PREFACE.

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IN 1862 I received an intimation from the proprietor of the “Windsor and Eton Express,” that, on the following first of August, the newspaper so called would have completed the fiftieth year of its publication. The fact was an interesting one to me. That newspaper was established by my father and myself; my proprietary interest in it lasted for fourteen years; and I continued to be its editor till the end of 1826, as I had been from its commencement.

Looking back upon the August of 1812, at which time my working life really commenced, it occurred to me that there were passages of that working life of fifty years which might have an interest for a wider circle than that of my family and my immediate friends, if presented without the tedious egotism of a formal Auto-Biography. During that period my social position has not materially altered, and I have not had the advantage of seeing “life in many lands.” I have therefore no startling incidents to relate, and no great variety of scenes to describe. My occupation has

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been that of a publisher and a writer. But, in the course of my long connection with the Press (I use this word in its most extended meaning), I have been brought into communication with many eminent persons, and have been somewhat extensively mixed up with vast changes in the social condition of the people, in the progress of which elementary education and popular literature have been amongst the most efficient instruments of amelioration.

But before I start upon a long journey—broken, however, into several stages,—it may give a completeness to my narrative if I put together some earlier Reminiscences of circumstances by which I was surrounded, from the beginning of the century, in my childhood and my advance to manhood. The first steps of self-formation are, I think, always interesting to follow, however uneventful may be the subsequent career of an individual. But my early days at Windsor have a wider interest, as they made me familiar with the outward manifestations of the simple life of George the Third and his Court—an old-fashioned life of publicity, which wholly passed away in the seclusion of the next reign, when the King was seldom seen by his people, much less living among them in a sort of family intimacy, such as I had looked upon from my humble point of observation. In 1810, the regal aspect of Windsor was wholly changed by the illness of the King. In 1812, when I put on the

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responsibilities of full age, the Regent was invested with unrestricted power. There never was a more eventful period in the history of our country than the first twelve years of the Nineteenth Century. They were calculated to produce a strong and abiding impression upon the mind of a thoughtful youth, whose local associations were suggestive of past dangers and triumphs—of the Blenheim of Anne and the Crecy of Edward. Moreover, as I advanced towards manhood, there was an outburst of literature, which stirred my spirit with a new power. If, in recording my impressions of this memorable era, I should be able to recal some of the enthusiasm of the passing time, I may not be without the hope of imparting an interest to the Reminiscences of a solitary boy and an obscure young man.

I. From 1812 to the end of 1822, my chief occupation was that of a journalist at Windsor. But my duties were not wholly limited to that narrow range, although in tracing my course as the editor of a local paper I may regard some circumstances as of peculiar interest. The political aspects of that

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period are not pleasant to review; when the thoughtful man saw as much to be apprehended from an unsympathising Government as from a discontented people. In 1820 I made my first attempt in publishing a Cheap Miscellany; and I have to estimate what Popular Literature was, at a period when the majority looked upon Books for the Many as a very dangerous experiment in giving a direction to the newly-diffused art of reading. At this period, also, of strong political excitement, I was induced to accept the editorship of a London Weekly Newspaper. My area of observation was thus somewhat enlarged. My aim was to make “The Guardian” as much a literary as a political paper; and I thus incidentally acquired a familiarity with the Periodical Literature of a time when Magazines were becoming more original and more influential. I also gained some insight into the general commerce of books in that closing era of high prices. During this period one of the pleasantest occupations of my Windsor life opened to me, as the printer and publisher of “The Etonian.” This circumstance led to my intercourse with that most remarkable knot of Cambridge students who became the chief contributors to “Knight’s Quarterly Magazine.” It may be sufficient to mention the names of Macaulay, Praed, Sidney Walker, Henry Nelson Coleridge (of these I may, unhappily, speak without reserve), and add those of Derwent Coleridge, Henry Malden, and John Moultrie, to give an abiding interest to such

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remembrances. “The Quarterly Magazine” chiefly led to my establishment as a London publisher in the season of 1823. Through this year, and in 1824, I was occupied in the literary and commercial management of that work, which was concluded after the publication of six numbers. A second series was subsequently undertaken; but this attempt at a revival was of too solid a character fitly to succeed its brilliant predecessor.

In 1827 I became connected with the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; and soon after edited and published “The British Almanac” and “Companion,” and “The Library of Entertaining Knowledge.” Through twenty years—until, indeed, the Society thought that the time was come when individual enterprise would accomplish all that they had attempted—I was more or less connected with this memorable Association. My remembrances will

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embrace whatever, without violation of confidence, may be related of this connection. I need not here particularise the eminent persons with whom I was brought into contact, in carrying forward the works which were entrusted to my care as Publisher, and in several cases as Editor. Other important works were undertaken by me without the support of the Society’s reputation. I availed myself—perhaps more than most of the publishers of that period—of the revived process of wood-engraving, to diffuse popular Art as well as popular Literature. In this species of enterprise “The Penny Magazine” led the way. “The Pictorial Bible” was the most successful of the more permanent class of such publications; the “Thousand and one Nights” was the most beautiful. The “Pictorial History of England” was followed by the “Pictorial Shakspere,” which was the most congenial undertaking of my literary life; and then by the “London.” This series of years, which brought with them unabated literary labour and most anxious commercial responsibility, were not without their enjoyments of pleasant and remunerating work. They afforded me the consolation that I was performing a public good, when I bore up, unaided, under the heavy load of “The Penny Cyclopædia,” overweighted by taxation. This was the most busy and the most interesting period of my working life; and its interest is heightened beyond measure to myself by the consideration that this epoch was the great turning-point in our poli-

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tical and social history; that it was a period of wonderful progress; and that many of the distinguished men with whom I was associated can never be separated, by the future historian, from the course of that peaceful revolution which has made the institutions of the country in harmony with the advance of intelligence, and has identified the interests and the wishes of the rulers and of the nation. In this period, also, I became officially connected, as a Publisher, with those who originated and carried forward the Amendment of the Poor-Law and other cognate reforms; and I was thus necessarily called upon to give a close attention to the principles and practical working of measures which have so materially improved the Condition of the People.

III. My third epoch is one of comparative repose. I edited and published the extensive series of the “Weekly Volume.” I had opportunities of seeing much of the actual condition of the country in editing “The Land we Live in,” during the transition period of Free Trade. I assisted as Publisher in the great sanitary measures which had assumed fresh importance. Gradually I withdrew from any novel undertakings involving considerable risk; for I found that the new competition of excessive cheapness, without regard to the quality of the reading made cheap, was not suited to the habits in which I had been so long trained. But I had still to look for happiness in work. I had to become more

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a writer and editor than a publisher. A few separate volumes were published for me by Mr. Murray. Larger undertakings, connected with copyrights which I had retained, or was to create, were published by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans. I was thus relieved from the minor cares of business, and, having a just confidence in those to whom my interests were committed, I could work more efficiently at my responsible duties as author and conductor. The nature of my writings was such that I had to look upon the various phases of Society in the Past, and so, by comparison, to estimate the Present more accurately and impartially than a view mainly directed to current things might attain. Whilst engaged in writing the History of my Country, I had also to keep a steady eye upon the general characteristics of its progress—political, social, scientific, and literary; for I was occupied in reproducing, with large additions, that Cyclopædia of which I had been the proprietor and publisher under the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In this evening of my life I had the happiness to become intimate with many who were eminent in the imaginative walks of Literature; and I learnt, more completely than I knew before, that it is not only the scientific and the philosophical who are advancing, by their writings, the moral and intellectual developments of a nation.

In thus producing my memorials of Men and Books, of Social Progress and Changing Manners, I

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may be considered as risking the indulgence of the garrulous egotism of advanced years. I hope that the form of “Passages” will keep me from many of the usual faults of Auto-Biography. I shall prefer to speak of others rather than of myself. I shall endeavour to deal with public realities rather than with transient moods of my own mind. I have undertaken a survey of a “long tract of time,” and, having often to rely upon my memory, may have to ask the indulgence of the reader if he discover any mistakes in dates, or any confusion in the relation of one circumstance to another. I never kept a diary. I am not sure that I should have had a clearer view of the leading Passages of my life if I had done so. I was not always careful in preserving letters. Yet somehow I feel as if I could find my way through labyrinths which might be impenetrable in their obscurity, were it not for associations which conduct me onward, even as the Indian can see his road by old footmarks which he alone can recognise.