business or literary occupation.

In the autumn of 1826 Mr. Brougham was or
ganizing his "Society for the Diffusion of Useful



THE SECOND EPOCH. 283

Knowledge." The Long Vacation was at an end,
and in that November, the prospectus of the new
society was privately circulated. It said, "The
object of the Society is strictly limited to what its
title imports, namely, the imparting useful informa
tion to all classes of the community, particularly to
such as are unable to avail themselves of ex
perienced teachers, or may prefer learning by them
selves." Here, then, appeared an opening for the
nurture of my cherished scheme, of which I ought
to avail myself. At Windsor, in November, I
received a letter from Mr. M. D. Hill, wishing me
to come to town immediately, as he had mentioned
my plan of popular books to Mr. Brougham, and to
a committee for the encouragement of such a project,
and that he thought great things might be done.
Of course this communication brought me instantly
to London ; and I was very quickly introduced
by Mr. Hill to Mr. Brougham. That interview is
indelibly impressed upon my memory with all its
attendant circumstances. I had never come across
the renowned orator in private life, or had seen him
under an every-day character. There was an image
in my mind of the Queen s Attorney-General, as I had
often beheld him in the House of Lords, wielding a
power in the proceedings on the Bill of Pains and
Penalties which no other man seemed to possess
equivocating witnesses crouching beneath his wither
ing scorn ; mighty peers shrinking from his bold
sarcasm ; the whole assembly visibly agitated at
times by the splendour of his eloquence. The
Henry Brougham I had gazed upon was, in my
mind s eye, a man stern and repellent ; not to be
approached with any attempt at familiarity ; whose



284 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

opinions must be received with the most respectful
deference ; whose mental superiority would be some
what overwhelming. The Henry Brougham into
whose chambers in Lincoln s Inn I was ushered on
a November night was sitting amidst his briefs,
evidently delighted to be interrupted for some
thoughts more attractive. After saluting my friend
with a joke, and grasping my hand with a cordial
welcome, he went at once to the subject upon which
I came. The rapid conception of the features of my
plan ; the few brief questions as to my wishes ; the
manifestation of a warm interest in my views with
out the slightest attempt to be patronizing, were
most gratifying to me. The image of the great
orator of 1820 altogether vanished when I listened
to the unpretentious and often playful words of one
of the best table-talkers of 1826, it vanished, even
as the full-bottomed wig of that time seemed to.
have belonged to some other head than the close-
cropped one upon which I looked. The foremost
advocate of popular education made no harangues
about its advantages. He did not indoctrinate me,
as I have been bored by many an educationist
before and since, with flourishes upon a subject
which he gave Mr. Hill and myself full credit
for comprehending. M. Charles Dupin said to
Mackintosh, after a night in the House of Com
mons " I heard not one word about the bless
ings of Liberty." " No, no/ replied Mackintosh,
"we take all that for granted." So did Henry
Brougham take for granted that he and I were
in accord upon the subject of the Diffusion of
Knowledge. He was then within a few days of the
completion of his forty-seventh year ; full of health



THE SECOND EPOCH. 285

and energy one who had been working without
intermission in literature, in science, in law, in
politics, for a quarter of a century, but one to
whom no work seemed to bring fatigue ; no tedious
mornings of the King s Bench, no sleepless nights
of the House of Commons, able to " stale his infinite
variety." From that hour I felt more confidence in
talking with perfect freedom to him who worthily
filled so large a space in the world s eye, than to many
a man of commonplaces, whose depths I had plumbed
and had found them shallow. That first interview
with Mr. Brougham was an event that had a marked
influence upon many subsequent passages of my
life.

It would be a fruitless and wearisome story of
private affairs, were I to detail the circumstances
under which my unfortunate "National Library,"
having been at first taken up by the Society of
which Mr. Brougham was President, and negotia
tions having been opened with their publishers, was
finally adopted by Mr. Murray, with an earnestness
which was to me very assuring, after my long term
of enforced idleness and dark apprehensions. The
eminent West-end publisher was committed to the
enterprise, by the issue of the Prospectus in his own
name, which I had so carefully prepared. In my
original Prospectus, which I had submitted to Mr.
Murray in February, 1826, I had said, " It is our
peculiar object to condense the information which is
scattered through voluminous and expensive works,
into the form and substance of Original Treatises."
In the Prospectus issued on the 24th of December,
it was set forth that " the divisions of Popular Know
ledge in which the National Library is arranged, will



286 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

comprehend, in distinct Treatises, the most important
branches of instruction and amusement. They will
present the most valuable and interesting articles of
an Encyclopaedia, in a form accessible to every descrip
tion of purchaser." This final Prospectus is printed,
in extenso, in Goodhugh s " English Gentleman s
Library Manual," published in May, 1827. Differ
ences of opinion about the editorial responsibility of
the series too soon arose. Quis custodiet was
answered by the apparition of a very solemn divine,
who talked as a " Sir Oracle." Arrangements
regarding my old stock and copyrights, which it
was considered I may say perfectly understood
were to be taken at a valuation, when I was about
to merge my business in the great house of Albe-
marle Street, presented new obstacles. Thus were
my prospects clouded in a few weeks of 1827. I was
heartsick at last, and abandoning the whole scheme
left it for the imitation of others of more independent
means. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge produced their " Treatises " in March,
and Messrs. Longman their Lardner s " Cabinet
Cyclopaedia " a few years afterwards. Mr. Murray, I
had reason to believe, had become frightened at the
magnitude of my plan. He several times said to me,
" where will you find the men to write these books ? "
In my maturer experience I came to perceive that
this was the real difficulty in such undertakings.

Let me hasten to close these recollections of the
spring of 1827. Scott writes of old letters, some
where in his Diary, " they rise up as scorpions to hiss
at me." So may I write of the documents by which
I trace this crisis of my life. My abortive efforts to
begin a new career, shaking off future responsibilities



THE SECOND EPOCH. 287

of trade, made the responsibilities which remained
more onerous. My boat was stranded. Happily for
me there were no wreckers at hand ready for the
plunder of my damaged cargo. A private trust
administered my affairs, whose only concern was to
realize to sell, to the best advantage, land, houses,
newspaper, stock, copyrights. I would not be a
burden. I would earn my own bread. I walked forth
from my business homes in London and Windsor, after
the fashion of a man represented in a wood-cut in a
title-page of one of the old printers (I think it was
a work of Budseus) which comes into my thoughts a
man, not bowed down by age or sorrow, moving for
ward, not briskly, but not unsteadily, with his stout
staff, and his small wallet, and a label of four words,
"OMNIA MEA MECUM PORTO."



13




CHAPTEE XIII.

AM living at Brompton, with my wife and
four little girls. The house which we
have chosen in which to begin a new and
unambitious life is in a narrow road,
called Cromwell Lane, through which few people
pass. Our long slip of garden is bounded on one
side by the high wall of Cromwell House, the reputed
mansion of the Protector. We are surrounded by
nursery grounds. I can no longer find the place
where I dwelt for two or three years. The few
unpretending houses, nestling in snug gardens, have
given place to squares, and rows, and to " Great
Exhibition " buildings themselves doomed prema
turely to perish. Perchance I might discover some
traces of the quiet corner if the humble tavern still
remains that was once known as " The Hoop and
Toy." Does the " Goat in Boots " still exist ?
another landmark. The daughter of a very dear
friend, who afterwards occupied our house, was eager
to tell us that, "when she visited the Exhibition of
1862, she rejoiced to find, in a small plot of ground
not yet subdued to the tyranny of brick and mortar,
a single apple-tree, which she could identify as the
tree under which she had sat as a child, looking wist
fully up at the ripening fruit. Why do I linger about
this unpretentious abiding place of 1827 ? Because



THE SECOND EPOCH. 289

it was to me as a city of refuge. Here I first
relinquished the hope of commercial success, having
surrendered to others my commercial responsibilities.
I had much for which to be grateful to the All-giver.
I had preserved my bodily and mental health. I
had domestic confidence and peace. The " precious
jewel" in the toad s head was not undiscovered. I
was determined to work, and I was equally resolved
to be as happy as I could be. I did not repine at
the turn of Fortune s wheel. Amongst some papers
of this period I find a scrap on which I had written,
If the capacity to enjoy were commensurate with
the power to possess, we then, indeed, might com
plain of the inequality of our conditions.

Looking back upon the summer of 1827, I have
no recollection of such hours of gloom as belonged
to the previous year. No unkindness wounded my
pride ; no desertion of old friends rendered me mis
anthropical. I had quickly obtained an engagement
as a writer in Mr. Buckingham s new paper, " The
Sphinx." High-priced as it was a shilling it had
a considerable sale. I wrote political articles and
reviews. At that time I was an enthusiast in public
affairs. Canning was the head of a new administra
tion. On the 1st of May I had stood in the crowded
avenues of the House of Commons, and had seen for
a moment his radiant face, as he rapidly mounted the
old staircase which led to the lobby, about to take the
foremost place, and vindicate his policy before many
detractors and some new friends. There were whis
pered blessings upon many lips. In that triumph
of the minister who had shaken off the shackles
of the great Continental Powers, and had carried
England " into the camp of progress and liberty," I



290 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

regarded the man as the " deliverer " described by
Burke, in words almost profane in their idolatrous
admiration. But I may look back upon that memo
rable occasion, and soberly say, " Nor , did he seem
insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love
and admiration of his fellow citizens. Hope ele
vated and joy brightened his crest." [Speech on
American Taxation, 1774.] On the 16th of August
I saw him laid in his grave, in the north transept of
Westminster Abbey. On the previous 20th of Janu
ary, I had seen him standing for two hours of the
bitterest night, upon the cold unmatted pavement of
the nave of St. George s Chapel, at the funeral of the
Duke of York. He did not take the precaution
which he had suggested to Lord Eldon, to stand upon
his cocked hat. That funeral broke up the delicate
health of George Canning.

My course of journalism under Mr. James Silk
Buckingham was not agreeable. Perhaps I had been
too long my own master in such matters to brook
control and criticism. Perhaps I formed too low an
estimate of his knowledge and ability. His wonder
ful fluency as a platform speaker, pouring forth plati
tude after platitude, was calculated to catch the
multitude. He has written scores of volumes in the
same style, and I may ask " where are they ? " I
cared not how wearisome were his own newspaper
prolusions ; but I rebelled against his unparalleled
conceit. He outraged me by presuming to alter, in
his own obtuse fashion, some spirited lines on the
death of Canning, which Praed had sent me. I at
once quitted his office where I had diligently
laboured, and not without success when he pro
posed an amended scale of remuneration for critiques



THE SECOND EPOCH. 291

on new books, beginning at half-a-crown and rising
to a guinea, according to the length of the article. I
know not whether he found journeymen at this rate.
I know not whether literature was degraded then, or
is now, by the pretence of giving an opinion of a
book amongst what are called " short notices," at
the rate of threepence a line, to be earned by men
who ought to have been hewers of wood and drawers
of water. Happily a more worthy course of industry
was opening for me. But before I enter upon the
" passages " of an employment which was spread
over nearly twenty years, let me glance at a tempo
rary labour of 1827. What were then called
" The Annuals " were introduced to England by
Mr. Ackermann, in his " Forget-me-not " of 1822.
Alaric Watts followed with his " Literary Souvenir."
Samuel Carter Hall started " The Amulet," for the
especial use of " serious persons." In 1827 I was
asked to edit " Friendship s Offering." It was an
enterprise hastily entered upon by Messrs. Smith and
Elder, late in the season, and I had to obtain pictures
for engraving, secure contributors, and see the book
through the press in two or three months. The
pleasantest thing about the engagement was that
my friends of the " Quarterly Magazine," Mr. Praed
and Mr. Moultrie, with others of their following,
rallied round me, and contributed the most original
pages of a volume, for which, like its rivals, there
would be no lack of sentimental stories, and verses
somewhat mawkish with their bowers and flowers.
The most disagreeable thing was, that a blockhead
behind the scenes, in the confidence of the pub
lishers, took upon himself to change the title which
Praed had given to his poem, and had it printed



292 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE:

as " The Red Fisherman " instead of " The Devil s
Decoy." My friend had nearly quarrelled with me
about this matter, in which I was really blameless.
He had a right to be angry, for the poem was, I
am inclined to think, his chef-d oeuvre. New An
nuals stai ted up, in the next and few following
years, amongst the best of which was " The Anni
versary," edited by Allan Cunningham, who had
it in his power to make as good a book of this
sort as could be produced, from the esteem with
which he was regarded by the best writers and the
best artists. There were Keepsakes, and Gems, and
Bijous ; but these delicate flowerets of the literary
hotbed had a brief existence. They did more for
the arts than for letters. They had set a great
many people scribbling, who would never have
dreamt of committing the- sin of rhyme without
such excitements, and they had compelled some of
those who could write well to adopt a style anything
but vigorous and original. They were perhaps right,
and so were the editors and publishers. It was a
period in which, except in a few rare instances,
mediocrity was essentially necessary to great literary
success. There was a poem entitled " The Omni
presence of the Deity," by one whose fame settled
into the name of " the wrong Montgomery ; " the
good old champion of freedom, the right Mont
gomery, being, then alive and honoured by all com
petent judges. It went rapidly through five or six
editions. The " Excursion " had reached a second
edition in ten years.

A document, which I value as a soldier who has
seen long service values his first Commission, lies
before me :



THE SECOND EPOCH. 293

" GENERAL MEETING of the Committee for the Diffusion of
Useful. Knowledge. 26th July, 1827.

" James Mill, Esq., in the Chair.

" Mr. Hill having informed the Committee that Mr. Charles
Knight was willing to undertake the superintendence of the
Society s Publications, it was

" Resolved,

" That his services be accepted, and that it be referred to
the Publication Committee to furnish him with the necessary
instructions."

At that time the only publications of the Society
were the Treatises of the " Library of Useful Know
ledge," issued fortnightly in sixpenny numbers. The
Series had been commenced in the Spring, with Mr.
Brougham s " Discourse on the Objects, Advantages,
and Pleasures of Science." The sale of this work
had been as extraordinary as its merits were striking
and almost unexampled. Some called it superficial,
because it touched rapidly upon many departments
of scientific knowledge ; but the more just conclusion
was that it was the work of " a full man/ who had
not laboriously elaborated this fascinating treatise out
of books recently studied or hastily referred to, bat
had poured it forth out of the accumulated wealth of
his rich treasury of knowledge. No reader to whom
the subjects treated of were in any. degree new could
read this little book without feeling an ardent desire
to know more to know all. Such were my own
feelings as I devoured this tract on the outside of an
Aylesbury coach, and bitterly regretted that upon
mere business considerations I had lost the chance of
becoming intimate with the author of such a book,
as his fellow-labourer in the work of popular en
lightenment. It could scarcely be expected that
many other Treatises could have the same attraction



294 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

as this Preliminary Discourse. They were to be
manuals for self-education clear, accurate, but not
to be mastered without diligence and perseverance.
Their success made it clear that there was a great
body of students whether in Colleges or Mechanics
Institutes, in busy towns or quiet villages, to whom
such guides would be welcome. My duties, in con
nexion with this Series, were scarcely more than
ministerial. I had to read manuscripts and give an
opinion upon them, although the decision did not
rest with me but with the Committee. Upon the
higher scientific subjects I was not competent to give
an opinion as regarded their correctness, but I could
judge how far they were adapted for popular use. I
was thus what the Germans, I believe, call a Vorleser.
Proofs went through my hands as they passed the Com
mittee, and the printers were kept up to their work.
I could not reasonably shrink from this drudgery,
for I saw men of high station and literary eminence
statesmen, lawyers, physicians, willingly perform
ing it. It was not necessary that I should regularly
attend at the Offices of the Society in Furnival s
Inn ; but I had often to confer with Mr. Coates, the
active and intelligent Secretary of the Society, and
to attend some meetings of the general and special
Committees. I gradually came to form a just esti
mate of the individual characters and qualifications of
those with whom I was brought in contact. I found
them, collectively, very different from provincial
Committees of which I had once had some experience
earnest in the pursuit of a common object ; not
intent upon personal display or the assertion of petty
self-importance ; men of cultivated minds, each treat
ing the opinions of the others with respect ; the most



THE SECOND EPOCH. 295

capable amongst them the most modest ; in a word,
gentlemen and scholars. I felt that it depended
upon myself some day to win their confidence in a
position of higher responsibility than my early labours
demanded.

In these pursuits, the summer of 1827 wore away.
I was not without my pleasures. I delighted to
walk in Kensington Gardens, sometimes on a holiday
afternoon with my elder girls more frequently in
the early morning on my way to town. Glancing
in the intervals of my present task of reviving old
memories, at the work of a poet who ought to be
more widely known, I find these lines :

" Once as I stray d a student, happiest then,
"What time the summer s garniture was on,
Beneath "the princely shades of Kensington,
A girl I spied, whose years might number ten,
With full round eyes, and fair soft English face."*

In such a season, when the sun was scarcely high
enough to have dried up the dews of Kensington s
green alleys, as I passed along the broad central
walk, I saw a group on the lawn before the Palace,
which, to my mind, was a vision of exquisite loveli
ness. The Duchess of Kent, and her daughter,
whose years then numbered nine, are breakfasting
in the open air a single page attending upon them
at a respectful distance -the matron looking on with
eyes of love, whilst the " fair soft English face " is
bright with smiles. The world of fashion is not yet
astir. Clerks and mechanics, passing onward to their
occupations, are few ; and they exhibit nothing of

* " Lays of Middle Age ; " by James Hedderwick, 1859.



296 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE I

that vulgar curiosity which I think is more com
monly found in the class of the merely rich, than in
the ranks below them in the world s estimation.
What a beautiful characteristic it seemed to me of
the training of this royal girl, that she should not
have been taught to shrink from the public eye
that she should not have been burthened with a
premature conception of her probable high destiny
that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity
of a child s nature that she should not be restrained
when she starts up from the breakfast-table and runs
to gather a flower in the adjoining parterre that
her merry laugh should be as fear] ess as the notes of
the thrush in the groves around her. I passed on
and blessed her ; and I thank God that I have lived
to see the golden fruits of such training.

At this period the Almanacs of the Stationers
Company were published within a few days of Lord
Mayor s Day, the 9th of November. Before their
issue, the Master and other magnates of the Com
pany used to go in their barge to Lambeth, to
present copies of all their Almanacs to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury. In Erskine s famous Speech
in 1779, when Lord North brought a Bill into the
House of Commons for re-vesting in the Stationers
Company a monopoly which had been declared
illegal by the Court of Common Pleas in 1775, he
adverted to " the episcopal revision " which formerly
existed, when the Universities, as well as the Sta
tioners Company, were alone authorised to print
Almanacs. " It is notorious," said the great advo
cate, " that the Universities sell their right to the
Stationers Company for a fixed annual sum ; and it
is equally notorious, that the Stationers Company



THE SECOND EPOCH. 297

make a scandalous job of the bargain ; and to in
crease the sale of Almanacs amongst the vulgar,
publish, under the auspices of religion and learning,
the most senseless absurdities." .His respect for the
House, he said, prevented him from citing some
sentences from the one hundred and thirteenth of
the series of Poor Robin s Almanac, published under
the revision of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
the Bishop of London. " The worst part of Roches
ter is ladies reading, compared with them." The
monopoly of 1779 wa,s destroyed. But the powerful
Company bought off the competitors who rose up
from time to time. They had become possessed in
1827 of an exclusive market for stamped Almanacs ;
and, in the absence of all competition, the absurdities
and the indecencies flourished as vigorously as when
Erskine denounced them half a century before. The
solemn farce was still enacted once a year of laying
these productions at the feet of the Primate, when
" episcopal revision" for state purposes was as extinct
as the Star Chamber. They were still, as Erskine
described the ancient mockery, to be " sanctified by
the blessings of the bishops."

I had long been conversant with the character of
these productions. Upon the day of their publica
tion for the year 1828 I bought them all, and
eagerly applied myself to discover if they had be
come more adapted to the improving intelligence
of the age. First, there was "Francis Moore,
Physician," who had commenced his career of im
posture in 1698. He then dated his productions
"from the sign of Lilly s Head, in Crown Court,
near Cupid s Bridge, in Lambeth parish ; " where
he advertised for sale " his famous familiar family



298 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

cathartick and diuretick purging pills." Here the
" author also cures all sorts of agues at once ; " and