SOME few years since we received the following letter:—
“I write to you for literary employment, and I implore you to provide me with it if it be within your power to do so. My capacity for such work is not small, and my acquirements are considerable. My need is very great, and my views in regard to remuneration are modest. I was educated at ——, and was afterwards a scholar of —— College, Cambridge. I left the university without a degree, in consequence of a quarrel with the college tutor. I was rusticated, and not allowed to return. After that I became for awhile a student for the Chancery Bar. I then lived for some years in Paris, and I understand and speak French as though it were my own language. For all purposes of literature I am equally conversant with German. I read Italian. I am, of course, familiar with Latin. In regard to Greek I will only say that I am less ignorant of it than nineteen-twentieths of our national scholars. I am well read in modern and ancient history. I have especially studied political economy. I have not neglected other matters necessary to the education of an enlightened man,—unless it be natural philosophy. I can write English, and can write it with rapidity. I am a poet;—at least, I so esteem myself. I am not a believer. My character will not bear investigation;—in saying which, I mean you to understand, not that I steal or cheat, but that I live in a dirty lodging, spend many of my hours in a public-house, and cannot pay tradesmen’s bills where tradesmen have been found to trust me. I have a wife and four children,—which burden forbids me to free myself from all care by a bare bodkin. I am just past forty, and since I quarrelled with my family because I could not understand The Trinity, I have never been the owner of a ten-pound note. My wife was not a lady. I married her because I was determined to take refuge from the conventional thraldom of so-called ‘gentlemen’ amidst the liberty of the lower orders. My life, of course, has been a mistake. Indeed, to live at all,—is it not a folly?
“I am at present employed on the staff of two or three of the ‘Penny Dreadfuls.’ Your august highness in literature has perhaps never heard of a ‘Penny Dreadful.’ I write for them matter, which we among ourselves call ‘blood and nastiness,’—and which is copied from one to another. For this I am paid forty-five shillings a week. For thirty shillings a week I will do any work that you may impose upon me for the term of six months. I write this letter as a last effort to rescue myself from the filth of my present position, but I entertain no hope of any success. If you ask it I will come and see you; but do not send for me unless you mean to employ me, as I am ashamed of myself. I live at No. 3, Cucumber Court, Gray’s Inn Lane;—but if you write, address to the care of Mr. Grimes, the Spotted Dog, Liquorpond Street. Now I have told you my whole life, and you may help me if you will. I do not expect an answer.
“Yours truly,
“JULIUS MACKENZIE.”
Indeed he had told us his whole life, and what a picture of a life he had drawn! There was something in the letter which compelled attention. It was impossible to throw it, half read, into the waste-paper basket, and to think of it not at all. We did read it, probably twice, and then put ourselves to work to consider how much of it might be true and how much false. Had the man been a boy at ——, and then a scholar of his college? We concluded that, so far, the narrative was true. Had he abandoned his dependence on wealthy friends from conscientious scruples, as he pretended; or had other and less creditable reasons caused the severance? On that point we did not quite believe him. And then, as to those assertions made by himself in regard to his own capabilities,—how far did they gain credence with us? We think that we believed them all, making some small discount,—with the exception of that one in which he proclaimed himself to be a poet. A man may know whether he understands French, and be quite ignorant whether the rhymed lines which he produces are or are not poetry. When he told us that he was an infidel, and that his character would not bear investigation, we went with him altogether. His allusion to suicide we regarded as a foolish boast. We gave him credit for the four children, but were not certain about the wife. We quite believed the general assertion of his impecuniosity. That stuff about “conventional thraldom” we hope we took at its worth. When he told us that his life had been a mistake he spoke to us Gospel truth.
Of the “Penny Dreadfuls,” and of “blood and nastiness,” so called, we had never before heard, but we did not think it remarkable that a man so gifted as our correspondent should earn forty-five shillings a week by writing for the cheaper periodicals. It did not, however, appear to us probable that any one so remunerated would be willing to leave that engagement for another which should give him only thirty shillings. When he spoke of the “filth of his present position,” our heart began to bleed for him. We know what it is so well, and can fathom so accurately the degradation of the educated man who, having been ambitious in the career of literature, falls into that slough of despond by which the profession of literature is almost surrounded. There we were with him, as brothers together. When we came to Mr. Grimes and the Spotted Dog, in Liquorpond Street, we thought that we had better refrain from answering the letter,—by which decision on our part he would not, according to his own statement, be much disappointed. Mr. Julius Mackenzie! Perhaps at this very time rich uncles and aunts were buttoning up their pockets against the sinner because of his devotion to the Spotted Dog. There are well-to-do people among the Mackenzies. It might be the case that that heterodox want of comprehension in regard to The Trinity was the cause of it: but we have observed that in most families, grievous as are doubts upon such sacred subjects, they are not held to be cause of hostility so invincible as is a thorough-going devotion to a Spotted Dog. If the Spotted Dog had brought about these troubles, any interposition from ourselves would be useless.
For twenty-four hours we had given up all idea of answering the letter; but it then occurred to us that men who have become disreputable as drunkards do not put forth their own abominations when making appeals for aid. If this man were really given to drink he would hardly have told us of his association with the public-house. Probably he was much at the Spotted Dog, and hated himself for being there. The more we thought of it the more we fancied that the gist of his letter might be true. It seemed that the man had desired to tell the truth as he himself believed it.
It so happened that at that time we had been asked to provide an index to a certain learned manuscript in three volumes. The intended publisher of the work had already procured an index from a professional compiler of such matters; but the thing had been so badly done that it could not be used. Some knowledge of the classics was required, though it was not much more than a familiarity with the names of Latin and Greek authors, to which perhaps should be added some acquaintance, with the names also, of the better-known editors and commentators. The gentleman who had had the task in hand had failed conspicuously, and I had been told by my enterprising friend Mr. X——, the publisher, that £25 would be freely paid on the proper accomplishment of the undertaking. The work, apparently so trifling in its nature, demanded a scholar’s acquirements, and could hardly be completed in less than two months. We had snubbed the offer, saying that we should be ashamed to ask an educated man to give his time and labour for so small a remuneration;—but to Mr. Julius Mackenzie £25 for two months’ work would manifestly be a godsend. If Mr. Julius Mackenzie did in truth possess the knowledge for which he gave himself credit; if he was, as he said, “familiar with Latin,” and was “less ignorant of Greek than nineteen-twentieths of our national scholars,” he might perhaps be able to earn this £25. We certainly knew no one else who could and who would do the work properly for that money. We therefore wrote to Mr. Julius Mackenzie, and requested his presence. Our note was short, cautious, and also courteous. We regretted that a man so gifted should be driven by stress of circumstances to such need. We could undertake nothing, but if it would not put him to too much trouble to call upon us, we might perhaps be able to suggest something to him. Precisely at the hour named Mr. Julius Mackenzie came to us.
We well remember his appearance, which was one unutterably painful to behold. He was a tall man, very thin,—thin we might say as a whipping-post, were it not that one’s idea of a whipping-post conveys erectness and rigidity, whereas this man, as he stood before us, was full of bends, and curves, and crookedness. His big head seemed to lean forward over his miserably narrow chest. His back was bowed, and his legs were crooked and tottering. He had told us that he was over forty, but we doubted, and doubt now, whether he had not added something to his years, in order partially to excuse the wan, worn weariness of his countenance. He carried an infinity of thick, ragged, wild, dirty hair, dark in colour, though not black, which age had not yet begun to grizzle. He wore a miserable attempt at a beard, stubbly, uneven, and half shorn,—as though it had been cut down within an inch of his chin with blunt scissors. He had two ugly projecting teeth, and his cheeks were hollow. His eyes were deep-set, but very bright, illuminating his whole face; so that it was impossible to look at him and to think him to be one wholly insignificant. His eyebrows were large and shaggy, but well formed, not meeting across the brow, with single, stiffly-projecting hairs,—a pair of eyebrows which added much strength to his countenance. His nose was long and well shaped,—but red as a huge carbuncle. The moment we saw him we connected that nose with the Spotted Dog. It was not a blotched nose, not a nose covered with many carbuncles, but a brightly red, smooth, well-formed nose, one glowing carbuncle in itself. He was dressed in a long brown great-coat, which was buttoned up round his throat, and which came nearly to his feet. The binding of the coat was frayed, the buttons were half uncovered, the button-holes were tattered, the velvet collar had become party-coloured with dirt and usage. It was in the month of December, and a great-coat was needed; but this great-coat looked as though it were worn because other garments were not at his command. Not an inch of linen or even of flannel shirt was visible. Below his coat we could only see his broken boots and the soiled legs of his trousers, which had reached that age which in trousers defies description. When we looked at him we could not but ask ourselves whether this man had been born a gentleman and was still a scholar. And yet there was that in his face which prompted us to believe the account he had given of himself. As we looked at him we felt sure that he possessed keen intellect, and that he was too much of a man to boast of acquirements which he did not believe himself to possess. We shook hands with him, asked him to sit down, and murmured something of our sorrow that he should be in distress.
“I am pretty well used to it,” said he. There was nothing mean in his voice;—there was indeed a touch of humour in it, and in his manner there was nothing of the abjectness of supplication. We had his letter in our hands, and we read a portion of it again as he sat opposite to us. We then remarked that we did not understand how he, having a wife and family dependent on him, could offer to give up a third of his income with the mere object of changing the nature of his work. “You don’t know what it is,” said he, “to write for the ‘Penny Dreadfuls.’ I’m at it seven hours a day, and hate the very words that I write. I cursed myself afterwards for sending that letter. I know that to hope is to be an ass. But I did send it, and here I am.”
We looked at his nose and felt that we must be careful before we suggested to our learned friend Dr. —— to put his manuscript into the hands of Mr. Julius Mackenzie. If it had been a printed book the attempt might have been made without much hazard, but our friend’s work, which was elaborate, and very learned, had not yet reached the honours of the printing-house. We had had our own doubts whether it might ever assume the form of a real book; but our friend, who was a wealthy as well as a learned man, was, as yet, very determined. He desired, at any rate, that the thing should be perfected, and his publisher had therefore come to us offering £25 for the codification and index. Were anything other than good to befall his manuscript, his lamentations would be loud, not on his own score,—but on behalf of learning in general. It behoved us therefore to be cautious. We pretended to read the letter again, in order that we might gain time for a decision, for we were greatly frightened by that gleaming nose.
Let the reader understand that the nose was by no means Bardolphian. If we have read Shakespeare aright Bardolph’s nose was a thing of terror from its size as well as its hue. It was a mighty vat, into which had ascended all the divinest particles distilled from the cellars of the hostelrie in Eastcheap. Such at least is the idea which stage representations have left upon all our minds. But the nose now before us was a well-formed nose, would have been a commanding nose,—for the power of command shows itself much in the nasal organ,—had it not been for its colour. While we were thinking of this, and doubting much as to our friend’s manuscript, Mr. Mackenzie interrupted us. “You think I am a drunkard,” said he. The man’s mother-wit had enabled him to read our inmost thoughts.
As we looked up the man had risen from his chair, and was standing over us. He loomed upon us very tall, although his legs were crooked, and his back bent. Those piercing eyes, and that nose which almost assumed an air of authority as he carried it, were a great way above us. There seemed to be an infinity of that old brown great-coat. He had divined our thoughts, and we did not dare to contradict him. We felt that a weak, vapid, unmanly smile was creeping over our face. We were smiling as a man smiles who intends to imply some contemptuous assent with the self-depreciating comment of his companion. Such a mode of expression is in our estimation most cowardly, and most odious. We had not intended it, but we knew that the smile had pervaded us. “Of course you do,” said he. “I was a drunkard, but I am not one now. It doesn’t matter;—only I wish you hadn’t sent for me. I’ll go away at once.”
So saying, he was about to depart, but we stopped him. We assured him with much energy that we did not mean to offend him. He protested that there was no offence. He was too well used to that kind of thing to be made “more than wretched by it.” Such was his heart-breaking phrase. “As for anger, I’ve lost all that long ago. Of course you take me for a drunkard, and I should still be a drunkard, only——”
“Only what?” I asked.
“It don’t matter,” said he. “I need not trouble you more than I have said already. You haven’t got anything for me to do, I suppose?” Then I explained to him that I had something he might do, if I could venture to entrust him with the work. With some trouble I got him to sit down again, and to listen while I explained to him the circumstances. I had been grievously afflicted when he alluded to his former habit of drinking,—a former habit as he himself now stated,—but I entertained no hesitation in raising questions as to his erudition. I felt almost assured that his answers would be satisfactory, and that no discomfiture would arise from such questioning. We were quickly able to perceive that we at any rate could not examine him in classical literature. As soon as we mentioned the name and nature of the work he went off at score, and satisfied us amply that he was familiar at least with the title-pages of editions. We began, indeed, to fear whether he might not be too caustic a critic on our own friend’s performance. “Dr. —— is only an amateur himself,” said we, deprecating in advance any such exercise of the red-nosed man’s too severe erudition. “We never get much beyond dilettanteism here,” said he, “as far as Greek and Latin are concerned.” What a terrible man he would have been could he have got upon the staff of the Saturday Review, instead of going to the Spotted Dog!
We endeavoured to bring the interview to an end by telling him that we would consult the learned doctor from whom the manuscript had emanated; and we hinted that a reference would be of course acceptable. His impudence,—or perhaps we should rather call it his straightforward sincere audacity,—was unbounded. “Mr. Grimes of the Spotted Dog knows me better than any one else,” said he. We blew the breath out of our mouth with astonishment. “I’m not asking you to go to him to find out whether I know Latin and Greek,” said Mr. Mackenzie. “You must find that out for yourself.” We assured him that we thought we had found that out. “But he can tell you that I won’t pawn your manuscript.” The man was so grim and brave that he almost frightened us. We hinted, however, that literary reference should be given. The gentleman who paid him forty-five shillings a week,—the manager, in short, of the “Penny Dreadful,”—might tell us something of him. Then he wrote for us a name on a scrap of paper, and added to it an address in the close vicinity of Fleet Street, at which we remembered to have seen the title of a periodical which we now knew to be a “Penny Dreadful.”
Before he took his leave he made us a speech, again standing up over us, though we also were on our legs. It was that bend in his neck, combined with his natural height, which gave him such an air of superiority in conversation. He seemed to overshadow us, and to have his own way with us, because he was enabled to look down upon us. There was a footstool on our hearth-rug, and we remember to have attempted to stand upon that, in order that we might escape this supervision; but we stumbled and had to kick it from us, and something was added to our sense of inferiority by this little failure. “I don’t expect much from this,” he said. “I never do expect much. And I have misfortunes independent of my poverty which make it impossible that I should be other than a miserable wretch.”
“Bad health?” we asked.
“No;—nothing absolutely personal;—but never mind. I must not trouble you with more of my history. But if you can do this thing for me, it may be the means of redeeming me from utter degradation.” We then assured him that we would do our best, and he left us with a promise that he would call again on that day week.
The first step which we took on his behalf was one the very idea of which had at first almost moved us to ridicule. We made enquiry respecting Mr. Julius Mackenzie, of Mr. Grimes, the landlord of the Spotted Dog. Though Mr. Grimes did keep the Spotted Dog, he might be a man of sense and, possibly, of conscience. At any rate he would tell us something, or confirm our doubts by refusing to tell us anything. We found Mr. Grimes seated in a very neat little back parlour, and were peculiarly taken by the appearance of a lady in a little cap and black silk gown, whom we soon found to be Mrs. Grimes. Had we ventured to employ our intellect in personifying for ourselves an imaginary Mrs. Grimes as the landlady of a Spotted Dog public-house in Liquorpond Street, the figure we should have built up for ourselves would have been the very opposite of that which this lady presented to us. She was slim, and young, and pretty, and had pleasant little tricks of words, in spite of occasional slips in her grammar, which made us almost think that it might be our duty to come very often to the Spotted Dog to enquire about Mr. Julius Mackenzie. Mr. Grimes was a man about forty,—fully ten years the senior of his wife,—with a clear gray eye, and a mouth and chin from which we surmised that he would be competent to clear the Spotted Dog of unruly visitors after twelve o’clock, whenever it might be his wish to do so. We soon made known our request. Mr. Mackenzie had come to us for literary employment. Could they tell us anything about Mr. Mackenzie?
“He’s as clever an author, in the way of writing and that kind of thing, as there is in all London,” said Mrs. Grimes with energy. Perhaps her opinion ought not to have been taken for much, but it had its weight. We explained, however, that at the present moment we were specially anxious to know something of the gentleman’s character and mode of life. Mr. Grimes, whose manner to us was quite courteous, sat silent, thinking how to answer us. His more impulsive and friendly wife was again ready with her assurance. “There aint an honester gentleman breathing;—and I say he is a gentleman, though he’s that poor he hasn’t sometimes a shirt to his back.”
“I don’t think he’s ever very well off for shirts,” said Mr. Grimes.
“I wouldn’t be slow to give him one of yours, John, only I know he wouldn’t take it,” said Mrs. Grimes. “Well now, look here, Sir;—we’ve that feeling for him that our young woman there would draw anything for him he’d ask—money or no money. She’d never venture to name money to him if he wanted a glass of anything,—hot or cold, beer or spirits. Isn’t that so, John?”
“She’s fool enough for anything as far as I know,” said Mr. Grimes.
“She aint no fool at all; and I’d do the same if I was there, and so’d you, John. There is nothing Mackenzie’d ask as he wouldn’t give him,” said Mrs. Grimes, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder to her husband, who was standing on the hearth-rug;—“that is, in the way of drawing liquor, and refreshments, and such like. But he never raised a glass to his lips in this house as he didn’t pay for, nor yet took a biscuit out of that basket. He’s a gentleman all over, is Mackenzie.”
It was strong testimony; but still we had not quite got at the bottom of the matter. “Doesn’t he raise a great many glasses to his lips?” we asked.
“No he don’t,” said Mrs. Grimes,—“only in reason.”
“He’s had misfortunes,” said Mr. Grimes.
“Indeed he has,” said the lady,—“what I call the very troublesomest of troubles. If you was troubled like him, John, where’d you be?”
“I know where you’d be,” said John.
“He’s got a bad wife, Sir; the worst as ever was,” continued Mrs. Grimes. “Talk of drink;—there is nothing that woman wouldn’t do for it. She’d pawn the very clothes off her children’s back in mid-winter to get it. She’d rob the food out of her husband’s mouth for a drop of gin. As for herself,—she aint no woman’s notions left of keeping herself any way. She’d as soon be picked out of the gutter as not;—and as for words out of her mouth or clothes on her back, she hasn’t got, Sir, not an item of a female’s feelings left about her.”
Mrs. Grimes had been very eloquent, and had painted the “troublesomest of all troubles” with glowing words. This was what the wretched man had come to by marrying a woman who was not a lady in order that he might escape the “conventional thraldom” of gentility! But still the drunken wife was not all. There was the evidence of his own nose against himself, and the additional fact that he had acknowledged himself to have been formerly a drunkard. “I suppose he has drunk, himself?” we said.
“He has drunk, in course,” said Mrs. Grimes.
“The world has been pretty rough with him, Sir,” said Mr. Grimes.
“But he don’t drink now,” continued the lady. “At least if he do, we don’t see it. As for her, she wouldn’t show herself inside our door.”
“It aint often that man and wife draws their milk from the same cow,” said Mr. Grimes.
“But Mackenzie is here every day of his life,” said Mrs. Grimes. “When he’s got a sixpence to pay for it, he’ll come in here and have a glass of beer and a bit of something to eat. We does make him a little extra welcome, and that’s the truth of it. We knows what he is, and we knows what he was. As for book learning, Sir;—it don’t matter what language it is, it’s all as one to him. He knows ’em all round just as I know my catechism.”
“Can’t you say fairer than that for him, Polly?” asked Mr. Grimes.
“Don’t you talk of catechisms, John, nor yet of nothing else as a man ought to set his mind to;—unless it is keeping the Spotted Dog. But as for Mackenzie;—he knows off by heart whole books full of learning. There was some furreners here as come from,—I don’t know where it was they come from, only it wasn’t France, nor yet Germany, and he talked to them just as though he hadn’t been born in England at all. I don’t think there ever was such a man for knowing things. He’ll go on with poetry out of his own head till you think it comes from him like web from a spider.” We could not help thinking of the wonderful companionship which there must have been in that parlour while the reduced man was spinning his web and Mrs. Grimes, with her needlework lying idle in her lap, was sitting by, listening with rapt admiration. In passing by the Spotted Dog one would not imagine such a scene to have its existence within. But then so many things do have existence of which we imagine nothing!
Mr. Grimes ended the interview. “The fact is, Sir, if you can give him employment better than what he has now, you’ll be helping a man who has seen better days, and who only wants help to see ’em again. He’s got it all there,” and Mr. Grimes put his finger up to his head.
“He’s got it all here too,” said Mrs. Grimes, laying her hand upon her heart. Hereupon we took our leave, suggesting to these excellent friends that if it should come to pass that we had further dealings with Mr. Mackenzie we might perhaps trouble them again. They assured us that we should always be welcome, and Mr. Grimes himself saw us to the door, having made profuse offers of such good cheer as the house afforded. We were upon the whole much taken with the Spotted Dog.
From thence we went to the office of the “Penny Dreadful,” in the vicinity of Fleet Street. As we walked thither we could not but think of Mrs. Grimes’s words. The troublesomest of troubles! We acknowledged to ourselves that they were true words. Can there be any trouble more troublesome than that of suffering from the shame inflicted by a degraded wife? We had just parted from Mr. Grimes,—not, indeed, having seen very much of him in the course of our interview;—but little as we had seen, we were sure that he was assisted in his position by a buoyant pride in that he called himself the master, and owner, and husband of Mrs. Grimes. In the very step with which he passed in and out of his own door you could see that there was nothing that he was ashamed of about his household. When abroad he could talk of his “missus” with a conviction that the picture which the word would convey to all who heard him would redound to his honour. But what must have been the reflections of Julius Mackenzie when his mind dwelt upon his wife? We remembered the words of his letter. “I have a wife and four children, which burden forbids me to free myself from all care with a bare bodkin.” As we thought of them, and of the story which had been told to us at the Spotted Dog, they lost that tone of rhodomontade with which they had invested themselves when we first read them. A wife who is indifferent to being picked out of the gutter, and who will pawn her children’s clothes for gin, must be a trouble than which none can be more troublesome.
We did not find that we ingratiated ourselves with the people at the office of the periodical for which Mr. Mackenzie worked; and yet we endeavoured to do so, assuming in our manner and tone something of the familiarity of a common pursuit. After much delay we came upon a gentleman sitting in a dark cupboard, who twisted round his stool to face us while he spoke to us. We believe that he was the editor of more than one “Penny Dreadful,” and that as many as a dozen serial novels were being issued to the world at the same time under his supervision. “Oh!” said he, “so you’re at that game, are you?” We assured him that we were at no game at all, but were simply influenced by a desire to assist a distressed scholar. “That be blowed,” said our brother. “Mackenzie’s doing as well here as he’ll do anywhere. He’s a drunken blackguard, when all’s said and done. So you’re going to buy him up, are you? You won’t keep him long,—and then he’ll have to starve.” We assured the gentleman that we had no desire to buy up Mr. Mackenzie; we explained our ideas as to the freedom of the literary profession, in accordance with which Mr. Mackenzie could not be wrong in applying to us for work; and we especially deprecated any severity on our brother’s part towards the man, more especially begging that nothing might be decided, as we were far from thinking it certain that we could provide Mr. Mackenzie with any literary employment. “That’s all right,” said our brother, twisting back his stool. “He can’t work for both of us;—that’s all. He has his bread here regular, week after week; and I don’t suppose you’ll do as much as that for him.” Then we went away, shaking the dust off our feet, and wondering much at the great development of literature which latter years have produced. We had not even known of the existence of these papers;—and yet there they were, going forth into the hands of hundreds of thousands of readers, all of whom were being, more or less, instructed in their modes of life and manner of thinking by the stories which were thus brought before them.
But there might be truth in what our brother had said to us. Should Mr. Mackenzie abandon his present engagement for the sake of the job which we proposed to put in his hands, might he not thereby injure rather than improve his prospects? We were acquainted with only one learned doctor desirous of having his manuscripts codified and indexed at his own expense. As for writing for the periodical with which we were connected, we knew enough of the business to be aware that Mr. Mackenzie’s gifts of erudition would very probably not so much assist him in attempting such work as would his late training act against him. A man might be able to read and even talk a dozen languages,—“just as though he hadn’t been born in England at all,”—and yet not write the language with which we dealt after the fashion which suited our readers. It might be