'Immediately after our arrival,' relates Mary, 'a public dinner was given to Campbell the poet, at which the committee requested my husband's attendance, and that he would take a share in the proceedings of the evening by proposing as a toast, "Wordsworth, Southey, and Moore." This was our first introduction to Professor Wilson (Christopher North) and his family. I sat in the gallery with Mrs. Wilson and her daughters, one of whom was engaged to Professor Ferrier. We could not but remark the wonderful difference, not only in the outer man, but in the whole character of mind and manner, between Professor Wilson and Campbell--the one so hearty, outspoken, and joyous, the other so petty and trivial.'
Robert Chambers constituted himself the Hewitts' cicerone in Edinburgh, showing them every place of interest, and presenting them to every person of note, including Mrs. Maclehose (the Clarinda of Burns), and William Miller, the Quaker artist and engraver, as intense a nature-worshipper as themselves. From Edinburgh they went to Glasgow, where they took ship for the Western Isles. Their adventures at Staffa and Iona, their voyage up the Caledonian Canal, and the remainder of their experiences on this tour, were afterwards described by William Howitt in his Visits to Remarkable Places.
PART II
In September, 1836, the Howitts took possession of their Surrey home, West End Cottage, an old-fashioned dwelling, with a large garden, an orchard, a meadow by the river Mole, and the right of boating and fishing to the extent of seven miles. The new life opened with good prospects of literary and journalistic employment, William Howitt's political writings having already attracted attention from several persons of power and influence in the newspaper world. On December 3 of this year, Mary wrote to inform her sister that, 'In consequence of an article that William wrote on Dymond's Christian Morality, Joseph Hume, the member for Middlesex, wrote to him, and has opened a most promising connection for him with a new Radical newspaper, The Constitutional. O'Connell seems determined to make him the editor of the Dublin Review, and wrote him a most kind letter, which has naturally promoted his interest with the party. I cannot but see the hand of Providence in our leaving Nottingham. All has turned out admirably.'
Unfortunately for these sanguine anticipations, the newspaper connections on which the Howitts depended for a livelihood, now that the despised chemist's business had been given up, proved but hollow supports. O'Connell had overlooked the trifling fact that a Quaker editor was hardly fitted to conduct a journal that was emphatically and polemically Catholic; and though he considered that William Howitt was admirably adapted to deal with literary and political topics, he was obliged to withdraw his offer of the editorship. A more crushing disappointment arose out of the engagement on The Constitutional. Mr. Howitt, according to his wife, did more for the paper than any other member of the staff. 'He worked and wrote like any slave,' she tells her sister. 'In the end, after a series of the most harassing and vexatious conduct on the part of the newspaper company, he was swindled out of every farthing. Oh, it was a most mortifying and humiliating thing to see men professing liberal and honest principles act so badly. A month ago, when in the very depths of discouragement and low spirits, I set about a little volume for Darton, to be called Birds and Flowers, and have pretty nearly finished it. William, in the mean time, has finished his Rural Life, and sold the first edition to Longman's.'
The manager of the unlucky paper was Major Carmichael Smith, who, when matters grew desperate, sent for his step-son, Thackeray, then acting as Paris correspondent for a London daily. 'Just as I was going out of the office one day,' writes William, 'I met on the stairs a tall, thin young man, in a dark blue coat, and with a nose that seemed to have had a blow that had flattened the bridge. I turned back, and had some conversation with him, being anxious to know how he proposed to carry on a paper which was without any funds, and already deeply in debt. He did not seem to know any more than I did. I thought to myself that his step-father had not done him much service in taking him from a profitable post for the vain business of endeavouring to buoy up a desperate speculation. How much longer The Constitutional struggled on, I know not. That was the first time I ever saw or heard of William Makepeace Thackeray.'
The Howitts were somewhat consoled for their journalistic losses by the triumphant success of Rural Life in England. The reading public which, during the previous century, had swallowed mock pastorals, made in Fleet Street, with perfect serenity, was now, thanks to the slowly-working influence of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets, prepared for a renaissance of nature and simplicity in prose. Miss Mitford's exquisite work had given them a distaste for the 'jewelled turf,' the 'silver streams,' and 'smiling valleys' which constituted the rustic stock-in-trade of the average novelist; and they eagerly welcomed a book that treated with accuracy and observation of the real country. William Howitt's straightforward, undistinguished style was acceptable enough in an age when even men of genius seem to have written fine prose without knowing it, and tripped up not infrequently over the subtleties of English grammar. His lack of imagination and humour was more than atoned for, in the uncritical eyes of the 'thirties,' by the easy loquacity of his rural gossip, and the varied information with which he crammed his pages. The Nature of those days was a simple, transparent creature, with but small resemblance to the lady of moods, mystery, and passion who is so overworked in our modern literature. No one dreamt of going into hysterics over the veining of a leaf, or penning a rhapsody on the outline of a rain-cloud; nor could it yet be said that, 'if everybody must needs blab of the favours that have been done him by roadside, and river-brink, and woodland walk, as if to kiss and tell were no longer treachery, it will soon be a positive refreshment to meet a man who is as superbly indifferent to Nature as she is to him.' [Footnote: Lowell]
The Howitts took great delight in the pleasant Surrey country, so different from the dreary scenery around Nottingham, and Mary's letters contain many descriptions of the woods and commons and shady lanes through which the family made long expeditions in a little carriage drawn by Peg, their venerable pony. Driving one day to Hook, they met Charles Dickens, then best known as 'Boz,' in one of his long tramps, with Harrison Ainsworth as his companion. When Dickens's next work, Master Humphrey's Clock, appeared, the Howitts were amused to see that their stout and wilful Peg had not escaped the novelist's keen eye, but had been pressed into service for Mr. Garland's chaise.
On another occasion, in July 1841, William, while driving with a friend, was attacked by two handsome, dark-eyed girls, dressed in gipsy costume, who ran one on each side of the carriage, begging that the kind gentleman would give them sixpence, as they were poor strangers who had taken nothing all day. Mr. Howitt, who had made a special study of the gipsy tribe, perceived in an instant that these were only sham Romanys. He paid no attention to their pleading, but observed that he hoped they would enjoy their frolic, and only wished that he were as rich as they. Subsequently, he discovered that the mock-gipsies, who had been unable to coax a sixpence out of him, were none other than the beautiful Sheridan sisters, the Duchess of Somerset, and Mrs. Blackwood (afterwards Lady Dufferin), whose husband had lately taken Bookham Lodge.