Christopher Crayon's Recollections. The Life and Times of the late James Ewing Ritchie as told by himself

CHAPTER VIII.

My Literary Career

I drifted into literature when I was a boy. I always felt that I would like to be an author, and, arrived at man’s estate, it seemed to me easier to reach the public mind by the press than by the pulpit. I could not exactly come down to the level of the pulpit probationer. I found no sympathetic deacons, and I heard church members talk a good deal of nonsense for which I had no hearty respect. Perhaps what is called the root of the matter was in me conspicuous by its absence. I preached, but I got no call, nor did I care for one, as I felt increasingly the difference between the pulpit and the pew. Now I might use language in one sense, which would be – and I found really was – understood in quite an opposite sense in the pew. My revered parent had set his heart on seeing me a faithful minister of Jesus Christ; and none can tell what, under such circumstances, was the hardness of my lot, but gradually the struggle ceased, and I became a literary man – when literary men abode chiefly in Bohemia, and grew to fancy themselves men of genius in the low companionship of the barroom. Fielding got to a phase of life when he found he had either to write or get a living by driving a hackney coach. A somewhat similar experience was mine.

It is now about sixty years since I took to writing. I began with no thought of money or fame – it is quite as well that I did not, I am inclined to think – but a new era was opening on the world, a new divine breath was ruffling the stagnant surface of society, and I thought I had something to say in the war – the eternal war of right with wrong, of light with darkness, of God and the devil. I started a periodical. In the prospectus I stated that I had started it with a view to wage war with State Church pretensions and class legislation. I sent some copies of it to Thomas Carlyle – then rising into prominence as the great teacher of his age. He sent me a short note back to the effect that he had received and read what I had written, and that he saw much to give his cordial consent to, and ended by bidding me go on and prosper. Then I sent Douglas Jerrold a paper for his Shilling Magazine, which he accepted, but never published it, as I wanted it for a magazine which came out under my own editorship. One of my earliest patrons was Dr. Thomas Price, the editor of the Eclectic, who had formerly been a Baptist minister, but who became secretary of an insurance society, and one of a founders of the Anti-State Church Association, a society with which I was in full accord, and which, as I heard Edward Miall himself declare, owed not a little to my literary zeal. We had a fine time of it when that society was started. We were at Leicester, where I stayed with a dear old college friend, the Rev. Joseph Smedmore, and fast and furious was the fun as we met at the Rev. James Mursell’s, the popular pastor of the Baptist Chapel, and father of a still more popular son. Good company, good tobacco, good wine, aided in the good work. Amongst the company would be Stovel, an honoured Baptist minister Whitechapel way, at one time a fighter, and a hard hitter to the end of his lengthy life; John Burnett of Camberwell, always dry in the pulpit, but all-victorious on the public platform, by reason of his Scotch humour and enormous common-sense; Mursell in the Midlands was a host in himself; and Edward Miall, whose earnestness in the cause led him to give up the Leicester pulpit to found the London Nonconformist. John Childs, the well-known Bungay printer, assisted, an able speaker himself, in spite of the dogmatism of his face and manner. When the society became rich and respectable, and changed its name, I left it. I have little faith in societies when they become respectable. When on one occasion I put up for an M.P., I was amused by the emissary of the society sending to me for a subscription on the plea that all the Liberal candidates had given donations! “Do you think,” said I, “that I am going to bid for your support by a paltry £5 note? Not, I, indeed! It is a pity M.P.’s are not made of sterner staff.” One of my intimate friends at one time was the late Peter Taylor, M.P. for Leicester. He was as liberal as he was wealthy, yet he never spent a farthing in demoralising his Leicester constituents by charity, or, in other words, bribery and corruption. The dirty work a rich man has to do to get into Parliament – especially if he would represent an intelligent and high-toned democracy – is beyond belief.

The ups and downs of a literary career are many. Without writing a good hand it is now impossible to succeed. It was not so when I first took to literature; but nowadays, when the market is overstocked with starving genius in the shape of heaven-born writers, I find that editors, compositors, readers, and all connected with printing, set their faces rigidly against defective penmanship. I look upon it that now the real literary gent, as The Saturday Review loved to call him, has ceased to exist altogether; there is no chance for him. Our editors have to look out for articles written by lords and ladies, and men and women who have achieved some passing notoriety. They often write awful stuff, but then the public buys. A man who masters shorthand may get a living in connection with the Press, and he may rise to be editor and leader-writer; but the pure literary gent, the speculative contributor to periodical literature, is out of the running. If he is an honourable, if he is a lord or M.P., or an adventurer, creditable or the reverse, he has a chance, but not otherwise. A special correspondent may enjoy a happy career, and as most of my work has been done in that way, I may speak with authority. As to getting a living as a London correspondent that is quite out of the question. I knew many men who did fairly well as London correspondents; nowadays the great Press agencies keep a staff to manufacture London letters on the cheap, and the really able original has gone clean out of existence. Two or three Press agencies manage almost all the London correspondence of the Press. It is an enormous power; whether they use it aright, who can say?

I had, after I left college, written reviews and articles. But in 1850 Mr. John Cassell engaged me as sub-editor of the Standard of Freedom, established to promote the sale of his coffees, or rather, in consequence of the sale of them – to advocate Free Trade and the voluntary principle, and temperance in particular, and philanthropy in general. In time I became chief editor, but somehow or other the paper was not a success, though amongst the leader writers were William Howitt and Robertson, who had been a writer on the Westminster Review. It was there also I saw a good deal of Richard Cobden, a man as genial as he was unrivalled as a persuasive orator, who had a wonderful facility of disarming prejudice, and turning opponents into friends. I fancy he had a great deal of sympathy with Mr. John Cassell, who was really a very remarkable man. John Cassell may be described as having sprung from the dregs of the people. He had but twopence-halfpenny in his pocket when he came to town; he had been a carpenter’s lad; education he had none. He was tall and ungainly in appearance, with a big head, covered with short black hair, very small dark eyes, and sallow face, and full of ideas – to which he was generally quite unable to give utterance. I was always amused when he called me into his sanctum. “Mr. Ritchie,” he would say, “I want you to write a good article on so-and-so. You must say,” and here he would wave his big hand, “and here you must,” and then another wave of his hand, and thus he would go on waving his hand, moving his lips, which uttered no audible sound, and thus the interview would terminate, I having gained no idea from my proprietor, except that he wanted a certain subject discussed. At times he had a terrible temper, a temper which made all his friends thankful that he was a strict teetotaler. But his main idea was a grand one – to elevate morally and socially and intellectually the people of whose cause he was ever an ardent champion and true friend. He died, alas too soon, but not till he saw the firm of Cassell, Petter, and Galpin one of the leading publishing firms of the day. The Standard of Freedom was incorporated with The Weekly News and Chronicle, of which the working editor was Mr. John Robinson – now Sir John Robinson, of The Daily News– who was at the same time working editor of The Inquirer. I wrote for The Weekly News– Parliamentary Sketches – and for that purpose had a ticket for the gallery of the House of Commons, where, however, I much preferred to listen to the brilliant talk of Angus Reach and Shirley Brooks, as they sat waiting on the back bench to take their turns, to the oratory of the M.P.’s below. Let me not, however, forget my obligations to Sir John Robinson. It was to him that I owed an introduction to The Daily News, and to his kindness and liberality, of which many a literary man in London can testify, I owe much. Let me also mention that again I became connected with Mr. John Cassell when – in connection with Petter and Galpin – the firm had moved to Playhouse Yard, next door to The Times printing office, and thence to the present magnificent premises on Ludgate Hill. At that time it became the fashion – a fashion which has been developed greatly of late years – to print for country papers a sheet of news, or more if they required it, which then was filled with local intelligence, and became a local paper. It was my duty to attend to the London paper, of which we printed fresh editions every day. In that position I remained till I was rash enough to become a newspaper proprietor myself. Mr. John Tallis, who had made a handsome fortune by publishing part numbers of standard works, was anxious to become proprietor of The Illustrated London News. For this purpose he desired to make an agreement with Mr. Ingram, M.P., the proprietor of the paper in question, but it came to nothing, and Mr. Tallis commenced The Illustrated News of the World. When he had lost all his money, and was compelled to give it up, in an evil hour I was tempted to carry it on. It came to an end after a hard struggle of a couple of years, leaving me a sadder and a wiser and a poorer man. Once, and once only, I had a bright gleam of sunshine, and that was when Prince Albert died, of whom and of the Queen I published fine full-length portraits. The circulation of the paper went up by leaps and bounds; it was impossible to print off the steel plates fast enough to keep pace with the public demand, but that was soon over, and the paper sank accordingly. Next in popularity to the portraits of Royalty I found were the portraits of John Bright, Cobden, Spurgeon, and Newman Hall. For generals, and actors and actresses, even for such men as Gladstone, or Disraeli, or Charles Kingsley, the public at the time did not seem greatly to care. But that was an episode in my career on which I do not care to dwell. I only refer to it as an illustration of the fact that a journalist should always stick to his pen, and leave business to business men. Sir Walter Scott tried to combine the two, and with what result all the world knows. In my small way I tried to do the same, and with an equally disastrous result. Happily, I returned to my more legitimate calling, which if it has not led me to fame and fortune, has, at any rate, enabled me to gain a fair share of bread and cheese, though I have always felt that another sovereign in any pocket would, like the Pickwick pen, have been a great blessing. Alas! now I begin to despair of that extra sovereign, and fall back for consolation on the beautiful truth, which I learned in my copy-book as a boy, that virtue is its own reward. When I hear people declaim on the benefits the world owes to the Press, and say it is a debt they can never repay, I always reply, “You are right, you can never repay the debt, but I should be happy to take a small sum on account.” But it is a great blessing to think and say what you like, and that is a blessing enjoyed by the literary man alone. The parson in the pulpit has to think of the pew, and if a Dissenter, of his deacons. The medical man must not shock the prejudices of his patients if he would secure a living. The lawyer must often speak against his convictions. An M.P. dares not utter what would offend his constituents if he would secure his re-election. The pressman alone is free, and when I knew him, led a happy life, as he wrote in some old tavern, (Peele’s coffee-house in Fleet Street was a great place for him in my day), or anywhere else where a drink and a smoke and a chat were to be had, and managed to evolve his “copy” amidst laughter and cheers and the fumes of tobacco. His clothes were shabby, his hat was the worse for wear; his boots had lost somewhat of their original symmetry, his hands and linen were – but perhaps the less one says about them the better. He had often little in his pocket besides the last half-crown he had borrowed of a friend, or that had been advanced by his “uncle,” but he was happy in his work, in his companions, in his dreams, in his nightly symposium protracted into the small hours, in his contempt of worldly men and worldly ways, in his rude defiance of Mrs. Grundy. He was, in reality, a grander man than his cultured brother of to-day, who affects to be a gentleman, and is not unfrequently merely a word-grinding machine, who has been carefully trained to write, whereas the only true writer, like the poet, is born, not made. We have now an Institute to improve what they call the social status of the pressman. We did not want it when I began my journalistic career. It was enough for me to hear the chimes at midnight, and to finish off with a good supper at some Fleet Street tavern, for as jolly old Walter Mapes sang —

Let me return to the story of my betters, with whom business relations brought me into contact. One was Dr. Charles Mackay, whose poetry at one time was far more popular than now. All the world rejoiced over his “Good time coming, boys,” for which all the world has agreed to wait, though yearly with less prospect of its realisation, “a little longer.” He was the editor of The Illustrated News till he and the proprietor differed about Louis Napoleon, whom Mackay held to be an impostor and destined to a speedy fall. With Mr. Mackay was associated dear old John Timbs, every one’s friend, the kindliest of gossips, and the most industrious of book-makers. Then there was James Grant, of The Morning Advertiser, always ready to put into print the most monstrous canard, and to fight in the ungenial columns of the licensed victualler’s organ to the bitter end for the faith once delivered to the saints. And then there was marvellous George Cruikshank, the prince of story-tellers as well as of caricaturists to his dying day. It is curious to note how great was the popularity of men whom I knew – such as George Thompson, the M.P. for the Tower Hamlets and the founder of The Empire newspaper – and how fleeting that popularity was! Truly the earth has bubbles as the water hath! Equally unexpected has been the rise of others. Sir Edward Russell, of The Liverpool Daily Post, when I first knew him was a banker’s clerk in the City, which situation he gave up, against my advice, to become the editor of The Islington Gazette. Mr. Passmore Edwards, of The Echo, at one time M.P. for Salisbury, and one of the wisest and most beneficent of philanthropists, when I first knew him was a struggling publisher in Horse Shoe Court, Ludgate Hill; Mr. Edward Miall, M.P. for Bradford, the founder of The Nonconformist newspaper and of the Anti-State Church Association, as the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control loved to describe itself – (good heavens, what a mouthful!) – was an Independent minister at Leicester. How many whom I knew as pressmen are gone! Of one of them I would fain recall the memory, and that is Mr. James Clarke, of The Christian World, with whom it was my privilege to be associated many a long year. In all my experience of editors I never knew a more honourable, upright man, or one of greater clearness of head and kindliness of heart. He died prematurely, but not till he had revolutionised the whole tone of our popular theology. It was an honour to be connected with such a man. He commenced life as a reporter, and lived to be a wealthy man by the paper he conducted with such skill. And what a friend he was to the struggling literary man or reporter! I lay emphasis on this, because my reviewers sometimes tell me I am cynical. I ask, How can a man be otherwise who has been behind the scenes, as I have been, for nearly fifty years?

One meets with curious characters among the gentlemen of the Press. I recall the memory of one who was often to be seen in Fleet Street at the time I was in Mr. Cassell’s employ. He was fair-haired, short and stout in figure, very good-natured, with an amount of cheek only equalled by his ignorance. Originally, I think he had been a printer, till his ambition soon led him to fly at higher game, and under a military nom-de-plume he compiled several handbooks of popular games – games of which, by the bye, he knew as little as a Hottentot – and, I believe, came to be the sporting correspondent of a London paper – a position he held at the time of his death. For statements that were rather unreliable he had a capacity which almost bordered on the sublime. On one occasion he walked up Ludgate Hill with an acquaintance of my own, and nodded familiarly to certain individuals. That was Dickens, he said to my friend, after one of these friendly encounters. Of another he explained, that was Thackeray, and so on. Unfortunately, however, my friend knew that the individual thus pointed was engaged as a bookseller’s assistant in the Row. Once when I happened to meet him he was rather seedy, which he accounted for to me by the remark that he had been dining with a lord – a statement about as true as the generality of his remarks. He was very good-natured – it was impossible to offend him – and wrote touching poems in cheap journals about this “fog-dotted earth,” which never did anybody any harm so far as I was aware of. He was one of the numerous tribe who impose on publishers by their swagger till they are found out. Another of the same class was a gentleman of a higher station and with scholarly pretensions. On one occasion he served me rather a scurvy trick. I had published a volume of sketches of British statesmen. One of the characters, a very distinguished politician, died soon after. My gentleman at that time was engaged to write biographical sketches of such exalted personages when they died, and accordingly he wrote an article which appeared the next day in one of the morning papers. On reading it, I found it was almost word for word the sketch which I had written in my own book, without the slightest acknowledgment. On my remonstrating, he complained that the absence of acknowledgment was quite accidental. Owing to the hurry in which he wrote, he had quite forgotten to mention my name, and if I would say nothing about it, he would do me a good service at the first opportunity. My friend failed to do so. Indeed, I may say that as a literary man his career was somewhat of a failure, though he managed for a time to secure appointments on good newspapers, and became connected with more than one or two distinguished firms of publishers. He was known to many, yet I never heard any one say a good word on his behalf.

I always avoided literary society. Perhaps in that respect I did wrong as regards my own interest, for I find the pressmen who belong to clubs are always ready to give each other a helping hand in the way of good-natured reference, and hence so much of that mutual admiration which forms so marked a feature in the literary gossip of our day, and which is of such little interest to the general reader. When I read such stuff I am reminded of the chambermaid who said to a lady acquaintance, “I hear it is all over London already that I am going to leave my lady,” and of the footman who, being newly married, desired his comrade to tell him freely what the town thought of it. It is seldom that literary men shine in conversation, and that was one reason I cared little to belong to any of the literary clubs which existed, and I dare say exist now. Dean Swift seems to have been of a similar opinion. He tells us the worst conversation he ever remembered to have heard in his life was that at Wells’ Coffee House, where the wits, as they were termed, used formerly to assemble. They talked of their plays or prologues or Miscellanies, he tells us, as if they had been the noblest effort of human nature, and, as if the fate of kingdoms depended on them. When Greek meets Greek there comes, we are told, the tug of war. When literary men meet, as a rule, the very reverse is the case. I belonged to the Whittington Club – now, alas! extinct – for it was the best institution of the kind ever started in London, of which Douglas Jerrold was president, and where young men found a home with better society than they could get elsewhere, and where we had debates, in which many, who have since risen to fame and fortune, learned how to speak – perhaps a questionable benefit in those days of perpetual talk. One of our prominent members was Sir J. W. Russell, who still, I am happy to say, flourishes as the popular editor of The Liverpool Daily Post.