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PERRY, JAMES, an eminent
journalist, was born in Aberdeen, on the 30th of October, 1756. He received
the rudiments of his education at the school of Garioch, and was afterwards
removed to the high school of Aberdeen. Having gone through the usual course
of learning at this seminary, with much credit to himself and satisfaction
to his teachers, he entered Marischal college in 1771, and was afterwards,
on completing his curriculum at the university, placed under Dr Arthur
Dingwall Fordyce, to qualify him for the profession of the law, a profession
to which he originally intended to devote himself. The misfortunes of his
father, however, who was an eminent house-builder in Aberdeen, and who had
about this period entered into some ruinous speculations, compelled him
suddenly to abandon his legal studies, and to resign all idea of adopting
the law as a profession. In these unfortunate circumstances, young Perry
went to Edinburgh, in 1774, with the humble hope of procuring employment as
a clerk in some writer’s chambers. Even this, however, he could not obtain;
and, after hanging about the city for many weeks, making daily, but
ineffectual efforts to get into a way of earning a subsistence, he came to
the resolution of trying his fortune in England. With this view, he
proceeded to Manchester, where he succeeded in obtaining a situation in the
counting-house of a Mr Dinwiddie, a respectable manufacturer, in which he
remained for two years. During his stay in Manchester, Mr Perry, who was yet
only in the nineteenth year of his age, attracted the notice, and procured
the friendship and patronage, of several of the principal gentlemen in the
town, by the singular talents he displayed in a debating society, which they
had established for the discussion of moral and philosophical subjects. This
favourable opinion of the youthful orator’s abilities was still further
increased, by his producing several literary essays of great merit.
Encouraged by this success,
Mr Perry determined to seek a wider field for the exercise of his talents;
and with this view set out for London, in the beginning of the year 1777,
carrying with him a number of letters of introduction and recommendations
from his friends in Manchester to influential individuals in the metropolis.
For some time, however, these were unavailing. He could find no employment;
and he seemed as hopelessly situated now in the English, as he had been in
the Scottish capital two years before. But the occurrence of a circumstance,
not uninteresting in the memoirs of a literary man, who fought his way to
fame and fortune by the mere force of his talents, at length procured him at
once the employment which he sought, and placed him on the path to that
eminence which he afterwards attained
While waiting in London for
some situation presenting itself, Mr Perry amused himself by writing
fugitive verses and short essays for a journal, called the "General
Advertiser." These he dropped into the letter-box of that paper, as the
casual contributions of an anonymous correspondent, and they were of such
merit as to procure immediate insertion. It happened that one of the parties
to whom he had a letter of recommendation, namely, Messrs Richardson and
Urquhart, were part proprietors of the Advertiser, and on these gentlemen Mr
Perry was in the habit of calling daily, to inquire whether any situation
had yet offered for him. On entering their shop one day to make the usual
inquiry, Mr Perry found Mr Urquhart earnestly engaged in reading an article
in the Advertiser, and evidently with great satisfaction. When he had
finished, the former put the now almost hopeless question, Whether any
situation had yet presented itself? and it was answered in the usual
negative; "but," added Mr Urquhart, "if you could write such articles as
this," pointing to that which he had just been reading, "you would find
immediate employment." Mr Perry glanced at the article which had so strongly
attracted the attention of his friend, and discovered that it was one of his
own. He instantly communicated the information to Mr Urquhart; and at the
same time pulled from his pocket another article in manuscript, which he had
intended to put into the box, as usual, before returning home. Pleased with
the discovery, Mr Urquhart immediately said that he would propose him as a
stipendiary writer for the paper, at a meeting of the proprietors, which was
to take place that very evening. The result was, that on the next day he was
employed at the rate of a guinea a-week, with an additional half guinea for
assistance to the "London Evening Post," printed by the same person.
On receiving these
appointments, Mr Perry devoted himself with great assiduity to the discharge
of their duties, and made efforts before unknown in the newspaper
establishments of London. On the memorable trials of admirals Keppel and
Palliser, he, by his own individual exertions, transmitted daily from
Portsmouth eight columns of a report of proceedings taken in court, an
achievement which had the effect of adding several thousands to the daily
impression of the paper. Even while thus laboriously engaged, Mr Perry wrote
and published several political pamphlets and poems on the leading topics of
the day, all possessed of much merit, though of only transient interest.
In 1782, Mr Perry commenced a
periodical publication, entitled "The European Magazine." This work, which
was on a plan then new, comprising a miscellany on popular subjects and
reviews of new books, appeared monthly, and from the ability with which it
was conducted, added greatly to the reputation and popularity of its editor.
Having conducted this journal for twelve months, Mr Perry was, at the end of
that period, chosen by the proprietors of the Gazetteer to be editor of that
paper, in which shares were held by some of the principal booksellers in
London, at a salary of four guineas per week; but under an express
condition, made by himself, that he should be in no way constrained in his
political opinions and sentiments, which were those of Mr Fox, of whom he
was a devoted admirer. While acting as editor of the Gazetteer, Mr Perry
effected a great improvement in the reporting department, by employing a
series of reporters who should relieve each other by turns, and thus supply
a constant and uninterrupted succession of matter. By this means he was
enabled to give in the morning all the debates which had taken place on the
preceding night, a point on which his predecessor in the editorship of the
Gazetteer had frequently been in arrears for months, and in every case for
several weeks.
One of Mr Perry’s favourite
recreations was that of attending and taking part in the discussions of
debating societies. In these humble, but not inefficient schools of oratory,
he always took a warm and active interest, and himself acquired a habit of
speaking with singular fluency and force; a talent which procured him the
notice of Pitt, who, then a very young man, was in the practice of
frequenting a society in which Mr Perry was a very frequent speaker, and who
is said to have been so impressed with his abilities as an orator, as to
have had an offer of a seat in parliament conveyed to him, after he had
himself attained the dignity of chancellor of the exchequer. A similar offer
was afterwards made to Mr Perry by lord Shelburne; but his political
principles, from which no temptation could divert him, prevented his
accepting either of these flattering propositions.
Mr Perry edited for several
years Debrett’s Parliamentary Debates, and afterwards, in conjunction with a
Mr Gray, bought the Morning Chronicle from Mr Woodfall, a paper which he
continued to conduct with great ability and independence of spirit and
principle till his death, which took place at Brighton, after a painful and
protracted illness, on the 6th December, 1821, in the sixty-fifth year of
his age. |
