CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE PALL-MALL GAZETTE.
Considerable success at first attended the new journal. It was generally stated, that an influential political party supported the paper; and great names were cited among the contributors to its columns. Was there any foundation for these rumors? We are not at liberty to say whether they were well or ill-founded; but this much we may divulge, that an article upon foreign policy, which was generally attributed to a noble lord, whose connection with the Foreign Office is very well known, was in reality composed by Captain Shandon, in the parlor of the Bear and Staff public-house near Whitehall Stairs, whither the printer's boy had tracked him, and where a literary ally of his, Mr. Bludyer, had a temporary residence; and that a series of papers on finance questions, which were universally supposed to be written by a great statesman of the House of Commons, were in reality composed by Mr. George Warrington of the Upper Temple.
That there may have been some dealings between the "Pall-Mall Gazette" and this influential party, is very possible. Percy Popjoy (whose father, Lord Falconet, was a member of the party) might be seen not unfrequently ascending the stairs to Warrington's chambers; and some information appeared in the paper which gave it a character, and could only be got from very peculiar sources. Several poems, feeble in thought, but loud and vigorous in expression, appeared in the "Pall-Mall Gazette," with the signature of "P. P.," and it must be owned that his novel was praised in the new journal in a very outrageous manner.
In the political department of the paper Mr. Pen did not take any share; but he was a most active literary contributor. The "Pall-Mall Gazette" had its offices, as we have heard, in Catherine-street, in the Strand, and hither Pen often came with his manuscripts in his pocket, and with a great deal of bustle and pleasure; such as a man feels at the outset of his literary career, when to see himself in print is still a novel sensation, and he yet pleases himself to think that his writings are creating some noise in the world.
