at the time did not seem
greatly to care. But that was an episode in my career on which I do not
care to dwell. I only refer to it as an illustration of the fact that a
journalist should always stick to his pen, and leave business to business
men. Sir Walter Scott tried to combine the two, and with what result all
the world knows. In my small way I tried to do the same, and with an
equally disastrous result. Happily, I returned to my more legitimate
calling, which if it has not led me to fame and fortune, has, at any
rate, enabled me to gain a fair share of bread and cheese, though I have
always felt that another sovereign in any pocket would, like the Pickwick
pen, have been a great blessing. Alas! now I begin to despair of that
extra sovereign, and fall back for consolation on the beautiful truth,
which I learned in my copy-book as a boy, that virtue is its own reward.
When I hear people declaim on the benefits the world owes to the Press,
and say it is a debt they can never repay, I always reply, "You are
right, you can never repay the debt, but I should be happy to take a
small sum on account." But it is a great blessing to think and say what
you like, and that is a blessing enjoyed by the literary man alone. The
parson in the pulpit has to think of the pew, and if a Dissenter, of his
deacons. The medical man must not shock the prejudices of his patients
if he would secure a living. The lawyer must often speak against his
convictions. An M.P. dares not utter what would offend his constituents
if he would secure his re-election. The pressman alone is free, and when
I knew him, led a happy life, as he wrote in some old tavern, (Peele's
coffee-house in Fleet Street was a great place for him in my day), or
anywhere else where a drink and a smoke and a chat were to be had, and
managed to evolve his "copy" amidst laughter and cheers and the fumes of
tobacco. His clothes were shabby, his hat was the worse for wear; his
boots had lost somewhat of their original symmetry, his hands and linen
were--but perhaps the less one says about them the better. He had often
little in his pocket besides the last half-crown he had borrowed of a
friend, or that had been advanced by his "uncle," but he was happy in his
work, in his companions, in his dreams, in his nightly symposium
protracted into the small hours, in his contempt of worldly men and
worldly ways, in his rude defiance of Mrs. Grundy. He was, in reality, a
grande