“England knew not a happier circle than that which for years assembled by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn aside from the world and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid the Cumberland Mountains.”
Such an opinion again hardly fits in with that of Thackeray already quoted.
“On Friday, October 18th, 1794, his aunt, Miss Tyler, turned him out of doors on a stormy night, and without a penny in his pocket. He made his way on foot, through wind and driving rain, along the dark country roads to Bath. Without any visible resource he was thrown upon the world, and as he paced the streets, weary, footsore, and sick at heart, he dreamed of the lofty things in literature he would strive to accomplish, now that he was his own master, with a will unfettered by a care for wishes other than his own, and of the pride that would glow within the swelling bosom of the fair Edith of his love, for whose dear sake he had submitted to be thus cast adrift. An uncle from Portugal wished to take him back with him to that country. ‘My Edith persuades me to go,’ said he, ‘and yet weeps at my going.’ And we are told how sadly after their secret marriage in Redcliffe Church, his maiden wife watched his departure with the wedding-ring she was afraid to wear suspended round her neck.”
In Southey’s life by his son, we read that he had recourse under the pressure of impecuniosity to delivering lectures at Bristol, and the following prospectus is quoted:—
“Robert Southey, of Balliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course of Historical Lectures in the following order:—1st. Introductory on the Origin and Progress of Society; 2nd. Legislation of Solon and Lycurgus; 3rd. State of Greece from the Persian War to the Dissolution of the Achaian League; 4th. Rise, Progress, and Decay of the Roman Empire; 5th. Progress of Christianity; 6th. Manners and Irruptions of the Northern Nations; Growth of the European States; Feudal System, and other equally abstruse subjects.”
The lectures were given in 1795, tickets for the course, 10s. 6d., sold at Cottle’s, bookseller, High Street.
Southey stated about this time that if he and Coleridge could get £150 a year between them, they would marry and retire into the country.
Another of these friendless dreamers who came to London, seeking literary employment and reputation, was George Borrow, the famous author of ‘Romany Rye,’ ‘The Bible in Spain,’ ‘Wild Wales,’ etc., the son of a military officer. He was born in Norfolk, early in the present century, and began life at the desk of a solicitor at Norwich. Becoming disgusted with that life, he started off with his stick and bundle to walk to London, where with his knowledge of languages he hoped to have no difficulty in earning a living. Reaching the great metropolis, he found out Sir Richard Phillips, editor and proprietor of the Monthly Magazine, who suggested that the young literary adventurer should devote himself to the writing of Newgate lives and trials. Having spent his loose cash in buying books on the subject, he went carefully to work. Sir Richard Phillips wanted less care and more expedition.
Borrow sent in his copy too slowly to please his exacting and overbearing employer, whose parsimony was only equalled by his greediness. He was paid in bills subject to discount, and led altogether a very wretched life. One morning he awoke with the disagreeable conviction that his plight had grown desperate, only half-a-crown remaining in his purse. Wandering out disconsolately, he saw a bill in the shop window of a bookseller, giving notice that a “novel or tale was much wanted,” went to his garret, and after a meal of bread and water, began to write a fictitious biography of ‘Joseph Tell.’ At this he continued to work unceasingly, day after day, eating nothing but bread, drinking only water, until on the fifth day the story was finished. And none too soon, for after he had laid aside the pen, want of rest and nourishment had so exhausted him that he swooned away. He had threepence left, and to reinvigorate him after he had left his MS., he spent the whole of that sum at one fell swoop on bread and milk, and went to bed penniless. When he called, the bookseller was willing to buy the novel, and after some haggling over the price, gave him twenty pounds for it, a sum which was as veritable a godsend to him as the price of the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ was to Oliver Goldsmith.
Borrow’s incessant writing reminds me of the incessant reading of the poet, Gerald Massey, who was born in 1828, near Tring, in Herts, in a little stone hovel, the rent of which was one shilling per week. His father was a poor canal boatman, who supported himself and family on ten shillings per week, and could not of course afford to give Gerald any opportunities of educating himself. As soon as he had attained his eighth year, he was set to work at a silk-mill, beginning work at five in the morning, and quitting it at half-past six in the evening, for a weekly wage of 1s. 9d. He was fifteen years of age when he came to London and obtained employment as an errand-boy, and having taught himself to read, eagerly devoured every book, paper, and magazine that was within his reach.