master-tailor, at Charing Cross, an intense devotion
328 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
to all the leading questions of politics that had been
agitating the world since the time of the French
Revolution. His collection of contemporary pam
phlets was as extensive and complete as any man
could have formed. I believe it was dispersed at
his death, but it ought to have gone to the British
Museum.
The excellent Dr. Arnold, some months after the
" Penny Magazine " had appeared, described it as
" all ramble-scramble." It was meant to be so to
touch rapidly and lightly upon many subjects. In
the introductory article of the first number, I wrote :
" Whatever tends to enlarge the range of observa
tion, to add to the store of facts, to awaken the
reason, and to lead the imagination into agreeable
and innocent trains of thought, may assist in the
establishment of a sincere and ardent desire for
information ; and in this point of view our little
miscellany may prepare the way for the reception of
more elaborate and precise knowledge, and be as the
small optic-glass called the finder, which is placed by
the side of a large telescope, to enable the observer
to discover the star which is afterwards to be care
fully examined by the more perfect instrument." I
certainly never received any more striking testimony
to the usefulness of the " ramble-scramble " in
supplying a want to those who were striving to gain
knowledge, but who were too poor to buy books,
than the following passage in the " Autobiography
of an Artisan," published in 3847. Christopher
Thomson, the author of this interesting book, had
settled as a house-painter at Edwinstowe, a village
in Nottinghamshire : " Squatting down here penni
less, without a table or three-legged stool to furnish
THE SECOND EPOCH. . 329
a cottage with, it may easily be imagined that I had
tough work of it. My great want was books ; I was
too poor to purchase expensive ones, and the cheap
literature was not then, as now, to be found in
every out-o -the-way nooking. However, Knight had
unfurled his paper banners of free trade in letters.
The Penny Magazine was published I borrowed
the first volume, and determined to make an effort
to possess myself with the second ; accordingly, with
January, 1833, I determined to discontinue the use
of sugar in my tea, hoping that my family would not
then feel the sacrifice necessary to buy the book.
Since that period, I have expended large sums in
books, some of them very costly ones, but I never
had one so truly valuable as was the second volume
of the Penny Magazine ; and I looked as anxiously
for the issue of the monthly part as I did for the
means of getting a living." This then was the
service which the " Penny Magazine " was rendering,
at the beginning of 1832, to the general cause of
letters. I must associate with it " Chambers Edin
burgh Journal," a publication which was established
a few weeks before mine. They were making readers.
They were raising up a new class, and a much larger
class than previously existed, to be the purchasers of
books. They were planting the commerce of books
upon broader foundations than those upon which it
had been previously built. They were relegating
the hole-and-corner literature of the days of exclu-
siveness to the rewards which the few could furnish ;
preparing the way for writers and booksellers to reap
the abundant harvest when the " second rain " of
knowledge should be descending " uninterrupted,
unabated, unbounded ; fertilizing some grounds and
330 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE!
overflowing others ; changing the whole form of
social life." *
The success of the "Penny Magazine" was an
astonishment to most persons ; I honestly confess it
was a surprise to myself. It was not till the autumn
that an attempt was made by the means of woodcuts
to familiarise the people with great works of art.
Then were presented to them engravings of a costly
character, of such subjects as the Laocoon, the Apollo
Belvedere, the Cartoons, and the great Cathedrals,
British and Foreign. At the end of 1832, the
"Penny Magazine" had reached a sale of 200,000
in weekly numbers and monthly parts. In the pre
face to the first volume, under the date of December
the 18th, I thus wrote : " It was considered by
Edmund Burke, about forty years ago, that there
were 80,000 readers in this country. In the present
year it has been shown, by the sale of the Penny
Magazine, that there are 200,000 purchasers of one
periodical work. It may be fairly calculated that
the number of readers of that single work amounts
to a million. If this incontestable evidence of the
spread of the ability to read be most satisfactory, it
is still more satisfactory to consider the species of
reading which has had such an extensive and increas
ing popularity. In this work there has never been a
single sentence that could inflame a vicious appetite ;
and not a paragraph that could minister to prejudices
and superstitions which a few years since were com
mon. There have been no excitements for the lovers
of the marvellous no tattle or abuse for the grati
fication of a diseased taste for personality, and, above
all, no party politics."
* Scott. "QuentinDurward."
THE SECOND EPOCH. 331
Although the " Penny Magazine " has a peculiar
interest as a subject of literary history, it would be
tedious if I were to attempt any minute notice of
its contributors ; but I may mention a few whose
names occur to me as I turn over its early pages.
There were members of the Committee who had a
very just conception of what writing for the people
meant. An article by Mr. Long, in the seventh
number, on the value of a penny, is as clear and im
pressive as any statement from the pen of Cobbett.
Mr. De Morgan wrote mathematical papers, in which
the rationale of Fractions was exhibited, and the
fallacy of such notions as. squaring the circle was
pointed out. Mr. Craik could be depended upon for
enlightened as well as familiar expositions of the
value of standard works, under the head of "The
Library." Mr. Charles Macfaiiane, of whom I shall
have subsequently to speak, wrote most amusing
accounts of his travelling experiences. There were
authors not regularly engaged as contributors, who
furnished valuable papers of marked ability. I had
been in the habit of familiar intercourse with Allan
Cunningham, even before the time when he wrote
a paper in the " Quarterly Magazine." For the
" Penny Magazine " he furnished a series of articles
on " The Old English Ballads." I must not omit to
mention the interesting relations of his South African
experience, contributed by Thomas Pringle, one of the
most amiable of men, with whom I had cultivated
something higher than mere intimacy, when our
friendly relations were cut short by his death in
1834. His biography of Sir Walter Scott, was called
forth by the great novelist s lamented death on the
21st of September, 1832. It occupied an entire
332 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
number of the " Penny Magazine," and contains
some valuable facts regarding Mr. Pringle s personal
intimacy with Scott in 1819.
It may not be without an interest of no transient
nature that I proceed to notice the beginnings of my
intercourse with a man who left his mark upon his
time, but who, when I first knew him, was not only
under the check of " poverty s unconquerable bar," but
was suffering under a great physical privation which
appeared likely to disqualify him for any prosperous
career in life. On the 18th of July, 1833, a short
stout man, of about thirty years of age, presented
himself to me at my place of business in Ludgate
Street, to which premises, nearer the great hive of
" the Trade " I had found it indispensable to remove.
He tendered me a note from Mr. Coates, at the same
time uttering some strange sounds, which could
scarcely be called articulate. The few lines of intro
duction said that the bearer, Mr. Kitto, laboured
under the misfortune of nearly absolute deafness,
and that I must therefore communicate with hirn in
writing. Mr. Coates enclosed me a letter from Mr.
Woollcombe, the chairman of our local committee
at Plymouth. That letter is now before me, dated
the 10th of July. This gentleman who appears to
have been peculiarly fitted, by his compassion for
misfortune and his sympathy with talent, to rescue
a pauper boy from the misery and degradation of a
parish workhouse pleaded the claims of the un
known John Kitto for literary employment in a way
so interesting that I cannot hesitate to transcribe his
words : " He is a native of this town, and became
known to us by his misfortunes, as a lad of extra
ordinary capacity, though reduced by the vices of
THE SECOND EPOCH. 333
his father to the condition of an inhabitant of our
workhouse, and by an accident to an almost entire
loss of the sense of hearing. He has subsequently
been employed as a printer at Malta, by a religious
society. But he is now just returned from a resi
dence of some years at Bagdad ; having embarked
from England for Petersburg, and descended from
thence through Russia to Moscow and other towns,
entering Persia by the Desert ; of that country he
has acquired considerable information, which he is
ready to communicate through your publications.
He returned to England in June last. * *
His appearance is not prepossessing ; his deafness is
comewhat embarrassing ; his talents are considerable,
memory retentive, observation quick, and undivided
as other men s are. His life is a series of extra
ordinary incidents, such as one is unwilling to ac
knowledge as being natural. I laugh and tell him
the world is to be now indebted to two Devonshire
men for the information it is to receive of distant
countries. The one a blind man (Lieut. Holman),
who is to publish what he has seen in his progress
round the world. And (John Kitto) a deaf man, of
what he has heard in Persia !"
I may have had something like an anticipation
of this poor man s future eminence, judging from the
unusual care with which I appear to have preserved
some memoranda of our intercourse. I find a paper
dated July the 21st, headed " Conversation with Mr.
Kitto," of which the following is the substance of
half a dozen pages of my notes. I asked him what
European languages he knew. He said Italian,
French perfectly, not German. He had proposed a
new project, into which I thought the Society would
334 PASSAGES OF A WOKKISIG LIFE:
not at present enter ; but, I should be glad to en
deavour to arrange for his employment in the " Penny
Magazine " and " Penny Cyclopaedia." I asked if he
could undertake to give a personal narrative of his
travels in Persia. That would show what he could
do, and he might be afterwards engaged on geogra
phical articles for the " Cyclopaedia," requiring more
precise and systematic information. I then arranged
with him to furnish a few articles of the nature I
had mentioned, to be paid for at the rate of a guinea
and a half a page. And so John Kitto, the future
Biblical critic and commentator, went away per
fectly happy, to produce the first number of "The
Deaf Traveller," which appeared in "The Penny
Magazine" of the 10th of August. A month of
experiment had passed, and I then engaged Kitto
at a regular salary, to work in my own room in Fleet
Street. I could -thus assist him whenever he had
any question to propose, and to me he was no inter
ruption, for our golden silence was rarely broken.
He writes to a friend on the 18th of August, after
he had been regularly employed for a week : " I
have little doubt that, through Mr. Knight s indul
gence, I shall be able to keep this situation ; the
rather, as whatever spare time The Penny Maga
zine does not require, is spent in perfecting my
knowledge of French and Italian, and in acquiring
the German. I do thank God for this relief from a
state of great anxiety, in which I had begun to
entertain the most melancholy view of the things
before me, and saw possible consequences that I
could not bear steadily to contemplate." Sitting, as
he describes, " in Mr. Knight s room, with plenty of
books about me, and more below," authors, printers,
THE SECOND EPOCH. 335
country agents, and other men of business come and
go to impart something to my private ear. They
addressed me in whispers, when they saw a somewhat
dwarfish man of sallow complexion, bright eyes, and
lofty forehead, sitting close to my table at a separate
desk, writing incessantly. To some he might have
looked as a very suspicious person, who was placed
there to note down their conversation. They soon
became accustomed to this companionship, and learnt
that he would be the most faithful depository of their
spoken secrets, whether they were to roar as loud as
Bully Bottom when he desired to play the lion, or
spake "in a monstrous little voice," as when the
same actor of all- work would have played " Thisby
dear."
It appears from the correspondence of Dr. Arnold,
that in the early stages of " The Penny Magazine "
he felt a strong desire to see something of the reli
gious spirit imparted to the works of the Useful
Knowledge Society. His views upon the subject
were so just and reasonable, that it is to me a matter
of the deepest regret that I was never brought into
direct communication with him in my editorial
capacity. He says : " It does seem to me as forced
and unnatural in us now to dismiss the principles of
the Gospel and its great motives from our conversa
tion, as is done habitually, for example, in Miss
Edgeworth s books, as it is to fill our pages with
Hebraisms, and to write and speak in the words and
style of the Bible. The slightest touches of Chris
tian principle and Christian hope in the Society s
biographical and historical articles would be a sort
of living salt to the whole ; and would exhibit that
union which I never will consent to think unattain-
15
336 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
able, between goodness and wisdom ; between every
thing that is manly, sensible, and free, and every
thing that is pure and self-denying, and humble, and
heavenly." * Dr. Arnold s strong desire was that of
being able to co-operate with a body which he " be
lieved might, with God s blessing, do more good of
all kinds, political, intellectual, and spiritual, than
any other society in existence." ( He was anxious,
he wrote, " to furnish them regularly with articles of
the kind that I desire." For myself I can distinctly
state that no expression of such a desire ever reached
me ; nor do I know that any communication to such an
effect was ever formally put before the sub-committee
for " The Penny Magazine." Dr. Arnold s nephew,
Mr. John Ward, a solicitor in Bedford Row, to whom
he writes in 1832, about " your Useful Knowledge
Society Committee," was a member of that commit
tee, and he contributed some very useful but rather
dry " Statistical Notes " to " The Penny Magazine."
These certainly were not calculated to cany out Dr.
Arnold s views. But he himself has borne the most
cordial testimony to one circumstance in the conduct
of " The Penny Magazine," which shows that there
was no settled purpose to exclude from that work
" the slightest touches of Christian principle." I
have said with reference to the religious articles of
the " Plain Englishman," that Dr. Arnold wrote " in
terms of somewhat extravagant commendation of a
short article on Mirabeau which I had written." J
The letter was to Mr. Tooke, the treasurer of the
* "Life and Correspondence," vol. i. p. 274.
t /Wa., p. 275.
J "Passages," vol. i. p. 243.
THE SECOND EPOCH. 337
Society, and for the sake of clearing up this im
portant question of principle, I must quote the pas
sage to which I referred. " I cannot tell you how
much I was delighted by the conclusion of an article
on Mirabeau, in The Penny Magazine of May 12.
That article is exactly a specimen of what I wished
to see, but done far better than I could do it. I
never wanted articles on religious subjects half so
much as articles on common subjects written with a
decidedly Christian tone. History and Biography
are far better vehicles of good, I think, than any
direct comments on Scripture, or essays on Evi
dences." * The conclusion of the article to which
Dr. Arnold refers, is as follows: "The career of
Mirabeau offers a few consolatory remarks to those
who are gifted with no extraordinary faculties, either
for good or for evil Mirabeau swayed the destinies
of millions, but he was never happy ; Mirabeau had
almost reached the pinnacle of human power, and
yet he fell a victim to the same evil passions which
degrade and ruin the lowest of mankind. He could
never be really great, because he was never freed
from the bondage of his own evil desires. The man
who steadily pursues a consistent course of duty,
which has for its object to do good to himself and to
all around him, will be followed to the grave by a
few humble and sincere mourners, and no record will
remain except in the hearts of those who loved him,
to tell of his earthly career. But that man may
gladly leave to such as Mirabeau the music, the
torches, and the cannon, by which a nation
proclaimed its loss ; for assuredly he has felt that
* "Life and Correspondence," vol. L p. 299.
338 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
inward consolation, and that sustaining hope through
out his life, which only the good can feel ; he
has fully enjoyed, in all its purity, the holy
influence of the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding. "
I think that I may confidently say, that without
attempting to impart to the " Penny Magazine " a
distinctly religious character, I did not interpret
in a too literal signification the original rule of the
Society with reference to religion that is, to abstain
from publishing on that subject, " convinced that the
numerous institutions already existing for the diffu
sion of religious knowledge in every shape will best
advance that momentous end." * That I might have
been encouraged to do more in the incidental manner
advocated by Dr. Arnold I cannot doubt, had his
approval of what he had read been communicated
to me. When I first saw the opinion of this good
and great man in his " Life," by the Rev. Arthur
Stanley, published after his decease, I felt it was
an injustice to myself on the part of the treasurer
of the Society that this letter had been withheld
from me.
I cannot conclude this notice of the early history
of the " Penny Magazine " without adverting to one
who first gave me the benefit of his assistance, in the
office generally known as that of a sub-editor, soon
after I became connected with the Useful Knowledge
Society. Alexander Ramsay has been for five-and-
thirty years my friend and fellow-labourer. He has
worked with me in every undertaking in which I
* First Annual Report of the Society, 1828.
THE SECOND EPOCH. 339
have been engaged, from the second volume of the
" British Almanac and Companion " for 1830, to the
last for 1864?. He has brought to this long course of
duty not only the ministerial services which belong
to a reader of manuscripts and a corrector of the
press, but taste, and knowledge, and readiness of
resource, well adapted for original composition, in the
accustomed progress and occasional exigencies of
periodical works. I think it is creditable to both of
us that in a long struggle by societies and individuals
for the establishment of cheap and wholesome lite
rature, we have been labouring side by side that
" In this glorious and well-foughten field,
We kept together in our chivalry ! "
CHAPTER XVI.
HE success of the Penny Magazine* has
induced the Committee to undertake
the publication of a Penny Cyclopaedia,
in Numbers and Monthly Parts. A work
of such magnitude and novelty requires all the
assistance which can be afforded it by the Members
of the Society, both in London and in the Country,
in order to give it publicity and circulation." Such
was the announcement of their greatest undertaking
in the annual address of the Useful Knowledge
Society, dated June 30, 1832. A specimen of the
projected " Penny Cyclopaedia " had been printed by
Mr. Clowes on the previous 2nd of June. This fact
was certified by him after a surreptitious " Penny
Cyclopaedia " had been advertised in the daily papers
of the 16th of August "as now ready." This had
been met on the 17th by an advertisement from the
Committee, cautioning the public against an attempt
to impose upon them. The career of this pretender
was terminated before the issue of the first number
of the real "Penny Cyclopaedia," on the 2nd of
January, 1833.
In characterizing their undertaking as " a work of
such magnitude and novelty," the Committee appear
to have looked at its magnitude, rather with reference
to the universal range of the proposed information,
than to the contemplated limits in point of size. I
THE SECOND EPOCH. 341
have stated that the " Penny Cyclopaedia " was pro
jected by me "to form a moderate-sized book of
eight volumes." * The novelty was not to consist
in producing a Cyclopaedia under one alphabetical
arrangement, but in its issue in weekly sheets, each
of which was to be sold at a penny. But there was
another novelty which would very soon be discovered
by the educated portion of the public, upon a com
parison of this work with existing Cyclopaedias.
It was not an affair of scissors and paste. It was not
a hash from German and French sources. Its writers
had not "been at a great feast of languages and
stolen the scraps." Every article was to be original ;
to be furnished by various men, each the best that
could be found in special departments of knowledge.
The essential difficulty of making the contributions
at once brief and complete was discovered when the
experiment Qame to be tried for a few months. It
was impossible, moreover, to offer an adequate
remuneration to a competent scholar or man of
science, when it was said to him You must give us
the very cream of your knowledge ; you must pour
out the fullest information in the most condensed
form of words ; your articles must nevertheless be
readable and perfectly intelligible to the popular
mind ; and yet, under these difficult conditions, you
must be paid at a certain rate per page. This
"solatium," not low as compared with reviews and
magazine articles in reference to the mere number
of words, was very low if the merit of the Cyclopaedia
was to consist in extreme compression, whilst the
Review and the Magazine conductors would allow of
* Companion to the Almanac, 1858.
342 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE I
any amoimt of expansion not altogether extravagant.
The plan would never work. It would pay the
gardener to grow dwarf pear trees and peach trees,
but it would not pay the writer to produce dwarfed
articles that, like the rarities of the hot-house and
conservatory, should be perfect in form, if not in size,
bear good fruit, and not die very prematurely. A
very clever and accomplished author, Mr. Samuel
Phillips, thus described the issue of this experiment :
" When the Cyclopaedia was started, the public were
invited to pay their penny a we*ek, and to seize the
opportunity of securing, not only a valuable, but
also an incomparably cheap publication. Useful
knowledge was to be diffused by a society
appointed for the express purpose, but it was not to
be ( diffusive. It was to be poured abroad, but in
such a form as should instruct, not weary or perplex
the recipient. If we remember rightly, eight good
compact volumes were to contain the substantial
food for which the working mind was pining. Before
one volume, however, was completed, the Committee
thought it expedient to hint that it must be
observed that the plan of the Cyclopcedia had been
rather enlarged. After a year the plan had enlarged
so much that the rate of issue was doubled. It was
no longer a penny a week, but twopence. After
three years it was quadrupled fourpence a-week
instead of twopence. Had the original plan of a
penny weekly issue been persevered in, it would have
taken exactly thirty-seven years to complete the
business." *
The extension of the quantity of the Cyclopasdia
* "Times, "Oct. 12, 1854.
THE SECOND EPOCH. 343
was no doubt unavoidable under the superintendence
of the Society, but it destroyed its commercial value.
Had it been a careful compilation, instead of an
original work furnished by nearly two hundred con
tributors, it would have been to me a fortune. In
that case, its preparation being confined to a few
persons, its proposed limits could have been steadily