The Carlyles and the Leweses

Abstract

On 10 October 1851 John Chapman, who had just completed the purchase of the Westminster Review, called at 5 Cheyne Row to ask Carlyle to write an article on the peerage for his first number. Carlyle declined, ‘being clear for silence at present’. But, as soon as Chapman had gone, he sent off a letter to Robert Browning, describing Chapman as ‘really a meritorious, productive kind of man, did he well know his road in these times…; his intense purpose now is, To bring out a Review, Liberal in all senses, that shall charm the world. He has capital “for four years’ trial,” he says; an able Editor (name can’t be given), and such an array of “talent” as was seldom gathered before.’¹ He was reluctant to give the name of his ‘able Editor’ because she was a woman — Marian Evans, who had lately come from Coventry to board at Chapman’s house at 142 Strand. While he interviewed Carlyle, she was wandering up and down Cheyne Walk, passing more than once the house at number 4 where she was to die in 1880.