Abraham Hayward
Encyclopedia
Abraham Hayward was an English
man of letters.
, near Salisbury, Wiltshire
.
After education at Blundell's School
, Tiverton, he entered the Inner Temple
in 1824, and was called to the bar in June 1832. He took part as a conservative in the discussions of the London Debating Society, where his opponents were JA Roebuck
and John Stuart Mill
. The editorship of the Law Magazine, or, Quarterly Review of Jurisprudence, which he held from 1828 to 1844, brought him into connection with John Austin, G Cornewall Lewis
, and such foreign jurists as Savigny, whose tractate on contemporary legislation and jurisprudence he rendered into English
.
In 1833 he travelled abroad, and on his return began contributing to the New Monthly, the Foreign Quarterly, the Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review
.
In February 1835 he was elected to the Athenaeum Club
under Rule 11, and he remained for nearly fifty years one of its most conspicuous and most influential members. He was also a subscriber to the Carlton, but ceased to frequent it when he became a Peelite. At the Temple, Hayward, whose reputation was rapidly growing as a connoisseur not only of a bill of fare but also as company, gave recherché dinners, at which ladies of rank and fashion appreciated the wit of Sydney Smith
and Theodore Hook
, the dignity of Lockhart
and Lyndhurst
and the oratory of Macaulay. At the Athenaeum and in political society he to some extent succeeded to the position of Croker
. He and Macaulay were commonly said to be the two best-read men in town.
Political ladies first, and statesmen afterwards, came to recognize the advantage of obtaining Hayward's good opinion. The "old reviewing hand" became an acknowledged link between society, letters and politics. In one notable and lengthy land rights case, 'The Queen v. Ames', Hayward acted on behalf of the town of Lyme Regis
in securing the permanent right of way for its citizens, across the cliffs to Axminster
. There were other successes, but his promotion to be Q.C. in 1845 excited a storm of opposition, and, disgusted at being 'black-balled' by J. A. Roebuck and therefore not elected a Bencher of his Inn in the usual course, Hayward virtually withdrew from legal practice. His enemies prevented him from enjoying a well-selected quasisinecure, which both Palmerston and Aberdeen
admitted to be his due. Samuel Warren
attacked him as Venom Tuft in Ten Thousand a Year; and Disraeli aimed at him partially in Ste Barbe (in Endymion), though the satire
here was directed primarily against Thackeray
.
As a counsellor of great ladies and of politicians,, to whom he held forth with a sense of all-round responsibility surpassing that of a cabinet minister, Hayward retained his influence to the last years of his life. But he had little sympathy with modern ideas. He used to say that he had outlived every one that he could really look up to. He died, a bachelor, in his rooms at 8 St James's Street (a small museum of autograph portraits and reviewing trophies).
's Faust
into English prose ' onMouseout='HidePop("68866")' href="/topics/Thomas_Carlyle">Carlyle
to be the best version extant in his time). A second and revised edition was published after another visit to Germany in January 1834, in the course of which Hayward met Tieck, Chamisso
, De La Motte Fouqué, Varnhagen von Ense
and Madame Goethe. In 1878 he contributed the volume on Goethe to Blackwood's Foreign Classics.
His first successes as reviewer were in 1835-1836 by articles on "Walker's Original" and on "Gastronomy." The essays were reprinted to form The Art of Dining, in 1852. Hayward got up every important subject of discussion immediately it came into prominence, and concentrated his information in such a way that he habitually had the last word to say on a topic. When Rogers
died, when Vanity Fair was published, when the Greville Memoirs was issued or a revolution occurred on the continent, Hayward, whose memory was as retentive as his power of accumulating documentary evidence was exhaustive, wrote an elaborate essay on the subject for the Quarterly or the Edinburgh. He followed up his paper by giving his acquaintances no rest until they either assimilated or undertook to combat his views.
In February 1848 he became one of the chief leader-writers for the Peelite organ, the Morning Chronicle
. The morbid activity of his memory, however, continued to make him many enemies. He alienated Disraeli by tracing a purple patch in his official eulogy of the Duke of Wellington
to a newspaper translation from Thiers
's funeral panegyric
on General St Cyr. His sharp tongue had already made him an enemy of Roebuck, and he disgusted the friends of Mill by the stories he raked up for an obituary notice of the great economist (The Times, May 10, 1873). He broke with Henry Reeve
in 1874 by a venomous review of the Greville Memoirs, in which Reeve was compared to the beggarly Scot deputed to let off the blunderbuss which Bolingbroke (Greville
) had charged.
After his break with Reeve, Hayward devoted himself more exclusively to the Quarterly. His essays on Chesterfield
and Selwyn were reprinted in 1854. Collective editions of his articles appeared in volume form in 1858, 1873 and 1874, and Selected Essays in two volumes, 1878. In his useful but far from flawless edition of the Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs (Thrale) Piozzi (1861), he again appears as a supplementer and continuator
of J. W. Croker. His Eminent Statesmen and Writers (1880) commemorates to a large extent personal friendships with such men as Dumas
, Cavour and Thiers, whom he knew intimately.
Two volumes of Hayward's Correspondence (edited by HE Carlisle) were published in 1886. In Vanity Fair (November 27, 1875) he may be seen as he appeared in later life.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
man of letters.
Life
He was son of Joseph Hayward, and was born in WiltonWilton, Wiltshire
Wilton is a town in Wiltshire, , England, with a rich heritage dating back to the Anglo-Saxons. Today it is dwarfed by its larger and more famous neighbour, Salisbury, but still has a range of notable shops and attractions, including Wilton House.The confluence of the rivers Wylye and Nadder is at...
, near Salisbury, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
.
After education at Blundell's School
Blundell's School
Blundell's School is a co-educational day and boarding independent school located in the town of Tiverton in the county of Devon, England. The school was founded in 1604 by the will of Peter Blundell, one of the richest men in England at the time, and relocated to its present location on the...
, Tiverton, he entered the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in 1824, and was called to the bar in June 1832. He took part as a conservative in the discussions of the London Debating Society, where his opponents were JA Roebuck
John Arthur Roebuck
John Arthur Roebuck , British politician, was born at Madras, in India.After the death of his father, a civil servant, his mother's second marriage transferred him to Canada, where he was chiefly brought-up. He came to England in 1824, was called to the bar John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802...
and John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
. The editorship of the Law Magazine, or, Quarterly Review of Jurisprudence, which he held from 1828 to 1844, brought him into connection with John Austin, G Cornewall Lewis
George Cornewall Lewis
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 2nd Baronet PC was a British statesman and man of letters.-Family:He was born in London, the son of Thomas Frankland Lewis of Harpton Court, Radnorshire and his wife Harriet Cornewall...
, and such foreign jurists as Savigny, whose tractate on contemporary legislation and jurisprudence he rendered into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
In 1833 he travelled abroad, and on his return began contributing to the New Monthly, the Foreign Quarterly, the Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
.
In February 1835 he was elected to the Athenaeum Club
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
under Rule 11, and he remained for nearly fifty years one of its most conspicuous and most influential members. He was also a subscriber to the Carlton, but ceased to frequent it when he became a Peelite. At the Temple, Hayward, whose reputation was rapidly growing as a connoisseur not only of a bill of fare but also as company, gave recherché dinners, at which ladies of rank and fashion appreciated the wit of Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith was an English writer and Anglican cleric. -Life:Born in Woodford, Essex, England, Smith was the son of merchant Robert Smith and Maria Olier , who suffered from epilepsy...
and Theodore Hook
Theodore Edward Hook
Theodore Edward Hook was an English man of letters.- Biography :He was born in London. He spent a year at Harrow School, and subsequently matriculated at Oxford, but he never actually resided at the university...
, the dignity of Lockhart
John Gibson Lockhart
John Gibson Lockhart , was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the definitive "Life" of Sir Walter Scott...
and Lyndhurst
John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst
John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst PC KS FRS , was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.-Background and education:...
and the oratory of Macaulay. At the Athenaeum and in political society he to some extent succeeded to the position of Croker
John Wilson Croker
John Wilson Croker was an Irish statesman and author.He was born at Galway, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1800...
. He and Macaulay were commonly said to be the two best-read men in town.
Political ladies first, and statesmen afterwards, came to recognize the advantage of obtaining Hayward's good opinion. The "old reviewing hand" became an acknowledged link between society, letters and politics. In one notable and lengthy land rights case, 'The Queen v. Ames', Hayward acted on behalf of the town of Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...
in securing the permanent right of way for its citizens, across the cliffs to Axminster
Axminster
Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of Devon in England. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Axmouth, and is in the East Devon local government district. It has a population of 5,626. The market is still...
. There were other successes, but his promotion to be Q.C. in 1845 excited a storm of opposition, and, disgusted at being 'black-balled' by J. A. Roebuck and therefore not elected a Bencher of his Inn in the usual course, Hayward virtually withdrew from legal practice. His enemies prevented him from enjoying a well-selected quasisinecure, which both Palmerston and Aberdeen
George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen
George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen KG, KT, FRS, PC , styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a Scottish politician, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852 until 1855.-Early life:Born in Edinburgh on 28 January 1784, he...
admitted to be his due. Samuel Warren
Samuel Warren (English lawyer)
Samuel Warren , was a British lawyer, novelist and MP.He was born near Wrexham, Denbighshire, the son of a Nonconformist minister...
attacked him as Venom Tuft in Ten Thousand a Year; and Disraeli aimed at him partially in Ste Barbe (in Endymion), though the satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
here was directed primarily against Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
.
As a counsellor of great ladies and of politicians,, to whom he held forth with a sense of all-round responsibility surpassing that of a cabinet minister, Hayward retained his influence to the last years of his life. But he had little sympathy with modern ideas. He used to say that he had outlived every one that he could really look up to. He died, a bachelor, in his rooms at 8 St James's Street (a small museum of autograph portraits and reviewing trophies).
Works
He printed privately a translation of GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
into English prose ' onMouseout='HidePop("68866")' href="/topics/Thomas_Carlyle">Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
to be the best version extant in his time). A second and revised edition was published after another visit to Germany in January 1834, in the course of which Hayward met Tieck, Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...
, De La Motte Fouqué, Varnhagen von Ense
Karl August Varnhagen von Ense
Karl August Varnhagen von Ense was a German biographer, diplomat and soldier.-Biography:He was born at Düsseldorf, with siblings including Rosa Maria Varnhagen. He studied medicine in Berlin, but spent more time on philosophy and literature, which he later studied more thoroughly at Halle and...
and Madame Goethe. In 1878 he contributed the volume on Goethe to Blackwood's Foreign Classics.
His first successes as reviewer were in 1835-1836 by articles on "Walker's Original" and on "Gastronomy." The essays were reprinted to form The Art of Dining, in 1852. Hayward got up every important subject of discussion immediately it came into prominence, and concentrated his information in such a way that he habitually had the last word to say on a topic. When Rogers
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
died, when Vanity Fair was published, when the Greville Memoirs was issued or a revolution occurred on the continent, Hayward, whose memory was as retentive as his power of accumulating documentary evidence was exhaustive, wrote an elaborate essay on the subject for the Quarterly or the Edinburgh. He followed up his paper by giving his acquaintances no rest until they either assimilated or undertook to combat his views.
In February 1848 he became one of the chief leader-writers for the Peelite organ, the Morning Chronicle
Morning Chronicle
The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...
. The morbid activity of his memory, however, continued to make him many enemies. He alienated Disraeli by tracing a purple patch in his official eulogy of the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
to a newspaper translation from Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
's funeral panegyric
Panegyric
A panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
on General St Cyr. His sharp tongue had already made him an enemy of Roebuck, and he disgusted the friends of Mill by the stories he raked up for an obituary notice of the great economist (The Times, May 10, 1873). He broke with Henry Reeve
Henry Reeve
Henry Reeve was an English journalist.-Biography:He was the younger son of Henry Reeve, a Whig physician and writer from Norwich, and was born at Norwich. He was educated at the Norwich grammar school under Edward Valpy. During his holidays he saw a good deal of the young John Stuart Mill...
in 1874 by a venomous review of the Greville Memoirs, in which Reeve was compared to the beggarly Scot deputed to let off the blunderbuss which Bolingbroke (Greville
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville was an English diarist and an amateur cricketer who played first-class cricket from 1819 to 1827...
) had charged.
After his break with Reeve, Hayward devoted himself more exclusively to the Quarterly. His essays on Chesterfield
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield PC KG was a British statesman and man of letters.A Whig, Lord Stanhope, as he was known until his father's death in 1726, was born in London. After being educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he went on the Grand Tour of the continent...
and Selwyn were reprinted in 1854. Collective editions of his articles appeared in volume form in 1858, 1873 and 1874, and Selected Essays in two volumes, 1878. In his useful but far from flawless edition of the Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs (Thrale) Piozzi (1861), he again appears as a supplementer and continuator
Continuator
A continuator, in literature, is a writer who creates a new work based on someone else's prior text, such as a novel or novel fragment. The new work may complete the older work , or may try to serve as a sequel or prequel to the older work A continuator, in literature, is a writer who creates a new...
of J. W. Croker. His Eminent Statesmen and Writers (1880) commemorates to a large extent personal friendships with such men as Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, Cavour and Thiers, whom he knew intimately.
Two volumes of Hayward's Correspondence (edited by HE Carlisle) were published in 1886. In Vanity Fair (November 27, 1875) he may be seen as he appeared in later life.