Very shortly after this affair, Barbara had another short trip to the sea-side, and with a companion whose happiness equalled her own: it was the honeymoon excursion, and Edward Leslie was Bab's companion for life. After this second sea-side sojourn, the bride returned to a pretty house of her own, quite near to Charles and Cary; and Barbara was never heard to complain of finding it dull or stupid, though summer does not last all the year round with any of us.
MR JERDAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
The first of a series of volumes, designed to contain the literary, political, and social reminiscences of Mr Jerdan during the last fifty years, has just seen the light. It will be found to be one of the most amusing books of the day, and also not without a moral of its own kind. We presume it is of no use to debate how far it is allowable to bring before the public matters pertaining to private life, and about which living individuals may feel a delicacy. The time for such questions seems past. Assuming so much, we at least feel pretty sure that the lives and characters of living men could scarcely be in gentler or more genial hands than those of William Jerdan.
Mr Jerdan is chiefly known as having been for a third of a century the editor of the London Literary Gazette, a work which used to report on literature with a sympathy for authors strikingly in contrast with the tone of some of its contemporaries, in whom it would almost appear as if the saying of a kind word, or even the doing of simple justice towards a book, were felt as a piece of inexcusable weakness. He is now, at seventy, relieved from his cares, with little tangible result from his long and active career; but for this the readers of his autobiography will be at no loss to account. Jerdan has evidently been a kind-hearted, mirth-making, tomorrow-defying mortal all his days, as if he had patriotically set himself from the beginning to prove that Scotland could produce something different from those hosts of staid, sober, calculating men for which it has become so much distinguished. We speak here, indeed, according to the English apprehension of the Scotch character, for in Scotland, strange to say—that is, to Englishmen it will appear strange—the people believe themselves to be remarkable for want of foresight—'aye wise ahint the hand,' is their own self-portraiture—and for a certain ardour of genius which leads them into all sorts of scrapes. The issue is, after all, a hard one, and viewing the long services of Mr Jerdan to the literary republic, we would hope that a cheerful life-evening is still in store for him.
Our autobiographer tells, with all due modesty, of his early days at Kelso—the respectable friends by whom he was surrounded—his acquiring the reputation of a clever youth, and running nigh being a good deal spoilt in consequence. At nineteen, he went to London, to enter the counting-house of a mercantile uncle, and during two years spent there, formed an acquaintance with a group of young men, several of whom have since become distinguished. Among these were Messrs Pirie and Lawrie, since Lord Mayors of London—David, William, and Frederick Pollock, of whom the last is now Chief Baron of Exchequer—and Mr Wilde, who has since been Lord Chancellor. Interrupted in his career by a severe illness, he returned to Scotland to recruit, and soon after was placed with an Edinburgh writer to the Signet, to study the mysteries of law. The Scottish capital was then a much more frolicsome place than now, and Jerdan entered heartily into all its humours, spent merry evenings with Tom Sheridan and Joseph Gillan, attended mason-lodges, joined the Volunteers, and, seeing a fountain one day, wished to be it, for then he should have nothing to do but play. The natural result followed in a second severe illness, out of which his kind master, Corrie Elliott, endeavoured to recover him by a commission to ride through a range of mountain parishes in the south, in order to search for genealogical particulars illustrative of a case between Lady Forbes, born Miss Hunter of Polmood, and two gentlemen named Hunter, who claimed her estate.
'I travelled,' says our autobiographer, 'from manse to manse, and received unbounded hospitalities from the ministers, whilst I examined their kirk-registers, and extracted from them every entry where the name of Hunter or Welsh was to be found. Never was task more gratifying. The bonhomie of the priests, and the simplicity of their parishioners, were a new world to me, whilst they, the clergy, men of piety and learning, considered themselves as out of the world altogether. The population was thin and scattered, the mode of living primitive in the extreme, and the visit of a stranger, so insignificant as myself, quite enough to make a great sensation in these secluded parts. I found the ministers ingenuous, free from all puritanism, and generally well informed.... The examination of the parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful exposures, and a rigid and minute interference in every domestic or private concern, indicated a state of things which must have been intolerable. High and low were obliged to submit to this offensive discipline and domination.... My duty was thus pleasantly and satisfactorily performed. My note-book was full. My skill in deciphering obsolete manuscript was cultivated and improved; and my health was restored as if by miracle. Of other incidents and results I shall only state, that on one occasion, to rival Bruce in Abyssinia, I dined off mutton whilst the sheep nibbled the grass upon the lawn, our fare being the amputated tails of the animals, which made a very dainty dish—that on reaching Edinburgh, my hackney, having from a dark gallop over a ground where a murder had been committed not long before, and being put into a cold stable, lost every hair on its hide like a scalded pig, subjected me to half his price in lieu of damage—and that the famous and ancient Polmood remained in the possession of Lord Forbes, as inherited from the charter of King Robert, who gave the lands for ever, "as high up as heaven, and as low down as hell," to the individual named in the grant, which was witnessed "by Meg, my wife, and Marjory, my nourice."'
Despairing of doing any good in Edinburgh, Mr Jerdan, while still only twenty-three, resorted once more to London, though without any definite object in view. While pursuing his usual light-hearted career, he got into debt and difficulties, and experienced the consequent annoyances with the sense of being an injured man, 'whereas it was I who had wronged myself.' 'It was now,' he adds, 'that I got my first lesson of that fatal truth—that debt is the greatest curse which can beset the course of a human being. It cools his friends and heats his enemies; it throws obstacles in the way of his every advance towards independence; it degrades him in his own estimation, and exposes him to humiliation from others, however beneath him in station and character; it marks him for injustice and spoil; it weakens his moral perceptions and benumbs his intellectual faculties; it is a burden not to be borne consistently with fair hopes of fortune, or that peace of mind which passeth all understanding, both in a worldly and eternal sense. But I shall have much to say on the subject in the future pages of this biography, though I cannot omit the opportunity afforded by my earliest taste of the bitter fruit which poisons every pulse of existence, earnestly to exhort my youthful readers to deny themselves every expense which they cannot harmlessly afford, and revel on bread and water and a lowly couch, in humility and patience, rather than incur the obligation of a single sixpence beyond their actual means.'
At length, about 1806, he gravitated into what was perhaps his natural position—the press; taking a concern in a daily paper called the Aurora, which was got up by the hotel-keepers of London. This speculation did not answer. It was destined to verify a late saying: 'If you want anything spoilt or ruined, you cannot do better than confide it to a committee.' 'Our rulers,' says Jerdan, 'though intelligent and sensible men, were neither literary nor conversant with journalism. Under any circumstances, their interference would have been injurious, but it was rendered still more fatal by their differences in political opinion, and two or three of the number setting up to write "leaders" themselves. The clashing and want of ensemble was speedily obvious and detrimental; our readers became perfect weathercocks, and could not reconcile themselves to themselves from day to day. They wished, of course, to be led, as all well-informed citizens are, by their newspaper; and they would not blow hot and cold in the manner prescribed for all the coffee-room politicians in London. In the interior, the hubbub and confusion of the republic of letters was meanwhile exceedingly amusing to the looker-on; we were of all parties and shades of opinion: the proprietor of the King's Head was an ultra Tory, and swore by George III. as the best of sovereigns—the Crown Hotel was very loyal, but more moderate—the Bell Inn would give a strong pull for the Church—whilst the Cross-Keys was infected with Romish predilections. The Cockpit was warlike; the Olive-Tree, pacific; the Royal Oak, patriotic; the Rummer, democratic; the Hole-in-the-Wall, seditious. Many a dolorous pull at the porter-pot and sapientious declination of his head had the perplexed and bemused editor, before he could effect any tolerable compromise of contradictions for the morning's issue: at the best, the sheet appeared full of signs and wonders!' In short, the paper failed.