GIFFORD’S RETIREMENT FROM THE EDITORSHIP OF THE “QUARTERLY”AND DEATH

It had for some time been evident, as has been shown in a previous chapter, that Gifford was becoming physically incapable of carrying on the Editorship of the Quarterly Review, but an occasional respite from the pressure of sickness, as well as his own unwillingness to abandon his connection with a work which he regarded with paternal affection, and Murray’s difficulty in finding a worthy successor, combined to induce him to remain at his post.

He accordingly undertook to carry on his editorial duties till the publication of the 60th number, aided and supported by the active energy of Barrow and Croker, who, in conjunction with the publisher, did most of the necessary drudgery.

In December 1823 Canning had written to say that he was in bed with the gout; to this Gifford replied:

MY DEAR CANNING,

I wish you had a pleasanter bedfellow; but here am I on the sofa with a cough, and a very disagreeable associate I find it. Old Moore, I think, died all but his voice, and my voice is nearly dead before me; in other respects, I am much as I was when you saw me, and this weather is in my favour.... I have promised Murray to try to carry on the Review to the 60th number; the 58th is now nearly finished. This seems a desperate promise, and beyond it I will not, cannot go; for, at best, as the old philosopher said, I am dying at my ease, as my complaint has taken a consumptive turn. The vultures already scent the carcase, and three or four Quarterly Reviews are about to start. One is to be set up by Haygarth, whom I think I once mentioned to you as talked of to succeed me, but he is now in open hostility to Murray; another is to be called the Westminster Quarterly Review, and will, if I may judge from the professions of impartiality, be a decided Opposition Journal. They will all have their little day, perhaps, and then drop into the grave of their predecessors. The worst is that we cannot yet light upon a fit and promising successor.

Ever, my dear Canning,

Faithfully and affectionately yours,

WILLIAM GIFFORD.

This state of matters could not be allowed to go on much longer; sometimes a quarter passed without a number appearing; in 1824 only two Quarterlies appearedN, due in January, but only published in August; and N, due in April, but published in December. An expostulation came from Croker to Murray (January 23, 1824):

“Have you made up your mind about an editor? Southey has written to me on the subject, as if you had, and as if he knew your choice; I do not like to answer him before I know what I am to say. Will you dine at Kensington on Sunday at 6?”

Southey had long been meditating about the editorship. It never appears to have been actually offered to him, but his name, as we have already seen, was often mentioned in connection with it. He preferred, however, going on with his own works and remaining a contributor only. Politics, too, may have influenced him, for we find him writing to Mr. Murray on December 15, 1824: “The time cannot be far distant when the Q.R. must take its part upon a most momentous subject, and choose between Mr. Canning and the Church. I have always considered it as one of the greatest errors in the management of the Review that it should have been silent upon that subject so long.” So far as regarded his position as a contributor, Southey expressed his opinion to Murray explicitly:

Mr. Southey to John Murray.

October 25, 1824.

“No future Editor, be he who he may, must expect to exercise the same discretion over my papers which Mr. Gifford has done. I will at any time curtail what may be deemed too long, and consider any objections that may be made, with a disposition to defer to them when it can be done without sacrificing my own judgment upon points which may seem to me important. But my age and (I may add without arrogance) the rank which I hold in literature entitle me to say that I will never again write under the correction of any one.”

Gifford’s resignation is announced in the following letter to Canning
(September 8, 1824):

Mr. W. Gifford to the Rt. Hon. G. Canning.

September 8, 1824.

MY DEAR CANNING,

I have laid aside my Regalia, and King Gifford, first of the name, is now no more, as Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, “than an ordinary mortal or a Christian.” It is necessary to tell you this, for, with the exception of a dark cloud which has come over Murray’s brow, no prodigies in earth or air, as far as I have heard, have announced it.

It is now exactly sixteen years ago since your letter invited or encouraged me to take the throne. I did not mount it without a trembling fit; but I was promised support, and I have been nobly supported. As far as regards myself, I have borne my faculties soberly, if not meekly. I have resisted, with undeviating firmness, every attempt to encroach upon me, every solicitation of publisher, author, friend, or friend’s friend, and turned not a jot aside for power or delight. In consequence of this integrity of purpose, the Review has long possessed a degree of influence, not only in this, but in other countries hitherto unknown; and I have the satisfaction, at this late hour, of seeing it in its most palmy state. No number has sold better than the sixtieth.

But there is a sad tale to tell. For the last three years I have perceived the mastery which disease and age were acquiring over a constitution battered and torn at the best, and have been perpetually urging Murray to look about for a successor, while I begged Coplestone, Blomfield, and others to assist the search. All has been ineffectual. Murray, indeed, has been foolishly flattering himself that I might be cajoled on from number to number, and has not, therefore, exerted himself as he ought to have done; but the rest have been in earnest. Do you know any one? I once thought of Robert Grant; but he proved timid, and indeed his saintly propensities would render him suspected. Reginald Heber, whom I should have preferred to any one, was snatched from me for a far higher object.

I have been offered a Doctor’s Degree, and when I declined it, on account of my inability to appear in public, my own college (Exeter) most kindly offered to confer it on me in private; that is, at the Rector’s lodgings. This, too, I declined, and begged the Dean of Westminster, who has a living in the neighbourhood, to excuse me as handsomely as he could. It might, for aught I know, be a hard race between a shroud and a gown which shall get me first; at any rate, it was too late for honours.

Faithfully and affectionately yours,

WILLIAM GIFFORD.

Mr. J.T. Coleridge had long been regarded as the most eligible successor to Mr. Gifford, and on him the choice now fell. Mr. Murray forwarded the reply of Mr. Coleridge which contained his acceptance of the editorship to Mr. Gifford, accompanied by the following note:

John Murray to Mr. Gifford.

WHITEHALL PLACE,

December 11, 1824.

MY DEAR SIR,

I shall not attempt to express the feelings with which I communicate the enclosed answer to the proposal which I suspect it would have been thought contemptible in me any longer to have delayed, and all that I can find to console myself with is the hope that I may be able to evince my gratitude to you during life, and to your memory, if it so please the Almighty that I am to be the survivor.

I am your obliged and faithful Servant,

JOHN MURRAY.

Mr. Murray lost no time in informing his friends of the new arrangement.

Gifford lived for about two years more, and continued to entertain many kind thoughts of his friends and fellow-contributors: his intercourse with his publisher was as close and intimate as ever to the end.

The last month of Gifford’s life was but a slow dying. He was sleepless, feverish, oppressed by an extreme difficulty of breathing, which often entirely deprived him of speech; and his sight had failed. Towards the end of his life he would sometimes take up a pen, and after a vain attempt to write, would throw it down, saying, “No, my work is done!” Even thinking caused him pain. As his last hour drew near, his mind began to wander. “These books have driven me mad,” he once said, “I must read my prayers.” He passed gradually away, his pulse ceasing to beat five hours before his death. And then he slept out of life, on December 31, 1826, in his 68th yeara few months before the death of Canning.

Mr. Gifford desired that he should be buried in the ground attached to Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street, where he had interred Annie Davies, his faithful old housekeeper, but his friends made application for his interment in Westminster Abbey, which was acceded to, and he was buried there accordingly on January 8, 1827, immediately under the monuments of Camden and Garrick. He was much richer at the time of his death than he was at all aware of, for he was perfectly indifferent about money. Indeed, he several times returned money to Mr. Murray, saying that “he had been too liberal.” He left L25,000 of personal property, a considerable part of which he left to the relatives of Mr. Cookesley, the surgeon of Ashburton, who had been to him so faithful and self-denying a friend in his early life. To Mr. Murray he left L100 as a memorial, and also 500 guineas, to enable him to reimburse a military gentleman, to whom, jointly with Mr. Cookesley, he appears to have been bound for that sum at a former period.

Gifford has earned, but it is now generally recognised that he has unjustly earned, the character of a severe, if not a bitter critic. Possessing an unusually keen discernment of genuine excellence, and a scathing power of denunciation of what was false or bad in literature, he formed his judgments in accordance with a very high standard of merit. Sir Walter Scott said of his “Baviad and Maeviad, that “he squashed at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugged the world long enough.” His critical temper, however, was in truth exceptionally equable; regarding it as his duty to encourage all that was good and elevating, and relentlessly to denounce all that was bad or tended to lower the tone of literature, he conscientiously acted up to the standard by which he judged others, and never allowed personal feeling to intrude upon his official judgments.

It need scarcely be said that he proved himself an excellent editor, and that he entertained a high idea of the duties of that office. William Jerdan, who was introduced to Gifford by Canning, said: “I speak of him as he always was to mefull of gentleness, a sagacious adviser and instructor, upon so comprehensive a scale, that I never met his superior among the men of the age most renowned for vast information, and his captivating power in communicating it.” His sagacity and quickness of apprehension were remarkable, as was also the extraordinary rapidity with which he was able to eviscerate a work, and summarize its contents in a few pages.

The number of articles which he himself wrote was comparatively small, for he confined himself for the most part to revising and improving the criticisms of others, and though in thus dealing with articles submitted to him he frequently erased what the writers considered some of their best criticisms, he never lost their friendship and support. He disliked incurring any obligation which might in any degree shackle the expression of his free opinions. In conjunction with Mr. Murray, he laid down a rule, which as we have already seen was advocated by Scott, and to which no exception has ever been made, that every writer in the Quarterly should receive payment for his contribution. On one occasion, when a gentleman in office would not receive the money, the article was returned. “I am not more certain of many conjectures,” says Jerdan, “than I am of this, that he never propagated a dishonest opinion nor did a dishonest act.”

Gifford took no notice of the ferocious attacks made upon him by Hunt and Hazlitt. Holding, as he did, that inviolable secrecy was one of the prime functions of an editorthough the practice has since become very differenthe never attempted to vindicate himself, or to reveal the secret as to the writers of the reviews. In accordance with his plan of secrecy, he desired Dr. Ireland, his executor, to destroy all confidential letters, especially those relating to the Review, so that the names of the authors, as well as the prices paid for each article, might never be known.

In society, of which he saw but little, except at Mr. Murray’s, he was very entertaining. He told a story remarkably well; and had an inexhaustible supply; the archness of his eyes and countenance making them all equally good.

He had never been married; but although he had no children, he had an exceeding love for them. When well, he delighted in giving juvenile parties, and rejoiced at seeing the children frisking about in the happiness of youtha contrast which threw the misery of his own early life into strange relief. His domestic favourites were his dog and his cat, both of which he dearly loved. He was also most kind and generous to his domestic servants; and all who knew him well, sorrowfully lamented his death.

Many years after Gifford’s death, a venomous article upon him appeared in a London periodical. The chief point of this anonymous attack was contained in certain extracts from the writings of Sir W. Scott, Southey, and other eminent contemporaries of Mr. Gifford. Mr. R.W. Hay, one of the oldest contributors to the Quarterly, was at that time still living, and, in allusion to the article in question, he wrote to Mr. Murray’s son:

Mr. R.W. Hay to Mr. Murray.

July 7, 1856.

It is wholly worthless, excepting as it contains strictures of Sir W. Scott, Southey, and John Wilson on the critical character of the late Wm. Gifford. I by no means subscribe to all that is said by these distinguished individuals on the subject, and I cannot help suspecting that the high station in literature which they occupied rendered them more than commonly sensitive to the corrections and erasures which were proposed by the editor. Sir Walter (great man as he was) was perfectly capable of writing so carelessly as to require correction, and both Southey and John Wilson might occasionally have brought forth opinions, on political and other matters, which were not in keeping with the general tone of the Quarterly Review. That poor Gifford was deformed in figure, feeble in health, unhappily for him there can be no denying, but that he had any pleasure in tormenting, as asserted by some, that he indulged in needless criticism without any regard to the feelings of those who were under his lash, I am quite satisfied cannot justly be maintained. In my small dealings with the Review, I only found the editor most kind and considerate. His amendments and alterations I generally at once concurred in, and I especially remember in one of the early articles, that he diminished the number of Latin quotations very much to its advantage; that his heart was quite in the right place I have had perfect means of knowing from more than one circumstance, e.g., his anxiety for the welfare of his friend Hoppner the painter’s children was displayed in the variety of modes which he adopted to assist them, and when John Gait was sorely maltreated in the Review in consequence of his having attributed to me, incorrectly, an article which occasioned his wrath and indignation, and afterwards was exposed to many embarrassments in life, Gifford most kindly took up his cause, and did all he could to further the promotion of his family. That our poor friend should have been exposed throughout the most part of his life to the strong dislike of the greatest part of the community is not unnatural. As the redacteur of the Anti-Jacobin, etc., he, in the latter part of the last century, drew upon himself the hostile attacks of all the modern philosophers of the age, and of all those who hailed with applause the dawn of liberty in the French Revolution; as editor of the Quarterly Review, he acquired in addition to the former hosts of enemies, the undisguised hatred of all the Whigs and Liberals, who were for making peace with Bonaparte, and for destroying the settled order of things in this country. In the present generation, when the feeling of national hatred against France has entirely subsided, and party feelings have so much gone by that no man can say to which party any public man belongs, it is impossible for anyone to comprehend the state of public feeling which prevailed during the great war of the Revolution, and for some years after its termination. Gifford was deeply imbued with all the sentiments on public matters which prevailed in his time, and, as some people have a hatred of a cat, and others of a toad, so our friend felt uneasy when a Frenchman was named; and buckled on his armour of criticism whenever a Liberal or even a Whig was brought under his notice; and although in the present day there appears to be a greater indulgence to crime amongst judges and juries, and perhaps a more lenient system of criticism is adopted by reviewers, I am not sure that any public advantage is gained by having Ticket of Leave men, who ought to be in New South Wales, let loose upon the English world by the unchecked appearance of a vast deal of spurious literature, which ought to have withered under the severe blasts of Criticism.

Believe yours very truly,

R.W. HAY.