Benjamin Disraeli and John Murray: the Politician, the Publisher and the Representative [1 ed.] 9781781383087, 9781781383070

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Benjamin Disraeli and John Murray

To John and Virginia Murray

Benjamin Disraeli and John Murray The Politician, the Publisher, and the Representative

R EGI NA A K EL

liverpool university press

First published 2016 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU

Copyright © 2016 Regina Akel The right of Regina Akel to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-307-0 epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-308-7

Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster

Contents List of Illustrations

vi

Foreword

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Dramatis Personae

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Chapter I Backdrop 1 Chapter II A Conspiracy

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Chapter III The Intruder from the North

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Chapter IV An Inauspicious Start

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Chapter V Portrait of a Newspaper

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Chapter VI The Sequel

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Epilogue

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Appendix I The ‘Poisonous Pen’ of John Gibson Lockhart 181 Appendix II John Wilson Croker as a Literary Critic

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Acknowledgements 198 Bibliography

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Index

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List of Illustrations Figure 1 Portrait of John Murray II by Henry William Pickersgill. Reproduced courtesy of the John Murray Collection, London.

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Figure 2 25 Great George Street, Westminster, the building that for a short time housed the Representative, in a photo taken in 1894. ‘The building appears extended at the back and with a new façade’, says Carol Morgan, Archivist of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Courtesy of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

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Figure 3 The Representative, 25 January 1826. Reproduced courtesy of the John Murray Collection, London.

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Figure 4 Manuscript page of Vivian Grey, believed to be the first of the two original manuscripts of the novel. The crossed out name ‘John’ supports the argument that the character of Carabas was indeed meant to be Murray. Dep. Hughenden 216/1, p. 92, courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

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Figure 5 Three pages of a letter from Maria Disraeli to John Murray II, 21 May 1826, NLS, JMA MS 42625, ff. 129–130. Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.

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Foreword

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ne day during the summer of 1825, Foreign Secretary George Canning received an anonymous letter that he read carefully and filed among his official correspondence, despite its unclear origin. The letter, which was to influence the lives of many people as well as the outcome of several projects, warned the Secretary about the formation of a dissident faction within the Tory party which aimed at toppling him from his position in government. The group, led by the Duke of York and the Marquis of Hertford, had decided to channel their attack through a newspaper, which would be organised in London by publisher John Murray II. One of the editors of that newspaper, apart from other well-known journalists, was barrister John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. The letter mentioned the names of several influential politicians who were, or would be involved in the plan, as well as leading businessmen and journalists. Yet, in the course of the events about to be narrated, these men gradually began to defect from the group, with the exception of the newspaper’s publisher, John Murray II, who was left with the financial losses of the enterprise and a blow to his prestige as publisher. Yet the hardest blow was received by a then twenty-year-old young man who had not even been considered in the initial cabal or named in the denouncing letter. At first he had acted as an errand boy in the setting-up of the newspaper, but later he took over the whole enterprise, partly in reality, and partly inside his imagination. Benjamin Disraeli made his contemporaries believe that the whole enterprise had been his idea and was later blamed for the failure of this journalistic venture. To the end of his life, he denied having had any part in it. This is the story of the Representative newspaper, a publication that was intended to have been one of the first in the country, but was doomed before it was launched due to powerful forces that worked against it from the

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start, mainly political and financial, but also, and more importantly, forces associated with common human failings such as egotism and disloyalty. These forces were so strong that the newspaper itself became secondary to its own story.

Dramatis Personae Main Players George Canning  The influential and respected Foreign Secretary belonged to the liberal faction of the Tory party and he is the man that the more conservative wing wanted to oust from power by attacking his policies through several strategies, one of which was a newspaper. The Representative failed, but Canning’s modernising policies went on, although he was not there to see them through. George Canning died a few months after he became Prime Minister in 1827. John Wilson Croker  Politician, dedicated scholar, and influential literary critic who could destroy a writer’s career with the strength of his scathing comments published in the Quarterly Review. From 1809 to 1830 he was First Secretary to the Admiralty whilst at the same time taking a keen interest in journalism. These activities brought him closer to John Murray, of whom he was a friend. Their friendship cooled for a time during the time the Representative was being prepared for publication, and this situation, which in the end proved fatal for the newspaper, must have prevented the publication from receiving government sponsorship through advertisements. Benjamin Disraeli Victorian statesman and successful author. Until now, most biographers have centred on his brilliant political career and little has been said about his two youthful attempts at newspaper and journal publishing or about the origin of his first published novel, Vivian Grey. The D’Israeli and Murray families had been friends for a long time, and John Murray  II felt a special fondness for the intelligent young son of his friends. In 1825, Benjamin Disraeli assisted the publisher in the setting up of a Tory newspaper, the Representative, but for reasons that have never been fully explained, he withdrew from – or was dismissed from – the project a few weeks after the newspaper started publication. His disappointment at the break-up led him to write his first novel, Vivian Grey, a thinly-disguised story of the Representative told from his own perspective. The publication of this novel which, among other things, viciously ridiculed John Murray  II, also revealed secret political deliberations the young man had heard at Albemarle Street, and caused a bitter and permanent break between the Murray and D’Israeli families. Benjamin made another unfortunate incursion into journalism at this time with the publication of the Star Chamber, a political and literary journal meant to promote the sales of Vivian Grey and perhaps even to compete with the Quarterly Review. The Star Chamber had to stop publication

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after only nine issues, with some loss to its publishers. After recovering from a severe depression possibly caused by these unhappy experiences, Benjamin Disraeli went on to become a Member of Parliament, Leader of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland. During all this time, he never stopped writing novels and essays. The present narrative describes the most eventful year of his early youth, from the summer of 1825 to the summer of 1826. Isaac D’Israeli  Father of the famous politician and author Benjamin Disraeli and a well-known author in his own right. One of his most remembered works is Curiosities of Literature, a book that has not lost its appeal in two centuries. He was an old and close friend of John Murray, which is the reason why young Benjamin had free access to Albemarle Street and to the publisher’s inner circle. While his son was in charge of setting up the newspaper, Isaac was enthusiastically corresponding with John Murray, but once the newspaper failed and Benjamin published his controversial novel, Vivian Grey, the friendship between the families ended bitterly and permanently. John Gibson Lockhart Scottish barrister and literary critic, ultra-conservative son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. During the brief period covered by the following narrative, Lockhart’s name and actions appear closely linked to those of Benjamin Disraeli. As a critic, Lockhart was insolent, sarcastic, and cruel. It is significant that he signed his anonymous denunciations, published in Edinburgh’s Blackwood Magazine, as ‘The Scorpion’. His name as co-editor of the projected newspaper was included in a warning letter to Secretary Canning, but when young Benjamin later travelled to Scotland to offer him the post, Lockhart as well as his father-inlaw rejected the proposition, as no gentleman in those days could have anything to do with newspapers. Eventually Lockhart accepted the post of editor of the respectable Quarterly Review and a supervising position regarding the newspaper. After the failure of the Representative he continued successfully in charge of the Review until 1853. John Murray  II  Influential and successful London publisher. He started the Quarterly Review in 1809 to counter the effect of the Whig Edinburgh Review and among his authors and frequent visitors at 50 Albemarle Street he counted such names as George Gordon, Lord Byron, Sir Water Scott, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1825 he and a group of Tory politicians devised a plan to block the liberal faction of their own party represented by Foreign Secretary George Canning, especially on the subjects of Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill. The first stage of their plan consisted of publishing a newspaper that would channel their ideas and influence national public opinion in their favour. Little did they know that the Foreign Secretary was being informed of this plot as it progressed, and took care that the newspaper never thrived. At the end of the venture, John Murray was left with a huge deficit, a somewhat damaged reputation, and the loss of an old friendship. He soon recovered, nevertheless, and went on being the influential figure he had always been, although probably sadder and wiser.

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Sir Walter Scott  The Scottish author and influential man of letters was also a loving family man and defender of Scottish values and rights. Although a frequent visitor at 50 Albemarle Street, he at first was against John Murray’s invitation to his son-in-law to become editor of a newspaper, although afterwards he relented when confronted with the handsome offer made by the publisher in a period of financial distress for himself and for the whole country. Sir Walter privately advised Lockhart on the management of the Representative and even contributed with articles for the publication, although he expressly demanded from his son-in-law that his name not be revealed. .

Secondary Players Sara Austen  The young and attractive wife of barrister Benjamin Austen. Her husband´s acquaintance with the D’Israeli family allowed her to become an informal editor and agent for Benjamin’s first novel, Vivian Grey. His closeness to the Austens lasted a few years and it was with them that he sailed to the Continent to recover from the illness caused by the termination of his participation in the newspaper and the controversial reception of his first novel, Vivian Grey. Thomas Barnes  Editor of The Times at the age of 32, in 1817, until his death in 1841. A Cambridge educated solicitor, he was attracted to journalism as a career even while he was at university. He started working for The Times as a theatre critic and later was promoted to parliamentary reporting. It was there that John Walter  II, proprietor of the newspaper, noticed him and set him to edit or neutralise the rather controversial leading articles composed by the then editor, John Stoddart. Barnes succeeded Stoddart in 1817, and from the start imposed his liberal views on the editorial line of the newspaper. This modern outlook, together with Barnes’ acute perception of the feelings of the people of all levels of society and his capacity for interpreting them, increased The Times’ popularity. Barnes also introduced another innovation to his newspaper, the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section, which allowed him to listen to and reflect on the concerns of the common citizens. Probably these qualities were the main reason The Times was the leading publication of its day. John Barrow  A British diplomat and author, he appears in this story because he opposed the nomination of barrister John Gibson Lockhart as editor of the Quarterly Review. He was Second Secretary to the Admiralty, and a good friend of John Murray. He appears to have supported his publisher friend during the cooling of the friendship between him and John Wilson Croker over the Representative. Barrow was nicknamed ‘Mr Chronometer’ by young Benjamin Disraeli in his mysterious communications from Scotland.

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George Basevi  A successful British architect, a disciple of John Soane and first cousin to Benjamin Disraeli on his mother’s side. During his career he designed churches and commercial buildings on Lombard Street. He designed Belgrave Square in 1825, the same year that he started the renovation of the building of the Representative. Basevi continued his professional connection with John Murray II even after the closing down of the newspaper and the bitter quarrel between the Murray and D’Israeli families. He died tragically in 1845. The Marquis of Hertford  At the time of the setting up of the Representative, he was an important member of the cabal that intended to oust Foreign Secretary Canning from power. Sometime afterwards he became disenchanted with politics and led a dissolute life, although this does not mean that one was the consequence of the other. He was in close contact with John Wilson Croker who acted as his agent. The scandalous story of the marquis was related many years later by Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Coningsby, in which John Wilson Croker was represented as the villain. James Leigh Hunt  Radical poet and journalist. With his brother John he started a political journal, the Examiner. Both brothers were sworn enemies of John Murray and also of John Gibson Lockhart, and dedicated long hours and reams of paper to attacking them both. Charles Knight  Publisher and journalist friend of John Murray  II. In 1820 he joined him and John Wilson Croker in the publication of the Guardian and later published, among countless other journals, the Literary Magnet. In this publication, he made a staunch defence of John Murray against the slander contained in Disraeli’s novel, Vivian Grey. Knight was interested mainly in the diffusion of knowledge and was responsible for the publication of several low priced encyclopaedias as well as an edition of the works of Shakespeare. William Maginn  Journalist well known to John Gibson Lockhart and Sir Walter Scott from his Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine days and later recommended to John Murray as contributor to the Representative, where he did not turn out to be an asset. John Diston Powles  A financier in the City involved in the sale of shares in South American mining companies. He met Benjamin Disraeli at the legal firm where the young man was training to be a solicitor, and asked him to write pamphlets promoting the sale of these shares. Apart from writing the pamphlets, Disraeli devised a plan in which he, Powles, and Murray would form a company to publish the Representative, with John Murray providing half the capital and Powles and Disraeli the other half in equal parts. Needless to say, when the financial crisis broke out, neither Benjamin Disraeli nor John Diston Powles were able to provide their share.

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Sharon Turner  A barrister and historian, friend to both John Murray and Isaac Disraeli. He mediated between the families in the quarrel about John Murray’s representation in Benjamin’s novel Vivian Grey. The publisher’s well-known letter, in which he expresses his innermost feelings regarding the episodes that led to the quarrel, was addressed to Turner. William Henry Watts  A skilled parliamentary reporter from the liberal Morning Chronicle chosen by the cabal in 1825 to be on the staff of the Representative. From the start he maintained an almost belligerent attitude towards the newspaper and its publisher, an attitude reflected in several letters to John Murray. Later he may have contributed to (or authored) the unfavourable story of the newspaper that appeared in the London Magazine in September 1826 and which later was considered a reliable source by most biographers. John Wilson  A Scottish solicitor and literary critic who wrote for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine under the pseudonym of Christopher North. He started writing for the magazine at the same time as John Gibson Lockhart, but unlike his colleague, he was moderate in his critical expressions, and remained in his post long after Lockhart moved to London to become editor of the Representative and the Quarterly Review. William Maginn was also for a time part of the staff of Blackwood’s and worked alongside John Gibson Lockhart. William Wright  A London solicitor who represented John Murray in setting up the Representative, but whose loyalty remained with Sir Walter Scott and his family.

Figure 1  Portrait of John Murray II by Henry William Pickersgill. Reproduced courtesy of the John Murray Collection, London.

chapter i

Backdrop

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ith a balcony ‘that faces Piccadilly sideways’, as travel writer Maria Graham once said,1 number 50 Albemarle Street has stood for generations as the symbol of good publishing and the home of great names in the literary world, particularly in poetry, but also in travel writing and the sciences. Founded by the first John Murray in 1768 at 32 Fleet Street, the firm grew steadily throughout the rest of the century, expanding from bookselling to publishing. The subjects published covered a wide range, from general reference books, such as dictionaries, to specialised ones like medical treatises and, to a lesser extent, works of fiction. When John Murray I died in 1793, he left his son a prosperous business that John Murray II would take to a new location and to new heights. In 1793 the heir of the dynasty was not yet of age, yet only a few years later he was able to dispense with the guardians designated in his father’s will as well as the partner he had inherited with the business; he was then ready to lead the firm forward. It is well known that John Murray  II was publisher to Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Washington Irving, Jane Austen, Mrs Rundell (with her successful cookery book), and many other well-known figures, as well as being the creator of the influential Quarterly Review. It is also common knowledge that the elite of the literary and political worlds met frequently at 50 Albemarle Street, and that it was considered a privilege to be invited to one of John Murray’s ‘levees’, so well described by Mrs Bray in her autobiography: ‘We found Sir Walter talking to Mr Gifford, then the Editor of the “Quarterly Review”, the room was filled with men and women, and among them several of the principal authors

1 Letter Maria Graham to John Murray II, 20 Jan. 1826, NLS, JMA, MS 40185.

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and authoresses of the day’.2 Lord Byron was often present at these literary meetings while he was in London, and referred to them ironically later as ‘your perpetual levee of politicians – parson-scribblers – and loungers’.3 There is, however, a less well-known story related to this house that is as colourful as the meeting of brilliant minds in John Murray’s drawing room. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Albemarle Street was the site of dramatic events that strongly affected the lives of those engaged in it. The episode that will be narrated in the following pages has to do with journalism, but also with the literary and political worlds of the early nineteenth century, with the power of friendship and parental ties and even with treason and intrigues. The story is little known. It has previously appeared only as an adjunct to the biography of a well-known figure of the period, but until now it has never been told from the perspective of its main protagonist, a British nineteenth-century newspaper intended for greatness, but which fell prey to the limitless ambition of its creators. The following pages recount the events leading to the creation of the Representative, a newspaper published by John Murray  II during the first six months of 1826, at the insistence, biographers say, of a very young and inexperienced Benjamin Disraeli. The paper failed, it is commonly believed, because it was of poor journalistic quality and badly edited, yet a quick look at its pages today shows this not to be the case. This is a little-known chapter in the history of British journalism, and its significance lies in the fact that major literary and political figures of the day played a part, not always commendable, in its dramatic inception. In order to fully appreciate this narrative, it is helpful to place it in its historical context and to remember the major events that marked the decade of the 1820s, in politics as well as in the social and financial spheres. The year 1825 marked the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a period characterised by the Napoleonic wars in Europe and the wars of independence in Latin America. Great Britain was experiencing popular unrest due to unemployment and the rising cost of food and fuel, but also due to the radical ideas which had inspired the French Revolution at the end of the last century and were travelling across the Channel. The financial bubble that exploded at the end of 1825, which caused many businesses to fail and thereby increased unemployment, did nothing but inflame the generalised feeling of discontent among the working classes. Two controversial issues, with their ethical and political connotations, dominated public opinion at a time when ordinary citizens had begun to realise they had a voice. One was 2 Quoted in Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray (London: John Murray, 1911), 214. 3 Andrew Nicholson, ed., The Letters of John Murray to Lord Byron (Liverpool University Press, 2007), 422, n. 11.

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pressure for the abolition of slavery, with people from either end of the political spectrum declaring themselves either for or against the practice. The other was Catholic Emancipation, which may indirectly have influenced the fate of the Representative, as it caused divisions even within the Tory party itself. Apart from formal or informal meetings, everyday conversation, and letters, the principal means of propagating information and ideas two hundred years ago was through newspapers, journals, and pamphlets. Perhaps for this reason, these were heavily taxed by the government, and the fact that the written word demanded a degree of literacy that the working classes did not possess was an added difficulty. We can only conjecture what people in the early nineteenth century may have meant by literacy, but as far as we know, in most parts of Europe the full command of reading and writing was restricted to the upper and middle classes. Working-class parents could not afford to send their children to school as they needed the income their sons and daughters could bring from work in the factories and the mines; therefore, the literate classes read newspapers regularly, while the less fortunate formed groups in coffeehouses or working men clubs and had the papers read to them.4 The upper classes on the other hand enjoyed other material advantages such as access to tea, sugar, and spices from the colonies, and luxuries like silk and cotton fabrics. These issues and problems are reflected in the newspapers of the period, which, along with letters and journals that have survived the passing of time, provide a picture of everyday life and the concerns of society at this point in history. Against this backdrop, the story of the Representative newspaper resembles a dramatic piece with a plot that progresses towards its climax via deceptions, betrayals, and intrigues between the major and minor characters, and which is followed by an interesting epilogue in the form of a novel. Previous versions of the story begin with a very young Benjamin Disraeli, son of John Murray’s close friend and author, Isaac D’Israeli, convincing the publisher that he should start a daily paper to rival The Times. He persuades not only John Murray but also a well-known financier in the City, John Diston Powles, who would provide one half of the necessary capital together with Disraeli. They realise that the paper will need an editor, and John Murray sends the young man to Scotland to engage John Gibson Lockhart, the barrister and ferocious literary critic, son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott, for the post. There are indications, as the narrative progresses, suggesting that initially, it was D’Israeli senior who would make the trip but who afterwards deferred to his precocious son who needed to make his way in the world. The letters Benjamin sends to John Murray from Scotland tell of the great success he had in his dealings with Scott and Lockhart, but it turned out that 4 Arthur Aspinall, ‘The Circulation of Newspapers in the Early Nineteenth Century’, The Review of English Studies, vol. 22 85(Jan. 1946): 29–43.

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these dealings had been much more difficult and complicated than the young man gave to understand. In reality, Lockhart had refused the editorship of the newspaper, though Disraeli made John Murray believe that the barrister was ready to accept. Finally Lockhart and Sir Walter Scott write directly to John Murray and in no uncertain terms remind him that a gentleman can never become editor of a newspaper. John Murray is understandably angry with his envoy, but his annoyance does not last long. Subsequently, he offers Lockhart the editorship of the successful Quarterly Review, and the ‘supervision’ of the newspaper at an excellent salary, an offer that Lockhart accepts. Now the problems arise on another front, for it is the politician friends of John Murray and contributors to the Quarterly Review who object to Lockhart’s appointment as editor, for reasons concerning the Scottish barrister’s past. John Murray becomes extremely worried and sends young Disraeli back to Scotland to ask Sir Walter Scott to write to his influential friends in London on his son-in-law’s behalf. He expressly tells Disraeli to go directly to Sir Walter and not mention the problem to Lockhart, but Disraeli does exactly the opposite and provokes another drama in Scotland and the anger of the publisher. In the end all the misunderstandings are cleared up and Lockhart becomes the editor of the Quarterly Review, a post he keeps for twenty-eight years. Unfortunately, he did not quite fulfil the promise specified in the contract concerning the newspaper (although it is not clear whether the paper would have survived if he had dedicated more time to it), mostly due to family problems. There are various reasons that can explain why the paper failed, but poor journalism cannot be counted among them. Decisive, for instance, were the economic crisis of 1825–1826 and high taxation at the time, which made the sale price of the paper unaffordable to the great majority of readers. In addition, there is a political angle that has passed almost unnoticed but which may result in being crucial to the story. A look at the British press at the start of the nineteenth century reveals that there was not much room for another daily newspaper in London in 1826, similar in format to the other London news journals that were being published at the time. Already in existence were the Whig Morning Chronicle, the Tory Morning Post, and the independent The Times. Given the high cost of a newspaper (7d), one of them would have to be quashed to make room for the new publication, because the number of readers would remain the same and the public already had a variety of newspapers on offer. Most newspapers in the 1820s presented a similar, rigid structure, which consisted of advertisements on the front page followed by one or two leading articles, news from abroad gathered from foreign newspapers and travellers’ letters home. Reports of the debates in Parliament enjoyed pride of place, succeeded by sporting news (a euphemism for ‘horse races’), the ‘Court Circular’, ship movements, police notices, and invariably the account of a trial and execution of a criminal. Sometimes there were anecdotes

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and lighter pieces included for the entertainment of the ladies scattered around the publication. During its brief lifespan, the Representative followed this same pattern and, interestingly, the descriptions of the debates in Parliament it included matched word for word with ones published in the other London newspapers. It may have been that all the publications hired the same parliamentary correspondent or conversely, several reporters pooled their notes into a single version. What is certain is that parliamentary reporters were much soughtafter professionals and exercised an important influence on the newspapers they worked for. Benjamin Disraeli was aware that in order to justify its existence, a new daily publication in London would have to offer something different and better than the ones already in existence. He conceived the idea of hiring correspondents across the five continents to make the Representative the centre of world news, but in this he was perhaps ahead of his time. In the early nineteenth century, newspapers were read for information and analysis of already-known situations, not strictly for the latest news. Unfortunately for John Murray, either he or someone in his circle decided, and publicly announced, that the Representative was destined to wipe out The Times. That plan would have needed more preparation, not just simple intention, if it were to succeed; on the contrary, the inflated expectations raised by its creators worked against the Representative, and added to the list of reasons for its failure. The story, as told in the following pages, will centre on the newspaper itself and the interplay of the actions of the people responsible for its creation, and is set against the backdrop of the political and financial turmoil of the 1820s in Great Britain. The characters are revealed at their best and worst; circumstances and events are not what they at first appeared to be, and while some mysteries are revealed, some unexplained attitudes and situations are clarified, others remain as obscure as they have always been. One conclusion that seems certain is that Benjamin Disraeli did not have the major dramatic role he later constructed for himself in his novel Vivian Grey, and neither did his actions decide the ultimate fate of the newspaper, although they damaged many friendships, in some cases, irrevocably. What were Disraeli’s motives for introducing the newspaper with such urgency? His ultimate goal, as the story of his life appears to prove, was the acquisition of power through politics.5 In order to achieve his objective he first needed money – hence his disastrous incursions in the Stock Exchange – coupled with a good vantage point from where to operate, for instance, the editorship of a successful newspaper. He may have become depressed later on 5 Robert Blake, Disraeli (London: Methuen, 1966; New York: Carroll and Graf, 1987), 214.

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when he saw that he would not be allowed to take part in the running of the newspaper, or when he realised that the publication was not succeeding as quickly as he had imagined. That may have been the reason he lost interest in the paper as a vehicle for his own particular ends. Having lost his investments, he stood humiliated on both counts, financial and professional; he left, or was asked to leave, Albemarle Street and went on to vent his frustrations in the composition of Vivian Grey. The novel is the only clue we have as to what happened, at least inside his own mind. Unfortunately, there are no letters by Disraeli to anyone from December 1825 until May 1826, and this suggests, in such verbose a character, that he may have destroyed them or been busy writing something other than letters: perhaps his first novel, Vivian Grey. What we do know for certain is that Benjamin Disraeli’s version of the episode of the Representative is depicted only in the first edition of Vivian Grey. John Murray’s feelings on the subject, and on the novel, are expressed in the much-quoted letter to the publisher’s lawyer, Sharon Turner, of 16  October 1826; the reaction of the other players can only be mere conjecture. It has puzzled some critics that while Disraeli was brutal in his portrayal of John Murray in the novel, he still flattered John Wilson Croker, a man he would nevertheless represent even more venomously in a later work of fiction. The explanation of this change of opinion may be that in 1826, Disraeli considered Croker a useful connection to the political elite. Later on, when he felt ignored, he turned against the Secretary of the Admiralty and treated him as acrimoniously as he had treated the others. It may have been for a similar reason that Disraeli fell out with Lockhart and disappeared from Albemarle Street so mysteriously. From his letters at the time of the setting up of the newspaper, it can be inferred that he expected to be an important member of the editorial board and become, if not the editor – because that was supposed to be Lockhart – at least assistant editor or general manager. When this did not happen, he turned to literature to avenge the slight. An anonymous letter that can be found in Foreign Secretary George Canning’s official correspondence serves as evidence that the story of the Representative, complex as it is, has a significant political background that cannot be ignored. If the content of the letter is accurate, and it appears to be so, it would also indicate that Benjamin Disraeli was only a minor player in the drama. He tried to portray his contribution as being larger than it was through the rhetoric of his letters of the period (although he did quite the opposite in later years), and biographers have taken him at his word. What can be inferred from the evidence is that all the members of the High Tory cabal who were planning the newspaper (Croker, Lockhart, the Marquis of Hertford, the Duke of York, Thomas George Street), abandoned the plan, and John Murray, at some point. Therefore, whether Disraeli left or stayed was of minor consequence to the publisher, while his High Tory political sponsors very much were.

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Disraeli’s part has been exaggerated through history because, from the inexperienced youth he then was, he later became, in his own words, ‘eminent’. His betrayal of John Murray, by disclosing in his novel passages of private conversations that he had been allowed to witness at Albemarle Street, must have angered the publisher. Disraeli’s parents were not aware of the undercurrents beneath John Murray’s reaction and were naturally angered and upset at the attitude of their former friend towards their son. The novel Vivian Grey may well have originated in a childish tantrum intended to get its author the attention he craved, but proved to be much more disruptive than its creator had at first intended. In the end, the Representative could not have a definite structure and clear goals, because each of the people who took part in its inception wanted different things from it. Those who made up the High Tory faction who conceived the idea in the first place – if we are to believe the anonymous letter found among Canning’s papers – wanted a political weapon to enforce their own ideas and stop those they opposed; Benjamin Disraeli wanted a vehicle for his political ambitions; John Gibson Lockhart, with an ambiguous attitude towards the newspaper itself, wanted the financial rewards that come with a successful venture, while Croker, although he is named as one of the cabal who was planning a High Tory newspaper, apparently opposed the plan. John Murray had never wanted a daily newspaper; he intended to publish a literary periodical that would appear more often that the Quarterly Review, but his mistake was to yield to Disraeli’s ‘relentless importunity’ and change his mind and his plans. Once the idea was under way, he must have welcomed the possibility of diversification. The expectations raised by the newspaper were so varied and contradictory that in the end none could be met. To tell the history of the newspaper is important not only because it is little known and has been misconstrued, but also to show how major literary and political figures played a part in its inception and largely decided its fate. But before we begin the narrative, it would be useful to look at the historical context in which it took place. As we know, history can at best be an attempt to reconstruct events as they may probably have happened. The vision we have of the past comes through the reports of others; and even if we were fortunate enough to witness a significant event, the account we might produce would necessarily be determined by our physical location and our particular biases. Therefore, what you are about to read now is a reconstruction of past events based on a set of verified facts which, when put together, produce nevertheless quite a few surprising revelations. With regards to the early nineteenth century in Europe, there are several facts that allow us to declare with a degree of certainty that it was a period of change, turmoil, and progress. The publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads, and two years later a ‘Preface’ to the second edition of this book, is believed to mark

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the start of the Romantic movement in the arts. The end of the eighteenth century had seen the American and the French Revolutions, and the main concerns at the beginning of the nineteenth were the Napoleonic Wars and the birth of independent nations in South America. In Great Britain, the pressure to abolish slavery continued to hold a prominent position in political and ethical discussions, followed by the push to reform the system of representation in Parliament and to repeal the law that forbade non-Anglicans (that is Catholics, Jews, Dissenters) to be actual members of Parliament. Ironically, the law did not forbid them to stand for election, but if they were elected, they could not sit in the House of Commons. Other issues were also sources of social unrest, as for instance the profound demographic change that brought people from the countryside into the industrialised cities, and the redundancies in the armed forces after the victory at Waterloo with its resulting high unemployment. Distressing too, for the working classes, was the high cost of food fuelled by the Corn Laws and the increasing mechanisation of labour. George Canning, Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons at the time, held a liberal posture within the Tory party on these issues, and he was naturally opposed by the staunch conservatives of his own faction. Yet, of all these problems, perhaps the one that had a greater impact on the fate of the Representative was the financial crisis of 1825–1826 that is described in the following pages.6 During the early nineteenth century Britain welcomed a great variety of modernising changes, such as the creation of the Metropolitan Police in 1828, after the failed attempt by Peel to launch it in 1822. No less significant was the use of water power to work the pumps in the coal mines or the improved distribution system supported by newly-built canals and roads. There were, however, many drawbacks to this progress, such as imperfect sewers which, in turn, brought about severe epidemics, or the ill treatment of inmates in lunatic asylums. Among the greatest successes of this period in Great Britain was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and of slavery in 1833. As we shall see further on, the Representative took the unpopular position of supporting slavery, which was a High Tory stance. It should be noted, however, that opposition to slavery was not always uniform, as there were some travel writers who were sometimes ambiguous in expressing their views. These popular authors were seconded by representatives in London of West Indian planters who feared their enterprises would collapse if slavery were abolished, and by powerful groups belonging to all the shades of the political spectrum who feared that the whole financial structure of the nation would be damaged by abolition. 6 J. M. Roberts, ‘The Short Oxford History of the Modern World’, in British History 1815–1906, Norman McCord, ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 23–180.

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The need for parliamentary reform became urgent with the changes in society provoked by the Industrial Revolution and the improved system of communications within the country. Up to the nineteenth century, the distribution of seats in Parliament was unequal, as only men who owned property had the vote. Thus it happened that large cities, swelled by the migrations from the countryside of labourers looking for work in the factories, had no representation in Parliament, while small boroughs, controlled by landowners from the two major parties, had one, and sometimes more than one seat in the House of Commons. The Reform passed finally in 1832, but there were attempts made much earlier to change this unfair situation, which necessarily provoked social unrest. The political unrest of the early nineteenth century in Britain resulted from this unfair representation of the working classes in Parliament, stimulated by radical writers of which the most notorious was William Cobbet with his publication, the Political Register. Cobbet was often jailed as an agitator and on one occasion even had to flee to America to escape prison, although he continued writing his Register from his self-imposed exile. The brothers John and Leigh Hunt, who will appear later in this narrative, also belonged to the group of radical journalists. Already at this time there were several debating societies where people met and discussed the need for parliamentary reform or the evils of the Corn Laws, although these meetings were often suppressed by the government of the moment. Both Whigs and Tories were landowners, so they voted to protect their interests in Parliament. The Corn Laws consisted of restrictions on the importation of different kinds of grain from the Continent, imposed in order to protect British producers. The prohibition to bring cheaper grain into the country kept food prices high, a situation that favoured landowners but naturally angered the working and the middle classes. So, by 1819 working men in the industrialised north were insistently demanding universal suffrage. In one of these gatherings, the authorities acted unwisely by suppressing with the cavalry a meeting of nearly 60,000 people in St Peter’s Field in Manchester. In the chaos that ensued eleven people, including two women, were killed and several hundred were injured when trying to escape. This tragic event, known as the Peterloo Massacre as an ironic reference to the battle of Waterloo, provoked a change in the manner politics was conducted, because it convinced the middle classes of the need for reform and made them side with the working classes in their demands.7 A newspaper that started publication during this period of profound readjustments, would need a clear purpose and a well-defined viewpoint. The Representative was conceived as a bulwark against Secretary George Canning and his progressive stance regarding slavery, protectionism, and universal 7 G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the Nineteenth Century (1782–1901) (London: Longmans, Green, 1922), 189–190.

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suffrage. Unlike other members of the Tory Party, Canning was aware of the forces of change gathering in Britain and felt that it would be unwise to block them. The Representative, on the other hand, supported the status quo in all the major issues of the day. The newspaper took the ultra-conservative and less popular side when it dealt with unequal representation in Parliament, abusive protectionism, or the practice of slavery, which awoke the enmity of the widely-read radical press. Moreover, the Representative’s pro-slavery views displayed in articles and some advertisements, did nothing to increase its popularity with the general public, which during the first decades of the nineteenth century grew increasingly pro-abolition. Although the slave trade had been abolished in Great Britain as early as 1807, the practice was still allowed in the colonies because of the effect it had on the price of sugar in England and therefore in the economy as a whole. At the same time as these events were taking place, the upper and middle classes were beginning to enjoy greater access to luxuries and became concerned with improving their personal appearance. Judging by advertisements published in British newspapers during the first half of the nineteenth century, both men and women were interested in replacing missing teeth with ivory pieces, wearing corsets, taking steam baths at home, and wearing silk and cotton fabrics. Tea, sugar, and spices were arriving from the colonies, as well as exotic fruits such as pineapples. Nevertheless, it was probably the financial crisis of 1825–1826, noted earlier, which sealed the Representative’s fate, because regardless of the newspaper’s unpopular stance on major issues, it offered varied, interesting, well-written articles and entertaining pieces of news from overseas that many must have enjoyed reading but, unfortunately, at a price that not many could afford in that difficult period. In 1824 people fell prey to a mania of speculation that led them to invest large amounts of money in foreign government bonds and newly formed joint-stock companies. The bonds were issued by the recently recognised independent countries in South America, and most of the new companies were created with the intention of exploiting the riches of these yet unexplored lands. Thus, companies were formed to extract precious metals from the Andean cordilleras, not considering that there were no roads to transport the machinery, no workers to use them, and no fuel for the fires that would be needed. There were also companies to fish for pearls, to build steamboats, and to establish colonies of farmers and herdsmen.8 Lobbyists sought journalists who would write favourable reports in newspapers and other publications, and also members of Parliament willing to support a quick sanctioning of the new companies. Young Benjamin 8 J. Fred Rippy, ‘Latin America and the British Investment “Boom” of the 1820’s’, The Journal of Modern History, vol. 19 2(June 1947): 122–129.

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Disraeli was among those who wrote pamphlets to convince the public of the huge profits that would result from investing in bonds and shares, and he was the author of some extraordinary articles regarding South American mineral potential that he slipped into the first issues of the Representative. The fever of speculation extended to all levels of society. For instance, Princess Lieven, wife of the Russian Ambassador in London in 1824 wrote, ‘You cannot imagine how mad everyone here has gone over the companies in South America. Everybody is buying shares. Everybody, from the lady to the footman, is risking pin money or wages in these enterprises’.9 This observation by the ambassador’s wife must have been accurate, because in the span of three years the new Latin American countries offered bonds for 20 million pounds, at the same time that British investments in mining companies established in these countries reached the sum of 30 million.10 It is interesting to examine the reasons for the ensuing crisis because, naturally, the situation did not last long or end well, at least for the larger part of the public. During the Napoleonic wars, the British government had the need to borrow great amounts of money, and obtained it by issuing bonds transacted in the Stock Exchange. These government bonds produced great profits for some speculators.11 After Waterloo, British government borrowing decreased and speculators began to look overseas for business opportunities. Of these, investing in South American bonds was the most appealing.12 During the early part of the nineteenth century, the colonies under Spanish control in South America had been fighting for independence. As soon as their goal was achieved, the new governments looked to London for funds, and investors found these ‘emerging markets’ very attractive.13 The choice of London as a source of funds can be explained by the fact that for a long time Great Britain had been watching with interest the independence movements started in the Spanish colonies in South America since 1810. Officially, the British government was neutral, but there was informal military assistance and also financial support in the form of extended credits for ships and supplies. ‘Thus, by the time their independence was won […] the new nations of Latin America were considerably indebted to British merchants, ship-owners and, army and navy officers’. Consequently, when the new nations decided to float their first bond issues, they chose the British market.14 9 Rebecca Cole, British Romanticism and Spanish America, 1777–1825: Rewriting Conquest, (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 183. 10 Ibid. 11 Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999), 91. 12 Chancellor, 92. 13 Chancellor, 98. 14 Rippy, 123.

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First came Colombia, which secured a two million pound loan from the City firm of Herring, Graham, and Powles. Soon other countries followed suit with equal success in placing their bonds. The investors were offered attractive conditions: seven per cent interest with a down payment of only ten per cent of the value of the shares. However, the greater part of the money raised by the sale of the shares was not sent to the countries that had subscribed them but was kept by the brokers in England and used to pay the high dividends to their shareholders, (in a sort of early Ponzi scheme). This system created ‘the illusion’ of viability.15 Naturally, the excellent revenues attracted more people and more funds to the projects, but, as we observed earlier, this state of affairs can last for a relatively short period and is always followed by catastrophe. The loans to the South American countries were backed by assertions about the plentiful gold resources in the continent. At the start of the year 1822, financier J. D. Powles set up a joint-stock mining company that would restore gold production in Colombia. Soon, other financiers imitated him and it became the fashion in the City to invest in South American mining companies instead of South American governments. Prospectuses were written to entice investors, and these comprised fantastic stories of grains and even lumps of gold that could be seen lying on the ground after a rainfall. The ‘mining euphoria’ began in 1824 and corresponded to a period of prosperity in Britain,16 as manufacturers started working at full speed to produce the goods that would be exported to South America. All this excitement affected young Benjamin Disraeli who understood even then that ambition needs the support of wealth. At the time he was reluctantly training as a solicitor, therefore speculation in shares must have appeared as a tempting shortcut to his aims of wealth and power. J. D. Powles was a client of Disraeli’s firm of solicitors that had advised him on the setting up of his two South American mining companies. In 1825 Powles asked Disraeli to write a pamphlet promoting these mining companies.17 In the end, as we shall see later, the young man wrote more than one, and his involvement in the whole project was considerable. In the first pamphlet, Disraeli declared that he was ‘unbiased by self-interest and uncontrolled by party influence’, but he was not telling the whole truth. He borrowed £2,000 from Robert Messer, son of a well-to-do stock broker, and began buying shares in November 1824. In April 1825 he wrote to Messer:

15 Chancellor, 99. 16 Ibid., 100–101. 17 Ibid., 103.

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All the information that is now received from America passes thro’ my hands. […] I have perused secret reports which have not even been seen by many of the directors themselves. I have read every book upon the subject and conversed with some secret agents of the companies in which I am interested and have come to the conviction that the £100 shares in the Mexican mining companies will in a few years be worth £1000 a piece.18 At the start of 1825 there was a frenzy of investment, not only in the South American mines, but also in far-fetched schemes. Perhaps the most dramatic of these schemes has to do with the invented country of Poyais. In 1822, a swindler calling himself Gregor McGregor made £200,000 by offering shares for a loan for a non-existent Central American country he called Poyais, claiming he was the ruler of this marvel. St Joseph, the country’s capital, was cosmopolitan and had elegant avenues and modern buildings. He even opened ‘a Poyaisian Legation and Office in London, selling land to prospective settlers’.19 McGregor claimed that everyone could become rich easily in this country and convinced two hundred people to sail to Central America and Poyais. Of these people, only fifty returned to Europe. The rest found too late that their promised land did not exist and died of illness or hunger, or were killed by the Indians.20 Another far-fetched scheme was one by the London Umbrella Company, which set up a number of posts throughout the city where people could pick up an umbrella if it suddenly started to rain, or drop off it if it stopped. There was also a company set up to recover cannon balls from the bottom of the sea near the site of British naval battles. The expectations of the public were high. At the opening of Parliament in February 1825, politicians expressed their pride in the thriving economy and technological advances of the nation. However, a few months later South American bond prices began to decline; investors started to lose confidence and stopped paying the remainder of their partly-paid shares. Many companies petitioned for dissolution. The Bank of England saw the need to reduce the availability of credit, due to the great amount of paper money in circulation, not backed by gold. This tightening of credit produced a domino effect on the system, beginning in the banks in smaller towns and cities. Early in December 1825 there was panic among investors which continued through 1826. As a great depression followed, ‘worker unrest fanned out across the country’.21 This was the financial situation of the country when the Representative made its appearance in January 1826. 18 Jane Ridley, Young Disraeli, quoted in Chancellor, 104. 19 Cole, 192. 20 Ibid. 21 Chancellor, 104–114.

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On the same day the Representative appeared for the first time, January 26, 1826, The Times was reproducing a sombre picture of the situation of the country, taken from the Manchester Mercury. COMMERCIAL EMBARRASSMENTS.───(From the Manchester Mercury.)─── We do not remember a period at which there has been so deep and general a feeling of depression amongst commercial men as is now prevalent. It is not in one trade only, but in all, that a great extent of suffering exists. In the woollen branches we hear the most appalling accounts of the dismissal of work-people, the stoppage of masters, and the general destruction of confidence. In the silk-trade there is most serious degree of stagnation and distress (this we have not denied, however inadequate to its production we might think the causes assigned for it); and in the cotton-trade the state of things is daily becoming more serious—we may say, fast approximating to that of the worst of any of the other staple manufacturers of the country. A very large number of hand-weavers, we hear, are dismissed from week to week; the stocks of power-loom-cloth and cotton goods generally are accumulating rapidly; yarns very heavy: and though the prices, both of these and of goods, are decidedly lower than any former period, the reduction in value has not yet created any accession of demand.22

Critics at the time agreed that the Representative did not fulfil the high expectations it had aroused in the public, and mentioned its first leading article as the culprit. Evaluated in isolation, the Representative can be seen as a good newspaper; yet assessed within the era it was published, it seems to have been out of touch with reality. The first leading article, excerpts from which appear further on, is grossly insensitive compared with the painful news reported in The Times and other regional newspapers of the distress of industrialists, merchants, and workers together. While other newspapers referred to the anguish and suffering of what they called ‘commercial men’ and unemployed workers alike, the Representative was singing the praises of Britain and declaring her the envy of other nations. On 10 April, the Glasgow Herald provided a long list of bankruptcies in a variety of concerns, from builders, to coal masters, and grain merchants, to spirit dealers, carvers, or brassfounders:

22 The Times Archive, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive, The Times, 26 Jan. 1826, 3. The original spelling and punctuation used in all of the newspaper clippings in this book has been maintained.

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SCOTCH BANKRUPTS. ─── April 4. FRASER & Mitchell, builders, Edinburgh.—Creditors to meet in the Royal Exchange coffee-house, there, 12th and 27th April, at two. April 4. ARCHIBALD MACKIE, coalmaster, spirit-dealer, and merchant in Glasgow.─ Creditors to meet in the Lyceum Rooms, there, 19th April and 10th May, at 12. April 4. George Gillespie, builder in Edinburgh.-Creditors to meet in Mc Ewen’s Rooms, Royal Exchange, there, 12th and 26th April, at 12. April 5. M. D. BRODIE & Co., brassfounders in Glasgow, and MARGARET THOMSON, brassfounder there, partner of the company, as an individual.─Creditors to meet in the Lyceum Rooms, there, 17th April and 1st May, at one. April 6. WILLIAM GRAY, jun. & COMPANY, Grocers and Spirit-dealers in Kirkintilloch, and WILLIAM GRAY, jun., Grocer and spirit-dealer, residing in Kirkintilloch, and WILLIAM GRAY, merchant and manufacturer, residing in Glasgow, the individual partners thereof.─ Creditors to meet in the Black Bull Inn, Glasgow, 14th and 28th April, at 12. April 6. JAMES PARK, grain-merchant, Glasgow.─ Creditors to meet in the Black Bull Inn, there, 15th and 29th April at one. April 6. CORMACK & CLYNE, builders, Stockbridge, near Edinburgh.─ Creditors to meet in the Royal Exchange Coffeehouse, there, 11th and 25th April, at 12. April 7. JAMES BUCHANAN, junior merchant, in GlasGow.─ Creditors to meet in the Black Bull Inn, there, 24th April and 12th May, at three. April 7. Adam Elder, CARVER AND GILDER in Edinburgh.─Creditors to meet in the Royal Exchange Coffeehouse, there, 17th April and 2nd May, at one. April 7. GAVIN YUILL, baker and grain-dealer in Hamilton.─ Creditors to meet in the Tradesdale Hall, there, 14th and 29th April, at one. 23

23 The Glasgow Herald, 10 April, 1826. All future references to the Glasgow Herald are from: http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.

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Alongside merchants, builders, and manufacturers, publishers also experienced the trials of the economic crisis. The most notable case of failure among them was the bankruptcy of Archibald Constable, whose collapse also almost sunk Sir Walter Scott in its wake. This was during November and December 1825, at the same time as Scott’s daughter and son-in-law were about to begin a new life in London. John Gibson Lockhart was about to take his post as editor of the Quarterly Review and ‘supervisor’ of the Representative, a very welcome position in those difficult times. As a result of the economic crisis, Sir Walter Scott had to give up his house in Castle Street in Edinburgh and retire to Abbotsford with his wife and daughter Anne. According to his journal, they had to keep to a strict budget and lose the luxuries they were used to.24 Literary critic John Sutherland observes that despite the crisis, British booksellers, including John Murray, had recovered by 1827.25 This may be so, but John Murray had the added problem of the financial losses of the Representative, so his recovery is more remarkable still. Considering the effects of the financial crisis that began in 1825, it is surprising that the Representative managed to survive for as long as it did during those six months in the turbulent year of 1826. Apart from the economic problems, the difficulties of high taxation on the production of newspapers added to the scarcity of paper for printing them on, making the enterprise extremely complicated. Croker’s newspaper, the Guardian, although a weekly, had folded a few months before the Representative appeared.26 Some analysts explain the heavy taxation imposed on newspapers during the early part of the nineteenth century as a sort of veiled censorship from the government. During the war between Great Britain and revolutionary France the taxes on newspapers were so high that a newspaper cost as much as the daily wages of a labourer.27 This was a covert way of suppressing dissidence, as revolutionary ideas were in those days mainly transmitted through the printed word. Nevertheless, this sort of censorship did not succeed because people got together in pubs, reading rooms, and clubs where they rented, shared, or had newspapers read to them. Consequently, political factions, including the ruling party at any given time, relied greatly on a supportive press. From letters by John Wilson Crocker or Sir Walter Scott, it can be inferred that the reason behind the creation of Crocker’s the Guardian in London or the Beacon in Scotland was political activism, as was the purpose of the Representative. Both 24 Since 1814, Sir W. Scott had been anonymously publishing The Waverley Novels. The publication in 1829 of a definitive edition of the novels, this time under his name, allowed him to write his way out of debt. 25 Sutherland, John. ‘The British Book Trade and the Crash of 1825–26’, The Library, vol. 6 2(1987): 148–161, 149. 26 The tax on paper was 3d per pound; stamp duty was 4d, or 1d for quarto page. 27 John Feather, A History of British Publishing (New York: Routledge, 1991), 87.

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earlier Tory newspapers failed, and so did the Representative in 1826, five years after the failure of the Beacon. By 1829, a single copy of a London newspaper could have been read by up to 30 people.28 Considering that London newspapers at the start of the nineteenth century produced between one thousand to seven thousand copies a day (the highest amount belonged to The Times), a conservative estimate would therefore indicate that one issue of a newspaper might have reached 90,000 people on a given day in London alone. At the close of the eighteenth century, newspapers acquired great relevance in British politics, and most of these publications owed allegiance to a political party or group.29 At that time they reached only people who could read, but soon the situation changed. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the British government restricted the freedom of the press, fearing that the spirit of rebellion transmitted through newspapers and journals might cross the Channel and reach the English working classes. One politician stated that newspapers were ‘a tremendous engine in the hands of mischievous men’.30 So powerful was the press believed to be that rumours were spread at the time regarding the decisive part it played during the Napoleonic wars. For instance it was said that Napoleon ‘had done more mischief on the Continent by means of the Press than he had ever done by his armies, for his propaganda, lying though it may be, had imposed itself on the minds of the French people’.31 So powerful was the press that all the reforms of the early nineteenth century, such as the abolition of slavery as well as of the slave trade, the Parliamentary reform of 1832, and the repeal of the Corn Laws, had been first supported by the press. Nevertheless, there was a small number of newspapers, the Representative among them, that swam against the tide and were, for instance, pro-slavery while the great majority were for abolition. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, the press was the reflection of public opinion rather than its guide, with the exception perhaps of openly partisan newspapers, as the radical press on one side, and the Morning Post or the Representative on the other. Needless to say, those that were neutral, as was The Times, enjoyed greater acceptance and respect. Yet it would be an exaggeration to say that neutrality was the main quality that made The Times great. The Times was founded in 1785 by John Walter, a printer, with the name of Daily Universal Register. The newspaper became The Times three years later, on 1 January 1788, and under the editorial guidance of Thomas Barnes, in 28 Aspinall, ‘Circulation of Newspapers’, 30. 29 Aspinall, Politics and the Press: 1780–1850, (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1949; repr. 1973), v. 30 Ibid., 1. 31 Ibid., 2.

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1817, it became established as an impartial voice of British society. In 1814 John Walter  II had set up a steam-machine for printing his newspaper that could turn out 1,100 sheets an hour.32 By 1816 The Times was producing 7,000 copies per day.33 The Times soon took a leading position in British journalism which owed much to its well-written articles, its sober tone, its independent position, its skilled correspondents, and especially to the sensitivity of its editorial board in judging and interpreting changes in public opinion no matter how subtle those might be. These qualities, and the respected position The Times enjoyed in British society, may have been the main reason Benjamin Disraeli saw it as being ‘the enemy’, to be overcome and destroyed in order to make room for John Murray’s publication, the Representative. Contrary to what the government believed, at the start of the nineteenth century, many factors were working against the spread of ideas through the press. Communications within the country were slow and difficult, and consequently, only a few copies of London newspapers were seen outside the capital, and even fewer in the British colonies. Yet, even if newspapers had been more accessible to people in the farthest regions and cities, only a very small proportion of the population were able to read. What is more, literacy among the working classes was not desired and never encouraged.34 Members of the Tory party considered newspapers a luxury and a misfortune because they were usually found in ale-houses, so they promoted drinking and vice. The Whigs, for their part, did not consider newspapers a luxury and spoke against the high taxation imposed on them while they were in opposition, but did not lift the taxes on newspapers when they were in government. Government taxing of newspapers started in 1712 and followed an ascending curve that only began its descent a hundred years later, in the 1820s. The application of these taxes did not always correspond to a government’s need of funds, but more to a desire to put newspapers out of reach of the working classes. At the time of the birth of the Representative, stamp duty was 1d per page; advertising duty was 3s 6d per advertisement; paper duty, 3d per pound in weight.35 The Times, the Representative, and most other newspapers were sold at 7d an issue, an amount few people could afford.36 Between 1815 and 1819 the atmosphere in Britain was volatile. The problems that arose after the Napoleonic Wars, such as unemployment and 32 Aspinall, Politics and the Press, 6–7. 33 Harold Herd, The March of Journalism: The Story of the British Press from 1622 to the Present Day (London: Allen and Unwin, 1952), 131. 34 Aspinall, Politics and the Press, 7–8. 35 Stamp duty was so called because the printed articles, including newspapers, carried a printed or embossed stamp to show the tax had been paid. 36 Aspinall, Politics and the Press, 9.

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social unrest, were increased by those specifically produced by the Industrial Revolution, such as crowded living quarters, lack of hygiene and poor safety measures in the workplace. The resulting discontent caused by these and other similar causes found voice in the radical press, such as William Cobbet’s Political Register, and several inexpensive periodicals such as, for instance, the Black Dwarf, and the Cap of Liberty, named in direct reference to the iconic image of the French Revolution.37 After the events of Peterloo, the government decided to suppress the radical press, which they saw as a source of dissidence and discontent, and to this end they passed a set of laws known as the Six Acts. One of the acts demanded that every publisher should deposit a bond of £300 as security against any convictions for libel they might have to face. Another act taxed with 4d any periodical ‘that appeared more frequently than every twenty-six days and sold for less that 6d’ and which included in its pages ‘any Public News, Intelligence or Occurrences, or any remarks or observations thereon, or upon any matter in Church or State’. The overt intention of the act was to suppress ‘pamphlets and printed papers containing observations upon public Events and Occurrences, tending to excite Hatred and Contempt of the Government and Constitution of these realms as by law established, and also vilifying our holy religion’.38 These acts accomplished their aims: many radical periodicals either stopped publication, or became ‘legal’ by paying the high taxes the government demanded, but thereby raising their selling price and becoming unaffordable for the very people to whom they were intended.39 Yet these acts did not appear from nowhere. Much earlier, Prime Minister Pitt had paved the way for control of the press when, at the close of the eighteenth century, he passed the Seditious Societies Act of 1799, which compelled all printers to inscribe their name on any piece they printed. Each individual printer had to register with the authorities all the printing presses he owned as well as a list of the products he offered in his shop.40 This, and many other similar restrictions were enforced because Pitt was ‘no friend of the press’. Apart from raising stamp duty and tax on advertisements, he made it an offence to rent out single issues of a newspaper for a small sum, thus preventing poor people from reading it.41 In 1815, ten years before the idea of the Representative was being hatched, The Times was already voicing strong opinion against the rise in taxes for newspapers, claiming they were not luxury items and, on the contrary, were an absolute necessity for those families who wished to hear about their loved 37 Joel H. Wiener. The War of the Unstamped: The Movement to Repeal the British Newspaper Tax, 1830–1836, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 3. 38 Ibid., 4–5. 39 Ibid., 6. 40 Feather, 92. 41 Herd, 76.

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ones who were engaged in wars and fulfilling their duties in distant parts of the empire. On 2 June 1815, The Times noted that increased taxes would restrain the liberty of the press, which happened to be the basis on which the prosperity and the greatness of the British Empire depended: It is somewhat extraordinary that the times in which we live, and the events which we have witnessed, should not have impressed every statesman with the importance of fostering and cherishing the free Press of this country, instead of laying it under burdens and discouragements with which it is scarcely possible to struggle. […] Such a measure would tend to the suppression of general information, and would thereby incalculably injure the great cause of order and liberty which has been maintained no less by British literature than by British valour, and to which the daily Press of this country may honestly boast that it has contributed no weak or inefficient support.42

Other newspapers like the Morning Chronicle and the Courier concurred with The Times in its rejection of high taxation, which was seen as an intent on the part of the government to restrict circulation rather than increase revenues. During a parliamentary session in 1830 it was said that ‘heavy taxation was solely responsible for the recent disappearance of four newspapers – the British Press, Traveller, Representative and Morning Journal’.43 In the following pages we will see that it was not only heavy taxation, and therefore its high selling price, that sunk the Representative, although that was one of the main factors that worked against it. Among the hurdles that prevented the Representative from achieving success was the lack of a good editor which, in turn, was the result of the poor opinion society had of newspaper editors and journalists: ‘Most of the prestigious West End gentlemen’s clubs were reluctant to admit journalists as members, except practitioners of higher journalism in the senior reviews’.44 People had a poor opinion of journalists and newspaper editors because these men enjoyed much power and influence, yet they were not always truthful in what they published and often caused irreparable damage to innocent people. When Benjamin Disraeli travelled to Scotland in 1825 to offer John Gibson Lockhart the post of editor of the projected newspaper, the Representative, the Scottish barrister as well as his father–in-law, Sir Walter 42 The Times, 2 June 1815, quoted in Aspinall, Politics and the Press, 21. 43 Ibid., 23. 44 Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor. Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland, London: Academic Press; co-edition with the British Library, 2009, 129.

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Scott, considered the offer an insult rather than a compliment. Sir Walter advised Lockhart against taking the post in 1825, and still held the same opinion when four years later a similar offer came up again for his son-in-law. On that occasion he congratulated Lockhart for refusing the proposal and gave a frank opinion on newspapers and journalists: Your connection with any newspaper would be disgrace and degradation. I would rather sell gin to the poor people and poison them that way. Besides no gentleman ever can do that sort of work but by halves. He must [,] while he retains a rag of shirt to cover his nakedness[,] be inferior to the bronzed, mother naked th[o]rough-going gentlemen of the press.45 Aspinall suggests that journalists belonged to an inferior class in society because the country was ruled by the aristocracy and the men appointed by them. Anyone who addressed the common people and tried to guide their opinions and their actions would have been considered an enemy by the ruling class. During the greater part of the nineteenth century, journalists were known to shift their allegiances towards whoever paid the most. As the articles were not signed, the authors felt often free to print abuse, and sometimes lies, about the people they were meant to attack. What is more, during the first decades of the nineteenth century, some newspapers earned a parallel income from ‘suppression and contradiction fees’, which in reality simply amounted to blackmail: A person would be informed that, unless he paid hush-money, a paragraph reflecting on his moral character would be published in an early number of the paper. If no reply was received, a cutting of the paragraph might then be sent him, with a suggestion that if he cared to pay the ‘contradiction fee’, a statement from him on the subject of the paragraph would be printed.46 This practice was common to all newspapers at the end of the eighteenth century and well into the first decades of the nineteenth. Not even The Times abstained at first from this disreputable practice: So the profit which unscrupulous newspaper proprietors derived from the scandal not published, may have been as large as that which they drew from scandal which was published. It was chiefly because the first John Walter was notoriously addicted to such detestable practices and made himself rich by them that his reputation was so bad.47 45 The Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Herbert Grierson, ed., http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac. uk/etexts/etexts/letters.html, Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 3 April 1829. 46 Arthur Aspinall, ‘The Social Status of Journalists at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century’ in The Review of English Studies, vol. 21 83(July 1945), 220–225. 47 Ibid.

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The status of journalists and newspaper editors began to improve only after 1840, so it is not surprising that, in 1825, when presented with the offer of an editorship, John Gibson Lockhart felt less than flattered. At the time, the situation constituted a vicious circle: few educated men would have been interested in associating with a newspaper, therefore the job had to go to less respectable people who continued with their less than respectable practices. The Representative was one of many early nineteenth-century newspapers that suffered greatly for the lack of an efficient editor, although it is not certain the newspaper would have survived in the hands of a good one. There were too many forces working against it, among them the economic crisis, the presence and success of The Times which left little room for another London newspaper, and Disraeli’s interference during the first two weeks of its life. As will be seen in the next chapter, most of the people concerned with the Representative had motives of their own for their involvement in the publication, none of which had anything to do with journalism. This story begins, as all stories do, at a given place, number 50 Albemarle Street, and a point in time, the summer of 1825.

chapter ii

A Conspiracy

A

t the start of the year 1825, John Murray was enjoying financial stability together with professional and social success. In a relatively short number of years he had become a pre-eminent publisher in the country and his influential journal, the Quarterly Review, was sought after by writers and readers alike for its political and literary articles which carried great weight in their respective spheres. Moreover, it was considered a privilege to be invited to one of Murray’s famous levees at Albemarle Street, as in his drawing room the cream of the social, political, and literary worlds interacted most days of the week. One major difficulty for the publisher however, had been the retirement of William Gifford who had been editor of the Quarterly Review since its creation in 1809. This difficulty had been resolved for the time being with the appointment in Gifford’s place of John Taylor Coleridge, a London barrister and nephew of the poet. At that time, Coleridge was not fully committed, as he appeared to prefer the practice of law to his new position, but Murray’s friends from the Admiralty, especially John Wilson Croker and John Barrow, were always ready to lend a hand either in the task of editing the journal or contributing articles for it. When the plan of starting a newspaper in 1825 was conceived, John Murray was not new to the experience. Five years earlier he had entered into a partnership with his friends John Wilson Croker and Charles Knight for the publication of the Guardian, a weekly Conservative periodical that closed down in 1824. Instead of becoming discouraged, Murray took this negative experience as a store of information for future attempts at newspaper publishing, and in 1825 he was again involved in a similar, although more ambitious venture. The commonly held view is that it was a very young Benjamin Disraeli who convinced his father’s publisher friend to start a daily

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newspaper, which is an extraordinary notion still held by many.1 After the publication failed a mere six months following its launch, the public, including Benjamin’s own mother, wondered how an experienced man of business could have been persuaded by a mere youth to be part of such a reckless scheme. John Murray’s often quoted statement – that he had yielded to Disraeli’s ‘unrelenting excitement and importunity’ – would appear to confirm the significant role the young man played in the hatching of the plan.2 From this distance in time, it is difficult to estimate with certainty the measure of responsibility Benjamin Disraeli had in the whole affair, but there are strong clues that suggest that the ‘excitement and importunity’ of which John Murray accused his young friend afterwards have more to do with the magnitude and timing of the enterprise than with the origin of the scheme itself. That plan was conceived by a group of influential men that included the Duke of York and the Marquis of Hertford, several Tory politicians and John Murray himself – a staunch Tory and conveniently a publisher – who wished to oppose Foreign Secretary Canning on the Catholic Question, the abolition of slavery in the colonies, and the Reform Bill. Canning was aware that the current system of representation in Parliament was not democratic, and at the same time he possessed the power, the will, and the prestige to carry these reforms through. Nevertheless, the more conservative wing of his party were opposed to Canning’s liberal policies and pressed for their collapse. A new publication that would support the ultra-conservative faction and propagate its ideas was part of a greater plan devised by the group, and in order to organise their strategies, they held many secret meetings and discussions. Yet there are few things in politics that can remain secret for long, and somebody warned Secretary Canning of the danger he was in. This power struggle within the Tory party is at the heart of the origin of the Representative newspaper. The instigators were not Benjamin Disraeli, nor even John Murray, even though Disraeli, due to his closeness to the publisher, did know about the scheme and attended several secret meetings where the plans were discussed. It is certain that the original idea of publishing the newspaper did not come from Disraeli, as he has been accused of by posterity, but he is responsible for its shape and intended scope. What is more, the first issues of the Representative show unmistakeable Disraelian touches, and this intervention probably aided in the paper’s downfall. 1 This notion was held by no less than John Murray III, who in 1879 wrote a report on the Representative that contains several inaccuracies, such as for instance, that the newspaper lasted twelve months, showing either that his father never gave him an account on the story, or John Murray III as a young man was not interested in the episode. NLS, JMA, MS 42630, ff. 4. 2 Letter of John Murray II to Sharon Turner, 16 October 1826, NLS, JMA, MS 42162.

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There are countless references in letters and other communications from the people involved in the plan that confirm the existence of a group of seasoned Tory politicians behind the scheme. The most remarkable of these documents is an anonymous letter which can be found in Stapleton’s correspondence of Canning.3 It is worth considering that even though the letter is from an unknown source, it was saved and preserved among the official correspondence of the Foreign Secretary; remarkably, he not only kept the message but acted and reacted according to its content, as it will become evident later on. The letter is short, but to the point, and makes the following revelation: The Ultra-ultra journal called Murray’s Paper will be brought out on January 1 next, in Great George Street, Westminster. When Lord Hertford’s boast (to turn out nineteen of Mr Canning’s friends), uttered only a few days previous to the late attempt to dissolve Parliament, was defeated, the confederates then turned their attention to a morning paper, at the suggestion of Street, late of the Courier, and this is it! The bantling will appear under the auspices of the Duke of York and the Marquis. CONTRIBUTORS TO THE PRESS Thomas George Street, J. Wilson Croker, Lockhart from Edinburgh, and Mr Watts, late principal parliamentary reporter to the Morning Chronicle, are to be joint editors. They intend making a dead set at The Old Times (as far as reporting goes), and finishing the New one. As to the poor Post [the Morning Post]¸ and the milk and water Herald [the Morning Herald]¸ they also are to be annihilated!4 Although Stapleton, editor of Canning’s official correspondence, indicates that there is no date to this letter, he suggests that it must have been written sometime during the summer of 1825, because it refers to the proposed dissolution of Parliament that would have taken place the following autumn but was postponed, at the instigation of Canning, until the following year.5 Among the most remarkable aspects of the letter is the reference to the premises at Great George Street that would house the projected newspaper, and the list of names of the men who would form the staff or be members of the editing board. The impressive building destined to house the Representative made John Murray the target of criticism by the radical press at the time, and 3 Lucien Wolf, An Introduction to Vivian Grey. vol. 1. (London: de la Mare Press, 1904), xxxv. 4 Edward John Stapleton, ed., Some Official Correspondence of George Canning [1821–1827], vol. 1. Facsimile edition. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1887), 377–378. 5 Ibid., 378.

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of Benjamin Disraeli afterwards, but in reality, neither of them chose the location which had already been designated by others. Judging by this letter, the basic structure of the project had been decided before it was handed on to John Murray, who was then commissioned to implement and finance it. It is not clear who initially thought of John Gibson Lockhart as editor of the newspaper, but it is significant that he is already named as one of the editors in the letter to George Canning just quoted. He was a young barrister and literary critic, well known yet hated for his venomous pen and cruel disparagement of anyone not born a gentleman who dared to fiddle in literary creation. John Murray knew Lockhart from Blackwood’s Magazine,6 even before he married Sophia Scott, Sir Walter’s daughter, and gave him some support during the John Scott episode.7 Barrister William Wright also knew him, as apart from being a friend of Sir Walter Scott, Wright was the publisher of Lockhart’s controversial production, John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron.8 Last but not least, John Wilson Croker had known him well for several years. The idea may have come from either of the first two men, although Wright later claimed the credit for himself.9 It may be that Croker was not aware of the scheme at this stage, although his name is mentioned in the anonymous letter to Canning; or more possibly, he may have had some idea of the project but refused to take part in it out of loyalty to his superior, Foreign Minister Canning. On the other hand, it is unlikely that Croker had not heard of the plan, as he claimed later to Lockhart,10 given his close association with the Marquis of Hertford, one of the leaders of the cabal and also mentioned in the letter, but the secret nature of the scheme must have prevented him from revealing what he knew. The uncomfortable situation in which Croker found himself would explain his anger when the paper, supposedly created as a weapon to attack Canning’s policies, was started behind his back and against his injunctions by his friend John Murray, seconded by a young and inexperienced Benjamin Disraeli. It is a fact that the creation of a Tory newspaper was decided by a group of influential politicians, the cabal that appears mentioned again and again in the letters of all those involved, and these constant allusions leave little doubt of its actual existence and declared aims. Because of Murray’s prestige and experience in the publishing field, the cabal left to him the particulars of the implementation of their enterprise. It is at this stage that the publisher 6 John Murray knew of Lockhart even earlier as there is a letter in the JMA from a young Lockhart while a student at Balliol College, Oxford, offering his services as translator for a history book from French to English. NLS, MS 42445 1814–1826, 17 May 1814. 7 See Appendix I, ‘The “Poisonous Pen” of John Gibson Lockhart’, pp. 187–189. 8 See Appendix I. 9 Letter William Wright to J. G. Lockhart, 3 October 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 924, f. 106. 10 Myron F. Brightfield, John Wilson Croker (Berkeley, CA:. University of California Press, 1940), 185.

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decided to seek the help of young Disraeli, when the basic structure of the newspaper had already been decided and the people who would play a part in it had already been named. The task of engaging John Gibson Lockhart as editor of the new publication demanded the services of a special envoy, as the target of the cabal was not only a capable literary critic but, more significantly, the son-in-law of a revered author. When the time came to approach the proper person to perform this delicate mission, John Murray decided that young Disraeli should go to Scotland to argue for the far-reaching qualities of the project and the advantages for Lockhart if he became part of it. The first entry in the account book of the Representative is a withdrawal, made on 12 September 1825, of £50.00 given to Benjamin for his trip to Scotland,11 a very liberal sum, but John Murray was a generous man and besides he loved Benjamin like a son. The young man was commissioned to offer Lockhart the post of ‘superintendent’ of the newspaper, never that of ‘editor’, although everybody understood the first term to be a euphemism for the less prestigious one of ‘editor’, and to explain to Sir Walter as well as Lockhart, that their scheme would surpass any publication known until then. His elders trusted that Benjamin’s remarkable facility with words ensured that their message would be heard and understood in Scotland. John Murray and Benjamin Disraeli visited barrister William Wright on that same day, Monday 12 September, and discussed the plan for several hours. Afterwards, Wright wrote Lockhart a formal letter of introduction for Disraeli to take with him, and another, more private one, that Murray and Disraeli never saw, where he warned the Scottish barrister against the post he would be offered. The expression ‘Murray and his friends’ is one of the many indications that there was a group of politicians behind the plan, and not simply the ravings of an inexperienced young man: Murray and his friends would wish you to take a superintending part not as laborious Editor or contributor but rather that you should take a place connected with it of the highest rank that a paper established on a great scale can [illegible] you.12 This letter also states that the publisher and Disraeli had been waiting for Wright’s return to London from his circuit to discuss the newspaper with him. Additionally it suggests that Secretary Canning is behind the scheme and wants Lockhart to be part of it, an affirmation that was certainly untrue, but which may have been made to add strength to the proposal. It is 11 Book of Payments for the Representative, NLS, JMA, MS 42628, ff. 83. 12 Letter from William Wright to J. G. Lockhart, 12 Sept. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 924, f. 106.

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remarkable that even on that first interview, the shrewd solicitor saw through Disraeli’s manner. In a post scriptum in his private letter he warns Lockhart against the young man: ‘Do not make Disraeli acquainted with the contents of this letter. He is Murray’s right hand in setting arrangements for this new scheme’.13 It was then agreed that the young man would try to engage John Gibson Lockhart as editor of the still unnamed Tory newspaper and seek the support of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, who was influential and everywhere respected. The young Scottish barrister never made a decision before consulting the father of Sophia, his wife. Young Benjamin set off north armed with the considerable amount of £50 for travel expenses and two letters of presentation addressed to John Gibson Lockhart, one signed by John Murray and the other, the official one that the solicitor Wright had composed. As we know now, Wright took good care to post at the same time his private letter to Lockhart, which he followed in person and in secret a few days later. Benjamin Disraeli arrived in Edinburgh on the evening of 16 September, which means that he left London around the 12th or 13th of the same month. He spent a day and a night in York, where he found himself overwhelmed by the Gothic beauty of the Minster, the choir music, and the sight of the nobility and gentry coming into the city displaying ‘the four-inhands of the Yorkshire squires, the splendid rivalry in liveries and outriders, and the immense quantity of gorgeous equipages’.14 Once arrived in Edinburgh, Disraeli learned that Lockhart was not in the city but in his country cottage of Chiefswood, in the grounds of Abbotsford. It was to Chiefswood then that he sent his letters of introduction for a second time and devoted the waiting period to visiting a book-binding workshop, becoming acquainted with the practical side of publishing and, to ‘revel in the various beauties of a Scotch breakfast’.15 Disraeli’s letters to John Murray from Scotland show an unbounded enthusiasm for his mission, but they are inaccurate as well as misleading, so they did more harm than good in the end. As was to be expected, Benjamin received an invitation to visit Lockhart at Chiefswood, and even though his host was at first taken aback at the sight of this flamboyant young man instead of the well-known figure of his father Isaac, he soon recovered and appeared prepared to listen to what the envoy had to say. At this point, two opposing narratives begin to appear: on one side there is Disraeli’s optimistic and not quite truthful account to London, and on the other, Lockhart’s negative reaction to the proposal expressed in his own letters to John Murray. 13 Ibid. 14 Letter by Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, 17 September 1825, in William Flavelle Monypenny and Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1910), 67–68. 15 Ibid., 18 September 1825, Monypenny, 67–68.

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In his third letter from Scotland, but the first in which he addresses the business at hand, Disraeli appears overexcited and existing in ‘a world of pure fantasy’.16 The letter dated 25 September 1825 is meant to be a first report on the young man’s mission to procure an editor for the Representative, but true to his nature, Benjamin metamorphoses a simple errand into a secret undertaking and assigns code names to the people he mentions, in case his letter is lost in the post. Sir Walter is ‘The Chevalier’, and Lockhart is ‘M’. There is also a ‘Puck’, probably Disraeli himself, and a ‘Mr Chronometer’, who is thought to have been John Barrow, Second Secretary to Admiralty, who owned a house nearby. Benjamin’s letter begins by describing the surprise John Gibson Lockhart experienced when he found on his doorstep a garishly dressed young man instead of Isaac D’Israeli, the mature and respected man of letters he had been led to expect. But that minor difficulty was soon overcome and in a few hours we completely understood each other and were upon the most intimate terms. M enters into our views with a facility and readiness which were capital. He thinks that nothing can be more magnificent or excellent; but two points immediately occurred: First, the difficulty of his leaving Edinburgh without any ostensible purpose; and secondly, the losing caste in society by so doing.17 The first ‘untruth’, of the many John Murray accused Disraeli later, surfaces at this point, because the ‘losing of caste’ for Lockhart had to do with becoming editor of a newspaper,18 and not with travelling to London without ‘ostensible purpose’, as Benjamin declares in his letter, probably to soften the blow of an outright negative to the proposal and a complete failure of his first mission. From subsequent events, it becomes evident that young Disraeli managed to convince Lockhart that he should travel to London, despite his rejection of the proposal, to speak in person to the group of people who wanted him for the post. This concession became a minor triumph for Benjamin. Once Lockhart arrived in London, John Murray was able to modify his offer to make it more difficult, or rather impossible to refuse. But that came later. For then, young Benjamin continued to deceive John Murray with regards to the success of his mission, and he disguised Sir Walter Scott’s misgivings as a natural concern over whether the important people behind the project would be willing to give their full support to his son-in-law. 16 Blake, 28. 17 Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, letter 25 September 1825, in Smiles, 257. 18 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to John Murray  II, 9 Oct. 1825, vol. 9, 1825–1826.

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Isaac D’Israeli’s letter to John Murray on 29 September 1825 shows how completely he believed his son’s reports; a son whose only defect is his ‘youth, a fault which a few seasons of experience will infallibly correct’, and how much he wanted him to do well. At this stage Isaac appeared so involved in the plan that he even gave the characters the code names invented by Benjamin: The Chevalier and M seem to have received him with all the open confidence of men [illegible] by a stranger, yet a stranger not wholly strange, and known enough to them to deserve their confidence if he could inspire it. I flatter myself he has fully – he must if he has really had confidential intercourse with the Chevalier and so confidently impresses you with so high and favourable a character of M.19 Isaac D’Israeli is here commenting on the same letter of young Benjamin to John Murray of 25 September. Sad though this situation appears to be, with a younger man deceiving two experienced older men, it is possible to envision in this situation a future politician manipulating reality to achieve credibility, and succeeding. Benjamin’s letter next informs John Murray that the salary of £1,000 per annum that they are offering the Scottish barrister has been thought ‘handsome’ by Lockhart and his father-in-law, but not generous enough. Therefore, the matter is left open until it can be discussed in London directly with the publisher. As the letter progresses, it betrays the young man’s escalating excitement. He reports that The Chevalier breakfasted here to-day, and afterwards we were all three closeted together. The Chevalier entered into it excellently. He thought, however, that we could not depend upon Malcolm, Barrow,20 etc., keeping to it; but this I do not fear. He, of course, has no idea of your influences or connections. […] He agrees with me that that M cannot accept an official situation of any kind, as it would compromise his independence, but he thinks Parliament for M indispensable, and also very much to our interest.21 There is proof that at the end of 1825, John Murray and Isaac D’Israeli were following closely the news from Scotland and exchanging information and impressions. This point is important, because in the bitter rift between the two 19 Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray II, 29 Sept. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 31–32. 20 Christopher Lloyd, Mr Barrow of the Admiralty, (London: Collins, 1970), 17. (John Barrow was Second Secretary to the Admiralty in charge of supplying chronometers to the ships of the Royal Navy; hence the code name Mr Chronometer that Benjamin gave Barrow. The Malcolm mentioned by Disraeli may be Vice Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm, but there is no certainty of this.) 21 Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, 25 Sept. 1825, in Smiles, 257.

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families that took place a few months later Isaac, perhaps blinded by fatherly love, forgot that he had read and believed each one of his son’s glowing reports. In fact, there is a letter from Benjamin’s father to John Murray on 27 September 1825,22 in which he complains of not hearing from his son, currently in Edinburgh, and this fatherly concern may have moved John Murray to show Isaac all the communications that subsequently arrived from the north. This letter of 25 September is the first that John Murray showed Isaac D’Israeli and the one made the father so proud of the achievements of the son. Benjamin insists in the letter that everything is capital, magnificent, or excellent. Besides, he claims that he has explained things brilliantly to the two men he was commissioned to convince, and that they are both delighted with him and his proposals, which they accept with only minor reservations. These constructed realities demand an extraordinary command of language, a quality which Disraeli had in abundance, and the will to take liberties with the truth, which he possessed, also in abundance and again showing that he was a politician in the making, Benjamin achieved the remarkable feat of offering Lockhart a seat in Parliament, evidently his own idea, as a further inducement to make him come to London, and at the same time to present the issue to John Murray as if it had been a request made expressly by Sir Walter Scott, and therefore impossible to refuse. At this stage in the negotiations he was definitely playing the two sides to his own advantage, hoping that the future would take care of itself. The long letter continues with instructions that a newly assertive young man begins to give his employer in an interesting reversal of roles that he repeated many times in the coming weeks: Now, these are the points which occur to me. When M comes to town, it will be most important that it should be distinctly proved to him that he will be supported by the great interests I have mentioned to him. He must see that, through Powles, all America and the Commercial Interest is at our beck; that Wilmot H[orton],23 not as a mere under-secretary, but as our private friend, is most staunch; that the Chevalier is firm; that the West India Interest24 will pledge themselves that such men and in such situations as Barrow, etc., etc., are distinctly in our power; and finally, that he is coming to London, not to be an Editor of a Newspaper, but the Director-General of an immense organ and at the head of a band of high-bred gentlemen and important interests.25 22 Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray, 29 Sept. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 31–32. 23 Under Secretary of War and the Colonies, 1821 to 1827. 24 The West India Interest was a pro-slavery lobby started in the eighteenth century and which included West Indian plantation owners and British sugar merchants who also supported the Representative from the start. This explains the newspaper’s pro-slavery stance. 25 Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, 25 Sept. 1825 in Smiles, 257.

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It is easy to forget, when reading this letter, that its author is merely a twenty-year-old man with little experience and no qualifications except a strong ambition and an unusual command of language. Can all this have happened outside Disraeli’s imagination? Possibly not, judging by Sir Walter Scott’s own annotations on the subject recorded in his private journal. Later in Benjamin’s letter we find the great Scottish author confiding his most private thoughts to his young visitor, and Disraeli becoming his guarantor before Murray and his London associates, a most unlikely situation, to say the least. Young Benjamin was stretching his narrative to the limits of credibility, but neither John Murray nor Isaac D’Israeli appeared aware of this as yet: The Chevalier and M have unburthened themselves to me in a manner the most confidential that you can possibly conceive. Of M’s capability, perfect complete capability, there is no manner of doubt. Of his sound principles, and of his real views in life, I could in a moment satisfy you. […] There has been no disguise to me of what has been done, and the Chevalier had a private conversation with me on the subject, of a nature the most satisfactory.26 Benjamin closes the letter with even greater images of future grandeur, but more important is the suggestion that he is taking charge of the operation and the publisher will from now on be his second-in-command. He further implies that Lockhart and his father-in-law have accepted the proposal when he says that both men want William Wright as head of the Legal Department of the projected newspaper. Lucien Wolf is perhaps too kind when he proposes that Sir Walter Scott and his son-in-law were so captivated by the young man that ‘he [Benjamin] fully believed’ he had convinced Lockhart to take the post.27 That Disraeli was deluded then, is unlikely, because it would mean that a manic state, which became evident two years later,28 had already made its appearance and was nearing dangerous limits. In reality, he managed to function for several months after his mission to Scotland, and even write and publish a novel before he succumbed to his illness. More probably, at this stage, he was painting the situation rosier than it was, in order to appear successful and manipulate John Murray, in the hope that things would sort themselves out later. The closing of this letter is quoted often because of its hyperbolic language, although the

26 Ibid., 257–258. 27 Wolf, xxx. 28 Charles Richmond and Jerrold Post, ‘Disraeli’s Crucial Illness’, in Charles Richmond and Paul Smith, ed., The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, 1818–1851 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 70–71.

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assignation of roles which can be clearly discerned here, with Disraeli taking the leading part. is quite as significant: I have no doubt that I shall be able to organise, in the interest with which I am now engaged, a most immense party, and a most serviceable one. Be so kind so as not to leave the vicinity of London, in case M. and myself come up suddenly; but I pray you, if you have any real desire to establish a mighty engine, to exert yourself at this present moment, and assist me to your very utmost.29 This same event was described quite differently by Lockhart only a few weeks later. In a letter to John Wilson Croker from Scotland, dated 21 November 1825, he admits that Disraeli is clever but declares firmly that the proposal he made was declined: Two months ago young Mr Disraeli, a very young but a very clever man, surprised me by appearing here with a letter of introduction from Mr Murray. […] Mr Disraeli’s object was (after many circumlocutions) to bribe me to quit my profession here and assume the editorship of a newspaper to be set up by Murray under the patronage of very great people indeed.30 It is interesting to note here that all the people involved understood that the post Lockhart was offered was that of editor of the Representative, even though later the contract did not specify that function. It is clear as well that, contrary to what Disraeli informed John Murray, the offer had been flatly declined from the start. Judging by what Sir Walter Scott and John Gibson Lockhart had to say afterwards regarding Disraeli’s visit and proposal, it seems that the confidential conversations he held with the two men, the request by Sir Walter of a seat in Parliament for his son-in-law, the fact that they considered the offer ‘handsome’ or their suggestion of William Wright as head of the newspaper’s Legal Department, existed only in the young man’s fantasy world. Besides discussing the offer with his father-in-law, Lockhart wrote to his barrister friend William Wright who confirmed his misgivings about becoming the editor of a newspaper, and advised him to refuse. So had Sir Walter Scott done before him; it follows that there was no doubt in Lockhart’s mind and there never had been. The meeting between Lockhart and Wright took place in Edinburgh, while Disraeli was still enjoying Lockhart’s hospitality at Chiefswood and Abbotsford and sending exaggerated reports to London. Meanwhile, John Murray in the capital still believed that Lockhart had not 29 Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, in Smiles, 258. 30 John Gibson Lockhart to John Wilson Croker, 21 Nov. 1825, in Brightfield, 185.

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flatly rejected the position but was only expecting a more generous salary offer together with a seat in Parliament, a fact which led the latter to put his refusal in writing on 7 October in terms bordering on rudeness: Mr Lockhart to John Murray I am afraid that in spite of my earnest desire to be clear and explicit, you have not after all fully understood the inexpressible feeling I entertain in regard to the impossibility of my ever entering into the career of London in the capacity of a newspaper editor. I confess that you, who have adorned and raised your own profession so highly, may feel inclined, and justly perhaps, to smile at some of my scruples; but it is enough to say that every hour that has elapsed since the idea was first started has only served to deepen and confirm the feeling with which I at the first moment regarded it; and in short, that if such a game ought to be played, am neither young nor poor enough to be the man that takes the hazard.31 At this time, and behind John Murray’s back, two parallel circumstances were progressing independently. Wright’s secret trip to Edinburgh at the end of September was short and intended solely to warn Lockhart. By 3 October he was back in London, and this is the date and place of his subsequent letter to his friend in the north. It is unlikely that Wright would confess to John Murray that he had visited Lockhart and advised him against accepting the offer of the editorship of the Representative; therefore, during the first week of October, the publisher still believed the magnified reports he was receiving from young Benjamin in Scotland. Furthermore, Murray was certain that his solicitor was supporting him in his attempts to convince Lockhart to become the editor of the Representative. When John Murray showed Isaac D’Israeli the new reports from his son, the father reacted with pride and enthusiasm: Mr D’Israeli to John Murray 9 October 1825 My Dear Friend, Thanks! My warmest ones are poor returns for the ardent note you have so affectionately conveyed to me by him on whom we now both alike rest our hopes and our confidence. The more I think of this whole affair, from its obscure beginnings, the more I am quite overcome by what he has already achieved; never did the finest season of blossoms promise a richer gathering. But he has not the sole merit, for you share it with him, in the grand view you take of the capability of this new intellectual steam engine.32 31 John Gibson Lockhart to John Murray, 7 Oct. 1825, in Smiles, 260. 32 Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray, 9 Oct. 1825, in Smiles, 260.

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But by time the proud father was composing this letter, John Murray had already seen Wright, who was back from Scotland, and had finally understood that Benjamin’s reports to him were false and that, contrary to what he had been led to believe, Lockhart had actually refused the post. It was no longer possible for the publisher to believe his young envoy. The following letter from Wright to Lockhart describes what happened on his return to London from Edinburgh, and introduces a new proposal that may bring about a compromise. This time John Murray had come alone to see the solicitor as Benjamin was still in Scotland: William Wright to J. G. Lockhart, 3 October 1825 I saw Murray soon after my return from Edinburgh. We conversed on the subject of the Quarterly Review. He disapproved of his Editor, and I recommended, and he approved of you, and I was desired to write on the subject. […] For the newspaper business I did not recommend you as fit […] I believe that Mr Canning, on being spoken to by Mr Ellice, said you could come as editor of the Quarterly, but not as editor of a newspaper, or at least as known and reputed editor.33 As it progresses, this letter reveals another reason why the newspaper could not flourish, despite the qualities it evidently had. To begin with, the two people John Murray had designated as his intermediaries, Disraeli and Wright, lied consistently, so it was impossible for him to form a distinct picture of the situation or chart the path ahead. On the one hand, Disraeli lied about the outcome of his mission, and on the other, Wright was being disloyal to his client, John Murray, while practicing deceit on Lockhart at the same time. It is not true that Foreign Secretary Canning expressly wanted Lockhart to become editor of the Quarterly Review but not of the newspaper. Canning did not want Lockhart working in London in any capacity; that last addition had definitely been an embellishment made by Wright. We have his own words as evidence that the Foreign Secretary was aware of the conspiracy against him. When in February 1827, Sir Walter Scott wrote to him requesting a government post for his son-in-law, Canning refused, claiming that Lockhart ‘was invited from Scotland for the very purpose of attacking, with a fury unknown till lately to modern political controversy, the measures to which I am supposed to be favourable, and, personally, myself ’.34 Evidently, Foreign Secretary Canning was conscious from the start of the nature and purpose of the projected 33 Letter William Wright to J. G. Lockhart 3 Oct. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 924, f. 106. 34 Letter George Canning to Sir Walter Scott, 17 February 1827, quoted in, Andrew Lang, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (1897), 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), vol. 2, 8.

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newspaper and had not taken part in the preliminary arrangements of a publication created specifically to attack him; on the contrary, he wished and hoped that it would collapse as soon as possible. In the following passage of the same letter, Wright makes sure that Lockhart does not accept the editorship of the Representative by the use of flattery, and by suggesting a bond between them as ‘barristers and gentlemen’, a tactic that places him on the same social level as his client in an attempt to guarantee the soundness of his advice. But a few lines down, Wright denies his previous attempt at equality and declares that even he, who occupies a lower rank in society than Lockhart, would be offended if offered the post of editor of a newspaper and: I should not receive the offer of the editorship of a newspaper as a compliment to my feelings as a barrister and a gentleman, however complimentary it might be as to my talents. In short, I enter entirely into your feelings on this head, and we think alike, for, whatever our friend Disraeli may say or flourish on this subject, your accepting of the editorship of a newspaper would be infra dig., and a losing of caste.35 The long, three-page-letter moves on to money matters and in passing, Wright makes sure that Lockhart does not engage another solicitor to represent him in the negotiations. At some point, he appears to be acting for the Murray and Lockhart interests at the same time, when he subtly indicates to Lockhart that he will extract the best financial conditions for him from his own client, John Murray. In Wright’s defence, however, it must be said that this acting for both sides was Sir Walter Scott’s idea, not the London solicitor’s. In the 15 October 1825 letter to Lockhart, Sir Walter tells him that he has warned John Murray that he would be happy if the negotiations about Lockhart’s salary could be supervised by Wright. The letter from Wright continues to make a clear contrast between the posts Lockhart is now being offered while it reveals how Disraeli’s rhetoric is appreciated in some quarters: Murray will in his letter, I presume, offer you the Quarterly, but as to bargaining, and making your contract certain and available, when you have agreed on general principles, you may, I think, trust that to me […] An editor of a Review like the Quarterly is the office of a scholar and a gentleman; but that of a newspaper is not, for a newspaper is merely stock-in-trade to be used as it can be turned to most profit. And there is something in it (when Disraeli has gilded and adorned it with his new notions as much as he can) that is repugnant to the feelings of a gentleman […] If you think of accepting Murray’s proposals in any shape, 35 Letter William Wright to J. G. Lockhart 3 Oct. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 924, f. 106.

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leave all particulars to discussion and arrangement after you come to London, and let us talk the matter over first for a few hours ourselves.36 Wright did not only offer Lockhart advice, he also offered him the use of his office when the Scottish barrister came to London to discuss the terms of the agreement, between the latter and publisher Murray. Probably Wright was afraid that Lockhart would fall under the spell of Disraeli’s verbal dexterity and be swayed away from his own influence, so he closes the letter with a perceptive analysis of the young man’s character that many would wish had been passed on to John Murray first of all. Or perhaps it was, and the publisher once more did not heed the warning: Disraeli, who is with you, I have not seen much of, but I believe he is a sensible, clever young fellow. His judgment, however, wants settling down. He has never had to struggle with a single difficulty, nor been called on to act in any affairs in which his mind has been necessarily forced to decide and choose in difficult situations. At present his chief exertions as to matters of decision have been with regard to the selection of his food, his enjoyment, and his clothing, and though he is honest, and, I take it, wiser than his father, he is inexperienced and untried in the world, and of course though you may, I believe, safely trust to his integrity, you cannot prudently trust much to his judgment.37 On 9 October, two days after Lockhart had written to John Murray refusing the post of editor of the Representative, Sir Walter Scott addressed the publisher in softer, but not less forceful tones. In this extended passage the famous author condenses in clear language the disgust and contempt with which newspaper editors were regarded by society at the time. The following letter of Sir Walter Scott leaves no doubt, if any doubt there was, that Benjamin’s communications from Scotland regarding his success in the negotiations with Lockhart were totally untrue and misleading. It is here that the first cracks in the trust that John Murray had deposited on young Disraeli began to appear: My dear Sir, Lockhart seems to wish that I would express my opinion of the plan which you have had the kindness to submit to him, and I am myself glad of an opportunity to express my sincere thanks for the great confidence you are willing to repose in one so near to me, and whom I value so highly. There is nothing in life that can be more interesting to me than his prosperity, and should there eventually appear a serious prospect of 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.

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his bettering his fortunes by quitting Scotland, I have too much regard for him to desire him to remain, notwithstanding all the happiness I must lose by his absence and that of my daughter. The present state, however, of the negotiation leaves me little or no reason to think that I will be subjected to this deprivation, for I cannot conceive it advisable that he should leave Scotland on the speculation of becoming editor of a newspaper. It is very true that this department of literature may and ought to be rendered more respectable than it is at present, but I think this is a reformation more to be wished than hoped for, and should think it rash for any young man, of whatever talent, to sacrifice, nominally at least, a considerable portion of his respectability in society in hopes of being submitted as an exception to a rule which is at present pretty general. This might open the door to love of money, but it would effectually shut it against ambition. […] I am very glad he meets your wishes by going up to town, as this, though it should bear no further consequences, cannot but serve to show a grateful sense of the confidence and kindness of the parties concerned, and yours in particular.38 So Lockhart made the trip to London shortly after this letter was written. On 14 October he addressed a letter to his father from ‘6 Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn’ – Wright’s address – telling him that he is in London on business of a nature he cannot discuss, but that there is ‘nothing disagreeable in it’.39 The day before, on 13 October, he had written an excited letter to his wife Sophia, urging her to ask for Sir Walter’s consent to the offer he had been made about both the newspaper and the Quarterly Review. Evidently, he wanted his father-in-law’s blessing for an offer he was anxious to accept: My dear Sophia, When I parted from Murray an hour ago he said he wd write to your papa [a] letter […] explaining the nature of this now ultimate proposal which is the Review – at one way or another, from £1250 to £15,0040 – per annum – and the writing for the paper without having any sort of editorial management or being known to have any connection of any kind with it – for this he considers [illegible] for three years £1.500 per annum – minimum with [?]power at any time to become Proprietor of one 8th instead and the complete understanding that at the expiry [of] 38 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to John Murray  II, 9 Oct. 1825, vol. 9, 1825–1826. 39 Andrew Lang, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (1897), 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), vol. 1, 358. 40 An excited Lockhart evidently meant £1,500, which is confirmed in the agreement quoted on page 41.

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this period I shall be free […] Wright approves [?]strongly of what has been done but is quite clear that in spite of all ... things should be in legal form. […] Sir W (as concerned for you) to intimate this distinctly in his answer to Murray’s letter. […] let me hear therefore from you and let Murray hear from Sir W.41 The hurried tone, the mistakes, and the omitted words in Lockhart’s letter plainly show that he was excited and anxious to accept this tempting offer, but did not dare to do so without the sanction of his father-in-law. Sir Walter Scott obliged him and wrote promptly to John Murray declaring that he had no objections to his offer. On 15 October Sir Walter wrote to his son-in-law expressing misgivings about the success of the newspaper, although admitting that if it was managed with care and it adopted a serious and dignified tone, it might serve its purpose. It is interesting that even though it was often repeated that Lockhart would not be the editor of the newspaper, Sir Walter Scott makes various recommendations to his son-in-law as if he were. For instance, he advises him to abandon the tone of ‘personal violence and abuse’ that characterised his writing in his Blackwood’s Magazine days, and which had attracted the public at first but now provoked disgust: A general tone of manly candour and civility gives much vigour to occasional severity. I conclude that you will see Ellis as you proposed to carry on their grand engine. You may be sure I have no desire to know more of the unbekanten obern [unknown superiors] than that Murray is their sword and D’Israeli their shield; but your information should be complete of course.42 Once more Sir Walter Scott refers to the ‘grand engine’ described by young Benjamin Disraeli and points to its secret, conspiratorial character when he says that he does not want to know who the unknown rulers of this scheme are. Scott was perceptive enough to realise that John Murray was the visible head of a larger movement, although in this instance he lacked the shrewdness to see through Disraeli’s self-aggrandisement. It is unlikely that any of the politicians behind the plan would have considered the young man their protector, or would even have been aware of his existence. Further down the letter Sir Walter expresses surprise that John Murray has not mentioned the seat in Parliament which, as Disraeli had given them to understand, came together with the offer of ‘superintendent’ of the powerful political engine that the newspaper would become, although he soon consoles himself that it may be better this way: ‘There is nothing of the seat in parliament in Murray’s 41 Lockhart family letters 1826–1837, NLS, MS 42264. 42 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 15 Oct. 1825.

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letter […] Indeed I am a little afraid the late hours and hard work of the House might add too much to your other heavy duties’.43 Again, here may be the origin of the enmity that grew between Lockhart and Disraeli and lasted all their lives, as Lockhart may not have been as philosophical as was his father-in-law about Disraeli’s false promises. It is clear that Disraeli knew nothing about the possibility of Lockhart becoming the editor of the Quarterly Review; he was not enjoying John Murray’s full confidence by then, and besides, his whole preoccupation lay with the newspaper. It is possible that John Murray had been holding this latest and more attractive proposal in order to convince Lockhart to take over the two posts,44 as the tacit implication would have been that he could not accept one and reject the other. As will be seen further on, when the moment came to discuss salary arrangements the publisher made it even more difficult for Lockhart to reject the editorship of the newspaper. There may also be some truth in the perception that John Murray did not put his whole trust in the younger man although he allowed him some free rein to continue helping in the setting up the paper. Meanwhile, Murray concerned himself with his publishing business and the Quarterly Review. At the same time in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott had worries of his own. The position of editor of the Quarterly Review was among the most prestigious in the literary world and Sir Walter feared that the Lake Poets, particularly Robert Southey, might suspect him of advocating the cause of his son-in-law as editor of the Review to the detriment of the current editor, John Taylor Coleridge, nephew of the poet. In truth, the thought had not crossed his mind before the offer came, and he made annotations in his journal and wrote letters to that effect. For his part, Lockhart was aware that until he showed his capacities as editor, his position as head of the influential London journal was weak, and was trying to find the most convenient man on whom to allocate his allegiance. Probably because of his youth, his loyalties at first followed a meandering path, and initially he estimated that siding with Croker against John Murray would prove beneficial for his career. There had been coolness between Murray and Croker when the latter discovered that the newspaper was under way, but never to undermine their friendship. However, the coolness did not diminish when it became public that Lockhart would be in charge of the Quarterly Review. Simultaneously, John Murray was fending off attacks from another flank, as during all this time there had been a relentless and bitter campaign in the liberal press against him and his proposed newspaper. Interestingly though, none of the venomous articles in 43 Ibid. 44 Charles C. Nickerson, ‘Disraeli, Lockhart, and Murray: An Episode in the History of the “Quarterly Review”’, Victorian Studies, 15 3(March, 1972): 279–306, at 282.

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the Examiner and the London Magazine mention Disraeli in connection with the publication at this stage. On 20 October 1825, a deed was signed between John Murray and John Gibson Lockhart that made the latter editor of the Quarterly Review from January of the following year. The contract was witnessed by William Wright and Benjamin Disraeli, who also initialled all the amendments made to the document. Some aspects of the agreement attract attention, as for instance the claim made in the introductory statement that Lockhart was ‘a practicing advocate […] besides being employed in various profitable literary undertakings at Edinburgh and the said John Murray has requested him to give up his professional practice at the Scotch Bar and to come to London to edit the Quarterly Review’. The other is the salary that was agreed on. In the deed, John Murray promises to pay John Gibson Lockhart ‘quarterly (or five times a year as the case may happen) for three years from the first day of January next – the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds’.45 Therefore Lockhart would receive £1,000 or £1,250 a year, depending on the number of issues of the journal he decided to publish in one year, and would be paid extra when he contributed with articles of his own. Gifford had received £900 for editing the Quarterly Review until his retirement the year before, and as a point of comparison, in 1803, Francis Jeffrey had begun his editorship of the Edinburgh Review at a yearly salary of £300.46 It is not remarkable that Lockhart was offered a bigger salary than his predecessor; what attracts attention is the fact that at the same time he was promised a larger salary for ‘not’ editing the newspaper than the one for editing the Quarterly. To make the offer more attractive, Lockhart was given the chance of becoming part owner of the Representative later on. On a separate deed drafted on the same day, Lockhart was promised £1,500 for ‘to the best of his skill and ability to aid and assist’ John Murray in the composition of the newspaper, to contribute with articles for it, and ‘by all other means consistent with his rank in life to promote the sale and character’ of the publication. Almost unnoticed in the first paragraph of the contract there is a line disclosing the fact that the project was even more ambitious than at first appeared. Lockhart was expected to assist in the publication of the Representative, not yet named, a daily morning newspaper, and also of a daily evening newspaper that would begin publication at the start of 1826. It is not clear in the agreement whether both newspapers or only the evening one, would appear daily, ‘Sundays included’.47 There is no later mention of the evening newspaper and the idea must have been filed and forgotten early on. This last deed was also witnessed by Disraeli and Wright, and shortly after he 45 The Representative Agreement, NLS, JMA, MS 42445. 46 Louis Haney, Early Reviews of English Poets (Philadelphia: The Egerton Press, 1904), xxv. 47 The Representative Agreement, NLS, JMA, MS 42445.

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signed it, Lockhart returned to Scotland, this time to close up his practice and prepare for his move to London in December. But as the letters and communications of the period prove, Lockhart was in everything but name the editor of the newspaper, at least for the first two months of its short life. Once the matters of the editorship of the paper and the Quarterly Review were settled, Disraeli began to work in the setting up of the project singlehandedly, or so he made it appear, to his friends and family and to posterity. His letters of the period between 15 October and the middle of November portray him doing all the work himself: engaging staff, managing the funds, remodelling the premises in Great George Street, buying machinery, and making decisions, not all of them wise, and looking for a house for Lockhart. In reality, Benjamin went along with his cousin, architect George Basevi when the latter negotiated the lease on the house in Great George Street and began the renovations, and when he found and signed the lease for a splendid house on 25 Pall Mall for Lockhart and family. Yet, from Benjamin’s letters to John Murray and to John Gibson Lockhart, it would seem that the young man did all the work himself and without any help. On 23 November 1825 he tells the Scottish barrister that ‘As to your coming to London it cannot be too speedy. I expect in less than 8 and 40 hours to have arranged everything about your house.’48 A few days later he writes to Lockhart: ‘I am vigorous in my researches after a maison for you and hope I shall succeed very shortly. Two or three are upon the tapis’.49 We know now for certain that young Benjamin had nothing to do with Lockhart’s London residence on 25 Pall Mall, as all the work, up to the smallest detail was done by George Basevi, as his letters to John Murray prove. For instance, in November 1825 Basevi writes to John Murray stating that he has made the offer for Lockhart’s house in 25 Pall Mall at 500 guineas a year.50 On 10 December 1825, Basevi tells John Murray that the proprietors have agreed to the proposed rent of five hundred Guineas for number 25 Pall Mall, with ‘furniture as it is now with curtains on windows and proprietors will furnish the dining room. Tenants will have to provide their own plate, glass, china, linen and other articles including kitchen utensils’.51 Nowhere in these letters is there any mention of Benjamin being even present at the negotiations, yet he permanently uses the first person to describe his ‘efforts’. These letters by Benjamin Disraeli have deceived biographers who naturally believed what was said in them. For instance, William Monypenny, Disraeli’s first major biographer, had this to say: ‘On 26 October [Disraeli] wrote to 48 J. A. W. Gunn et al., Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1 (1815–1834), Letter 40, 23 Nov. 1825, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982). 49 Ibid., Letter 44, 26 Oct. 1825. 50 Letters of George Basevi to John Murray, undated letter, probably Nov. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 400666, ff. 31. 51 Ibid., ff. 35.

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Lockhart informing him of the death of his paternal grandmother, which he saw as ‘a very fortunate release from suffering and infirmity’ although still “somewhat affecting”’.52 Then he passes immediately to the subject that concerns them both: the newspaper. He relates that since Lockhart returned to Scotland he, Benjamin, has been ‘engaged at the magnum opus unceasingly’, and so has John Murray, although he describes his own efforts only. Besides, he has engaged correspondents in the Levant and already instructed them; in addition, he is proud to inform that he has obtained the promise of thorough information from Egypt by the head of a British firm in Alexandria, and secretly engaged the Provost of Oriel College ‘on the subject of Universities’. This last point shows that Disraeli was aware of some of the main concerns of the day and their importance for the new publication. At the time, the projected creation of London University along secular lines worried some members of the established church.53 Through John Diston Powles, Disraeli intended to create a virtual council consisting of churchmen and laymen that could monitor the development of the controversy, and later document in the newspaper its most relevant aspects.54 He finishes the letter with advice to Lockhart to be careful when mentioning certain subjects to mysterious people identified only by code names, and at the same time reassures him that he will control the correspondence that arrives for John Murray: ‘I will take care that any letters to a certain gentleman shall arrive only thro’ me. My relations however on that quarter are (on my honour) in nowise different from what they were, when we parted’.55 Although Disraeli does not give any details, his words suggest that since his return from Scotland in October, the relationship between him and the publisher had begun to deteriorate. The causes at this stage are not recorded, but may be related to Disraeli’s ‘flexibility’ with the truth in the reports he sent back to London concerning his first mission. A day before he wrote to Lockhart, he had written to a Mr Maas, the manager of a hotel in Coblenz where he had stayed in 1824. In the letter he indulges in his accustomed boasting before he describes what they would want from the hotelier. In passing, he gives an idea of the lighter side he plans the paper to have: My friend, Mr Murray, of Albemarle Street, London, the most eminent publisher that we have, is about to establish a daily journal of the first importance. With his great influence and connections, there is no doubt 52 Nickerson, 283. 53 Nickerson, 284. 54 Months later the Representative did publish an article on the positive aspects of having a university located in London, but by then, Disraeli had nothing to do with the publication. 55 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 44, 26 Oct. 1825.

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that he will succeed in his endeavour to make it the focus of information of the whole world. Among other places he wishes to have correspondents is the Rhine, and he has applied to me for my advice on this point. […] The most celebrated men in Europe have promised their assistance to Mr Murray in his great project.56 After he establishes that his scheme is a world-scale enterprise, he indicates that what they would need for their newspaper is an occasional letter describing the important people, especially English, who passed through the city or sailed down the Rhine. A kind of social commentary that perhaps Mr Maas himself would care to make, and whose kindness would be rewarded by Mr Murray by ‘various courtesies’. The editors of the Disraeli Letters have discovered that one of Disraeli’s duties at this time was to draft John Murray’s letters concerning the Representative, which were afterwards signed by the publisher.57 Despite this rather menial occupation, Disraeli’s tone towards his senior partner was growing more imperious by the day. In a letter to John Murray dated ‘October’ but omitting the day, he warns him that this will be only a ‘hurried note’, signalling that he is very busy, a fact he did not want Murray to forget. He has just returned from seeing the solicitors in the City concerning the acquisition of premises for the Representative. He tells Murray that John Diston Powles, the other partner, will examine the titles and ‘do the needful’, as no time should be lost in the negotiations. He finishes with an indication to John Murray that reveals who is in charge: ‘When we again meet, which I trust will be right speedily’ I hope to have a vigorous account of your movements – particularly as regards the foreign correspondence’.58 But Benjamin did not choose or decide on all the correspondents for the newspaper as he liked others to believe. In the JMA there are several letters and drafts in which John Murray II reveals significant aspects of the preparations, as with slight variations, all the documents describe the ethics behind the project and the aspirations the publisher entertained for his newspaper. ‘A nation is no longer content’, he writes to a prospective correspondent in Maastricht, ‘with knowledge of itself [and] it wishes to be informed of the conduct [,] the thoughts, the discoveries of surrounding peoples. The object of this publication’, he adds, ‘will be to give a picture of the conduct of the whole world, of the information of which I wish it to be the focus’.59 In all his letters to future correspondents, John Murray specifically asks for literary, scientific, and general information that they may consider important, and he insists on 56 Ibid., Letter 31, 25 Oct. 1825. 57 Ibid., Letter 31n. 58 Ibid. 59 Drafts by John Murray II of letters to correspondents for the Representative, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 56.

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the accuracy, impartiality and authenticity of the information sent to him. The conditions of accuracy, impartiality and authenticity reveal that initially the newspaper was conceived as a serious and trustworthy publication. J. D. Powles, for his part, was much more active during this period of preparation of the newspaper, and once it was launched he communicated often with John Murray asking him for sales figures and other relevant information regarding the publication. At least until the economic crisis broke out, Powles appears committed to the project and concerned with its success. In this previous stage he contacted people from the rest of Europe who might prove to be good correspondents, and there are at least two contributions to the search of foreign contributors from Powles, one from Trieste and another from Gibraltar. We do not know for certain how many of these letters to prospective correspondents were composed by Benjamin Disraeli, but grandiose expressions that appear on every one of them may lead the reader to believe that at least some parts were the result of his efforts. What appears obvious from an examination of the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland is that young Benjamin did not have the authority to choose and engage correspondents, as he gave Lockhart to understand, but merely took dictation and embellished letters that he was ordered to write by John Murray and J. D. Powles. For instance on 26 October he tells Lockhart: ‘I have received six letters from different correspondents in the Levant and Morea who all appear very intelligent. I have written to them fully’.60 The use of the first person singular in the communications, and the absence of other agents in his descriptions, together with his assertive tone is probably what has deceived biographers of Disraeli. However, we know now that in the case of the foreign correspondents, the young man was simply executing orders, and regarding the negotiations on the building in Great George Street, he was present as attendant of his cousin, architect George Basevi. The most telling document regarding the hiring of foreign correspondents is an unsigned copy to an unknown addressee where John Murray defines the ideal contributors to his newspaper as the best positioned professionals in the political, literary, commercial, and scientific spheres, who will, ‘Give intelligence of every kind that can be good, useful and genuine, to the exclusion of lies and abuse, scandal, filth, and idle reports and nonsense’.61 These pre-conditions show that at least in its conception, the newspaper rested on a solid ideological basis, but intentions are not realities and with regards to the Representative, the final product did not fully match the original blueprint.

60 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 32, 26 Oct. 1825. 61 Drafts of letters by John Murray II to correspondents for the Representative, NLS, JMA, MS 42625 ff. 68–81.

Figure 2  25 Great George Street, Westminster, the building that for a short time housed the Representative, in a photo taken in 1894. ‘The building appears extended at the back and with a new façade’, says Carol Morgan, Archivist of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Courtesy of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

chapter iii

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t the same time that correspondents were being hired, the offices that would house the newspaper were being installed. The choice of George Basevi as the architect in charge of remodelling the building in Great George Street provides an indication of the high leverage the creators of the newspaper intended it to have, as everything related to the project, be it publisher, premises, or the professionals who would work for it, had to be the best of the best. Although it would have been natural to suppose that George Basevi’s name may at first have been suggested to John Murray by his friends, Mr and Mrs D’Israeli, in reality the publisher and the architect, had known each other since before 1814. Besides, Isaac D’Israeli was known not to be over fond of his wife’s relative and would not have recommended him. Young Benjamin, for his part, was unlikely to have suggested the name of a cousin on his mother’s side who was already a renowned and successful professional in his field, although only a few years older than himself. It cannot be conclusively established how much of the remodelling work Basevi actually managed to complete. There are references in letters of the period to the fact that the building was not finished by January 1826, when the Representative started publication, as for instance, a communication from chief reporter William Henry Watts to John Murray, complaining of the difficulties reporters were experiencing in having to write the parliamentary reports in Great George Street while the composition and the printing of the paper was being done elsewhere.1 The original plan was to build an extension to the back of the premises in Great George Street that would house the steam-powered printing machine that had been bought for the purpose.

1 Letter of William Henry Watts to John Murray II, 26 Jan. 1826, NLS, JMA, MS 41251, ff. 170–171.

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In his letter of 26 January 1826, Watts recommends that they rent some rooms in Northumberland Court for the reporters to work in, as the distance between Great George Street and the printers was considerable. Northumberland Court was the address of printer William Clowes, who was going to print the newspaper while the designated offices were being prepared. In the end, some rooms for the reporters were engaged close by, on 44 Fleet Street and these were the actual offices where the newspaper was composed and distributed during the time it was published. These decisions made the expenses increase with the effect that the building in Great George Street began to appear more and more redundant. There is however one interesting remark made by Watts in the closing of his letter, when he praises the first two leading articles of the newspaper, as they were a source of great controversy later on: ‘I greatly admire the tone of the leading articles which have appeared in “the Representative”’. Another reference to the building of Great George Street can be found in a London Magazine article published in September 1826, shortly after the Representative had been merged with the New Times and for all intents and purposes, disappeared from the journalistic scene. The article is signed by a ‘Parliamentary Reporter’ with the initials ‘K.  N.’ but it echoes too much of the communications of William Henry Watts and it is likely that if he is not the author, he certainly had a hand in its composition. The article opens saying that the lease of the building in Great George Street cost £6.000, but it would be difficult to confirm or deny this statement as the account book of the Representative registers on 12 November 1825 a withdrawal of £1.155 handed to George Basevi (certainly not Benjamin) for the purchase of the property2, and several instalments of which the first appears on 4 July 1826, detailed as ´half a year’s mortgage’3 on the property. The other confirmation we have of the cost of the building is a letter from George Basevi to John Murray where he acknowledges the publisher has authorised him to offer for the freehold ‘any sum under Five Thousand Six Hundred pounds’.4 Yet one aspect that is certainly true is the reference to the remodelling of the façade of the house with the addition of a portico and bas reliefs. A photograph of Nr 25 Great George Street taken in 1894 before the building was pulled down, shows a portico (although not bas reliefs), a feature that the neighbouring buildings do not display. Nowadays the Cabinet War Rooms occupy the north side of Great George Street, but records indicate that near where Number 25 once stood, the interior of all the houses was similarly decorated with attractive 2 Book of Payments made in Albemarle Street on account of the Representative, NLS, JMA, MS 42628, ff. 83. 3 Ibid. 4 Letters of George Basevi to John Murray II, 8 Nov. 1825, NLS, JMA, MS 400666, ff. 19.

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features such as ‘balusters, wainscoting, and mouldings of fine craftsmanship’.5 The following account may well be a description of Nr 25: ‘In some houses the main stairs rose to the first floor only, there being a flying gallery above at second-floor level, accessed by the secondary stairs’.6 Yet all the efforts and expense to decorate a building fit for a newspaper that would be the centre of news of the entire world, in Benjamin Disraeli’s words, were to no avail and in November 1826 John Murray saw the need to put the property of Great George Street on the market. A letter from George Basevi,7 who was then acting as his agent, provides a clear indication of how difficult the situation was for the publisher. After reporting that he has refused an offer for the Murray Whitehall Place home because it was too low, Basevi reports that Alderman Wood who was ‘in treaty’ for the house in Great George Street has backed down because his offer of £800, (afterwards increased to £1.000) had not been accepted by the architect. Basevi suggests as well that the fact that John Murray is in financial trouble has moved people to make those unacceptable offers. The building was eventually sold, and from 1839 until it was pulled down in 1894, it housed the Institution of Civil Engineers. The crisis of 1825 was not the only cause of John Murray’s financial troubles George Basevi is alluding to. The ‘Book of Payments for the Representative’ reveals the high cost of starting the newspaper with all the pre-conditions set up by the original backers. For instance, the estimate for the two modern printing machines powered by a ‘two horse power Steam engine’ was £2.600.8 The freehold in Great George Street that would house the newspaper cost ‘any sum under Five Thousand Six Hundred Pounds.9 Other high expenditures were £280 of Stamp Duty for the newspaper, which had to be paid in advance, the salaries of William Henry Watts, parliamentary reporter and acting editor; Dr Maginn, sub-editor; and a Mr Tyndale, mentioned often as the editor of Representative. Logic suggests that Tyndale cannot have been the editor because his monthly salary was £60 lower than Watt’s.10 To this should be added £60 a week for printing the paper, as the steam powered machines were never used. By 11 February 1826, a little more than two weeks after the newspaper was launched, the expenses 5 Carol Morgan, archivist of Institution of Civil Engineers, which for several decades occupied the address of 25 Great George Street, indicates that the house included well-proportioned meeting rooms and a 40 feet [12 metres] long gallery. (Personal interview with author, 8 June 2013.) 6 Richard Garnier, ‘Speculative Housing in 1750s London’, The Georgian Group Journal, 12(2002): 163–214. 7 George Basevi to John Murray II, 11 Dec. 1826., NLS, JMA, MS 400666, ff. 157–158. 8 Book of Payments for the Representative, NLS, JMA, MS 42631. 9 Letter George Basevi to John Murray II, NLS, JMA, MS 400666, ff. 19. 10 Ibid.

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amounted to £3,079; by 13 July it was £9,065, and on the day the book was closed, in February 1827, the amount paid had reached £13,951, including £525 paid on 21 December 1826 for one year’s rent on Lockhart’s house on 25 Pall Mall. But financial troubles were not the only difficulties besieging John Murray in 1826. Only a few months earlier, between May and October, the bitter quarrel between the Murray and the D’Israeli families that resulted in the break-up of a long and close friendship had taken place, as it will be seen on chapter VI. At some point, near the first week of November 1825, while the preparations for launching the newspaper had reached a climax, the original backers of the idea must have pulled out of the project. On the 12th of that month, Disraeli wrote Lockhart a long letter that suggests that this is what happened. In the letter, Disraeli reveals to Lockhart that John Murray appears discouraged and unwilling to proceed with the plan and proposes that Sir Walter Scott should spur him on. ‘I confess, for Murray’s sake, I rather wished to have a line as to the feeling now existing at Abbotsford on the grand plan. A communication of this kind infuses new life and energy into the Emperor’.11 Needless to say, the request may not have totally been made ‘for Murray’s sake’ but for Disraeli’s, as he may have seen all his work and his future prospects endangered. As was the custom with him, he does not reveal the most likely reason behind John Murray’s concern, but hides it under flattery for Sir Walter Scott and disparagement for John Murray: ‘It is perhaps foolish to mention this, but the truth is, Murray has long been accustomed to look up to authority, and the approbation of such a man as Scott is to him ‘meat and drink and raiment’’.12 There are more revelations as the long letter continues. The report to Lockhart of the progress being made in the setting up of the newspaper is more confirmation, if more was necessary, that the Scottish barrister was going to be the editor. The report announces the hiring of Dr Maginn as Paris correspondent, an appointment made presumably at the suggestion of Lockhart himself, considering their previous long association in Blackwood’s Magazine and the admiration Sir Walter Scott felt for his journalistic skills. There is also a significant comment on the Bishop of Durham and his Council’s wish to have a channel in the press through which to communicate their views. Disraeli tells Lockhart that ‘we intend to write to them of our plans and requesting their cooperation’.13 This is another reference to the political cabal behind the creation of the Representative, since Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, seconded by his then chaplains, Phillpotts and Townsend, were 11 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 48, 12 Nov. 1825. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid.

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strongly opposed to Catholic Emancipation, one of the issues favoured by George Canning and which the cabal wanted to fight through the newspaper.14 As his letters reveal, Disraeli was well informed on current events and clever in the manner he gathered information and weighed its importance for the newspaper, and therefore for himself. The last section of the letter reveals the scope of its author’s ambition and also his extraordinary state of excitement. After he provides Lockhart with a table of correspondents already engaged that cover most of the world (we should remember that he said to Mr Maas that he wanted to make the newspaper ‘the focus of information of the whole world’), he ends with an optimistic paragraph that deals with all the matters pending with ease and aplomb: All the letters we have written to those places are not answered, but we do not anticipate the slightest doubt of their success. […] In addition to these we must put down —— The West Indies —— Teneriffe. I have no doubt, that in a few days I shall get a most excellent correspondent at Cadiz—— but I have not yet succeeded in Madrid which is most important. We have established also at Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, etc. etc. —— actually established. I see no visible obstacle to our beginning the 1st day of February for our mechanical part, such as reporters, printers building etc. goes on as well as the other.15 Disraeli’s words betray his exultant mood, but more importantly, an underlying feeling of ownership and profound identification with the project. Although he begins the passage using the plural form of the pronoun, he becomes increasingly self-centred as the report progresses and it is the first person singular that takes over the account. It must have been obvious to his associates, as it is obvious now, that Disraeli expected to hold a senior management post within the structure of the newspaper he was doing so much to bring to life. In November he had already predicted the approximate date the newspaper would be launched, although his estimation was rather conservative as the first issue of the Representative appeared a few days earlier than he had predicted, on 25 January 1826 instead of 1 February. He was, nevertheless, overly optimistic in thinking that reporters and printing machines would be ready on that date. They were not. To make matters worse, a group of contributors to the Quarterly Review, John Murray’s friends from the Admiralty, opposed the nomination of John Gibson Lockhart as editor. His friendship with John Wilson Croker and John Barrow had helped Murray become publisher to the Admiralty and it 14 Ibid., 49n. 15 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 50, 12 Nov. 1815.

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was his firm that printed the Navy List every year.16 It was only natural that Murray should be worried, as these influential men were his personal friends as well as important supporters of the Review, so it would not have been to his advantage to fall out with them. Biographers over the years have never agreed on who supported Lockhart’s nomination and who opposed it, although it is commonly believed that John Wilson Croker was leading the opponents. Lockhart himself was surprised at the force of the opposition to his name. It must have been around this time, the middle of November 1825 and a month after the negotiations about the editorship of both the newspaper and the Quarterly Review had started that John Wilson Croker heard about them and, ‘utterly condemned the idea’.17 At the same time he must have expressed openly his opposition to the appointment of Lockhart, who was by then back in Scotland, as editor of either publication. This opposition to the engagement of Lockhart extended to most of John Murray’s friends at the Admiralty, with the exception of John Barrow, who were also frequent contributors to the Quarterly Review. It is possible that Croker not only objected to Lockhart’s appointment, but also organised a cabal against him in the Admiralty18 and although this cannot be proved, there is a strong possibility that it was so. There is one certainty, however, and that is the great influence Croker exerted over the group and over John Murray, due to various reasons such as their long friendship, his important position in government, and his contributions and permanent support of the Quarterly Review. Besides, for years he had been associated with journalism and was thought to be an authority on the subject. It is not difficult to imagine why these people objected to Lockhart’s nomination: he was known for his satirical attacks on politicians, authors, and fellow critics. Croker, most of all, knew of his recklessness in the anonymous publication of John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron only a few weeks after the death of John Scott on 16 February 1821.19 What is more, Croker had direct knowledge of his fear of being found out, by both John Murray and Sir Walter Scott. Obviously, Lockhart feared that the publisher would betray his identity to Lord Byron, and if that alone was a frightening prospect, more daunting was the thought of disappointing his father-in-law. These anxieties showed Lockhart as a rather immature young man, not prepared for the great responsibilities he was undertaking. If anything, this last episode proved to Croker that Lockhart was not one to learn from past experiences. 16 George Paston, At John Murray’s, 1843–1892 (London: John Murray, 1932), 11. 17 Myron F. Brightfield, John Wilson Croker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940), 184. 18 Charles C. Nickerson. ‘Disraeli, Lockhart, and Murray: An Episode in the History of the “Quarterly Review”’, Victorian Studies, 15 3(March, 1972): 290–306, 290. 19 Alan Lang Strout, ed., John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 49–50.

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John Murray realised that this revolt from the Admiralty would mean a major setback for his plans and decided that the best course of action would be to get the open support of Sir Walter Scott for the choice of his son-in-law as editor of the Quarterly Review. He thought the matter was too delicate to be trusted into a letter and decided, mistakenly as it turned out, that Disraeli’s facility with words and great powers of persuasion would communicate his misgivings to Sir Walter as well as his request of support. Yet Disraeli, regardless of the clear instructions he had been given to go straight to Sir Walter and not mention the problem to Lockhart, did exactly the opposite. The news distressed Lockhart who had his heart set on going to London, but distressed his father-in-law even more. On 27 November 1825 Sir Walter Scott wrote in his journal that Disraeli had come to Scotland and had ‘implored Lockhart’ to make Sir Walter write to his friends in London in support of his son-in-law’s appointment as editor of the Quarterly Review. With paternal fondness the Scottish writer made light of the objections against the younger man: ‘I have no idea of telling all and sundry that my son-in-law is not a slanderer, or a silly thoughtless lad, although he was six or seven years ago engaged in some light satires’.20 But despite his protests, Sir Walter did write some letters to influential people he knew, and a long one to John Murray in which he defends Lockhart strongly and makes it clear that on the basis of the agreement signed by the publisher, his son-in-law has closed his practice in Edinburgh, has taken a house in London, and is about to let his house in Scotland. ‘The ground is cut away behind him for a retreat nor can such a thing be proposed as matters now stand’.21 Although he does not say it, Sir Walter appears very much aware of the nature of the objections against Lockhart, because he tells John Murray that his son-in-law had promised him, when he married his daughter, to abstain from the type of criticism he had practiced in Blackwood’s Magazine: ‘Mr Lockhart then pledged his word to me that he would withdraw from this species of warfare and I have every reason to believe that he has kept his word with me’.22 (This explains Lockhart’s fright of being found out as the author of John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron, even though it is a clever piece of criticism that avoids the cruel invectives he commonly used in his Blackwood articles.) Sir Walter Scott also refers obliquely to ‘the most unfortunate affair of his life’, that is the John Scott episode, and argues that it belongs to the past and to the ‘follies of youth’. He ends the letter telling John Murray that he allows him to show it to any contributors and supporters of the Quarterly Review that he thinks fit. 20 The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, from the original manuscript at Abbotsford, https://archive. org/details/journalofsirwalt01scot, 21. 21 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to John Murray, 17 Nov. 1825. 22 Ibid.

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Lockhart for his part had not been idle, and on 16 November had written to Croker asking for his support, nevertheless fully aware that the objections against him had to do with his Blackwood past. Croker replied three days later, on the 19th of November, saying that he had had no previous idea of the plans for the newspaper or the Quarterly Review, but promised Lockhart his support. The following exchange of letters reveals that the people concerned with the newspaper and the Quarterly Review were many times disloyal to each other and changed sides easily. It is possible that Croker had been initially part of the cabal that wanted a newspaper to voice their opposition to Canning’s policies, and later backed down, but even if he had never taken part in the scheme, it is at least certain that he knew it existed. Although Croker opposed the appointment of the Scottish barrister as editor of both publications, he never disclosed his opposition to Lockhart; on the contrary, he promised his ‘full support in whatever capacity the latter should appear in Murray’s employ’.23 It is not possible now to know whether Croker had secret reasons for objecting to Lockhart’s appointment (apart from the obvious ones), except that perhaps he may have wanted the post of editor of the Quarterly Review for himself. ‘Yet there can be little doubt that he was the main instigator of the plot against Lockhart’.24 On November 21 Lockhart thanked Croker for his support and gave him his account of the events as he knew them. He told him how he had been approached by John Murray through Disraeli and of his surprise when late in the negotiation I found that you had not been consulted by Murray either as to the Editorship of the Review or his own scheme of the Newspaper. […] I had a strong selfish motive for putting you in possession of what had been done as to the Review of which I had always, like the rest of the world, considered your own papers as among the most valuable supports.25 The following day, 22 November, Lockhart, without mentioning that Disraeli had just been to Scotland to warn him of the opposition against him, wrote a second letter to Croker. This letter is just as obsequious, and its importance lies in that it reiterates the negative perception people had of newspaper editors in general −a perception already voiced by William Wright and Sir Walter Scott− while it delineates the purpose for which this particular newspaper was conceived. Most of all, Lockhart’s letter describes the powerful forces playing behind the projected publication and even though by this time 23 Brightfield, 185. 24 Nickerson, 293. 25 Brightfield, 186.

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the originators were withdrawing from the plan, few people, and certainly not Lockhart, were as yet aware of the fact: Had this matter been mentioned to me as a mere speculation of Mr Murray’s, I should have declined. […] The care of arranging foreign correspondence and looking after the details of news I cannot suppose to be fit work for any person having any claims to be considered either as a gentleman or a scholar – and I confess that the business of writing paragraphs for a paper devoted to the interests of any mercantile man or men would have been regarded by me with no less disgust.26 Lockhart continues his long exposition indicating that the projected newspaper was going to be different in journalistic quality and political goals and would represent an improvement on the publications available at the time, be they Whig or Tory. In language resembling Disraeli’s, the younger man insists on the need of having a newspaper that addresses the upper classes, as the ‘inferior classes’ have already been catered for: [this situation] has been felt as an evil no longer tolerable by the heads of several of the first interests in this country —that these, combining, because they perceived that single efforts must be unavailing, fixed on Murray to be the nominal leader in their design, merely because they thought his professional name could at once serve to announce the broad distinction which they were determined should really exist between their journal and those which they wished to oppose. In part I have seen good reason to be satisfied that this representation was correct—but I must own that the fact of the business having gone on without your sanction throws, in my eyes, a considerable cloud over the whole of it.27 The new editor is accurate in his account of the people behind the creation of the newspaper, but not in his perception of the real motives behind the project. Possibly he must have been warned of its secret nature, as he makes very clear at the end of the letter, but the uplifting ideals he declares to be the moving force behind the publication read like simple rhetoric. Some of the observations on the nature of the future newspaper included in Lockhart’s letter to Croker, sound so grandiose that they appear to have been made by Disraeli himself or by someone completely won over by the latter’s extraordinary powers of persuasion:

26 Ibid., 187. 27 Ibid., 187–188.

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And further, I certainly must continue to think that by a systematic arrangement under which the great Interests of England should severally find themselves in possession of an organ supplied regularly by them with the best information, were the advantages so given made use of with anything like literary talent, a prodigious engine of power would be placed at the disposal of those who really wish to consult in all things for the general good of the country.28 If the plan included the supply of exclusive political information for the newspaper obtained from the centre of political power, it failed when the backers of the project abandoned it and left John Murray to fend for himself. Without the backers, the main purpose of an ultra-rightist Tory newspaper ceased to exist and the project, like the grand building a few months later, became redundant. Confronted with this situation, John Murray must have considered putting an end to the whole enterprise, yet Lockhart wishes to appear unaware of this possibility, even though his final observations betray that he was. Rather, he states that the powers behind the creation of the paper are determined to produce it, no matter what obstacles may appear on its way. Undoubtedly, his only source of information in this regard was Disraeli: I am, moreover, strongly persuaded that were Murray inclined to do so (which I suspect to be the case) [call off the project] he has it no longer in his power to retire from the speculation on which he has entered. To give you some notion, for example, of the length and the scale which his preparations have attained, I may venture to inform you that he has engaged to Maginn on a very liberal salary to quit London and reside in Paris as his Correspondent and general agent there, and that I know other arrangements quite as decisive to have been completed. Should Murray, however, retreat in spite of all this—I am further well convinced that the design itself will be carried through by means of some other Bookseller. This is my firm belief. The vacillations of such a person can never, I am persuaded, be suffered to affect permanently the matured designs of those whom I know to be—perhaps it would be more safe to say whom I believe to be—at the bottom of this speculation.29 Lockhart closes the letter with a new wave of flattery directed at Croker, adding more proof of the secret nature of the plan and of the conspiratorial manner it was being carried out. 28 Ibid., 188. 29 Ibid.

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You, however, from the habits of political life and the long residence among the most intelligent men of your time must necessarily be an infinitely better judge as to all these matters than any other person whom I have any chance of approaching in this manner, and it will therefore be most exceedingly kind if you will spare a page to give me some more exact notion of your feelings in regards to this scheme—of which I would give you more accurate details were it in my power to do so without compromising names that have been entrusted to me under every seal of secrecy, and some of which, I cannot help beginning to suspect, nobody may ever have had the smallest right to breathe to me.30 Yet the principal issue at this particular moment in the story of the Representative is not the secrecy or the magnitude of the plan itself but the inflexible opposition to Lockhart’s name as editor of both Murray publications. The rejection of the new editor by influential people at the Admiralty, could be extremely damaging for John Murray both personally and professionally. Confronted with this threat, he sought the support of Sir Walter Scott for the nomination of his son-in-law to the two editorships. The Scottish author was extremely respected and influential in the country, from the King down; therefore his sponsorship of any person amounted to virtual confirmation in a given post. But at the same time John Murray struggled to defend his choice of editor, Benjamin Disraeli undermined him by criticising the publisher to Lockhart. The reaction of Sir Walter Scott and Lockhart at Disraeli’s return to Scotland in a ‘secret’ mission was interpreted by the Scottish author and his son-in-law as an attempt by Murray to withdraw his pledge of giving Lockhart the editorship of the Quarterly Review and the Representative. Naturally, they were outraged, especially as they mistakenly believed that Secretary Canning had expressly asked that Lockhart be given this post. Although they appeared aware of the opposition and antagonism Lockhart’s name provoked in London, the anger of both men was directed at John Murray for not defending his choice forcibly enough. On 26 November Sir Walter says explicitly in a letter to Lockhart that: ‘As for Canning and Croker I take it they would not care sixpence if you had [been] Kit North31 from beginning to end—I will swear for the last at any rate’. Over a year later, Sir Walter realised, to his regret, how mistaken he had been in his appreciations.32 30 Ibid., 189. 31 John Wilson, alias Christopher North. 32 On 17 Feb. 1827, Canning wrote in reply to Sir Walter Scott’s request of a government post for J. G. Lockhart that the latter ‘was invited from Scotland for the very purpose of attacking, with a fury unknown till lately to modern political controversy, the measures

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On 21 November Disraeli was back in London from his second mission to Scotland, but was not well received when he went to report his ‘unhappy mission’ at Albemarle Street. In a letter to Lockhart written on the same day, Benjamin complains that John Murray had accused him of ruining everything because he should not have gone to Lockhart but only to Sir Walter, and in secret. Disraeli closes the letter indicating that his feelings of friendship for Lockhart have compelled him to break the promise he was forced to make to John Murray not to get in touch with the Scottish barrister again: I hope all things will turn out well. Murray writes by tomorrow’s post to Sir W. Scott, and has extracted a promise from me that I would not write by this to you. Consider therefore that this violation of my word is the consequence of my sincere friendship for you and mention it not to the winds.33 Lockhart was disconcerted therefore, when the next day he received two letters: one from John Murray and another from Disraeli. In the former he found out that Croker, the man from whom he had been seeking support, and who he thought had been backing him all this time, was leading the group of his opponents; from the latter he realised that John Murray had been all the time defending him to his detractors at the Admiralty and elsewhere. In a letter to Lockhart dated 24 November 1825, John Murray reminded the barrister that when they had met in London earlier, he had warned him of ‘a certain’ person who would do everything in his power to prevent him from accessing the editorship of the Quarterly Review and the newspaper. What is more, in his letter the publisher also reveals that Croker had boasted at the Admiralty board room to the other contributors to the Quarterly that: ‘I [Murray] had absurdly talked of a Paper, but that he believed that he had completely destroyed my intention, and that he fancied I had left him with an inclination to sell the freehold I had bought for it at half price’.34 Disraeli’s next letter, dated 21st November 1825 was uncharacteristically short and consisted again of confidential communication. It told Lockhart that all was well, that he saved the Scottish barrister’s job, and his post was secure: ‘Thank the God! I have succeeded! You will now come to London in triumph’.35 As was his custom, Benjamin was positioning himself in the centre

to which I am supposed to be favourable, and, personally, myself ’. Lang, Life and Letters of J. G. Lockhart, vol. 2, 8. 33 Nickerson, 295–296. 34 Brightfield, 190. 35 Nickerson, 297.

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of the action and claiming for himself any credit available for saving his new friend’s job. The following day, 22 November 1825, Disraeli enlarged his account of the events of the previous day and the decisive part he had played in them. He wanted to make Lockhart aware that he had been in danger of losing his position as editor of the Quarterly Review and the Representative, but had been rescued by none other than Disraeli: I called on Tuesday morning at Murrays […] determined to bring matters to a crisis. What I said in our three hours uninterrupted conversation it is difficult to detail. My communications were the results of what I had seen, of what I had felt, since we had become acquainted. I detailed my sentiments as to your character, my experience of your disposition, my knowledge of your views in life. The result you are acquainted with.36 The passages of the letter that follow deal with a suggestion from Disraeli that in the future, he can be a bridge between John Murray and Lockhart. Benjamin must have felt the need to secure his position of influence in the new power structure that was being shaped in Albemarle Street with the start of a new publication, the Representative, and continuation of an old one, the Quarterly Review, both under Lockhart’s editorship. A good understanding between Murray and Lockhart would not serve Disraeli’s purposes. Therefore he insidiously undermines the publisher’s character at the same time he elevates his own. Even at such a young age he showed the qualities of an adept manipulator, praising in order to destroy: Do not think Murrays conduct in this last affair wavering and inconsistent. His situation has been very trying. You and he have never rightly understood each other. When such connections were about to be formed between two men, they should have become acquainted not by the stimulus of wine. There should have been some interchange of sentiment and feeling. The fault I know was not yours — the result however was bad. All men have their sober moments and Murray in his is a man of pure and honourable — I might say, elevated sentiments.37 This passage from a Disraeli letter leaves little doubt of the origin of the rumours about John Murray’s drinking habits. Rumours that John Gibson Lockhart and his wife Sophia repeated in their letters to Sir Walter Scott and which Disraeli spread widely through his first novel, Vivian Grey. The 36 Nickerson, 298. 37 Ibid.

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present letter ends with an optimistic touch on the state of the preparations for the launching of the newspaper, which is betrayed by his curious verb choice: ‘The other affairs are prancing on in such prosperity, that a strong desire is expressed by all parties to commence operations sooner’.38 He insists, however, that he wants to speak to Lockhart in private, as soon as he arrives in London: ‘When you come to town, it will be advisable for us to have some private conversation before you see him, as I think it proper for both of you that you should be put in possession of what has passed without obliging him to detail’.39 Again, there is contradiction between Disraeli’s rose tinted picture and the reality described soon afterwards by Sophia Lockhart when she tells her father on1st February 1826: that the publication had been started before it was ready: ‘The correspondence is perfect, but the fault seems to have been beginning such an undertaking before their own Printing office and establishment is ready to receive them’.40 Although the error in judgement cannot be ascribed solely to Disraeli, he certainly was one of those who wanted ‘to commence operations sooner’. One of the mistakes that condemned the newspaper to failure was the haste with which it was launched. The following letter from Disraeli to Lockhart, dated 24 November, continues in a similar vein, seeking to reassure the future editor of both, the Quarterly Review and the newspaper, that his post is secure and his presence is needed urgently in London, but always with the underhanded praise of John Murray and an invitation to intrigue: I have often complained to you of Murray’s inconsistency, vacillation and indecision. I have done more, I have complained of them to himself. I regret it. Had I had any conception of the utter worthlessness of the intriguing, selfish and narrow-minded officials by whom he has been so long surrounded, I certainly would have restrained my sentiments, and have pitied the noble and generous minded being who was subjected to such disgusting thraldom.41 This letter continues with an exaggerated praise of the man he had criticised so strongly before and a change of tactics: the enemy now is not John Murray and his timid character, but the scheming officials at the Admiralty who had complete control over the publisher. Now, thanks to Disraeli, John Murray has become a new man and the enemy has been defeated: 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 298–299. 40 Wilfrid Partington, ed., The Private Letter-books of Sir Walter Scott: Selections from the Abbotsford Manuscripts (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), 355. 41 Ibid., 299–300.

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When I tell you, that in the whole of this business Murray does really appear to have behaved in a manner more correct and more conscientious than I did previously consider human nature to be capable of, I feel that there is no person in the world to whom it can give such pleasure as yourself. It is impossible in a letter to give you any idea of the agitating and curious scenes which have taken place during these last days. The scales however have at length fallen from our friend’s eyes, and the walls of the Admiralty have resounded to his firm and bold but gentlemanly tones. He is now in no state of excitement to which any reaction can ensue. His mind has undergone a revolution which, I honestly confess, I did conceive could never have occurred. You would not know him for the same man. Thank God I did not postpone my departure to town one other second!42 Disraeli closes this new letter repeating the admonition that he must see Lockhart in private when the latter arrives in London: ‘It is absolutely necessary that you and I should have a conversation before you see Murray. I have no objection to his knowing it, but mind me, it is absolutely necessary’.43 We will never know what Disraeli wanted to tell Lockhart, but whatever the message, here is the evident intention of manipulating and controlling the man who would hold an important position in two major London publications. At the same time, it is surprising to find out that after Lockhart arrived in London, Disraeli became silent, for there are no letters from him or to him from 3 December 1825 to 21 May 1826, although he did not disappear completely from Albemarle Street until 14 February 1826. But that came later. During the rest of November 1825, Disraeli continued writing to Lockhart in Scotland until the barrister arrived in London at the beginning of December. The letters invariably seem intended to reassure the future editor that his prospects are firmly established. In his letter of 25 November to Lockhart, Disraeli closes with the following statement: ‘Your fear that Murray may be endangered by a conference with Croker makes me smile. Perhaps you smile too at my remark, but my dear fellow, as ye showman says “you will see what you will see”’.44 Included in the letters there is also information about suitable houses he has found for Lockhart and his family, and on 28 November he makes a curious observation. When describing a house he has found for Lockhart in London, Disraeli notes that it is not quite acceptable, 42 Nickerson, 300. 43 Ibid., 301. 44 Letter Disraeli to Lockhart, 25 Nov. 1825, in Nickerson, 302. (Apparently Benjamin Disraeli did not keep the letters that Lockhart sent him from Scotland in 1825, as there are none in the Hughenden Papers.)

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but that suitable houses are hard to find, and this one has the advantage of being located near Albemarle Street, ‘a most important consideration for the first year of our labours’.45 This comment makes it obvious that at the end of November he had no intention of leaving and, on the contrary, he hoped to work side by side with Lockhart in the running of the newspaper. The other observation that can be made is that by that time Benjamin was not into the confidence of either John Murray or his cousin George Basevi, as by that time the house for Lockhart in Pall Mall had been already found when Benjamin wrote this letter and the lease was on offer to the owners. Nevertheless, Disraeli’s messages to Lockhart in Scotland may not have been totally exaggerated, as revealed by a letter from John Murray to his future editor dated 23[?] November 1825, although it should be said that the letter is so complimentary that it may have been one of those drafted by Disraeli himself: I have yesterday and to-day listened to Mr Disraeli’s admirable details of his conferences with you and Sir Walter, and I can now state with my whole heart that nothing could have proved more completely gratifying; it has put me into complete possession of your views and character, and I can only repeat what I told him to say to you, that after this, Heaven and Earth may pass away, but it cannot shake my opinion.46 No matter who actually composed this letter, it had the effect of putting Lockhart’s mind at ease, and changing his allegiance. In a long reply dated 27 November, Lockhart first condemns Croker while he flatters John Murray even more profusely than he had the Secretary to the Admiralty. After the salutation that indicates that he is speedily replying to the letter from John Murray that he received the evening before and which has given him great pleasure because they are beginning to understand one another, he adds: Mr Croker’s behaviour has indeed distressed me for I had always considered him as one of those bad enemies who make excellent friends. I had not the least idea that he had ever ceased to regard you personally with friendship, even affection […] for as to the little hints you gave me when in town, I set all that down to his aversion for the notion of your setting up a paper, and thereby dethroning him from his invisible predominance over the Tory daily press, and of course attached little importance to it.47 45 Ibid., 303. 46 William F. Monypenny and Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1910), 6 vols. (New York: Russell and Russell, 1968), vol. 1, 72. 47 Brightfield, 191.

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At this stage in the letter, Lockhart must have remembered the invectives he had formulated against John Murray in his letters to Croker only six days earlier, so he becomes contrite: ‘The correspondence that has been passing between him and me may have been somewhat imprudently managed on my part’,48 in case any part of it reaches the publisher’s ears. Once he crosses that thorny path he closes the message with a forceful attack on Croker as a literary critic: I believe that his papers in the Review have (with a few exceptions) done the work a great deal more harm than good. I cannot express what I feel; but there was always the bitterness of Gifford without his dignity, and the bigotry of Southey without his bonne-foi. His scourging of such poor deer as Lady Morgan was unworthy of a work of that rank. If we can get the same information49elsewhere, no fear that we need equally regret the secretary’s quill.50 After he destroys the character of the man to whom he had been so ingratiating only seven days earlier, Lockhart finds it necessary to secure his position by winning John Murray over through the use of flattery: To all these people — Croker as well as the rest — John Murray is of much more importance than they ever can be to him if he will only believe what I know, viz. that his own name in society stands miles above any of theirs. Croker cannot form the nucleus of a literary association which you have any reason to dread. He is hated by the higher Tories quite as sincerely as by the Whigs; besides, he has not now-a-days courage to strike an effective blow.51 When reading how John Gibson Lockhart destroyed Crocker’s character in his letter to John Murray, it is not possible to forget the way these two men, Crocker and Lockhart, had cruelly demolished the work of John Keats52 a few years earlier. Lockhart’s description of Crocker as bitter and bigoted could very well apply to him too. This then is the way John Gibson Lockhart prepared the ground for his arrival in London at the beginning of December 1825 to take over the 48 Ibid. 49 Andrew Lang, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (1897), 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), vol. 2, 36. Lockhart means the latest political news; later Sir Walter Scott tried to establish such a channel for patronage and information through Sir William Knighton, the King’s physician. 50 Brightfield, 192. 51 Ibid. 52 See Appendices I and II.

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editorship of John Murray’s two publications. Sir Walter Scott was saddened when his daughter, her husband, and their son left Scotland on 5 December. He made an annotation in his diary that reports the fact briefly, and it is this same brevity that conveys his feeling of loss: ‘This morning Lockhart and Sophia left us early, and without leave-taking; when I rose at eight o’clock they were gone. This was very right. I hate red eyes and blowing of noses. Agere et pati Romanum est’.53 It has already been observed that after Lockhart’s arrival in London Disraeli became silent and the profound friendship between the two men broke up permanently. Some biographers believe that the reason for the split was that Lockhart did not like the way he was portrayed in Vivian Grey, but in fact the break-up had happened before the book was written, therefore the unfavourable portrayal was a consequence, not the cause of the quarrel between the two men. What follows is mostly conjecture, as there are few documents relating to this period, yet it is safe to imagine that Disraeli expected to have a senior managerial position in the newspaper. He had become so fully convinced of his own importance that early on he had started giving orders in writing, and probably verbally as well, to John Murray himself. Critics have suggested that the publisher dismissed the young man from the project when he appeared unable to provide his share of the funds for the newspaper, but as Robert Blake rightly observes, ‘It is hard to see how Disraeli ever could have done so’.54 More probably, John Murray always knew that he would never see Disraeli’s share (although he must have counted on receiving Powles’), and in that case, money cannot be seen as playing any significant part in the rift between the young man and the publisher. What seems likely is that the break-up between Disraeli and Lockhart happened at the same time and for the same causes as the break-up between Disraeli and John Murray: the young man’s interference in the publication of the Representative. One of the biggest mysteries, literary as well as biographical posed by this story has to do with Disraeli’s sudden disappearance from Albemarle Street and as there are no records of the actual event, except for Disraeli’s dramatic account in his novel Vivian Grey, and travel writer’s Maria Graham’s letter to John Murray on the subject. On 9 June 1826, after commenting unfavourably on the quality of the novel which she is returning to the publisher, María writes: ‘I am ready to congratulate you in having so early got rid of Vivian as a friend – he might have stuck longer and done you more harm’.55 Although it is clear from this letter that it was Murray who told Disraeli to go, the account, 53 Journal of Walter Scott, 21. 54 Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1987[1966]), 32. 55 Letter Maria Graham to John Murray  II, 9 June 1826, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 123–126.

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as young Benjamin gave it in his novel Vivian Grey, is much more dramatic. It portrays John Murray as an irrational fool and Benjamin as an innocent victim. Posterity, as it will be seen in the following chapters, took Disraeli’s version word for word because it is piquant, and, more significantly, the only one available. A plausible explanation of Benjamin Disraeli’s behaviour would have to do with his mental health at the time. His actions and his manner of expressing himself in his letters at the start of the newspaper project correspond to the behaviour of a manic-depressive personality at its peak. Charles Richmond and Jerrold M. Post make an insightful analysis of Disraeli’s personality and qualify it as ‘hypomanic … which has the qualities of the manic psychosis of manic-depressive illness but of lesser intensity’.56 Disraeli’s letters at the time of the setting up of the newspaper and during his trips to Scotland reflect, not a young man’s natural enthusiasm, but rather an unnatural state of over excitement. It is hard to connect this inexperienced youth to the inscrutable politician, nicknamed ‘the Sphinx’ he later became, a man who would sit for hours at his place in the House of Commons with a face where not a muscle moved to betray his thoughts or feelings. The last time Disraeli’s name is recorded in relation to the newspaper, is in a letter from Lockhart to John Murray dated 21 December 1825 which, incidentally, happens to be the day the newspaper was christened the Representative, and by none other than the young man himself. ‘I am delighted’, writes Lockhart, being consulted by John Murray on the title, and, what is more, satisfied with Disraeli’s title — the Representative. If Mr Powles does not produce some thundering objection, let this be fixed in God’s name’.57 But there is another reference to Disraeli in a letter by Lockhart to John Murray on February 14 1826, when the Representative was three weeks old. Again, this letter leaves the field open to conjecture, but undoubtedly the rift took place on, or very near this date: I think Mr B. Disraeli ought to tell you what it is that he wishes to say to Mr Croker on a business of yours ere he asks you of a letter to the Secretary. If there really be something worth saying, I certainly know nobody who would say it better, but I confess I think, all things considered, you have no need of anybody to come between you and Mr Croker. What can it be?58 56 Charles Richmond and Jerrold M. Post, ‘Disraeli’s Crucial Illness’, in The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli, Charles Richmond and Paul Smith, eds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 73. 57 Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray (London: John Murray, 1911), 265. 58 Ibid., 269.

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What could it have been indeed? The only thing we know for certain is that John Murray did not give Disraeli a letter of presentation to the Secretary of the Admiralty because the two men did not meet until many years later. Perhaps Disraeli wanted Croker’s support when he felt excluded from the Representative, because for some reason, undisclosed but easily deduced, after the first issues he was not allowed to write or to take part in the management of the newspaper by either the owner or the editor. Due to the lack of supporting evidence, some biographers have used Disraeli’s novel, Vivian Grey, which is an undisguised relation of the story of the Representative as the document from which to deduce what really happened, but that can prove to be a dangerous exercise, given that Disraeli was not fond of telling the truth even when writing non-fiction, and over fond of portraying himself as the hero in a drama and often as a victim. What we offer in the following pages is the story as it must have happened, based on the few pieces of documentary evidence that have survived, linked by the assumptions that emerge from this same evidence.

chapter iv

An Inauspicious Start

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o one can expect a fair verdict from posterity if their story is told by their worst enemies, and such is the case for the Representative newspaper. Most versions of its story available in the biographies of the notable men who took part in it are based on the accounts made by John Hunt, of the Examiner, or the novels and letters of Benjamin Disraeli; unfortunately, neither man was ever wholly truthful or free from bias. The story of the Representative, told from the perspective of the newspaper itself and not from that of its detractors, exposes a myriad of subtle undertones and unexpected connections. To complicate matters even further, a variety of documents scattered across several archives, provide surprising replies to a few key questions: Did Benjamin Disraeli set up the newspaper single-handedly as he gives to understand in his letters of 1825? And why did he disappear so suddenly from Albemarle Street and the newspaper in February 1826? And the biggest question: who was the editor of the Representative? But questions answered necessarily bring about new questions. On the whole, the fresh perspective of the following pages adds complexity to the apparently simple affair of the rise and fall of a nineteenth-century newspaper. Various external circumstances coexisted during the inception of the Representative. Embedded within the story there is, for instance, the clash of egos of the men who took part in the planning of the publication, notably those of prominent politicians and men of letters such as John Wilson Croker and John Gibson Lockhart were; the execution of personal vendettas, as in the case of John Hunt against John Murray  II, or the realisation of private agendas, such as becoming rich quickly and gaining political influence, which was the final aim of Benjamin Disraeli. These situations had little or nothing to do with the journalistic quality, or lack of it, of the newspaper as such, but they nevertheless influenced its progression and finally decided its fate.

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The Representative began its arduous career on 25 January 1826, long before it was ready and at the worst possible time, for the previous December had seen the start of the economic crisis in Britain. John Murray often wondered whether or not to go ahead with the scheme, especially once his co-partners, Powles and Disraeli, failed to produce their share of the capital, and even earlier, when the important right-wing politicians behind the plan withdrew their sponsorship the previous November. Yet he had already invested so much time, effort, and money into the project that every time he felt any misgivings, it must have appeared wiser to press on. What made matters worse was that John Murray’s friends from the Admiralty, led by John Wilson Croker, continued to oppose the plan. The prospect, then, was bleak from the start. Again, young Benjamin’s ‘relentless enthusiasm’ must have prevented the publisher from following his businessman’s instinct that urged him to delay the launching of the newspaper until a later date. Nevertheless, the market crash, which hit the book trade so fiercely, was not the only hurdle the Representative encountered: almost from the moment that news of the project became known, an unceasing campaign against it and against John Murray started in the liberal press. Articles in the London Magazine, the Examiner and the Political Examiner against publisher and publication became the Representative’s faithful companions until its demise in July 1826. At first, the attacks were sly but guarded, because there was not much fault to be found with the Representative in its first issues, save its much derided first leading article, but the attacks increased as time went on and the journalistic quality of the newspaper declined. As would be expected, the closure of the Representative six months after it was launched caused enormous satisfaction among its declared enemies, who lost no opportunity in expressing their joy. In its format, the new publication resembled its rivals, for it carried much the same articles and features arranged in a similar order as in the others, but it towered above other newspapers in its impeccable presentation. Even today, the clarity of the typography and the logical arrangement of features make the Representative a pleasure to read. First, as in all other newspapers of the period, came the advertisements and notices that occupied the front page, followed by letters to the editor and the leading article in the next, combined with news, local and international, obtained from letters by correspondents as well as from various foreign newspapers that reached London daily from the Continent. There were also reports on business and finance, and shipping and sporting news, besides the Court Circular. An important part of the paper consisted of an account of the debates in Parliament, which most of the time appear repeated to be word for word in the other publications.1 1 In letters to John Murray II found in the John Murray Archive at the National Library

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This fact suggests that all the newspapers must have obtained their information from the same parliamentary reporters who probably pooled their notes at the end of a working day; it is the same in the section of police notices and the accounts of trials in the Courts of Justice. These reports followed a strict protocol and were similar for all newspapers: first a delineation of the crime in question, then a thorough description of the defendant’s aspect and attitude as he or she stood at the bar, followed by the verdict of the jury and the judge’s final speech. This last item was a literary piece in itself, not intended for the defendant, who usually would not see ‘the sunrise of the day after the next’, but as a didactic exercise intended for the moral edification of the general public, which the newspapers saw as their social duty to broadcast. Not all the articles dealt with serious matters, however, and scattered throughout the newspaper were shorter sections of light reading, such as anecdotes or moving, human interest stories, and one called ‘Fashionable Intelligence’, probably intended for the female readers. The sale price of 7d was the same as for all London newspapers in 1826. It is true that each London newspaper possessed its own particular character, but apart from their political leanings, they did not differ much from one another. The Times gave great prominence to international news and also to news on business and finance, and the Representative may have been able to compete and even surpass The Times in the first aspect. Disraeli, Murray, and even Powles engaged countless foreign correspondents who sent accurate reports on events taking place in distant lands; however, with regards to national news and analytical studies of business and finance, the Representative was weaker. Concerning the character of the rest of the London newspapers, we find that the Morning Post dealt mostly with fashion and fashionable people and had Tory sympathies, while the Morning Chronicle, of liberal tendencies, was more outspoken and controversial. One of the accusations made against the Representative by its critics was that it did not have a clear editorial line, and they may have been right, but only in part. ‘Murray’s paper’, as it was called by the liberal press, represented invariably High Tory ideas, which at that time defended the interests of landowners in Britain and of plantation owners in the West Indian colonies. However, the Representative appeared to support Secretary Canning, who led the more progressive wing of the Tory party, and it was possibly this contradiction may have supported the perception of the lack of a clear editorial line in the Representative. of Scotland, there is evidence of the importance of parliamentary reporters in any newspapers, how sought-after they were as professionals and how much weight their opinions carried in the running of the publications they worked for. See Letters of W. H. Watts and Peter Hall to John Murray II, NLS, JMA, MS 41251, ff. 170–171.

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During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, regional newspapers carried mostly advertisements and articles of five or six days earlier taken from those London publications with which they had ideological affinity. Consequently, apart from influential periodicals in major cities such as the Manchester Guardian or the Liverpool Mercury, the Glasgow Herald, or the Caledonian Mercury to name a few, not many newspapers outside London had opinions of their own. On the contrary, judging by a piece of news that appeared in the Representative on 10 February 1826, some of the stories these regional newspapers published were not always reliable: The Derby Mercury contradicts a very circumstantial and horrible paragraph, respecting a family which had been frozen to death between Derby and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. This paragraph has been copied into nearly all the Provincial Papers, as from the Derby Chronicle, a print which does not exist.─ “WE know nothing,” says the Mercury, “respecting its veracity, and much suspect that is another instance, added to the many which have been palmed upon the public, of false or exaggerated statement, intended to excite in the public mind a painful but unavailing sympathy.2

It was natural, therefore, that the London newspapers should be more appreciated and trusted in the rest of the country than local ones were. However, as shown in an earlier chapter, at the time the Representative made its entrance into the world, newspaper editors were not considered ‘respectable’ people. Possibly here lies the reason why these professionals were hard to find, and this would in part explain John Murray’s insistence on engaging an unwilling John Gibson Lockhart for the post. The other journalists (Croker, Street, and Watts), named in the anonymous letter to Canning as co-editors of the Representative together with Lockhart, must certainly have refused the ‘honour’ earlier. The post of newspaper editor was so disreputable at this time that Sir Walter Scott saw the need to be flexible with the truth when he announced to his sister-in-law, Mrs Thomas Scott, that Lockhart and family would be moving to London for the latter to take a new post. There is no mention of the Representative in the letter, and the salary Lockhart would receive for editing the Quarterly Review is transposed with that of the Representative, which was higher. Remarkable also is Sir Walter’s insistence on the ‘respectability’ of the scheme:

2 The Representative, 10 February 1826, 59. This and all future references to the Representative, (25 January 1826–30 July 1826) are available on CD by request from British Library Newspaper Archive.

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A great change is about to take place in our little Circle and like most human affairs it has both its lights and shadows. Lockhart has agreed to take up the Editorship of the Quarterly review and goes of course to reside in London for the future. He rejected the situation at first though in itself so respectable and having attachd to it emolument to the extent of £1500 a year. Because he thought that he could make £1000 here the difference would be swallowed up in additional expence in London and in the deprivation of his society & and alteration of his habits. But there existed such an opinion of his talents in the parties concernd that they returned to the charge with a proposal of further advantages of a professional nature which it is supposed will nearly double the emoluments of the Quarterly. This was an offer not to be resisted and accordingly Sophia and he leave Scotland.3 There are several documents concerning the Representative in the John Murray Archive, among them, the October 1825 deed mentioned in the previous chapter where Lockhart agrees to ‘supervise’ the newspaper, but none in the Disraeli correspondence from 21 December 1825, to 21 May 1826. The five-month gap appears difficult to explain; rather, it would seem that neither side wished to preserve records of their association. Another way of learning the history of the Representative is to look at letters and other publications of the period, although the method has its drawbacks. Often there are conflicting pieces of information coming from the same source which need to be assessed in relation to the overall behaviour of the players in the drama as well, in order to understand what might have been their true motivation for saying what they had said. The references to the Representative in the letters of John Gibson Lockhart and of his wife Sophia to Sir Walter Scott, contrast with the information the Scottish author received from other people, and with the observations that the great man himself poured into his journal and letters. In their search for sources of information, biographers have had to look at contemporary publications, but most of those that exist are negatively biased, as observed earlier. While The Times and the Morning Chronicle disdainfully abstained from mentioning the arrival and departure of the Representative, the liberal press performed a relentless, almost daily attack on the newspaper and its publisher poring through every issue with a critical eye and reporting each failure with undisguised satisfaction. There are articles about the Representative in both the Examiner and the London Magazine that, apart from being virulent, are responsible for creating false notions regarding the running of the newspaper 3 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Letter Sir Walter Scott to his sister-in-law Mrs Thomas Scott, no date. Probably late November 1825.

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that persist to this day. The myth, for instance, that the Representative had no editor, started in the pages of the Examiner, was echoed in the works of Smiles, Lang, and other biographers, and has not been contested: MR MURRAY’S REPRESENTATIVE.- Poor John is in sad quandary; and not being gifted with “the better part of valour”—discretion— founders about with a desperation quite moving to witness. Will the reader believe that he has changed his Editor again? Such is the fact however—three Editors in three weeks! […] To be sure ABSOLUTE JOHN is only true to his old character in these autocratical vagaries: — an Editor per week he may think no more unreasonable than a wife per day was to the Commander of the Faithful in the Arabian Nights. In the meantime however, what says the public to the precious medley of leading articles produced by the Sultan’s inconstancy? A decline in the sale and advertisements may best answer that question.4 Facts indicate that at the start of the paper’s life, until probably 7 February 1826, the editor of the Representative was without doubt John Gibson Lockhart. However, it appears that he was seconded in this unwanted task by young Benjamin Disraeli. During the months of preparation of the newspaper, the young man had developed a strong sense of ownership regarding the publication and he may have thought possible that there could be collaboration between the official editor, Lockhart, and himself as the acting editor. In fact, among Benjamin Disraeli’s papers related to the Star Chamber, there is a letter from a Mr Bayley addressed to Benjamin at his home in Russell Square on [January 30?] 1826 about a manuscript he has sent him for the Representative and requests that Disraeli returns it if he is not going to use it.5 Several records support the theory of Lockhart as editor of the newspaper, as for instance, letters to and from Lockhart’s father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, and communications with members of his family, apart from the better-known ones to John Murray. Perhaps the most telling of these records is a letter Sir Walter Scott wrote to his son-in-law on 18 November 1825 when the protests against him were raging in London. The criticism, the older man says, derives not so much from his actions during his Blackwood days, but from the company he keeps. The last but one sentence says it all: 4 The Examiner, 19 Feb. 1826. This and all future references to the Examiner (1800–1849) available from British Library Newspaper Archives, http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/. 5 Disraeli’s editorial position in the Representative, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, 62.

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I have some reason to conjecture that it is not altogether Blackwood’s concern, but some idea of your having liaisons with ‘John Bull’ or Theodore Hook which is working against you. You must take devilish good care of your start in society in London. I do not look on Theodore as fit company for ladies, and if you haunt him much yourself you will find it tell against you, especially when the paper comes to be read. He is raffish, entre nous.6 The editor of the John Bull periodical was not respectable enough, in the eyes of Scott, to appear in society next to the editor of the Representative once the newspaper was under way. Besides, all the letters Benjamin Disraeli wrote to Lockhart while the latter was putting his affairs in order in Scotland before his arrival in London, contain reports on the progress of the newspaper that clearly indicate that Lockhart was already the man in charge: As to the paper, everything goes on swimmingly. The terrific agitation in which the City and the whole commercial interest has been thrown during the last three weeks may have prevented Powles from writing to you, but I know that he is attending to the points you mention.7 Nevertheless, it may have been this same short-lived collaboration in the newspaper that led to the two men’s lasting enmity. A month later, Sir Walter Scott was urging Lockhart to send him news of the paper: ‘I am constantly expecting to see the Representative’.8 After the favourable first impression, he continued to have a positive opinion on the publication until he received outside information that it was not doing as well as it should. On 31 January, when Sir Walter Scott must have read the first four or five issues of the newspaper, he tells Lockhart: ‘We relished the Representative very much’, and he goes on to give some advice on how to organise the material. ‘Try to select as much as you can a separate point of fire for different days and not be too much de omni scibili9 in one number, but I see you are doing so’.10 This last piece of advice on the management of the content is evidently addressed to the editor of the publication. The newspaper enjoyed some success at the start, under the editorship of John Gibson Lockhart, a 6 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Letter Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 18 Nov. 1825. 7 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 44, 28 Nov. 1825. 8 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Letter Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 9 Jan. 1826. 9 De omni re scibilli et quibusdam aliis. Translation: about every knowable thing and even certain other things. Phrase attributed to Italian Renaissance scholar Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, 1463–1494. 10 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to John Gibson Lockhart, 31 Jan. 1826.

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success that began to decline some time later when family worries took him away from London and his work. After Disraeli’s disappearance from the Representative, Lockhart continued half-heartedly in charge as editor, until William Maginn was brought from Paris to take the post. John Murray was busy with the publishing side of his business and concerned about keeping it afloat while the crisis lasted. However, the lack of an able and dedicated editor was felt from the first day the newspaper appeared. According to Samuel Carter Hall, a parliamentary reporter for the Representative who wrote his memoirs many decades later, in 1883, the editor at first was John Gibson Lockhart and probably the author of the fatal first leading article. He strongly denies the rumour that Benjamin Disraeli was the editor or that he even wrote for the newspaper, although his arguments are feeble: he simply states that he never saw the young man sitting at the elegant editorial office.11 Yet, not only John Murray, the proprietor of the Representative, had to endure attacks against him; his first editor was also a target. Despite his qualities as a journalist, John Gibson Lockhart was bitterly disliked by the liberal press in London because of the cruelty of his critical judgments during his Blackwood days.12 An article dated 26 January 1826 in the Examiner, describes him without mentioning his name at first, as a base, evil, and lying clown: There is a class of persons in the world, in whose eyes talents and sentiment are only meritorious as their prostitution may fetch a better price in the market, and who, with the buffoonery of a Jack-pudding and the malignity of an evil spirit, chuckle delighted over the degradation of their own minds, and make a burlesque of everything but falsehood, calumny and want of principle. They get up a little bit of liberality and romantic enthusiasm, to prove to themselves that they are human and to band about for the private admiration of their friends; and the next day return to their vocation again, and gorge on infamy and lies. If Mr LOCKHART is one of these, we have shown him how he may make his peace.13 After describing in a slanted style the type of person they believe Lockhart to be, possibly to avoid a libel suit, the author of the article changes tactics and his attacks, although direct, are shaped as questions and well-meaning advice: 11 S. C. Hall, Retrospect of a Long Life: 1815–1883, vol. 1 (London: Richard Bentley, 1883), 73. 12 See Appendix I. 13 The Examiner, 26 Jan. 1826.

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He [Lockhart] is, by all accounts, a nervous, visionary, unhappy young man on whom neither honour nor dishonour sits easy; and far from the grim, callous, tread-mill physiognomy of Mr CROKER, or the teres et rotundus14 of Mr THEODORE HOOK.— […]. Is this the true Simon Pure,15 or someone who has been hired to personate the character in the absence of his principal? We should like very well to see the gentleman. A foot-pad, who offers to take the crape from off his face for the satisfaction of those who may have anything to say against his character is a curiosity.— N.B. It is the same gentleman (we mean the reputed Editor of the Quarterly) who is understood to be also the Editor of Mr MURRAY’s new paper, the Representative. Mr MURRAY has somehow got himself the name of “ABSOLUTE JOHN”; —should he not in future be called “REPRESENTATIVE JOHN”? Apart from the sting of his literary criticism, John Gibson Lockhart provoked a strong feeling of rejection, especially in liberal circles, for his reluctance to face up to his actions, as in the John Scott incident. However, in these attacks against Lockhart there must have been an amount of envy at his having acquired, so early in life, the important post of editor of the Quarterly Review and perhaps even of the Representative. He was very young in 1826, only 31 years old, and his whole future as a man of letters was already secured. There was a promising number of advertisements in the first issues of the Representative that overflowed from the front page into the next, and which were not all about recently published books, as the few that began to appear in later issues were. These early notices varied from the purely commercial to pressing topics of the day or even not quite respectable ‘assignations’, although not many of the latter appeared in the days following. More noticeable by their absence were government notices which did appear in The Times and whose scarcity was hard to explain by friends and foes alike, given the secret nature of the cabal behind the planning of the newspaper. This deficiency was, of course, duly recorded by the enemies of the Representative: On the 25th of January, late in the morning, hours after every other paper in London had been published, The Representative emerged from Northumberland-court. It was clear on the instant that there was no government patronage, no splendid array of talent, and a total absence of ordinary skill and management.16 14 Round and smooth. 15 A character in Centilivre’s A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717) who is impersonated by another character during part of the play (Shorter Oxford Dictionary, 6th edition). 16 The London Magazine, vol. 6, Sept.–Dec. 1826, 111, 112. This and all future references

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The two advertisements copied below, appeared in the early issues of the Representative and illustrate the lack of editorial control that became one of the negative qualities of the newspaper. For instance, the first piece concerning petitions for the suppression of slavery went against the editorial line and purpose of the newspaper, and the second appears destined to hurt the sensibilities of upper class ladies who formed a large part of the Representative’s target readership. NEGRO SLAVERY.─ The PETITIONS to be presented To the Houses of Lords and Commons from the Inhabitants of London and its vicinity for the mitigation and ultimate extinction of SLAVERY throughout the British Dominions, and unanimously agreed to at the Meeting held at Freemason’s Hall, on the 21st December last, William Wilbeforce, Esq. in the Chair, LIE for SIGNATURES at the undermentioned places, viz.─ Freemason’s Hall, Great Queen-street; King’s Head, Poultry; Crown and Anchor, Strand; Messrs. Harvey and Darton’s, 55, Gracechurch-street; Messrs. Hatchards and Son’s 187, Piccadilly; Mr. L. B. Seeley’s, Fleet Street; and at the Anti-Slavery society’s office, 18, Aldermanbury, and the City of London Tavern, Bishopsgate-street.17

This request for endorsement for a petition to ‘the mitigation and ultimate extinction of SLAVERY’, appeared in most London and regional newspapers at the beginning of 1826, so naturally it appeared in the Representative; but the following notice, which appeared on 2 February 1826 would never have been found in The Times: THE LADY who sat in a Box near the Stage at Covent Garden Theatre on Monday Evening, is assured of the sincere admiration and eternal devotion of the Gentleman in Black whom she did the honour to distinguish for a moment. As he has been unsuccessful in all his anxious inquiries to ascertain her residence, he intreats, with the greatest respect, that she will, if possible, go to the Masquerade at the Argyll Rooms next Monday; and if the Lady be kind enough to wear a Pink Domino and Spanish Hat, with white feathers, he cannot fail to recognise her.18

to The London Magazine can be found online at ‘The Online Books Page’, http:// onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=londonmag. 17 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 2. 18 The Representative, 2 Feb. 1826, 29.

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This single advertisement did the Representative a great deal of harm when it was picked up and criticised in the liberal press, especially because one of the reasons given for the need of a newspaper such as the Representative was to have something the ladies could read without embarrassment at breakfast.19 The negative comments provoked by this notice were so many that a few days later the editor, probably Lockhart, published a piece against masquerades in the issue of 7 February: ARGYLE ROOMS A masquerade, the last for the season, (so at least the advertisement promised) was attempted at these rooms yesterday evening. Of the characters it is not necessary for us to speak, for they must by this time be pretty well known to the public, every masquerade for the last five years having presented nearly the same assortment of dresses and faces. We are sorry to observe that the old proverb of “practice makes perfect,” is by no means applicable here, for it would not be easy to select a more miserable specimen of masqueraders than those we witnessed yesterday evening. There were delicate dustmen and dirty beaux; buffoons without wit, and gentlemen without manners. There were, besides, Spanish grandees, chimney-sweepers, lawyers, and soldiers, and a great variety of exhibitions which, since they resembled nothing that we have ever before seen, we cannot exactly say for what they were designed. The ladies selected their characters with equal consistency ─ the saloons of “the Garden” and “old Drury” furnished a select band of vestals, and the shepherdesses and rural nymphs displayed, in their behaviour and conversation, a marvellous degree of simplicity and innocence, which, of course, agreed admirably with the characters they sought to represent. All parties, however, appeared to be satisfied with themselves; and if noise and nonsense are essential ingredients in a Masquerade, the performance of yesterday evening possessed those qualities in perfection.20

The other advertisements are less controversial but quite absorbing because they reflect the interests and the way of life of the affluent classes in the cities at the time; most remarkable among them are, for instance their concern for their appearance, the importance of learning, particularly foreign languages, and the restrictions imposed on women who needed to earn their living:

19 Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray (London: John Murray, 1911), 266. 20 The Representative, 2 Feb. 1826, 29.

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MR. JOHN CLARK, SURGEON DENTIST,

57 Park-street, Dorset-square, many years Assistant to Mr. Young, of Harley-street, takes the liberty of informing the Nobility, Gentry, and the Public, that he now carries on that Profession in all its branches. Mr. Clark’s improved method of fixing Teeth, either in Gold or Bone, will be found, for durability, to equal, if not surpass, anything that has yet been attempted.

A

LADY, who can give the highest references, Wishes to obtain a Situation as Companion to a Lady of Fortune or Rank, or to attend a Family Abroad in the same capacity, as she speaks several Languages fluently. She would not object to reside with an Invalid as Companion. Letters to be directed M.N. at Mr. Hookham’s, Old Bond Street.

GENTLEMEN’S ELASTIC BELTS, warranted to keep their position on the body without pressure, to support the corpulent, relieve debility, improve the figure, and for the ease and comfort of those who ride on horseback or travel in carriages; approved by eminent medical men. Constructed upon entire new principles, by and , 65, New Bond-street, where specimens may be seen. Country residents can send measure by inches. Letters must be post paid.

Robinson

BOARD

Vistirin

LODGING

and .– In one of the best streets of the Metropolis, in the vicinity of Portland-Place,

SIX GENTLEMEN are received as INMATES

in a Private Family, where the domestic arrangements are such as have always afforded the most unqualified satisfaction. Those who duly appreciate the comforts of a well-regulated home, a liberal table, and cheerful society, will find this advertisement worthy of their attention. Particular references will be required: terms, One Hundred Guineas per annum. A separate sitting room may be had, or the morning’s occupation of a handsome back drawing room. For cards of address apply to Mr. HEARNE, Bookseller, Nº. 81, Strand.21

21 The Representative, 2 Feb. 1826, 29.

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Interesting as these first advertisements are, it was the leading articles of the Representative, and later their absence, which attracted most attention and criticism when the newspaper started publication. Many biographers mention the first leading article as the one that sealed the doom of the newspaper and believe, probably based on the suggestions made at the time in the London Magazine, that John Gibson Lockhart had been the author. All the same, there is another suspect who cannot be overlooked: traits of Disraeli’s style can be discerned in the first two editorials of the Representative, as well as his touch in other sections of the paper, especially in the relation of miraculous findings of silver veins in south America, which have a suspicious similarity to the stories in his mining pamphlets: By a letter from a mercantile-house at Coquimbo, which has been fully confirmed by one we have received from an officer of the Mersey, of the date of 25th August, it appears that a very important discovery had been made a few days before of a silver mine, within nine or ten leagues of that city, more rich in ore and native silver than even Potosi ever was, or any known mine in the world. Though the discovery had only been made about a fortnight, as much metal is stated to have been brought down as would produce near a million of dollars. The way in which the discovery was made is curious enough. A poor man, whose daily employment was that of cutting wood in the mountains, struck his axe against a large stone, in which he perceived ramifications of pure native silver; this circumstance led him to make further search when, to his great joy, he found himself placed in the very centre of a vast treasure, and surrounded on every side by one immense bed of silver ore. The man had sense enough to keep his secret, and having with a pick-axe dug out about a ton weight of the richest ore, he disclosed the discovery to the Governor. By the specimens brought down to the coast, the proportion of silver in the ore is full fifty per cent., and masses of native silver are scattered abundantly through the rock.22

Five days later there is another message to prospective buyers of shares in South American mines. This message, now in the form of an actual letter, is more subtle and suggests that it is wrong for investors to expect quick returns. It describes enticingly a busy mining district in Mexico, where there is full employment and a great deal of cash circulating. Some of the mines are already beginning to yield gold and silver, therefore it is wrong to listen to rumours, 22 The Representative, 2 Feb. 1826, 30.

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recommends the author of the letter, and better to believe the genuine information that is in the hands of investors in the City. Considering Disraeli’s mining pamphlets and the enormous sums he had lost in several speculations, it is quite possible that these messages in the Representative were the work of the distressed young man: The following is the copy of a letter addressed to a highlyrespectable mercantile house in the City:─ MEXICO, Dec. 16. Since the fall of the castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, the Government are taking measures for reducing the military establishment, which there can be no occasion now to keep up to its present scale. Our market is overdone with goods, and will remain so, I fear, for some time. The mining districts are all very busy, which causes a good deal of money to circulate, and from what we hear here, there is not a man unemployed: on the contrary, there seems to be a want of hands. Some of the mines are now beginning to produce. I will not send you any of the rumours we hear about the mines, for you may be assured that in this city, the stories that are current are entitled to little attention; and I am persuaded that those parties in London who receive actual information from the mines, know a good deal more than some of us here, who talk most about them. You have all been in too great a hurry to expect returns. I am no miner, and all I can say about the matter is, that I shall be very much ashamed of my countrymen, if they do not get as much out of the mines as the Mexicans used to do.23

Yet, the first editorial of the Representative reflects a more serious than simple mining propaganda, as it was expected that in it, the newspaper would declare its allegiance to one or other faction within the government, either the more conservative one presided over by Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, or the more liberal wing, which favoured the proposals of Foreign Secretary Canning. The issue was not resolved in the first but in the second leading article, both possibly penned by Benjamin Disraeli. The first leader consists of a review of the principal European countries over which, asserts the Representative, England reigns supreme:

23 The Representative, 7 Feb. 1826, 46.

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L O N D O N, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1826. PARLIAMENT is about to meet amidst expectation more deeply serious than has attended any recent commencement of its deliberations. The peace obtained by the persevering exertions of this country continues in the general to bless the civilized nations of the world, nor is there any immediate likelihood of its being disturbed: yet various events have occurred since the close of the last session, which can scarcely, we think, fail to call forth questions of high moment affecting the foreign policy of the empire. And it is almost needless to add, since everyone feels, that many domestic objects and arrangements of the very first importance must press without delay upon the anxious attention of the legislature.24

The article continues with reviews of Germany, Russia, Greece, and finally Spain, where it lingers with special severity: SPAIN appears to have sunk into a state almost inconsistent with the existence of any hope on the part even of her most sanguine observers; no energy left, except in cruel orgasms of political madness; no repose except that of utter exhaustion, and the last apathy of despair. The nobles are ruined; commerce is destroyed; the government possesses the confidence of no order of society, except perhaps the priesthood, who (the ferocious bigots and the heartless hypocrites alike) exert their utmost influence to deepen the misery of the nation which their rule has too long insulted.25

Spain has not even recognised the independence of her former colonies in Latin America, says the article, although together with France, she hurried to support the insurrection of the English American colonies in the last century. England, on the contrary, did not support the wars of independence in Latin America, until the process was completed by the nationals of each country, despite being ‘urged in every possible method by the public voice at home’. After a review of the situation of the newly independent states in Latin America, the article concludes with a paragraph of resounding praise for England and the government: 24 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 2. 25 Ibid.

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On the whole, it may safely be said that, that England is everywhere regarded by free states as the great example, friend, and guardian of freedom; by despotisms as the unmitigable enemy of the principles of tyranny. That her national justice is inflexible, her national honour untarnished, and her high influence exerted for the good, not of herself only, but of all mankind:─these things are denied by none whose envious eyes have not been dazzled into blindness by the contemplation of her greatness. The present ministers, in so far as our foreign policy is concerned, possess, we believe, the undivided confidence of the country.26

In September 1826, an anonymous author signed only with the initials K.  N. gave his version of the story of the Representative in the London Magazine. He appears well informed and provides details that are not easily accessible nowadays, such as for instance that the cost of the lease of the offices in Great George Street housing the Representative had been six thousand pounds. He also describes the manner in which the space on each floor of the house was assigned to the different sections of the paper and the location of the new printing machines. Nevertheless, not all the information he provides is accurate and neither are most of his observations, yet the whole article is proof of how closely watched John Murray, his friends, and his activities were. Regarding the leading article in the first issue, K. N. declares that it is not an original opinion of the newspaper but simply a translation of an essay by M. de Sismondi, the Swiss economist, passed as their own: ‘Its contents were three columns of a leading article, given of course as original, but which was in fact merely a translation from an article written by M. Sismondi for the Revue Encyclopedique’.27 The accuser took care not to suggest the name of the author of the first leader, as the charge of plagiarism, though inaccurate, would have been serious. The well-known de Sismondi essay may match in essence with some of the views expressed in the Representative’s first leading article, but that is not surprising if we consider that both authors, de Sismondi and Disraeli, shared a similar political stance and adhered to the same economic theories. Also, both articles review the state of some European countries and express positive observations on England and France, but the similarity ends there. More probably, the de Sismondi essay may have served as inspiration to the writer of the first leader of the Representative, who definitely did not copy or translate it. For instance, this is what the Representative had to say about France: 26 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 3. 27 The London Magazine, vol. 6, 1826, 110–118, 112.

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It is in the mean time highly curious, and by no means uninstructive, to observe how many matters in France are returning to their old ante-revolutionary state—how openly the high church party there are once more avowing their patronage of the high-monarchical and cismontane principles; while the Long Robe, in all its degrees, re-asserts its ancient Jansenism (as in the late trials of the newspapers) to show itself the decided and steady enemy of all tyranny—more especially the ecclesiastical.28

The Swiss author refers to France in the following terms: but if she [France] places herself at the distance of twenty-five years back, and from that point of view considers what has taken place within this quarter of a century, she will perceive that she has gained more than she has lost. Ideas of justice and public order have been developed and strengthened; political knowledge has been universally spread; the two parties have in a great measure abandoned their prejudices; the classes which repelled constitutional forms have become attached to the power which they have acquired under them, even while they abused it.29 This unfair accusation illustrates the level of animosity that existed among the critics of the new publication, an animosity that appears stronger coming from one who seems to have been a former member of the staff of the failed newspaper. His detailed knowledge of facts, figures, and power structure within the Representative, indicates that K. N. was at some time part of the staff. But who was the author of the first editorial? K. N. does not say, although he admits that Lockhart was at the beginning acting editor of the newspaper and therefore responsible for the editorial line it took. Other biographers ascribe the article directly to Lockhart, and strangely enough, only one mentions Disraeli in this respect, apart from S.  C. Hall,30 who denies that Disraeli ever had anything to do with the newspaper. For one thing, Lockhart was a better writer than the author of the first editorial. He had been honing for years the powerful tip of his sharp pen. Besides, if we were to single out one characteristic that typifies Lockhart’s style, is its array of razor-edged expressions that have the power to conjure vivid images. The first editorial, 28 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 2. 29 J. C. L. de Sismondi, A Review of the Efforts and Progress of Nations During the Last Twenty-Five Years. Trans. by Peter S. Duponceau (Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1825), 18. 30 A lawyer and reporter for the Representative during its short life. He wrote his autobiography, Retrospect of a Long Life from 1815 to 1881, where he reminisces about the newspaper, not always accurately.

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on the contrary, relies more on hyperbole than on careful lexical choices, a trait which by itself would betray Disraeli. Unusual words and expressions found in the editorial were echoed later in his books and letters; but this fact alone would not be enough reason.31 The strongest argument for the Disraeli authorship of the first leading article of the Representative is the structure of its paragraphs, which are mostly argumentative and include several propositions of increasing intensity that create expectation until the growing tension is resolved in the last, protracted, final statement. This is what the first editorial says about Spain: The country is deserted—or will soon be so—except by a profligate and impoverished aristocracy; a selfish, domineering, dark, tyrannical priesthood; and the populace whose only energies are reserved for outraging the laws and disturbing, by rooted habits of brigandage, the order of society. In the maritime and once commercial cities, the minds of men, (such men as do remain,) are all ready for insurrection; elsewhere, as to all political matters whatever, an utter listlessness marks among the people in general the lowest step of national abasement.32

Disraeli’s thinking habits were argumentative, with a tendency to exaggerate in order to add weight to his propositions. The paragraph structure of the first leading article is common in his novels, especially in Vivian Grey: Wonderful is it that while the whole soul of Vivian Grey seemed concentrated and wrapped in the glorious pages of the Athenian,— while, with keen and almost inspired curiosity, he searched, and followed up, and meditated upon, the definite mystery, the indefinite development,— while his spirit alternately bowed in trembling and in admiration, as he seemed to be listening to the secrets of the universe revealed in the glorious melodies of an immortal voice;— wonderful is it, I say, that the writer, the study of whose works appeared to be the young scholar, in the revelling of his enthusiasm, to be the sole object for which man was born and had his being, was the cause by which Vivian Grey was saved from being all his life a dreaming scholar.33 31 Further proof that Disraeli did write for the Representative can be found on page 156 in a quoted passage from Charles Knight, ‘Nuisances of the Press’. 32 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 3. 33 Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey [1826], in The Centennial Edition of Lord Beaconsfield Earlier Novels. Ed. Lucien Wolf. vol. 1, (London: De la Mare Press, 1904), 15. All subsequent references to the 1826 edition of Vivian Grey, are designated by the surname of the editor, to avoid confusion with the 1853 edition of the same novel.

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The same colourful language, the same abundance of qualifiers and the same exuberant rhetoric can be found in Disraeli’s mining pamphlets. The following passage refers to a silver mine in Peru: [I am] one whose opinions are unbiased by self-interest and uncontrolled by party influence, who, whatever may be the result, will feel some satisfaction, perchance some pride, that at a time when […] Ignorance was the ready slave of Interest, and Truth was deserted by those who should have been her stoutest champions, there was at least one attempt to support sounder principles, and inculcate a wiser policy.34 Perhaps not at the time, but as soon as he became well known, Disraeli was mentioned as the editor of the Representative as well as the author of the famous first leading article. A contemporary biographer who openly disliked him, wrote in 1854: for the editor of the ‘Representative’ in this first number took care to give an admirable specimen of his political prescience, a faculty which Mr. Disraeli said and wrote much about in future years, by declaring ‘that the Catholic question, to the best of our observation and judgement, has retrograded prodigiously of late.’ […]. The word ‘prodigiously’ in this prophesy of the ‘Representative’ is italicised by the editor himself, that all people may take note of his prodigious sagacity. In two years after this, the Catholic question had made such progress, although the ‘Representative’ did not live to see it, that even the stubborn Toryism of half a century embodied in the hero of Waterloo, was obliged to concede the claims of the Irish demagogues, and surrender at discretion.35 The statement on the prodigious retrogression of the Catholic question appears on the editorial of the second issue of the Representative, not the first, as Mac Knight stated; however, it is the first two leading articles of the newspaper that are the most florid and insubstantial and carry the imprint of young Disraeli’s style. Years later the accusation so much haunted him that he made several disclaimers, the best known of which is his 1860 letter to Francis Espinasse, written from Grosvenor Gate and marked ‘confidential’ where he begins by narrating, not quite accurately, how he met Lockhart who he accuses of being the editor of the Representative: 34 Benjamin Disraeli, from Lawyers and Legislators or Notes on the American Mining Companies, quoted in Blake, 26. 35 Thomas MacKnight, The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli M.P.: A Literary and Political Biography (London: Richard Bentley, 1854), 28.

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When I was quite a youth, I made the acquaintance of the late Mr. Lockhart [John Gibson Lockhart had died six years earlier] and hung about him, as boys do about the first distinguished man with whom they become acquainted. In the year 1825, Mr. Lockhart, who then lived in Scotland, undertook, with the countenance of Mr. Canning, to edit the Representative newspaper. In making his preliminary arrangements, he often made use of me, and I was delighted with his confidence.36 He relates that some time afterwards, when he was travelling in Italy, he read a publication that gave him as editor of the Representative, a newspaper that had failed, and therefore one he did not wish to have associated to his name. He is emphatic, although not quite truthful in his denial: I never was Editor of the paper; I never wrote a line in the paper; I was never asked to write a line in the paper. At the time of its appearance, I did not know I could write. This is not quite true. By the time the Representative appeared, Benjamin Disraeli had already written, apart from the lacklustre preface to the Life of Paul Jones, three mining pamphlets over one hundred pages each, whose sole purpose was to convince the public to part with their money and invest in shares of mining companies in Latin America. However, he adds in his defence that the myth that he had edited the Representative was created by Lockhart, to shield himself from responsibility for the failure: Unfortunately, in this case, the man of straw he had fixed on, became eminent, and a newspaper failure, of nearly forty years ago, is remembered for its being the subject of a literary forgery.37 This is all Disraeli had to say about the Representative forty years later, and undoubtedly the subject did not carry happy memories for him. The matter he deals with in the second part of the letter must have been even more painful to remember and this was perhaps the reason he tells a blatant lie: With respect to the statement in the ‘Gentleman’s Mag[azin]’ respecting my father and Mr. Murray, and of wh: I was unaware, it is hardly necessary to enter into the reasons why, nearly forty years ago, my father withdrew his confidence from Mr Murray. The incident could have had no reference to relations between myself and Mr Murray, for that 36 J. A. W. Gunn et al., Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 8 (1860–1864), Letter 3460, 6 March 1860, to Francis Espinasse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 37 Ibid.

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gentleman subsequently published several works for me, and among them ‘Contarini Fleming’.38 Contarini Fleming was the one and only work by Disraeli that John Murray published after the Representative disaster. As will be seen later, for ten years afterwards Benjamin insisted, cajoled, threatened, and even tempted the publisher to have his works published by the Albemarle Street firm, but Murray always refused. The letter quoted above that reads so smoothly and appears so sincere has its antecedent among the Disraeli papers. A very much corrected undated draft with no addressee is evidently a dry-run for the well-known letter to Francis Espinasse quoted above, and which apparently Disraeli wanted as part of his legacy. In it he says that he was never the editor of the Representative and had never written a line for the newspaper; he further denies being the editor or writing for the Star Chamber, which was published by some young men at Oxford. I never contributed to it, and I never have been the Editor of the Star Chamber or any other magazine, review, newspaper or periodical of any kind. Perhaps no human being with any literary and political pretensions has ever contributed to the periodical press in all its forms less than myself, and I can say this moreover that I never required or received any remuneration for anything I have ever written except the books published with my name.39 The consequence of Benjamin Disraeli’s failure to make his mark in Albemarle Street or the Representative, was the publication of his novel, Vivian Grey, a novel which brought about the termination of the life-long friendship between the D’Israeli and the Murray families. To state in writing, even forty years later, that the rift between the families had nothing to do with him, reveals that he was endowed with a sharp capacity for misrepresentation, learned and practiced often during his political career. It will never be known for certain what drew young Benjamin finally away from Albemarle Street. Some biographers believe it was shame at being unable to provide his share of the capital for the Representative when presented with the bill; others, probably based on the scene described in his autobiographical novel Vivian Grey, imagine a row where a furious John Murray threw the young man out of his house. Yet the denouement must have been less dramatic than Disraeli later wanted the public to believe, although no less final. The only 38 Ibid. 39 A draft of letter to Francis Esinasse, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden 232/55–56.

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document relating to the parting of ways between John Murray and Benjamin Disraeli, a question which has baffled acquaintances and biographers ever since it became known, is a letter to John Murray from travel writer Maria Graham, who mentions the fact only obliquely, and which was discussed in the previous chapter (see p. 64). Since September of the previous year, Disraeli had been living the manic phase of his manic-depressive condition. He had travelled twice to Scotland and written numerous delusional and misleading letters from the north. Once back in London in October 1825 his letters give us to understand that he, single-handedly set about hiring journalists and correspondents on his return, furnishing the offices of the newspaper in Great George Street, buying printing machinery, looking for a London house for Lockhart and his family. His letters to John Murray of that time show that, at least inside his mind, he was the centre and organiser of the whole project. Robert Blake remarks that in December 1825, when the newspaper was being prepared for publication, Benjamin must have felt frustrated at being excluded from the running of the new enterprise.40 Whether he was excluded because he was entering the depressive phase of his illness, or the exclusion brought about his depression, it is probable that one day in February 1826 he either was dismissed in no soft terms by John Murray or, as the letter from Maria Graham suggests, he walked out of Albemarle Street in despair, yet burning with anger at the injustice of having been cast aside. While he made his way for the last time up Albemarle Street towards Russell Square, he must have been mulling over a plan for a suitable revenge. His revenge came four months later in the form of a novel. To confirm the theory that there was no violent scene at the moment of parting, there is a letter from Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray  II on 1 April 1826 where he warmly thanks the publisher for a book. By then the friendship between the older men had not yet cooled, although Benjamin had been out of the newspaper for some weeks. In the meantime, the Representative trudged on, in the middle of a raging financial crisis, harassed by the liberal press, in the care of an unwilling editor and with a depleted till. Moreover, the enterprise lacked government sponsorship for advertisements or exclusive political news, and with Murray’s friends from the Admiralty, who formed the cornerstone of his social and political strength, dead set against the new publication. It was no help that at the end of the first editorial, the newspaper praised Secretary Canning and his merits as a politician. The pledge of allegiance proclaimed in it went unacknowledged:

40 Blake, 34.

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The skill, patience and wisdom with which a negotiation so delicate [recognition by the Government of Great Britain of the former Spanish colonies in South America] was brought to its conclusion, and the manly boldness and consummate talent with which, when completed, it was vindicated to Spain and to Europe, have been sufficiently appreciated by all other civilized countries, as well as that which has the high and solitary pride of seeing her foreign policy and diplomacy in the hands of such a statesman as Mr. Canning.41

Touching on the subject of the delay on Britain’s part in recognising the independence of the Spanish colonies in South America, the province of the Foreign Secretary, the article exculpates him by declaring that unlike France and Spain, Britain is faithful to its treaties and wisely waited for a favourable moment to grant recognition without damaging foreign relations. The successful conclusion of this delicate matter was reached thanks to the ability of Secretary Canning, who towers above his peers by his qualities of statesmanship. The first editorial of the Representative has been qualified negatively by biographers who have termed it dull, lacking in originality, or an outright deception; most contemporary and later critics have ascribed it to Lockhart, but of this accusation he is innocent. He was an experienced writer who knew how to compose leading articles in journals, based on analysis rather than review. A review which, incidentally, is quite tame and centred on praising Britain and her friends while condemning her enemies. Unlike more substantial leading articles, there is nothing controversial in its propositions, nor are there profound observations or surprising revelations. More than any other feature, this characteristic suggests that the article was possibly composed by an inexperienced young man. The second editorial on Thursday 26 January 1826 is similar to the first and appears to have been produced again by the hand of Disraeli. The writer begins by recommending that Parliament should pay special attention to the ‘convulsion’ of the economy. The style is unmistakably Disraelian. Notice, for instance, the long, convoluted sentence that lists the greatest possible catastrophes that could befall the nation, to conclude that these terrors are nothing compared with what really happened. This sentence structure that uses the device of incremental repetition can be found in Benjamin Disraeli’s letters, essays, and of course his narratives:

41 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 2.

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Men, equal in talent and intelligence, and who have apparently enjoyed equal means of observation, profess openly opinions the most various──nay the most opposite──in regard to the origin of these distresses. As to their extent, all candid persons are agreed. The sudden declaration of hostilities with any power or powers──the stoppage of the Bank itself──the landing of a new Buonaparte in Sussex──nay, the actual investment of the metropolis, by a besieging army──could scarcely, we verily believe, have produced greater consternation than we witnessed a few weeks ago in the City of London : and this terror has since been diffused throughout every corner of England. The mental misery undergone here has been very great : and the real tangible suffering and privation among the lower classes, in many districts, have been frightfully so.42

Then, following his accustomed pattern, the author uses his rhetoric to simplify the situation and point out the parties responsible for it. The causes of the financial crisis are rationalised in terms similar to those Disraeli gave almost a year before to his creditor Robert Messer43 He indicates that the Government and the Bank of England gave the public the mistaken impression that there was an abundance of money in the market, and this brought about speculation: The practical evil which immediately followed from this last step was, the general impression it established, that money was remarkably plentiful, and that there was no doubt of its remaining so. Hence incautious and inconsiderate speculation : hence persons, not in their general line of conduct venturesome, were tempted to proceed with less circumspection in their commercial undertakings of all kinds. This was the era of the Joint Stock Company mania.44

The consequence of irresponsible investment brought about by the wrong signals provided by the authorities was this: In a word, the private money-dealers first, and then all commercial men, and even persons formerly unconnected with commerce, were tempted or encouraged to vest their capital where it was not in their immediate reach. When the run took place, many bankers, not having funds at hand, failed  ; others made enormous sacrifices, all but ruined themselves, that they 42 The Representative, 26 Jan. 1826, 4. 43 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 21, April 1825(?). 44 The Representative, 26 Jan. 1826, 3.

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might stand. It was said (nay, the saying was acted on), that the bubbles only would burst ; but the event showed the folly of this. Plagues and conflagrations are no respecters of persons.45

This leading article provides an overly simple explanation for a very complex situation and it appears directed more at convincing the public than providing an in-depth analysis of the crisis. In substance and apparent intent, the article echoes the Disraeli letter to his creditor Robert Messer mentioned earlier; it is not surprising that it failed to convince the reading public and that this failure reflected negatively on the rest of the paper. The second leading article touches besides on the situation in Ireland and emphatically recommends that Parliament disregards discussions on the Catholic question so that public men can concentrate on matters of ‘practical importance’. This stance, naturally made the newspaper unpopular among holders of liberal ideas, both among the public and even within the Tory government. Perhaps because the author of the first two leaders was prevented from continuing to voice his views, the editorials of the following issues are much shorter than the first two and clearly appear composed by a different hand. Gone are the fireworks, the hyperbole, and the accolades. The shorter editorials are more down to earth. The rest of the paper has articles on a variety of subjects, flawlessly presented and arranged, with the reports from the international correspondents being its strongest feature on top of an impressive collection of accounts from far-away countries. This fact brings to mind Disraeli’s observation to Mr Maas that the Representative would be the focus for news from around the whole world.46 Even John Murray’s greatest detractors like the Examiner and the London Magazine admitted that the foreign affairs section of the newspaper was impeccable, and so says Sophia Lockhart, another fierce detractor, in a letter to her father on 1 February 1826. The other sections such as Law Intelligence, Shipping News, Letters to the Editor, Money Matters, and Lighter Reading are well written and to the point, so apart from the extravagance of the first two leading articles, and a few notes scattered on the first issues that sound too much like Vivian Grey, the Representative was on the way of becoming a leading British newspaper. But the new publication was constantly watched and attacked on several fronts simultaneously. The Political Examiner, published on 12 February 1826, contains passages taken from the London Magazine that criticise the first number of the Representative. This time the author of the leading article is not accused of plagiarism; only of being dull: 45 Ibid. 46 Benjamin Disraeli Letters, vol. 1, Letter 31, 25 Oct. 1825.

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25th.— After a glorious clucking, Murray has brought forth the Representative. The first number made its appearance this day at a late hour, the writers having overslept themselves. The leading article is four mortal columns long, and is written in the agreeable style of a state-paper. Murray talked (ye gods, how he does talk!) of giving — — an incredible number of guineas for a leading article. I do not know whether he has been as bad as his word.47 A few days earlier, on 5 February, the Political Examiner, this time speaking for itself, had dissected the newspaper page by page. The article relates mockingly that the ‘newspaper world’ were worried when they heard that a new morning paper would be published by John Murray: From the extensive literary connexions of that eminent personage, his known liaison with the Officials of a certain department [the Admiralty], and above all, from his connexion with the Quarterly Review and the corps attached to it, no small expectation has been formed of the result of an effort so portentuous. The article reviews the first editorial and judges that it amounts ‘to little beyond that vague assumptive sort of jargon which conveys nothing while it affects to say everything’. Then it moves on to the foreign news and has to admit that ‘a very huge portion of the paper is given to letters from correspondents abroad’ that is accurate with regards to ‘facts and feelings’, but gives to understand that this type of efficient reporting cannot last. After criticising the Representative for its anti-Catholic bias, the article moves onto its most perceptive passage, where it all but names Disraeli as the author of the frivolous articles on small talk and theatre criticism. The passage in question appears to have been composed by Vivian Grey himself, and says the following: THE OPERA.─We confess we are of those who go to the Opera quite as much for what there is before the curtain as we do for that which is exhibited upon the stage. We shall therefore wait till it becomes, as no doubt it will, the emporium of all that is good in society, before we enter much upon the subject. We have no ambition to be on of an Opera Pit, where a man may call out, “Mr. Smith is wanted,” and one half of the spectators cry, “here─here,” or where another person calls out, “Mr. Brown,” and the other half answer to the name. We will say, however, that 47 The Political Examiner, 12 Feb. 1826. This and all future references to the Political Examiner can be found online at the British Newspaper Archive, http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/.

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last night there were sprinklings of fashion to keep the Messrs. Smiths and Browns in countenance─some few of those stars in society.48

The author of the article in the London Magazine indignantly calls the person who wrote the paragraph above an ‘arrant coxcomb’, and shows a great perception when he adds: Can ‘Absolute John’, who after all has a soul above a kid glove, and a mind with something in it, really think this flippant affectation will raise the reputation of his print? We suppose the thing who wrote the above must be a boy; let the fribble be soundly whipped by the housemaid with a bundle of lavender, and be directed to write more like a man.49 The confirmation that the liberal press, if not the general public, knew well that Benjamin Disraeli was behind some of the most ridiculous assertions in the first issue of the Representative, can be found in an already quoted history of the newspaper that appeared in the London Magazine after the former had ceased publication. After putting forth the information that the Representative began printing three thousand copies and instead of increasing this amount, at the end of six months the circulation was reduced to six hundred, the author of the article wonders why the paper had so few advertisements, especially not a single one from the government, and concludes that ‘the “absolute”’ was too proud to solicit, and the government saw nothing in his paper to induce it to offer its good things without solicitation’. This explanation is simplistic and does not resist analysis, but the conjectures that follow appear taken directly from the end of Book IV, chapter 4 of Vivian Grey which, by the way, had been published several months before this article was written. John Murray, the article relates, realised early on that his paper would not succeed: He was soon made to feel, by the most sensible of all indications, that his scheme had failed, that all his splendid fabric had vanished, and that the thing that he had brought forward was the scorn and scoff of every man who ever saw it. Stung with madness at the blank looks of his friends, the sneers of his enemies, the weekly inroads into his purse, he began to kick and flounder like a mad bull in a peat-moss. He quarrelled with the younger D’Israeli, his impressario; dismissed Mr. Tyndale, his editor; doubted the strength of his potatory consolations; cursed his 48 The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 3. 49 The London Magazine, 5 Feb. 1826, 111, vol. iv, Jan.–April 1826.

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reporters; kicked his own paper from his own table;—in a word, played the queerest, maddest pranks, that ever were played by a man in his common senses.50 Like so many others, the author of the article in the London Magazine, written in September 1826 and long after the Representative had been merged with the New Times, based his conclusions on facts extracted from a reading of Vivian Grey. The damage Disraeli did with his portrayal of John Murray  II in his novel went a long way. Even John Murray’s most faithful friends, to say nothing of his denigrators, took the relation of the Representative episode in Vivian Grey to be the truth; the former because Disraeli’s version explained an event of which they knew little, and the latter because it filled their expectations and satisfied their purpose. In his summing up of the important points in the story of the Representative, the author of the above mentioned article shows some knowledge of the people who took part in it, although there was much he did not know. His mistake was to voice his conjectures as if they had been proven facts. He believed that the initiator of the idea of a newspaper had been ‘the younger D’Israeli’, of whom, by his own admission, he knew little. He knew enough, nevertheless, to distinguish young Benjamin’s pen in several articles that appeared in the Representative: Of D’Israeli I do not know much, and mean to say less. He was, I believe, fresh from college, with all the conceit which is usually generated in such a place. He was utterly ignorant of the management of a newspaper; nay, I am pretty certain he would have thought it an insult on his gentility to impute such knowledge to him. As a political writer, he was of course nothing—as a mere littérateur, poor; even as a theatrical critic, pert, superficial, and teeming with affectation of the meanest and most despicable kind.51 In this passage, the author of the article provides proof that at least at the time, people connected with publishing believed that Disraeli was the author of the damaging first editorials and the frivolous articles on the theatre. In the course of his argumentation, he further on dismisses Lockhart as incapable of managing a newspaper or composing political articles, although he absolves him from the accusation of authoring the first leading article, and suggests, between the lines, that the author was Benjamin Disraeli:

50 Ibid., 112. 51 Ibid., 113.

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Who was the author of the absurd leading article in the first number? Was it Mr. Lockhart? I think not—I am sure he would never had condescended to the meanness of foisting on the public as his own that which was merely a translation from the French. Was it Mr. Tyndale [sub editor]? He, I believe, disclaims the authorship, or translatorship. Who was it that invented the atrocious lie appended to it.52 The translator, of course; but his name I fancy we shall learn when we know that of Junius.53 The critics of the Representative mix facts with conjectures, or false accusations with insults, while they provide a few penetrating observations. Even they must have realised that their interest in the new publication might appear obsessive, and hasten to explain that they have ‘taken so much notice of a new political opponent’, because they dislike pomposity but also because they believe that the public will be interested in this new ‘Lion’.54 What followed, in the narrative of the newspaper’s life, was a succession of unhappy events that started on or around 7 February, when the Representative was two weeks old. Later in the month we learn that Lockhart had been seriously ill, so he cannot have been attending to his duties at the newspaper. Even earlier, in Sophia Lockhart’s already mentioned 1 February letter to her father, we can perceive on her part a degree of hostility against the paper and undisguised animosity against John Murray: I am sorry indeed not to be able to give you very good news of our concerns here; the ‘Quarterly’ goes on of course, as well as possible, and gives no trouble: but the Newspaper, though its sale has been most extensive, is like all new schemes—deficient in its internal arrangements, The Editor, Printer, etc. [,] not being up to their trade and of course everything and everybody flying in their distress to Lockhart. Yet this animosity appears counterbalanced with praise, a fact which makes the letter lack coherence at the same time it suggests that it was probably composed by husband and wife together, with a few disagreements in the process. Sophia tells her father that her husband has been ‘annoyed beyond description’ by the people from the newspaper and has already announced to John Murray that he will give up his connection with it. She adds that the publisher has been 52 ‘The present ministers, in so far as our foreign policy is concerned, possess, we believe, the undivided confidence of the country’, The Representative, 25 Jan. 1826, 3. 53 The London Magazine, 5 Feb. 1826, 114, The London Magazine, 5 Feb. 1826, 111, vol. iv, Jan.–April 1826. 54 The Political Examiner, 5 Feb. 1826.

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understanding and open to Lockhart’s complaint. Then follows an observation that is quite accurate and probably comes from Lockhart, not his wife. With regards to foreign news she says: ‘The correspondence is perfect, but the fault seems to have been beginning such an undertaking before their own Printing office and establishment is ready to receive them’. At the end of the first week of the Representative’s life, we know from this letter that it is selling well, that the information from the foreign correspondents is coming in, that there is a not-too-efficient sub-editor (who Sophia Lockhart calls ‘Editor’), and that apparently John Gibson Lockhart wants to disregard his agreement concerning the newspaper. The last paragraph of the letter appears confusing and contradictory: I hope and expect a few days will bring this all in order, and that Lockhart will be able to write you a comfortable letter. If Murray would—and he seems to have got a fright— but to keep sober for a few days and [?rest] all would do well, but the worst is when alarmed he takes to his bottle at night, which makes a perfect coward of him the following day. Nothing can be better than his behaviour to us in every respect.55 Even Partington, the editor of the letters, found that Sophia Lockhart’s accusation was an exaggeration. In Sir Walter’s reply on 6 February to his daughter, it is apparent that at this stage he did not want his son-in-law to distance himself from the newspaper: I can conceive the excessive plague John must have with the paper at first. Still it will have its good effect that it will induce him to become completely acquainted with the various parts of the machine and so enable him as it is expected to be a matter of capital as well as profit to form a good judgement whether others do their duty. He then observes wisely: I had my own fears that the scheme as shewn to us by D’Isrraeli was rather too gigantic to be put into motion without some trouble. Possibly the vilification of John Murray in Sophia’s letter obeys to the intention of winning her father’s support for breaking the connection with the newspaper, which he was as yet reluctant to give:

55 Partington, 355.

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I see by John that he has in a great measure cut the Newspaper but it must be a terrible slap out [of] the income perhaps when the vesell was fairly launchd it migh[t] sail more easily. I was never however very partial to the scheme. It seemed to embrace too much. The following day, 7 February, Lockhart wrote to John Murray apologising for his inability to help run the newspaper. The year 1826 began with many misfortunes for the Scottish family. Back in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott had lost a huge fortune in the crash: £130,000,56 Lady Scott was seriously ill; in London Lockhart became ill and in January his son Hugh was diagnosed with a disease of the spine and it was suggested that he should go to Brighton with his mother, Sophia, who was about to give birth to their second child. Lockhart, as the good family man that he was, had to commute from London to Brighton every week. So great was his concern and dedication that in April 1826 Joanna Baillie wrote in a post script of a letter to Lockhart: ‘I have written this without very well knowing how to send it—whether to Pall Mall or Brighton, which may perhaps make the date rather old before you receive it’.57 Naturally Lockhart’s mind was not always on his work and this must have prompted him to address John Murray on 7 February: That I should have been in any measure accessory to bringing you into the present situation weighs, I assure you, more heavily on my spirits than even the mass of domestic melancholy by which I am surrounded. […] I hope you have never for a moment supposed it possible that I should add to your embarrassments by being willing to touch unearned gold. The Quarterly Review, I think, promises well. Let us hope for better days.58 Still, Sir Walter Scott would have preferred that Lockhart kept his part of the agreement, if only for the attractive financial prospects that came with it. As further proof that he wanted the newspaper to succeed and knew Lockhart to be the person in charge, he sent material for the newspaper, as anecdotes of Lord Byron and other pieces of interest. His one condition was that he should not appear contributing to the Representative. On 17 February he wrote to Sophia: I am at a loss to understand from Lockharts last letter whether he loses his connection with the paper in other words, whether he stops [acting as editor] or only gets rid of the practical difficulties which he did not undertake to obviate. I am anxious to know how this stands. 56 Partington, xiii. 57 Judith S. Bailey, ed. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie, vol. 2 (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), 1999, 824. 58 Andrew Lang, Life of John Gibson Lockhart, (1897), 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), vol. 1, 387.

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After news of the family and their financial situation, Sir Walter goes back to the matter that appears foremost on his mind, the success of the Representative and its editor: I inclose a trifle for the Representative on the subject of female burning in India which I have from Colonel Russell[. [I]t is interesting I think. If Balaam59 of this kind could serve John I might send but stipulate for its being transcribed into another hand. WIDOW-BURNING IN INDIA.──By the last advices from India, it appears that the cruel superstition of the female burning herself on the pile of her deceased husband, has been of late rather regaining ground. We believe our readers are not generally aware of an ingenious mode adopted by the British Government to diminish the number of these sacrifices, without at once diametrically contradicting the religious prejudices of the natives. Some of our learned Orientalists, then, discovered that in the Shaster positive directions are given, that the pile on which the female is to be consumed shall be so constructed , that if even at the last fatal moment the victim’s courage should fail, a means of escape may be still open to her. The Bramins, however, found it much more expedient to cut off the retreat of the unfortunate widow, who had once taken this fatal resolution, and therefore contrived, by means of a small pit or some similar device, to prevent the possibility of any locus penitentiae.60 Since this discovery, the European magistrates have interrupted the ceremony, whenever the directions of the Shaster have been violated. Of course, as it is not the courage of every widow which can be entrusted to such a proof, the Bramins have been cautious in urging to the sacrifice females whose timidity might occasion giving scandal at the final trial.61

This may have been one of Sir Walter Scott’s contributions to the Representative; the subject matter of the note to his son-in-law and the few days elapsed between letter and newspaper article provide an amount of certainty that this is so. As revealed by his letters, the Scottish author was closely involved in the affairs of the new publication, especially during the first few months. After 59 Journalistic slang: superfluous or trivial material used to fill up a column, Shorter Oxford Dictionary, 6th ed. 60 Legal term that indicates the opportunity to withdraw from a contract; in this particular case, the widow’s chance to repent from her promise to burn herself. Sir Walter Scott was a lawyer and a magistrate, so legal terms came easily to him in his writings. 61 The Representative, 22 Feb. 1826, 99.

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urging that his contributions be transcribed by another hand before they are used as copy for the paper, Sir Walter tells his daughter about a man called Gillies who has declared that Lockhart offered him a huge salary to translate foreign newspapers for the Representative. Sir Walter considers that £600 a year is too much and hopes the man is not telling the truth, but he urges his daughter not to mention the subject to Lockhart unless she finds it ‘adviseable’. More important is his recommendation to his son-in-law, transmitted through his daughter Sophia, that Lockhart should concentrate his efforts on bringing forth both publications. More proof still that at this point Lockhart was the editor of the Representative and that Sir Walter Scott wished the newspaper to succeed, even if he publicly said otherwise. The following words express his true feelings: Sincerely I hope John will establish the Quarterly and the paper if he is to have anything to do with it on a firm basis without considering them as means of helping those who cannot play their part. This year (I mean this present 1826) every exertion should be made to give distinction to both undertakings and I fear these can only be done by exercizing something like hard-heartedness to those to whom the wages of literary labour are generally most necessary but who are not very happy in pleasing the public taste.62 Yet a week later, Sir Walter had changed his mind and was telling Lockhart that he hoped John Murray would stop publishing the newspaper as soon as possible. There is no indication of this change of heart in the Scott journal or letters of that date, except an annotation made on 25 February in the journal that for the first time, since ‘the awful 17 January’ (the day he learned Ballantyne, Constable, and Hurst and Robinson, and therefore himself, had become bankrupt) that he gave a dinner party. Possibly, the realisation that his aristocratic friends would condemn his association through Lockhart to a newspaper, made him adjust his priorities: I think the sooner Murray gets rid of his paper [the better]. It is as I feard from the beginning it might be heavy, wants the touch and go blackguard genteel which distinguishes the real writer for the press. MacGinn could give [it] with a vengeance. it is at present too much of Tristrem Shandys bull who gaind his reputation by going through matters with a grave face.63

62 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott to his daughter Sophia, 17 Feb. 1826. 63 Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Letter to John Gibson Lockhart, 25 Feb. 1826.

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Here is another indication of how closely Sir Walter Scott followed the circumstances of the paper, for soon afterwards Dr Maginn was recalled from France and charged with the task of enlivening its pages. This Maginn did without delay and from issue Nr. 44 there are samples of his efforts, although they did not calm the Representative’s detractors. By 16 March, and despite their protestations, Lockhart and his father-in-law were still involved in the day-to-day workings of the newspaper. There were several contributions from Sir Walter Scott on a single page (175), like the already mentioned account of ‘suttees’ in India, a transcription of one of the, as yet, anonymous letters by Malachi Malagrowther on Scottish banking,64 besides one of the many column fillers by Dr Maginn, like the following pieces of general information and the lighter, ‘Cure for a cold’: PRINTING.─The first book printed in the English language was Wyllyam Caxton’s Recuyel of the Historyes of Troy, by Raoul le Feure ; folio. Colen, 1471. A copy of this work, which formerly belonged to Elizabeth Gray, Edward the 4th’s Queen, was bought from the Roxburgh collection by the Duke of Devonshire, for 1060l. 18s.─The annals of typography begin with the Codex of 1457; but the secular feast in memory of the inventing of printing, in the 40th year of the century (1440). If this tradition be right, the art, in 1457, had been already exercised seventeen years. Since the commencement of the present century, the difference between the old and new style is 12 days, another day in addition to the prior 11, having been thrown out in the year 1800, by assigning to February only 28 days. This loss of a day to the whole civilized world, was scarcely remarked at the time. The duration of a picture does not depend on the strength or durability of the canvass on which it is painted. The canvass may be renewed as often as may be found necessary, and the colours will in time become as hard and as durable as enamel. It is by frequent and injudicious cleaning that pictures are destroyed. In the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro, the common garden peas have been sown, flowered, gathered, and the haulms removed, within the short space of 21 days.65

64 Sir Walter Scott, openly, although writing under the pseudonym, Malachi Malagrowther, defended the right of Scottish banks to issue their own bank notes. The public was aware that Scott was the author of the articles because he had chosen the same unusual surname of a character in his novel The Fortunes of Nigel (1822). 65 The Representative, 16 March 1826, 175.

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A CURE FOR A COLD _______________ Mr. L., the famous scene painter, has a fancy that he can cure all diseases, and accordingly prescribes liberally for his friends and all others willing to fall under his hands. A person of great faith lately applied to him for a cure for a very bad cold, and L.,’s advice was, “Do you see, Sare, can you like to dreenk bran-tea.” “Brandy,” replied the patient, nothing loth to find so palatable a medicine hinted, as he imagined. “Certainly  ; I have no objection to it whatever.” “Vy, then, (said L────) bran-tea is the very thing for you. Take tree ──four──ees, four──cups of it as hot as you can soop──good, big tea cups, just after breakfast. “What, Sir,” asked the patient rather amazed, without water?” “Vitout vater! (said L.,) vat do you mean? No more vater than is in the bran-tea itself when made. Take it as you get it. Take four large──very large coops──between breakfast and dinner ; and ven you find a change for the better or vorse come to me.” The faith of the patient was great, and so was his swallow. For five days he stuck to what he thought was the prescription of the painter─was of course gloriously drunk all day─and, at the conclusion of his exertions in this way, he came to L., full of gratitude for his advice. “I am quite cured, (said he,) Mr. L., I never imagined that brandy was so complete a cure. I feel quite obliged.” “O, yes, (said L.,) I vas sure it would cure you. You felt quite cool all the time you vas taking it.” “Cool, (said the patient)─No─not exactly cool. I was rather hot. Zounds, Sir, no man can drink a quart of spirits in the forenoon and keep cool.” “Spirits, (said L., rather astonished) ; vy, there is no spirits in a tea made of bran.” “Tea made of bran (said his amazed friend) ; it was hot brandy I drank.” An explanation of course followed. The gentleman, however was cured.66

Further down the page, the readers were regaled with several morsels of useful information, although not always accurate:

66 Ibid.

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The average importations of tea by the East India Company for five years prior to 1821, amounted to 26,416,219 lbs. ; the prime cost to 1,717,216. The tea consumed in Europe and America is estimated at 32,000,000 of pounds. The annual consumption of sugar in England is above 20 pounds each person.─Indeed, with the exception of bread corn, it is probable that the consumption of the British Empire of all other articles exceeds that of the whole continent of Europe. Fifty thousand pounds worth of gold and silver, are said to be annually employed at Birmingham in gilding and plating, and of course for ever lost as bullion. The young of the shad has been recently ascertained to the little fish commonly known by the name of white bait. The velocity of a musket ball is, on an average, 1600 feet per second, and its range half a mile  ; whereas by theory its range ought to be ten miles. The resistance of the air is the cause of its retardation. It has been discovered that the power of magnetic attraction resides wholly in the surface of the iron bodies, and is independent of the mass. An empty bomb-shell will attract as strongly as a solid sphere of the same material. It is tolerably well ascertained, that the two Americas do not produce a single heath, nor the southern hemisphere a rose. GOOD SPIRITS.──Happiness consists in bodily health, and tranquillity, firmness, and alacrity of mind  ; to attain which no sacrifice or abstinence, mental or corporeal, (for both are required) is too great. When we are in perfect health and spirits, we feel in ourselves a happiness independent of any particular outward gratification whatever, and of which we can give no account. This is an enjoyment which the Deity has annexed to existence, and probably constitutes the apparent felicity of infants and brutes, especially of the lower and sedentary orders of animals, such as oysters, periwinkles, and the like.67

Despite these efforts, by this time everybody had deserted John Murray and the newspaper. He was alone, with no one to help him solve the day-to-day problems of producing a daily publication, as well as having to cover the costs of the enterprise at a time of financial crisis. The last record of Disraeli’s presence at Albemarle Street is the already mentioned letter of Lockhart to John Murray in the previous February, and it must be said that his contributions did not increase the journalistic quality of the Representative in the least. Lockhart himself was commuting from London to Brighton to see his family and no longer helped with the running of the 67 The Representative, 16 March 1826, 175.

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newspaper. In the end, John Murray was left with Maginn for the lighter part, with a succession of editors for the rest (who do not appear to have been quite as efficient as Lockhart), and in the company of his unforgiving critics. Biographers have described at this stage that a desperate John Murray evaded his duties and drank himself to a stupor when he realised the approaching end of the newspaper. The myth was probably based on the letters by Lockhart and his wife to Sir Walter Scott, and certainly on the portrayal of the Marquis of Carabas in Disraeli’s novel Vivian Grey which we will describe shortly. Even the London Magazine took the Vivian Grey portrait up because it suited their intention of discrediting the publisher, but the truth is that no other contemporary author mentions the fact of Murray’s excessive drinking or the irresponsible behaviour related by the Lockharts or Disraeli. Obviously, John Murray had other important commercial, social, and political concerns to keep him occupied: his publishing house, his authors, the Quarterly Review, and the economic crisis that was affecting publishers so fiercely. It is highly unlikely that if the publisher had behaved the way the Lockharts and Disraeli claimed, he would have been able to keep his firm afloat and flourishing during the crisis. Disraeli’s motives to say what he did in his novel can be ascribed to a desire for revenge. For her part, Sophia Lockhart only wrote what her husband told her to write, for she cannot have been a direct witness of the situations and attitudes she described to her father, but the motives behind Lockhart’s slanderous allegations against his employer can only be a matter for conjecture. Possibly he wished to be exempted from responsibility in case the newspaper failed, so that he could lay the blame entirely on John Murray’s erratic attitudes. In April 1826 he wrote to his father-in-law that the Representative was selling well, but that it needed advertisements to survive, like any publication, then as now. He begins by speaking of the Quarterly, then pronounces harsh criticism on Thomas Moore’s biography of Sheridan and finishes with a reference to John Murray and the Representative: Murray, I am sorry to say, is so eternally drunk that I scarcely ever see him fit for serious business. He will kill himself very shortly, I fear. [Original editor’s note: Here is obviously some exaggeration. Anyhow, the publisher continued his brilliant and hard-working career for another seventeen years.] His paper sells very well and everybody admits that it is very well managed by Dr Maginn. But it is the master’s eye that fattens the mare, and there is no hope of getting other news or advertisements soon so long as this obstinate profligacy of his continues to hang heavy on all the arrangements of the concern. However, the thing is making way, and will, I doubt not, be worth much money in a year’s time.68 68 Partington, 147.

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Lockhart mentions the important failings of the Representative: lack of news, that is government news that could only be provided by John Murray’s friends from the Admiralty, and also government sponsorship in the form of advertisements. He had no reason to know that those vital items were definitely closed to the Representative and could not understand why the publisher did not make a greater effort to get them. It is also worth noting that he tries to flatter his father-in-law, who had suggested that they bring Dr Maginn from Paris to lend a hand with the newspaper, when he says that ‘everybody admits’ that the paper is well managed by their protégé, when in truth Maginn was in charge only of the lighter side of the paper. The rest, if we are to believe the London Magazine, was managed by the reporters. A month earlier, on 12 March 1826, the Examiner had announced with relish the ‘death’ of the Representative: Notwithstanding all that has been done, and is doing, for ‘ABSOLUTE JOHN’S’ Darling,—notwithstanding the repeated consultations at the Admiralty, the host of Doctors, the numerous drafts swallowed by the poor patient,—drafts often of sovereign remedy in cases of this description,—they say that there is not a shadow of hope even at head-quarters, and that preparations are already making for the interment! The report runs that the funeral is to be as private as possible; that the disconsolate father, Mr CROKER, and Dr SOUTHEY, are to be Chief Mourners; and that the rest of the sorrowful company will be formed by Mr LOCKHART, Mr D’ISRAELI, the Messrs COMPOSITORS, PRESSMEN, and FLYBOYS, all in new suits of black.—Dr MAGIN from Cork, says he was called in too late; that the patient had been most shamefully treated by the former Advisers; and that the disease—a rapid decline—is the most melancholy one he ever witnessed, even worse than that now undermining the Northern Blackwood establishment.69 Evidently the Examiner was less well informed than the London Magazine, although no less malicious. John Wilson Croker and the poet Robert Southey were never part of the Representative staff, and Benjamin Disraeli had abandoned ship weeks before this announcement. However, three weeks later the Examiner provides a piece of information on the Representative that contradicts its earlier death notice, or at least shows that the ‘patient’ was still alive and well in April 1826. In the guise of a letter to the editor of the Examiner, readers are informed that repairs made to the front of the newspaper’s offices in Great George Street are disturbing neighbours and 69 The Examiner, 12 March 1826.

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passers-by. It is unlikely that John Murray would have been spending time and money in decorating a building he did not mean to keep for very long. The ‘letter to the editor’ was announced in a large headline: PUBLIC NUISANCE OF MR JOHN MURRAY’S ‘REPRESENTATIVE’ To the editor of The Examiner A member of the public who signs himself simply as ‘A Pedestrian’, introduces a complaint against John Murray and his newspaper by stating that he is not against progress and does not mind the inconveniences to passers-by when renovations are being carried out on buildings provided they do not take too long. However, when I observe such obstructions to foot-passengers raised and continued for weeks and months, without any progress being made in the work, I begin to consider them as nuisances which ought to be removed. […] Such is the case at the office of Mr Murray’s new paper, the Representative, in Great George Street, Westminster; the respectable houses at each side of it are in a measure blocked up, and rendered unsightly and uncomfortable and the footpath is usurped to the great annoyance of the public; yet, like his paper, there appears nothing beneficial likely to result from it. The author of the letter adds that for a reason he ignores, the workmen suddenly stopped working six weeks before, so the renovation work has ceased, but the scaffolding is still standing. He then asks the editor if this situation should be ‘tolerated merely to gratify the caprices of one man?’ But the letter does not end here: there is a ‘post scriptum’ that suggests that the author of the letter to the editor and the addressee are one and the same. The virulence of the last sentence betrays John Hunt: P.S. Since writing the above I see a man is employed in taking down the plaster representation of the mirror with the cherubic figures and ornamental work from the front, but the poor pillars and porticos at the entrance are still neglected. This is the second time the plaster ornaments have been put up and taken down again. Mr Murray seems as whimsical respecting this as he is with his Editors; I presume he is at a loss to know what emblematical device will best represent the Representative. I would recommend him to put up a figure of himself, blowing soap-bubbles, with a weathercock upon his head.70 70 The Examiner, 2 April 1826.

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Almost until the end, the Representative published an interesting and varied array of news items from all over the world, from distant Haiti to far off Turkey, in the same manner it had done from the start. The more significant pieces were allotted whole paragraphs, while the less important ones had only a few lines preceded by a title which, nevertheless, makes the page even now look lively and inviting. These items were combined with domestic news such as the problems of the silk trade, the army, or the church. The pages of news and comments were enlivened by passages of lighter reading like maxims from Goethe or advice on marrying, most probably added by Maginn, who had been commissioned by Lockhart to add some spark to the newspaper’s pages. These attempts, as we know, proved fruitless.

Figure 3  The Representative, 25 January 1826. Reproduced courtesy of the John Murray Collection, London.

chapter v

Portrait of a Newspaper

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he best way to appreciate the Representative is to read the newspaper itself, so in the following pages there is a small selection of articles dealing with miscellaneous topics organised chronologically in order to help follow the newspaper’s development. The issue of 8 February, for instance, offers interesting and varied reading of well organised pieces, arranged, as usual, in a mosaic-like combination. Apart from letters to the editor, there are notes on the arts, the army, the Church, archaeology, and also news from the United States, Trieste, and Turkey, as well as domestic news. These were often borrowed from other publications, a common practice for newspapers at the time: Letters, dated Dec. 19, have been received from Port-au-Prince, by way of Havre, but they mention no fact of public interest, except that the discontent among the natives at the subserviency to France was on the increase, particularly in the northern part of the island. The Bolton Chronicle says, a dreadful accident occurred on Monday last, at the factory of Messrs. E. and W. Bolling, in Bridge-street, Little Bolton. To Eliz. Kenworthy, a child only eight years and eight months old. She had been engaged rather more than a week in the factory, and was putting some rovings into the creel, when her clothes were caught by the shaft, and she was instantly twisted up to the creel, with such velocity that her head was entirely separated from her body.1

1 The Representative, 8 Feb. 1826, 51.

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SILK TRADE (From the READING MERCURY.) We understand that a petition from the silk weavers in this town, for the continuation of the prohibition of foreign manufactured silk, will in a few days be presented to the House of Commons, by our worthy and excellent representative, Mr. Monck. Our readers are aware, that in July next it is proposed to admit the importation of foreign-wrought silk, at a protecting duty of thirty per cent. This was part of the arrangement in the Session of 1824, when the duty on raw silk was repealed  ; and the measure was supported by both the Members for this borough, because, in common with a large majority in both Houses of Parliament, they considered it as the beginning of a new system of free trade, that would of course speedily abolish those odious restrictions and monopolies which are the bane of commerce in every quarter of the globe. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward this measure, he expressly told the House of Commons, that the repeal of the duty on silk, and the destruction of the monopoly system, were to go hand-inhand. His declaration was gladly received by every enlightened statesman, and the public at large, and they indulged in the most pleasing anticipations from these symptoms of a wise and liberal policy. But, unfortunately, their hopes have not been realized : partial measures have been adopted  ; an experiment has been tried in the silk-trade ; it has failed ; and the poor weavers, we fear, are likely to become its victims. In fact, they are now in a state of greatest distress: in the metropolis there are 20,000 out of employment, and in this town, 50, in one parish alone were last week compelled to apply for parochial relief. Nothing else could have been expected from the inconsistency and absurdity of allowing a free trade in any article, whilst that which regulates the price of labour is fettered.2 In May, last year, a Savings Bank was opened at Walsall, under the patronage of the Earl of Bradford, Earl Dartmouth, and other distinguished characters; and the deposits already amount to 7000l.─thus presenting a practical illustration of the great utility of such institutions, and furnishing a gratifying proof that the season of prosperity with the working classes is not always unaccompanied by prudent provision for times of exigency and distress.3

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.

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To the Editor of The Representative. Sir,─I write to you from a village in the south of Ireland, where, exclusive of my own family, there are not more than about 18 or 20 of our religion. The rest are principally of the lowest class of labourers, who are compelled to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow  ; and to do them justice, they have conducted themselves, until within a late period, with great temper and moderation. The property of the village had previously been divided between two landlords ─one a Roman Catholic, the other a Protestant ; but as the greater part of it belonged to the latter, the peasantry were obliged to look up to him principally for support. Until within the last fifteen or eighteen months, nothing could exceed the unanimity and good-will which prevailed between all parties. This, however, was broken in upon by the introduction into the village of a gentleman of the Roman Catholic persuasion  ; ever since which period we Protestants have had a most unpleasant time of it. This gentleman, who gained considerable popularity on his first entry by establishing two or three shopkeepers, has carried his hostility to our creed to such a length, that he has actually impressed these people with an opinion that is not to their advantage to keep up any dealings with us. The consequence is, we are all at open war, and what the end of it will be it is impossible to foresee.4

Varied notes like these can be found across a single page of the Representative. They make engrossing reading because they show a slice of life in the nineteenth century, not only in Britain but also in the rest of Europe, Asia, and North and South America. From these we learn about child labour, not as an impersonal academic subject, but with the full name, age and fate of an actual person and specific details of the accident. Also, one of the main worries of the working classes is discussed here – unemployment – brought about by erratic economic measures and the government’s continuing support for protectionist legislation that favoured rich landowners, such as the Corn Laws, which made the price of bread high. We learn as well about the creation of a savings bank in the Midlands, religious tensions in Ireland, the state of the Brazilian navy, new trading opportunities with the United States, and maxims coined by Goethe: ‘Life is like a market or a fair. The question is not whether the wares be good, but whether there be any better in the next stall’.5 It is not to say that a reader would not find similar quality and variety in other good newspapers, only that 4 Ibid. 5 The Representative, Goethe: Maxims, 8 Feb. 1826, 51.

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the Representative was there with the best of them, so it is surprising that at this stage the venture was already being termed a failure. By 16 February however, the paper was carrying noticeably fewer advertisements and no leading article, although the notes on parliamentary debates and the foreign news were still thorough and professionally composed. A change for the better took place six days later. Around 22 February, the Representative improved and appeared at its best, packed with miscellaneous and relevant information organised, nevertheless, in orderly succession by subject and importance. There was still no leading article, but shorter pieces of opinion made up, in part, for this lack. There are also extracts from letters that describe of the financial distress in major cities in the country: CORRESPONDENCE Last night we received the following letter from our correspondent at Liverpool:─ LIVERPOOL, Feb. 20 A meeting was held this morning, of different associated mercantile bodies, in consequence of an application from Manchester, requesting that the Liverpool merchants would depute some of their body to co-operate with them, in applying again to government for loans by exchequer bills. The meeting was numerously attended  ; and after fully considering the subject, it was unanimously decided that a deputation should go up to London forthwith, to represent to ministers the truly distressed state of the manufacturing districts of this county, on which the trade of this place mainly depends ; and to urge on them the propriety of affording relief by issuing exchequer bills. This deputation is to meet in London similar deputations from Manchester, Glasgow, &c. ; and when ministers are apprized of the real state of distress in this populous district, and of the appalling prospect of a large portion of the workmen being thrown out of employ, it is to be hoped they will grant the assistance asked for, although they have expressed so decided an objection to this mode of relief. There has been a fair demand for cotton this day, at fully last week’s quotations ; but a considerable quantity being advertised for public sale on Friday next, the present demand is not likely to be maintained.6

6 The Representative, 22 Feb. 1826, 99.

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Worrying news like the cash-flow problems of the manufacturing cities in the north were lightened by notes such as this reflection on the lineage of eminent men, as in the following: DESCENDANTS OF GREAT MEN.─ Mons. F. J. Rousseau, the last surviving member of the family of J.J. Rousseau, has just died in Geneva, at an advanced age. It is a remarkable fact. We believe, that there are scarcely any collateral kindred men of genius in former times now remaining in England  ; and not a single lineal descendant, except a female one, of Shakespeare. In England, the collateral branches appear to be confined to the families of Dryden, Parnell, and Sandys (the fine, old, relishing translator of Ovid). Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton, have left none ; Pope has left none. Not other poet is lineally represented (luckily, perhaps, for him)  ; nor Bacon, nor Sir Isaac, nor Sir Joshua Reynolds, nor Hogarth, nor Purcell, nor Steele, Swift, nor Addison, nor Johnson, nor Marlborough, nor Peterborough, nor any of the worthies of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, nor scarcely a wit of Charles the Second. Was the fire too bright and self-consuming and so died away?─New Monthly Mag.7

and this note on the state of Napoleon’s grave on the island of St Helena, the former Emperor being a figure of continuing interest to the general public: BUONAPARTE’S GRAVE From a MS. Journal of a Voyage of the Hugh Crawford, which, through the kindness of the commanding officer, has been placed in our hands, we make the following extracts. The latter part, bearing a reference to the various calumnies which have been published against Sir Hudson Lowe, by the adherents of Buonaparte, are highly deserving attention. The house where Buonaparte resided is now converted into a granary. The drawing-room in which he died has a thrashing machine in it  ; his billiard-room is filled with potatoes and straw, and his bath is a stable. The new house intended for him is situated about 200 yards below the old one, and is completely sheltered from the S.E., trade-wind, which they so much complained of. It is a handsome and commodious building, and fitted up in a simple but elegant style, the furniture exactly corresponding with the building. The house forms a quadrangle, with a square court in the centre, and an archway through , from N.E. to S.W. 7 Ibid.

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The building fronts the N.W., and has an extensive lawn in front. The gardens are laid out very tastefully, and everything seems to have been studied that could add to the great man’s comfort. His new house would have been ready for him in a few weeks, when he died. He lies buried at the head of a deep ravine about 100 yards to the left, at three miles’ distance from St. James’s Town, on the road to Longwood, in a small spot of ground (about a quarter of an acre) covered with English grass, and surrounded by a strong wooden paling. Seven weepingwillows hang over his grave, which is covered with a plain stone slab, surrounded by iron railings, five feet high. Inside of this, some of the small flowers. Forget-me-not, were placed by Madame Bertrand  ; but they never grew. An old soldier resides near, and has orders to prevent people from going inside, in consequence of some French officers who had lately been there having taken off several branches from the willows as a memento of their former sovereign. Buonaparte was particularly fond of this spot when in health, and often retired to it to read, sitting upon the body of one of the trees, which grows out in a horizontal direction, and shaded by the foliage of the others. He often expressed a wish to be buried there if he died at St. Helena, and if Government would not permit his body to be conveyed to Europe. His heart is placed upon his coffin in a silver urn. The owner of the land receives 50l. from Government during the time the body remains there. The Crawford left St. Helena on the 23d November, and on the 17th January last made the Lizard, after thirteen months and six days’ absence from England.8

Yet, despite the evident efforts to enliven its pages with attractive stories, the editorial line of the Representative never varied. This same issue 22 February dedicates a whole column to defending the paper’s anti-abolitionist stance, firstly with part of a letter from Jamaica and followed by the review of a pro-slavery pamphlet written by Sir Robert Wilmot Horton.9 NEGRO SLAVERY We have been favoured with the extract of a letter written by a respectable inhabitant of Jamaica to his correspondent in London, at the close of the late sessions of the legislature. As it is written with temper, and breathes a conciliatory spirit, we recommend it to the attention of our readers, viz,: 8 Ibid., 100. 9 Under-secretary of War and the Colonies 1827–1827, a friend of John Murray  II and contributor to the Quarterly Review.

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“SPANISH TOWN, JAMAICA, DEC. 29, 1825 [The author of the letter denounces the failure of the Jamaican legislature to approve an act that would allow slaves to receive ‘bequests of personal property’, by a majority of 24 to 13. He blames abolitionist ‘zealots’ for the fatal resistance that exists in the colonies to pass any law that would improve the situation of the same people they claim to defend.] “Your philanthropists, who are so coolly and disinterestedly seeking to reform all which they deem amiss in the world, when they dictate to us sudden changes in legislation, forget the peculiar situation in which the resident colonists, and more especially the colonial legislatures are placed. We live in the midst of the unequally balanced and irritable population, which it has pleased you to constitute (for remember the frame-work is your own), and it is by watching day by day the guidance of the reins of government, that the general tranquillity is ensured. The task of legislation rests, with a degree of awful responsibility, upon the members of the colonial assemblies; and while, as Britons, they regard with anxious jealousy the most distant approach of an unconstitutional interference, they feel that, in the delicate business of the internal regulation of such societies, as are under their care, they cannot properly or safely proceed, excepting under the conviction of their own observation and experience. “This feeling is so deeply impressed here, that I cannot but doubt the wisdom of attempting to influence our legislature by an appeal to any extraneous opinions concerning their line of duty, however respectable the parties with whom those opinions might originate. Were but the jealousy here alluded to at rest, a more prompt and liberal attention would soon appear in this island, and, doubtless, in the colonies generally, to the recommendations from his Majesty’s government; and indeed, under circumstances less conciliatory, it will be impossible to bring against our legislature a just charge of contumacy. “The violent call which the Anti-Slavery society are endeavouring to excite for a prompt emancipation of our slaves, may occasion great mischief, but we do not believe that it can silence the voice of British justice. Our case is a very simple one, and, when it is heard, cannot be dismissed without remedy. You must recollect that from you we received our lands, under an express obligation that they should be cultivated: that from you we bought our slaves, obtained by you in a traffic which you established and encouraged before you had any care for us; that you fostered us by every stimulative pledge of protection; but having subsequently arrived at a conviction that to buy or sell

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slaves was a crime, you told us that we must do as well as we could without any additional supply. “If, however, there was at that time, in any quarter, harboured a design of forcibly taking from us the property which we possessed under your sanction, it was cautiously concealed from us; and well might it be so, for at that moment such a proposition would have been treated with general indignation; and although a pretension so grossly unjust is not now without its abettors, we are convinced that it cannot be seriously entertained by the legislature of Great Britain. “The Anti-Slavery Society, as it appears to me, have, in the pursuit of their object (presuming that to be an early emancipation of all the slaves in the Colonies), some difficulties to encounter. “They must reconcile to the mother country the entire loss of her West India Colonies, as a productive resourse for her commerce, finance and navy. “They must provide a satisfactory establishment for 800,000 idle, useless negroes. “They must provide the means of full compensation to the present possessors, for the value of their properties and their labourers, which are held under as solemn pledges of protection as any property in the empire.10

The letter transcribed above, apparently written by a representative of the Jamaican planters, is openly accusing the British government of betraying their trust. After receiving land from the government with the commission that they should cultivate it using slaves bought from that same government, they are now being told that they will not be able to deal in slave traffic any longer. There will be no more slaves, and yet they find themselves burdened with the obligation to cultivate the lands they have been granted, but deprived of the means to fulfil that obligation. This ultra-conservative stance did not increase the popularity of the paper. It should be remembered that the West India Interest lobby had been, according to Benjamin Disraeli, backing the Representative from the start, and this may be one of the reasons why the newspaper maintained the unpopular editorial approach. But there is another, stronger reason as well: John Gibson Lockhart, who edited the Quarterly Review and, for a time, the Representative, was a committed anti-abolitionist. After listing the reasons why abolition is not convenient to the planters, because of their certain financial loss, to the slaves because they are not yet

10 Ibid., 99.

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prepared for freedom, and to the British public, who will be deprived of sugar for their tea, the author provides strong arguments against abolition: “THE WEST INDIA QUESTION PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED.”11 Under this title a pamphlet has just been published, to which we think general attention cannot be too strongly directed. The author avows his object to be the preparing the public mind for the approaching Parliamentary discussions on this subject, by a brief resume of the real history of the question from the period of the abolition of the slave trade; and he has undoubtedly drawn up such a statement as will not a little astonish the great majority of those who, while sipping their unsugared tea, have been perusing the violent, we might almost (we fear) say the ferocious pamphlets recently put forth by Mr. Stephens and his associates. He [Stephen]12 proves most distinctly that at the period of the abolition, and during many years afterwards, the claim of absolute emancipation was not only never set up by the abolitionist party here, but strenuously disavowed by one and all of their leaders. He quotes from the Parliamentary speeches and electioneering letters of Mr. Fox, the Marquess of Lansdown, Earl Grey, Mr. Sheridan, and above all, Mr. Wilberforce himself, distinct professions of belief that the interest of the negroes themselves would be most cruelly assailed by the bestowing of freedom in anything like the moral and intellectual condition which was theirs. He next shows that Parliament pledged itself in 1823 to leave the gradual amelioration of the negro’s condition in the hands of the ministers──with the consent of the abolitionists, Messrs. Wilberforce and Buxton at their head. He goes on to shew that from that hour to this the ministers have been indefatigably employed in trying to ameliorate the negro’s condition and he concludes with asking on what grounds the abolitionists have recently departed from their pledge of 1823, and have been, and are now, by book, pamphlet, placard, oration, song, squib, sermon, lecture, and hymn,──in short, by every engine their ingenuity can set at work, endeavouring to take out of the hands of the ministers what they themselves placed there: 11 This pamphlet by Sir Robert Wilmot Horton was also reviewed in the Quarterly Review by John Gibson Lockhart, together with another anti-abolitionist book, Six Months in the West Indies, Quarterly Review, 33 66(Dec. 1825–March 1826): 490–518. 12 James Stephen was an abolitionist and brother-in-law to William Wilberforce.

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urging, in other words, the population of Great Britain to rise en masse, and compel the government to abolish slavery in the West Indies at once and forever. The answer is no mystery; the pretence is, that the local legislatures have already done enough to shew that the government can effect nothing in favour of the slaves so long as they are made the medium through which the Colonial Office conducts or was to conduct its operations. THREE YEARS have elapsed!!! And yet the condition of the West Indian slave has not materially altered from what the beginning of 1823 found it. A most wonderful discovery indeed! The blacks in Africa have been savages and slaves for six thousand years, either in or out of their own unhappy country. The African blacks in the West Indies are half-reclaimed savages, living in a most luxuriant soil and under a tropical sky. They are legally (that is not disputed) the property of British planters, who acquired this property under the most sacred sanction and guarantee of the British government; they are employed by these planters in a very laborious species of agriculture──the rearing of sugar for the supply of the European market. Three years go for nothing when philosophers talk of the improvement of a savage or half-savage race anywhere else. Three years go for nothing when practical agriculturists talk of the introduction of a new mode of husbandry anywhere else; yet all rules go for nothing when the West Indies are the ground of the argument. It is not only a marvel, but a horror, that three years have elapsed, and yet the negro labourer there is only a little better off than he was when they began.

It is not clear when the reviewer stops discussing the anti-abolitionist pamphlet and begins using the review as a platform to express his own arguments in support of this cause. Around the middle of the article, the reviewer stops referring to the author of the pamphlet and begins a defence of the planters that shows similarities to the speech of a barrister in court. There are references to the sanctity of the law, and the flow of the whole speech, with its cadences and repetitions has similarities to the closing argument in a court of law. These signs, and the fact that John Gibson Lockhart reviewed the same pamphlet for the Quarterly, indicate that he may well be the author of this article. The last but one paragraph provides the strongest pro-slavery statement yet: When our Saviour came into this world slavery met his eye, wherever it could rest upon the spectacle of human labour. So it

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did those of his apostles, wherever they trod the surface of the globe, diffusing the principles of truth and light. The religion they taught has extirpated slavery  ; but how? Did they preach against it? Did they call aloud for its abrogation? Did they denounce it as a sin and a curse?─ did they with the power of miracles in their hands stamp the impress of guilt and horror on the man that possessed a slave? On the contrary, they preached to masters, kindness ; and slaves, obedience, faithfulness, content, and submission. They knew that slavery is a thing that cannot be suddenly undone ; and therefore they laid the foundation for abolishing it everywhere, and attempted to abolish it, de plano, nowhere. Slavery was not finally abolished in England until the time of James I. ; and yet the men who pretend to be the apostles of our days, are stung to madness because little apparent progress has been made in the emancipation of the West Indian negroes between May 1823 and February 1826! It is impossible to go into the details of such a question all at once  ; but we shall assuredly keep a strict eye on the motions of the two most uncongenial sets of allies who are at present goading the vulgar mind into madness in relation to this matter. In the meantime we venture to express our most devout belief, that if the relief of human misery be the object really and in truth of any of these agitators, they may at this moment find more of that commodity in St. Giles’s─aye, or alas! In Spitalfields─than the utmost ingenuity of a thousand spies could detect in all our West Indian colonies, from Barbadoes to Demerara.13

A few days later, on 2 March, the short notes published in the space reserved for the leading article reflect one of the major concerns of the day: Secretary Canning and his strong stance in favour of abolition and the distress caused by the financial crisis. Among the letters from Trieste and Dublin, the ‘Fashionable Movements’, and the dramatic account of the killing of an elephant at the Exeter Exchange, there is an article by Sir Walter Scott on Scottish currency, introduced by Lockhart. On the same page there are other relevant features such as the ship movements of the day, the report of a county election in Northumberland, and the report of cases in the Courts of Justice, some of which read like novels by Wilkie Collins. All the various items on the page make very engrossing reading:

13 Ibid.

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BOW-STREET A young woman of very decent appearance applied for a summons to compel the attendance of Jane Smith, a pauper in St. Ann’s work-house, with a view to ascertain her parentage. She stated that she had been brought up by Smith and her sister, one of whom she had reason to believe was her mother, and that they had possessed themselves of property to which she was entitled. The attendance of Jane Smith having been obtained, she underwent a long examination, in the course of which she stated that the applicant, when a child about a year old, was committed to the care of herself and her sister, Mrs. Lawrence, the widow of the late Mr. Lawrence, an auctioneer in Charlesstreet, Soho-square, by their brother, the late William Hanks, a solicitor. The circumstance was kept a secret from Mrs. Hanks. Her brother made a will, leaving his property to her and her sister. It is suspected that the property was bequeathed to the applicant  ; and as Jane Smith refused to give a satisfactory account of the will, the farther examination was postponed until the attendance of Mr. Morrison, of Green-street, Castlestreet, Leicester-square, can be procured, who it is expected, will be able to give some useful information on the subject. The applicant stated, that Mrs. Lawrence, whom she has reason to believe is her mother, lodged at this lady’s house, when she was an infant.─Jane Smith said, her late husband kept the Bird-in-Hand public house in Oxford-street.14

The following day the Representative featured a longer leading article with a distinct, but unpopular editorial line. On 1 March, Thomas Denman, a Whig Member of Parliament, had brought forward a motion in the House to even out the administration of justice to the slaves in the colonies to the dispensation of justice in the mother country:

THE REPRESENTATIVE. LONDON. Friday, March 3, 1826.

Mr. DENMAN brought forward his motion concerning the state of Slavery in the West Indies last night. The debate produced by it turned on the topics, which have, by frequent repetition, become tedious to our ears ; but which must be listened to with

14 The Representative, 2 March 1826, 127.

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attention, as long as we think the possession of our colonies of any value. The result of the debate was satisfactory to the friends of these valuable portions of the empire, for the motion of Mr. DENMAN was rejected by 103 to 63.15

The author of the article expresses his satisfaction that Mr. Denman’s motion was rejected by a large majority, because he sees it as a covert plea to end slavery irresponsibly early, thus hurting the interests of the planters, who are the ‘true friends’ of the slaves as well as valued members of the empire: That this is not the way in which the question is to be considered is very evident, and so the House thought. The detail of Mr. DENMAN’S grievances, it was observed, should have been made elsewhere, even if they were true. Mr. WILMOT HORTON, in a very excellent speech, however, proved that they were not true. Really this is too bad. It was admitted on all hands, last night, even by Mr. DENMAN, that the immediate abolition of slavery is impossible ; it is conceded freely by the friends of the colonies, that there is no abstract defence for slavery at all. Both parties then might come to an agreement on the question. The soi-dissant friend of the slave might fairly insist that no cruelty or violation of law should be practiced towards him─the friends of the planter (that is, in 99 cases out of 100, the real friend of the slave) might insist, that as long as slavery exists, the slave must be compelled to perform the duties of the society in which he is placed, by means altogether different from those applicable to men differently situated. This would spare a great deal of unnecessary declamation, and would do an immensity of good to the population of the islands, whether slave or free. Such considerations are thrown away on such men as Mr. DENMAN ; but they are, if we mistake not, making decided way among classes where opinions such as his have no authority.16

The second part of this leading article is dedicated to criticising The Times for not supporting the Bank of England’s attempts to restore confidence in the market. These convoluted arguments in support of unpopular causes did not help the sales of the Representative, as it reflected the interests of a restricted group of society.

15 The Representative, 2 March 1826, 127. 16 Ibid., 3 March 1826, 131.

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The Times appears in a state of despair at the determination of the Bank to adopt the plan of relief to the mercantile classes, recommended by his Majesty’s Ministers. To prevent the restoration of confidence seems to be the great object of that Journal.17

On the same page there are several pieces that openly attack abolitionists. In one instance they denounce as false a number of signed petitions for the abolition of slavery that have been submitted to the House of Commons: These forty-five petitions cover we know not how many skins of parchment, and are signed by we know not how many people─ninety-nine out of the hundred not above the rank of menial servants or common labourers and their wives, as the hand-writings of the parties most clearly demonstrate. Now, we have gone over the prayers of these forty and five petitions, and we venture to say, in the most unequivocal terms, that no impartial person can do the like, without coming to the same conclusion with ourselves, viz. that the whole forty and five are in fact the work of one man, or at least, of one small knot of men, ASSEMBLED IN London.18

In another, the Representative warns its readers that abolitionists are threatening the very structure of the state: “Divide et impera,” is the motto of those who are, at present, attacking our West Indian colonists. Let not the other great interests in this country flatter themselves that they may stand safely by, while these are sacrificed. Above all le no shortsighted views of commercial advantage deceive, to their own ruin, the East Indian body. ───────Tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet.19 The northern sect of political economists, of which Mr. Brougham is one of the most “burning and shining lights,” have of late avowed their enmity to our colonial system, AS A SYSTEM. Nor will the men of wheat, themselves, do amiss to pause, ere they lend a hand to the destruction of the men of sugar.20

17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 It affects you, when your neighbour’s wall is on fire. 20 Ibid.

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Undoubtedly, a more balanced outlook would have helped the sales and the significance of the newspaper at this stage, because extreme positions such as these overshadowed its positive aspects and narrowed the potential scope of people who would be interested in reading it. The Representative’s recovery, at this time, consisted of longer, well-argued editorial articles which, unfortunately, were not what the majority of the public wanted to read. The issue of 8 March 1826 openly declared that the paper was pro-slavery and in favour of upholding the Corn Laws. A the same time it condemned The Times’ insistence on the need to repeal protectionist legislation. At this stage, there were practically no advertisements, possibly because few people wished to appear associated with the extreme ideology expressed in the Representative.21

THE REPRESENTATIVE. LONDON. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1826. ──────────

The debate on the West Indian question came on last night in the Lords. We can hardly conjecture what can be said on wither side of that question, which could have even the appearance of novelty. On one side there are all the common-places of cant, such as the iniquity of slavery, its unchristianity, its being a novel stain on the history of society, and other similar topics, which form the daily converse of the abolitionists. Vain it is to say to people, either so miserably informed as not to have any idea of the history of slavery, or so basely interested as to be utterly careless as to what they assert, so that it favours any project of their own─that slavery has existed in every nation of the world ;─that it is recognised by every code of laws ;─that it is a necessary feature of society in certain stages, such as that of the West Indian at present  ;─that its abolition would entail misery on the slaves, as much as on their owners, in the present stage of things ;─that no body of persons, nay, no single person in England or her colonies, imagines that such a system is to last forever, although there are many, comprising, we imagine, all sensible men of all parties, who are strongly of opinion, that it must last until the slave population of the West Indies become 21 We do not know at present what John Murray  II’s personal views were on the subject of slavery, but if we are to believe young Benjamin Disraeli, the anti-abolition lobby in London had supported the creation of the Representative. However, John Murray never influenced the editorial line of the Quarterly Review and allowed his authors and editors full independence. It follows that the ideology promoted by his newspaper did not necessarily reflect his own political position.

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civilized, or at least approaches to civilization ;─that, so far from its being repugnant, per se, to Christianity, that the very state of slavery existed under the eyes of the Divine Founder of our faith, without eliciting from him a word or a hint of reprobation ;─and that the Apostle of the Gentiles, in his special addresses to slaves, never whispers to them disobedience to their masters, or repining at the situation in which they were placed. All this is quite vain to assert before the persons who are determined to emancipate the slave, the poor African, the interesting victim, or whatever else they delight in calling him  ; without any consideration, whether their act, if they were allowed to carry it into practice, would produce misery to the object of their mistaken kindness, ruin to the planter, and a chance (in one point of view almost a certainty,) of loss of the colonies.22

The Representative was swimming against the tide of public opinion in this respect, and lacked the moral weight to influence people’s attitudes because the partisan tone of its leading articles represented the interests of a narrow, privileged group. The editorial above could well have been composed by a representative of the planters themselves. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the slave trade had been abolished in Britain, but slavery as a practice in the colonies had not. The strong anti-slavery movement had engaged highly respected figures from all sections of society, such as William Wilberforce and Josiah Wedgewood, who spoke forcibly for abolition. Yet, the ‘West India Interest’ was powerful in both Houses of Parliament, so although there was an ever-growing support for abolition among the public, their demands could not be turned into legislation. The House of Lords was composed mainly of wealthy landowners, and the House of Commons, before the Parliamentary Reform of 1832, was also controlled by the affluent classes. In this dispute, the Representative took the unpopular side, a side that none of the major London newspapers such as The Times or the Morning Chronicle had taken. It could not be possible to assess the amount of damage that this unpopular and morally questionable position did to the Representative, but it is safe to say that the damage was quite significant. No amount of good journalism could have changed this. However, in all fairness, the newspaper was only one voice in the pro-slavery campaign: the respected Quarterly Review often included in its issues articles in support of slavery, using and reworking most of the arguments expressed in the editorial quoted above. For instance, the issue of the Quarterly Review for December 1825– March  1826, contains two reviews on the subject that defend slavery and 22 The Representative, 8 March 1826, 148.

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approve of the practice, one of them written by John Gibson Lockhart. The first is an appraisal of a recently published book titled, Six Months in the West Indies, written by the nephew of the new Bishop of Barbados (not named) who leans on the moral authority of his uncle to back the position of the West Indian planters. The reviewer praises the ‘sober reasoning’ of the author when he argues that the slaves have many advantages over workers in England. The same argument is developed in the second piece: a critique by an unnamed reviewer of ‘The West India Question Practically Considered’, written by Sir Robert Wilmot Horton. In this essay, also approved by the critic of the Quarterly Review, Wilmot Horton points out, among many other reasons for not abolishing slavery, that the West Indian slave enjoys better housing and healthcare than any labourer in Europe.23 Yet, it was not only the Representative’s open support of slavery that made it unpopular. Its leading articles often criticised The Times for demanding changes in the government’s protectionist legislation: The Times, in defiance of self-consistency and common sense, continues to twaddle about the inutility of relieving commercial restrictions without a repeal of the Corn Laws ; and thinks that the prolonged circulation of one-pound Bank of England notes enables Government to view the state of currency as prospectively unchanged, and therefore that an experiment may safely be made in the price of corn. This experiment will not be made in corpore vili ; and without saying with the Times, that “the game’s up,” we think that quite enough legislative game has been started this session to satisfy the keenest sportsman in the manor of St. Stephen’s [the House of Commons], where after all, we Editors are considered but as poachers  ; so backed, however, by public opinion and public interest, that the Lords of the Manor cannot put us down.24

No doubt the critics of the Representative would have been kinder if the newspaper had not originated from Albemarle Street and most of all, if its editorial line had been in accordance with those critics’ progressive ideas. Nevertheless, by 22 April the paper was selling well, according to Lockhart, although its journalistic quality had become irregular, with good and bad days. The issue of 22 April shows the newspaper at its best, and the following excerpts are a sample of the varied and interesting reading that could be found on a single page of the newspaper. For example, there was news of arrivals and departures of merchant ships in the main ports of the country: 23 Quarterly Review 33 66(Dec. 1825–March 1826): 490–518, at 492. 24 Ibid.

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SHIP NEWS -----portsmouth, april 20.─Arrived the Sarah, Lawson, from Plymouth. Sailed the Surrey, Goble, for Miramichi. plymouth, april 19.─Arrived the Good Intent, ──, from Havre  ; and, from the Downs, the Mulgrave Castle, Jefferson, for St. John’s, New Brunswick  ; Nymph, Lynn, for Gibraltar  ; and the Andromeda, Blair, for Quebec. Off the port, the Adlen, ──, for Van Diemen’s Land. falmouth, april 19.──Arrived the Fanny, Brokenshire, from London ; and the Venus, Nash, from Bristol. cork, april 17.──arrived the Palmyra, Lamb, from London, to take the 78th regiment to India  ; the Elizabeth and Grace, May, from Flushing, has been brought in by the Netley revenue cutter, and placed under detention for having tobacco on board. liverpool, april 19.──Arrived the Manhattan, Marshall, from New York : Delta, Clarkson, and Dorset, Gibson, from Savannah ; Cassandra, Smith, from New Orleans  ; Louisa, Fosdick, and Howard, bonny from Mobile ; and Regular, Bond, from Berbice. Off the port, the Everton, Neverson, from St. Vincent’s. deal, April 20.──The wind has been easterly until four p.m. , when it shifted to S.W.──Sailed last evening the Tweed, Benson, for Quebec, with the Providence, Ardley, for India, and the rest of the outward-bound. Passed by the Chesapeake, Grosh, from Rotterdam for America, and two ships at the back of the Goodwin, under Dutch colours, bound westward.25

information on the prices of coal, grain, and meat: SMITHFIELD, april 21. Beef this morning is in short supply, and of that very little good quality  ; the prices of Monday are, in consequence, readily obtained. Mutton has rather declined, 5s. 2d. being the outside figure for the best. Lamb has gone down to 7s. and the trade dull at that quotation. The quantity of Veal at market is sufficient to the demand and prices have given way a little  ; good Calves are selling at 6s. 2d. a stone. To sink the offal──per stone of 8lbs. Beef.............4s. 0d. to 5s. 0d. / Veal..............4s. 4d. to 6s. 25 The Representative, 22 April 1826, 304.

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Mutton..............4s. 0d. to 5s. 2d. / Pork..........4s. 0d. to 5s. Lamb, 5s. 0d. to 7s. 0d. Head of cattle this day. Beasts,341──Sheep, 7,740──Calves, 186──Pigs, 96.26

a description of an instance of child abuse:

POLICE

------------------------

UNION-HALL EXCESSIVE CRUELTY.──at 12 o’clock yesterday a woman and a man, with a boy about 8 years of age in his arms, in a state of the greatest misery, appeared before the sitting Magistrate  ; when the woman, whose name is Jones, and who resides in the Wandsworth-road stated that passing near the shed of a laddermaker named Scutt, she heard the cry of a child, as if produced by excessive beating  ; that she went towards the place from whence the cry procceeded, and in a pig-sty found the child tied hands and feet, on some straw  ; that Scutt its master was beating it in the most cruel manner with a thick rope, and a pig was feeding near it ; that she expostulated with him to no effect, when her husband, who was now present, came up and forcibly took the child away, and carried it into the office. The child was stripped ; its feet were become almost porous with the moisture and filth of its habitation  ; it was unable to stand, and its back was dreadfully lacerated. A warrant was immediately granted for Scutt’s apprehension, at the instance also of the parish officers, which was intrusted to Clark to execute, with orders to bring another child that was similarly circumstanced. Blakewell and Richards, two officers of Lambeth, accidentally met Scutt, and brought him to the office. Clark, after a short absence, brought the other child, and the rope with which the stripes were inflicted. Its back exhibited a frightful discolouration. Clark stated the situation of the pig-sty, as described by Mrs. Jones, to be perfectly correct. The two children had been bound, or farmed to him, by the parish. The prisoner, in his defence, said that he only put the boy there to frighten him, as he could not depend upon him when he sent him out, he either spent the money intrusted to him, or brought articles of an inferior quality and lower price. 26 Ibid.

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J.S. CALDWELL, Esq. then addressed him as follows  :──”Your conduct has been disgraceful, and you must be held to bail, to answer the complaint at the Sessions, yourself in 40l. and two securities of 20l. each. The greatest credit is due to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who have offered to take the two children, themselves, sooner than see them returned to you. Such humanity is seldom witnessed, but the parish officers have undertaken to provide for both of them.” He was then committed for want of bail. The child, previous to the examination, was sent by the Magistrates to the neighbouring dispensary, in order to have its wounds and bruises dressed, their appearance being very unfavourable.27

and a story about a mortal battle between bees from two different hives that fought to the death over a patch of garden taken from the Portsmouth Paper,28 following an article on The Man in the Iron Mask signed by K. N. If this is the same person who wrote the article on the Representative in the London Magazine, it would explain the ample knowledge he has about the workings of John Murray’s newspaper. This raises the question of why a person would contribute to a publication he despised, unless he was seeking entrance to the inner circle of the newspaper so as to gather material for an article he would offer to a rival journal. Be that as it may, the following article is of some interest: THE IRON MASK It has been discovered that the person who was known by the appellation of the Man in the Iron Mask was no other than a Count Matthioli, Prime Minister of the Duke of Mantua. It appears that the cause of his imprisonment was his having sold to Spain the secret of a negotiation between his master and Louis XIV, for the surrender of Casale, the capital of the Duchy of Montserrat. The French King, being much enraged at his perfidy, gave orders to his Minister to take measures for his capture. This was effected by enticing him into the French frontier, where a troop of horse was in readiness to secure him. The prisoner was confined at first in Pignerol, from which place he was afterwards removed to the Bastile. The occasion of this change in the place of his confinement was owing to the appointment of the Governor of Pignerol to the Bastile. This transfer was considered expedient on account of the stratagems of the prisoner, inasmuch as it was not thought safe to intrust him to the care of a person 27 Ibid. 28 The Representative, 22 April 1826, 304.

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who was not aware of his schemes and character. The story of his writing his history on a silver plate is not true. Such a circumstance did take place, but it was at Valzin ; a poor Hugonot who was confined there inscribed some texts of Scripture on a plate, in hopes that some of his friends might pick it up, and thereby discover the place of his imprisonment. This occurrence has been mingled with the history of the Piedmontese prisoner. The Iron Mask was confined in the strict manner generally described, in consequence of his disposition for intrigue, which rendered him obnoxious and dangerous to Louis XIV. This account, which is founded on papers in the Depot of Foreign Affairs at Paris, was published many years ago. So prepossessed, however, were the people in favour of the marvellous, that they rejected the truth. The prisoner was buried on the 3rd of March, 1703 ; a few days before his death, he told his physician that he believed himself to be about sixty years of age. If he reckoned correctly, he must have been born in 1643.29 K. N.

These, and many other absorbing pieces are combined with lighter society notes or passages of social criticism coated in irony, like the following: MAXIMS FOR MINORS AND HINTS TO HOUSE-KEEPERS “Train up a child in the way that he shall go.” I As the mind naturally expands, the less you interfere in restraining it, the less contracted will its operations be ; wherefore── II When a child is able to speak or walk, give it its own way, particularly a first-born ; this will save infinite trouble. III When old enough to sit on a chair, introduce them to the dinner table, to eat and talk ad libidum. The sooner they become free and easy [,] the better. IV Indulge them in giving their opinion freely, and contradicting manfully ; which will be considered (especially by inferiors) as proof of spirit and genius.

29 Ibid.

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V Take them to the Methodist chapel on Sunday, to hear popular preaching, that they may be proficient in the excellent vocabulary of modern saints. VI Cant and humbug being much in vogue, encourage equivocation, as the first step to the useful and moral accomplishment of fibbing and white lie-ing──exemplified by the daily practice of “pious persons.” Paley’s30 works to be avoided like poison , lest his definition of a lie should interfere with their success. VII Instruct the girls in the minutiae of dress and fashion, that they may display their abilities in criticising others and show that they themselves know the difference between “flirting a fan” and “fanning a flirt.”31

During May there are not many remarkable points discussed in the daily issues, although the foreign correspondence continued to work very well, and various pieces of news from abroad can be found every day. The other important newspapers, especially The Times and the Morning Chronicle also carried foreign news, but they focused mostly on Europe, and none of them was as far-reaching as the Representative. Still, there were no advertisements, and without them the paper could not prosper. Possibly it was in the month of May that the final decision to merge the Representative with the New Times was made, because at this stage the newspaper had become more controversial and outspoken. The leading articles became what perhaps they should always have been: well developed and well written pieces of political analysis, still from a High Tory perspective, but not laudatory or superficial as the first ones were. At times the leaders are full of humour and irony, as the article on the ‘Death of Parliament’: REMARKABLE DEATH Yesterday died, at his house in Palace-yard, Westminster, Mr. Parliament, a personage of high consideration and extensive dealings in every part of world. The deceased boasted a long line of ancestors. The family are of Saxon descent, and their original name is said to have been Witenagemote,──a name famed for sound sense, discretion, and love of liberty. A family possessing such principles could not expect much favour in the eyes of 30 William Paley (1743–1805), Christian philosopher. 31 The Representative, 23 April 1826, 311.

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despotism : accordingly we lose sight of them immediately after the Conquest ; but they still survived, although in a totally neglected and abject state. It was not until the reign of Henry III they emerged from the obscurity to which they had been so long consigned, and began to resume their ancient splendour under the assumed name of Parliament. All great folks in England are fond of tracing their descent from a Norman Stock, and the family of Witenagemotes appear to have participated in this foible. In the reign of Henry III we find them spoken of as possessing considerable weight and influence in the country, and from all the family records and papers it appears that they continued to increase in affluence and importance. Indeed, some of their flatterers have been blasphemous enough to clothe them with one of the attributes of the Deity, and to boast the omnipotence of the Parliaments.32

At others, they are deeply serious, as in the address below to ‘The Electors of Great Britain’, where the author ominously warns the public that if ever the Protestant religion in Great Britain should open the door to Catholicism, there would be a return of the cruelty and horrors of the reign of Queen Mary: To lull you into a quiet indifference to this momentous subject, the advocates of what is called “Catholic Emancipation” would persuade you that the Papists of these days differ from the Papists of former times  ; but it is no such thing. The Roman Catholic religion remains to this moment in every respect the same ; indeed, “one of its most enlightened advocates declares it unchanged as it is unchangeable  ; and tells us, that he who says that any alteration has taken place in its nature, either deceives himself or wishes to deceive others.” It is neither divested, of its superstitions, its blasphemies, its falsehood, nor its blindness. Do they not still persist in the superiority of the Pope over their lawful sovereign? Has their bigotry been lessened? Do they not forbid the free use of the Holy Scriptures? Do not all the abominations of their idolatrous worship still exist? and, if we give them again but the upper hand, who will tell us that the flames around the stake will not again be fed with human flesh and blood? And who can venture to deny that all the tortures and horrible cruelties to which the Protestants were subjected in the bloody reign of Queen Mary, and other dark ages of Popery, will not too soon be revived in the overthrow of the Protestant Church?33

32 The Representative, 3 June 1826, 447. 33 Ibid.

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During the months of June and July, the newspaper continued to offer varied, well composed and original pieces of news and comments; at this stage, very few were taken from other publications. The issue of 24 June gave a full report on the 21 June elections for members of Parliament, among the usual articles of interest on finance, the theatre, the turf (called sporting news), ship movements, lighter anecdotes, and human interest stories. It also severely reprimanded Lord Thomas Cochrane, the well-known naval hero and liberal politician, for aiding Greece against Turkish occupation, and thus breaking the law. Lord Cochrane’s actions had been praised by The Times a few days earlier, but the Representative was unforgiving: The expedition of Lord Cochrane, and the extent of the armament, continue to be in obscuro. WE have, it is needless to say, a powerful fleet in the Levant, and his Lordship will have a difficult part to play, so as to keep himself, if the Greek ships join him, on the windy side of the law. Unless he has carried much more money with him than we have any notion of, it will be absolutely impossible for him to prevent his associates from pirating, and if they do commit any acts of piracy while his flag flies, it is easy to see who must take the consequences. Captain Hope, of the Alacrity, has just taken some Greek Pirates and sent them to Corfu.34

The Representative continued appearing regularly and without any changes until 30 July, when it was merged with the New Times, an event that John Murray’s enemies marked with relish: On this day, the 31st of July, The Representative, which has long been in a languishing way, was united to the New Times. This event is celebrated in an annunciation from the latter and more substantive journal of the two, in which we find some curious assertions. ‘The New Times,’ says the New Times ‘has been joined by the Representative, a measure often urged by the friends of both papers, and which we anticipate will meet the decided approbation of the public.’35 The author derives a moral lesson from this union and reminds his readers that at first, John Murray had judged the New Times not good enough for a publisher of his stature: The truth is that when Murray was about to bring forth the Representative, 34 The Representative, 26 June 1826, 523. 35 The London Magazine, v. 6, 1826, Sept. Dec., 75.

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the New Times was offered to him, but he disdainfully rejected the overture, saying he would not take it if it were given to him. How are the mighty fallen! How is the pride of the Rip humbled! on its last legs it is glad to grasp at the suitor it had so haughtily rejected.36 John Murray lost £26,000 (about £2,600,000 in today’s money), but soon recovered, as he said he would. His long friendship with Isaac D’Israeli and family however was damaged forever, but not due to the financial loss that Benjamin did not help to cover, as we will soon see. John Gibson Lockhart lamented bitterly the loss of income that the closure of the newspaper meant for him in a letter to his brother William Lockhart on 6 July 1826: ‘The change of situation has taken place under circumstances of unlooked-for difficulty and disadvantage, and things have turned out poorly indeed compared to what I had been led to expect’,37 yet he successfully continued to edit the Quarterly Review for the rest of his life. Benjamin Disraeli moved on from journalism to more illustrious undertakings, with a detour into fiction writing.

36 Ibid. 37 Andrew Lang, The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), vol. 1, 411.

chapter vi

The Sequel

W

hen one day in late February 1826 young Benjamin Disraeli closed the door of 50 Albemarle Street behind him for the last time, he was despondent and frustrated. For the past three weeks he had been acting editor of the Representative, and during the last few months he had been the moving force behind it. Yet lately he had seen that the publication, instead of rising to the expectations he himself had helped create, was being rejected by the public and derided by the journalistic world. Worse still, the failure was being blamed on him for his insistence on launching the paper too soon, for the lack of journalistic quality of the first two leading articles that he had written so sedulously, and certainly for his reckless spending during the previous months.1 Neither did the other notes he inserted in the paper, most of them dealing on the richness of South American mines (although a few centred on the evils of the Catholic Church) help the Representative become the number one publication in the country. The young man felt betrayed by John Gibson Lockhart and treated unfairly by John Murray. After he had defended Lockhart from his enemies in London and practically, in his view, saved his nomination as editor of the Quarterly Review, he had expected a friend and an ally against John Murray and the publisher’s timorous personality. But instead of supporting him, Lockhart had maintained a cool detachment and even found fault with Disraeli’s management of the newspaper, although earlier he had listened carefully to his gossip about John Murray’s drinking habits and even appeared to believe him, 1 Of this accusation at least we can absolve young Benjamin, as it is clear now from letters of the period, many of which are quoted here, that John Murray II never gave him a free hand with the funds to hire correspondents, reporters, buildings, or machinery for the newspaper.

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at first. Benjamin’s disappointment resulted from the unfair treatment he felt had been meted out on him. He had worked frantically day and night to bring the newspaper to light and now his efforts went unrecognised and the little authority he had deservedly, he believed, gained with regards to the running of the paper was being undermined by the two people less likely to do so: his former friend and ally, John Gibson Lockhart, and his mentor, John Murray. It must have been at this particular time that Disraeli remembered a rough draft for a novel he had started several months earlier, and decided he could make something out of it to tell his own side of the story and punish his former friends on the way. Yet in the end, this literary attempt at self-vindication and revenge, the first but not the only one of his career, hurt the avenger more than the intended victims. But that came later. In the summer of 1825 the D’Israeli family rented a house near Amersham that belonged to Robert Ward, a society man who had recently written a successful novel called Tremaine or The Man of Refinement. Few people read this novel today, or remember Ward at all except for his connection with Disraeli. The novel, which belonged to what was then called the ‘Silver Fork School’ because it dealt with the life and customs of the upper classes, had at first been published anonymously, but young Benjamin knew who the author was because Ward and the D’Israelis engaged the services of the same solicitor, Benjamin Austen, who also acted as literary agent to the author of Tremaine. It was generally understood that Austen’s young and beautiful wife, Sara, had helped her husband negotiate the deal with publisher Henry Colburn, and Disraeli approached her for help and advice on how to produce a novel in the style now in vogue. Naturally, Mrs Austen asked to see the manuscript before she decided whether to help the young author or not. Disraeli must necessarily have sent her the first ten chapters of Vivian Grey that deal with the protagonist’s childhood and youth. He could not have written more by then, and although he said later in his defence that the whole book had been composed during the summer of 1825, that is, before the experience of the Representative, that statement cannot be true. At that time, in 1825, he still believed that he would manage everything regarding the newspaper and that the Representative was ‘in his power’, to use an expression of his, so there was no need for revenge, yet. The next thirty-three chapters that deal with the affair and the undistinguished part he played in it must therefore have been written after he got in touch with Mrs Austen, and that is what her letters to young Benjamin reveal. On 25 February 1826, four days after his presence was last recorded at Albemarle Street, Sara Austen sent Disraeli the following enthusiastic reply:

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Patience is not one of my virtues, as I fear you will discover to your cost — and I could just as easily sit without speaking till Tuesday, as I wait till then to give you my opinion of your M.S. I am quite delighted with it, & enter into the spirit of the book entirely — I have now gone through it twice — the more I read the better I am pleased.2 She then adds that she does not praise lightly, promises to keep the secret of his anonymity when she begins negotiations with Colburn, and expresses her excitement at the prospect of launching his writing career. An indication that the draft Disraeli sent Sara Austen was far from perfect is her request that that they go through the manuscript together at her house, where he will have entry any day at any hour. Besides, she shows her love of intrigue when she tells him that she has written this note on ‘unladylike paper’ so that neither her own servant nor her young friend’s family will notice that the letter comes from her and not her husband. Finally, she asks him to burn the present note, a request he, fortunately, disregarded. In its edition of 1826, Vivian Grey was organised in two volumes divided into ‘Parts’. Each ‘Part’ contains ‘Books’ that include several chapters. The first Book deals with Vivian’s childhood, school experiences, and general digressions on philosophy and politics. The passages that deal with the Representative appear in Books two, three, and four of the first volume. It must have been the chapters in the first Book, and not more, that Disraeli sent Sara Austen for her assessment. This is confirmed because the first letter she ever sent him is dated 25 February 1826. Her subsequent letters, although undated, must have been written, therefore, during the following March and the first part of April of that same year; they all show that the novel was being written then, not before, as Disraeli always maintained. The date of the composition of books two to four of Vivian Grey is connected to the question of whether or not the young author used his novel to tell in his own way the story of the Representative and ridicule the people that took part in its creation, an accusation he always emphatically denied. Despite the novel’s initial success, Disraeli was later reluctant to publish a new edition of Vivian Grey until he was forced to give in to pressure, twenty-seven years later. The 1853 edition, expurgated by the author himself, has had whole passages and even chapters removed, so the numbering of the later editions does not coincide with that of the first. Disraeli scholar Wendy Burton has made a thorough comparison of the two existing drafts of the novel that provides some significant insights on its composition. The first, older version of the novel, which for many years was kept at Hughenden, is now at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The other one, edited by Sara Austen and which, it is believed, was 2 B. R. Jerman, The Young Disraeli (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 51.

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found among her papers after her death,3 is now in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. This second manuscript is practically identical to the published version of 1826.4 It follows, therefore, that this is the latest version, and the one that finally went to press, revised by Sara Austen, approved by Benjamin Disraeli, and by another person whose name will be revealed later in this narrative. The novel tells the story of the Representative from Benjamin’s point of view at the same time it betrays his resentment at the way the episode ended for him. Vivian Grey is about a clever and ambitious twenty-year-old man who receives a good education during his childhood and later, by the use of deceit and flattery, manipulates an older, not very bright nobleman in order to gain entry into the world of politics. His self-serving, dishonest intrigues are in the end the cause of the protagonist’s downfall. The second Part of the novel takes place on the Continent and deals with the young man’s attempts to atone for his earlier mistakes. It is of less interest to the present discussion, except perhaps the first chapter of Book V, which apart from invocations that that echo Byron’s Childe Harold, consists in an apology of the author and his work. The protagonist of Vivian Grey is, of course, Benjamin Disraeli himself, or what he would like to have been. Vivian’s wise father, Horace Grey, is based on Isaac D’Israeli, Benjamin’s father in real life; the plot of the novel is the little disguised story of the founding of the Representative, and the drunken, pompous, stupid older politician is intended as a portrait of John Murray II. When Vivian finishes school, at seventeen, it is decided that he will spend a year at home before entering Oxford, his obvious career path. During that time he reads the classics, becomes enthralled by Plato, and in his wish to dig deeper into that philosopher’s theories, he goes to his father for advice and for the loan of more books. Under the wise supervision of his father, young Vivian’s mind expands and he comes to know, accept, admire, and even respect modern philosophers as well as the classics, besides setting modern works of literature alongside the Greek models in an enriching operation of comparison and contrast. This greater intellectual depth does not, however, lead young Vivian towards the path his father had hoped of Oxford and perhaps an academic career, but to politics. The narrator of the novel delves deep into Vivian’s mind and describes the following often quoted conclusions at which the young man arrives:

3 ‘The Early Life of Lord Beaconsfield’, The Quarterly Review, 168(January and April 1889): 1–42, 10n. 4 Wendy Burton, ‘The Composition of Vivian Grey’, Disraeli Newsletter, vol. 2 2(Fall 1977): 30–46, 36.

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In England, personal distinction is the only passport to the society of the great. Whether this distinction arise from fortune, family, or talent, is immaterial; but certain it is, to enter into high society, a man must either have blood, a million, or a genius.5 Vivian’s father lacked the first two conditions, but his literary abilities had opened to him, and therefore to his son, the doors of London society. It is in the salons of the privileged, during his flirtations with the married ladies that Vivian has glimpses of his power over people and what is to be his life’s goal – politics When the time comes for Vivian to leave London for Oxford, he rejects the prospect of becoming a pupil again and of being subjected to others. His father is, of course, unhappy about his son’s decision and tries to talk him into listening to the voice of experience. He refers to the fever of speculation that has dominated the country during 1825 and predicts that it will come to no good, mentions the absence of moral values in society, and the faults in the administration of the government. He further suggests to his son that ‘the thirst for sudden wealth’ is poisoning the minds of the citizens and states that ‘fair trade and honourable professions’ are the only way of acquiring prominence in the world. Given Benjamin’s own experiences in the crash of 1825, it is tempting to believe that these are the very words Isaac D’Israeli spoke to his son in real life, and which in the novel are coming from the mouth of Vivian’s father, Horace Grey. But Vivian’s thoughts are running along different channels, and the reader has a view of the workings of his mind when he exclaims: The Bar—pooh! law and bad jokes till we are forty; and then, with the most brilliant success, the prospect of gout and a coronet. Besides, to succeed as an advocate, I must be a great lawyer, and, to be a great lawyer, I must give up my chance to be a great man. THE SERVICES in war time are fit only for desperadoes (and that truly am I); but in peace, are fit only for fools [….] Riches are Power, says the Economist; and is not Intellect? asks the philosopher. And yet, while the influence of The Millionaire is instantly felt in all classes of society, how is it that ‘Noble Mind’ so often leaves us unknown and unhonoured?6 After this rather cynical discovery, Vivian formulates the paradoxical definition of a politician and reveals his final goal:

5 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 23. 6 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 25–26.

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Oh, yes! to rule men, we must be men; to prove that we are strong, we must be weak; to prove that we are giants, we must be dwarfs; even as the Eastern Genie was hid in the charmed bottle. Our wisdom must be concealed under folly, and our constancy under caprice.7 It is in this mood of enhanced perception that Vivian/Benjamin introduces us to the Marquess of Carabas/ John Murray II. There can be little doubt that the pompous, ineffectual, easily deluded Marquess was meant to be a distorted portrait of the publisher. In the novel, the Marquess appears holding a senior but unimportant government post, because nobody there knew what to do with him. The nobleman and politician is introduced in the story during a dinner party at Horace Grey’s house, which has similarities to the parties held at Albemarle Street. A detailed account in Disraeli’s hand of a dinner party held at Albemarle Street on 27 November 1822, when young Benjamin was 17 years old, testifies to the fact that he had keen powers of observation and recall and that without a doubt the famous dinner party at Château Désir in Vivian Grey was modelled on the several he attended there as he was growing up. Yet, judging by the young man’s own portrayal, the actual dinner parties were much more sedate affairs where polite talk on books, authors, travel, and the theatre, was spiced with bits of literary gossip.8 Contrary to the fictional John Murray  II, the real-life man did not talk much during his parties and rather made his guests feel at ease to express their thoughts by suggesting a topic of general interest and choosing the dinner guest best suited to discuss it. There was only one exception to this practice, and that took place when the subject was Lord Byron: John Murray II was the ultimate authority on the poet. The particular dinner party that young Disraeli described so accurately was in honour of the poet Thomas Moore who had recently returned from a trip to France, so he was the main speaker and the man to whom the questions were addressed. Disraeli, in a display of his extraordinary memory, presented the interchange in the form of a dialogue, as if the party had been a play. Dinner parties like this one must certainly have provided the framework for the political dinner party scene in Vivian Grey, which is without a doubt a parody of the real gatherings to which the young man was often invited. The contrast between fact and fiction must have hurt and angered John Murray. In the novel, the dinner guests constitute a panoply of professions and occupations, academics, scientists, soldiers, poets and of course, a politician, embodied in the Marquess. Each guest has his say until it is the turn of 7 Ibid., 26. 8 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, A 26/5, ff. 100–115, Dinner party at John Murray’s.

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the Marquess who, given his poor intelligence and love of drink, begins a discussion he cannot uphold, and this in turn, puts him in a position he cannot defend. He is saved from an embarrassing situation by young Vivian who, speaking from the end of the table, declares that the Marquess has been misunderstood. He manipulates meanings, quotes opinions to his own advantage, cites political philosophers to prove that the position of the Marquess ‘[is] one of the soundest, wisest, and most convincing of opinions that ever was promulgated by mortal man’.9 The nobleman is flattered and delighted with his rescuer, who not only saves him from embarrassment, but also makes everyone believe that the brilliant discourse the young man has uttered is only a reflection of the Marquess’ eloquence and intelligence. The narrator of the novel, who is able to read the mind of each character, then reveals Vivian’s method for manipulating people older, and more powerful than himself: It was a rule with Vivian Grey, never to advance any opinion as his own. He had been too deep a student of human nature, not to be aware that the opinions of a boy of twenty, however sound, and however correct, stand but a poor chance of being adopted by his elder, though feebler, fellow-creatures. In attaining any end, it was therefore his system always to advance his opinion as that of some eminent and considered personage; and when, under the sanction of this name, the opinion or advice was entertained or listened to, Vivian Grey had no fear that he could prove its correctness and its expediency.10 The same method of subtle flattery practised by Vivian may have opened young Benjamin the door to John Murray’s heart in real life. This observation, as well as other similarities between fictional events and actual facts, suggest that Vivian Grey is an autobiographical account from start to finish. There is an obvious and simple parallel between the plot and characterisation in the novel, and the story of the founding of Representative and the people who took part in it. But there is another facet to this comparison: inside the novel, Vivian reveals motivations to his readers that young Benjamin must probably have had but did not verbalise, such as the fact that Benjamin’s final aim had always been to become a politician, and for which aim the newspaper was a vehicle, not an end in itself. Without doubt, the novel gains in richness and depth when the true events that inspired it are brought to mind. At the end of the evening described, Vivian has manipulated the Marquess in such a way as

9 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 37. 10 Ibid., 38.

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to make him feel witty, lively, and entertaining; in other words, quite pleased with himself. As time goes on, Vivian becomes the Marquess’ closest advisor, and soon induces the older man to form a new political party interpreting more faithfully his beliefs than does the Tory party at present. Benjamin points out the reasons why a new party is necessary and suggests who else could be invited to join: ‘My Lord,’ said Vivian, and he drew his chair close to the Marquess, ‘the plan is shortly this. There are others in a similar situation with yourself. All thinking men know, —your Lordship knows still better, —that there are others equally influential—equally ill-treated. How is it that I see no concert among these individuals? How is it that, jealous of each other, or each trusting that he may ultimately prove an exception to the system of which he is a victim; how is it, I say, that you look with cold hearts on each other’s situations? My Lord Marquess it is at the head of these that I would place you; it is these that I would have act with you—and this is the union which is strength.’11 This passage in Vivian Grey and others like it that deal with the formation of a new political party are one of the aspects of the book that made John Murray so angry. Disraeli copied into the novel whole passages of real conversations that had taken place in Albemarle Street and during meetings at the homes of other members of the cabal where a trusting John Murray used to take the young man. During the discussions relating to the formation of a new political party that would be born from the Tories but which would move further to the right, Benjamin Disraeli had listened quietly in the shadows and taken mental notes for later use. On top of this betrayal of trust, Vivian’s insincere flattery of the Marquess in the novel must have reminded John Murray of conversations he had held with Benjamin in the past and how the young man had managed to win his trust and his affection. ‘Leave all this to me—give me your Lordship’s name,’ said Vivian, whispering most earnestly in the Marquess’s ear, and laying his hand upon his Lordship’s arm—‘give me your Lordship’s name, and your Lordship’s influence, and I will take upon myself the whole organisation of the Carabas Party.’12

11 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 48. 12 Ibid., 48–49.

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From then on the Marquess and Vivian are constant companions in London until the time comes for the nobleman to move, with servants and family, to his summer residence, Château Désir. The castle is a hive of activity through which pass or are mentioned many prominent personages, some of them fictitious, others referred to by ridiculous sobriquets, such as Mrs Million, Mr Foaming Fudge, or Dr Sly; nevertheless a few actual political figures are named by their real names, John Wilson Croker and Foreign Secretary George Canning, among them. After the publication of Vivian Grey, many people tried to guess who the mystery characters were, but apart from those who are mentioned by their real name or a very obvious alias, as for instance Lord Waterloo for Lord Wellington, all the others appear to be fictitious with the exception of Vivian himself, who is Disraeli; Cleveland, who is a thinly disguised John Gibson Lockhart; and the Marquess of Carabas, who represents John Murray.13 There is a key character that has no equivalence in reality, although many said at the time that it was meant to be Lady Caroline Lamb, and that is Mrs Felix Lorraine, the Marquess’s devious sister-in-law. Mrs Lorraine may not have been modelled on a real woman young Benjamin knew. It seems that only those people who offended the author were represented as repulsive characters in his narratives. Vivian and the Marquess spend the first weeks at the château shaping the future party, although the young man allows himself time to talk to every guest and to charm the ladies. Once negotiations for the formation of the party have progressed enough, it is decided that the principal members concerned, Lord Courtown and Lord Beaconsfield should meet for a private dinner at the Marquess’ library. And here follows one of the most notorious scenes in the book, the one that probably caused most offence and which Disraeli rewrote completely for the 1853 edition. In it, Vivian is depicted as a clever and responsible young man, while the Marquess appears stupid, incoherent, and a drunkard to boot. Before the dinner starts, the Marquess has already been ‘dashing off’ tumblers of Burgundy to give him courage. After the venison is disposed of, the Marquess begins his speech: ‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’ began the Marquess, ‘although I have myself taken the opportunity of communicating to you singly my thoughts upon a certain subject, and although, if I am rightly informed, my excellent young friend has communicated to you more fully upon that subject; yet, my Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to remark, that this is the first time, 13 If further proof were needed, there is the copy of the first draft of Vivian Grey in Benjamin’s own hand reproduced here (Figure 4), showing that the Marquess of Carabas was originally to be called ‘John’. Afterwards the name is crossed out and exchanged for that of ‘Sydney’.

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Figure 4  Manuscript page of Vivian Grey, believed to be the first of the two original manuscripts of the novel. The crossed out name ‘John’ supports the argument that the character of Carabas was indeed meant to be Murray. Dep. Hughenden 216/1, p. 92, courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

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that we have collectively assembled to consult on the possibility of certain views, upon the propriety of their nature, and the expediency of their adoption.’ Here the bottle passed and the Marquess took a bumper.14 In this introductory part of his speech, the Marquess is made to appear as a bumbling fool who has not much idea of what he is saying, has already been drinking, and continues to do so: ‘My Lords and Gentlemen, when I take into consideration the nature of the various interests, of which the body politic of this great empire is regulated; (Lord Courtown, the bottle stops with you) when I observe, I repeat, this, I naturally ask myself what right, what claims, what, what, what,—I repeat, what right, these governing interests have to the influence which they possess? (Vivian, my boy, you’ll find Champagne on the waiter behind you.) Yes, gentlemen, it is in this temper (the corkscrew is by Sir Berdmore), it is, I repeat, in this temper, and actuated by these views, that we meet together this day.’15 This is the core passage of the 1826 version of Vivian Grey, where the narrator moves one step further and represents the Marquess at a stage of intoxication where he does not know what he is saying. The cruelty behind this portrayal, even if it had been true to life, is evident, despite the witty transcription of a drunken man’s monologue and the accurate tone of comedy of the whole scene. This passage, along with others where Vivian or the narrator use incorrect forms of French, reveals that the author had never seen a bottle of champagne or knew the way of opening one, and made the public wonder that perhaps the writer was not the man of fashion publisher Colburn asserted. London was astir with the mystery of the authorship of the novel, and journalists and people in general advanced guesses and proposed names, that of John Wilson Croker and Theodore Hook,16 among others. As further proof that Disraeli was very much aware of the damage he was causing to a person who had loved him like a son, there is the 1853 version of Vivian Grey. This same scene, for instance, expurgated by Disraeli himself, presents a new Marquess who is rational, coherent, and capable of formulating sound ideas; a portrait perhaps closer to reality. There is also claret in this new passage, but it is drunk in moderation:

14 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 115. 15 Ibid., 115–116. 16 Theodore Hook was the editor of the Tory journal John Bull.

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‘My Lords and Gentlemen,’ he [the Marquess] began, although I have myself taken the opportunity of communicating to you singly my thoughts upon a certain subject, and although, if I am rightly informed, my excellent young friend has communicated to you more fully upon that subject; yet, my Lords and Gentlemen, ‘I beg to remark that this is the first time that we have collectively assembled to consult on the possibility of certain views, upon the propriety of their nature, and the expediency of their adoption.’ (Here the claret passed.)17 The man who rewrote the above passage in 1853 was in his fifties, by then more sober and rational than he had been when younger. He even adds a passage to the new version, also spoken by the Marquess, that gives more depth to the narrative: ‘The present state of parties,’ the Marquess continued, ‘has doubtless for a long time engaged your attention. It is very peculiar, and although the result has been gradually arrived at, it is nevertheless, now that it is realised, startling, and not, I aprehend, very satisfactory. There are few distinctions now between the two sides of the House of Commons, very different from the times in which most, I believe all, of us, my Lords and Gentlemen, were members of that assembly. The question then naturally arises, why a certain body of individuals, who now represent no opinions, should arrogate to themselves the entire government and control of the country? A second question would occur, how they contrive to succeed in such an assumption? They succeed clearly because the party, who placed them in power because they represented certain opinions, still continue to give them their support.’18 In both versions the Marquess introduces Vivian to his associates, and the young man in turn convinces the present company of the need to form a new party that will better embody their political views. When the time comes to name the leader of the future party, there is consensus that Vivian should be that man, with the exception of Sir Bedmore who remarks that the protégé of the Marquess is still young and inexperienced. He says, however, that if the others wish to entrust the young man with the task of becoming leader of the new party, he will support him fully. Do these discussions mirror the talks regarding an editor for the Representative? We do not know, but it is tempting to think so. 17 Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey, revised 1853 edition, (London: Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, 1859), 79. 18 Disraeli, revised 1853 edition of Vivian Grey, 80.

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To this, the Marquess replies in 1826: ‘“He can do anything”, shouted the Marquess, who was now quite tipsy’.19 In 1853 the Marquess was sober: ‘“He can do anything,” said the Marquess’.20 But Vivian nobly refuses, and therefore the Marquess proposes the name of a politician who lives in retirement in Wales, Frederic Cleveland. The name arouses protests from those present, who call him ‘Lucifer’. This passage is very similar to the events that led to the engagement of John Gibson Lockhart as editor of the Representative and the Quarterly Review. There are a few changes, such as Wales instead of Scotland for the place where Lockhart/ Cleveland lives, but the opposition his name stirred is the same, both in reality as in fiction. The same as in real life, Benjamin/Vivian is sent to convince their man to come out of retirement and travel to London to take this offer. When Vivian arrives in Wales, the similarities continue. Cleveland is described as ‘a tall and elegantly formed man, with a face which might have been a model of male beauty’,21 who appears annoyed at Vivian’s intrusion. Then Vivian states the purpose of his mission, in the novel an invitation to come to London to form a new political party; and the offer to edit a newspaper in real life. The rendering of the offer betrays the real reason behind the creation of the Representative: Certain Noblemen and Gentlemen of eminence, and influence, hitherto considered as props of the [Tory] ---------- party, are about to take a novel and decided course next Session. It is to obtain the aid, and personal co-operation of Mr Cleveland, that I am now in Wales.22 Cleveland, the same as Lockhart, refuses the offer at first, but Vivian manages to convince him through the use of flattery. He tells Lockhart/ Cleveland that he should not waste his ‘splendid talents’ in a village but should use them to revenge himself from Carabas by rising to power and influence. His host is convinced in the end, and as with events in real life, he sends his servant to the village for Vivian’s luggage and invites him to stay at his house and meet his wife. After some discussion, the two men decide that Cleveland will resign his post in Wales and travel to London to become the head of the new political party. It is risky to take Disraeli’s narrative to the letter and to forget that this is not an account of real events but a vindication of the hurt feelings of a very young man, yet in the absence of documentary evidence, many people have felt 19 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 117. 20 Vivian Grey, revised 1853 edition, 81. 21 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 126. 22 Ibid., 128.

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the need to do so. There is enough proof, however, of events that took place in real life after Lockhart/Cleveland arrives in London and which become important passages in the novel. One of these is John Murray’s anger at the behaviour of his envoy and the subsequent coolness between the publisher and young Benjamin. After Cleveland arrives in Chateau Désir and gets an oily reception from the Marquess and admiring looks from Mrs Lorraine, they all get down to business and start planning the formation of the new party. However, a few days later Vivian realises that the Marquess has changed his attitude towards Cleveland: The Marquess grew reserved and uncomunicative, scarcely mentioning ‘the great business’, which had previously been the sole subject of his conversation, but to find fault with some arrangement, and exhibiting, whenever his name was mentioned, a marked acrimony against Mr Cleveland.23 When Vivian asks the Marchioness if she knows the reason for the change in her husband, the reader realises that the narrator has not been quite truthful in his account because the Marquess of Carabas is annoyed with Vivian, not Cleveland. The relationship between Cleveland and the nobleman has never been warm, so an intensification of the coolness would not be much noticed. With his usual charm Benjamin/Vivian talks to the lady about lap dogs and bracelets while he subtly lets slip the question he has been meaning to ask all along: ‘By the bye, how is the Marquess? He seems in low spirits lately.’ ‘Oh! Mr Grey, I do not know what you have done to him,’ said her Ladyship, settling at least a dozen bracelets; ‘but—but—‘ ‘But what, my Lady?’ ‘He thinks—he thinks——’ ‘Thinks what, my Lady?’ ‘That you have entered into a conspiracy, Mr Grey.’24 And now that the Marchioness has opened up, she tells Vivian everything and the reader realises that the Marquess is angry with Vivian, not Cleveland, and why. The anger of the Marquess has an uncanny resemblance to the bad feeling between John Murray and Disraeli, and which the latter revealed in his letters. In chapter 3 we mentioned that as soon as Benjamin returned 23 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 135. 24 Ibid., 136.

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from Scotland for the second time, he had to face a furious John Murray who accused him of ruining his mission. We learn from Benjamin’s letters to Lockhart that the older man’s anger did not subside with the passing of time, therefore this passage in the novel may be close to reality, as may be the reasons Lady Carabas gives Vivian for her husband’s changed attitude towards him. The revealing conversation with the Marchioness continues: ‘Entered into a conspiracy!’ ‘Yes! Mr Grey, a conspiracy against the Marquess of Carabas, with Mr Cleveland. He thinks that you made him serve your purpose, and now you are going to get rid of him.’ ‘Well, that is excellent; and what else does he think? ‘He thinks that you talk too loud,’ said the Marchioness, still working at her bracelets.25 It is true that from the start Disraeli tried to win Lockhart over to his side in order to form a united front against John Murray, as his letters from that period reveal. There is a great deal of ‘us’ and ‘we’ in them, and talk of future activities they will undertake together. This is why it is intriguing, to say the least, to find the fictional John Murray as suspicious of Vivian/Benjamin as the real life one. But aside from all this, the last sentence of the communication from the Marchioness has a ring of truth and clinches the argument. At Vivian’s repeated question of what else does the Marquess say or think, his wife replies: ‘He thinks you are generally too authoritative’. We know for certain that at least in his letters regarding the setting up of the newspaper, Benjamin forgot himself and wrote rather rude letters to John Murray, issuing orders and warnings, as if John Murray were the penniless, inexperienced youth, and Benjamin Disraeli the respected and experienced London publisher. The following chapters of Vivian Grey describe the concerns of the day and the literary gossip that young Benjamin must have gathered during the days and evenings spent at Albemarle Street. The ideas exchanged between Vivian and Cleveland, or among other politicians staying at the Château, reflect those of the right wing of the Tory party. A revealing conversation between Cleveland and Vivian on the Catholic Question appears to reinforce the suspicion that the formation of a new party comprising the right wing of the Tories had been a serious possibility for a time. In that event, it would have been disloyal of Benjamin to disclose its existence, but apparently this is what he did in several passages of his novel, including this one:

25 Ibid.

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‘This confounded Catholic Question is likely to give us a great deal of trouble, Grey. It is perfect madness for us to advocate the cause of the ‘six millions of hereditary bondsmen’; and yet, with not only the Marchesse, but even Courtown and Beaconsfield committed, it is, to say the least, a very delicate business.’ ‘Very delicate, certainly; but there are some precedents, I shrewdly suspect, Cleveland, for the influence of a party being opposed to measures, which the heads of that party had pledged themselves to adopt.’26 This last sentence, spoken by Vivian himself, appears to confirm that the aim of the formation of the new party, both in fiction as in real life, was to oppose the very measures that the leaders of the party promoted. One of these was the disfranchising of Catholics, as mentioned in a previous chapter, the other was the abolition of slavery. In this instance in the novel, Secretary Canning is named openly. In the same conversation between Vivian and Cleveland, both men are discussing the ingratitude of politicians: ‘Oh, Canning! I love the man: but, as you say, Cleveland, ministers have short memories, and Canning’s [….] apropos to whom, I quite rejoice that the Marquess has determined to take such a decided course on the West India Question.’ ‘Oh, yes! curse your East India sugar.’ ‘To be sure—slavery, and sweetmeats, for ever!’27 This last sentence may be a reflection of the inexplicable Representative policy of support for slavery, although the flippancy of the remark ought to be blamed on Disraeli’s youth. After this rather frivolous exchange, the two friends discuss inconsequential matters before they return to the subject that had occupied them before, but this time in a more serious tone. The following observation uttered by Cleveland appears to be a report someone gave during one of the meetings of the cabal that Disraeli attended and reproduced verbatim in his novel:28 ‘But, aside with joking, Grey, I really think, that if any man of average ability dare rise in the House, and rescue many of the great questions of the day from what Dougald Stuart, [One of the most respected philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment] or D’Israeli, [Benjamin’s 26 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 190. 27 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 191. 28 Given the strong participation of Christian thinkers in the slavery debate, Lockhart/ Cleveland’s observation appears extremely reckless.

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father] would call the spirit of Political Religionism, with which they are studiously mixed up, he would not fail to make a great impression upon the House, and a still greater one upon the country.29 Interestingly, the Representative continued to endorse the practice of slavery, even after Disraeli’s departure, which may be another indication that these ideas were supported by the dissident Tory faction initially behind the creation of the newspaper. As we saw in the last chapter, this stance was unpopular at all levels of society, not only within the religious bloc, as Cleveland ironically implies, and must have been another black mark placed on the Representative. The defence of the practice of slavery is articulated by Vivian and based on economic and patriotic principles, probably derived from the postulations of the West India Interest, the lobbying group that had been behind the creation of the Representative from the beginning. John Murray must have become very angry indeed as he read on: ‘I quite agree with you; and certainly I should recommend commencing with the West India Question. Singular state of affairs! when even Canning can only insinuate his opinion, when the very existence of some of our most valuable colonies is at stake, and when even his insinuations are only indulged with an audience, on condition that he favours the House with an introductory discourse of twenty minutes on ‘the divine Author of our faith’ —and an eloge of equal length on the esprit du Christianisme, in a style worthy of Chateaubriand’.30 Vivian does not act on the information extracted from the Marchioness, and the day comes for the Marquess of Carabas and his entourage to return to London. One morning, when already back in London, Vivian receives a note from the Marquess asking him to come urgently to Carabas House. What would be their last meeting begins pleasantly enough, although the young man realises that evil Mrs Lorraine has been whispering slander against him into the Marquess’ ear. Apparently, what the older man wanted was reassurance that Vivian was still his faithful ally, and appeared satisfied with Vivian’s protestations at first. However, when the post arrives, the Marquess finds that all the letters he receives that day contain accusations of deceit and dishonesty against Vivian. But this is not all. The next letter the Marquess opens is an official communication informing him that His Majesty has no longer need of 29 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 192. 30 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 192. Chateaubriand, writer and politician well known for his support of the monarchic style of government, but most of all for his role in the return of France to the Catholic fold.

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his services in the post the he currently holds, and that is the final straw. The scene that follows has been taken by many as a retelling of events in real life and imagine a furious John Murray pushing young Benjamin down the steps of Number 50 into Albemarle Street: I will not affect to give any description of the conduct of the Marquess of Carabas at this moment. He raved! he stamped! he blasphemed! but the whole of his abuse was levelled against his former ‘monstrous clever’ young friend; of whose character he had so often boasted that his own was the prototype, but who was now an adventurer—a swindler—a scoundrel—a liar—a base, deluding, flattering, fawning villain, etc., etc., etc., etc. ‘My Lord!’ —said Vivian.31 Indeed, the last interview between the two men may have been similar to this; John Murray  II was known to have an irritable temper, but the final part of the scene resembles the reworking of a painful episode that people sometimes construct in their minds to avoid the pain and humiliation of true recall: ‘I will not hear you—out on your fair words! They have duped me enough already. That I, with my high character, and connections! that I, the Marquess of Carabas, should have been the victim of the arts of a young scoundrel!’ Vivian’s fist was once clenched—but it was only for a moment. The Marquess leant back in his chair, with his eyes shut. In the agony of the moment, a projecting tooth of his upper jaw, had forced itself through his underlip, and from the wound, the blood was flowing freely over his dead white countenance. Vivian left the room.32 In the novel, Disraeli applies a balm to his hurt pride by killing Vivian’s enemies or, at least, watching their blood flow. Mrs Lorraine, who has told insidious lies about him to the Marquess and to Cleveland, is killed off by the sudden rupture of a vein. Cleveland’s end is more sinister: he forces Vivian to challenge him to a duel, and the young man unwillingly kills him. This disposal of Cleveland by death through a duel, given the bitter associations duelling had for John Gibson Lockhart, shows Disraeli at his lowest and could explain the life-long enmity between the two men. It should be remembered that five years earlier, in 1821, John Gibson Lockhart became involved in a bitter quarrel with London journalist John Scott (no relation to Sir Walter), which ended with the death of Scott in a duel where Lockhart’s friend, 31 Wolf, Vivian Grey, 1826 edition, 214. 32 Ibid.

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Jonathan Christie, fired the fatal shot. The blame for Scott’s death, however, was always placed at Lockhart’s door, not Christie’s. This situation helps explain the animosity Lockhart’s name aroused in London’s literary circles when it became known that he would be editor of the Quarterly Review.33 After the duel, Vivian, as Disraeli was in real life, is ill for several weeks and his family, especially his father, for a time fear that they will lose him; eventually he recovers and on the advice of his father decides to leave England. The novel was written under the close supervision of Mrs Austen, who edited the passages she considered vulgar and copied the text in her own hand to avoid any suspicion of the real identity of the author. This shows that even at that stage she knew that the book would awaken controversy. Yet one significant revelation in her letters has gone unnoticed, and that is the fact that Mr D’Israeli senior took an active part in the editing of the novel. Later on it will be clear that John Murray’s anger at the content of Vivian Grey was directed at Isaac as well as at Benjamin. If he had read some of the communications between the young man and Sara Austen, he would have been angrier still. In May 1826 she sent her protégé the following letter: I have this moment received these proof sheets, & lose no time in sending them that Mr D’Israeli may have an opportunity of seeing them this morning – I have a particular reason for wishing you would both avoid writing on them, as least so as your hand could be detected [….] Cannot you get Mr D’I to correct in pencil & will alter it – light lead would easily rub out.34 And if more confirmation were needed of the part Isaac D’Israeli played in the writing of his son’s novel, there is at least one other recorded letter by Sara Austen to Benjamin Disraeli on the same subject, where she exclaims: ‘I would give the world to know what Mr D’I says of the MS tomorrow’35 thus giving to understand that the senior D’Israeli kept a close watch and control on what his son wrote. Vivian Grey was published on the 22 April 1826, after being extensively advertised by publisher Henry Colburn. He had accepted the manuscript from Mrs Austen without knowing the identity of the author, such was the popularity of this type of novel. He controlled or owned several literary magazines and in early April he published a note announcing the coming of a new novel: 33 For a detailed account of the Lockhart-John Scott affair, see Appendix I, ‘The “Poisonous Pen” of John Gibson Lockhart’, pp. 181–193. 34 Quoted in B. R. Jerman, 58. Italics in the original. 35 Letters from Mrs Austen, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, A/D/ 12/2 f. 17.

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A very singular novel of the satirical kind is on the eve of publication, to be called Vivian Grey. It is said to be a sort of Don Juan in prose, detailing the adventures of an ambitious, dashing and talented young man of high life. The style in which it is written is, we understand, perfectly original and spirited, and near all the individuals at present figuring in fashionable society are made to flourish with different degrees of honour, in the pages of this new work. It has been whispered that it is the intention of the author to resume the history of his hero (after the manner of Lord Byron’s celebrated work) from time to time, to carry him into every scene of modern life, and to make him intimately acquainted with every fashionable and political character of the day.36 The novel was a success with the public, but from the day it was published there were negative opinions as to its literary qualities and wild guesses as to who its author might be. To the names already mentioned, of Croker and Hook, were soon added those of John Gibson Lockhart and William Maginn. The London Magazine disdainfully called it ‘decidedly the cleverest production of the class to which it belongs’.37 After the author of the article gives a damning account of the plot, he apologises for the initial positive statement, and concludes by saying that ‘this is one of those books which read lightly and pleasantly enough, but which will not bear consideration’.38 No one as yet had suggested the possibility of Benjamin Disraeli being the author, therefore no one had connected the Marquess with John Murray. In this same article it is suggested that the Marquess is a portrait of the Duke of Buckingham, a rather unreliable nobleman and politician. Public acclaim, manifested in newspaper articles, and even author Plumer Ward’s open admiration for the novel, were combined with attacks on the as yet unknown author. The negative opinions were based mostly on the suspicion articulated by literary critic William Jerdan in the Monthly Magazine, 22 April 1826: This somewhat smacks of the literary writer, and were we not assured that in these days […] when the terms author and nobleman are synonymous, we should have a sinister idea that the class of the author was a little betrayed by his often recurrence to topics of this sort, about which the mere man of fashion knows nothing and cares less.39 36 Quoted in R. W. Stewart, ‘The Publication and Reception of Disraeli’s Vivian Grey’, The Quarterly Review, vol. 298 (comprising numbers 623, 624, 625, 626 published Jan., April, July and Oct. 1960 409–417), 411–412. 37 ‘Vivian Grey’, The London Magazine, vol. 5, 1826 (May–August): 207–217, 207. 38 Ibid., 216. 39 Quoted in R. W. Stewart, 413.

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Among the subjects in which the man of fashion would not be interested, Jerdan includes literary anecdotes and gossip, but other critics may have also noticed that Vivian did not have first-hand knowledge of the way that affairs were conducted in higher spheres, or the codes used among the privileged classes. Charles Knight in the first issue of the Literary Magnet said in May, 1826: The constant aim of the author of Vivian Grey is to appear to have mixed in what he calls fashionable society. Hence the most ludicrous affectation of good breeding. Hence his constant cry of ‘damn everything that’s low’ [….] Hence his eternal gabble about hock and seltzer water, ‘champaigne,’ ‘maraschino,’ ‘curacoa’; ‘cuisines superbes,’40 ‘horrid bores;’ ‘first and second dinner bells,’ ‘lots of Havana cigars;’ ‘bad taste; immensely interesting persons;’ and all the slang and common-place verbiage peculiar to those pretenders who derive their notions of good society from the housekeeper’s room and the servants hall.41 About a month after the publication of Vivian Grey, the secret of its authorship was revealed. In the gossip section of the same issue of the London Magazine that published a long review of the novel, William Jerdan finally unveiled the mystery. Robert Blake suggests that the constant references to Vivian’s father, Horace Grey, who is recognisably Isaac D’Israeli, may have awakened the suspicions of the critic, but most of all, the fact that Jerdan knew John Murray and therefore the story of the Representative, must have focused his suspicions on the young man.42 In his announcement, the reviewer makes a cryptic remark regarding the treacherous nature of snakes, more proof still that John Murray was right to feel betrayed: Vivian Grey is said to be by young D’Israeli. Here is a circumstance for Murray’s back shop! our cat is wringing her hands. There is much talk about hospitality to serpents, and stinging, and all that.43 After this revelation, the attacks of the critics on the young author became extremely cruel and it may have been these attacks and not so much his losses in the stock market, or his shattered expectations for the Representative that brought about his illness. He intimates this in a much quoted passage of his 40 This expression appears in Robert Plumer Ward’s novel Tremaine, 23, and B. Disraeli may well have been inspired to include it in Vivian Grey for that reason. 41 The Literary Magnet or Monthly Journal, vol. 1 new series, ‘Nuisances of the Press’ (London, 1826): 2. 42 Blake, 40–41. 43 Monthly Magazine, n.s., vol. 5, May–Aug. 1826, 252.

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novel Contarini Fleming, published in 1832, and considered to be autobiographical, like most of his fiction. In the story, a young man like himself receives harsh criticism for his novel, Manstein, and his reaction when he learns of it, may well have reflected Disraeli’s true feelings at learning the opinion of the critics on his novel, Vivian Grey: With what horror, with what blank despair, with what supreme appalling astonishment did I find myself for the first time in my life the subject of the most reckless, the most malignant, and the most adroit ridicule. I was sacrificed, I was scalped. They scarcely condescended to notice my dreadful satire, except to remark, in passing, that, bye the bye, I appeared to be as ill-tempered as I was imbecile…. The criticism fell from my hand. A film floated over my vision; my knees trembled. I felt that sickness of heart, that we experience in our first serious scrape. I was ridiculous. It was time to die.44 In Disraeli’s ‘Mutilated Diary’ there is the confession that three of his novels are autobiographical, or at least that: My work is the embodification of my feelings. In Vivian Grey I have portrayed my active and real ambition. In Alroy, my ideal ambition. The P.R. (psychological romance, that is Contarini Fleming) is a development of my poetic character. This Trilogy is the secret history of my feelings.45 The critics were unforgiving when they found out that the most talkedabout novel in London had been composed by a young man who was barely twenty years old and who pretended to belong to the world of privilege and refinement and, yet was a stranger to one, and had none of the other. The harshest words belonged to ‘Christopher North’, Lockhart’s former associate in Blackwood’s, and to Charles Knight, a friend of John Murray’s writing in the Literary Magnet. Not far behind was Dr George Croly’s pronouncement in the Monthly Magazine who, like the others, directed his criticism at the person of the author rather than his work. Writing in August, 1826, Croly qualifies the novel as valueless and its author as an impertinent young man: The latest performance of the novel press is Vivian Grey, immeasurably the most impudent of all feeble things, and of impudent things the most feeble; begot in puppyism, conceived in pertness, and born in puffing. 44 Earl of Beaconsfield, Contarini Fleming: A Psychological Romance (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1901), 186. 45 Quoted in B. R. Jerman, The Young Disraeli, 69.

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whether the writer was anything above a collector of intelligence in servants’-halls billiard rooms, no one of course could tell, for no one had ever heard his name before; but the graces of a tavern-waiter, and the knowledge of a disbanded butler, are but sorry things, after all, to trade upon; and this miserable product of self-sufficiency was received with the contempt due to its abortiveness.46 ‘Puppyism’, ‘pertness’, and ‘puffing’ were strong and hurtful terms to use in relation to a work that had been so highly praised by the author’s family and certainly by his guide and mentor, Mrs Austen. Young Benjamin did not expect these strong personal attacks or the underrating of his work, but more was coming. ‘Christopher North’ in Blackwood’s Magazine, demolished the novel and its author by simply ignoring them both and directing instead his darts at the publisher, Colburn. For the critic, the novel Vivian Grey is a hoax played on gullible people for the sole purpose of making a quick profit, and the author, mentioned only once as ‘the writer’ is a person of no importance. For a narcissistic personality such as Benjamin Disraeli’s, this paragraph must have jarred deeply. Years later, in Contarini Fleming, he would refer to the hurtful review of the main character’s novel in a ‘ journal of the north of Europe’.47 This journal cannot have been other than Blackwood’s from Edinburgh, and the ‘grave censor’ who failed to appreciate the ‘decided genius of the work’, was, therefore, John Wilson, aka Christopher North: Colburn, James, must have sent puffs of Vivian Grey to all the newspapers, fastening the authorship on various gentlemen, either by name or innuendo; thus attaching an interest to the book, at the sacrifice of the feelings of those gentlemen, and I may add, the feelings of his own conscience. The foolish part of the public thus set agoing after Vivian Grey, for example, puff after puff continues to excite fading curiosity, and Colburn, knowing all the while that the writer is an obscure person, for whom nobody cares a straw, chuckles over the temporary sale, and sees the names of distinguished writers opprobriously banded about by the blackguards of the press, indifferent to anything but the ‘Monish’ [money] which he is thus enabled to scrape together from defrauded purchasers, who, on the faith of puff and paragraph, believed the paltry catchpenny to be from the pen of a man of genius and achievement.48 46 R. W. Stewart, Quarterly Review, vol. 298, 416–417. 47 Contarini Fleming, 185. 48 ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 20 (July–Dec. 1826): 90–109, http://archive.org/stream/blackwoodsmagazi20dinuoft.

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Charles Knight in the Literary Magnet reinforced and expanded ideas on the composition of the novel and the character of its author that had already been voiced by others, in a similar aggressive tone. Again the author is accused of obtaining his material from persons of the ‘lower orders’, while pretending that he is one of the refined members of a society he speaks about with remarkable familiarity. With the help of the devious tactics of his publisher, and a bold disregard of the decencies of life; an intimacy with a pretty tolerable number of the footmen, abigails, and under-butlers of persons of fashion about town; and five pounds worth of half-crowns to slide into the palms of such of them as he happens to have no personal interest with; the veriest dunce of the age might in the space of from three weeks to a month concoct a novel calculated to make no inconsiderable noise in the world of fashion.49 Charles Knight’s violent attack on Vivian Grey and its author has been discredited by critics and biographers, yet the fact of his being a friend of John Murray, and therefore a witness of most of the affair, cannot be overlooked. Two points he makes are of some relevance. The first is that Vivian Grey was offered first to John Murray for publication, a request the publisher rejected, and the second, that young Benjamin was practically the editor and main cause of the downfall of the Representative. According to Knight, Disraeli denied at first that he was the author of the novel: Having heard that several horsewhips were preparing for him, Mr D’Israeli had the meanness to call upon various persons who have been introduced in Vivian Grey, and deny, upon his honour as a gentleman, that he was the author of the book.[…] Our readers will form a pretty correct notion of this person’s pretensions to the character to which he aspires, when we mention upon ‘indisputable authority’ that HE IS THE AUTHOR, and that he has himself told more than one individual that he is. No one knows better than Mr Murray who has written Vivian Grey; since that gentleman might have published it if he had not already had so complete a specimen of the author’s abilities in his Representative. It was, we are confidently informed, offered to him in the first instance.50 If we are to believe Charles Knight, there was no dramatic scene in the parting between John Murray and his young friend, and on the contrary, after 49 ‘Nuisances of the Press’, 2. 50 Ibid., 5–6.

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the latter disappeared from Albemarle Street in February, he reappeared with the manuscript of a novel the following month. In that case, did he present the manuscript to John Murray as if it had been written by someone else? There is no evidence to support this theory except for one detail. Why would Sara Austen be so insistent that the handwriting of either D’Israeli should not appear on the manuscript if Colburn, the publisher, had never seen either. But John Murray could have recognised the hand of father or of son, and that eventuality may have been the reason behind Sara Austen’s self-imposed task of copying the whole manuscript herself to preserve Benjamin’s anonymity. Still, this fact will remain a mystery for lack of strong evidence to confirm it. But whether or not John Murray was the first publisher that was approached for Vivian Grey, the fact remains that despite Benjamin’s intention not to reveal his name, he was soon found out, and with disclosure came the accusations. John Murray’s friends and associates were quick to recognise the publisher in the Marquess of Carabas and John Murray was decidedly angry, not only at Benjamin but also at his father, and said so to anyone who would listen. A token of the degree of John Murray’s anger is the fact that one evening, ‘[t]he Murrays “cut” the D’Israelis at the house of a friend’.51 War was declared between the two families, and of what followed, we fortunately have faithful records in the letters that were sent from Bloomsbury Square to Albemarle Street. Of these, the best known is the letter Mrs D’Israeli sent John Murray II on 21 May 1826, in the wake of another, written by Benjamin very early that Sunday morning and addressed to Mrs Murray. In his letter, the young man appears distressed and his words reveal some of the turmoil this break up was causing him and his whole family. His appeal to Mrs Murray, as the mother in the family and not to the head, reveals his immaturity as much as the tenor of his letter does, where he childishly plays the victim first, then follows with a vague threat, and finishes urging a quick solution to the impasse they have all arrived at, conveniently forgetting that it had all been mostly his doing: Sunday Morning, 8 o’clock, May 21st 1826 Dear Madam, I request your particular attention to this letter, which I do assure you is written purely out of respect and regard for you and your family. These feelings have hitherto prevented me from noticing in any manner Mr Murray’s conduct towards me — they prevent me at this moment from applying any epithet to his conduct characteristic of my opinion of its nature — and they would have altogether have prevented me from noticing it at all, as long as the knowledge of it was confined to 51 George Paston. ‘Young Disraeli and his Adventures in Journalism’, The Cornhill Magazine vol. 73, Nr. 436(Oct. 1932), 396.

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Figure 5 Three pages of a letter from Maria Disraeli to John Murray II, 21 May 1826, NLS, JMA MS 42625, ff. 129–130. Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.

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a few private and mutual friends. But Mr Murray has overstepped the bounds, which the remembrance of former friendship, has too indulgently conceded him, and he has spoke and is now speaking of me to the world generally in terms which to me are inexplicable, as they appear to be outrageous. Under these circumstances, one course is apparently only left to me of the most decided and deplorable nature, but before I have recourse to it I wish, for the sake of all interested, to give you every opportunity of rendering it unnecessary. I earnestly beg of you to allow no misconceived opinions of self dignity — no preconceived opinions of my character, to prevent you from acting in this business temperately, wisely, and promptly. Promptitude is absolutely necessary. I only heard last night of your communication to Mr and Mrs Spence — and I already feel that I am perhaps wrong in losing another four and twenty hours. I have not mentioned to the family that I have written this letter, but I shall do so when we meet this morning. If you think that any communication between yourself and my mother can produce any beneficial effect, I am sure she will not be hindered by the remembrance of what is past from immediately meeting you. hope that the bearer of this may return with an answer. I am, dear madam, your very obedt srt52 Evidently the family had discussed the advisability that the two mothers, who represented the ‘softer’ side of each party, should meet and even out the difficulties. That meeting did take place sometime afterwards. But before that, on the same day that Benjamin wrote to Mrs Murray, his mother addressed the publisher in a spirited defence of her son, although she made no mention of the nature of his offence or the cause of the conflict; that is, the satirical portrait of John Murray in Benjamin’s novel, Vivian Grey: Bloomsbury Sq 21 May 1826 Dear Sir, Having learnt that my Son has written to Mrs Murray this morning I am now doing what had I pleased myself I should have done sometime since which is to write to you, to request an explanation of your conduct which the kindness and pliability of Mr D’Israeli’s character never could obtain, for while you were expressing great friendship, we were constantly hearing of the great losses Mr Murray had sustained through the mismanagement and bad conduct of my Son. Surely, Sir, were this story truly told it would not be believed that the experienced publisher 52 Letter Benjamin Disraeli to Anne Murray, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 131.

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of Albemarle Street could be deceived by the plans of a boy of twenty whom you had known from his cradle and whose resources you must have as well known as his Father and had you condescended to consult that Father the folly might not have been committed.53 This part of the D’Israeli’s argument is certainly unfair, because during the period that Benjamin travelled to Scotland and sent enthusiastic reports on his mission, Isaac D’Israeli was informed of every step his son took, and supported it. It should be remembered that in one of the letters of the proud father to John Murray he calls his son ‘our young plenipotentiary’, signifying that he considered himself part of the scheme. When back in London, Benjamin saw that his cousin, architect George Basevi, had been commissioned for the task of refurbishing the house in Great George Street and it is highly unlikely that his elders had not known and even approved of the association: You then Sir perhaps would have found tho’ a clever boy he was ‘no prodigy’ and I must say I believe that the failure of the Representative lay much more with the proprietor and his Editor than it ever did with my Son — but I feel your disappointment and can forgive your irritability, yet I must resent your late attack on Benjamin. What can you say as an excuse for not meeting D’Israeli and myself at the house of Mr Spence that our son had divulged and made public your Secrets this surely you must know is not truth — and can you as the father of a family think yourself justified in hurting the character and the future prospects of a young Man to whose Father you subscribe yourself his faithful friend and to whose Mother the most obliged. The preceding passage is perhaps the most quoted part of Mrs D’Israeli’s letter because it contains the famous phrase, ‘tho’ a clever boy, he was no prodigy’, which can be damning when it comes from one’s own mother. But there are other important points in it. The first is one that has already been noted. The D’Israeli family construct themselves as the offended party and their son as a victim, and in order to do this, they concentrate on the failure of the Representative and conveniently forget the financial loss the publisher was going through. Worse still, they never refer to Vivian Grey and the offensive nature of the portrayal of the Marquess of Carabas. However, there is one important point about which the parents were sincerely puzzled: the nature of the ‘secrets’ Benjamin had betrayed. These secrets were the reproduction in the novel of secret conversations among politicians when they were planning the setting up of the newspaper as the voice of their dissident Tory faction, which 53 Letter Mrs Maria D’Israeli to John Murray II, NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 129.

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have been pointed out earlier in the narrative. Benjamin would certainly not confess to his father what he had done, and neither could John Murray go into details of the reasons behind his complaint. In this intelligently constructed letter, Mrs D’Israeli manages to paint John Murray as irrational and her own family as morally upright. The style never falters and the last paragraphs also contain well-remembered phrases: I now must beg an explanation of this Enigma. I have allways carefully abstained from speaking on this subject or attaching any reason for your strange conduct at Mrs Hardwick’s, but this cannot last for I must not suffer Ben to lay any longer under an odium which can be explained away by the truth being told. I really cannot beleive John Murray who has so often professed such strong friendship for D’Israeli should be now going about blasting the character of that Friend’s Son because he had formed in his versatile imagination a perfect being and expected impossibilities and found him on trial a mere mortal and a very young Man. I fear I have made this letter too long and that you will destroy it instead of reading it[,] pray for old friendship do not do that but give me the explanation I so ardently require. And believe me ever your Sincere well wisher Maria D’Israeli54 By this time there was a positive deluge of letters addressed to John Murray from Bloomsbury Square. Isaac, who had remained aloof at first, sent several strong communications to the publisher, but before going into them, it is necessary to look at another source of irritation at Albemarle Street which originated in young Benjamin. Three days before the publication of Vivian Grey, London witnessed the appearance of a new periodical that discussed literature and other artistic manifestations alongside politics and current events in a lighter, rather flippant tone. The weekly publication called the Star Chamber55 dedicated most of its pages to criticising the Quarterly Review and, surprisingly, to advertising Vivian Grey, both directly and indirectly, and for this reason John Murray and his circle suspected that Benjamin Disraeli was behind it. It could have been no coincidence that Benjamin’s friend, George Meredith and his Brasenose fellow Peter Hall were nominally behind the publication; nevertheless, it is likely that the future politician was at least a major contributor, if only because 54 NLS, JMA, Letter of Mrs Maria D’Israeli to John Murray II, MS 42625, ff. 129. 55 Benjamin Disraeli [?], The Star Chamber, vol. 1 (19 April 1826): 1–20, London, William March, 1826.

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the Star Chamber became a crucial point of contention in the dispute between the Murray and the D’Israeli families. For instance, the first issue of the Star Chamber condemns a review of Tremaine that appeared in the Quarterly Review, in the issue December 1825– March 1826, although not on literary grounds, as it would be expected, but through criticism of the author of the review, questioning his erudition and lexical knowledge. Disraeli closes his piece inviting the critic of the Quarterly Review ‘to open his Johnson’.56 This same condemnation is later repeated in satirical terms in ‘The Dunciad of Today’, a poem of unknown authorship that appeared in the Star Chamber and which at the time was also ascribed to Benjamin Disraeli. Again the second issue of the journal goes after the critic in the Quarterly Review, observing that the commentator centres on the grammatical errors present in a text – in this case the novel Tremaine – that he is defending, rather than on its literary quality.57 The critical piece on Tremaine that so annoyed Benjamin Disraeli was written by William Stewart Rose, a critic and translator friend of John Murray II. He judges the novel negatively, it is true, in an ironic and superior tone, but recognises its good points as well. William Stewart Rose’s condemnation of Tremaine is directed at the novel’s moral tone rather than at its literary merits, for it accuses the author of ‘not defending religion forcibly enough’ and constructing a plot that lacks passion or action.58 On the contrary, the Star Chamber is always laudatory about Vivian Grey, calling it an: ‘extraordinary production [that] must infallibly be universally read’.59 It is significant that the journal publishes a long passage from the yet unpublished novel, suggesting, therefore, that the advertising must have come either from its author or from Colburn, its publisher. Then there is the ‘Key to Vivian Grey’, published in the Star Chamber to consider. This ‘key’ consists of a long list of the people who are mentioned in Vivian Grey with a clue of their true identity, usually only initials, placed next to each. Who, other than the author, could have provided it? Yet the ‘key’ can be quite misleading since only a few minor characters have counterparts in real life, as for instance, Lord Waterloo for Lord Wellington, or Lord Oceanville for the renowned Lord Cochrane. For example, a character inside the story called ‘Vivida Vis’ who, according to the unnamed author of the key, is none other than John Wilson Crocker, is a case in point. It is suspicious that a nefarious figure in the novel, by the name of ‘Stapylton Toad’, 56 [Benjamin Disraeli], The Star Chamber, vol. 1 (April 19, 1826): 1–20. London, William March, 1826, 14. 57 Ibid., nrs. 2 nd 3, 32. 58 The Quarterly Review, vol.33, Nr. 66 (Dec. 1825–March 1826): 482–490, 483. 59 Ibid., 33.

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performs transactions similar to the ones that gossip attributed to Crocker in his dealings with the Marquis of Hertford;60 it follows, therefore, that the ‘key’ is more fallacious than faithful and may possibly have been composed to allay the suspicion that Carabas was intended as a portrait of John Murray. In fact, it states that the tipsy Marquess in the novel was the Marquess of Clanricarde,61 in real life, son-in-law of Secretary George Canning. On Wednesday 24 May, a month after the publication of Vivian Grey, and when the name of the author was subject to all kinds of speculation, the Star Chamber misleadingly announced that they knew who the author was and described him as ‘not a very young man, as has been industriously circulated; and, moreover, that he was not previously unknown to Fame, though he might be so as a Literary Character’.62 Regarding the source for the ‘Key’, the Star Chamber had another fantastic story at hand: it claimed that they had obtained it from the notes of a ‘noble and accomplished Lady’ whose name they were not at liberty to reveal. It was unlikely that these attempts to draw a veil of mystery over the novel and its author would succeed in fooling anyone, and in fact, it did not. By this time, the end of May 1826, the name of Benjamin Disraeli as the author of Vivian Grey had spread widely. This, then, was the situation when in that same month of May, a meeting between the two families was arranged in order to air their differences and express their respective points of view in person and not by letter as it had been done up to that moment. Unfortunately, the meeting was doomed to failure from the start. The D’Israeli family was represented solely by Mrs D’Israeli, as the two men most directly concerned in the dispute, Isaac and Benjamin, refused to attend. John Murray  II and his wife Anne found an opponent who would not be moved from her position and was adamant in her insistence that all the blame lay on the publisher and none on her son Benjamin. Mrs Murray, when relating the meeting to her son John, then a student at Edinburgh University, provides an interesting reason which explains why the meeting was short and unproductive: they did not discuss Vivian Grey, the major bone of contention, because the recognition of the damage that the portrait of the Marquess was making to the image of the publisher would mean instant defeat for the D’Israeli family: We did not mention Vivian Grey at all [Anne Murray tells her son], for we thought if we took any of it to ourselves, the young man in revenge might make that public, and that Mr Colburn might think it a fine puff for his book to say that a certain character was intended for a relation of 60 Ibid., 37. 61 Ibid., nr 7, 115. 62 Ibid.

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Mr Murray’s . It was, therefore, only The Star Chamber that was taken notice of. She pretended that she did not know anything about it, and not at all that her son was a writer in it —but if he was she did not think there was anything to complain of, for everybody knew all that was mentioned about the Quarterly. Mrs Murray closes the letter commenting in bitterness that the connection of long standing between the D’Israeli and the Murray families has been severed for good, although she does not regret the loss. She adds that they have heard that Benjamin has been formally declaring that he is not the author of Vivian Grey—‘so I know not to what lengths he will go’.63 This letter is one of the few records of the exchanges that took place between the Murray and D’Israeli families after the publication of Vivian Grey, and the only one that describes the feelings and attitudes of the members of both parties. The break-up between the two families took a well-defined course when Isaac D’Israeli at last took part in the dispute. Apart from writing several times to John Murray, complaining of the unfairness with which the publisher was treating his son, Isaac renounced his position as trustee for Mrs Murray’s marriage settlement and returned all the books that his publisher friend had given him over the years. There is a finality in this last sign of rejection that had not been present before, if it is remembered how central books were in the lives of both men. But there was more. Soon after the meeting between his wife and the Murrays, which he and his son did not deign to attend, Isaac wrote his former friend a strongly worded letter, the first of many: Although it was my unalterable determination never more to write to you or to see you, yet Mrs D’Israeli having thought proper to converse with you, and to report to me your notion that I was connected with the Star-Chamber, I think my honour may be concerned to declare that I never knew of the publication till it appeared; that it never met with my approval, and that as far as I had any influence, I strenously advised its discontinuance, merely from a friendly feeling for the pockets of the young writers; for it never occurred to me, nor anyone else, I am confident, that it was designed to injure you and the Q.R., a supposition too absurd and impossible sincerely to refute. I. D’Israeli64 This letter is not important for what it says, but for what it reveals. When 63 George Paston, At John Murray’s, 21–22. 64 George Paston. ‘Young Disraeli and his Adventures in Journalism’, 396.

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Isaac, in denying that he had anything to do with the Star Chamber declares that the publication never met with his approval, he is signalling that his son was part of the editorial board. The other two friends who are known to have been involved in the publication would not have needed Mr D’Israeli’s approval, but his own son would. Not only that, he advised the young editors strongly to stop the publication, again indicating that the advice was directed at his son, and the concern he confesses for the young people’s pockets must have been concern for his own. It is a fact that Benjamin Disraeli took part in the publication of the Star Chamber and the irrefutable proof of his involvement can be found in the Disraeli Papers, which ironically include his later emphatic denial of ever taking part in either the Representative or the Star Chamber.65 In January 1826 Benjamin was working on the launching of the Representative and planning of the Star Chamber at the same time. Of the latter he was definitely the editor, as his papers prove; with regards to the newspaper, he was in charge at least during the first two weeks of its life. The youthful incursions in journalism were clearly a failure, but served the young man as preparation for his future career as a politician. There he practiced the selection and building of teams and the art of motivating and leading people towards a common goal. When he acted as editor of the journal or the newspaper, he discovered the power of words to disguise real intentions, a practice he perfected with time in his personal life and also in his life as successful politician and fiction writer. The Star Chamber, so emphatically disowned by Benjamin Disraeli is an intriguing case. Both he and his father Isaac always denied that the young man had had anything to do with it, but the Disraeli Papers tell quite a different story, as they prove that he was the idea behind it, the editor, and the author of most of the articles. He oversaw every detail, from printing to composition, to sales, and as mentioned earlier, to the writing of the articles.66 What is less known and Benjamin took care to keep secret from his mentor John Murray, is that he and his friends were planning the journal at the same time the Representative was being prepared for publication. There are several undated letters from George Meredith, a close friend of Benjamin’s, that refer to the planning of an enterprise that involved writing. One in particular can be dated with some certainty because of the events it refers to. The letter begins by mentioning Disraeli’s ‘lamented absence on Wednesday’, which must have been 25 January 1826 because it continues: ‘I know it was the important and eventful day of the first representation of the Representative [,] thought it would be useless to ask you to [illegible] family [illegible] to the important official measures carried on in G. Street Westminster.’ Meredith 65 See letter to Francis Espinasse on page, pp. 85–87. 66 Design of the first page of the Star Chamber, 309/1, 65–66, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden.

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then expresses hopes that Benjamin will visit ‘us, the staff’, indicating that they are an established group that meets regularly,67 and of which Benjamin Disraeli is the head. A further indication that the Star Chamber was not a sudden creation coming out of the young man’s angered mind after his dismissal from Albemarle Street is the telling fact that the first issue, which appeared on 19 April 1826, was followed by numbers two and three which appeared together the following week in a double edition. It is safe to believe that the material had been gathered and been ready for some time. Most of the articles published in the journal are preserved in the Disraeli Papers and have been drafted and edited in his own hand. There is for instance, a long essay on English Painters, a description of Exeter Cathedral, and an article titled, after several crossingsout, ‘Notes on the Quarterly Review by one of the Original Contributors’.68 All three articles appeared in the first issue of the Star Chamber but of more interest still is a sheet of paper in Benjamin’s own hand with instructions on the order of the material that will be included in the first issue and even the size of type for each item.69 These instructions coincide exactly with the published journal, even to the smallest detail. This sheet of instructions indicates that despite his protestations to the contrary, Disraeli did have a hand in the production of the journal. If he and his father later denied the fact to John Murray II, their denial is no proof of innocence. On the other hand, Benjamin’s involvement in the actual production of the Representative was short-lived but intense, as his papers testify. There is, for instance, a long draft of what he must have intended as a series of leading articles that were never published: ‘We publish in our paper of this day the first of a series of correspondence of [crossed out] letters upon the Education, Politics, Literature, Religion and National Character of the United States of North America’.70 The ‘letters’, there are nine of them, are presented as having been written by ‘a man born and educated in the U. S’, but they are not signed, present several corrections and sometimes whole paragraphs crossed out, and are in Benjamin Disraeli’s distinctive handwriting, therefore he was not correcting someone else’s draft but his own. Among several communications regarding the newspaper that can be found among his papers, there is a letter by a Mr Bayley addressed to Benjamin at his home in Russell Square on 30  January 1826 [date not confirmed but quite probable] about a manuscript he has sent Disraeli for the Representative, and requests that it is

67 Ibid., ff. 59–60. 68 Ibid., ff. 84–85. 69 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309-1, Nr. 107. 70 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden 232, ff. 14.

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returned to him if it will not be published. Other papers found are drafts of replies to J. D. Powles on a correspondent the latter has proposed, but here it is not certain whether the reply was going to be in Disraeli’s own name or if he was writing for John Murray. The draft says that: ‘the information which may, at any time be communicated from this place [not identified] is not likely to be very valuable to the Editor of a Paper’. The draft then adds, with great assurance, that he has not yet decided on any individual to whom he could propose the correspondence.72 Of no little interest is the famous letter by Benjamin Disraeli to Francis Espinasse, already quoted in this narrative, where Disraeli states that he was never the editor of the Representative, had never written a line for it, and that before the newspaper was published in 1825 [sic] he had never written anything at all and did not even know he could. He further denies being the editor or writing for the Star Chamber, which was published by ‘some young men at Oxford’. He insists that ‘I never contributed to it and have never been the editor of The Star Chamber or any other magazine, review, newspaper, or periodical of any kind. Perhaps no human being with any literary or political pretensions has ever less [crossed out] contributed to the periodical press in all its forms less than myself, and I can say this moreover that I never required or received any remuneration for anything I have ever written except the books published with my name’.73 The D’Israeli family denied from the start that Benjamin was involved in the Star Chamber, although the reason why they did this is not clear. Benjamin continued to deny that he had had any part, ever, in any branch of the press, perhaps, as many of his biographers have said because he did not want to have his name associated with failure, but this is only speculation. The real reason may never be known. But to go back to the narrative of the long dispute between the Murray and D’Israeli families: At the beginning of October 1826, when young Benjamin had been away on the Continent for the past two months, Isaac D’Israeli addressed Mrs Murray again in defence of his son: 71

4 October 1826 I have just heard a recent conversation in which Mr Murray delivered himself in no measured terms of what appears to have passed between himself and my son. Similar conversations combine with public attacks— many of which are utterly false and infamously calumnious—but which at length have betrayed their source, and I find, with horror, that they, in part, originate with him as well as his confidential and new auxiliaries. 71 Ibid., 309/1, ff. 62. 72 Ibid., 232, ff. 53. 73 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 232/55–56.

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[…] In regard to myself I am silent—I leave the last transaction which I had with Mr Murray to his own recollections; it betrayed such a littleness of malice that I would willingly forget it.74 In the turmoil of his wounded feelings, Isaac reveals his regret at his son’s lost opportunities when he mentions John Murray’s ‘new auxiliaries’. That post had been recently vacated by Benjamin. Before these events took place, the young man was on the way to making a brilliant career for himself in publishing under the guidance and protection of a life-long family friend. That possibility was now lost forever. Although outwardly, both father and mother made a strong defence of their son, it is likely that within their family circle young Benjamin did not fare so well and there must have been recriminations regarding his behaviour. However, it was only natural that the parents should have publicly taken their son’s part in a dispute that, instead of abating, was becoming increasingly heated with the passing of time. In the end Isaac threatened to write a pamphlet relating the D’Israeli side of the story, and he probably would have done so if his solicitor, Sharon Turner, who was also solicitor and friend to John Murray, had not intervened. Turner wisely warned the elder D’Israeli that if he added fuel to the fire, only he would be the loser. On 6 October 1826, he wrote: I could not have supposed that after your experience of these things and of the world, you could deliberately intend to write—that is, to publish in print—anything of the differences between you, Murray, and the Representative, and your son. […] If you do, Murray will be driven to answer. To him the worst that can befall will be the public smile that he could have embarked in a speculation that has cost him many thousand pounds, and a criticism on what led to it. […] The public know it, and talk as they please about it, but in a short time they will say no more upon it. It is now dying away. As a good friend of both men, the solicitor describes the situation to the elder D’Israeli as it is seen from outside and goes on to remind him as well that he is not completely free of guilt or at least of responsibility in the development of the whole affair. Apparently John Murray had shown the solicitor the countless letters in which Isaac praised enthusiastically his son’s reports from Scotland, which to the present-day reader suggest that the publisher gave free rein to the son, more from a desire to please the father, his friend, than 74 Probably Isaac meant ‘littleness and malice’. Quoted in George Paston. ‘Young Disraeli and his Adventures in Journalism’, in The Cornhill Magazine, vol. 73 Nr. 436 (Oct. 1932), 397.

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from real confidence in the abilities of the young man. Sharon Turner’s sober assessment reveals how deluded Mrs D’Israeli was when she says to John Murray in her letter that it is hard to believe ‘that the experienced publisher of Albemarle Street could be deceived by the plans of a boy of twenty’,75 and she adds that had he taken the trouble to consult the father of that young man, the disaster would have been avoided. We know that the publisher had kept Isaac D’Israeli informed of the progress of Benjamin’s negotiations in Scotland, or the young man’s version of them, every step of the way, and the father had responded in kind. Sharon Turner continues his letter reminding Isaac of this fact: Very few at present know that you were in any way concerned about it. To you, therefore, all that results will be new matter for the public discussion and censure. And, after reading Benjamin’s agreement of the 3rd August, 1825, and your letters to Murray on him and the business, of the 27th September, the 29th September, and the 9th October, my sincere opinion is that you cannot, with a due regard to your own reputation write or publish anything about it.76 Sharon Turner finishes this powerful communication indicating that he has written it in haste, urged by his wish to protect his friend Isaac’s reputation, and insisting that anything he published would be publicly refuted. The pamphlet was never written, but the friendship between John Murray and Isaac D’Israeli was never again rekindled. Many years later, when Benjamin Disraeli, already a full-fledged politician, was asked about this breakup, he professed to ignore the reason.77 The long and bitter dispute was finally closed by John Murray  II, in a letter addressed to Sharon Turner, who acted as presiding judge. Obviously the real addressee was not Turner but Isaac D’Israeli. The publisher begins with an emphatic denial that he was behind one of the articles in the Literary Magnet that criticised Benjamin as a poor novelist and a mendacious man. Interestingly, though, Murray does not deny that he made those accusations, only that he never intended them for publication. If Charles Knight was around Albemarle Street listening to the story of the rift between the two families, is it possible that, for instance, Benjamin offered the manuscript of Vivian Grey to John Murray, as the Magnet states, before Mrs Austen took it to Colburn? Possibly, and this would mean that there was no dramatic parting 75 See Letter of Maria Disraeli to John Murray on pp. 159–160. 76 Smiles, 270; Note: in the letter of 9 October 1825, Isaac D’Israeli calls his son ‘an intellectual steam engine’. 77 See Letter to Francis Espinasse, 27 March, 1860 on pp. 86–87.

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scene between John Murray and Benjamin in February 1826. But of the many unresolved mysteries in this story, this will be only one more. In his letter, the publisher then reveals the seriousness of his grievances against the elder D’Israeli and explains the reasons for his coolness towards him and his family: Having made this declaration perhaps you will do me the favour to enquire upon what principle it is that Mr Disraeli ventures to complain of me, or indeed of any person who may think fit to speak or even publicly to write his opinion of his Son, after his own knowledge and confession that that Son is the author of Vivian Grey and a principal contributor to The Star Chamber—the former of which publications Mr Disraeli was in the constant habit of expressing his admiration of in every Company, until he and his Family became ashamed to mention it and felt themselves under the perplexing necessity of denying all knowledge of its Author. The Star Chamber was so personally abusive that Mr Bentley refused to print it and even Mr Colburn was ashamed of putting his name to it.78 The Mr Bentley mentioned in the letter was also printer for John Murray. Naturally he refused to print a journal that included insulting comments against the Quarterly Review and members of the Murray circle. The following passage of the letter is intended to set the matter straight, once and for all, and in colourful metaphorical language, John Murray describes how the experience of the Representative affected him: Mr Disraeli is totally wrong in supposing that my indignation against his Son arises, in the smallest degree, from the Sum which I have lost by yielding to that Sons unrelenting excitement and importunity, that loss, whilst it was in weekly operation, may be supposed, and naturally enough, to have been sufficiently painful, but now that it has ceased, I solemnly declare, that I neither care nor think about it, more than one does of the long-suffered agonies of a diseased tooth the day after one has summoned resolution enough to have it extracted. On the contrary, I am disposed to consider this apparent misfortune, as one of that chastening class, which, if suffered wisely, may be productive of greater good – and I feel confidently that, as it has rekindled my antient ardour in Business – a very few months will enable me to replace this temporary Loss, and to be infinitely the gainer, if I profit by the prudential lesson which this whole affair is well calculated to teach.79

78 Letter John Murray II to Sharon Turner, NLS, JMA, MS 42162. 79 Ibid.

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In three words John Murray gives a full description of Benjamin Disraeli as he was at twenty years of age, that is, full of ‘unrelenting excitement and importunity’, qualities which, it is believed, helped the young man to convince the experienced man of business into entering a mad scheme that could have ruined him. This is the irony of the comment of Benjamin’s mother in her letter to John Murray, when she states that the blame lies with him for allowing himself to be led by an inexperienced young man. But we have seen that in reality that was not quite so. The plan of the newspaper had been conceived long before Disraeli came onto the scene, in high political circles and by powerful and influential politicians. There are enough references to this fact in the letters of Sir Walter Scott, John Gibson Lockhart, and even young Disraeli himself, not to mention the letter denouncing this plan in the Canning correspondence. What probably happened, as it was suggested in a previous chapter, was that the group behind the creation of the paper for some reason gave up on their plan, and when John Murray was preparing to shelve it, in came young Benjamin and insisted, with ‘unrelenting excitement and importunity’, that they should nevertheless go ahead. This was John Murray’s fault, which he admits honestly. Obviously, he could not mention the cabal, of which he was part, which had been behind the initial plans for the newspaper, but young Benjamin did refer to those meetings in Vivian Grey, and to the secret conversations that took place among the conspirators, conversations that he witnessed or was told about. This is the ‘outrageous breach of all confidence’ that John Murray mentions in the last paragraph of his letter, which happens to be the strongest of the whole message. Benjamin’s parents appear to have known nothing of this, and must have been shocked at the strong wording of the letter, but the son knew very well what they meant, although he must have kept the knowledge to himself: No, my complaint against Mr Disraelis Son arises, solely, from the untruths which he told, and for his conduct during (of which in part I made the discovery subsequently) and at the close of our transactions, and since, and particularly from his outrageous breach of all confidence and of every tye which binds man to man in social life, in the publication of Vivian Grey. Many people then and now believe that Lockhart was behind the change of attitude of the publisher towards his former protégé. Robert Blake states that it is unclear what John Murray meant by ‘untruths’, although he provides a strong hint when he says: ‘Disraeli came to believe that Lockhart had poisoned Murray’s mind, and it is possible that he gave a damaging version of

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Disraeli’s efforts as ambassador to Chiefswood in the autumn’.80 It should be remembered that when young Benjamin wrote from Scotland in September 1825, he was decidedly misleading when he reported that Lockhart had Sir Walter Scott’s blessing to become editor of the Representative, which he had not, while at the same time he promised Lockhart a seat in Parliament, a promise he had not the power or authority to make. The ‘outrageous breach of all confidence and of every tye which binds man to man in social life’, we have seen refers to the the irresponsible reporting, in the novel, of secret conversations among politicians that John Murray had been trusting enough to allow young Benjamin to witness. We see here that every side had reasons for feeling grievances: the parents because they did not know the darker side of their son’s personality; John Murray because he did, to his cost; and Benjamin himself, because he was too young to know better. John Murray ends his letter with a heartfelt plea to be understood: From me his Son had received nothing but the most unbounded confidence and parental attachment; my fault was in having ‘loved, not wisely but too well’. May his parents never have occasion to repent in bitterness the fatal moment when they expressed their approbation of Vivian Grey. The two families never regained the level of friendship they had once enjoyed, although there are letters between Isaac D’Israeli and John Murray after 1826, yet they are business-like and lack the earlier warmth. Benjamin must have regretted his attempt at revenge because a few months later, in March 1827, he sent John Murray £150 enclosed in a formal letter that explained that this amount was due to the publisher for the publication of the mining pamphlets in 1825. This was not Disraeli’s debt, nor had the account been sent to him in the first place, but to John Diston Powles. Even though this amount was a great deal in 1827, for John Murray it was a trifling sum. Only a month earlier he had given away £100 as a wedding present to one of his authors who was getting married,81 and Benjamin knew this. Why then, did he do it? It is possible that after the debacle he had caused, the young man wanted from John Murray the indulgence that a forgiving father will grant an erring son, but if that was his intention, the letter and the money did not produce the desired effect. In 1832 John Murray published Disraeli’s novel Contarini Fleming, but refused his next book, The Young Duke, on the grounds that he would not publish works of fiction in the future. Benjamin Disraeli did not return 80 Blake, 47. 81 Maria Graham, who married Augustus Wall Callcott in February 1827.

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to Albemarle Street, but he tried to, several times during the next eight years, between 1827 and 1835. By then, the future Prime Minister was beginning to be invited to the homes of the party grandees, had applied for membership at the Carlton club, and was known to be a rising star in the Tory Party. Renewing his friendship with John Murray  II must have appeared less important. In the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland there are nearly thirty-five letters by Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray II, where the young man begs his estranged friend to renew their connection. As we know, Benjamin was fond of marking his letters ‘private’, or ‘confidential’, and of underlining some words, as if he were trying to make his written communications as emphatic as his actual speech, a practice in which he always excelled. He also liked to add suspense to his messages by introducing them with phrases like: ‘I must consult you on a most important business’, or ‘this is a very delicate matter that must go no further’. Disraeli’s letters, at least those he wrote as a young man, provide a good idea of what his spoken discourse must have sounded like, and explain in part his extraordinary powers of persuasion. The first of the letters he sent John Murray at that time is the most quoted one of 19 March 1827, 82 in which Benjamin sends the publisher the sum of £150 for the printing of the Mining Pamphlets he had written for J.  D. Powles two years earlier, a debt for which he was not accountable. A letter of 10 May 1827, from Benjamin to John Murray  II contains a request for an interview, which the latter declines and establishes that communications between them can only be on a business level.83 In that same month the young man tried to pull at the strings of the publisher’s heart by announcing in Byronic tones that he is about to leave England, perhaps ’never to return’, and insists that he is ready to make great ‘sacrifices’ in order to renew their friendship. 84 Yet 1832 appears to be the year Benjamin pressed the publisher harder. The letter of 6 April 1832 is marked ‘confidential’ but does not communicate much except another attempt by the young man to ingratiate himself with his former patron, and refers to the only novel by Benjamin Disraeli that John Murray published after the rift between the families, which the author calls his Psychological Romance, or the ‘P.R.’ for short, Contarini Fleming.

82 Letter Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray II, 19 March 1827, NLS, JMA, MS 42156. 83 Ibid., 10 May 1830. 84 Ibid., 27 May 1830.

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Letter of Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray II, undated, probably May or early June 1832. My Dear Sir, It is with deep regret and some mortification that I appear to press you. It is of the highest importance to me that the PR sho[ul]d appear without loss of time. I have an impending election in the country, which a single, and not improbable event may precipitate. It is a great object with me, that my work should be published before that election.85 Its rejection by you will only occasion me sorrow. I have no desire that you sho[ul]d become its publisher, unless you conceive it may be the first of a series of works which may support your name, and maintain your fortunes. There is no question of pecuniary matters between us. I leave all there to you with [unclear] trust. Pray, pray, my dear Sir, do not let me repent the feelings which impel me to seek this renewal of our connection. I entreat therefore your attention to this subject and request that you will communicate your decision.86 Of great significance in this letter are the tone and the choice of words. It is undeniable that Benjamin was sorry, if not for the pain he had caused, at least perhaps for the breakup between the D’Israeli and the Murray families, and was trying to build bridges between himself and the publisher. He points out that a rejection from Murray will cause him ‘sorrow’ and that he is seeking not only to have his book published but, more significantly, ‘a renewal of our connection’. Apparently he had received no replies from John Murray for, as he closes his letter, he asks the publisher to communicate his decision in writing. Benjamin Disraeli made a last attempt to win back the heart of John Murray on 19 November 1835 when he sent the publisher a book proposal on the ‘History of the Reform of House of Commons’, proposal to which John Murray replied on the 25th of the same month in third person, marking distance, stating that he is at present ‘completely occupied by several extensive works unconnected with Politics[…]that [he] could not with sufficient zeal towards its Author or of consequent satisfaction to himself avail himself of Mr

85 Probably the June 1832 election where Disraeli stood as a Radical and lost to Lord Grey, 20 votes to 12, in Blake, 87. 86 Letter Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray, May–June 1832, NLS, JMA, MS 42156.

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Disraeli’s offer’. The reply ends with praise for the idea of such a work and the capability of Disraeli to execute it. Very formal but still a definitive refusal.87 For eight years Benjamin practised his ‘relentless enthusiasm and importunity’ to no avail, for the door of the publishing house at Albemarle Street, as well as the door to the publisher’s heart were closed to him forever. Much later, when Disraeli became Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland, he must have felt some consolation in addressing notes to John Murray III with the stamp of 10 Downing Street, as if the dramatic events of some fifty years earlier had never taken place.

87 Letter Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray  II and reply to that letter, NLS, JMA, MS 42156.

Epilogue

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his has been the story of a failed nineteenth-century newspaper that perhaps did not deserve to fail, and of the people more closely connected with it. The narrative centres on a single year, but the self-centredness that some of the principal actors brought with them into the enterprise influenced the shape and fate of the newspaper, while the consequences of its collapse lasted much longer. In fact, the experience of creating the Representative changed the lives of many people and broke up the way they related to each other. Publisher John Murray II, the public ‘face’ of the periodical was a victim of his own success. For the previous few years everything he touched had turned to literary gold, therefore, when he started a newspaper, it was expected, by friends and foes alike, that the new publication would rise and dominate above all others, including the splendid The Times. For this same reason, when the first issues turned out to be simply average, they were judged with a particularly rigorous eye and found wanting. Benjamin Disraeli was also a victim of his own mistakes due to the fact that in his letters and fiction he painted himself as the protagonist of this story, when in reality, he was a mere supporting actor. Posterity took him at his word and lay the failure at his feet, possibly because the story of the Representative has come down the generations told mostly in his voice. The others said little, or kept few records of their journalistic experience. John Gibson Lockhart was perhaps the man who came out of the episode the best; although he did not contribute much to the success of the newspaper, he was rewarded with the editorship of the Quarterly Review, one of the most coveted editorial posts in the country. There were a number of reasons why the Representative newspaper could not succeed. The first was that it did not have a good editor, and although there were many who performed as such but were not prepared for the task, such as young

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Disraeli and later William Maginn, the man chosen for the post, John Gibson Lockhart, was reluctant to carry out the job. Besides, the name of Lockhart awoke such animosity among London journalists (see Appendix I) that most of them were ready to find fault with any publication in which he had a hand. We know now that choosing Lockhart as editor was not only John Murray’s idea, but that he must have approved of him from the start, thinking it was a good thing that the young barrister was the son-in-law of Sir Walter Scott. The project of the Representative newspaper was condemned to failure almost from the moment it was conceived. It was not enough that it was good journalism in an attractive presentation, nor that it sold well during the first two months of its life. Any periodical publication, then as now, does not survive solely on the number of copies sold, but on the amount of advertisements it carries. The lack of government news and advertisements smothered the enterprise. Foreign Secretary Canning was furious when he was given the details of the creation of the Representative in the summer of 1825, and this reaction from his superior made John Wilson Croker refuse to take part in it, although he had approved of it earlier. Opposition from these senior government officials would have meant certain failure for any new project, and even more so in this case where John Murray, the main participant, was not aware of the negative undercurrents. The lack of a good editor, of news and advertisements from the government, and the economic crisis of 1825, along with its unpopular position on slavery, the Corn Laws, and Catholic Emancipation sealed the fate of the Representative. If we compare the first leading article of the Representative, quoted on page 93, with what The Times had to say on that same day, 25 January 1826 on the financial crisis, there is a profound difference between both publications. While the first appears excessively chauvinistic and out of touch with reality, The Times was explaining with clarity and sobriety the reasons for the economic crisis affecting the whole country. In a profound analysis, The Times leader points out the danger of having allowed paper currency to replace gold, as it induced the government to print more money than the amount backed by gold stocks in the Bank of England. The surplus of circulating money brought at first a reduction in interest rates and when investors saw their income reduced, they began speculating in joint-stock companies, as did small rural banks. Once the price of shares began to fall, the Bank of England contracted; speculators were ruined and the smaller rural banks followed suit.1 Understandably, not many people could afford to buy another daily London newspaper in 1826 as the financial crisis was raging, even if it had surpassed The Times in journalistic quality or had offered readers something the other newspapers did not. 1 The Times, London. Leading article. 25 January 1826.

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What became of the people in this story? John Murray II was telling the truth when he rejected publishing Disraeli’s second novel. By 1832 the firm had stopped publishing fiction and favoured the work of travel writers. In 1836 the first Murray travel handbook for Europe appeared, soon followed by others for Northern Europe and the East with great success. Another of John Murray  II’s great achievements was the creation of the Quarterly Review, mainly because apart from being influential as a leader in matters of taste and ideas, it was run independently from the publishing house of Murray. Critics reviewing a work by a Murray author felt free to express a negative opinion on the book or its writer if they found fault with either. By the time John Murray II died in 1843, his son John Murray III was already in charge of the publishing house. The great amount of letters of condolence on the passing of John Murray  II show that he was greatly respected and admired. However, there appears to have been no letter of condolence from Benjamin Disraeli. In 1834 Benjamin Disraeli finally won a by-election as a Tory, after two previous unsuccessful attempts as a Radical. Meanwhile, he continued writing and publishing novels and political essays. After several liaisons, he married Mary Anne Lewis, widow of Tory politician Wyndham Lewis. The marriage allowed him some relief from his previous financial troubles, but most of all, provided emotional stability. Disraeli’s early career in Parliament was marked by his allegiance to the traditional ideals of chivalry, the ascendancy of the state over the lives of its citizens, and the upholding of Christian values, represented in the ‘Young England’ movement, of which he became leader. During this time, Disraeli exercised strongly his instinct for revenge, already manifested in the composition of Vivian Grey and his articles for the Star Chamber. His violent attacks on Prime Minister Peel in Parliament, probably in retaliation for his having overlooked him for a government post, are an example, as well as his attacks on Irish politician O’Connell and his son. He even addressed a letter to Morgan O’Connell where he speaks of ‘the inextinguishable hatred with which I shall pursue his [his father’s] existence’.2 By 1852 Benjamin Disraeli had become Leader of the House and Chancellor of the Exchequer and from then on he continued to progress higher in his political career, at times alienating members of his own party by advocating ‘revolutionary’ ideas, such as better treatment of the people colonised by the British, while at the same time supporting the concept of ‘Empire’. In 1868 he became Prime Minister for the first time, and again in 1874. During his time as Prime Minister he enjoyed an excellent relationship with Queen Victoria, as his many letters to her testify. Benjamin Disraeli died in 1881 at the age of 77. 2 Blake, 125.

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Disraeli managed to deceive his biographers and in that way shape his own memory in history, as it is his own version of the events marking his twentieth year that has been accepted as fact so far. There are as many different versions of the Representative story as there are people who witnessed it; yet of those who left written records, Disraeli’s is the most quoted and taken as the most accurate. However, recently discovered evidence revealed in the previous pages shows that he was proficient with the pen but not as much with the management of the truth. In later life, Benjamin was not proud of his early incursion into journalism, a fact made evident by his emphatic public denials, made in person or through friends in his name. Who was, in the end, the author of the first leading article that helped the Representative to fail? Of the two possible options, Lockhart or Disraeli, evidence points to the latter. John Gibson Lockhart was a better stylist than the author of Vivian Grey, at least at that point in time, and the lexical, argumentative and stylistic features of the piece point directly to the enthusiastic young man and not to the slightly older Scottish barrister. We noted earlier that John Gibson Lockhart had emerged the most favourably from the Representative episode, but the years that followed brought him great personal sorrow. His eldest son, Hugh, died in 1831 followed the next year by his revered father-in-law Sir Walter Scott. A few years later his wife Sophia died as well and Lockhart was left with only his work for consolation. He resigned his post at the Quarterly Review in 1853, less than a year before his own death at Abbotsford. Four men – John Murray  II, Benjamin Disraeli, John Gibson Lockhart, and, to a lesser extent John Wilson Croker – were the main participants in the story of the Representative newspaper. Each of them had his own personal agenda in which the newspaper represented merely a means to an end, but not an end in itself, not even for John Murray. For him, a successful daily newspaper would have meant another star in an already star-studded firmament; for the three other men it would have brought them either financial gain or the acquisition of political power. Given what has been described in the previous pages, the newspaper could not have brought any of those rewards to even one of the four men.

appendix i

The ‘Poisonous Pen’ of John Gibson Lockhart

I

t would be hard to understand the strong feelings that John Gibson Lockhart’s name produced in London literary circles in the year 1825, if we did not know a few facts about his reckless behaviour as literary critic in Edinburgh. The name of John Gibson Lockhart appears closely linked to that of Benjamin Disraeli’s, but more closely still to that of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, for whom he felt a profound devotion. Lockhart’s is a complex personality marked by conflicting attitudes, almost as if two different beings coexisted within his person; one, a faithful and loving family man, and the other, an incarnation of insolence, sarcasm, and cruelty. Notably, this last trait was evident only in his writings, because he invariably seemed shy or aloof when in society. He was a man of few words, and to prove it we have Sir Walter Scott expressing misgivings in his private journal about his son-in-law’s lack of social skills: ‘But notwithstanding a handsome exterior and face, I am not sure he will succeed in London Society; he sometimes […] withdraws his attention from the company, or attaches himself to some individual, gets into a corner, and seems to be quizzing the rest’.1 In his memoir, Charles Knight defines Lockhart as ‘cold and proud’,2 although it may have been shyness that made him appear so. The famous circle of John Murray’s friends would have appeared intimidating to any newcomer.

1 The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, from the original manuscript at Abbotsford, https://archive. org/details/journalofsirwalt01scot, 28 Nov. 1825. 2 Charles Knight, Passages of a Working Life During Half a Century (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1874), 181.

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Lockhart’s life-story is also troubled, and his actions, character, and personal connections had a major impact on the story of the Representative. All through his life he exerted great influence as a literary critic, but also caused soul-shattering damage to authors not of his liking. In the warning letter Canning received about a newspaper about to be set up to fight his policies, Lockhart was already named as one of the editors probably because he was a Tory and a well-known and influential literary critic, although not universally liked. His presence as editor of the Representative at first, and later his disengagement with the newspaper, certainly contributed to its failure. The following account can tell us why this is so. Born in Lanarkshire in 1794, the son of a Presbyterian minister, Lockhart completed his education at Glasgow and Oxford universities. In 1815, when he was nineteen years old, he went to Edinburgh to read law. Alongside his studies, John Gibson Lockhart began a career closer to his true vocation when he started to write for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. This publication was founded by William Blackwood, an Edinburgh bookseller who saw the need to create, in 1817, a Tory literary periodical to counterbalance the Whig Edinburgh Review. The success of Blackwood’s Magazine was increased when John Murray, the prestigious London publisher, chose William Blackwood as his agent in Scotland.3 About this time, John Murray II and John Gibson Lockhart must have met in person and the publisher probably realised the younger man’s potential as a writer and literary critic. It was during his first years at Blackwood’s that Lockhart, seconded by John Wilson and James Hogg, reflected in his critical reviews his worst qualities of irreverence, spite, and cruelty. His biographer, Marion Lockhead, observes that in his early writings, Lockhart ‘seems, at times, to have written in a frenzy of pride and mockery’.4 The earliest example of this attitude appeared in the first number of the magazine (Blackwood’s Magazine 2(October 1817): 38–40), with an article titled ‘The Cockney School of Poetry’, the first of a series which attacked Leigh Hunt, poet and editor of the Examiner, and several other poets, friends of Hunt, such as William Hazlitt, John Keats, and even Percy Bysshe Shelley. In Lockhart’s mindset, only men of breeding and extensive education could dedicate themselves to literature, while Leigh Hunt, the main target in this article, was neither. He knows no Greek, argues Lockhart in the article, only a few words of Latin, and regarding Italian and French poetry he has read very little. He has no taste, Lockhart adds, but great pretentions and this fact dooms to failure the little merit his poems may have. Literary critics in the nineteenth century were direct and even confrontational, but seldom as cruel 3 Marion Lockhead, John Gibson Lockhart (London: John Murray, 1954), 24. 4 Ibid., 39.

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as ‘Z’ as Lockhart used to sign his anonymous pieces of criticism, or ‘The Scorpion’ as he came to be called: All the great poets of our country have been men of some rank in society, and there is no vulgarity in any of their writings; but Mr Hunt cannot utter a dedication, or even a note, without betraying the Shibboleth of low birth and low habits. He is the ideal of Cockney Poet. He raves perpetually about ‘green fields’, ‘ jaunty streams’, and ‘o’er-arching leafiness’, exactly as a Cheapside shop-keeper does about the beauties of his box on the Camberwell road.5 As Lockhart, in common with most critics at the time, did not sign his articles with his name but with the letter ‘Z’, there was speculation as to who the author might be. John Scott, whose fate later became tragically linked to Lockhart’s, wondered in the London Magazine (1 May 1820), who Z was: ‘We suspect we have seen the gentleman before in the Quarterly [Review]. […] Some say Mr Gifford, others Mr Canning: -- it strikes us, however, that Mr Gifford is too honourable, and Mr Canning too clever, for either one or other to have written them’. John Scott concludes that there is a colleague of Foreign Secretary Canning who does not have either of these qualities and although he does not name him, it is evident he meant John Wilson Croker, First Secretary of the Admiralty and the force behind the Quarterly Review. After he attacks Leigh Hunt as irreligious and unpatriotic, Lockhart pronounces the strong accusation of moral depravity to all members of the Cockney School, but particularly to Hunt, and says that His muse talks indelicately like a tea-sipping milliner girl’. Some excuse for her there might have been, had she been hurried away by imagination or passion; but with her, indecency seems a disease, she appears to speak unclean things from perfect inanition. Surely they who are connected with Mr Hunt by the tender relations of society, have good reason to complain that his muse should have been so prostituted. In Rimini a deadly wound is aimed at the dearest confidences of domestic bliss. The author has voluntarily chosen – a subject not of simple seduction alone – one in which his mind seems absolutely to gloat over all the details of adultery and incest’.6

5 ‘The Cockney School of Poetry’ I, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 2(October 1817): 38–40, 38. 6 Ibid., 40.

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Alan Lang Strout7 points out that the abusive passage above was even stronger in the first edition of Blackwood’s Magazine, but was rewritten immediately afterwards.8 It appears from the language of your last note to Z that you have yourself misconceived my meaning in one part of my first paper. Mr Blackwood’s Editor has thought proper to soften some of my expressions in the Second Edition of his Magazine, so as to prevent the possibility of the misconstruction into which it appears you have fallen. I suspect, however, that in truth, you are the only person to have mistaken my meaning, and that it would be a difficult thing for any disinterested individual, to comprehend in what way you have committed such a blunder. When I charged you with depraved morality, obscenity, and indecency, I spoke not of Leigh Hunt as a man. I deny the fact.—9 There are no records, except Lockhart’s word, to indicate whether the paragraph was edited following instructions of William Blackwood himself, or if a very young Lockhart (who was only twenty three in 1817) fearing a lawsuit, toned down his criticism. What follows is the text as Lockhart originally composed it, but which soon disappeared from the public eye: Some excuse for him there might have been, had he been hurried away by imagination of passion. But with him Indecency is a Disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect inanition. The very Concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would be to be pitied, but alas for the Wife of such a Husband! For him there is no charm in simple Seduction; and he gloats over it only when accompanied with Adultery and Incest.10 The main difference between the unedited text and the new version is that originally, Hunt is directly accused of depravity, while in the edited text the accusation goes through his Muse and the insult becomes indirect. This is what ‘Z’ declares later in his defence, but these are only excuses. The piece was offensive, and was meant to be so.

7 Alan Lang Strout, ‘Hunt, Hazzlitt, & Maga: The Lighter side of “Cockney Killing”’, ELH, vol. 4 2(June 1937): 151–154, at 151. 8 However Lockhart indicates that it was William Blackwood or an editor on his orders who ‘softened’ the language of the first edition of the article on the Cockney School of Poetry. (Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, ‘Letter from Z to Mr Leigh Hunt’. vol. 2 10(January 1818): 414–417). 9 Ibid. 10 Original text of article ‘On the Cockney School of Poetry’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 2(October 1817): 38–40, quoted in: Lang Strout, Alan, ed. John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947, viii.

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Of all the people who played a part in the rise and fall of the Representative, Leigh Hunt is less significant in the literary and political worlds of the early nineteenth century than the towering figures of, for instance, Sir Walter Scott or Benjamin Disraeli; nonetheless, his diatribes against the newspaper and its publisher weighed heavily on the public and on their appreciation of the new publication. His animosity against John Gibson Lockhart can be understood, though not so much his profound dislike of John Murray  II. Hunt also had the means through which he could express his enmity and that was the Examiner, the weekly periodical of which he was editor together with his brother, John Hunt. The explanation of why the Examiner used to vilify John Murray  II even before the project of the Representative became known, may lie a few years into the past, when both brothers became instrumental in the rift between Lord Byron and his publisher, John Murray  II. From all accounts, Leigh as well as John Hunt were unpleasant men, jealous of those more successful than they were, or more educated, or enjoying a higher social position. They were also fond of spreading tales, even among their benefactors. They disliked John Murray II, and through the practice of flattery and obsequiousness, did their utmost to stop the publisher from representing and publishing Lord Byron, an adventure in which they succeeded for a short while in 1821.11 To return to Lockhart writing for Blackwood’s. The attacks he made on Leigh Hunt continued, on his person as well as on his work, all through the early 1820s. As if this were not enough, later the Scottish critic resorted to parodying Hunt’s poems. American critic Alan Lang Strout singles out the following sonnet written by Lockhart in the manner of his victim, Leigh Hunt: Sonnet on Myself I love to walk towards Hampstead saunteringly, And climb thy grassy eminence, Primrose Hill! And of the frolicksome breeze, swallow my fill, And gaze all round and round me. Then I lie Flatlily on the grass, ruralily, And sicken to think of the smoke-mantled city, But pluck a buttercup, yellow and pretty, And twirl it, as it were, Italianly.12 11 For a detailed account of the break-up between Lord Byron and his publisher, see Fiona MacCarthy: Byron: Life and Legend. London: John Murray, 2002; repr. Faber and Faber, 2003. 12 Blackwood’s Magazine 5(April 1819) quoted in Lang Strout, Alan. ‘Hunt, Hazlit, and Maga: Leigh Hunt and Maga, the Lighter Side of Cockney Killing’. ELH, vol. 4 2(June 1937): 151–154.

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The following is part of a longer poem by Leigh Hunt, called ‘The Nymphs’ from which Lockhart may have taken his inspiration: Close by, from bank to bank, A little bridge there is, a one-railed plank; And all is woody, mossy, and watery. Sometimes a poet from that bridge might see A Nymph reach downwards, holding by a bough With tresses o’er her brow, And with her white back stoop The pushing stream to scoop In a green gourd cup, shining sunnily.13 Irony can be a deadly weapon, but it was not the only one Lockhart used against Hunt and his group. Lang Strout observes that not content with burying Leigh Hunt ‘in a quagmire of vituperation’, Lockhart decided to cast his missiles towards some of the younger members of the group, ‘the Keateses, the Shellys, and the Webbes’.14 In August of 1818 he published the well-known invective against Keats’ Endymion. In accordance with his professed beliefs, Lockhart begins by criticising Keats for his humble origins which would preclude him from attempting the loftier practice of literary creation, then speaks condescendingly of the young poet’s profession of apothecary, and finally demolishes him for daring to place his mentor Leigh Hunt’s name next to that of Wordsworth: ‘Wordsworth and Hunt! What a juxtaposition! The purest, the loftiest, and, we do not fear to say it, the most classical of living English poets, joined together in the same compliment with the meanest, the filthiest, and the most vulgar of Cockney poetasters’.15 Then Lockhart returns to the principal object of the article, which is to destroy the person of the poet and by this act, to demolish his work:
‘As for Mr Keats’s “Endymion”, it has just as much to do with Greece as it has with “old Tartary the Fierce;” no man, whose mind has ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarise every association in the manner which has been adopted by this “son of promise”’.16 13 Leigh Hunt, Foliage; or Poems Original and Translated (London: C. and J. Ollier, 1818). 14 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine vol. 2 10(January 1818): 414–417, ‘Letter from Z to Mr Leigh Hunt. 15 http://englishhistory.net/keats/criticism-lockhart.html. 16 Ibid. The phrase ‘old Tartary the Fierce’ is taken from Endymion. The implication of this quotation being that a man like John Keats, who did not have the advantage of a classical education, had no right to refer to the classics.

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Shortly after the article on the Cockney School of Poetry appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine, John Keats refers to it in a letter of 3 November 1817, to his friend Benjamin Bailey. He is apprehensive and afraid of coming face-toface with ‘Z’: I never read anything so virulent – accusing him [Leigh Hunt] of the greatest Crimes – dep[r]eciating his Wife his Poetry – his Habits – his company – his Conversation –These Philipics are to come out in Numbers –calld ‘The Cockney School of Poetry’ There has been but one Number published – that on Hunt to which they have prefixed a Motto from one Cornelius Webb Poetaster –who unfortunately was of our Party occasionally at Hampstead and took it into his head to write the following – something about – ‘we’ll talk on Wordsworth Byron – a theme we never tire on’ and so forth till he comes to Hunt and Keats. In the Motto they have put Hunt and Keats in large Letters – I have no doubt that the second Number was intended for me: but we have hopes of its non-appearance from the following advertisement from last Sunday’s Examiner. ‘To Z. The writer of the article signed Z in Blackwood’s Ed[i]nburgh magazine for October 1817 is invited to send his address to the printer of the Examiner, in order that Justice may be executed of the proper person’. I don’t mind the thing much – but if he should go to such lengths with me as he has done with Hunt I mu[s]t infallibly call him to an account – if he be a human being and appears in Squares and Theatres where we might possibly meet – I don’t relish his abuse.17 The article on ‘The Cockney School of Poetry’ closes with a full condemnation of Keats the man, his profession, and his work, in a memorable paragraph made more so by its cruelty than by the soundness of its critical observations. It is likely that Lockhart had read John Wilson Croker’s article published in the Quarterly Review in the preceding April; in fact, both pieces perform a comparison between Hunt’s poetry and Keats’, condemning both but declaring Hunt’s to be superior; but Lockhart centres on personal attacks to condemn the poetic work of Keats, while Croker centres on the literary quality of the work in discussion, or at least makes the reader believe that he does, as we will see shortly. It is not known for certain which of the two

The phrase ‘son of promise’ is taken from a verse by Cornelius Webb (a minor poet from Hunt’s circle), who called Keats ‘The Muses’ Son of Promise’. 17 Walter Jackson Bate. John Keats, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 225.

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articles hurt Keats most, but complain of them he did, to the end of his life. Here is Lockhart revealing his most savage vein: We venture to make one small prophesy, that his bookseller will not a second time venture 50 quid upon any thing he can write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr John, back to ‘plasters, pills, and ointment boxes,’ & c. But for Heaven’s sake, young Sangrado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than you have been in your poetry.18 Nine years after the poet’s death, in May 1830, his brother George Keats wrote: I do not see how a life of John can be written without noticing the effect that severe reviews and abominable personal reflections had upon his sensitive mind.19 But more telling and direct was a communication between Keats’ close friends shortly after the poet’s death. On learning the news of Keats’ passing, Benjamin Bailey wrote to John Taylor on March 26, 1821: Reynolds [another close friend of Keats’] told me, when I was last in London, that poor Keats attributed his approaching end to the poisonous pen of Lockhart.20 These attacks were made in the manner of the age, anonymously, as all critics signed their articles with a pseudonym. Anonymity allowed for collaboration between two or more critics, and in fact, many of Lockhart’s pieces have contributions from his associate in Blackwood’s, John Wilson, although this does not justify the distilled hatred he poured onto his pages, and besides, it was clear even then that Lockhart was the moving force behind the hateful messages. A hatred that naturally, in time, turned against Lockhart himself when the situation changed and he was in need of acceptance in the London literary circles. It will become clearer, in the following pages, why John Gibson Lockhart was so widely and intensely disliked, and how this ill-feeling was transferred to the Representative. There is no sign in his letters that he was ever aware of his share of responsibility in the failure of the newspaper; rather he commiserates, in letters to his relatives, of the loss of income and 18 Ibid. A member of the medical profession, expression originated in Doctor Sangrado, a character in the picaresque 18th century novel Gil Blas de Santillana. 19 Unpublished letter in the Harvard College Library, quoted in Brown, Charles Armitage, et al. Life of John Keats (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 29. 20 Ibid.

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lucrative prospects with the disappearance of the Representative. Yet a few cruel critiques would not have been enough to darken Lockhart’s reputation. There had to be something else, and there was. The young literary critic began writing for Blackwood’s Magazine in 1817. In October 1820 he married Sophia Scott, eldest daughter of Sir Walter Scott, and shortly after the birth of their first child in 1821, one of the bitterest episodes in Lockhart’s life took place. A London journalist, John Scott, repeatedly reviled Lockhart in his publication, the London Magazine. Essentially, Scott, who was not related to Sir Walter, accused Lockhart of being the editor of Blackwood’s Magazine and of publishing false testimonials praising his own work while disparaging Coleridge’s at the same time. Sir Walter Scott wrote to John Wilson Croker to thank him for helping his son-in-law in this situation, and denies he is related to John Scott. A thousand kind thanks my dear Croker for your friendly and valuable countenance shown to Lockhart on this occasion. I know no man to whose keeping I would sooner commit my own honour and that of whosoever is dear to me. Before I knew of the thing it had gone so far that Lockharts jaunt to London was matter of necessity, otherwise I would have advised him against stirring such a dish of skim’d milk as this creature is with any proposal to an honourable action, for the fellow must be every way below contempt. As to my clan I comfort myself first that he is no true border Scot but some mongrel from about Aberdeen and secondly that our very true proverb says it is a poor Clan that has neither whore nor thief in it. It is truly fortunate that while Lockhart had to do with so rascally an antagonist he was in the possession of your directions and sentiments.21 Lockhart denied these accusations, but John Scott declared that he did not believe him. The quarrel escalated when two friends of Lockhart’s, Jonathan Christie and James Traill, visited Scott who demanded an explanation from Blackwood’s Magazine’s critic. This was not acceptable because John Scott had been the offender; nevertheless, Lockhart came to London and exchanged letters and insults with Scott, expecting a challenge that did not materialise. The letters that Lockhart wrote to John Wilson Croker at the time show his distress at the situation, and from them it can also be learned that John Murray lent him some assistance as well. There are three letters that Lockhart wrote Croker during his stay in London and although they are undated,

21 Sir Walter Scott to John Wilson Croker, 25 January 1821.

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Alan Lang Strout suggests that they may be from early January 1821. In one, Lockhart speaks of a disclaimer he wants the offending journal to publish: My dear Sir, I have been so unfortunate as to find you absent and shall not have another opportunity of seeing you. I set off this evening for Edinburgh. Mr Murray has kindly offered to do everything concerning the enclosed – but in case Mr. Baldwin [owner of the London Magazine] should refuse to print it perhaps you will have the kindness to say a word for me to the Morning Post.22 There is another letter to Croker marked only 5 o’clock Admiralty, and the tone of foreboding is unmistakeable: Dear Sir, I have been here from 4 o’clock but am compelled not to stay any longer and I fear I must ask you to excuse me at dinner also. The moment I have it in my power to let you know how this shuffling Dog [John Scott] is to conclude the affair you shall probably hear from me in a couple of hours – or if possible I shall call on you. Believe me.23 As can be deduced from these letters, Lockhart at this stage feared for his life, for he had been forced into a dangerous situation against his will. He must have felt lost in London without the support of his father-in-law and the affection of his wife and child. As the first letter indicates, Lockhart returned to Edinburgh and left his friend Christie behind to face John Scott and his challenges and demands. A duel soon took place and Christie fatally wounded Scott who died a few days later. At the inquest that ensued, the two seconds attending the duellists were found guilty of murder. Christie first escaped to France but returned later to stand trial with the other two defendants. The three participants in the duel were pronounced ‘not guilty’ at the Old Bailey in April 1821, and there the case ended for Christie from a legal perspective, though the death of John Scott continued to haunt Lockhart for many years afterwards. Lockhart’s biographers are not in agreement regarding his behaviour during this episode. Marion Lockhead is censorious, although she provides the reason for Lockhart’s hasty return to Edinburgh abandoning his friend to fight his battle for him: his wife was about to give birth to their second child.24 Nevertheless, 22 Alan Lang Strout, ‘Some Unpublished Letters of John Gibson Lockhart to John Wilson Croker’, Oxford Journals vol. 4 24(Spring 1943): 186–192. 23 Ibid. 24 Lockhead, 84.

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she states that even though Lockhart’s behaviour had been ‘technically correct’, morally he was responsible because of his years of use and abuse of power through the ‘cruel criticisms’ he published in Blackwood’s Magazine.25 But Lockhart still did not learn prudence and only a few months after the death of John Scott he became involved in another scrape, although the result this time was more spectacular than tragic. After the John Scott tragedy, in early 1821, Sir Walter Scott made his son-in-law promise that he would stop writing for Blackwood’s Magazine, and in general, mend his ways. Yet only a few months later, the wayward son-in-law published anonymously a pamphlet criticising Lord Byron’s poetry and even the way the poet portrayed himself to the public. The piece, called John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron, caused a stir because it is well-written and expresses sound criticism of Byron’s work while it ventures to provide advice to the poet. Even Byron himself, by then in Ravenna, saw its good points when he read it, and took the whole thing with good humour. In the third Post Scriptum to his letter of 29 June 1821, Lord Byron tells his publisher John Murray: ‘I have just read “John Bull’s letter” –it is diabolically well written and full of fun and ferocity.- I must forgive the dog whoever he is.- I suspect three people – one is Hobhouse – the other – Mr Peacock (a very clever fellow) and lastly Israeli […]. Find him out’.26 Naturally, everybody wanted to know who the author of the ‘letter’ was, even the addressee himself, and Lockhart was very much afraid of being discovered. The publisher of the pamphlet was barrister William Wright, known to both Sir Walter Scott and John Murray, but he evidently had conspired with Lockhart to keep the secret. In May 1821 John Wilson Croker, who had supported Lockhart a year earlier during the John Scott episode, sent him a letter asking if he was the author of the ‘letter’. Apparently John Murray had found out the truth and Lockhart was afraid that the publisher would disclose his identity to both Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, with disastrous consequences for the younger man, or so he thought. Several letters passed between Lockhart and John Wilson Croker on the subject, and they both concluded that it was the barrister William Wright who had betrayed Lockhart’s secret. As the barrister also appears in the narrative, it is interesting to learn what another major player, John Wilson Croker, thought of him. In his letter to Lockhart of 31 May 1821, Croker says: ‘I have no acquaintance with Mr Wright of whom I know nothing, and of whom I do not think it likely I ever shall’,27 a statement that really means that he knew 25 Ibid. 26 Byron’s Letters and Journals, Born for Opposition. vol. 8. Leslie A. Marchand, ed., (London: John Murray, 1978), 145. 27 Quoted in Alan Lang Strout, ed., John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947), 54.

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a great deal and what he knew, he did not like. Surprisingly, this barrister played a significant part in the negotiations between Lockhart and Murray concerning the Representative and the Quarterly Review, and later in life he even represented Disraeli. But what was in this controversial ‘letter’? In essence, ‘John Bull’ tells Lord Byron to centre on his more solid creations, such as Beppo or Don Juan, and to forget the sentimental productions where he depicts himself as a young, handsome, and lonely hater of mankind. He is too good a poet to waste his talents in that inferior although saleable form of artistic expression: You are a great poet, but even with your poetry you mix too much of that at present very saleable article against which I am now bestirring myself. The whole of your misanthropy, for example, is humbug. You do not hate men ‘no, nor woman neither,’ (Hamlet, II: 2:302) but you thought it would be a fine, interesting thing for a handsome young Lord to depict himself as a dark-souled, melancholy, morbid being, and you have done so, it must be admitted, with exceeding cleverness.28 Lockhart/John Bull pursues his self-imposed mission by means of an ingenious parody. He brings to life Jane Austen’s characters to recreate the manner in which Lord Byron’s fabricated poetic persona is being received in England by frivolous women. It must be admitted that armed with pen and paper, John Gibson Lockhart became fearless and quite unlike the man he was in person. In this ‘letter’ he was addressing and admonishing one of the greatest poets of the period, not even on an equal footing, but from a superior position: In spite of all your pranks, (Beppo &c. Don Juan included,) every boarding school in the empire still contains many devout believers in the amazing misery of the black-haired, high-browed, blue-eyed, bare throated, Lord Byron. How melancholy you look in the prints! Oh! yes, this is the true cast of face. Now, tell me, Mrs Goddard, now tell me, Miss Price, now tell me, dear Harriet Smith, and dear, dear Mrs Elton, do tell me, is not this just the very look, that one would have fancied for Childe Harold? Oh! what eyes and eyebrows! – Oh! what a chin! –well, after all, who knows what may have happened. One can never know the truth of such stories. Perhaps her Ladyship was in the wrong after all.– I am sure if I had married such a man, I would have borne with all his little eccentricities – a man so evidently unhappy.29

28 Ibid., 80. 29 Ibid., 80–81.

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The pamphlet is much longer, but here is the core of the message John Bull/ Lockhart gives Lord Byron: to abandon insincere posturing that only finds a response in superficial readers: ‘Stick to Don Juan: it is the only sincere thing you have ever written; and it will live many years after all your humbug Harolds have ceased to be’.30 It is not known whether Lord Byron or Sir Walter Scott finally found out who the author of the open letter was, and whether they minded when they did. Four years later Lockhart was offered two great career opportunities and accepted one and rejected the other. The narrative that appears in the previous pages deals with these events, but in order to appreciate them better it was important to draw a sketch of this man’s complex character. It was to be expected that a temperament such as Lockhart’s would clash with that of Disraeli, mainly because both men shared self-seeking personalities and a rather flexible sense of the truth.

30 Ibid., 82.

appendix ii

John Wilson Croker as a Literary Critic

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ohn Wilson Croker is another significant figure in the narrative of the Representative. Born in Galway of English descent in 1780, he was a Protestant and a Tory. At the time our story begins, he was an experienced, middle-aged man of the world while the two other major characters, Lockhart and Disraeli, were much younger. Croker had already made his mark in politics and literature and was, therefore, not as fretful or anxious about the future as his younger counterparts. At first young Benjamin tried to gain Croker’s favour, possibly in the hope of getting support for his political ambitions, but when he did not, the vengeful streak in Disraeli immortalised the older man as one of the most disgusting creatures in nineteenth-century English fiction: the hateful Rigby, in Coningsby. Apart from being a politician, John Wilson Croker was also a dedicated scholar and a sharp literary critic; this side of his activities must have brought him close to John Murray  II of whom he was a friend. Between the years 1809 and 1830 he was First Secretary to Admiralty and it was during this time that he was more active and influential in journalism. As a literary critic, Croker is as scathing as Lockhart, although he is subtle where Lockhart is vociferous. He published a critical review on Keats’ Endymion in the Quarterly Review three months before Lockhart published his in Blackwood’s Magazine. In this piece he begins by confessing that he could not read the whole poem, but that the parts that he did not read remain as mysterious to him as those that he did:

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Reviewers have been sometimes accused of not reading the works which they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate the author’s complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty – far from it – indeed, we have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story appears to be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance, we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond the first of the four books of which this Poetic Romance consists. We should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on our parts, were it not for one consolation – namely, that we are not better acquainted with the meaning of the book through which we have so painfully toiled, than we are with that of the three which we have not looked into.1 It must be hurtful for an author to have a critic stating that their work is unreadable and unintelligible. In a disdainful tone, Croker even doubts that Keats is the author’s real name, as no one in possession of their faculties would put their name to this piece. The critic does not deny that the poet has a way with language and imagination and even shows ‘gleams of genius’, but his adherence to a movement called Cockney Poetry condemns him. The author [John Keats] is a copyist of Mr Hunt; but he is more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and absurd than his prototype.2 The two articles, one in Blackwood’s and the other in the Quarterly Review did John Keats personally a great deal of harm, but that did not concern the two critics who, each in his own way defended his territory or perhaps the privileges of his class. By this time, the year 1818, Croker and Lockhart had still not met, but when they were introduced to each other the following year they became fast friends. Their friendship lasted all their lives, although with one interruption of a few years corresponding to the period during which Lockhart came to London to take over the Quarterly Review and supervise the Representative; that is, from around 1825 onwards. The reasons for the cooling of their friendship was due in part to the fact that the newspaper was started despite his strong advice to the contrary. It is important to mention that the Representative was not the first journalistic venture for either Croker or John Murray  II. Of their earlier ventures, the most successful was the Quarterly Review, founded in 1809 by 1 John Wilson Croker, ‘Review of Keats’ Endymion’, Quarterly Review 19(April 1818): 204–208, at 204. 2 Ibid.

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John Murray with the sponsorship of Sir Walter Scott, which was manifested in the form of advice and overall support of the project. John Wilson Croker was also one of the founders of the Quarterly Review, but not its main contributor at first, although later, from 1812 onwards. he was. The choice of Gifford as editor was a wise one on Sir Walter Scott’s part because the review flourished under his supervision. Not all this journal’s articles were critical reviews, as its purpose was mainly political, and so much so that at the beginning, many of the contributions were signed by Foreign Secretary George Canning. This gave the publication solidity and authority as it appeared to reproduce the voice of the government.3 Later Canning stopped being directly involved with the publication and John Wilson Croker became its principal link with the government. Understandably, when Lockhart was offered the editorship of the Representative, both he and his father-in-law believed that the offer had come from the Foreign Secretary himself. Croker in later years continued collaborating with the Quarterly Review, but his critical pieces never again reached the height and destructive force of his comments against Keats’ poetry.

3 Myron F. Brightfield, John Wilson Croker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940), 164.

Acknowledgements

M

y thanks go to the following people and institutions: To Virginia Murray, for her constant guidance and illuminating suggestions and for seeing that it was important to tell this story; to David McClay, Curator of the John Murray Archive at the National Library of Scotland, whose profound knowledge of every item in the Archive allowed him to provide me with significant documents for my research; to the staff of the Bodleian Library of Oxford University for their patience and continuing support during my research of the Disraeli papers; to the British Library Newspaper Archive for their help in finding for me particular nineteenthcentury news items; to Dr Aileen Reid, of English Heritage, for her generous help in finding out the fate of 25 Great George Street, Westminster; to Carol Morgan, Archivist of the Institution of Civil Engineers, for her kind help in reconstructing the history of the Representative building and for providing a photograph of Nr 25, Great George Street; to Ginger Pharand, Research Assistant of the Disraeli Project of Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada, for providing a hard-to-find article on Vivian Grey and copies of relevant letters; and as always, my thanks go to my former supervisor, Professor Jacqueline Labbe, who taught me rigour in research and writing style.

Bibliography Primary Sources Disraeli, Benjamin. Vivian Grey [1853]. London: Routledge, Warnes and Routledge, 1859. Disraeli, Benjamin. Vivian Grey [1826]. In The Centennial Edition of Lord Beaconsfield Earlier Novels. Ed. Lucien Wolf. vol 1. London: De la Mare Press, 1904. Within the text, this 1826 edition will be identified with the surname of the editor, Wolf, so as not to confuse it with the 1853 ‘expurgated’ edition. [Disraeli, Benjamin]. An Inquiry Into the Plans, Progress, and Policy of the American Mining Companies. (Third edition with considerable additions.) London: John Murray, 1825.1 [Disraeli, Benjamin]. The Star Chamber, vol. 1(19 April, 1826): 1–20. London, William March, 1826.2 Disraeli, Benjamin. Contarini Fleming: A Psychological Romance. London: Longman’s, Green and Co., 1901. Hunt, Leigh. Foliage; or Poems Original and Translated. London: C. and J. Ollier, 1818. Knight, Charles. Passages of a Working Life During Half a Century. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1874. Scott, Sir Walter. The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, from the original manuscript at Abbotsford, https://archive.org/details/journalofsirwalt01scot.

Newspapers and Magazines The Examiner, 1800–1849, available from British Library Newspaper Archives, http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ The Glasgow Herald http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk The London Magazine http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=londonmag 1 It is a universally accepted biographical fact that Benjamin Disraeli is the author of this pamphlet. See for instance, Robert Blake, Disraeli, (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1987), 26. 2 At the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Dep. Hughenden 309/1, 53–41 and 55–56, there is ample proof that Benjamin Disraeli was the creator, owner, editor, and main author of this journal.

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The Political Examiner www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/The Political Examiner Quarterly Review See individual citations within the text. The Representative [London], 25 January 1826–30 July 1826. British Library Newspaper Archive. CD by request. The Times Archive http://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive

Manuscripts and Letters Benjamin Disraeli Letters, Gunn, J. A. W., John Matthews, Donald Schurman and M. G Wiebe, eds, 9 vols., vol. 1 (1815–1834). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982. Benjamin Disraeli Letters, Gunn, J. A. W., John Matthews, Donald Schurman and M. G Wiebe, 9 vols., vol. 8 (1860–1864). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. Grierson, Sir Herbert, ed. E-texts available at http:// www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/etexts/etexts/letters.html [accessed from 2010 to 2014]. NLS, JMA, MS 924, f. 106. Letter William Wright to J. G. Lockhart. NLS, JMA, MS 40185, Letter Maria Graham [afterwards Maria Callcott] to John Murray II, 20 January 1826. NLS, JMA, MS 41251, ff. 170–171. Letter William Henry Watts and Peter Hall to John Murray II, 26 Jan. 1826. NLS, JMA, MS 42009, Letters of Robert Plumer Ward to Benjamin Austen and Sarah Austen, 1826–1836. NLS, JMA, MS 42156, Letters of Benjamin Disraeli to John Murray II, 1827–1832. NLS, JMA, MS 42162, Letter John Murray II to Sharon Turner. NLS, JMA, MS 42445, Letter John Gibson Lockhart to John Murray, 17 May 1814. NLS, JMA, MS 42445, The Representative Agreement. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 27–40, Nr. 29. Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray, 27 Sept. 1825. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 31–32, Isaac D’Israeli to John Murray, 29 Sept. 1825. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 56. Drafts of letters by John Murray II to various correspondents. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 68–81 More drafts of letters of John Murray II to various correspondents. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, ff. 123–126 Letter Maria Graham to John Murray II, 9 June 1826. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, f. 129, Letter Maria D’Israeli to John Murray. NLS, JMA, MS 42625, f. 131, Letter Benjamin Disraeli to Anne Murray. NLS, JMA, MS 42628, ff. 83. Book of Payments made in Albemarle Street on account of the Representative. NLS, JMA, MS 42630. An Account of the Representative written by John Murray III, in 1879. NLS, JMA, MS 400666. Letters of George Basevi to John Murray. NLS, MS 42264, Lockhart family letters, 1826–1837.

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Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, A 26/5, ff. 100–115, Dinner party at John Murray’s. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 216/1, Manuscript of Vivian Grey. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden 232, ff. 14, Disraeli’s plans of articles for the Representative. Oxford, Bodleian Library, 232, ff. , Letter to J. D. Powles. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, A/D/12/2, f. 17, Letters from Mrs Austen. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 232/55–56, Letter to Francis Espinasse. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, ff. 59–60, Letter George Meredith to Benjamin Disraeli. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, ff. 62 and 232, ff. 53, Disraeli’s editorial position in the Representative. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, 65–66, Design of the first page of The Star Chamber. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, ff. 84–85, Various articles for The Star Chamber. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, Nr. 107, Editorial instructions for The Star Chamber. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dep. Hughenden, 309/1, ff. 120, Notes on The Star Chamber. Partington, Wilfrid, ed. The Private Letter-books of Sir Walter Scott: Selections from the Abbotsford Manuscripts. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930. *NLS  National Library of Scotland *JMA  John Murray Archive

Secondary Sources Aspinall, Arthur. ‘The Circulation of Newspapers in the Early Nineteenth Century’, The Review of English Studies. vol. 22 85(Jan. 1946): 29–43. —— Politics and the Press: 1780–1850. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1949; repr. 1973. —— ‘The Social Status of Journalists at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century’, The Review of English Studies vol. 21 83(July 1945): 216–232. Bailey, Judith S. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. 2 vols. vol. 2. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999. Bate, Walter Jackson. John Keats. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, ‘The Cockney School of Poetry I’, 2(Oct. 1817): 38–40. https://www.online books.library.upenn.edu/ blackwoods magazine. —— ‘The Cockney School of Poetry II’, ‘Letter from Z to Mr Leigh Hunt’. vol. 2 10(January 1818): 414–417, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/ serial?id=blackwoods. —— ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’, 20(July–December 1826): 90–109, http://onlinebooks. library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=blackwoods. Blake, Robert. Disraeli. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1987[1966]. Brake, Laurel, and Marysa Demoor. Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. London: Academic Press; co-edition with The British Library, 2009.

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Brightfield, Myron F. John Wilson Croker. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940. Brown, Charles Armitage, et al. Life of John Keats. London: Oxford University Press, 1937. Burton, Wendy. ‘The Composition of Vivian Grey’, Disraeli Newsletter vol. 2 2(Fall 1977): 30–46. Chancellor, Edward. Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999; repr. Plume Books, 2000. Cole, Rebecca. British Romanticism and Spanish America 1777–1825: Rewriting Conquest. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Croker, John Wilson. ‘Review of Keats’ Endymion’, Quarterly Review 19(April 1818): 204–208. De Sismondi, J. C. L., A Review of the Efforts and Progress of Nations during the Last Twenty-Five Years. Trans. By Peter Duponceau. Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1825. www.catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009572777. Feather, John. A History of British Publishing. New York: Routledge, 1991. Garnier, Richard. Speculative Housing in 1750s London’, The Georgian Group Journal 12(2002): 163–214. Hall, S. C. Retrospect of a Long Life: 1815–1883. 2 vols. vol. 1. London: Richard Bentley, 1883, www.archive.org/stream/retrospect of a long life. Haney, Louis. Early Reviews of English Poets. Philadelphia: The Egerton Press, 1904. Herd, Harold. The March of Journalism: The Story of the British Press from 1622 to the Present Day. London: Allen and Unwin, 1952. Jerman, B. R. The Young Disraeli. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960. Lang, Andrew. The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (1897). 2 vols. New York: AMS Press, 1970. Lloyd, Christopher. Mr Barrow of the Admiralty: The Life of Sir John Barrow, 1764–1848. London: Collins, 1970. Lockhead, Marion. John Gibson Lockhart. London: John Murray, 1954. MacCarthy, Fiona. Byron: Life and Legend. London: John Murray, 2002. Macknight, Thomas. The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli: A Literary and Political Biography. London: Richard Bentley, 1854. www.unz.org/Pub/ MacknightThomas-1854. Marchand, Leslie A. Byron’s Letters and Journals. 11 vols, vol. 8, Born for Opposition. London: John Murray, 1978. Monthly Magazine, n.s. 5(May–August 1826): 252. Monypenny, William Flavelle and Earle Buckle. The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. [1910]. 6 vols., vol. 1. (First ed., New York: MacMillan Company; new ed., Russell and Russell, 1968. Nicholson, Andrew, ed. The Letters of John Murray to Lord Byron. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007. Nickerson, Charles C. ‘Disraeli, Lockhart, and Murray: An Episode in the History of the “Quarterly Review”’, Victorian Studies, 15 3(March, 1972): 279–306. North, Christopher. ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 20(July-December 1826): 90–109, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/ serial?id=blackwoods.

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‘Nuisances of the Press’, Nr 1 ‘The New Unknown’, in The Literary Magnet of The Belles Lettres 4(1826): 2. O’Kell, Robert. Disraeli: the Romance of Politics. University of Toronto Press, 2013. Paston, George. ‘Disraeli and his Adventures in Journalism’, in The Cornhill Magazine vol. 73 436(October 1932): 385–399. —— At John Murray’s, 1843–1892. London: John Murray, 1932. Quarterly Review. ‘The Early Life of Lord Beaconsfield’, 168(January and April 1889): 1–42. —— Stewart, R. W. ‘The Publication and Reception of Disraeli’s Vivian Grey’, vol. 298, composed of nrs. 623, 624, 625, 626 (January, April, July and October 1960): 409–417. Richmond, Charles and Jerrold M. Post, ‘Disraeli’s Crucial Illness’, in The Self-Fashioning of Disraeli. Charles Richmond and Paul Smith, eds, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Rippy, J. Fred. ‘Latin America and the British Investment “Boom” of the 1820’s’. The Journal of Modern History, vol. 19 2(June 1947): 122–129. Roberts, J. M. ‘The Short Oxford History of the Modern World’, in British History 1815–1906, Norman McCord, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 23–180. Sadleir, William. ‘The Dunciad of Today’, in Things Past. London: Constable, 1944. Smiles, Samuel. A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray. London: John Murray, 1911. Stapleton, Edward John, ed. Some Official Correspondence of George Canning 1821–1827. 2 vols. vol. 1. Facsimile edition. London: Longman, Green, and Co., 1887. Strout, Alan Lang, ed. John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947. —— ‘Hunt, Hazlitt, and Maga: Leigh Hunt and Maga, The Lighter side of Cockney Killing’. ELH, vol. 4 2(June 1937): 151–154. —— ‘Some Unpublished Letters of John Gibson Lockhart to John Wilson Croker’, Oxford Journals, vol. 4 24(Spring 1943): 186–192. Sutherland, John. ‘The British Book Trade and the Crash of 1825–26’. The Library, vol. 6 2(1987): 148–161. The London Magazine, ‘Vivian Grey’. Vol. 5(May–August 1826): 207–217. Trevelyan, George Macaulay. British History in the Nineteenth Century (1782–1901). London: Longmans, Green, 1922. Ward, Robert (Plumer). Tremaine or The Man of Refinement. 2 vols. London: Colburn, 1825. Wiener, Joel H. The War of the Unstamped: The Movement to Repeal the British Newspaper Tax, 1830–1836. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969. Wolf, Lucien. ‘An Introduction to Vivian Grey by Benjamin Disraeli’, in The Centennial Edition of Lord Beaconsfield’s Earlier Novels. Vol. 1. London: De la Mare Press, 1904.

Website http://englishhistory.net/keats/criticism-lockhart.html

Index

abolition 3, 8, 10, 17, 24, 114–115, 117, 119, 120–122, 148 Austen, Benjamin 134 Austen, Jane 1, 192 Austen, Sara xi, 134–136, 151, 155, 157, 170 Barnes, Thomas xi, 17 Barrow, John xi, 23, 29, 30, 51–52 Basevi, George xii, 42, 45, 47–49, 62, 160 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine xii, xiii, 26, 39, 50, 53, 155, 182–189, 191, 195 Blackwood, William 182, 184 Byron, George Gordon, Lord x, 1, 2, 26, 52–53, 97, 136, 138, 152, 184–185, 187, 191–193

Disraeli, Benjamin i, iii, vii, ix–xii, 2–7, 10, 12, 18, 20, 23–33, 39, 41–45, 49–51, 57, 61–62, 65, 67, 72–74, 80, 84–95, 104, 114, 121, 131, 133, 136, 140, 144, 147, 151–152, 155, 159, 161–168, 170–181, 185 D’Israeli, Isaac x, 3, 29–34, 47, 88, 131, 136–137, 151, 153, 160, 164, 168, 170, 173 D’Israeli, Maria 160–161 Duke of York vii, 6, 24, 25 Edinburgh Review, The x, 41, 182 Endymion, review 186, 195–196 Examiner, The xii, 41, 67–68, 71–72, 74, 91–92, 95, 104–105, 182, 185, 187 French Revolution 2, 17, 19

cabal vii, xii–xiii, 6–7, 26–27, 50–52, 54, 75, 140, 148, 172 Canning, George vii, ix–x, 6, 8–9, 25–26, 51, 141, 163, 197 Catholic Question 24, 147–148 Cobbet, William 9, 19 Coleridge, John Taylor 23, 40 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor x Coningsby xii, 195 Constable, Archibald 99 crisis of 1825–1826 4, 8, 10 Croker, John Wilson v, ix, xi–xii, 6–7, 16, 23, 25–26, 33, 40, 51–52, 54, 55–58, 61–70, 104, 141, 143, 152, 178, 180, 183, 187, 189–191, 195–197 Curiosities of Literature x

Glasgow Herald, The 14–15, 70 Graham, Maria 1, 64, 88, 173 Guardian, The xii, 16, 23 Hazlitt, William 182 Hogg, James 182 Hunt, James Leigh xii, 9, 182–187 Irving, Washington 1 John Bull’s Letter to Lord Byron 26, 52–53, 184, 191 Keats, John 63, 182, 186–188, 196 Knight, Charles xii, 23, 84, 153–154, 156, 170, 181

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Lamb, Lady Caroline 141 Latin America 2, 10–11, 81, 86 Literary Magnet, The xii, 153–154, 156, 170 Lockhart, John Gibson v, vii, x–xiii, 3–4, 6–7, 16, 20–22, 25–45, 50–79, 83, 85–91, 94–117, 123, 131–134, 141, 145–146, 147–148, 150–154, 172–173, 177–197 London Magazine, The xiii, 41, 48, 68, 71, 75–76, 79, 82, 91, 93–95, 103–104, 126, 130, 152–153, 183, 189–190 Lyrical Ballads 7 Maginn, William xii, xiii, 49–50, 56, 74, 100, 103–104, 106, 152, 178 Malagrowther, Malachi 100 Marquis of Hertford vii, xii, 6, 24, 26, 163 McGregor, Gregor 13 Morning Chronicle, The xiii, 4, 20, 25, 69, 71, 122, 128 Morning Post, The 4, 17, 25, 69, 190 Murray, John I 1 Murray, John II i–xiv, 1–7, 16, 18, 23–72, 74, 77, 82, 87, 88, 91–106, 112, 121, 126, 130–185, 189, 191, 195–198 Murray, John III 24, 176, 179 Napoleon 17, 111 Napoleonic Wars 2, 11, 17 New Times, The 48, 94, 128, 130–131 North, Christopher xiii, 57, 154–155 Political Register, The 9, 19 Powles, John Diston xii, 3, 12, 31, 43–45, 64, 65, 68–69, 73, 173–174 Quarterly Review, The ix–xiii, 1, 4, 7, 16, 23, 35, 38, 40–42, 51–54, 57–60, 70, 75, 92, 97, 103, 112, 114–115, 121–123, 131, 133, 136, 145, 151–152, 155, 161–162, 166, 171, 177, 179–180, 183, 187, 192, 195–197

Reform Bill of 1832 x, 24 Representative, The iii, vi, vii, vii–208, ix, x, xi, xii, xiii, 2–8, 10, 11, 13–14, 16–20, 22, 24–25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 36–37, 41, 43–51, 57, 59, 64–114, 118–123, 126, 128, 130, 133–136, 144–145, 149, 153, 156, 160, 165–166, 168, 169, 171, 173, 177–178, 180, 182, 185, 188–189, 192, 195–198 Rundell, Mrs 1 Scott, John 26, 52, 53, 75, 150–151, 183, 189, 190, 191 Scott, Sir Walter vii, x–xiii, 1, 3–4, 16, 20–21, 26, 28–29, 31–33, 36–40, 50, 52–53, 57, 59–60, 63–64, 70–73, 97–100, 103, 117, 172–173, 178, 180–181, 185, 189, 191, 193, 197 Seditious Societies Act of 1799 19 Six Acts Laws 19 slavery 3, 8–10, 17, 24, 31, 76, 112, 116–117, 119, 120–123, 148–149, 178 Soane, John xii Star Chamber, The ix, 72, 87, 161–166, 168, 171, 179 Stoddart, John xi Times, The xi, 3–5, 14, 17–22, 69, 71, 75–76, 119–123, 128, 130, 177–178 Tremaine or The Man of Refinement 134 Turner, Sharon xiii, 6, 24, 169–171 Vivian Grey vi, ix–xiii, 5–7, 25, 59, 64–66, 84, 87, 91–94, 103, 134–164, 170–173, 179–180, 198 Walter, John xi, 17–18, 21 Ward, Robert ‘Plumer’ 134 Watts, William Henry xiii, 25, 47–49, 69, 70 West India Interest 31, 114, 122, 149 Wilbeforce, William 76 Wilson, John see North, Christopher Wordsworth, William 186–187 Wright, William xiii, 26–27, 32–33, 35, 41, 54, 191