the noble game of whist, which I have played regu- 
 larly for two or three hours a day for the last 
 thirty years. It does not, indeed, much matter 
 what it is, so that the relaxation is an attractive 
 one, but I pity that man from the bottom of my 
 heart who can find no interest in a game. It is 
 not everyone who, like Sarah Battle, can relax 
 their minds over a book, and least of all those who 
 write books. I have noticed that those of my own 
 calling who read the most are not the best students 
 of human nature, and fall most often into the pit 
 of plagiarism. How often have I heard it said — 
 too late — by those who have most certainly earned 
 their play time, ' How I wish I had an amusement ! ' 
 The taste for such things must be caught early 
 (like the measles) and indulged (like the patient) ; 
 what position, for example, is more unsatisfactory 
 than that of the man who has only played whist 
 occasionally — say once a week — and ' makes up a 
 rubber to oblige ? ' In a partner's eyes, at least, 
 such a person will never meet his obligations. 
 
WHIST. 271 
 
 Mackvvorth Praed must have been a whist-player, 
 or he never could have depicted ' Quince.' 
 
 Some public principles he had, 
 
 But was no flatterer nor fretter ; 
 He rapped his box when things were bad, 
 
 And said 'I cannot make them better.' 
 And much he loathed the patriot's snort, 
 
 And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle. 
 And cut the fiercest quarrel short, 
 
 With ' patience, gentlemen, — and shuffle.' 
 
 Men of letters are rarely good card-players — 
 Lord Lytton and Lever are alnaost the only excep- 
 tions I can call to mind— but some of them have 
 been fond of whist, and have enlivened it by their 
 sallies. A few of these, which I have happened 
 myself to hear, seem worthy of record. 
 
 A guest being asked to a dinner party, which 
 was to precede an evening at cards, thus apologised 
 for coming in morning costume, ' The suit is surely 
 no matter, so long as one is a Trump.' 
 
 A man who had his foot on a gout-rest was 
 holding very bad cards, and complaining alike of 
 his luck and his malady. Upon being reproached 
 by his more fortunate adversary for his irritation, 
 he suddenly exclaimed, ' It's all very well ior you, 
 
272 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 but a " game hand " Is a very different thing from 
 a " game leg." ' 
 
 On another occasion the same gentleman (whose 
 temper, gout or no gout, was always a little short) 
 jumped up from the seat where he had been losing 
 and declared that he would play no more. * But 
 you'll break up the table,' pleaded the others 
 pathetically. ' If it is broken up there will still be 
 three " legs " left,' was his uncompromising reply. 
 
 A whist-player, who even though he was a loser 
 ought to have known better than to have jested 
 upon such a tender subject, once remarked with 
 reference to the considerable number of novels for 
 which I have been responsible, ' Nobody can deny, 
 my dear fellow, th^t you have great " numerical 
 strength." ' ^ 
 
 I remember a little poem called ' Dumby,' written 
 by a brother novelist, who has himself, alas ! left a 
 vacant place at the four-square table for ever, which 
 has a pathetic singularity about it : 
 
 I see the face of the friend I lost 
 
 Before me as I sit, 
 His thin white hands, so subtle and swift. 
 
 And his eyes that gleam with wit. 
 
 ' A term used to express plenty of small cards without an 
 honour. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE. 273 
 
 I see him across the square green cloth 
 That's dappled with black and red ; 
 
 Between the luminous globes of light 
 I watch the friend long dead. 
 
 It is only I who can see him there, 
 
 With victory in his glance, 
 As, the cross ruff stopped, he strides along 
 
 Like Wellington through France. 
 
 He died years past in the jungle reeds. 
 
 But still I see him sit, 
 Facing me with his fan of cards, 
 
 And those eyes that beam with wit. 
 
 In that excellent poem of Thomas Hood's in 
 which he describes the village of Bullock Smithy, 
 he exhibits a natural disinclination to come to the 
 workhouse. 
 
 ' There is one more house,' 
 
 he says, 
 
 ' Which we have not come to yet, and I hope we never 
 shall, 
 
 And that's the Parish poorhouse.' 
 
 In these recollections of mine I feci a similar 
 reluctance to allude to the Playhouse, for the fact 
 
 T 
 
274 SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 is my merits have never been recognised on the 
 boards. The subject is a sore one, and I will 
 merely say that when I think of a certain comedi- 
 etta called * The Substitute,' and the way in which 
 it was treated by the dramatic critics, I appreciate 
 Landor's observation, made under similar circum- 
 stances in connection with his ' Imaginary Conver- 
 sations,' that he would bet a pint of porter that 
 none of his detractors, even if they took off their 
 coats to it, would come within a mile of them. ' The 
 Substitute ' ran for six weeks out of the season, at 
 the Court Theatre, and then I suppose ran right 
 away, for I have never heard of it since: It was 
 really one of the brightest — but there, as Tennyson 
 used (rather doubtfully) to be advertised to say 
 among the eulogistic criticisms on ' Festus,' ' I dare 
 not venture to say what I think about that play.' 
 
 If I have not been appreciated on the stage, 
 however, I have nothing to complain of in respect 
 to my reception off the boards. 
 
 The observation of a great writer on having 
 half-a-dozen bottles of brandy sent him by an 
 anonymous admirer is well known. * This,' he said 
 with complacency, ' is true fame.' For my part, as 
 is only in accordance with the rules of proportion, I 
 have had to be content with much inferior liquor — 
 
AfV BRAND V. 275 
 
 mere ginger-beer, a drink which is effervescent no 
 doubt, but while it lasts is refreshing enough. I 
 once lost a Persian cat, which (I had almost written 
 who) was very dear to me, and I went to a suburban 
 police office for professional advice as to handbills 
 and rewards. ' What is your name, sir .? ' inquired 
 the intelligent inspector. (It is cynically observed 
 that inspectors are always called in the newspapers 
 ' intelligent ; ' but this one, as will be seen, fully 
 deserved the title.) As my business was a lawful 
 one, I of course gave him no alias. 
 
 * James Payn .? ' he echoed. ' Are you the story- 
 teller?' 
 
 I modestly murmured that I was. 
 
 ' Then I tell you what,' he said, in a tone in 
 which generosity and gratitude were finely blended, 
 ' you are out of my district, but 17/ take the case! 
 
 And he took it. That was my brandy. 
 
 I have also had sums of money borrowed from 
 me at various times by admirers of my genius — 
 but that has given me less satisfaction. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 

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