The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-08 00:00:00

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According to his own account of his literary
career in his recently published Autobiographic Re-
collections, called Yesterday and 70. day: —My
first lucubration in type was in youth, in 1801, in an
epitaph en Sir Ralph Abercromby, who had just
fallen in Egypt. Some translations from Ovid,
and similar pieces between 1801 and 18C4. The
year 1806 found me in the Abbey, at the funeral of
Pitt, afloat on the wide world, and soon afterwards
I became fatherless. Fox was in power, and during .
his short administration I commenced my labours,
and for a year after its close I laboured on the Pilot
newspaper. I adopted Liberal principles, and have
never faltered, working for them, too often without
fee or reward. I have stated before how it fell to
my lot to proceed to Plymouth, where a newspaper
came wholly into my hands. That paper was
neutral as far as regarded Whig or Tory principle.
No Liberals or Radicals wore then known ; Whio•strongor Tory divided the politicians. A strong desira
to do right induced me to support Cathode emanci-
pation, ou which question the Cabinet was divided •
I have stated how I was served by Mr. Perceval for
that heinous offence. It struck a severe blow on
all my future life ; in fact made me a political mar-
tyr. I sold the paper at a great loss, I may say of
nearly all I possessed, and more indignant than re-
pentant, after five or six years of life wasted, I re-
turned to London with a little money in my pocket.
While at Plymouth I wrote for the Naval Chronicle
in London, and published two letters to Lord Holland,
on the libel law. The year 1814 found me in London
working at a Dramatic _Review, publishing articles
in the Morning Chronicle and Examiner, and learn-
ing German. All this was given up for a projected
work on Ireland, in consequence of Wakefield's
volumes not being satisfactory. It was to have been
on a large scale. I had letters from persons of con-
sequence, to individuals in the island. After wait-
ing several months, the whole was abandoned, be-
cause no one could be got on moderate terms to
manage the plates and engravings, which were a
necessary. After the battle of Waterloo I went to
France and resided four months at Rouen ; then at
Gisors, collecting notes on Normandy, or travelling
in the country south, and making observations on
the vine and its product. I also corresponded with
the Examiner. I next proceeded to Paris, and
there edited Galignani's Messenger. I returned
after three years' absence, and, going into Warwick-
shire, edited a tapper for a short time at 'Warwick,
as a holding of place for another. I also, while
there, wrote two letters on the Game Laws, to Dr.
Parr. In 1820 I commenced writing in the Nsw
Monthly Magazine, at the same time as the late
Judge Taltourd, but in two months afterwards
Campbell was engaged as the editor. I have ees
plained elsewhere the part I had in that work, in
which every third volume, part original and
part compilation, was mine. Besides this I found
time to correct the proofs of all the work, and write
one hundred and seventy-seven articles besides.
Campbell's articles were not more than one-third of
mine even in the original part ; all bear his name.
The whole weight of it soon fell on myself. The form
of that wonderfully successful work was different
then from what it has been since. Here I have to
lament I wasted ten years, the best years of my life,
doing nearly the whole work, and writing all the
political matter. But Campbell and myself were
intimate friends. The Metropolitan followed the
abandonment of the Nero Monthly. In 1833 I went
into Sussex and put together my work on wine,
which has made me extensively known in England
and America. The history of that work is curious ;
to myself it was of less advantage than any other
1 had undertaken considering its labour. The MS.
in material lay untouched for thirteen years ! None
of the " trade" would look at it, or hear of it. I had,
proposed it to Colburn in vain. "It would not
answer." " So few drank wine," and so on ; which
meant that there was no work in the market, like it,
that had made a noise, by which it could he judged.
My notes on wine, like those on Normandy, had.
not, like them, become useless from being snper-
seded by others. When I left the Metropolitan,
therefore, I put the work in order. The late Mr.
Wffittaker, who was a particular friend, et last said
he would publish it on the priuc:ple of half proffis.
It was most beautifully printed by Gilbert and
Rivington in one volume. Tht., woodcuts were then
five times the price they are at present, and the ex-
pense of the work was thus greatly enhanced. It
went through a second edition, but I never received
more profit from it than paid my sojourn on the
coast for two or three months while I put it together.
I abandoned it in disgust, as labour and toil en-
tirely wasted lt is continually ex-
pected that literary men should serve public
purposes gratuitously, while the public cares
not a rush how they fare, or live, or die in
harness, never giving its services without an equi-
valent. I was glad to serve the public, I confess,
bat more because it was a pleasure in my case than
a duty, though ruinous as a waste of time, for I
could look nowhere for remuneration. But it has
been the same in politics. I have served liberal and -
reform and free-trade principles devotedly for above
half a century without more pecuniary profit than
very common labour returned, and can ask myself
the question mi bone? except that the public bene-
fited. Still it is a very serious question, at above
three-score years and ten, to a literary man, too
whose time is his estate. In active politics, it is
true, I worked con amore for my party ; I paid my
own expenses, and never received a shilling, except
the moderate salary paid me, all through my career.
Besides the weight of a paper to meet this salary,
working at the same time for London periodicals,
which nothing but a happy constitution of body
enabled me to bear. Of the same politics, from
the time of Mr. Fox I have Been almost all the
away,
the I have been in
rary men I knew passway, wh
the same state. In political works through perilous
times, often from the e
b pressure. of circumstances, not
having quitted
the writing table even for a meal,
for thirty Six
hours together. I find myself in my
age es, _ t ter off in worldly circumstances than
when, in 1814, I left Plymouth, though I am the
oldest continued literary workman in England, and
over the largest scope of action. . . . But to
conclude, besides between forty and fifty volumes
of my own, I have edited above a hundred, begin-
ning in 1806. I have established four newspapers,
and edited six, one in France, and written for four
others. There are few periodicals which have not
had something of mine, and I have published,
articles I;know not how many in Encyclopaedias and
similar works.

Redding—as Man of Lei
Journalist.

LAIVERTistmENT.I—A Share in a lucrative manufac-
turing business for disposal. From £1,500 to £4,000 required
according to the proportion of share purchased ; if desired,
half the amount of purchase money may remain on security
of the share, to be paid off from profits. Apply to the Post-
office, 132, Jermyn-street.
THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG.—The road at
Gettysburg was lined with Yankee dead, and as
they had been killed on the Ist the poor fellows had already
begun to be very offensive. We then returned to the bill I
was on yesterday, but finding that to see the actual fighting
it was absolutely necessary to go into the thick of the thing,
I determined to make my way to General Longstreet. It
was then about 2 30. After passing General Lee and his
staff I rode on through the woods in the direction in which
I had left Longstreet. I soon began to meet many wounded
men returning from the front; many of them asked in
piteous tones the way to a doctor or an ambulance. Th©
further I got the greater became the number of the wounded.
At last I came to a perfect stream of them flocking through
the woods in numbers as great as would crowd Oxford-street
in the middle of the day. Some were walking alone on
crutches composed of two rifles, others were supported by
men less badly wounded than themselves, and others were
carried on stretchers by the ambulance corps; but in no
ease did I see a'ound man helping the wounded to the rear,
unless he carried the red badge of the ambulance corps.
They were still under a heavy fire; the shell was continu-
ally bringing down great linal,s of trees, and Cal rYirg fur-
ther destruction among this melanchelv procession. I saW
all this in much less time then it takes to wilt it, and.
although astonished to meet such vast numbers of wounded
I had nut teen enough to give me any idea of the real extent
of the mischief. When I got close up to Gen. Longstreet,
saw one of his regiments advancing through the woods in
good order ; so, thinking I was just in time to see the attack,
I remarked to the general that wouldn't nave missed
this for anything." Longstreet was seated at the top of a
make fence at the edge of the wood, ane looking perfectly
calm and unt,rturbed. He replied, laughing, "The devil
yeti woulda, I I would like to have missed it very much;
we-ve attaeked, and been repulsed—look there I"—Black-
wood's Idagazine for ,September.