Reviewers, critics and students of literature are inclined to resent the
assertion with respect to a writer once eminent, that he is
substantially forgotten. But it is safe to say that if we regard the
millions of readers in this country whose literary nutriment is made up
chiefly of works of fiction or of biography of the lighter sort, as “the
reading public of America”, the name of William Harrison Ainsworth is by
no means familiar in the United States. There are many book-owners who
keep his “Works” upon their shelves, and know the backs of the volumes,
and some of the omnivorous have doubtless read “Jack Sheppard”,
“Crichton”, “The Tower of London”, and perhaps “Rookwood”; yet thousands
who are well acquainted with their Scott, their Dickens and their
Thackeray would be sorely puzzled if they were asked to tell us who
Ainsworth was, and exactly when he lived, or to give a synopsis of the
plot of a single one of his numerous stories; and he has been dead not
quite thirty years.
Allibone gives him but fourteen lines of biography, mostly bitter
censure, with a few words of qualified praise for such historical tales
as “St. Paul’s” and “The Tower”. The indifference to him is not limited
to general readers or to America. Chamber’s _Encyclopædia of English
Literature_ begrudges him twenty-nine lines of depreciative comment,
conceding to him dramatic art and power, but denying to him “originality
or felicity of humor or character”. He is not even mentioned in Mr.
Edmund Gosse’s _Modern English Literature_, and Taine does not
condescend to give his name. In the _History_ of Nicoll and Seccombe no
reference to him can be found. In the pretentious volumes of the
_History of English Literature_ edited by Garnett and Gosse a portrait
of him is given with a rough draft of a Cruikshank drawing; and this is
what is said of him: “A very popular exponent of the grotesque and the
sensational in historical romance was William Harrison Ainsworth
(1805–1882), a Manchester solicitor, who wrote _Rookwood_, 1834, _Jack
Sheppard_, 1839, and _The Tower of London_, 1840. He was a sort of
Cruikshank of the pen, delighting in violent and lurid scenes, crowded
with animated figures”. This is rather an absurd mess of misinformation.
One would scarcely believe that there was a time when he was esteemed to
be a worthy rival of Charles Dickens, and when in the eyes of the
critics and of the public he far outshone Edward Lytton Bulwer.
In a note to the sketch in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, Mr.
W. E. A. Axon says that “no biography of Ainsworth has appeared or is
likely to be published.” The fact is correctly stated, but the
prediction may not be fulfilled. In 1902, Mr. Axon himself expanded the
_Dictionary_ article and made it into an excellent memoir of forty-three
pages, but only a few copies were printed. It contains five portraits. A
devoted admirer of Ainsworth has been for some years engaged in the
preparation of an extended biography. I do not give his name, for he
probably prefers to make the announcement at his own time and in his own
way. A few years ago I became the possessor of a considerable number of
autographic relics of Ainsworth, including a memorandum book and a
manuscript volume containing an account of his travels in Italy in 1830,
dedicated to his wife, with a poem; some letters to him from Cruikshank;
thirty-six pages of the draft of “Jack Sheppard”, and more than two
hundred of his own letters. It is gratifying to know that my friend who
is at work on the “Life” has been aided by this little collection.
The only published records of Ainsworth’s life, other than those to
which I have referred, are, as far as I have been able to discover, a
brief memoir by Laman Blanchard which appeared in the _Mirror_ in 1842
and was reproduced in later editions of “Rookwood”; a chapter in
Madden’s _Life of Lady Blessington_; a sketch by James Crossley
contributed to the Routledge edition of the _Ballads_ in 1855; and an
account of him by William Bates, accompanying a semi-caricature portrait
in the _Maclise Portrait Gallery_.
Ainsworth was born in his father’s house on King Street, Manchester,
February 4, 1805. His family was “respectable” in the English sense, for
his grandfather on his mother’s side was a Unitarian minister, and his
father a prosperous solicitor. It was from the mother that he inherited
in 1842 some “landed property” to use another distinctively English
phrase, and it is amusing to observe the pride of Madden when he boasts
that Ainsworth’s name appears in _Burke’s Landed Gentry_. He attended
the Free Grammar School in Manchester, where it is said that he was
proficient in Latin and Greek, and as he was expected to succeed to his
father’s practice, he became an articled clerk in the office of Mr.
Alexander Kay, at the age of sixteen. He was a handsome boy, full of
ambition, but his ambition did not lead him in the dull and dusty paths
which solicitors tread. He had already written a drama, for private
production, which was printed in _Arliss’s Magazine_, and a number of
sketches, translations and minor papers for a serial called _The
Manchester Iris_, and he subsequently conducted a periodical styled _The
Boeotian_, which had a short existence of six months. Before he was
nineteen, he was a regular contributor to the _London Magazine_ and the
_Edinburgh Magazine_. Some of these youthful efforts were collected in
“December Tales” (1823), which also contained sketches by James Crossley
and John Partington Aston. In 1822 he issued a pamphlet of “Poems, by
Cheviot Tichborn”, which as Mr. Axon informs us, is quite distinct from
another pamphlet called “The Works of Cheviot Tichborn”, printed in
1825, apparently for private circulation.
The Tichborn book of verses was dedicated to Charles Lamb. The author
was a devoted admirer of Elia, and as early as 1822 Lamb had lent him a
copy of Cyril Tourneur’s play or plays. On May 7, 1822, Lamb wrote to
him a letter, (printed in _The Lambs_, by William Carew Hazlitt, 1897)
referring to the book and saying, among other things, “I have read your
poetry with pleasure. The tales are pretty and prettily told. It is only
sometimes a little careless, I mean as to redundancy.” The letter
mentions the proposed dedication deprecatingly and modestly.
Talfourd, Canon Ainger and Fitzgerald in their collections give two
other letters, written respectively on December 9 and December 29, 1823,
one thanking Ainsworth for “books and compliments,” and the other giving
Lamb-like excuses for not leaving beloved London to pay a visit to
Manchester.[6] It was something of an honor for a lad of seventeen to
receive the praise of Charles Lamb, who appears to have discovered one
of his young correspondent’s besetting sins—redundancy. But it may not
have meant much, for in those days they exchanged compliments more
profusely than is customary at the present time.
All these excursions in the field of authorship were fatal to the grave
study of the law, for which he had no taste, and although when his
father died in 1824 he went to London to finish his term with Mr. Jacob
Phillips of the Inner Temple, it was a foregone conclusion that,
whatever his career might be, it would not be that of a solicitor. About
1826, one John Ebers, a publisher in Bond Street, and also manager of
the Opera House, brought out a novel called “Sir John Chiverton,” which
received the favor of Sir Walter Scott, who said of it in his diary
(October 17, 1826), that he had read it with interest, and that it was
“a clever book,” at the same time asserting that he himself was the
originator of the style in which it was written. For many years it was
supposed that Ainsworth was its sole author, but it was claimed in 1877
by Mr. John Partington Aston, a lawyer, who had been a fellow-clerk of
Ainsworth’s in Mr. Kay’s office, and the book was probably the result of
collaboration. The dedicatory verses are supposed to have been addressed
to Anne Frances Ebers, John Ebers’ daughter, whom Ainsworth married on
October 11, 1826. Soon afterwards he seems to have been occupied in
editing one of those absurd “Annuals” so common in those days, for we
find Tom Moore recording in his journal in 1827, that he had been asked
to edit the _Forget-Me-Not_ to begin with the second number, “as the
present editor is Mr. Ainsworth (I think), the son-in-law of Ebers.” The
compensation offered to Moore was £500, which indicates that such work
was paid for liberally, but it is not likely that Ainsworth received as
much. A year or so after the marriage—within a year in fact—he followed
his father-in-law’s advice and became himself a publisher and a
bookseller; but at the end of eighteen months he decided to abandon the
business.
If we may judge by one of the letters in my collection, it is not
surprising that he was not overwhelmingly successful. He writes to
Thomas Hill for a notice in the _Chronicle_ of a book the copyright of
which he had recently purchased, adding, “the work is really a most
scientific one—indeed the only distinct treatise on Confectionery
extant.” Perhaps this was the work of Ude, the cook, whose publisher he
was; but he also “brought out” Caroline Norton as an author, of whom he
writes to Charles Ollier, in his graceful, rather lady-like chirography:
“Is it not possible [to] get me a short notice of the enclosed into the
new Monthly? By so doing you will infinitely oblige one of the most
beautiful women in the world—the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the granddaughter of
Richard Brinsley Sheridan.”
In 1827 he published for Thomas Hood two volumes of “National Tales,”
which are said to be the poorest books written by Hood. Christopher
North said of them: “I am glad to see that they are published by Mr.
Ainsworth to whom I wish all success in his new profession. He is
himself a young gentleman of talents, and his Sir John Chiverton is a
spirited and romantic performance.”[7]
It was for an annual issued by him that Sir Walter Scott wrote the
“Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee,” and the story is told by Mr. Axon that Sir
Walter received twenty guineas for it, but laughingly handed them over
to the little daughter of Lockhart, at whose house he and Ainsworth met.
He wrote some fragmentary and miscellaneous prose and verse, not of much
importance; and in 1828 he travelled through Belgium and up the Rhine,
going to Switzerland and Italy in 1830. The manuscript note-books which
lie before me, the paper foxed and the ink faded, comprise a diary of
the Italian part of the journey. I have toiled over the one hundred and
sixty-eight pages, not always easily decipherable, but have found little
which exceeds in value the ordinary guide-book of our own time. It was,
we must remember, written only for his wife—whom he considerately left
at home—and the dedicatory poem to her, consisting of fifty-eight
unrhymed lines, written in Venice in September, 1830, is quite as
commonplace as might be expected from a man of twenty-five, with little
poetic inspiration but endowed with much verbal fluency, who was not
writing for publication.
Soon after his return from the Continent, Ainsworth began the work from
which he was to derive his chief title to fame—the composing of novels.
It has been said that he was inspired by Mrs. Radcliffe, whose gloomy
mysteries, weird scenes, and supernatural machinery once made her a
favorite with fiction-lovers, and that he sought to adapt old legends to
English soil. Others have ascribed his impulse to the influence of the
French dramatic romancers, Eugène Sue, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas.
I question whether he owed his inspiration to any particular source,
although all these writers may have affected his temperament. Perhaps he
unconsciously divined the needs of the reading public, of which his
editorial experience may have taught him much. The inane, fashionable
novel had become tiresome. Moreover, it was a time, in the early
thirties, when the nation of England was absorbed in the growth of her
material prosperity, and when a country is engrossed in commerce and
manufactures, in the production of wealth, tales of adventure seem
necessary to stimulate flagging imagination. We have seen the evidence
of it in our own land during the past ten years, when casting aside the
metaphysical, the psychological, the long drawn-out analyses of
character, the public eagerly devoured story after story of fights and
wars, and daring deeds, whose lucky authors bore off rewards of fabulous
amount and grew rich upon the royalties earned by their hundreds of
thousands of copies.
We are told by Mr. Axon that “the inspiration came to him when on a
visit to Chesterfield in 1831”. He had visited Cuckfield Place, thought
by Shelley to be “like bits of Mrs. Radcliffe”, and it occurred to
Ainsworth that he might make something of an English story constructed
upon similar lines. Begun in 1831, his “Rookwood” was published in 1834.
It has generally been considered by critics to be a powerful but uneven
story, and it leaped at once into popularity, carrying with it the
youthful author. “The Romany Chant” and “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York”
were the chief features; but the Ride was the thing, like the chariot
race in _Ben-Hur_. It was actually dashed off in the glow of enthusiasm,
the white heat of imagination. It was, says George Augustus Sala, “a
piece of word painting rarely if ever surpassed in the prose of the
Victorian Era,”[8] and he said this sixty years after the novel
appeared. Ainsworth has told us the circumstances. “I wrote it” he said
“in twenty-four hours of continuous work. I had previously arranged the
meeting at Kilburn Wells, and the death of Tom King—a work of some
little time—but from the moment I got Turpin on the high road, I wrote
on and on till I landed him at York. I performed this literary feat, as
you are pleased to call it, without the slightest sense of effort. I
began in the morning, wrote all day, and as night wore on, my subject
had completely mastered me, and I had no power to leave Turpin on the
high road. I was swept away by the curious excitement and novelty of the
situation; and being personally a good horseman, passionately fond of
horses, and possessed moreover of accurate knowledge of a great part of
the country, I was thoroughly at home with my work, and galloped on with
my pet highwayman merrily enough. I must, however, confess that when my
work was in proof, I went over the ground between London and York to
verify the distances and localities, and was not a little surprised at
my accuracy.” This _tour de force_—the composition of a hundred novel
pages in so short a time, was performed at “The Elms,” a house at
Kilburn where he was then living. It brings to mind the familiar story
of Beckford, writing _Vathek_ in French, in a single sitting of three
days and two nights, which is more or less apocryphal.
It is a proof of the merit and of the success of this chapter that, like
many other successful literary efforts, it was “claimed” by some one
else. Mr. Bates refers rather indignantly to an assertion of R. Shelton
Mackenzie, made upon the authority of Dr. Kenealy, and contained in the
fifth volume of an American edition of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, that
Doctor William Maginn, of convivial fame, wrote the “Ride” as well as
all the slang songs in “Rookwood.” But Maginn was seldom sober and
doubtless he bragged in his cups. Kenealy believed in Arthur Orton, the
Tichborne “claimant,” and was capable of believing in any claimant,
particularly if he was an Irishman; while Mackenzie was not celebrated
for acumen or accuracy. Sala says of the absurd tale: “As to the truth
or falsehood of this allegation I am wholly incompetent to pronounce;
but looking at Ainsworth’s striking and powerful pictures of the Plague
and the Fire in his ‘Old St. Paul’s,’ and the numerous studies of Tudor
life in his ‘Tower of London,’ I should say that ‘Turpin’s Ride to York’
was a performance altogether within the compass of his capacity.”
In the light of later years, it is interesting to observe the
comparisons made between Bulwer and Ainsworth. In _Fraser’s Magazine_
for June, 1834, there is a review of “Rookwood” in which the author is
praised far beyond the writer of _Eugene Aram_ and _Paul Clifford_.
Bulwer, according to Sala, was fated “to be beaten on his own ground by
another writer of fiction very much his inferior in genius; but who was
nevertheless endowed with a considerable amount of melodramatic power,
and who had acquired a conspicuous facility for dramatic description.”
It may be that the defeat drove Bulwer to those other fields in which he
won the reputation which has preserved his name while that of his
conqueror of seventy years ago has faded sadly.
It was erroneously believed by many that Ainsworth must have had some
personal acquaintance with low life in London because of the ease with
which he dealt with the thieves’ jargon, but his knowledge of it was but
second-hand for he obtained it from the autobiography of James Hardy
Vaux.[9] A second edition of “Rookwood” illustrated by George
Cruikshank, appeared in 1836.
Ainsworth was now a conspicuous man, and his celebrity as an author,
combined with his personal attractions, made him a welcome guest at many
houses, notably at Gore House, where Lady Blessington so long held
sway—“jolly old girl”, he calls her in one of my letters, written in
1836. The beauty at forty-seven was as fascinating as ever. “Everybody
goes to Lady Blessington’s”, says Haydon in his _Diary_. The
effervescent Sala tells of meeting Ainsworth there in a later time. “I
think”, he says, “that on the evening in question there were present,
among others, Daniel Maclise, the painter, and Ainsworth, the novelist.
The author of “Jack Sheppard” was then a young man of about thirty, very
handsome, but somewhat of the curled and oiled and glossy-whiskered
D’Orsay type”. The D’Orsay type was by no means distasteful to my lady.
Sala relates at second-hand the anecdote about Lady Blessington placing
herself between D’Orsay and Ainsworth, and saying that she had for
supporters the two handsomest men in London.
He was a favorite contributor to _Fraser’s Magazine_, and his portrait
appears among “The Fraserians”, indeed a goodly company, for there are
Coleridge, Southey, James Hogg, Lockhart, D’Orsay, Thackeray, Carlyle,
Washington Irving, Sir David Brewster, and Theodore Hook, with many
others. In the letter-press which accompanied the portrait,—supposed to
have been written by Maginn—the Magazine says: “May he turn out many
novels better, none worse, than ‘Rookwood’; may he, as far as is
consistent with the frailty of humanity, penetrate puffery, and avoid
the three insatiables of Solomon, King of Israel.”
In 1837, “Crichton” was published, the hero being James Crichton, the
“Admirable”, about whose name has grown so much that is fabulous, but
who was nevertheless a real person. The story was illustrated by Hablôt
K. Browne. It was fairly successful; some regard it as in many respects
his best novel; but while it did not add materially to his fame, it did
not diminish it. It was well done; the author spared no pains and as
usual with him was careful in his researches. In the introductory essay
and in the appendices, which Sidney Lee pronounces “very interesting”,
he reprinted, with translations in verse, Crichton’s Elegy on Borromeo
and the eulogy on Visconti. Madden intimates that D’Orsay occasionally
figured as the model of the accomplished hero. The author received £350
for the book—more than for “Rookwood”. He had become a figure in the
literary world and his name was something with which to conjure.
In January, 1837, Richard Bentley began the publication of _Bentley’s
Miscellany_ under the editorship of Charles Dickens. There is a familiar
story that the name originally proposed was “The Wit’s Miscellany,” and
that when the change was mentioned in the presence of “Ingoldsby” Barham
(not Douglus Jerrold, as often supposed), he remarked “Why go to the
other extreme?” In January, 1839, Dickens turned over the office of
editor to Ainsworth, with “a familiar epistle from a parent to his
child”.[10] _Oliver Twist_ had just been the feature of the
_Miscellany_, and now Ainsworth made his second and most celebrated
venture in what Sala calls “felonious fiction”—the immortal “Jack
Sheppard.”
There are some conflicting statements about dates. Madden says, in one
place, “In 1841 he [Ainsworth] became the editor of ‘Bentley’s
Miscellany’,” and on the next page, “In the spring of 1839 he replaced
Dickens in the editorship of ‘Bentley’s Miscellany,’ and continued as
editor till 1841.”[11] He also says that in 1839 the novel, to be called
“Thames Darrell,” was advertised to appear periodically in the
_Miscellany_, then edited by Charles Dickens.[12] Robert Harrison in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_ (title Bentley) says that Dickens
retired from the post of editor in January, 1839. Mr. Axon tells us in
the _Dictionary_ that Ainsworth became the editor in March, 1840, but in
the “Memoir” he assigns the event to the year 1838. Forster puts the
date 1839, which seems to be correct, and the discrepancies are no doubt
susceptible of explanation. The first number of “Jack Sheppard” appeared
in the number for January, 1839.
The success of “Rookwood” and _Oliver Twist_ led to the new essay in the
series which the sanctimonious Allibone says might be very appropriately
published under the title of the “Tyburn Plutarch”—not a very sane or
witty remark in my opinion. Ainsworth cast over the scamp Jack Sheppard
the mantle of romance, and made him “a dashing young blood of illicitly
noble descent, who dressed sumptuously and lived luxuriously”—whose
escapes from Newgate and other adventures were described with a charm
and vigor which took the public captive. The sale exceeded even that of
_Oliver Twist_, and no fewer than eight versions were produced upon the
London stage. Mr. Keeley achieved great notoriety as the hero, and Paul
Bedford first made his mark in the character of Blueskin.
It was not until these dramatic productions appeared that the sedate and
fastidious began the outcry against the so-called criminal school of
romance; an outcry perpetuated in Chambers’ _Encyclopædia_ and in
Allibone’s _Dictionary_. The author and the novel were bitterly
attacked. The main ground of denunciation seems to have been the belief
that the lower orders might be aroused to emulate the brilliant robber,
all of which is sheer nonsense. I am tempted to quote at length from a
letter of Miss Mitford, the personification of an old maid, because it
contains an epitome of the adverse criticism as well as a little
biographical note which I have not encountered elsewhere.
“I have been reading ‘Jack Sheppard,’” she writes to Miss Barrett,[13]
“and have been struck by the great danger in these times, of
representing authorities so constantly and fearfully in the wrong; so
tyrannous, so devilish, as the author has been pleased to portray it
in ‘Jack Sheppard,’ for he does not seem so much a man or even an
incarnate fiend, as a representation of power—government or law, call
it as you may—the ruling power. Of course, Mr. Ainsworth had no such
design, but such is the effect; and as the millions who see it
represented at the minor theatres will not distinguish between now and
a hundred years back, all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous
than this nightmare of a book, and I, Radical as I am, lament any
additional temptations to outbreak, with all its train of horrors.
Seriously, what things these are—the Jack Sheppards, and Squeers’s,
and Oliver Twists, and Michael Armstrongs—all the worse for the power
which except the last, the others contain! Grievously the worse! My
friend, Mr. Hughes, speaks well of Mr. Ainsworth. His father was a
collector of these old robber stories, and used to repeat the local
ballads upon Turpin, etc., to his son as he sat upon his knee; and
this has perhaps been at the bottom of the matter. A good antiquarian
I believe him to be, but what a use to make of the picturesque old
knowledge! Well, one comfort is that it will wear itself out; and then
it will be cast aside like an old fashion.”
The latter part of the prophecy has come very near to fulfillment; but
we have no proof that the awful novel caused any marked increase of
crime. The real utility and value of stories like “Jack Sheppard” may
well be questioned, for they surely do not belong to the highest and
best in literature, but that any one became a thief or a highway robber
because of them is yet to be demonstrated.
It was said, and Ainsworth believed it, that the fact that “Jack
Sheppard” had a better sale than _Oliver Twist_ was the cause of some
falling-off in the friendship which had existed between him and John
Forster, who adored Dickens; and it is true that the _Examiner_, of
which paper Forster was the chief literary critic, made an attack on the
book. It is odd that Forster should have met Dickens for the first time
at Ainsworth’s house.[14] There was some sort of friction among the
three friends about the time when “Jack Sheppard” was in the full tide
of favor and Dickens was closing the troublesome negotiations with
Bentley about the copyright of the unpublished _Barnaby Rudge_. A letter
of Dickens to Ainsworth in my collection throws some light upon the
matter. As it has never been printed, to the best of my knowledge, and
as it cannot fail to be of interest to Dickens-lovers, I may be pardoned
for giving it in full:
“Doughty Street,
Tuesday morning, March 26th, 1839.
My dear Ainsworth:
If the subject of this letter or anything contained in it, should
eventually become the occasion of any disagreement between you and me,
it would cause me very deep and sincere regret. But with this
contingency—even this—before me, I feel that I must speak out without
reserve and that every manly, honest and just consideration compels me
to do so.
By some means—by what means in the first instance I scarcely know—the
late negotiations between yourself, myself and Mr. Bentley have placed
a mutual friend of ours in a false position and one in which he has no
right to stand; and exposed him to an accusation—very rife and current
indeed just now—equally untrue and undeserved, namely that he, who a
short time before had pledged himself to Mr. Bentley (in the presence
of Mr. Follett) to see my last agreement with that person executed and
carried out, counselled me to break it and in fact entangled and
entrapped the innocent and unsuspecting bookseller—who being all
honesty himself had a child-like confidence in others—into taking such
steps as led to that result.
Now I wish to remind you—for a purpose which I will tell you
presently—that even by me no agreement whatever was broken; that I
demanded a postponement of my agreement for the term of six
months—that Forster (to whom I have been alluding of course) expressly
and positively said when you pressed upon me the hardship of my
relations with that noblest work of God, in New Burlington Street,
that he could not and would not be any party to a new disruption
between us—_that he was bound to see the old agreement performed_—that
he wrote to Mr. Bentley warning him of my dissatisfaction—that he saw
Mr. Bentley for a full hour, in his own rooms (a man must be in
earnest to do that)—read to him a letter of mine in which I had
expressed my feelings on the subject, and strongly urged upon him the
necessity and propriety of some concession—that Mr. Bentley went away
thanking him and appointing to call again—that he never called
again—that he wrote me an insulting letter dictated by his
lawyers—that Forster then washed his hands of any further interference
between us—that Mr. Bentley then went out to you at Kensal Green—and
that you and he, between you, and without any previous consultation or
advising with Forster settled upon certain terms and conditions which
were afterwards proposed to me through you, and communicated to
Forster, for the first time and to his unbounded astonishment, by both
of us.
I remind you of all this because Mr. Bentley is going about town
stating in every quarter what may or may not be his real impression of
Forster’s course—because Mr. Bentley does not appeal as an authority
to you—because you do countenance Mr. Bentley in these proceedings by
hearing him express his opinion of Forster and not contradicting
him—and have aggravated him, indeed, by such thoughtless acts as first
procuring an unfavorable notice of the Miscellany in the Examiner (by
dint of urgent solicitations) and then shewing it to him with assumed
vexation and displeasure. I remind you of all this, because Forster
must and shall be set right—not with Mr. Bentley but with the men to
whom these stories are carried and his friends as well as foes—because
there are but two persons who can set him right—and because I wish to
know distinctly from you who shall do so, _without the delay of an
instant_—you or I.
There is another reason which renders this absolutely necessary.
Forster, acting for Mr. Savage Landor, arranged with Mr. Bentley for
the publication of two tragedies by that gentleman, which were
proceeding rapidly through the press when these matters occurred, and
have since been taken from the printers by Mr. Bentley—not published,
though the time agreed upon is long past; not advertised, though they
should have been long ago—their existence not recognized in anyway—and
all this as a means of annoyance and revenge against Forster who is
placed in the most painful situation with regard to Mr. Landor that it
is possible to conceive. Mr. Landor who holds such men as Mr. Bentley
in as little consideration as the mud of the streets, and who is
violent and reckless when exasperated, is as certain by some public
act to punish the bookseller for this treatment (if he be not
prevented by an immediate atonement) as the sun is to rise to-morrow.
This would entail upon me the immediate necessity, in explanation of
the circumstances which led to it, of laying a full history of these
proceedings before the public, and the consequence would be that we
and our private affairs would be dragged into newspaper notoriety and
involved in controversy and discussion, for the pain of which nothing
could ever compensate.
But however painful it will be to me to put myself in communication
once again with Mr. Bentley, and openly appeal to you to confirm what
I shall tell him, I have no alternative unless you will frankly and
openly and for the sake of _your_ old friend as well as my intimate
and valued one, avow to Mr. Bentley yourself that he is not to blame,
that you heard him again and again refuse to interfere although deeply
impressed with the hardship of my case—and that you proposed
concessions which he—feeling the position in which he stood—could not
have suggested. Believe me, Ainsworth, that for your sake no less than
on Forster’s account, this should be done. You do not see it I know,
you do not mean it I am persuaded, but he is impressed with the idea,
and nine men out of ten would be (if these matters were stated by
anybody but you) that to enable yourself to gain your object and stand
in your present relations towards Mr. Bentley, you have used him as an
instrument by suppressing that which would have shewn his conduct in
the best and truest light, and have shrunk from the friendly and manly
avowal of feeling which your own impulses and freer and less worldly
considerations so generously prompted.
Once more let me say that I do not mean to hurt or offend you by
anything I have said, and that I should be truly grieved to find I
have done so. But I must speak strongly because I feel strongly, and
because I have a misgiving that even now I have been silent too long.
My dear Ainsworth, I am
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens.
William Ainsworth Esquire.”
The little quarrel, if it was a quarrel, must have been composed
amicably, for Forster in his _Life of Dickens_ refers several times to
Ainsworth in a kind and appreciative way.
In 1840 Ainsworth and George Cruikshank brought out the “Tower of
London” in monthly numbers, and were equal partners in the enterprise.
It has always been regarded as a work of merit. In 1841 the author
received £1000 from the _Sunday Times_ for “Old St. Paul’s”, and it was
later one of Cruikshank’s grievances that he was not associated in this
production, the idea of which he insisted was his own. Among my letters
is one written by Cruikshank to Ainsworth on the subject, which has not,
as far as I know, been published, and I give it because it reveals the
relations of the two men quite distinctly.
“Amwell St., March 4, 1841.