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 Mudford was then in London and editor of a ‘Universal Magazine,’ to which Black contributed articles on the Italian drama and on German literature in 1807-8-9.

By Mudford’s persuasion he left Edinburgh for London in 1810. Dr. C. Mackay gives as a doubtful statement of Black himself, that he walked with a few pence in his pocket all the way from Berwickshire to London, subsisting on the hospitality of farmers. He carried a letter of introduction to Mr. Cromek, engraver and publisher, who received him at once into his friendly home. Three months after his arrival in London he was engaged as a reporter by James Perry, an Aberdonian, who, with another Scotsman named Gray, had in 1789 become proprietors of the ‘Morning Chronicle.' Besides reporting Black had to translate the foreign correspondence. As a reporter he was considered to be very rapid, but Mr. Proby, the manager of the paper, used to say that Black’s principal merit consisted in the celerity wit which he made his way from the House of Commons to the Strand. He was already, in 1810, engaged in translating into English ‘Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain,’ which was published in four volumes (1811-12). In 1813 Black completed the translation of a quarto volume of ‘Travels in Norway an Lapland, by Leopold von Buch,' and, in 181-1, ‘Berzelius on a System of Mineralogy.' In 1814 he translated ‘Schlegel’s Lectures on Dramatic Literature] and the ‘Memoirs of Goldoni.’

At the house of one of his London friends Black was introduced, in the autumn of 1812, to his friend’s mistress, who was not averse to a marriage which her old lover seemed anxious to promote. Black fell into the snare, and five days later, in the month of December 1812, they were married. The union was a most unhappy one. His wife made no pretence of love for him. In the space of two months she had involved him in debt, sold some of his furniture, and clandestinely renewed acquaintance with her former lover. Black bore patiently with her whims. Before the beginning of March 1813 she left him altogether, and Black knew how much she and their common friend had befooled him. He challenged the betrayer. But the spell was not broken. His wife had only to write him a penitent letter to obtain from him the money supplies she demanded. In 1814, however, he sought a divorce. An arrangement was made that the wife should go to Scotland and be domiciled there long enough to sue for a divorce on her petition. The project, however, failed, the proof of domicile of both parties not being deemed adequate by the court. Black, in full expectation of a divorce, had uttered marriage to an old friend, who became his housekeeper and bore the name of Mrs. Black. The undivorced wife did not fail to extract money from her husband. This pertinacious persecution went on for many years.

This episode in Black s career explains the disorganisation of his official labours which led to a quarrel with Mr. Perry. Due explanation being given the breach was healed. In 1817 Mr, Perry’s health was giving way, and the functions of editor gradually devolved on Black.

The ‘Morning Chronicle’ was the most uncompromising of all the opposition papers, and Black maintained its position, being much assisted by the counsels of Mr. James Mill. At one time there was scarcely a day that they did not walk together from the India House giving and receiving political inspiration. John Stuart Mill wrote of Black: ‘He played a really important part in the progress of English opinion for a number of years which was not, properly recognised. I have always considered Black as the first journalist who carried criticism and the spirit of reform into the details of English institutions. Those who are not old enough to remember those times can hardly believe what the state of public discussion then was. People now and then attacked the constitution and the boroughmongers, but no one thought of censuring the law or the courts of justice, and to say a word against the unpaid magistracy was a sort of blasphemy. Black was the writer who carried the warfare into these subjects, and by doing so he broke the spell. Very early in his editorship he fought a great battle for the freedom of reporting preliminary investigations in the police courts. He carried his point, and the victory was permanent. Another subject on which his writings were of the greatest service was the freedom of the press on matters of religion. All these subjects were Black’s own’ (Private Letter, 1869). At the outset of his editorial career he attracted much public attention by his determined condemnation of the authorities in their conduct at Manchester in the affair long known as the Peterloo massacre (16 Aug. 1819). In the matter of the queen’s trial the ‘Chronicle’ leaned to the unpopular side, deeming her majesty guilty, and the circulation of the paper was greatly diminished.

In 1821 Mr. Perry died, and his executors sold for 42,000l. the newspaper which thirty years before had been bought for 1501. Bloch retained his post, of editor, but the new proprietor, Mr. Clement, owner also of the ‘Ob- 