years. He wrote in 1832 for ‘Tait's Magazine’ and contributed to the ‘Jurist’ the article upon ‘Endowments,’ reprinted in his ‘Dissertations.’
In 1830 Mill had been introduced to Mrs. Taylor, his junior by two years. Her husband was a ‘drysalter and wholesale druggist’ in Mark Lane; and his grandfather had been a neighbour and friend of James Mill at Newington Green. Mill rapidly formed an intimacy with Mrs. Taylor, who profoundly affected the rest of his life. She was an invalid, and obliged to live in the country apart from her husband. Mill visited her regularly in the country, dined with her twice a week in London, and occasionally travelled with her alone. Her husband accepted the situation with singular generosity, and dined out when Mill dined at his house. He was, according to Mill, a man of most honourable character, and regarded with steady affection by his wife, although he could not be her intellectual companion. The relationship between Mill and Mrs. Taylor was, as he intimates (Autobiog. p. 229), purely one of friendship. It was, however, inevitable that it should cause some scandal, and it led to difficulties with his family. His father strongly disapproved, and his marriage to her (in 1851) led to a complete estrangement from his mother and sisters. He never spoke of her to his friends or in his family, and the connection was probably the main cause of his complete withdrawal from society in later years. After ceasing to be active in journalism, he was only to be seen by a few intimate friends at the India House, and at monthly meetings of the Political Economy Club. He gives, however, more philosophical and doubtless genuine reasons for his seclusion (ib. p. 227). If his own language is to be trusted (see dedication to ‘Liberty,’ Dissertations, ii. 411, and Autobiography), Mrs. Taylor's influence upon his intellectual and moral development was of the highest importance, and yet not more important than might be expected from her transcendent abilities. He declares that her excellences of mind and heart were ‘unparalleled in any human being he had known or read of.’ His friends naturally did not share this opinion; some of them accounted for it by her excellence in echoing his own views. As Professor Bain observes, this is purely conjectural, and Mill generally liked friends with independent views. His vehement hyperboles, however, seem to betray a sense that he could give no tangible proof of their accuracy. From his account of her share in his writings it would seem that she did not influence his logical and scientific theories, but did a great deal to stimulate his enthusiasm upon such questions as liberty, women's rights, and social progress. The opinions, however, advocated in his later writings upon these topics were natural developments of his earlier thought. The only independent work attributed to her is the essay upon the enfranchisement of women in the second volume of the ‘Dissertations.’ The Reform Bill of 1832 had given power to the whigs, and Mill's great object for some years was to prevent the radicals from becoming a mere left wing of the whig party. From 1832 to 1834 he wrote much in the ‘Examiner,’ in the ‘Monthly Repository,’ edited by W. J. Fox, on political and other subjects, and published abstracts of some of Plato's ‘Dialogues,’ besides adding a short estimate of Bentham to Bulwer's ‘England and the English.’ His publications, he says, independently of the newspaper articles, would fill a large volume. His party had for some time desired to possess an organ of ‘philosophical radicalism’ which might take the place of the ‘Westminster Review.’ The ‘London Review’ was started by Sir William Molesworth [q. v.] for this purpose. The first number appeared in April 1835, and in April 1836 it was amalgamated with the ‘Westminster Review,’ which had been bought by Molesworth. Molesworth in 1837 transferred the proprietorship to Mill, who in 1840 transferred it to Mr. Hickson. There was a loss of about 100l. a number during Molesworth's proprietorship, and Mill, who paid a sub-editor and many contributors, was also a considerable loser. Mill's official position prevented him from being actual editor, but he superintended the review from the first, the ostensible editors being, first, Thomas Falconer (1805–1882) [q. v.], and from about the beginning of 1837 John Robertson, a smart young Scottish journalist. (The dates are not quite clear: see Mill's Autobiog. pp. 199, 207; Bain, pp. 46, 58–9; and Atlantic Monthly for January 1892, where are published some interesting letters from Mill to Robertson.)
Mill was at first hampered by the necessity of publishing his father's articles and others by the utilitarians of the older school. When he became freer, after his father's death in 1836, he could give more scope to his own doctrines. He inserted many articles, however, with which he was not in full agreement, the authorship being indicated by letters and editorial caveats frequently added. Among the writers were Carlyle, Sterling, Bulwer, Charles Buller, Roebuck, Harriet and James Martineau, Mazzini, W. J. Fox,
