One day, while dining with my friend Henry Robinson, who introduced gas into Boston, after a series of disastrous experiments in Baltimore, and the conversation happening to turn upon that subject, we wandered off into the state of English opinions generally. He was an Englishman by birth and early education, though his heart was American to the core. Something was said about the literature of the day, and the question was asked,—"Who reads an American book?" I blazed out, of course, and, after denouncing the "Edinburgh Review," where the impudent question was first broached, accompanied by the suggestion, that, so long as we could "import our literature in bales and hogsheads," we had better not try to manufacture for ourselves, I made up my mind on the spot, and within the next following half-hour at furthest, to carry the war into Africa.
Mr. Walsh,—"Robert Walsh, Junior, Esquire,"—the "American Gentleman," as he called himself in the title-page of his Dictionary,—had acknowledged, while undertaking our vindication, that our American Parnassus was barren, or fruitful only in weeds; and by common consent my countrymen had taken for the highest praise throughout the land what I regarded as at best a humiliating admission from our friends over sea. They had acknowledged, and we were base enough to feel flattered by the acknowledgment, that, although we could not even hope to write English, and were wellnigh destitute of invention, having no materials to work with, and little or no aptitude for anything but the manufacture of wooden nutmegs, horn gun-flints, and cuckoo-clocks, and being always too busy for anything better than dicker and truck in a small way,—the haberdashery of nations,—yet, after all, it might be said of us that we were capital imitators, or thieves and counterfeiters, so that our Brockden Brown was at least the American Godwin,—our Cooper, the American Scott,—our Irving, just flowering in the "Sketch-Book," the American Goldsmith or Addison,—and our Sigourney, the American Hemans.
That my blood boiled in my veins, whenever I thought of this, I must acknowledge; and within three weeks, I believe, I was on my way to London, with a novel in the rough, which, after undergoing many transformations, appeared in that city as "Brother Jonathan,"—the manuscript of "Otho, a Tragedy," wholly recast and rewritten, with "exit omnes," and other monstrous Latin blunders corrected, and, on the whole, very much as it afterwards appeared in "The Yankee,"—and heaps of letters, which I could not well afford to deliver, and therefore threw into the fire: leaving my law business to take care of itself, somewhat after the fashion of that Revolutionary volunteer, "Old Put," who, when he heard the sound of a trumpet and knew the lists were opened, left his plough in the furrow, and the cattle standing in the field. My law-library, and the building I occupied, I passed over to the care of a young man of great promise, just entering the profession, who not only burned up my supply of wood for the year, but failed to pay the rent, and then took the liberty of dying suddenly, poor fellow! without a word of notice to my landlord: so that I was fairly adrift.
On arriving in London, I took lodgings in Warwick Street, Pall Mall, introduced to the landlady by Leslie the painter, and occupying the very chambers where Washington Irving was delivered of the "Sketch-Book": my windows on the first floor looking out on the back entrance of Carlton House, by which the Princess Charlotte had escaped not long before, when she ran away from her father, as my landlady took care to inform me; adding, that, from the very window where we stood, she had seen the little madcap get into the carriage—a common hack, by the way—and go off at full speed.
I lost no time in looking about me, and preparing for a literary campaign, where I might forage upon the enemy, beat up his quarters when I chose, and, if possible, get possession of a battery or so, and turn the guns upon his camp.
Being pretty well acquainted with the characteristics of all the monthlies and quarterlies, I was not long in determining that "Blackwood" was my point d'appui. The "Old Monthly" was dead asleep, and smouldering in white ashes; the "New Monthly," with Campbell for editor, was unfitted for the job I had in view; the "London," though clever and saucy and stinging, wanted manliness and nerve, and would be sure to fail me at a pinch, now that John Scott was disposed of. And as for the quarterlies, even supposing I could secure a place and keep it, they were all slow coaches, and much too dignified and stately, as they lumbered along the smooth, level turnpikes they were built for, to allow of any dashing or skirmishing from the windows. Even the "Westminster" was untrustworthy, as I afterwards found to my cost.
And so I settled down upon "Blackwood," the cleverest and spitefullest of the whole, with Lockhart, "the Scorpion," and Wilson, "the Leopard," for mischief-makers, and "Ebony" for the whipper-in, and "Christopher North" "in golden panoply complete" for collaborateur, a puzzle and a problem to the last. Before I slept, I believe, certainly within a few hours, I wrote a sketch of our five American Presidents, and of the five presidential candidates then actually in the field, and sent it off to Edinburgh with a letter, not for the publisher, not for Blackwood, but for the Editor, saying that I had adopted the name of "Carter Holmes," and writing as a traveller, pretty well acquainted with the United States and with the people thereof. This mask I wore, not with a view to escape responsibility, for I was ready to answer for all I said, but to baffle the curious and the inquisitive. Had I come out boldly as a native American, I knew there was no chance for me in that, or in any other leading British journal.
After a few days, I received the following in reply from Blackwood himself, the Editor, which I give at length.
"April 20, 1824.
"On my return from London a few days ago," says he, "I had the pleasure of receiving yours of the 7th March,—April, I suppose, as it only arrived here on the 10th current.