Old and New London Part 27

Bridge Street is too new for many traditions. Its chief hero is that active-minded and somewhat shallow speculator, Sir Richard Phillips, the bookseller and projector. An interesting memoir by Mr. Timbs, his intimate friend, furnishes us with many curious facts, and shows how the publisher of Bridge Street impinged on many of the most ill.u.s.trious of his contemporaries, and how in a way he pushed forward the good work which afterwards owed so much to Mr. Charles Knight. Phillips, born in London in 1767, was educated in Soho Square, and afterwards at Chiswick, where he remembered often seeing Hogarth's widow and Dr. Griffith, of the _Monthly Review_ (Goldsmith's tyrant), attending church. He was brought up to be a brewer, but in 1788 settled as a schoolmaster, first at Chester and afterwards at Leicester. At Leicester he opened a bookseller's shop, started a newspaper (the _Leicester Herald_), and established a philosophical society. Obnoxious as a Radical, he was at last entrapped for selling Tom Paine's "Rights of Man," and was sent to gaol for eighteen months, where he was visited by Lord Moira, the Duke of Norfolk, and other advanced men of the day. His house being burned down, he removed to London, and projected a Sunday newspaper, but eventually Mr. Bell stole the idea and started the _Messenger_. In 1795 this restless and energetic man commenced the _Monthly Magazine_. Before this he had already been a hosier, a tutor, and a speculator in ca.n.a.ls.

The politico-literary magazine was advertised by circulars sent to eminent men of the opposition in commercial parcels, to save the enormous postage of those unregenerate days. Dr. Aiken, the literary editor, afterwards started a rival magazine, called the _Athenaeum_. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ never rose to a circulation above 10,000, which soon sank to 3,000. Phillips's magazine sold about 3,750. With all these multifarious pursuits, Phillips was an antiquary--purchasing Wolsey's skull for a s.h.i.+lling, a portion of his stone coffin, that had been turned into a horse-trough at the "White Horse" inn, Leicester; and Rufus's stirrup, from a descendant of the charcoal-burner who drove the body of the slain king to Winchester.

As a pus.h.i.+ng publisher Phillips soon distinguished himself, for the Liberals came to him, and he had quite enough sense to discover if a book was good. He produced many capital volumes of Ana, on the French system, and memoirs of Foote, Monk, Lewes, Wilkes, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He published Holcroft's "Travels," G.o.dwin's best novels, and Miss Owenson's (Lady Morgan's) first work, "The Novice of St. Dominick."

In 1807, when he removed to New Bridge Street, he served the office of sheriff; was knighted on presenting an address, and effected many reforms in the prisons and lock-up houses. In his useful "Letter to the Livery of London" he computes the number of writs then annually issued at 24,000; the sheriffs' expenses at 2,000. He also did his best to repress the cruelties of the mob to poor wretches in the pillory. He was a steady friend of Alderman Waithman, and was with him in the carriage at the funeral of Queen Caroline, in 1821, when a bullet from a soldier's carbine pa.s.sed through the carriage window near Hyde Park. In 1809 Phillips had some reverses, and breaking up his publis.h.i.+ng-office in Bridge Street, devoted himself to the profitable reform of school-books, publis.h.i.+ng them under the names of Goldsmith, Mavor, and Blair.

This active-minded man was the first to a.s.sert that Dr. Wilmot wrote "Junius," and to start the celebrated scandal about George III. and the young Quakeress, Hannah Lightfoot, daughter of a linendraper, at the corner of Market Street, St. James's. She afterwards, it is said, married a grocer, named Axford, on Ludgate Hill, was then carried off by the prince, and bore him three sons, who in time became generals. The story is perhaps traceable to Dr. Wilmot, whose daughter married the Duke of c.u.mberland. Phillips found time to attack the Newtonian theory of gravitation, to advocate a memorial to Shakespeare, to compile a book containing a million of facts, to write on Divine philosophy, and to suggest (as he a.s.serted) to Mr. Brougham, in 1825, the first idea of the Society for Useful Knowledge. Almost ruined by the failures during the panic in 1826, he retired to Brighton, and there pushed forward his books and his interrogative system of education. Sir Richard's greatest mistakes, he used to say, had been the rejection of Byron's early poems, of "Waverley," of Bloomfield's "Farmer's Boy," and O'Meara's "Napoleon in Exile." He always stoutly maintained his claim to the suggestion of the "Percy Anecdotes." Phillips died in 1840. Superficial as he was, and commercial as were his literary aims, we nevertheless cannot refuse him the praise awarded in his epitaph:--"He advocated civil liberty, general benevolence, ascendancy of justice, and the improvement of the human race."

The old monastic ground of the Black Friars seems to have been beloved by painters, for, as we have seen, Vand.y.k.e lived luxuriously here, and was frequently visited by Charles I. and his Court. Cornelius Jansen, the great portrait-painter of James's Court, arranged his black draperies and ground his fine carnations in the same locality; and at the same time Isaac Oliver, the exquisite Court miniature-painter, dwelt in the same place. It was to him Lady Ayres, to the rage of her jealous husband, came for a portrait of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, an imprudence that very nearly led to the a.s.sa.s.sination of the poet-lord, who believed himself so specially favoured of Heaven.

The king's printing-office for proclamations, &c., used to be in Printing-house Square, but was removed in 1770; and we must not forget that where a Norman fortress once rose to oppress the weak, to guard the spoils of robbers, and to protect the oppressor, the _Times_ printing-office now stands, to diffuse its ceaseless floods of knowledge, to spread its resistless aegis over the poor and the oppressed, and ever to use its vast power to extend liberty and crush injustice, whatever shape the Proteus a.s.sumes, whether it sits upon a throne or lurks in a swindler's office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE AND THE "TIMES" OFFICE (_see page 209_).]

This great paper was started in the year 1785, by Mr. John Walter, under the name of the _Daily Universal Register_. It was first called the _Times_, January 1, 1788, when the following prospectus appeared:--

"The _Universal Register_ has been a name as injurious to the logographic newspaper as Tristram was to Mr. Shandy's son; but old Shandy forgot he might have rectified by confirmation the mistake of the parson at baptism, and with the touch of a bishop changed Tristram into Trismegistus. The _Universal Register_, from the day of its first appearance to the day of its confirmation, had, like Tristram, suffered from innumerable casualties, both laughable and serious, arising from its name, which in its introduction was immediately curtailed of its fair proportions by all who called for it, the word 'Universal' being universally omitted, and the word 'Register' only retained. 'Boy, bring me the _Register_.' The waiter answers, 'Sir, we have no library; but you may see it in the "New Exchange" coffee-house.' 'Then I will see it there,' answers the disappointed politician; and he goes to the 'New Exchange' coffee-house, and calls for the _Register_, upon which the waiter tells him he cannot have it, as he is not a subscriber, or presents him with the _Court and City Register_, the _Old Annual Register_, or the _New Annual Register_, or, if the house be within the purlieus of Covent Garden or the hundreds of Drury, slips into the politician's hand _Harris's Register of Ladies_.

"For these and other reasons the printer of the _Universal Register_ has added to its original name that of the _Times_, which, being a monosyllable, bids defiance to the corruptions and mutilations of the language.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACKFRIARS OLD BRIDGE DURING ITS CONSTRUCTION, SHOWING THE TEMPORARY FOOT BRIDGE, FROM A PRINT OF 1775 (_see page 207_).]

"The _Times!_ what a monstrous name! Granted--for the Times is a many-headed monster, that speaks with a hundred tongues, and displays a thousand characters; and in the course of its transitions in life, a.s.sumes innumerable shapes and humours.

"The critical reader will observe, we personify our new name; but as we give it no distinction of s.e.x, and though it will be active in its vocation, yet we apply to it the neuter gender.

"The _Times_, being formed of and possessing qualities of opposite and heterogeneous natures, cannot be cla.s.sed either in the animal or vegetable genus, but, like the polypus, is doubtful; and in the discussion, description, and ill.u.s.tration, will employ the pens of the most celebrated _literati_.

"The heads of the _Times_, as has already been said, are many; these will, however, not always appear at the same time, but casually, as public or private affairs may call them forth.

"The princ.i.p.al or leading heads are--the literary, political, commercial, philosophical, critical, theatrical, fas.h.i.+onable, humorous, witty, &c., each of which is supplied with a competent share of intellect for the pursuit of their several functions, an endowment which is not in all cases to be found, even in the heads of the State, the heads of the Church, the heads of the law, the heads of the navy, the heads of the army, and, though last not least, the great heads of the universities.

"The political head of the _Times_--like that of Ja.n.u.s, the Roman deity--is double-faced. With one countenance it will smile continually on the friends of Old England, and with the other will frown incessantly on her enemies.

"The alteration we have made in our paper is not without precedents. The _World_ has parted with half its _caput mortuum_ and a moiety of its brains; the _Herald_ has cutoff one half of its head and has lost its original humour; the _Post_, it is true, retains its whole head and its old features; and as to the other public prints, they appear as having neither heads nor tails.

"On the Parliamentary head, every communication that ability and industry can produce may be expected. To this great national object the _Times_ will be most sedulously attentive, most accurately correct, and strictly impartial in its reports."

Both the _Times_ and its predecessor were printed "logographically," Mr.

Walter having obtained a patent for his peculiar system. The plan consisted in abridging the compositors' labour by casting all the more frequently recurring words in metal. It was, in fact, a system of partial stereotyping. The English language, said the sanguine inventor, contained above 90,000 words. This number Walter had reduced to about 5,000. The projector was a.s.sailed by the wits, who declared that his orders to the typefounders ran,--"Send me a hundredweight, in separate pounds, of _heat_, _cold_, _wet_, _dry_, _murder_, _fire_, _dreadful robbery_, _atrocious outrage_, _fearful calamity_, and _alarming explosion_." But nothing could daunt or stop Walter. One eccentricity of the _Daily Register_ was that on red-letter days the t.i.tle was printed in red ink, and the character of the day stated under the date-line. For instance, on Friday, August 11, 1786, there is a red heading, and underneath the words--

"Princess of Brunswick born.

Holiday at the Bank, Excise offices, and the Exchequer."

The first number of the _Times_ is not so large as the _Morning Herald_ or _Morning Chronicle_ of the same date, but larger than the _London Chronicle_, and of the same size as the _Public Advertiser_. (Knight Hunt.)

The first Walter lived in rough times, and suffered from the political storms that then prevailed. He was several times imprisoned for articles against great people, and it has been a.s.serted that he stood in the pillory in 1790 for a libel against the Duke of York. This is not, however, true; but it is a fact that he was sentenced to such a punishment, and remained sixteen months in Newgate, till released at the intercession of the Prince of Wales. The first Walter died in 1812. The second Mr. Walter, who came to the helm in 1803, was the real founder of the future greatness of the _Times_; and he, too, had his rubs. In 1804 he offended the Government by denouncing the foolish Catamaran expedition. For this the Government meanly deprived his family of the printing for the Customs, and also withdrew their advertis.e.m.e.nts. During the war of 1805 the Government stopped all the foreign papers sent to the _Times_. Walter, stopped by no obstacle, at once contrived other means to secure early news, and had the triumph of announcing the capitulation of Flus.h.i.+ng forty-eight hours before the intelligence had arrived through any other channel.

There were no reviews of books in the _Times_ till long after it was started, but it paid great attention to the drama from its commencement.

There were no leading articles for several years, yet in the very first year the _Times_ displays threefold as many advertis.e.m.e.nts as its contemporaries. For many years Mr. Walter, with his usual sagacity and energy, endeavoured to mature some plan for printing the _Times_ by steam. As early as 1804 a compositor named Martyn had invented a machine for the purpose of superseding the hand-press, which took hours struggling over the three or four thousand copies of the _Times_. The pressmen threatened destruction to the new machine, and it had to be smuggled piecemeal into the premises, while Martyn sheltered himself under various disguises to escape the vengeance of the workmen. On the eve of success, however, Walter's father lost courage, stopped the supplies, and the project was for the time abandoned. In 1814 Walter, however, returned to the charge. Koenig and Barnes put their machinery in premises adjoining the _Times_ office, to avoid the violence of the pressmen. At one time the two inventors are said to have abandoned their machinery in despair, but a clerical friend of Walter examined the difficulty and removed it. The night came at last when the great experiment was to be made. The unconscious pressmen were kept waiting in the next office for news from the Continent. At six o'clock in the morning Mr. Walter entered the press-room, with a wet paper in his hand, and astonished the men by telling them that the _Times_ had just been printed by steam. If they attempted violence, he said, there was a force ready to suppress it; but if they were peaceable their wages should be continued until employment was found for them. He could now print 1,100 sheets an hour. By-and-by Koenig's machine proved too complicated, and Messrs. Applegarth and Cowper invented a cylindrical one, that printed 8,000 an hour. Then came Hoe's process, which is now said to print at the rate of from 18,000 to 22,000 copies an hour (Grant). The various improvements in steam-printing have altogether cost the _Times_, according to general report, not less than 80,000.

About 1813 Dr. Stoddart, the brother-in-law of Hazlitt (afterwards Sir John Stoddart, a judge in Malta), edited the _Times_ with ability, till his almost insane hatred of Bonaparte, "the Corsican fiend," as he called him, led to his secession in 1815 or 1816. Stoddart was the "Doctor Slop" whom Tom Moore derided in his gay little Whig lampoons.

The next editor was Thomas Barnes, a better scholar and a far abler man.

He had been a contemporary of Lamb at Christ's Hospital, and a rival of Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London. While a student in the Temple he wrote the _Times_ a series of political letters in the manner of "Junius," and was at once placed as a reporter in the gallery of the House. Under his editors.h.i.+p Walter secured some of his ablest contributors, including that Captain Stirling, "The Thunderer," whom Carlyle has sketched so happily. Stirling was an Irishman, who had fought with the Royal troops at Vinegar Hill, then joined the line, and afterwards turned gentleman farmer in the Isle of Bute. He began writing for the _Times_ about 1815, and, it is said, eventually received 2,000 a year as a writer of das.h.i.+ng and effective leaders. Lord Brougham also, it is said, wrote occasional articles. Tom Moore was even offered 100 a month if he would contribute, and Southey declined an offer of 2,000 a year for editing the _Times_. Macaulay in his day wrote many brilliant squibs in the _Times_; amongst them one containing the line:

"Ye diners out, from whom we guard our spoons,"

and another on the subject of Wat Banks's candidates.h.i.+p for Cambridge.

Barnes died in 1841. Horace Twiss, the biographer of Lord Eldon and nephew of Mrs. Siddons, also helped the _Times_ forward by his admirable Parliamentary summaries, the first the _Times_ had attempted. This able man died suddenly in 1848, while speaking at a meeting of the Rock a.s.surance Society at Radley's Hotel, Bridge Street.

One of the longest wars the _Times_ ever carried on was that against Alderman Harmer. It was Harmer's turn, in due order of rotation, to become Lord Mayor. A strong feeling had arisen against Harmer because, as the avowed proprietor of the _Weekly Dispatch_, he inserted certain letters of the late Mr. Williams ("Publicola"), which were said to have had the effect of preventing Mr. Walter's return for Southwark (see page 59). The _Times_ upon this wrote twelve powerful leaders against Harmer, which at once decided the question. This was a great a.s.sertion of power, and raised the _Times_ in the estimation of all England. For these twelve articles, originally intended for letters, the writer (says Mr.

Grant) received 200. But in 1841 the extraordinary social influence of this giant paper was even still more shown. Mr. O'Reilly, their Paris correspondent, obtained a clue to a vast scheme of fraud concocting in Paris by a gang of fourteen accomplished swindlers, who had already netted 10,700 of the million for which they had planned. At the risk of a.s.sa.s.sination, O'Reilly exposed the scheme in the _Times_, dating the _expose_ Brussels, in order to throw the swindlers on the wrong scent.

At a public meeting of merchants, bankers, and others held in the Egyptian Hall, Mansion House, October 1, 1841, the Lord Mayor (Thomas Johnson) in the chair, it was unanimously resolved to thank the proprietors of the _Times_ for the services they had rendered in having exposed the most remarkable and extensively fraudulent conspiracy (the famous "Bogle" swindle) ever brought to light in the mercantile world, and to record in some substantial manner the sense of obligation conferred by the proprietors of the _Times_ on the commercial world.

The proprietors of the _Times_ declining to receive the 2,625 subscribed by the London merchants to recompense them for doing their duty, it was resolved, in 1842, to set apart the funds for the endowment of two scholars.h.i.+ps, one at Christ's Hospital, and one at the City of London School. In both schools a commemorative tablet was put up, as well as one at the Royal Exchange and the _Times_ printing-office.

At various periods the _Times_ has had to endure violent attacks in the House of Commons, and many strenuous efforts to restrain its vast powers. In 1819 John Payne Collier, one of their Parliamentary reporters, and better known as one of the greatest of Shakesperian critics, was committed into the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms for a report in which he had attacked Canning. The _Times_, however, had some powerful friends in the House; and in 1821 we find Mr. Hume complaining that the Government advertis.e.m.e.nts were systematically withheld from the _Times_. In 1831 Sir R.H. Inglis complained that the _Times_ had been guilty of a breach of privilege, in a.s.serting that there were borough nominees and lackeys in the House. Sir Charles Wetherell, that t.i.tled, incomparable old Tory, joined in the attack, which Burdett chivalrously cantered forward to repel. Sir Henry Hardinge wanted the paper prosecuted, but Lord John Russell, Orator Hunt, and O'Connell, however, moved the previous question, and the great debate on the Reform Bill then proceeded. The same year the House of Lords flew at the great paper. The Earl of Limerick had been called "an absentee, and a thing with human pretensions." The Marquis of Londonderry joined in the attack. The next day Mr. Lawson, printer of the _Times_, was examined and worried by the House; and Lord Wynford moved that Mr. Lawson, as printer of a scandalous libel, should be fined 100, and committed to Newgate till the fine be paid. The next day Mr. Lawson handed in an apology, but Lord Brougham generously rose and denied the power of the House to imprison and fine without a trial by jury. The Tory lords spoke angrily; the Earl of Limerick called the press a tyrant that ruled all things, and crushed everything under its feet; and the Marquis of Londonderry complained of the coa.r.s.e and virulent libels against Queen Adelaide, for her supposed opposition to Reform.

In 1833 O'Connell attributed dishonest motives to the London reporter who had suppressed his speeches, and the reporters in the _Times_ expressed their resolution not to report any more of his speeches unless he retracted. O'Connell then moved in the House that the printer of the _Times_ be summoned to the bar for printing their resolution, but his motion was rejected. In 1838 Mr. Lawson was fined 200 for accusing Sir John Conroy, treasurer of the household of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, of peculation. In 1840 an angry member brought a breach of privilege motion against the _Times_, and advised every one who was attacked in that paper to horsewhip the editor.

In January, 1829, the _Times_ came out with a double sheet, consisting of eight pages, or forty-eight columns. In 1830 it paid 70,000 advertis.e.m.e.nt duty. In 1800 its sale had been below that of the _Morning Chronicle_, _Post_, _Herald_, and _Advertiser_.

The _Times_, according to Mr. Grant, in one day of 1870, received no less than 1,500 for advertis.e.m.e.nts. On June 22, 1862, it produced a paper containing no less than twenty-four pages, or 144 columns. In 1854 the _Times_ had a circulation of 51,000 copies; in 1860, 60,000. For special numbers its sale is enormous. The biography of Prince Albert sold 90,000 copies; the marriage of the Prince of Wales, 110,000 copies.

The income of the _Times_ from advertis.e.m.e.nts alone has been calculated at 260,000. A writer in a Philadelphia paper of 1867 estimates the paper consumed weekly by the _Times_ at seventy tons; the ink at two tons. There are employed in the office ten stereotypers, sixteen firemen and engineers, ninety machine-men, six men who prepare the paper for printing, and seven to transfer the papers to the news-agents. The new Walter press prints 22,000 to 24,000 impressions an hour, or 12,000 perfect sheets printed on both sides. It prints from a roll of paper three-quarters of a mile long, and cuts the sheets and piles them without help. It is a self-feeder, and requires only a man and two boys to guide its operations. A copy of the _Times_ has been known to contain 4,000 advertis.e.m.e.nts; and for every daily copy it is computed that the compositors ma.s.s together not less than 2,500,000 separate types.

The number of persons engaged in daily working for the _Times_ is put at nearly 350.

In the annals of this paper we must not forget the energy that, in 1834, established a system of home expresses, that enabled them to give the earliest intelligence before any other paper; and at an expense of 200 brought a report of Lord Durham's speech at Glasgow to London at the then unprecedented rate of fifteen miles an hour; nor should we forget their n.o.ble disinterestedness during the railway mania of 1845, when, although they were receiving more than 3,000 a week for railway advertis.e.m.e.nts, they warned the country unceasingly of the misery and ruin that must inevitably follow. The _Times_ proprietors are known to pay the highest sums for articles, and to be uniformly generous in pensioning men who have spent their lives in its service.

The late Mr. Walter, even when M.P. for Berks.h.i.+re and Nottingham, never forgot Printing-house Square when the debate, however late, had closed.

One afternoon, says Mr. Grant, he came to the office and found the compositors gone to dinner. Just at that moment a parcel, marked "immediate and important," arrived. It was news of vast importance. He at once slipped off his coat, and set up the news with his own hands; a pressman was at his post, and by the time the men returned a second edition was actually printed and published. But his foresight and energy was most conspicuously shown in 1845, when the jealousy of the French Government had thrown obstacles in the way of the _Times'_ couriers, who brought their Indian despatches from Ma.r.s.eilles. What were seas and deserts to Walter? He at once took counsel with Lieutenant Waghorn, who had opened up the overland route to India, and proposed to try a new route by Trieste. The result was that Waghorn reached London two days before the regular mail--the usual mail aided by the French Government.

The _Morning Herald_ was at first forty-eight hours before the _Times_, but after that the _Times_ got a fortnight ahead; and although the Trieste route was abandoned, the _Times_, eventually, was left alone as a troublesome and invincible adversary.

Apothecaries' Hall, the grave stone and brick building, in Water Lane, Blackfriars, was erected in 1670 (Charles II.), as the dispensary and hall of the Company of Apothecaries, incorporated by a charter of James I., at the suit of Gideon Delaune, the king's own apothecary. Drugs in the Middle Ages were sold by grocers and pepperers, or by the doctors themselves, who, early in James's reign, formed one company with the apothecaries; but the ill-a.s.sorted union lasted only eleven years, for the apothecaries were then fast becoming doctors themselves.

Garth, in his "Dispensary," describes, in the Hogarthian manner, the topographical position of Apothecaries' Hall:--

"Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams, To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames, There stands a structure on a rising hill, Where tyros take their freedom out to kill."

Gradually the apothecaries, refusing to be merely "the doctors' tools,"

began to encroach more and more on the doctors' province, and to prescribe for and even cure the poor. In 1687 (James II.) open war broke out. First Dryden, then Pope, fought on the side of the doctors against the humbler men, whom they were taught to consider as mere greedy mechanics and empirics. Dryden first let fly his mighty shaft:--

"The apothecary tribe is wholly blind; From files a random recipe they take, And many deaths from one prescription make.

Garth, generous as his muse, prescribes and gives; The shopman sells, and by destruction lives."

Pope followed with a smaller but keener arrow:--

"So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctors' bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools."