THE
MACLISE PORTRAIT-GALLERY
I.—WILLIAM JERDAN.
The "Gallery" commenced appropriately with the εἴδωλον of William Jerdan, the Nestor, if not the Aristarchus, of journalistic critics. Maginn, in what Charles Lamb would have called a "matter of lie" sort of way, assigns his birth vaguely to "about the year 1730"; but, without venturing to contravene such high authority, I may venture to state that a William Jerdan first saw the light at Kelso, where his father had a small estate, on April 16, 1782. Some seventy years after this event,—in August, 1851,—a testimonial was set on foot, "as a public acknowledgment of the literary labours of William Jerdan, animating to many, and instructive to all, since the commencement of the Literary Gazette, in 1817, to the close of last year, and of the value of his services to Literature, Science and the Fine and Useful Arts." On the Committee for the promotion of this laudable object were men of the highest position in literature, art and politics,—Brougham, Croly, Lockhart, Maclise, Thackeray, Bulwer, Cruikshank, etc.
The editor of Byron's Don Juan, in his "Preface" to that immortal poem, speaks of "William Jerdan, Esq., of Grove House, Brompton," as "sure of being remembered hereafter for his gallant seizure of Bellingham the assassin of Perceval, in the lobby of the House of Commons, on the 11th May, 1812; and the establishment of the first Weekly Journal of Criticism and Belles Lettres in England." It would appear, however, from a statement of the able bibliographer, "Olphar Hamst" (Mr. Ralph Thomas), that Jerdan, so far from being founder of the magazine with which his name is associated, did not assume the editorial conduct of the serial till the twenty-sixth number, his first contribution having appeared in the one previous. Among the other credentials of the critic to be remembered by posterity may be mentioned his narrow escape of at least receiving a challenge to fight a duel with the noble author of the poem I have mentioned. It appears that some remarks which he had made on Byron's lines to Mrs. Charlemont—
"Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred," etc.,
having given offence, the irate bard entrusted a cartel of mortal defiance to his friend, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird,—whom, later on, as one "well versed in the duello or monomachie," he commissioned to challenge Southey,—who, wisely retaining the document in his possession till he
