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STRAHAN, WILLIAM, an
eminent printer and patron of literature, was born at Edinburgh in the year
1715. [Memoir in Lounger of August 20, 1785.–Nichol’s Lit. An. iii. 399.]
His father, who held a situation connected with the customs, was enabled to
give him a respectable education at a grammar school, after which he was
apprenticed to a printer. Very early in life he removed to the wide field of
London, where he appears to have worked for some time as a journeyman
printer, and to have with much frugality, creditably supported a wife and
family on the small income so afforded him. His wife, whom he early married,
was sister to Mr James Elphinston, the translator of Martial. It can be well
supposed that he had for many years many difficulties to overcome; but he
was of a happy temper, looking forward to prosperity as the reward of his
toils, without being unduly sanguine. It is said he used to remark, "that he
never had a child born, that Providence did not send some increase of income
to provide for the increase of his household." After shaking himself free of
his difficulties, he grew rapidly wealthy, and in 1770 was enabled to
purchase a share of the patent for King’s Printer of Mr Eyre. Previously to
this period, Mr Strahan had commenced a series of speculations in the
purchase of literary property, that species of merchandise which more than
any other depends for its success on the use of great shrewdness and
critical discernment. Strahan was eminently successful, and with the usual
effect of good management, was enabled to be liberal to authors, while he
enriched himself. With Dr Johnson he was for some time intimately connected
and he took the charge of editing his prayers and meditations after the
doctor’s death. Johnson, however has been accused of speaking of him in a
manner which the world seldom admires, when used towards a person to whom
the speaker owes obligations, whatever may be the intellectual disparity.
Boswell observes, "Dr Gerard told us, that an eminent printer was veiy
intimate with Warburton. Johnson. ‘Why, sir, he has printed some of
his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is
such as one of the professors here might have with one of the carpenters,
who is repairing the college.’" In a letter to Sir William Forbes, Dr
Beattie has made the following remark on this passage, "I cannot but take
notice of a very illiberal saying of Johnson with respect to the late Mr
Strahan, (Mr Boswell has politely concealed the name,) who was a man to whom
Johnson had been much obliged, and whom, on account of his abilities and
virtues as well as rank in life, every one who knew him, and Johnson as well
as others acknowledged to be a most respectable character. I have seen the
letter mentioned by Dr Gerard, and I have seen many other letters from
bishop Warburton to Mr Strahan. They were very particularly acquainted: and
Mr Strahan’s merit entitled him to be on a footing of intimacy with any
bishop, or any British subject. He was eminently skilled in composition and
the English language, excelled in the epistolary style, had corrected (as he
told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr Hume and Dr Robertson; he was a
faithful friend, and his great knowledge of the world, and of business, made
him a very useful one." [Forbes’ Life of Beattie, ii. 185.] The
expression was probably one of a splenetic moment, for Johnson was not on
all occasions on good terms with Strahan. "In the course of this year,"
(1778,) says Boswell, "there was a difference between him (Johnson) and his friend Mr Strahan: the particulars of which it is unnecessary to
relate." The doctor must have been signally in the wrong, for he deigned to
offer terms of accommodation. "It would be very foolish for us," he says in
a letter to Strahan, "to continue strangers any longer. You can never by
persistency make wrong right, if I resented too acrimoniously, I resented
only to yourself. Nobody ever saw or heard what I wrote. You saw that my
anger was over, for in a day or two I came to your house. I have given you
longer time; and I hope you have made so good use of it as to be no longer
on evil terms with, Sir, yours, &c., Sam. Johnson." [Boswell, iii. 392.]
Strahan, when he became influential with the ministry, proposed
Johnson as a person well fitted to hold a seat in parliament for their
interest, but the recommendation was not adopted. So soon as he found
himself in easy circumstances, Mr Strahan became an active politician, and
corresponded with many eminent statesmen. In the year 1769, he wrote some
Queries to Dr Franklin, respecting the discontents of the Americans, which
were afterwards published in the London Chronicle of 28th July, 1778. In
1775, he was elected member for the borough of Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, with
Fox as his colleague, and in the succeeding parliament he represented Wotton
Basset in the same county. He is said to have been an active and useful
legislator. On the resignation of his friends in 1784, he declined, partly
from bad health, to stand again for a seat. His health from this period
quickly declined, and he died on the 9th July, 1785, in the seventy-first
year of his age. He provided munificently for his widow and children, and
among many other eleemosynary bequests, left £1000 to the company of
Stationers, to be disposed of for charitable purposes.
The author of the memoir in
the Lounger, gives the following account of his character "Endued with much
natural sagacity, and an attentive observation of life, he owed his rise to
that station of opulence and respect which he attained, rather to his own
talents and exertion, than to any accidental occurrence of favourable or
fortunate circumstances. His mind, though not deeply tinctured with
learning, was not uninformed by letters. From a habit of attention to style,
he had acquired a considerable portion of critical acuteness in the
discernment of its beauties and defects. In one branch of writing himself
excelled. I mean the epistolary, in which he not only showed the precision
and clearness of business, but possessed a neatness, as well as fluency of
expression, which I have known few letter-writers to surpass. Letter-writing
was one of his favourite amusements; and among his correspondents were men
of such eminence and talents as well repaid his endeavours to entertain
them. One of these, as we have before mentioned, was the justly celebrated
Dr Franklin, originally a printer like Mr Strahan, whose friendship and
correspondence he continued to enjoy, notwithstanding the difference of
their sentiments in political matters, which often afforded pleasantry, but
never mixed anything acrimonious in their letters. * * * In
his elevation he neither triumphed over the inferiority of those he had left
below him, nor forgot the equality in which they had formerly stood. Of
their inferiority he did not even remind them, by the ostentation of
grandeur, or the parade of wealth. In his house there was none of that saucy
train, none of that state or finery, with which the illiberal delight to
confound and to dazzle those who may have formerly seen them in less
enviable circumstances. No man was more mindful of, or more solicitous to
oblige, the acquaintance or companions of his early days. The advice which
his experience, or the assistance which his purse could afford, he was ready
to communicate: and at his table in London, every Scotchman found an easy
introduction, and every old acquaintance a cordial welcome." |
