At certain intervals, ever since the days of Solomon, it has been found
necessary, as a matter of sheer duty, to lift the voice of warning
against that much study which wearies the flesh, and the making many
books of which there is no end. It is now several years since a strong
protest was raised in this Magazine against the too common and most
reprehensible practice of raking among dead men’s ashes, and violating
the confidences of the living, for no higher purpose than the
gratification of biographic weakness and vulgar curiosity. Man is
indeed, as Goethe has said, ever interesting to man, and no species of
bookmaking finds readier excuses than biography. But man ought also to
be sacred to man; and of all the injuries that can be inflicted on a
dead man’s memory, none is more cruel than the act of the friendly ghoul
who unnecessarily recalls him from the silence of the grave. _Corruptio
optimi est pessissima._ Biography, well done, is one of the most
instructive and interesting kinds of composition; ill done, it is about
the worst. We call it ill done, either when a good subject is marred in
the handling, or when the choice is an unworthy one. The number of men
whose lives are worthy to be recorded for an ensample to mankind is
really small. In saying so we are far from meaning to express a
contemptuous opinion of human nature. Some of the best men that ever
lived were those whose lives had fewest incidents, and offered the
scantiest materials for the ingenuity of the bookmaker. Happy, it is
said, is the nation whose annals are dull—happy also the man whose life
escapes the chronicler, who passes at the end of his day’s work into the
silent land, to enjoy “No biography, and the privilege of all the
weary.”
A stupid biography of an interesting person is indeed a very lamentable
thing; and not only so, but a grave injustice alike to the dead and to
the living. Since the protest alluded to was uttered, there has been no
lack of this sad work. The most conspicuous recent examples that occur
to us are the Lives of Thomas Moore and of Lady Blessington. But though
the life of a man of genius, served up in the form of hodge-podge, is
rather a melancholy repast, there are biographic nuisances less
tolerable still. The features of a Jupiter or an Apollo may be hard to
recognise in the plaster of an incompetent dabbler; but if the model
were really a noble one, something of the god will break through to
edify the spectator. It is different, however, with the rude idol of the
savage. The biography of a respectable mediocrity is, it may be safely
said, among the least interesting or useful of literary performances.
Minerva Press novels are bad enough (those who think the species is
extinct are greatly mistaken); spasmodic poems are anything but
enlivening; and numismatic treatises are not ambrosial fare; but against
any of these we would back for true invincible unreadableness the Memoir
and Remains, we will suppose, of the Rev. Jabez Jones, D.D., late pastor
of Ramoth-Gilead Chapel, Battersea. We select our instance from the
class of religious biographies, because it is by far the most numerous,
and the most distinctly chargeable with the sin of bookmaking. Jabez, we
have no doubt, was in his day and generation an excellent man, though
given, as his Memoirs of course will amply testify, to unnecessary
groaning. But why his life should have been written, is a mystery to be
solved only by the astute publisher, who calculates on a sale of several
hundred copies among the bereaved congregation of Ramoth-Gilead. The
sorrowful biographer, whose name on the title-page plainly marks him as
an eligible candidate for the degree of D.D., will inform us in a
“sweet” preface that the materials of the present work were put into his
hands, &c.; that, painfully conscious of his own inability, he had long,
&c.; but that a perusal of the documents had so deeply impressed him
with the importance of giving the world, &c.; that such as it is, in
short, he commits it—and then is pretty certain to follow a piece of
nauseous blasphemy as to the nature of the patronage to which the pious
speculation is held entitled.[5] The number is perfectly sickening of
bereaved husbands, sons, and fathers, who practise this strange alchemy
on the penitential tears and devout breathings, the sick-bed utterances
and dying ejaculations of sainted wives, mothers, and babes.
But bad as it is causelessly to exhume the poor victim of mortality in
order to make him sit for his likeness, the posthumous method of
biography is the natural and becoming one. Only when a man has finished
his work, and escaped beyond the reach of human passions and cares, is
it fitting to delineate his character and trace the story of his devious
path through life. The practice of biographising living men, however,
has now become very common. The publication of éloges used formerly to
be reserved as a posthumous honour, but this generation is wiser, and
writes the éloge while the subject of it can himself enjoy its perusal
in the land of the living and the place of hope. One would think it a
curious evidence of regard, independently of the question of delicacy,
to adopt so suggestive a method of reminding a man that he is due to
posterity. But tastes differ, and some men are not averse to the Charles
V. method of trying on their shrouds, to see, as the old woman said,
what “a bonnie corpse” they will make. With us in Britain this practice
of spiritual vivisection, or _ante-mortem_ inquests, has been confined
for the most part to short sketches, pretentiously critical in general,
and very seldom of any value. Fundamentally gossiping in its character,
this school of literary sketchers (what may be called the Biographical
Life Academy) has appealed mainly to the weak curiosity that hungers
after any small scraps of information regarding the private life and
habits of living notorieties. Such curiosity is no doubt extremely
natural, but the men who have undertaken the function of gratifying it,
have, as might be supposed, been distinguished by no qualities less than
by discernment and good taste, correctness of outline being with them a
small consideration compared to abundance and strength of colour. This
vulgar species of authorship, the servants’-hall gossip of the literary
family, has, we hope, seen its palmy days.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the business seems to
flourish, like all other business, with great briskness. Our American
friends, excellent people as they are in so many respects, have long
been known to us as pre-eminent in the gossiping line; one of the chief
characteristics of the Anglo-American race being intense curiosity—an
admirable principle, as every one knows, when subordinate to a high end,
a decided weakness when not. To say that the American people universally
are influenced by the spirit of vulgar curiosity, would be as unjust as
it would be to charge the whole British nation with foulness of taste
because the _Mysteries of London_ has found myriads of readers. But that
the fashion has been exemplified very extensively by Americans of making
the public familiar with the insides of private drawing-rooms, and
telling the world how popular poets and historians handle a tea-pot or
blow their noses, is a fact not to be denied. Among a people
recognising, or professing to recognise, as the fundamental principle of
government and society, the Irishman’s profound axiom, that “one man is
as good as another—faith, and a great dale betther too!” it is not
indeed surprising that in the sphere of literature, as well as in
others, they should make more free with the characters and habits of
private life than is by us old-fashioned Britons considered tasteful and
becoming. Having now, however, passed their infancy, and in literature
as well as in social development “progressed” towards manhood, it is
high time that they should put away childish things. It has always
grieved us to see citizens of the great Republic betray so weak-minded a
delight in scrutinising the costume and domesticities of English
aristocrats, or the private life and fixings of American democrats.
In the department of contemporary biography, it must be confessed our
energetic cousins have fairly got the start of us. It seems, in fact, to
have attained the rank of an “institution” among the other beautiful
machinery of their political life. When Jullien visits the provinces, he
heralds his coming by means of a set of fascinating portraits, which
announce from every print and music shop window that the great Conductor
is at hand. Somewhat similar, but more intellectual and elaborate, is
the proceeding of the American “coming man.” No aspiring senator now
thinks of trying for the Presidency without securing in good time the
services of a competent biographer to relate the heroic story of his
life, and make his transcendent merits known to all whom it may concern.
Even a meditative Hawthorne turns his vision-weaving pen to such
service, and considers it no way unworthy of his genius to polish off an
electioneering biography of General Franklin Pierce. So deeply do
politics mingle in the current of American life; so sweet to the
aspiring statesman are the uses of biography!
But if the lives of politicians be written for the admiration of mankind
and the good of the State, should the lives of the mightier men who make
and unmake presidents and governments be esteemed less worthy of that
honour? Assuredly not. At it then, ye diligent Yankee scribes, and
hasten to convert into obsolete absurdity the oft-quoted line of the
dull old fellow who sang—
“The world knows little of its greatest men.”
Let it not henceforth be said, to the reproach of civilisation, that the
world was ignorant during their lives of the birth and genealogy, the
schoolboy adventures and manly freaks, the trials and the triumphs of
such men as Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett. Be careful to
inform us, ye veracious cinder-gatherers—for posterity will not pardon
the omission—the length, breadth, and weight of these remarkable
men,—their complete phrenological development (so far as the addition of
abnormal bumps by hostile shillelahs can permit accuracy),—the kind of
clothes they wear—the kind of pens they write with, whether quill, iron,
or brass—the ink they use, whether common blue-black or sometimes
black-and-blue, or perhaps a cunning distillation of ditch-water—the
attitude in which they sit when discharging their thunder at the heads
of kings and cabinets, or composing their delicate invectives at one
another;—in short, let us have perfect daguerreotypes of these supremely
interesting and estimable men.
Behold! the thing is done, the good work has actually been commenced.
There, lying before us, in all the square-rigged ugliness of New York
upgetting, are the first-fruits of this new field of biographic
enterprise—the lives, in two stout volumes, of the “two noble kinsmen,”
the two great Arcadians whose names we have above mentioned. Many of our
readers, perhaps not grossly illiterate persons either, will look up and
ask, Who are Horace Greeley and James Gordon Bennett? While duly pitying
the limitation of culture implied in such a query, we cannot be too hard
on these poor ignoramuses, as we must plead guilty to having been
ourselves frequently staggered, in reading American books, by meeting
names associated with those of Milton and Aristides, as utterly new to
us as was, till recently, that of his Majesty Kamehameha III., Dei
gratiâ king of the Sandwich Islands. These two men, then, let all such
ignoramuses know, are the editors of two widely circulated New York
papers—the two most widely circulated, we believe, of any in America.[6]
What other claims they have to the honours of biography and the
remembrance of posterity, we shall consider by-and-by. Meantime we have
to say of the books that they are the most unique things in the way of
biography, or indeed of literature, that have come in our way since
America, about a year ago, furnished us with the autobiography of one of
her smartest citizens. They are of very different character—as different
as the men whose lives they profess to record—but in both the biographic
muse appears in a state of decided inebriety, highly unbecoming the
ancient dignity of her vocation. In the work of Mr Parton she is what is
called half-seas over, unsteadily hilarious, and amusingly absurd,
hiccuping out smart things now and then in a way that is irresistible,
then suddenly looking grave and uttering sublimities that are still more
outrageously laughable. In the anonymous companion-volume she is far
gone towards mortal insensibility; she might be said, in fact, to be in
_delirium tremens_, but that there is not a single flash of the wild
energy that diversifies the symptoms of that shocking malady. It is pure
dazed stupidity and double-vision from beginning to end. We have met
nothing comparable to it in all our experience of biographies.
The sole ground on which these volumes claim any notice, contemptible as
they both are (though not in equal degree) in matter and treatment, is
that which gave some importance to the infamous revelations of Barnum.
They are in some degree typical; their subjects at least are so in a
very considerable degree—“representative men” of their kind, and so far
important. A newspaper editor is in all civilised countries an important
personage. We are not going here to enter on an elaborate consideration
of the functions and influence of the press—so let nobody dread a
homily. The subject has been often enough handled well and ill, and
lately we have heard a good deal about it. We are nowadays rather given
to flourishing about the “Fourth Estate.” There is a tendency towards
cant on this as on all other interesting subjects. The Fourth Estate is
a grand fact, but let those who have any pretensions to connection with
it rather strive to keep it so than talk magniloquently about it. As for
those who have not, let them take care that it does its duty, and does
not go beyond it. Newspaper editors, we say, are important personages;
but they are like other human beings, some of them eminent for intellect
and virtue, many of them highly respectable for both, others of them
dignified by neither. The anomalous and fluctuating conditions of
newspaper life make it inevitable that men should sometimes attain high
influence in virtue of connection with the press, whom neither nature
nor education has eminently qualified for the guidance of their
fellow-men. This applies, of course, peculiarly (though not exclusively)
to America, where, on the admirable Irishman’s maxim above quoted,
everybody is equally fit for everything—faith, and a great deal fitter
too! where toll-keepers and publicans are colonels in the army, and the
man who fails as a ratcatcher turns his hand to preaching, and, if that
fail also, straightway sets up a newspaper. But though applying
peculiarly to the American press, our statement is not exclusive of
Britain. Journalism is becoming, indeed, with us more and more of a
recognised profession—a profession, too, calling for special gifts and
training—gifts and training, higher and more liberal, to those who think
rightly of their vocation, than do any of the three hitherto exclusively
entitled “learned.” The press is no more with us, if ever it has been, a
kind of literary Diggings, where the outcasts and desperadoes, the halt,
the maimed, and the blind, of every other calling, may find a precarious
refuge and irregular adventurer-work, from forging of thunderbolts to
winnowing of ash-buckets. But it is true, nevertheless, that the
fundamental conditions of success in this career are compatible with a
moral and intellectual standard by no means exalted. It is a common
mistake, that high literary ability is the first requisite for editorial
success. The fact is nearly the other way. The first requisite is
knowledge of men, the second confidence, and the third perseverance. Let
a man possess the concentrated gifts of a whole academy of _belles
lettres_, and be deficient in shrewd practical discernment of what suits
the public, he may pipe ever so melodiously, but he will get few
subscribers to dance. Let him know, or imagine that he knows, ever so
well what suits the public, if he have not a quick eye to see what other
men are fit for, and how far they can be trusted to do his work, he may
shut his shop and retire. Let him possess encyclopædic knowledge, and
the readiest flow of winged words, but if he be not a man of
hard-working, dogged persistence, he might as well sow the great Sahara
as undertake to conduct a newspaper. A paper once fairly established
may, indeed, conduct itself successfully, despite an unpractical and
easy editor; for good machinery compels even inert matter into activity
and order. But to rear a paper into vigorous existence amid a host of
competitors—to make bricks without straw, and snatch the bread of
victory out of the jaws of famine—the editor or conductor must be, in
the first place, a man of business—it is of very subordinate importance
that he be a man of letters. Hence it is sometimes objected, that
newspapers, being in so many cases merely commercial speculations, must
necessarily subordinate principle to profit. The objection is neither
sound in logic, nor, in this country at least, true in fact. The
manufacturer of shawls and blankets is not the less an honest man and
estimable citizen because his primary object is not the good of the
community but his own private advantage. His shawls and blankets are not
the less excellent and indispensable because he converts them into pelf.
If the shawl-manufacturer indeed become a power in the State, and begin
to arrogate high virtue to himself for his services to the public, and
to dictate laws in virtue of the prosperity of his business, it is
reasonable that we should apply to him something analogous to the
question, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Applying this test to the
press of our own country, we arrive, on the whole, at satisfactory
conclusions. If we do not see so much as we could wish of a grave sense
of responsibility, and a careful weighing of facts and motives, we know
how much is due to the terrible exigencies of time. This we are assured
of, that in no other profession or occupation is there more of manliness
and fair play; in none other is the professional honour so untarnished
by the contact of lucre; and, so far as chastity of sentiment and
expression is concerned, “the freest press in Europe (Mr Macaulay might
have said, in the world) is also the most prudish.” Occasional examples
of recklessness and violence, of meanness and bad taste, invalidate in
no wise the force of this general assertion. Newspaper editors and
writers are, we repeat, human like others. To expect that they should in
every case display faultless wisdom and virtue is a devout imagination,
but an extremely vain and irrational one. As to the paltry £. S. D.
considerations, we have, for our own part, often admired, as a striking
example of the innate virtue of human nature, despite its depravity, the
magnanimous zeal which sustains so many newspaper proprietors in the
task of instructing the public at a very swinging loss to themselves!
The power of the press is greatly aided, as every one knows, by the
mystery which shrouds the writer, merging all personality of the
individual in the mysterious plurality of the organ through which he
speaks. It is not John or Thomas that proclaims the danger of the
nation, the incapacity of a Minister, the justice or injustice of a
deed. It is an unknown voice, uttered out of darkness, and therefore
formidable—the voice not of one, but of many, and therefore claiming
respect. The voice of a Greek tragedian sounded through his mask more
awful than it really was; and the majestic buskin raised a very ordinary
figure to the kingly height of Agamemnon. The “we” of John or Thomas,
through the speaking-trumpet of the _Times_, becomes a very different
pronoun from the “I” of these gentlemen uttered through their individual
windpipes. If any argument were necessary to prove that this formidable
anonymousness is not only essential to the liberty of the press, but the
true safeguard of its health and honesty, we might point for proof to
the Press of those States, whether despotic or free, where it is not
tolerated. In the United States, for example, there is almost as little
anonymous writing as in Paris or Vienna. There is no statute on the
subject, and no legal censorship exists, but the state of public feeling
makes it almost impossible for a man to conceal his personality. The
writer may not put his name to his articles, but if he does not, it is
only because he finds it unnecessary. Is the press there more honest,
more discreet, more tender of individual character than in Britain? No
candid American will answer that question with an affirmative. The press
of America is not the less formidable, not the more honest and
scrupulous, that its principal writers are known or notorious men.
The character of the two nations is illustrated by some of their
distinctive peculiarities in this respect. With us the tendency is to
merge the individual in the body—with them the notion of liberty is
associated with the clear recognition of individual independence. Here
the newspaper editor is generally the invisible head of an
association—there he is a right-well-known entity of flesh and blood, as
cowhide and rattan applications have too often most strikingly
demonstrated. There the journal is generally his, and his name figures
conspicuously at the head of its columns—here he belongs more frequently
to the journal, and, while wielding a great power in the community, his
personal existence is a kind of myth, and his name may never have been
heard by the great majority of his readers. The American editor, on the
contrary, must make himself known, or he will not be listened to. All
pugnacious republicans must have the means of knowing who it is that
abuses them. The occupant of the White House must be made familiar with
the name of the man who attacks or defends his policy, whose mouth may
be silenced, or whose fidelity rewarded by a due share of the federal
dollars. Let it not be imagined that any uncomplimentary remarks we make
on the American press are intended to apply universally. So speaking, we
should convict ourselves at once of ignorance and dishonesty. There are
American newspapers and editors of high and unblemished character, as
there are American politicians worthy of a better fate than to be kept
waiting three months for the election of a Speaker. But of the American
press generally the criticism still holds good, that, while boasting to
be the freest in the world, it is in practical thraldom to an
inextricably tangled system of democratic terrorism. Improvement there
has been, we delight to think, within the last dozen years—so much so,
that even papers which were the very offscourings of journalism, have
become, in their European editions at least, fit for decent mortals to
read. Out of a total of nearly three thousand papers, circulating among
so mixed and changeful a population, it is little wonder, also, that
there should be a large class of papers at which a cultivated man of any
nation must look with contempt and sorrow. We know too well, from
examples in our own colonies—as in India and Australia—how, in
heterogeneous and young communities, where men of high talent and
education seldom resort except in the established paths to success,
newspapers are apt to fall into the hands either of government agents or
of reckless adventurers, with the natural result, in the one case, of
insolence and servility, in the other, of indecent violence and
gossiping personality. That, therefore, in a country like the United
States, where men of intelligence and enterprise are never at a loss for
profitable occupation, the press should be left in a great measure to
those who can get nothing better to do, need not surprise us; nor, as
the necessary result, that its moral and intellectual standard should
hitherto have been such as a civilised and educated nation would, if it
were not too busy, and too jealous of foreign criticism, have viewed
with consternation as a professed mirror of itself.
While willingly granting thus much, the painful fact remains, that the
papers which have all along enjoyed the largest share of public
countenance in the United States, are those whose conductors have most
openly set at defiance every sentiment of justice, decency, and good
taste. The mere circulation of a journal is not, indeed, a conclusive
test of its importance as an organ of public opinion, but it clearly
enough points out what way the taste of the majority lies, and in a land
of universal suffrage it gauges exactly the amount of its political
influence. Our _Weekly Dispatch_ has perhaps twenty readers for the
_Spectator’s_ one, but the one reader probably has more power in the
commonwealth than the twenty. In a commonwealth, on the other hand,
where all men are equally good, a hundred thousand Barnums are as good
as a thousand centuries of Washington—faith, and in American politics,
“a great dale betther too!” Thus it is that the most widely circulated
paper becomes the greatest power in the State, and a power to which,
even while loathing it, presidents and politicians are forced to bow the
knee. Unwilling as we are that Mr James Gordon Bennett should lose any
of the benefit accruing to him from these remarks (which, of course, he
will turn duly to account),[7] we have no hesitation in saying that they
are intended to apply _par excellence_ to the organ which, under his
consummate management, has resolved one of the most singular problems of
modern times. That problem may be stated thus: Given the minimum of
literary ability, and the maximum of moral worthlessness—to educe out of
their combination a machinery which shall control the political action
of a Great Republic, and attain a leading place among the recognised
mouthpieces of twenty million English-speaking freemen. There is a
question of maxima and minima over which Dr Whewell might puzzle his
knowing head till doomsday, if he omitted to take into his calculations
an element or two of the plus description! What these elements are, we
must, however, leave for after consideration. In the mean time we
propose to treat our readers to a few of the biographic delicacies
furnished by the considerate Mr J. Parton. We consider his volume in
every way entitled to the precedence. It was the first published, and
evidently suggested the rival performance. It has all the marks of
honesty about it, and, compared with the Life of Bennett, is a perfect
_chef-d’œuvre_ of ability. Its subject, in like manner, if considerably
removed from our idea of a hero or a gentleman, is, compared with the
editor of the _New York Herald_, a very Bayard in chivalry, a Job in
uprightness.
Mr Parton sets about his work in a very thorough-going manner. The
industry with which he has raked together all the information that could
possibly be gathered regarding not only Horace Greeley, but Horace’s
ancestors to the third and fourth generation, is quite inconceivable;
and his own ingenuous account of his preliminary labours is well
calculated to awaken, if not the admiration, at least the astonishment
of the reader. The style of procedure is exquisitely characteristic;
and, as he himself phrases it, “the reader has a right to know the
manner” thereof. Let us thank heaven that the promulgation of the recipe
is not likely here to instigate imitation. First of all, the ingenious
youth procures, “from various sources, a list of Mr Greeley’s early
friends, partners, and relations; also a list of the places at which he
had resided.” The young bloodhound! This done, “all those places I
visited; with as many of those persons as I could find I conversed, and
endeavoured to extract from them all that they knew of the early life of
my hero.” From these veracious sources this high-minded young scribbler
compiled the narrative of the great man’s early years, not disdaining
even to accost drunken “old soakers” on the highway who might “hiccough
out” a little tale about Greeley; and where he could not ferret out
information on the spot, applying for it _by letter_. But this was a
small portion of the self-imposed labour, which included a diligent
inspection of the complete files of the “_New Yorker_, _Log Cabin_,
_Jeffersonian_, _American Laborer_, _Whig Almanac_, and _Tribune_,”
nearly every number of which, “more than five thousand in all,” he
carefully examined. After such a course of reading, our wonder is, not
that the biographic muse is slightly maudlin, but that she survived to
put two sentences together!
We are treated to a preliminary sketch of the history of Londonderry
(not omitting the siege), and the Scoto-Irish colony who thence
emigrated to New England. To the hasty reader all this may seem highly
unnecessary, but to those who are desirous deeply to penetrate into a
“nature” so uncommon as that of Horace Greeley, it is supremely
important, as we are told that “from his maternal ancestors he derived
much that distinguishes him from men in general.” Another chapter is
devoted to the paternal ancestors, regarding one of whom it is
interesting to learn that he was a “cross old dog,” “as cunning as
Lucifer,” and that he died at the age of sixty-five, with “all his teeth
sound!” At length, at page 33, we come to the great fact of Horace’s
birth. As has been the case with many great men, it was attended with
some remarkable circumstances. To these our biographer does full
justice. His account of the interesting scene is too fine to be
omitted:—
“The mode of his entrance upon the stage of the world was, to say the
least of it, unusual. The effort was almost too much for him, and, to
use the language of one who was present, ‘he came into the world as
black as a chimney.’ There was no sign of life. He uttered no cry; he
made no motion; he did not breathe. But the little discolored stranger
had articles to write, and was not permitted to escape his destiny. In
this alarming crisis of his existence, a kind-hearted and experienced
aunt came to his rescue, and by arts, which to kind-hearted and
experienced aunts are well known, but of which the present chronicler
remains in ignorance, the boy was brought to life. He soon began to
breathe; then he began to blush; and by the time he had attained the
age of twenty minutes, lay on his mother’s arm, a red and smiling
infant.”
If the reader does not grant that to be one of the most graceful
climaxes in biographic literature, we shall not write another word.
Presuming on a general unanimity on this point, we proceed. The red and
smiling infant in due time of course turned out a prodigy; “he took to
learning with the promptitude and instinctive irrepressible love with
which a duck is said to take to the water,” and was able to read “before
he had learned to talk.” In spelling he soon became pre-eminent; and
great marvels are recorded of his orthographic prowess. Unfortunately he
was less distinguished by those virtues which we usually desiderate in
boys. Though never afraid of ghosts, or overawed by superiority of rank
or knowledge, he was eminently deficient in physical courage. “When
attacked, he would neither fight nor run away, but ‘stand still and take
it;’” the report of a gun “would almost throw him into convulsions.”
Fishing and bee-hunting were the only sports he cared for, “but his love
of fishing did not originate in what the Germans call the ‘sport
impulse.’ Other boys fished for sport; Horace fished for _fish_.”
Bee-hunting, again, “was profitable sport, and Horace liked it
amazingly. His share of honey generally found its way to the store.” His
passion for books was generally attributed to indolence, and it was
often predicted that Horace would never “get on.” Superficial idea! Even
in very early life, says Mr Parton complacently, he gave proof “that the
Yankee element was strong within him. In the first place, he was always
_doing_ something; and in the second, he had always something to
_sell_.”
Notwithstanding Horace’s remarkable cleverness, we are told that he was
sometimes taken for an idiot—a stranger having once inquired, on his
entering a “store” in a brown study, “what darn fool is that?” Even his
own father declared that the boy would “never know more than enough to
come in when it rains.” These pleasing anecdotes are given on the
authority of a bibulous old wretch, whom the indefatigable Mr Parton
encountered and cross-questioned on the highway. He was quite drunk at
the time, but “as the tribute of a sot to the champion of the Maine Law,
the old man’s harangue was highly interesting.” Mr Parton sets it down
to the praise of his hero, that though brought up in the bosom of New
England orthodoxy, “from the age of twelve he began to doubt,” and “from
the age of fourteen he was known, wherever he lived, as the champion of
Universalism.” Here the biographer indulges in what he considers
appropriate reflections, and points out to his readers the valuable
effects of youthful infidelity. “The boy,” he coolly observes, “seems to
have shed his orthodoxy easily.”[8] Horace Greeley was in a fair way of
training for his editorship.
The juvenile Universalist had long been ambitious of becoming a printer,
and at last obtained a vacant apprenticeship in the office of Mr Amos
Bliss, proprietor of the _Northern Spectator_. The great event is
described with elaborate circumstantiality. The young “tow-head” proved
a first-rate workman, and presently tried his hand at composition. “The
injurious practice of writing ‘compositions,’” says his biographer, “was
not among the exercises of any of the schools which he had attended.”
Considering the general literary character of editorial writing in the
United States, we are not surprised to find an American pronounce the
early practice of composition _injurious_; the sentiment evidently is
not peculiar to Mr Parton. Early attention to style might of course tend
to weaken that native force in the use of epithets which apparently
conduces so much to editorial success. Horace also joined a debating
society, where he proved himself a perfect “giant.” His manners were
entirely free from aristocratic taint, or any weak tendency to
politeness. “He stood on no ceremony at the table; he _fell to_ without
waiting to be asked or helped, devoured everything right and left,
stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and vanished instantly.” Again,
“when any topic of interest was started at the table, he joined in it
with the utmost confidence, and maintained his opinion against anybody.”
He never went to tea-parties, never joined in an excursion, and “seldom
went to church.” A most interesting young man, on the whole, was Horace
Greeley.
At length the _Northern Spectator_ broke down, and the apprentice was
left to shift for himself. His departure is described in quite a choice
Minerva-Press style. “It was a fine cool breezy morning in the month of
June 1830; Nature had assumed those robes of brilliant green which she
wears only in June, and welcomed the wanderer forth with that heavenly
smile which plays upon her changeful countenance _only when she is
attired in her best_. Deceptive smile!” &c. &c. Horace at length
determined to try his fortune in New York, and with ten dollars in his
pocket, a shabby suit on his back, and a small bundle on his stick,
landed “at sunrise, on Friday the 18th of August 1831,” near the
Battery. The biographer, as in duty bound, comes out strong, and
Benjamin Franklin, with his penny roll, appears in the proper place to
garnish the story. “The princes of the mind,” says he, waxing sublime,
“always remain incog. till they come to the throne.” Poor Horace’s
appearance “was all against him.” Certainly, if the vignette
representation of the youth with which Mr Parton has adorned his volume
conveys any adequate idea of his aspect that morning, the statement is
emphatically true. The prince of the mind was incog. with a vengeance—a
more calculating and skinny-looking young Yankee it would be difficult
to imagine. To the portrait on the opposite page, of the adult Horace in
his white greatcoat—bought from an Irish emigrant!—we must, however,
give the palm as a thoroughly characteristic representation of a
full-blown Yankee Wilkes-Bentham Socialist, Maine Law champion,
Vegetarian, Spirit-rappist, and we don’t know what else. The following
bit of information is important:—
“The gentleman to whose intercession Horace Greeley owed his first
employment in New York, is now known to all the dentists in the Union
as the leading member of a firm which manufactures annually twelve
thousand artificial teeth. He has made a fortune, the reader will be
glad to learn, and lives in a mansion up town.”
To the event which gave Horace his “First Lift” in the world, the
biographer devotes a whole chapter. That event was the establishment of
the first Penny Paper. The idea originated in the head of an unfortunate
medical student afflicted by Providence with ready cash to the amount of
fifteen hundred dollars. Horatio David Sheppard, unwisely neglecting his
pestle and scalpel, took to dabbling in newspapers and magazines, and in
due time found himself _minus_ his dollars. Speculatively musing as he
passed through Chatham Street, a great mart of penny wares, he was
struck with the rapid sales effected by the energetic stall-keepers and
itinerant venders of shoe-laces. Parting with an odd cent or penny
seemed so natural and easy a proceeding that the offer of any article
for that sum seemed irresistible. Might not a newspaper be produced at
one cent with certain success? The idea, it must be admitted, was a
happy one. As might have been expected, however, the proposal at first
excited unbounded ridicule, and for eighteen months Dr Sheppard could
not get “one man” to believe in its feasibility. At last, on New Year’s
Day, 1833, appeared the _Morning Post_, published by “Greeley and
Story,” price two cents. It lived only twenty-one days, dying from pure
want of funds. The idea was soon after successfully realised by other
speculators, and in a few years the penny press was able to take society
by the throat. Its first reception is thus described:—
“When the respectable New Yorker first saw a penny paper, he gazed at
it (I saw him) with a feeling similar to that with which an
ill-natured man may be supposed to regard General Tom Thumb, a feeling
of mingled curiosity and contempt; he put the ridiculous little thing
into his waistcoat pocket to carry home for the amusement of his
family; and he wondered what nonsense would be perpetrated _next_.”
If such was the reception of the cheap press among the go-ahead New
Yorkers, it need not surprise us that in our own steady-going community
it should have been still less favourable. The experience of the last
few months, however, has pretty well demonstrated the absurdity of the
principal objections. The anticipated peril to the health of society
has, as every believer in the national good sense well knew, proved a
chimera. British intellect and morals fortunately are not dependent on
taxes and high price; and the gradual removal of all restrictions on the
freedom of the press has only shown more signally that this people needs
no legal bridling to keep on the path of decency and order. The number
of cheap papers has indeed proved much smaller than was anticipated, few
people seeming to have been aware how much energy and capital are
required for the establishment of a paying penny paper—a fact which was
alone sufficient to answer the fears of those who looked in June 1855
for the coming of the Deluge. In New York the case unfortunately was far
otherwise. The Father of the American Penny Press, if to any one man
that title is due, must be regarded as having treated his country in a
way the reverse of what St Patrick did for Ireland—as a male Pandora, in
fact, who opened the lid that shut in a countless brood of very hideous
creatures. The thing will end well, we hope, as we hope for a
millennium; and improvement, as we have admitted, there already is. But
that the birth of the cheap press in America was followed by a deluge of
quackery, virulence, and indecency which has not yet entirely subsided,
is a fact written in disgraceful characters on pages innumerable, and
legible on the skins of men now living, had they not been tougher than
bison’s hide. That such should have been the result of cheapening the
favourite stimulant of the American rabble was perfectly inevitable, and
that the new development of journalism was accompanied by marked
features of superiority is undeniable. The increase of violence and
slander was itself a point of superiority in the eyes of the vulgar
herd,—for coarseness passed for strength, and scurrility for smartness,
the American’s “darling attribute.” But, among a people of intense
activity and inquisitiveness, the increased energy in the procuring of
news (whether true or false) must be looked upon as the chief cause of
the immense popularity attained in so few years by the principal
American journals. To this source, rather than to any general
predilection for the vile and malicious, would we seek to attribute the
extraordinary success of papers in which libel and indecency constituted
a regular stock in trade. This is certainly no excuse for the patronage
so bestowed, but it at least helps to explain it in a way not utterly
destructive of our respect for a whole community.
And now, to return to our Horace. Of his dignified manners towards his
workmen the following may suffice as an example. It is interesting,
moreover, as showing that the extraordinary voracity of his early years
had given place to utter indifference to considerations so low as the
eating of dinner:—
“There was not even the show or pretence of discipline in the office.
One of the journeymen made an outrageous caricature of his employer,
and showed it to him one day as he came from dinner. ‘Who’s that?’
asked the man. ‘That’s me,’ said the master, with a smile, and passed
into his work: The men made a point of appearing to differ in opinion
from him on every subject, because they liked to hear him talk; and,
one day, after a long debate, he exclaimed, ‘Why, men, if I were to
say that that black man there was black, you’d all swear he was
white.’ He worked with all his former intensity and absorption. Often
such conversations as these took place in the office about the middle
of the day:—
“(H. G., looking up from his work)—Jonas, have I been to dinner?
“(Mr Winchester)—You ought to know best. I don’t know.
“(H. G.)—John, have I been to dinner?
“(John)—I believe not. Has he, Tom?
“To which Tom would reply ‘no,’ or ‘yes,’ according to his own
recollection or John’s wink; and if the office generally concurred in
Tom’s decision, Horace would either go to dinner or resume his work,
in unsuspecting accordance therewith.”
With that interesting proneness to heresy of all kinds which
distinguishes Mr Greeley, he soon after adopted the semi-vegetarian
principles of a certain Rev. Dr Graham, who, says the biographer, “was a
_discoverer_ of the facts, that most of us are sick, and that none of us
need be; that disease is impious and _disgraceful_, the result in almost
every instance of folly or crime.” The italics are Mr Parton’s, whose
digestion, it is to be hoped, is unexceptionable.
At length, early in 1834, Horace, with two partners, started the _New
Yorker_, a weekly paper, “incomparably the best of its kind that had
ever been published in this country;” so good, in fact, that after seven
years of hard struggle it gave up the ghost. We would rather believe
that its want of success was due to the incompetency of its management;
but if the editor was in the habit of uttering such unpalatable truths
as is contained in the following specimen, we are afraid it must be
conceded with the biographer that the _New Yorker_ was not half enough
spicy, or fawning:—
“The great pervading evil of our social condition is the worship and
the bigotry of Opinion. While the theory of our political institutions
asserts or implies the absolute freedom of the human mind—the right
not only of free thought and discussion, but of the most unrestrained
action thereon within the wide boundaries prescribed by the laws of
the land, yet the _practical commentary_ upon this noble text is as
discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the thin veil of a
democracy more free than that of Athens in her glory, we cloak a
despotism more pernicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China.
It is the despotism of Opinion.”
The _New Yorker_ having never, during its whole term of existence,
reached the paying point, the poor editor was obliged to keep the pot
boiling by other means. In 1838 he undertook the sole charge of the
_Jeffersonian_, a paper of a class peculiar to America, and denominated
“Campaign Papers.” The noble purpose of the _Jeffersonian_ is thus
described by Greeley himself: “It was established on the impulse of the
Whig tornado of 1837, to secure a like result in 1838, so as to give the
Whig party a Governor, Lieutenant-governor, Senate, Assembly, United
States Senator, Congressmen, and all the vast executive patronage of the
State, then amounting to millions of dollars a year.”
The _Jeffersonian_ existed only one year, having served its end. The
labours of the editor were enormous; “no one but a Greeley” could have
endured it all. In 1840 he started another “Campaign Paper,” in the
interest of General Harrison. The absorption of the editorial mind
during this exciting season is illustrated by another of those graceful
anecdotes, in which our biographer delights—relating how Mr Greeley
arrives late at a political tea-party (Sunday evening), and straightway
plunges into a conversation on the currency; how the worthy landlady
asks him in vain to take tea; how she begs him to “try a cruller
anyhow,” and is rudely repulsed; how she places a large basket of these
unknown delicacies on his knees, and he mechanically devours every
morsel; how, fearing the consequences, she substitutes for the “cruller”
basket a great heap of cheese; how the remarkable boa-constrictor
gobbles it all up; and how, finally, he was _none the worse_ of it all.
“Anecdotes,” says Mr P., are “precious for biographical purposes.”
The _Log Cabin_ had a circulation of from 80,000 to 90,000, and yet such
was the easy virtue of the subscribers that the proprietor made nothing
by it, and the last number contained a moving appeal “to the friends who
owe us.” Such, also, is political gratitude, that Mr Greeley did not
even receive the offer of an office in acknowledgment of his valuable
services, at which his biographer is duly disgusted. He adds the
following significant anecdote:—
“Mr Fry (W. H.) made a speech one evening at a political meeting in
Philadelphia. The next morning a committee waited upon him to know for
what office he intended to become an applicant. ‘Office?’ said the
astonished composer—no office.’ ‘Why, then,’ said the committee,
‘_what the h—ll did you speak last night for_?’ Mr Greeley had not
even the honour of a visit from a committee of this kind.”
Mr Greeley at length ventured on the bold experiment of starting a new
daily paper. There were already eleven in New York; but a cheap Whig
paper[9] was wanted, and accordingly, on the 10th April 1841, appeared
the _New York Tribune_, price one cent. It began with only six hundred
subscribers, and encountered much opposition, but was “from its
inception very successful.” The _Tribune_, says Mr Parton, was “a live
paper,” and it prospered by opposition. “FIGHT was the word with it from
the start—FIGHT has been the word ever since—FIGHT is the word this
day.” One thing was wanting to success—an efficient business-partner.
Such a man was found in the person of Mr Thomas M‘Elrath. The biographer
shouts and rubs his hands with ecstasy at such a combination of
excellence as was now realised. Hear him:
“Roll Horace Greeley and Thomas M‘Elrath into one, and the result
would be, a very respectable approximation to a Perfect Man. The Two,
united in partnership, have been able to produce a very respectable
approximation to a perfect newspaper. As Damon and Pythias are the
types of perfect friendship, so may Greeley and M‘Elrath be of a
perfect partnership; and one may say, with a sigh at the many
discordant unions the world presents, Oh! that every Greeley could
find his M‘Elrath! and blessed is the M‘Elrath that finds his
Greeley!”
And woe to the Greeley that finds his Parton!
For a complete history of this respectable approximation to perfection,
says Mr Parton, “ten octavo volumes would be required, and most
interesting volumes they would be.” Mr Parton gives us instead the small
dose of “over” 200 octavo pages, and we are bound to say that it is at
least 190 too many. In these weary sheets the curious will find a full
account of Mr Greeley’s exertions in defence of Fourierism, Whiggism,
Teetotalism, Anti-Slavery, Woman’s Rights, and Irish Rebellion, his
libels on Fenimore Cooper, his motions in Congress, his lectures, his
European travels, his personal appearance, his private habits, &c. &c.
“For Irish Repeal,” among other good causes, the _Tribune_ “fought like
a tiger,” the magnanimous editor accepting a place in the Directory of
the Friends of Ireland, “to the funds of which he contributed
liberally.” Mr Greeley is not a warlike man, as his boyish experiences
have indicated, but incendiarism and bloodshed in British territory are
things for which he willingly sacrifices a few dollars. Our readers are
aware that the publication of the wildest fictions, pleasantly
denominated “hoaxes,” constitutes an attractive element in American
journalism. In August 1848, New York red-republicanism was “on the
tiptoe of expectation for important news of the Irish rebellion.” The
fortunate _Tribune_ obtained exclusive intelligence, and hastened to
publish, “with due glorification,” a flaming account of the great battle
of Slievenamon (afterwards known as “Slievegammon,”) in which 6000
British troops were killed and wounded. “For a day or two the Irish and
the friends of Ireland exulted; but when the truth became known, their
note was sadly changed.” The editor, we learn, was absent at the time,
but there is no doubt he would have exulted as much as any man to hear
of the “stench” of a three-mile shambles of British soldiers. His tone
on the subject of the Russian war has betrayed no weak sympathy with the
Western combatants; and doubtless he takes a brotherly interest in the
insane and detestable conspiracies now or lately hatching among the
unhappy exiles of Erin.
In November of that year, Mr Greeley was elected to a seat in Congress,
by a machinery the corruption of which is testified by no less a person
than himself. He was very active as a member, and soon made himself
prominently obnoxious by exposing various legislative jobs. Some of the
lively scenes that occurred are described at immense length. Mr Parton
draws no flattering conclusion from the reception of his hero in the
House of Representatives. Let our American friends console themselves
with the assurance that his testimony is not decisive.
“An honest man in the House of Representatives of the United States
seemed to be a foreign element, a fly in its cup, an ingredient that
would not mix, a novelty that disturbed its peace. It struggled hard
to find a pretext for the expulsion of the offensive person; but not
finding one, the next best thing was to endeavour to show the country
that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better than members of Congress
generally.”
In 1849, the _Tribune_, with its habitual predilection for the fanatical
and revolutionary, or, as Mr Parton loftily phrases the thing, “true to
its instinct of giving hospitality to every new or revived idea,”
devoted large space to the promulgation of Proudhon’s delightful ideas
on the subject of Property. Among other things also, says our
chronicler, it began a rejoinder to the _Evening Post_ in the following
spirited manner,—the only specimen we choose to quote of Mr Greeley’s
vituperative abilities:—
“You lie, villain! wilfully, wickedly, basely lie!”
This observation, placidly remarks the historian, “called forth much
remark at the time.” The person to whom it was addressed was WILLIAM
CULLEN BRYANT. With the same instinctive hospitality towards every form
of delusion, the _Tribune_ opened its accommodating columns to the
Spirit-Rappers, who, notwithstanding a few hundred cases of insanity and
other small evils, have, in Mr Parton’s opinion, done much good. About
the same time it took up the Woman’s Rights humbug, acknowledging that
the ladies are perhaps unwise in making the demand, but maintaining that
no sincere republican can give any adequate reason for refusing them “an
equal participation with men in political rights.” A whole chapter is
devoted to Mr Greeley’s platform exhibitions, which it seems are very
frequent and edifying—Horace having, as Mr Parton tells us, a benevolent
appreciation of the delight it gives “to _see_ the man whose writings
have charmed and moved and formed us.” Not only does he lecture as often
as possible, but
“At public meetings and public dinners Mr Greeley is a frequent
speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, introduced
with ‘Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few remarks to
the following purport.’ The call is never declined; nor does he ever
speak without saying something; and when he has said it, he resumes
his seat.”
The remarkable man!
In 1851, Horace went to see the World’s Fair in Hyde Park. No foolish
curiosity or sentimentality instigated the philosophic editor; his main
object, as announced (the American editor keeps his readers regularly
informed on all his movements) in the _Tribune_, being to inspect “_the
improvements recently made, or now being made, in the modes of dressing
flax and hemp_, and preparing them to be spun and woven by steam or
water power.”
The departure and passage are carefully described; Mr Parton having
apparently paid a steward to note, watch in hand, all the phenomena of
Horace’s sea-sickness. Nothing that he saw in this effete country seems
to have in the least impressed his great mind. The royal procession
would have faded before “a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd
Fellows.” The Queen he patronisingly noticed, and was even “glad to
see,” though “he could not but feel that her _vocation_ was behind the
intelligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant
day;” but not, poor thing! “through _her_ fault.” The posts of honour
nearest her person should have been confided, he thought, to “the
descendants of Watt and Arkwright;” the foreign ambassadors should have
been “the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre, and Morse,” &c. &c.
Hampton Court he thought “larger than the Astor House, but less lofty,
and containing fewer rooms.” Westminster Abbey was “a mere barbaric
profusion of lofty ceilings, stained windows, carving, graining, and all
manner of contrivances for absorbing labour and money;” less adapted for
public worship “than a fifty thousand dollar church in New York.” He
gives credit to the English for many good qualities, but thinks them “a
most _un-ideal_ people,”—he, the romantic Greeley! “He liked the amiable
women of England, so excellent at the fireside, so tame in the
drawing-room; but he doubts whether they could so much as _comprehend_
the ideas which underlie the woman’s rights movement.” (The amiable
women of England may well console themselves under a doubt so
complimentary to their common sense.) In Paris the great man was
apparently in better humour, devoting two days to the Louvre—a wonderful
fact. His great political sagacity shines forth in his estimate of
French affairs in June 1851. France he found as “tranquil and prosperous
as England herself;” as for fear from Louis Napoleon, he “marvels at the
_obliquity of vision_ whereby any one is enabled, standing in this
metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic.” In Italy his
first remark was, that he had never seen a region so much in want of “_a
few subsoil ploughs_.” Edinburgh, it seems, was honoured, before his
return to New York, by a visit from this great unknown; and we are proud
to learn that it “surpassed his expectations.”
“In the composition of this work,” says our judicious biographer, “I
have, as a rule, abstained from the impertinence of panegyric.” When,
therefore, he tells us that the rolling together of Greeley and
M‘Elrath, after the manner of a dumpling, would result in something like
perfection; that Greeley is “too much in earnest to be a perfect
editor;” that “he is a BORN LEGISLATOR,” and “could save a nation, but
never learn to tie a cravat;” that he is “New York’s most distinguished
citizen, the Country’s most influential man,” and editor of the best
paper in existence; that, in short, he is “the Franklin of this
generation—Franklin liberalised and enlightened,”—we are to take these
statements as the sober expression of bare hard fact; and the reader is
left to conclude from them how much might have been said by a more
partial and weak-minded biographer—his imagination is left to fill up
the outline of a Greeley’s perfections!
But does the reader wish to see the man himself—to know his height and
weight, not metaphorically, but actually, in British feet and inches,
and in pounds avoirdupois? So pleasant and laudable a desire the amiable
Parton is far from disappointing; for does not the great man say that
“there’s no use in any man’s writing a biography unless he can tell what
no one else can tell.” Here, then, reader, you have it, what no one else
assuredly could, would, or should dream of telling you but the
inimitable, the unapproachable Parton:—
“Horace Greeley stands five feet ten and a half inches, in his
stockings. He weighs one hundred and forty-five pounds. Since his
return from Europe in 1851, he has increased in weight, and promises
to attain, in due time, something of the dignity which belongs to
amplitude of person. He stoops considerably, not from age, but from a
constitutional pliancy of the back-bone, aided by his early habit of
incessant reading. In walking, he swings or sways from side to side.
Seen from behind, he looks, as he walks with head depressed, bended
back, and swaying gait, like an old man; an illusion which is
heightened if a stray lock of white hair escapes from under his hat.
But the expression of his face is singularly and engagingly youthful.
His complexion is extremely fair, and a smile plays ever upon his
countenance. His head, measured round the organs of Individuality and
Philoprogenitiveness, is twenty-three and a half inches in
circumference, which is considerably larger than the average. His
forehead is round and full, and rises into a high and ample dome. The
hair is white, inclining to red at the ends, and thinly scattered over
the head. Seated in company, with his hat off, he looks not unlike the
‘Philosopher’ he is often called; no one could take him for a common
man.”
Now, then, reader, if you do not give us credit for introducing you to
the acme of modern biography, we pronounce you the most ungrateful and
least discriminating of human beings. “If Horace Greeley were a flower,”
says J. P., “botanists would call him single, and examine him with
interest.” “He is what the Germans sometimes style ‘a nature.’” And if
J. P. also were a flower, botanists would inevitably pronounce him “a
tulip.” He is what in Scotland we sometimes call “a natural”—otherwise
known as “a halfling;” or, in vernacular English, a born fool. Horace
Greeley is not, to our mind, a person very agreeable or very venerable;
but intensely as we dislike his bad qualities, and those of his paper
(in some respects a good one—very attentive, in its own peculiar way, to
literature, and excellently printed[10]), his dreary fanaticism and
vulgarity, his bigoted Yankeeism, his strong anti-British feeling—much
as we dislike all this, we do not like to see him made absolutely
ridiculous, had he no other good quality than the pleasure he takes in
farming. We are not surprised, however, to learn that he has few
friends, “and no cronies.” His biographer, at least, is not among the
former; for any man would accept his chance against a Kentucky rifle
sooner than a biography at the hands of Mr J. Parton. There is this
comfort, at least, that Horace Greeley “has no pleasures, so called, and
suffers little pain,” otherwise, we imagine, the admiring scribbler
would not, with such inconceivable indelicacy, have opened the doors of
his closet, and exhibited him _in puris naturalibus_ to the gaze of the
world.
Turn we now to the veracious record of the Life and Adventures of the
Jack Ketch of editors, the redoubtable and happily unparalleled James
Gordon Bennett, with whom, for several reasons, we must be brief. The
author has of course sought no counsel from “Mr Bennett, nor any one
connected with him.” The work is a pure labour of love, “a spontaneous
act of literary justice” to the character of a noble and much maligned
man. The former statement we perfectly believe, as we imagine the
consultation would naturally proceed _from_ and not _to_ the subject of
the memoir. As to the spontaneity, there can be little doubt that the
work was prompted by the dumpy and infatuated volume of which we have
attempted faintly to shadow forth the beauties,—as to “justice,” no man
is more dreadfully in earnest for justice than when he defends himself.
The motto prefixed from Dr Johnson is admirable: “_History, which draws
a portrait of living manners, may perhaps be made of greater use than
the solemnities of professed morality, and convey the knowledge of vice
and virtue with more efficacy than axioms and definitions._” Which being
applied to the present case, may be interpreted to signify that the life
of a notorious blackguard is more eloquent than a sermon of Dr Blair,
and conveys the knowledge of virtue, through the exhibition of its
contrary, with more impressiveness than all the proverbs of Solomon! In
this sense the Life of Mr James Gordon Bennett might, in faithful and
competent hands, do as much good as the _Newgate Calendar_, or Defoe’s
Autobiography of an Unfortunate Female,—it might carry along with it, as
this preface says, “not a few valuable lessons.” Unhappily, however, the
genius of this biographer is utterly unequal to the subject, and instead
of a lifelike and instructive portraiture, he has produced a senseless
and incredible daub. More speaking by far is the portrait which fronts
the title-page. It represents in sharp outline the face of a
hard-headed, heavy-browed, obstinate man; vulpine sagacity in the
wrinkles of the mouth and the corners of the eyes; long upper-lip and
heavy under-jaw, and bold vulturine nose seeming to scent carrion from
afar. The eyes are upturned in sculptured lifelessness—in artistic
justice, we presume, to that unfortunate ophthalmic defect known as a
diabolical squint. The portrait, we say, is better than the book, and
tells, though probably a flattering likeness, a clearer and more honest
story.
“Is it not,” inquired Mr Dickens in New York, “a very disgraceful
circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large
property by the most infamous and odious means, and, notwithstanding all
the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted
by your citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?—Yes, sir. A
convicted liar?—Yes, sir. He has been kicked, and cuffed, and
caned?—Yes, sir. And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and
profligate?—Yes, sir. In the name of wonder, then, what is his
merit?—_Well, sir, he is a smart man!_” Such is the satisfactory
solution of the problem to which we have already alluded, the solution
of the Barnum phenomenon, and with it of all analogous phenomena.
Similar is the testimony of the smart young man whom we have just parted
with. “Every race,” he says, “has its own ideas respecting what is best
in the character of a man.... When a Yankee would bestow his most
special commendation upon another, he says, ‘That is a man, sir, who
generally _succeeds_ in what he undertakes.’” Let no delicate and
high-minded person, therefore, be astonished that such a man as James
Gordon Bennett, whom the respectability of New York has for twenty years
loathingly patronised, should have attained a commanding position among
the spiritual powers of the American Republic. He is a man of undeniable
“smartness”—not in our sense, indeed, for we have never seen a line of
his composition that exhibited anything above what could be called
third-rate mediocrity of thought and style, but in the sense of keen
appreciation of means and ends, audacious scheming, impenetrability to
shame, and invincible endurance of chastisement. His inflictions in this
respect, both moral and physical, he has uniformly turned to the best
account: in a sense different from that of the Psalmist, he can say that
it was good for him to be afflicted. No man probably ever made more
dollars by the proclamation of his own disgrace. A mere catalogue of the
horse-whippings he has undergone during his long career of inglory,
would astonish the nerves of our readers.[11] Each new infliction has
been prominently blazoned in the columns of the _Herald_, and the
attractive words “COW-HIDED AGAIN!!!” have been duly followed by a rush
of buyers and a cheering flow of cents into the pockets of the
complacent victim! On this subject his own testimony and that of his
biographer are singularly frank and decided:—
“Since I knew myself, all the real approbation I sought for was my
own. If my conscience was satisfied on the score of morals, and my
ambition on the matter of talent, I always felt easy. On this
principle I have acted from my youth up, and on this principle I mean
to die. Nothing can disturb my equanimity. I know myself—so does the
Almighty. Is not that enough?”
“This,” says the biographer, “_is not the language and spirit of a
common mind_. It is the essence of a philosophy which has not deserted a
man who has never failed to republish every slander against himself, and
who has been conscious always that calumnies cannot outlive and
overshadow truth.”
A man whose conscience seems never to have given him much trouble, and
whose ambition has been satisfied with the acquisition of wealth and
political power, may well feel easy under the whips and scorns of a
whole universe! This is assuredly, and we rejoice to think so, not the
language and spirit of the majority of mankind. Those only despise the
approbation of their fellows who have shaken off the attributes of
humanity, and accept the reverse of the proverb, that “a good name is
rather to be chosen than great riches.” The impious allusion to the
Almighty is worthy of a Couthon or a Marat.[12]
The success of such a journal as the _New York Herald_ is an undeniable
blot on the community on whose follies and vices it battened into
prosperity. The damning fact cannot be denied, that it was not in spite
but _on account_ of their scandalous character that such journals first
attracted public attention and secured a hearing. While, therefore, we
diminish not a jot our abhorrence of the men who reared these monuments
of their own infamy, we are bound to regard them as but the concentrated
type of the character that pervaded their constituency. If the _New York
Herald_ was unprincipled and obscene, the readers of the _New York
Herald_ must have shared in these qualities. Its conductor may have been
a scoundrel, but he certainly was no fool; he fed his readers with such
food as suited their taste. Had that taste been purer, he was knowing
enough to have provided cleaner fare: in a grave and religious community
he would probably have preached with unctuous decorum. Already the taste
of that community has improved (no thanks, assuredly, to him); the
deluge of vituperation and indecency has subsided, and the _New York
Herald_ has followed the temper of the time. It may not, as the helpless
biographer tells us it is, be “a familiar journal at every court
throughout the world, and in all intelligent communities,” but, compared
with its former self, it is positively respectable.
Granting, therefore, that James Gordon Bennett was as disreputable an
editor as Dr Faust’s great patron ever let loose upon mankind, it is
both philosophically and historically just that we should regard him, as
Germans would say, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a
highly-remarkable-and-in-itself-much-embracing-development of social
existence. The half-apologetic statements on this subject by the
biographer, who is in general so preposterous in his partiality and
admiration as to be utterly beyond criticism, are among the most curious
things in the book. After describing the state of society and of
journalism previous to 1833, he says:—
“A more fortunate position of circumstances cannot be imagined than
that which presented itself for Mr Bennett’s talents at this period.
He had been moulded by events and experience to take a part in the
change which the Press was about to undergo....
“Mr Bennett was prepared in every way for the occasion. He had been
just so far injured as to urge him to take hold of the world with but
little mercy for its foibles, and with so little regard to its
opinions that he could distinguish himself by an original course in
Journalism. He felt as Byron did after the Scotch Reviewers had
embittered his soul by their harsh treatment of his ‘Hours of
Idleness.’ This was a mood highly favourable to the production of a
rare effect. The dormant spirit of the people could only be awakened
by something startling and novel, and circumstances had produced a man
for the times.”
The early numbers of the _Herald_, we are told, were “agreeable,
pleasantly written, and comparatively prudish.” The habits of the editor
were “exemplary.” Finding that this sort of thing was “no go,” the
astute adventurer took a bolder course, and flung aside those trammels
of decency and moderation which would have impeded or ruined the
prospects of a weaker and less original mind. The biographer admits that
his hero behaved somewhat grossly, but argues, as one might plead in
defence of a vampire or a cobra-de-capello, that he merely used the
weapons which nature had given him, and that at any rate he was no worse
than his neighbours.
“The improved taste of the present hour will not sanction the mode in
which Mr Bennett at first undertook to be the censor of society: but
_a philosophical analysis of the means which were used in his peculiar
and eccentric course (!)_ exhibits motives as the springs of action,
which do not necessarily indicate a callous heart or a bad temper....
That Mr Bennett had been provoked to use any and all power at his
command, to overturn the wanton assailants of his character, cannot be
denied. _He had but armed himself with the best instruments heaven had
bestowed upon him_, and his mode of warfare was quite as dignified as
that which had been resorted to, and adopted for fifteen or twenty
years before, by the Press generally.”
If instead of the blasphemous word “Heaven” we substitute another more
congruous to the nature of the subject, the above may be taken as a
sufficiently “philosophical” view of the point at issue. A little
farther on there is a still clearer admission. After telling us that the
public did not care for political articles in such small sheets as the
_Herald_, the biographer shows how it became _necessary_ for Mr Bennett
to fill his paper with falsehood and obscenity:—
“It would have been folly, therefore, to have attempted to make a
daily offering to the public of a newspaper, such as is accepted even
at the present hour. Mr Bennett saw this—he felt it. He wrote to
create an interest for himself and the _Herald_. In this he was
pecuniarily wise, for had he taken a more dignified course, and thus
have produced only such studied articles as he had contributed to the
_Courier and Enquirer_, from 1829 to 1832, the _Herald_ would not have
existed for a single month, unless sustained by a sacrifice of capital
which it was not in the power of Mr Bennett to command. All of his
success depended upon his making a journal wholly different from any
one that was in existence.”
And in that attempt the enterprising editor succeeded to a miracle, for
certainly anything approaching to the _Herald_ in its “peculiar”
character, the literature of civilisation had not seen!
That there may be no mistake on the matter, the biographer, in summing
up the transcendent merits of Mr Bennett near the close of the volume,
assures us that the course pursued was perfectly deliberate:—
“On the 5th of May 1835, he commenced _his work of regeneration_ by
publishing the first number of the _New York Herald_, which, till it
was established, was conducted with such peculiarities as secured it
attention—_peculiarities which seemed to have sprung from a mind
resolved to carry out certain broad personal characteristics_, which
in themselves furnish the bitterest satire upon the true nature of
political and social life known to the literature of any age or
country. _The course adopted was not based on impulse. There is no
excuse for it on that ground. It was the fruit of the most careful
reflection, as is proved by the fact that the original prospectus has
not been departed from in any point whatever during a period of twenty
years._ The original design was to establish a journal which should be
independent of all parties, and _the influence of which should be
grounded upon its devotion to the popular will_—a plan which has found
numerous imitators, and which is the only one suited to satisfy the
demands of the public.”
Mr Bennett, who of course “endorses” these sentiments, is thus, it is
evident, as much at ease in his “conscience” with regard to his past
conduct as ever, and would, if the thing were to be done over again, do
it _con amore_ again. The _popular will_—not Truth or Righteousness; the
most sweet voices of the rabble, not the still small voice of the man
within the breast—that, then, is the creed of this “regenerator” of
journalism—_Apage Satana_.
The best type of Scottish character is eminently distinguished by force
and earnestness; but as a Scotchman, when he is good, is intensely so—a
Scotchman, when he sells himself to Clooty, is perhaps of all human
beings the most devoted servant of that personage. Scotland, which has
produced such eminent examples of genius and nobleness in this century
as Thomas Chalmers and John Wilson, had the misfortune to give birth
also to James Gordon Bennett. Let her not grieve, for the same England
that gave birth to John Milton, was the mother likewise of Titus Oates.