art, " to cut blocks with a razor." On ordinary
nights the company at the Sutherland Arms had as
little pretensions to the character of wits as the
members of Goldsmith s " Muzzy Club." They ate
their kidneys ; they smoked their pipes ; they read
the newspaper ; and they made profound reflections
upon the war and the ministry. But upon Saturday
nights the calm is invaded by a rush of reporters. On
such a night I am admitted, upon payment of the fee
of half-a-crown ; am duly harangued by the chairman
chosen for the occasion, who descants upon the glories
of a society which numbered the greatest of the age ;
sign my name in the big book, which really contains
some records of the illustrious, and am glad to
have made my reply, and have gone to a table to
eat my supper. Then it is moved that the chair
should be taken by Mr. Jones, to hear " a charge."
For three hours I listen to gleams of wit and flashes
of eloquence intermingled with the occasional ven
tures of a rash ambition which provoke laughter,
and with small attempts at fun which call forth
groans so that midnight arrives and I have no
disposition for rest. A name or two of those to
whom I have rapturously listened have not alto
gether perished out of the ken of a new generation.
Richard Lalor Sheil belongs to history. Once or
twice I was witness to the profound admiration,
entertained by men who were not incompetent
judges, of the wondrous eloquence of a reporter
named Brownley. Some of the elders of the company
told me that he came nearer to the excellences of
THE FIRST EPOCH. 89
Burke than any living man. He was not a Burke ;
for the orgies of the night clouded the intellect of the
morning. Undoubtedly his powers were very wonder
ful. He poured forth a torrent of words ; but far more
regulated by a correct taste than the flowery metaphors
of Sheil. Brownley had a lofty figure and a grand
massive head. Sheil presented a singular contrast
to him in person and in his rapid utterance and
violent gestures. Sheil was then little known ; and
when he had finished his oration, Mr. Quin, the
editor of a daily paper, rushed forward with, " Sir,
I honour ye dine with me to-morrow." Less
aspiring in his declamation than Brownley was
William Mudford, the editor of the " Courier," but
singularly neat in his logical precision and his
mild sarcasm. J. P. Davis (Pope Davis, as he
was called, from a great picture which he painted
at Rome the Presentation of Lord Shrewsbury s
Family to the Pope) did not belong to the Reporting
tribe. We have missed him lately, in a green old
age, doing violence to the natural kindness of his
heart by an intense hatred of the Royal Academy,
in which he persevered to the last, and in which
he was ever associated with his friend Haydon.
It is time to close these rambling Reminiscences of
the London of 1812. I went back to Windsor with
some enlargement of my intellectual vision. The
realities of life had cured me of many day-dreams.
In the House of Commons I had looked night after
night upon the grand spectacle of an assembly that,
without any of the outward semblances of power, filled
the world with a mysterious influence which kept
alive the sacred fire of liberty amongst the nations.
90 PASSAGES OF A WOEKING LIFE :
It was an assembly imbued with party spirit, but that
spirit was raised into virtue by the common love of
country. Not in that House nor in that other seat
of legislation, in which the principle of honour was
mainly derived from long lines of ancestry would
any one who " spake the tongue which Shakspere
spake," ever think of succumbing to the gigantic
ambition which was threatening to sweep away all
thrones and dominations. One land should never
" lie at the proud foot of a conqueror." There, was
my patriotism stimulated, even whilst political rival
ries appeared to forbid that union which alone could
save. But what courtesy did I behold tempering the
strongest denunciations and the bitterest sarcasm !
What self-command what restraints upon passion
what bursts of generosity what candour amidst the
most obstinate prejudices marked these Commoners
of the realm as essentially the gentlemen of England !
From this example, the humblest aspirant to the
character of public instructor might learn to be tole
rant of all honest opinions to be moderate in the
expression of his own. In looking upon the great
political gladiators he would perceive what talent
and knowledge were required to raise a man to emi
nence, but especially he would learn that honesty
alone could keep the high place which ability
and unremitting industry might win. This lesson
was for the lowly as well as for the exalted. I saw
this grand Parliament of England at a grand time.
Hope was beginning to spring up out of a long season
of misfortune and mismanagement. I had heard it
said in the House of Commons on the 27th February,
with a mixed tone of reproach and despondency,
"Badajoz, Gerona, Tortosa, Valencia, and almost
THE FIBST EPOCH. 01
every place of strength in Spain are in the hands of
the French." On the 23rd of April the horns were
blowing in every thoroughfare, and men were
bawling " News News Great News ! " Welling
ton had taken Badajoz. The crisis of the European
conflict appeared to be at hand. Napoleon was
evidently preparing for an offensive war against
Alexander of Russia. If my cherished project of a
newspaper could now be carried out, the mighty
events of the time would give it an interest which
would compensate for my editorial inexperience. I
might do some good, socially and intellectually, with
such an instrument, humble as it might be by com
parison with the power of the London press. This was
a very moderate ambition ; but I was then contented
with it.
I was heartily disposed to go about the work that
was before me in a sanguine spirit in a spirit which
perhaps too little regarded the chances of commercial
success. The field was altogether too narrow. To one
who was to stand by my side through the battle of
life I wrote at this transition period of its course :
" It shall go hard if I do not reform many things in
this neighbourhood, and give the inhabitants a cha
racter that they never possessed. If fair argument
can do it, they shall think liberally. I will set out
as the temperate advocate of everything that think
ing men will support Toleration, Education of the
Poor, Diffusion of Religious Knowledge, Public
Economy. I shall adopt the opinions of no set of
men in Church or State ; but think for myself on all
points. I belong to no party, for I would uphold the
Roman Catholics moderate claims as the first step
to public safety, and continue the war in Spain as
92 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE.
the last resource of national honour. This country
is full of bigotry. Some are afraid to educate the
poor, some are afraid of distributing Bibles, and the
greater part are afraid of Popery. I heai many
people who call themselves reasoners talk of the
Protestant massacres in France as arguments that
all Catholics are blood-thirsty. The fire-brand of
religion will soon be burnt out. The very miseries
of the present generation will become the means
of establishing the happiness of the next." In
transcribing this from a mirror of the past which
lies before me, I cannot avoid what must appear
as a parade of the conceit of imperfect education.
But it may be a satisfaction to some other solitary
and obscure young man to know, that self-instruction
is not always the worst preparation for arriving at
a due sense of the serious moral responsibility of a
literary career which, even in its humblest attempts,
must be an instrument for good or for evil. And
thus with a considerable amount of multifarious
reading, with slight knowledge of the world, with
aspirations very much out of proportion to any chance
of their being realised the 1st of August, 1812,
saw me established as proprietor with my father
in the " Windsor and Eton Express," and entrusted
with its responsible editorship. That day, having
passed my twenty-first year a few months before, saw
me bound upon that wheel of periodical writing and
publishing which was to revolve with me for fifty
years. It was not to be the torturing wheel of Ixion,
but one whose revolutions, wearisome as they some
times might be, were often to become sources of plea
surable excitement.
CHAPTER II.
HE first number of the " Windsor and Eton
Express " lies before me. It looks to my
mind like some relic of a past era of jour
nalism, in which I have no especial inte
rest, any more than I have in a fac-simile of a
"Times" of the days of Nelson which has been
recently published. I am told that some of the
middle-aged inhabitants of my native town preserve
this first newspaper ever issued there, as a curiosity
of the time of their fathers a piece of dim antiquity
like a guinea of George III. I look anxiously at
my " Political Inquirer," and I do not blush at my
earliest attempts in the vocation of "best public
instructor."
Why do I not blush at some of these crude efforts
of inexperience ? Because, although the things which
I then wrote may be something different from my
maturer convictions, they were written under a strong
sense of the serious nature of the vocation of a public
writer. I dare say that, in my want of knowledge of
the world, I wore my
" Foolscap uniform turn d up with ink "
somewhat too grandly. " Anxious " I was, if not
"fine and jealous." But this sense of my moral
responsibility has saved me from a feeling of shame,
as I now look back upon the feeble utterances of the
94 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
time thus brought before me, something like a dream.
These utterances were those of an impulsive young
man ; but of one who felt the duty of controlling his
inclination to express himself passionately. I wrote
with a motto from Locke always at the head of my
political essay, "This is a question only of inquirers,
not disputers, who neither affirm, nor deny, but
examine." This motto often held my hand. I had
a notion that rapid composition was a test of ability.
I used to task myself to write a leading article in a
given time. The habit has been of value to me in
after life ; it is of infinite importance to the journalist.
But it is of more importance that what he writes
should not at some future day rise up in j udgment
against him, " trumpet-tongued," and convict him
not of the suppressio veri, for that is incidental to
his profession, as it is to the barrister s but of the
assertion of opinions which were the exact contrary
of his own convictions. Let me not, however, be held
to imply that what is called political consistency is
a virtue in the man of advanced age that the rash
judgments of his youth are to be preserved in his
maturity. The mind that is not open to the teach
ings of time, and that chooses to stand upon its own
" ancient way," and not look around to see " which
is the right and true way," is worth little as a guide
for the formation of opinion.
Amongst the startling contrasts that are presented
between the England of 1812 and the England of
half a century later, there is perhaps no contrast
more remarkable than that which offers itself to my
mind in the difficulties of setting on foot a news
paper at Windsor, such as I had projected as an
easy and profitable employment for my literary
THE FIRST EPOCH. 95
ambition. These rush upon my memory as I look
upon my old "folio of four pages," and think of this
my first venture upon a dangerous sea.
The newspaper stamp was then fourpence. The
advertisement duty was three shillings, subsequently
raised to three shillings and sixpence. The blank
paper was to be stamped at Somerset House, the
payment being in cash, with a discount. It will be
seen at once how these taxes pressed upon the
capital to be devoted to such an undertaking. No
article of consumption, with the exception of salt,
was so highly taxed as the Newspaper. The circu
lation of a country journal was not a simple operation
like that of a London journal, which was, and is, a
wholesale transaction between the newspaper pro
prietor and the newsmen. The established custom
was this : the country proprietor had agencies in the
larger towns, who had their own retail customers;
but the greater number of the papers were delivered,
by newsmen specially employed, to the subscribers,
whether in the place of publication or in scattered
country districts. These had quarterly accounts,
which often grew into half-yearly or yearly settle
ments. Thus the return of the capital was very slow.
The demand for the newspaper, and the number
of advertisers, being thus narrowed by the high
price consequent upon the tax, the cost of produc
tion was to be met by a comparatively small number
of supporters. A cheap newspaper was an impossi
bility. But there were expenses at that time which
have altogether vanished under a different state of
social organization. The Windsor paper was to be
published on a Saturday evening, in time to be des
patched by post to the more distant places. It was
5
96 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
essential that it should contain the latest news from
the metropolis. The " London Gazette " was then
published on a Saturday afternoon. How was the
" Gazette " to be obtained, and also the late editions
of the evening papers? For this object the long-
established "Salisbury Journal" had an express
direct from London to that city. By an arrange
ment with the London agent of that journal, its
express was to bring our despatch to Staines, from
which place we should have a branch express to
Windsor. It would arrive about three quarters of
an hour before our post departed. Then there was
to ensue a scurry of editor, compositors, pressmen, to
complete enough papers to fill two bags, which we
were allowed to send to the receiving post-offices at
Staines and Maidenhead by the mail-carts from our
town. All this could not be accomplished without
the most strenuous exertions and the most perfect
division of labour. It was to be calculated that in
the beginning of the undertaking the machinery
would be often out of gear.
This laborious and costly organization was the
only method of fighting with space and time before
the days of railway conveyance and the electric
telegraph. The London daily papers, which fur
nished the staple of news, had the same difficulties,
though much greater in degree, to contend against.
The more considerable, especially the "Times," had
not only their special expresses from the outports,
but occasionally had a private packet-boat to pick
up news from homeward-bound ships before they
came into port. The sudden arrival of foreign intel
ligence, and the lateness of the sittings of Parlia
ment, occasioned the morning papers sometimes to
THE FIKST EPOCH. 9?
be delayed in publication till almost noon. If thia
occurred on a Saturday, the " Times/ or the " Post/
or the "Chronicle/ or the "British Press/ not
reaching Windsor till six in the evening, another
leader would then have to be written. Sometimes
the "Times," upon which most reliance could be
placed for the latest news, did not come at all.
During the excitement of the great war-time the
demand outran the supply, for it was not till the end
of 1814 that the "Times" was printed by steam
machinery.
Our journal being once safely at press, there would
come the arrangements for its distribution through
the rural districts, in addition to the small number
which had been sent off by post. The hamlets and
scattered farm-houses and gentlemen s seats could
not be reached by the post, at a time when not
one village in twenty had a post-office when letters
and newspapers remained with the postmaster of the
market-town till they were called for by the inhabi
tants of the surrounding district. Many a populous
parish was thus left to chance for the receipt of its
private or its public intelligence. Our new paper
would have to meet this difficulty by our own express-
carts, which were to travel long distances, and by
pedestrians, who would have many a weary mile to
trudge over unfrequented roads. These deliverers
would seldom receive payment from the subscribers.
The debts would accumulate, requiring to be col
lected at- periodical visits. Remittances in many
cases could not easily be made ; in some cases they
would be impossible, for the system of postal money-
orders was a quarter of a century later.
The price of a country newspaper was, in almost.
98 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I
every case, sevenpence. The wages of mechanical
labour were high, keeping pace with the price of
wheat, which in 1812 was 150s. a quarter Paper was
extremely dear, the duty being threepence a pound,
and the cheapening by the paper machine, now so
efficient, being then one of the visions of the pro
jector. In the absence, besides, of all the modern
appliances of civilization such as I have recited
which have so lessened the cost of a provincial
journal, and have increased the demand in a far
greater ratio than the doubling of the population
the number of country newspapers was comparatively
small. Throughout England there were less than a
hundred. There were not a great many of them
which ventured upon original writing ; but the
leading article had become a feature with those of
the higher class, such as the " Leeds Mercury," after
the beginning of the century. To express strong
opinions upon gross abuses was, however, a service of
danger which most editors avoided in the days of ex
officio informations.
It was a perilous time for the newspaper press,
for the people were discontented, and the authorities
were sensitive. They were especially sensitive in
this war-time as to any strictures which were sup
posed to have a tendency to weaken the allegiance
of the army, or render soldiers less satisfied under
the severe discipline by which alone obedience was
held to be capable of enforcement. Military flogging
was one of the forbidden subjects for editorial com
ment. In the year 181 2, William Cobbett was in
Newgate, having been sentenced in 1810 to two years
imprisonment and a fine of a thousand pounds for a
virulent effusion upon a punishment which had taken
THE FIRST EPOCH. 99
place in the local militia of Ely. In the " Stamford
News," a paper most ably conducted by Mr. John
Scott (afterwards editor of the " Champion "), an
article appeared at the same period, in which flogging
was described as " a species of torture at least as
exquisite as any that was ever devised by the infer
nal ingenuity of the Inquisition." This article was
copied into the " Examiner," and Sir Vicary Gibbs,
the Attorney-General, filed informations against both
papers. The trial of John and Leigh Hunt came on
the first, before Lord Ellenborough, who laboured
hard for a conviction. They were defended by Mr.
Brougham, and the Middlesex jury acquitted them.
The subsequent trial of Mr. Drakard, the proprietor
of the " Stamford News," resulted in his conviction,
although the same advocate defended him. He was
sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment. Such
a notable example of the uncertainty of trial by jury
in matters of political libel could give a public writer
no great confidence that incautious words, without
evil intentions, might not be visited with punishment
such as is earned by atrocious crimes. There was
another subject upon which the law-officers of the
Crown were equally determined to war against
public opinion. In proportion as the Prince Regent
was becoming unpopular, the Attorney-General re
sented any reflections upon his coxcombry and his
frivolous tastes. Moore ran great risks when he
dubbed the Prince " the Maecenas of Tailors." But
it was " most tolerable and not to be endured " by
the Dogberries who guarded the honour of Carlton
House, when a newspaper writer, who was not a pet
of fashion, dared to say of his Royal Highness in
ridicule of a fulsome article in the " Morning Post " in
100 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE!
which he was called " an Adonis in loveliness " that
this Adonis was " a corpulent gentleman of fifty."
The ex-ojficio information against John and Leigh
Hunt, for a libel in the " Examiner " of March 24th,
1812, resulted in a fine of a thousand pounds and
the imprisonment of each for two years in separate
prisons. Mr. Brougham had again defended the
brothers, and had the satisfaction to be told by Lord
Ellenborough that he had imbibed the spirit of his
client, and seemed to have inoculated himself with
all the poison and mischief which this libel was
calculated to effect. It was undoubtedly strong
language for the "Examiner" to designate the
Prince as " a violator of his word, a libertine over
head and ears in debt and disgrace, a despiser of
domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demi
reps, a man who has just closed half a century
without one single claim on the gratitude of his
country or the respect of posterity." Posterity has
not given such an answer as would put to shame this
daring appeal to its judgment. But the dispassionate
lookers-on of that period could not think it seemly
that such harsh truths should be told of him who
stood in the place of a king who, as chief magis
trate, ought to claim from the people all respect and
reverence.
But it was not only the dread of indictment for poli
tical libel that hung over the head of the newspaper
proprietor in 1812. Any statement of fact, or any
comment upon occurrences that might be supposed
to affect private character, were constantly made
the subject of actions, got up by rapacious attorneys,
speculating upon that love of litigation which was
then especially characteristic of the English. It was
THE FIRST EPOCH. 101
not till thirty years after 1812 that Lord Campbell s
Act gave to the journalist the power to plead, in any
action for libel, " that such libel was inserted in such
newspaper without actual malice, and without gross
negligence ; and that before the commencement of
the action, or at the earliest opportunity afterwards,
he inserted in such newspaper a full apology for such
libel." Imagine, at the present day, the Lord Chief
Justice of the Court of Queen s Bench trying an
action for libel, with two leaders, such as Mr. Den-
man for the prosecution, and Mr. Scarlett for the
defence, the alleged libel being the report in a
country newspaper of a flagrant case of cruelty
which was a notorious subject of local indignation.
The libel consisted in terming that "a brutal assault,"
upon which the assailants were held to bail. Imagine
that the persons whose characters were thus defamed
were a pig-keeper and his wife, who let lodgings to
poor people ; and having a dispute with a family of
which the mother had only been confined a week,
threatened to pull the bed from under her, and turn
her into the street. Imagine a London jury finding
a verdict for the plaintiff, with 501. damages. Imagine
a second action for the same libel being brought by
the wife. Imagine ten several actions against ten
London papers, for reporting the trial in the King s
Bench with a few words of just comment upon the
scandal of such litigation, when there was no "private
malice " or " gross negligence." Imagine a hungry
attorney, prowling for prey, at the bottom of all these
actions, who hao], no object to attain but the heavy
costs which he pocketed. These verdicts cost me
500. in 1825. Is not the newspaper press in a
better condition than it was in, forty years ago ?
102 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:
The perils of the Libel Law did not much affect
my confident belief in 1812 that I could navigate my
little bark in safety. But. I did feel, perhaps too
acutely, the difficulties of my position as a journalist
under the shadow of the Castle at Windsor. It was
a time in which the patriotism which had upheld the
nation through the fierce struggle of twenty years
required, at this great crisis of our history, when the
fate of England was trembling in the balance, the
prop of a sincere and spontaneous loyalty. I deeply
felt, as one about to become a public writer, that
upon the head of the Government I could only
bestow
" month-honour, breath
Which the poor heart would fuin deny but dare not."
I look back upon the public feeling of the first
twenty years of my working life, and compare it
with the quarter of a century which was blessed with
a female Sovereign. Oh, could the generation which,
during the reign of Victoria, has entered upon the
duties of mature age, know the full value of their
privilege in being able to cherish the loyalty of the