Chapter VIII: Impecuniosity of Authors (2)

The action was suited to the word, and Sherry cut off through the churchyard, where no horse could follow. In spite of his many faults, his utter unscrupulousness in money-matters being not the least, it is particularly pleasant to refer to one of the incidents at the close of his career which reveals a delightful little bit of sentiment and good feeling, of which many of his detractors would have us think he was incapable. When his goods were taken in execution in Hertford Street, Mayfair, Paston, the sheriff's officer, said that if there was any particular article upon which he set affectionate value, he might secrete or carry it off from the premises.

"Thank you, my generous fellow," said Sheridan. "No, let all go--affection and sentiment in my situation are quite out of the question. But," said he, recollecting himself, "there is one thing which I wish to have."

"What is it?" said Paston, expecting him to name some cabinet or piece of plate.

"Don't be alarmed," said Sheridan, "it is only this old book, worth all others in the world, and to me of special value, because it belonged to my father, and was the favourite of my first wife."

Paston looked into it, and it was a dogs'-eared edition of Shakespeare.

Another great man in the literary and histrionic professions, the novelist, Fielding, although of an aristocratic stock, and liberally educated, began life almost without pecuniary resources. He came before the public first in 1725, and in succession was a showman at Bartholomew and other fairs, the owner of a booth for theatrical performances, at one time set up in George Yard, from which he found his way to the regular boards. In spite of being the son of a general, and the great grandson of an earl, his impecuniosity was often great, although he met his difficulties with the light-hearted gaiety of a Sheridan, and the careless imprudence of a Goldsmith.

Once, when in Ireland, he got into disgrace through giving a dancing-party at his rooms; sold his books the next day, ran away from college, loafed about Dublin till only a shilling was left, and then went to Cork. There he lived three days on the shilling, and said afterwards the most delicious meal he ever tasted was a handful of grey peas, given him by a girl at a wake, after twenty-four hours' fasting.

Poor Oliver Goldsmith must, of course, have his place in this chapter, for from the time when he wrote street ballads to save himself from starving, and was delighted to hear them sung, to when he started on "the grand tour," alone and friendless, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a guinea in his pocket, to the last scene of hopeless insolvency in which he died, his life was one long, hard struggle against pecuniary difficulties. When his relatives raised L50 to send him to London to study, he spent and gambled all away, and got no farther than Dublin. The result of his wildly rash act of going abroad so ill provided he has himself described. In a foreign land, when without money, he turned to his flute as a last resource, and whenever he approached a peasant's cottage towards nightfall, he played one of his merriest tunes, and so generally contrived to win a shelter for the night, and some food for his next day's journey. In this way he passed through Flanders, parts of France, Germany and Switzerland, reaching Padua at last; remaining there six months to secure his medical degree. Returning in 1756, and failing to find employment, he was at last taken in by a chemist by way of charity, and to preserve him from starvation. His friend, Dr. Sleigh, next befriended him, and then he became usher to Dr. Milner's school in Peckham. Soon after he found literary employment, and took a lodging at No. 12, Green Arbour Court, in the Old Bailey--a miserable, dirty room, with but one chair. He did not emerge from this squalid, dismal abode until 1760, when improved circumstances enabled him to lodge in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, where he received his friends with a freedom and hospitality which soon reduced his means to the level of impecuniosity. Here he first met Dr. Johnson, who became his dearest friend and best adviser.

Johnson has described how he received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith, to the effect that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to go to the Doctor, begging that the Doctor would come to him as soon as possible.

"I sent him a guinea," says Johnson, "and promised to come to him
directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that
his landlady had arrested him for rent, at which he was in a violent
passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had
got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into
the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the
means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a
novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it
and saw its merits, and told the landlady I should soon return, and,
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for L60. I brought Goldsmith the
money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady for
having used him so ill."

The novel thus sold was the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and its purchaser, Francis Newberry, the bookseller, who kept it unprinted for two years, when its author's 'Traveller,' having appeared and proved successful, the novel was published (in March 1766) and in a month reached a second edition.

In Forster's 'Life of Goldsmith,' the following account of his earliest state of penury has no little romantic interest:--

"It was," says the author of that famous work, "a year and a half
after he had entered college, at the commencement of 1747, his father
suddenly died. The scanty sums required for his support had often been
intercepted; but this stopped them altogether. It may have been the
least and most trifling loss connected with that sorrow; but 'squalid
poverty,' relieved by occasional gifts, according to his small means,
from Uncle Contarine, by petty loans from Bryanton or Beatty, or by
desperate pawning of his books of study, was Goldsmith's lot
henceforward. Yet even in the depths of that despair arose the
consciousness of faculties reserved for better fortune than continual
contempt and failure. He would write street ballads to save himself
from actual starving; sell them at the Reindeer repository in
Mountrath Court for five shillings apiece, and steal out of the
college at night to hear them sung.

"Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky
wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets,
this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, lingered, listened there,
for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and
dull perhaps the beggar's audience at first, but more thronging,
eager, and delighted as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware;
cracked enough, I doubt not, were those ballad singing tunes; nay,
harsh, extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without
meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest music which this
earth affords fall with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces,
pleased old men, stopping by the way; young lads, venturing a purchase
with their last remaining farthing; why here was a world in little
with its fame at the sizar's feet! 'The greater world will be
listening one day,' perhaps he muttered as he turned with a lighter
heart to his dull home."

Johnson's sympathy with Goldsmith was, no doubt, warmed and quickened by the remembrance of his own early struggles with the foul fiend impecuniosity. He remembered well enough his first London lodging in Exeter Street, Strand, when, as he said, "I dined very well for eightpence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New Street fast by. Several of them had travelled, they expected to meet every day; but they did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and bread for a penny, so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing."

Johnson used to relate of an Irish painter, that he, the painter, practically realised a theory that L30 a year was enough to enable a man to live there without being contemptible. He allowed L10 for clothes and linen. He said, "A man might live in a garret at eighteen pence a week. Few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean shirt day he could go abroad and pay visits."

I have already quoted the Doctor's views on the subject of impecuniosity, and this reminds me of a very suggestive incident of his life, which perhaps will prove better than anything else the non-desirability of want of means. It is unquestionable that in his marvellous dictionary, there are parts that are much superior to others, which has been accounted for by the fact that he was paid for the work as it progressed--the publisher paying him as his "copy" was delivered. Consequently, when his purse was full, he worked away _con amore_, and produced the best result; but on the purse growing empty, as those mercenary creditors will do, the Doctor worked hurriedly, aiming at making as much "copy" as possible, so as to replenish his failing treasury.

Thomas Cooper, author of the 'Purgatory of Suicides,' who also found out by severe experience the cheapest way of living in London, tells in his autobiography how, after having been at Lincoln as reporter, journalist, and miscellaneous literary man, he with his wife left that city for London. He says:

"On the 1st of June, 1839, we got on the stage-coach with our boxes of
books at Stamford, and away I went to make my first venture in London.
We lodged in Elliott's Row, Southwark; I earned five pounds by
contributing reviews and prose sketches to some papers having but an
ephemeral existence. I had other ventures and adventures in a small
way; but it would weary any mortal man to recite; and the recital
would only be one which has been often told already, by poor literary
adventurers. The very little I could bring to London was soon gone,
and then I had to sell my books. I happily turned into Chancery Lane
and asked Mr. Lumley to buy my beautifully-bound 'Tasso' and 'Don
Belleanis of Greece,' a small quarto black-letter romance, which I had
bought of an auctioneer in Gainsboro', who knew nothing of its value.
Mr. Lumley gave me liberal prices, wished I could bring him more such
books, and conversed with me very kindly. We were often at 'low-water
mark' now in our fortunes; but my dear wife and I never suffered
ourselves to sink into low spirits. Our experience, we cheerily said,
was a part of London adventure, and who did not know that adventurers
in London often underwent great trials before success was reached? We
strolled out together in the evenings all over London, making
ourselves acquainted with its highways and byways, and always finding
something to interest us in its streets and shop-windows. Every book I
brought from Lincolnshire, and I had had about 500 volumes great and
small, had been sold by degrees, and at last I was obliged to enter a
pawnshop. Spare articles of clothing, and my father's old silver
watch, 'went up the spout,' as the experience goes of those who most
sorrowfully know what it means. Travelling-cloak, large box, hat-box,
and every box or movable that could be spared in any possible way, had
'gone to our uncle's,' and we saw ourselves on the very verge of
being reduced to threadbare suits when deliverance came. I had been in
London from the evening of 11th June, 1839, until near the end of
March, 1840, when I answered an advertisement respecting the
editorship of a country paper printed in London. I went to the
printing office in Great Windmill Street, Haymarket, and was engaged
at a salary of L3 per week; the paper was the _Kentish Mercury_."

Very similar was the experience of Robert Southey, who, disowned by friends, and without money, came to London seeking literary employment, in which alone he found content and happiness.

"For it," say his biographers, Messrs. Austin and Ralph, "he
sacrificed proffered rank and power; and joyfully devoted to its
service a toiling life of unexampled industry. Yet this man so wedded
to his absorbing vocation, in the social capacity of husband, father,
relative, and friend, stands above reproach.

"His life is one emphatic denial of the daring falsehood, that genius
and virtue are incompatible.

"England knew not a happier circle than that which for years assembled
by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn
aside from the world and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid
the Cumberland Mountains."

Such an opinion again hardly fits in with that of Thackeray already quoted.

"On Friday, October 18th, 1794, his aunt, Miss Tyler, turned him out
of doors on a stormy night, and without a penny in his pocket. He made
his way on foot, through wind and driving rain, along the dark country
roads to Bath. Without any visible resource he was thrown upon the
world, and as he paced the streets, weary, footsore, and sick at
heart, he dreamed of the lofty things in literature he would strive to
accomplish, now that he was his own master, with a will unfettered by
a care for wishes other than his own, and of the pride that would glow
within the swelling bosom of the fair Edith of his love, for whose
dear sake he had submitted to be thus cast adrift. An uncle from
Portugal wished to take him back with him to that country. 'My Edith
persuades me to go,' said he, 'and yet weeps at my going.' And we are
told how sadly after their secret marriage in Redcliffe Church, his
maiden wife watched his departure with the wedding-ring she was afraid
to wear suspended round her neck."

In Southey's life by his son, we read that he had recourse under the pressure of impecuniosity to delivering lectures at Bristol, and the following prospectus is quoted:--

"Robert Southey, of Balliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course
of Historical Lectures in the following order:--1st. Introductory on
the Origin and Progress of Society; 2nd. Legislation of Solon and
Lycurgus; 3rd. State of Greece from the Persian War to the Dissolution
of the Achaian League; 4th. Rise, Progress, and Decay of the Roman
Empire; 5th. Progress of Christianity; 6th. Manners and Irruptions of
the Northern Nations; Growth of the European States; Feudal System,
and other equally abstruse subjects."

The lectures were given in 1795, tickets for the course, 10_s._ 6_d._, sold at Cottle's, bookseller, High Street.

Southey stated about this time that if he and Coleridge could get L150 a year between them, they would marry and retire into the country.

Another of these friendless dreamers who came to London, seeking literary employment and reputation, was George Borrow, the famous author of 'Romany Rye,' 'The Bible in Spain,' 'Wild Wales,' etc., the son of a military officer. He was born in Norfolk, early in the present century, and began life at the desk of a solicitor at Norwich. Becoming disgusted with that life, he started off with his stick and bundle to walk to London, where with his knowledge of languages he hoped to have no difficulty in earning a living. Reaching the great metropolis, he found out Sir Richard Phillips, editor and proprietor of the _Monthly Magazine_, who suggested that the young literary adventurer should devote himself to the writing of Newgate lives and trials. Having spent his loose cash in buying books on the subject, he went carefully to work. Sir Richard Phillips wanted less care and more expedition.

Borrow sent in his copy too slowly to please his exacting and overbearing employer, whose parsimony was only equalled by his greediness. He was paid in bills subject to discount, and led altogether a very wretched life. One morning he awoke with the disagreeable conviction that his plight had grown desperate, only half-a-crown remaining in his purse. Wandering out disconsolately, he saw a bill in the shop window of a bookseller, giving notice that a "novel or tale was much wanted," went to his garret, and after a meal of bread and water, began to write a fictitious biography of 'Joseph Tell.' At this he continued to work unceasingly, day after day, eating nothing but bread, drinking only water, until on the fifth day the story was finished. And none too soon, for after he had laid aside the pen, want of rest and nourishment had so exhausted him that he swooned away. He had threepence left, and to reinvigorate him after he had left his MS., he spent the whole of that sum at one fell swoop on bread and milk, and went to bed penniless. When he called, the bookseller was willing to buy the novel, and after some haggling over the price, gave him twenty pounds for it, a sum which was as veritable a godsend to him as the price of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' was to Oliver Goldsmith.

Borrow's incessant writing reminds me of the incessant reading of the poet, Gerald Massey, who was born in 1828, near Tring, in Herts, in a little stone hovel, the rent of which was one shilling per week. His father was a poor canal boatman, who supported himself and family on ten shillings per week, and could not of course afford to give Gerald any opportunities of educating himself. As soon as he had attained his eighth year, he was set to work at a silk-mill, beginning work at five in the morning, and quitting it at half-past six in the evening, for a weekly wage of 1_s._ 9_d._ He was fifteen years of age when he came to London and obtained employment as an errand-boy, and having taught himself to read, eagerly devoured every book, paper, and magazine that was within his reach.

Says Massey himself:

"Now I began to think that the course of all desire and the sum of all
existence was to read and get knowledge. Read, read, read. I used to
read at all possible times and all possible places; up in bed till two
or three in the morning, nothing daunted by once setting the bed on
fire. Greatly indebted was I to the bookstalls, where I have read a
great deal, often folding a leaf in a book, and returning the next day
to continue the subject; but sometimes the book was gone, and then
great was my grief. When out of a situation I have often gone without
a meal to purchase a book."

Another English poet who sprang from as low an origin, and who as a boy was as uneducated as Massey, was John Clare, known as the Northamptonshire poet. He was born at Helpston, a village near Peterboro', in 1793. His father was a poverty-stricken farm labourer, a cripple, unable to exist without occasional help from the parish, and whose struggle to keep the most wretched of homes, and supply potatoes and water gruel for food, was a ceaseless and desperate one. For all that, when the sickly little fellow Jack was old enough for school, the few pence requisite for sending him there were squeezed out of the poor father's weekly pittance, and when the boy's own paltry earnings in the fields began to come in, merely a few pence a week, he was sent to an evening school, the master of which allowed him the run of his little library, a privilege of which John enthusiastically and gratefully availed himself.

Often his parents returning from work found the boy, after being at school till late, crouching down by the fire, and tracing in the faint glimmer of a burning log, incomprehensible signs upon bits of paper and even wood, too poor to buy paper of the coarsest kind. John was in the habit of picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other tradesmen, and of scratching thereon signs and figures, sometimes with pencil, oftener with charcoal. Never were there more ungracious and unfavourable conditions for the study of arithmetic and algebra.

A maternal uncle, footman to a lawyer at Wisbech, called one day at Helpston, and told the family there was a vacancy for a clerk in his master's office. John was to apply. The mother ransacked her scanty wardrobe, to try and give her son a decent appearance, made him a pair of breeches out of an old dress, and a waistcoat out of a shawl, and begged from village crones an old white necktie and a pair of old black woollen gloves. What he wore was very large and also ancient. His costume excited amazement as he went his way. He reached Wisbech by canal boat, saw his uncle, was taken to Mr. Councillor Bellamy, who, after inspecting the nephew, said, "Well, I may see him again." John, after staying a day or two with his uncle, then went back home and became serving lad at the Blue Bell, where he was treated well, and was able to pursue his beloved studies. There, too, he fell in love with Mary Joyce, daughter of a farmer, who forbade his daughter to have anything to do with the beggar boy, so he carved her name on every tree.

At this time occurred a great event in the poet's life, one ever to be remembered with a quickening pulse and a sense of mighty triumph. He had read Thomson's 'Seasons,' which had been described to him as only a trumpery book which could be bought for 1_s._ 6_d._ at Stamford. John had only sixpence, and his wages were not due. He went to his father for a shilling. Hopeless chance! His mother was also tried for that amount, and by superhuman exertion she raised sevenpence; the fraction remaining and required was raised at the Blue Bell. The day of the purchase came. Unable to sleep through excitement, he was up before daybreak, and started off for Stamford in hot haste. A six or seven mile walk was as nothing to the ardent lad, and he arrived before the bookseller's shop he was seeking had its shutters down. He waited and waited, and you can imagine his dismay when at last he found that the shop never opened at all that day. So he went back to Helpston. By the way a bright thought occurred. By making a tremendous effort he obtained twopence more--proposed to a cowherd boy that for one penny he should look after the cattle, and for another penny keep the secret that he was going away for a few hours. Monday morning arrived, and his confederate. John soon walked the eight miles to Stamford. Bookseller's shop closed. John sat on the doorstep and waited. Directly the door opened, the poor, thin, haggard country boy, with wild gleaming eyes, rushed to him for a copy of the 'Seasons.' The tradesman asked questions. John told his story in hurried words, and the bookseller said that he would let him have a copy for a shilling. "Keep the sixpence, my boy," said the man, and away went John. In Barnack Park, amidst some thick shrubs, John Clare read the book. He did not know how to give vent to his happiness, but he had a pencil and a piece of coarse crumpled paper in his pocket, and on that he wrote his poem the 'Morning Walk.'

The remainder of Clare's life presents nothing specially remarkable beyond the fact that he was throughout it curiously unlucky; and though from time to time he met with good friends, misfortune had marked him for her own, and eventually, through brooding over some unsuccessful commercial enterprises, his mind gave way.

From John Clare to George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, is a far cry; the former being purely a small pastoral poet, the latter impurely a great genius. _A propos_ of being involved and being indebted to the children of Israel for supplies, his lordship wrote:

"In my young days they lent me cash that way,
Which I found very troublesome to pay."

Tom Moore says that Byron's marriage with the daughter of Sir Ralph Milbank was contracted in the hope that her dowry would extricate him from his monetary difficulties, but it apparently only increased his misery, and, notwithstanding the serious reason for their separation, as given by Mrs. Beecher Stowe, there is no doubt debt had a considerable share in bringing it about, for "during the first year of his marriage his house was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his door almost daily beset by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by the privileges of his rank."

Coming down to the more modern school of writers, it is especially noticeable that the circumstances connected with their impecuniosity are much less sombre in character than those of the like previous age. Douglas Jerrold, the novelist, dramatist and essayist, contributes an amusing reminiscence in connection with the first money he earned, a story which he himself was wont to relate with great delight in after years. At the time of the incident the young fellow's home was far from cheerful; his mother and sister were away (in all probability acting in the provinces), and he and his father were the sole occupants of the lodgings. Old Mr. Jerrold was weak and ailing, and anything but good company for the high-spirited, happy-natured boy, who eventually developed into one of the most witty and satirical authors of his time. The picture of the poor old gentleman sitting helplessly in the corner, when the wants of the family so needed a strong arm to work for them, was undoubtedly depressing; but the dreary monotony was broken on the day when Douglas Jerrold returned home excitedly jubilant with his first earnings as an apprentice. A thorough Englishman, he naturally thought the occasion must be celebrated by a dinner and at once proceeded to purchase the ingredients of a beef-steak pie. When he returned, amply repaid for the money he had expended by the proud satisfaction visible on his father's face, he was met by rather a serious difficulty. It was true the materials for the dish were all there, but who was to make the delicacy? Mr. Jerrold, senior, was incapable, and there was, therefore, nothing for it but for the boy to turn to and try his hand at a crust. He did so, and amidst much merriment the pie was made, taken to the baker's, and eaten by the happy pair (at any rate, happy on that occasion), with a relish and pleasure no doubt far in excess of that experienced at many of those grander banquets which he afterwards graced by his presence. It is said by his son that "the memory of this day always remained vivid to him. There was an odd kind of humour about it that tickled him. It so thoroughly illustrated his notions on independence that he could not forbear from dwelling again and again on it among his friends."

There is no doubt that Douglas Jerrold cherished the memory of this honourable impecuniosity as he did everything else that was noble and pure, for in his slashing satire levelled against those meaningless decorations or orders of the wealthy he clearly shows his lasting sympathy for poverty with honour. He says: "The Order of Poverty--how many sub-orders might it embrace! As the spirit of Gothic chivalry has its fraternities, so might the Order of Poverty have its distinct devices." He then goes on to enumerate the nobility and dignity of labour exemplified in the cases of the peasant, the shepherd, the weaver, the potter, and other callings, not neglecting even the pauper, of whom he writes:--

"And here is a pauper, missioned from the workhouse to break stones at
the roadside. How he strikes and strikes at that unyielding bit of
flint! Is it not the stony heart of the world's injustice knocked at
by poverty? What haggardness is in his face! What a blight hangs about
him! There are more years in his looks than in his bones. Time has
marked him with an iron pen. He wailed as a babe for bread his father
was not allowed to earn. He can recollect every dinner--they were so
few--of his childhood. He grew up, and want was with him, even as his
shadow. He has shivered with cold, fainted with hunger. His every-day
life has been set about by goading wretchedness.

"Around him, too, were the stores of plenty. Food, raiment, and money
mocked the man half-mad--mad with destitution. Yet, with a valorous
heart, a proud conquest of the shuddering spirit, he walked with
honesty and starved. His long journey of life has been through stormy
places, and now he sits upon a pile of stones on the wayside, breaking
them for workhouse bread. Could loftiest chivalry show greater
heroism, nobler self-control, than this old man--this weary breaker of
flints? Shall he not be of the Order of Poverty? Is not penury to him
even as a robe of honour? His grey workhouse coat braver than purple
and miniver? He shall be Knight of the Granite if you will. A
workhouse gem, indeed--a wretched highway jewel--yet, to the eye of
truth, finer than many a ducal diamond.... And so, indeed, in the mind
of wisdom, is poverty ennobled. And for the Knights of the Golden
Calf, how are they outnumbered! Let us then revive the Order of
Poverty. Ponder, reader, on its antiquity! For was not Christ Himself
Chancellor of the Order, and the Apostles Knight Companions?"

Although Douglas Jerrold may be best remembered by the many for his felicitous epigrams and wondrous wit, it should be borne in mind that he contributed materially to the high tone that now prevails in our literature. The fine spirit was touched to fine issues, and the influences which he aided by his life will be his enduring bequest to the future. He was, like Dickens, constantly at war with abuses, ever writing with a purpose, and always aiming to crush tyranny, injustice, or some kindred social monster. Like Dickens, he delighted in assisting the cause of the poor and weak, which characteristic, so conspicuous in both, may be accounted for by the impecunious surroundings in which they were both reared.

With regard to Charles Dickens, undeniably the most popular novelist of this century, and generally considered to be one of the greatest humourists we have ever had, it would seem as if we had to thank impecuniosity for much of his marvellous characterisation; and though he bitterly deplored the want of early education and proper home-training, it is possible that but for the hardness of his youthful lot he might never have developed the faculty of observation to the extent he did. From the needy circumstances of his parents he was compelled from very early years to think for himself; and this is, according to John Forster, what he thought of his father:--

"He was proud of me in his way, and had a great admiration of the
comic singing. But in the ease of his temper and the straitness of his
means he appeared to have utterly lost at this time the idea of
educating me at all, and to have put from him the notion that I had
any claim upon him in that regard whatever. So I degenerated into
cleaning his boots of a morning and my own, and making myself useful
in the work of the little house, and looking after my younger brothers
and sisters (we were now six in all), and going on such poor errands
as arose out of our poor way of living."

After his father's arrest for debt and his incarceration in the Marshalsea (particulars of which are so graphically described in 'David Copperfield'), Charles Dickens, when little more than ten years of age, was placed at a blacking manufactory, where he earned the sum of six shillings per week, and which is thus described by him:--

"The blacking warehouse was the last house on the left hand side of
the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy tumble-down old
house abutting, of course, on the river, and literally overrun with
rats. The wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase and
the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their
squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the
dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me as if I were
there again. My work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first
with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper, to tie
them round with a string, and then to clip the paper close and neat
all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an
apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had
attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed
label, and then go on again with more pots."

With regard to the way he lived at this time, he says:

"Usually I either carried my dinner with me or went and bought it at
some neighbouring shop. In the latter case it was commonly a saveloy
and a penny loaf, and sometimes a fourpenny plate of beef from a
cookshop, sometimes a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer
from a miserable old public-house over the way--the 'Swan,' if I
remember right, or the Swan and something else that I have forgotten.
Once I remember tucking my own bread (which I had brought from home in
the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book,
and going into the best dining-room in Johnson's Alamode Beef House in
Charles' Court, Drury Lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate
of Alamode beef to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a
strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know, but I can
see him now staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the
other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny, and I wish now that he
had not taken it."

Soon after Dickens entered upon his engagement at the uncongenial blacking establishment, his mother's home was broken up and she joined his father in the debtors' prison, and Master Charles was then placed with a Mrs. Roylance at Camden Town, with whom he lodged for some time, boarding himself on his six shillings a week, which he apparently found by no means an easy job, as his appetite seems to have troubled him considerably by this.

"I was so young and childish and so little qualified--how could I be
otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that in
going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning I could not resist the stale
pastry put out at half price on trays at the confectioner's doors in
Tottenham Court Road. I often spent in that the money I should have
kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or
a slice of pudding. There were two pudding shops between which I was
divided according to my finances. One was in a court close to St.
Martin's Church (at the back of the church), which is now removed
altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was
rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being larger
than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter
was in the Strand, somewhere near where the Lowther Arcade is now. It
was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby, with great raisins in it
stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about
noon every day, and many and many a day did I dine off it. I know I do
not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of
my resources and the difficulties of my life. I know that if a
shilling or so were given me by any one I spent it in a dinner or a
tea. I know that I worked from morning to night with common men and
boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, but ineffectually, not to
anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through, by putting
it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six
little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount, and labelled
with a different day. I know that I have lounged about the streets
insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the
mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of
me, a little robber or a little vagabond."

Contemporary with Dickens figured another popular writer of light fiction, who, though perhaps a trifle jollier and more genial in his fun, cannot claim to be placed in the same category with the immortal author of 'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' etc. etc. I allude to Albert Smith, who whether detailing on paper "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" or recounting to an audience at the Egyptian Hall his "Ascent of Mont Blanc," was always extremely amusing.

Owing to a slight similarity in the style of their writing it sometimes happened that unfortunate comparisons were made between the two men, when naturally poor Albert Smith suffered. For instance, when a friend speaking of the two authors to Douglas Jerrold said, that as humourists Charles Dickens and Albert Smith "rowed in the same boat," Jerrold replied with more or less warmth, "True, they do row in the same boat, but with very different skulls." Unlike Dickens, Albert Smith was not practically acquainted with absolute poverty, though at times as a student there is no doubt he was familiar with that condition known as "rather short of funds," and his account of an Alpine journey made on the most economical principles may be cited as curious and not unconnected with impecuniosity.

In September 1838 he started from Paris for Chamounix with another equally humbly appointed traveller, who like himself intended to do the grand Alpine tour with L12, which was to pay for travelling expenses and board and lodging for five weeks. They carried their money in five-franc pieces, stuffed in leathern belts round their waists, bought two old military knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of hobnailed shoes at five and a half francs each. Before starting they made a good breakfast at a _cafe_ and obtained from the cook a dozen hard-boiled eggs for the journey, supplying themselves also with a _litre_ of _vin ordinaire_, a flat bottle of brandy, and a leathern cup that folded up. Opposition _diligences_ were running on the road from Paris to Geneva, and for two pounds they secured seats on one which took seventy-eight successive hours--_i.e._, from 8 o'clock on Friday morning till 2 P.M. on the following Monday. On arriving at the place where the other passengers lunched at a cost of three francs, Smith and his friend regaled themselves on their eggs, with the addition of some bread and pears bought in the town, which place they inspected while their fellow-travellers were luxuriating over their _dejeuner_. When dinner-time came, instead of patronising the hotel, they repaired to a more humble restaurant, and for 24 sous each obtained all that they required. At night they crept under the tarpaulin roof of the _diligence_, stacked all the luggage on each side, and collecting some straw, on which they reclined, slept tolerably well. In the morning they walked on before the conveyance started, bathed in the river, and after breakfast (managed in the same inexpensive way), were picked up by the diligence. In this manner they travelled for the three days, observing pretty much the same routine (except on the Sunday, when they washed at the fountain in the market-place at Dole, to the great delight and amusement of a party of girls, who lent them towels and a huge piece of soap), their expenses for the journey to Geneva being L2 12_s._ 6_d._ each. As a specimen of how they managed to do and see so much on so very little: at Arpenay, where a cannon is fired to produce a certain marvellous echo, they simply waited until a party more capable of paying for such a luxury arrived, and then availed themselves of the opportunity.

On the same principle, when starting for the Mer de Glace they followed a party at some little distance, and by this means dispensed with the services of a guide. They bathed on the top of the Foxlay, and there in the springs, washed their linen, spreading their things on the stones afterwards to dry; and in such way the Alpine tour was made by the two friends completely, safely, and without exceeding the amount of funds they possessed.

Scarcely so honourable, though a trifle more exciting, is a reminiscence related of the late Robert Brough, more generally known to those who were acquainted with him and loved him dearly as Bob Brough. Unfortunately he was a man who was unable to make his income and expenditure balance: whether it was that the former was too small, or the latter too large, it matters not; but as a natural consequence, debt and difficulty were his constant companions. At one time when things had been going very badly (that is, in all probability to mine uncle's) he found it necessary to seek a more congenial clime. England was found to be unpleasantly hot, owing to the warm attention of a money-lending creditor, and foreign travel was known to be absolutely imperative. The proprietor of the _Sunday Times_ being made acquainted with the circumstances commissioned him to write a series of articles, to be entitled "Brussels Sprouts." Desirous of executing the commission, and longing for a dip in the sea, he started off to Ostend, and on arriving there, was not long in going through the preliminaries of taking "a header." He took it, but to his horror on coming to the surface he met with what is slangily termed a "facer," for he found himself face to face with the identical creditor from whom he was fleeing. "Oh, this is the way my money goes, is it! I'll lock you up, you----" began the money-lender, but before the sentence was finished Brough dived again, swam to shore, secured his luggage, started for Paris, and left the "Brussels Sprouts" to take care of themselves.

As I commenced this chapter by quoting the somewhat ungenerous strictures of Thackeray on his unhappy brethren, it will be a fitting termination to close with an incident of impecuniosity connected with his life, which circumstance, by the way, was caused by no fault of his. How could it have been? He was so terribly correct and proper! However, when sojourning on one occasion in France, he had the misfortune to be robbed of his purse, and immediately wrote off to a relative for fresh supplies. In the meantime he borrowed a ten-pound note, which he spent in little more than a week, thinking he should by that time be in possession of a remittance from his aunt. But no remittance came. He then humorously describes the horrors that arose in his mind as day after day passed on and there was no response from England. His intense desire for a frothy pot of beer, ungratified of course from his impecunious state, his alarm lest the landlord should present his bill, and his forebodings when passing a prison-house, with his elation of spirits when the long-delayed cheque at length arrived, are presented with all the charm of comedy and the interest of romance, and playfully alluded to in these four lines:--

"My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
How shall I e'er my woes reveal?
I have no money, I lie in pawn,
A stranger in the town of Lille."