Thomas Pringle
(1789–1834)
Poet, editor, and abolitionist. As editor of the
literary annual,
Friendshipʼs Offering,
Pringle was a key figure in arranging for
Ruskinʼs most significant
early professional publication as a poet. (Technically,
Ruskinʼs public debut as a poet occurred earlier, but less auspiciously, under the editorship of
his tutor and clergyman,
Edward Andrews (1787–1841),
who split
Ruskinʼs
1829 poem,
“Description of Skiddaw and Lake Derwent”, into two poems,
“On Skiddaw and Dewent‐Water” and
‐Lines Written at the Lakes in Cumberland–Derwentwater‐,
and published them, respectively, in the
August 1829 and
February 1830 issues of the short‐lived journal,
The Spiritual Times.)
In
Friendshipʼs Offering; and Winterʼs Wreath . . . for 1835,
published in
November 1834,
Pringle published two poems from
Account of a Tour on the Continent,
“Andernacht” and
“St. Goar”,
which were revised and yoked together under the title,
“Fragments from a Metrical Journal”.
Ruskin signed using his first public persona,
J.R.
(the
Spiritual Times poems were signed
R.).
For the same issue of the annual for
1835,
Pringle also commissioned a new poem by
Ruskin,
“Saltzburg”, to accompany an engraving after a topographical scene by
William Purser (1790–1852).
Pringle was born in the Scottish border county of
Roxburghshire. After brief involvement in
Edinburgh journalism, he emigrated in
1820 to
South Africa,
where he worked as a journalist and writer, librarian, and teacher, returning to
London in
1826. There, he grew important for his work on behalf of the abolitionist cause,
and he became known for his poetry evoking rural life in
South Africa. On
28 June 1834, the day following his signing of the official proclamation ending slavery in the British Empire,
and thus consummating his lifeʼs work dedicated to abolition,
Pringle experienced distress that he interpreted as a “crumb of bread” going down “the wrong throat”,
but that proved to be a sign of advancing tuberculosis, leading to his death before the end of the year
(
Vigne, Thomas Pringle, 241).
It was while making his way as an editor in the
London literary scene of the
late 1820s and early 1830s that
Pringle encountered the Ruskin family.
Pringle became editor of
Friendshipʼs Offering
in
1828, starting his responsibilities with the volume for
1829
(that is, the volume that became available for purchase in
October or Novemeber 1828, intended for
the holiday season of 1828–29).
The annual had been acquired in
1827 by the young publishing firm of Smith, Elder, from its founding publisher;
and Smith, Elder released their first issue (the volume for
1828, published in
November 1827)
under the editorship of
Charles Knight. When
Pringle took over, he remained editor until his death in
December 1834,
having already prepared the volume for
1835—the volume in which
Ruskinʼs poems appeared—and
and sent it to press in
August 1834
(
Vigne, Thomas Pringle, 183, 244;
“Index of Editors and Publishers of British Literary Annuals Published
1823–1830,” in
Harris, ed., “Forget Me Not” Archive).
During his illness in this final year of his editorship,
Pringle was assisted by
Henry D. Inglis (1795–1835),
and therefore the Ruskins may have had some contact with this writer and editor, as well, in preparing
Johnʼs first poems for a widely distributed public venue.
Precisely how
Pringleʼs acquaintance with the Ruskins came about is unknown.
Ruskinʼs later reminiscences of
Pringle are subordinated to wry rhetorical purposes. First, in the
1878 “My First Editor: An Autobiographical Reminiscence,”
Pringle appears as prelude to
Ruskinʼs tribute to
W. H. Harrison (ca. 1792–1878),
the poet and editor with whom
Ruskin maintained a much longer professional relationship,
and who succeeded
Pringle as one of the stewards of
Friendshipʼs Offering for Smith, Elder.
Second, in
1885–89, in
Ruskinʼs autobiography,
Praeterita,
Pringleʼs story is involved in
Ruskinʼs self-irony and satire about his fledgling career as a poet,
a vocation that
Ruskin ultimately rejected, but that his father cherished and had attempted to nourish in company with men like
Pringle and
Harrison.
As
Rudolphe Vigne points out, in his monograph on
Pringle, the association between
Pringle and the Ruskins would have rested on their shared Scottish heritage and literary interests,
and
Pringle may have centered his high regard more on
John James than on
John.
To document this friendship,
Vigne has uncovered a letter (unfortunately undated),
in which
Pringle mentions “my friend
Mr Ruskin of the house of Domecq and Co., . . . the greatest sherry merchants in
England. I have drunk at
Mr Ruskinʼs table
sherry 80 years old, and which sells at 26 shillings a bottle”
(
Vigne, Thomas Pringle, 189).
A key figure in these connections may have been
Alexander Elder (
1790–
1876),
one of the founding partners of Smith, Elder. The firmʼs counting house was located around the corner from the premises of
Telford, Ruskin, & Domecq, and
John James would have shared Elderʼs artistic interests
(
Hilton, John Ruskin: The Early Years, 29; and see
Friendshipʼs Offering).
For
John, a more compelling figure in these connections may have been his cousin,
Charles Thomas Richardson (1811–34),
who was employed by Smith, Elder as a shop boy. (
Vigne is incorrect to number this “young shop-boy,
Charles Richardson”, among the Scots in this publishing network.
Charles did not belong
to
Ruskinʼs Richardson cousins from
Perth,
Scotland, but to his Richardson cousins from
Croydon, near
London
[
Vigne, Thomas Pringle, 186].)
John admired
Charles as an older cousin, who presented the boy with his first copy of
Friendshipʼs Offering in
1829.
In
Praeterita,
Ruskin remembers that, “on Sundays”,
Charles “always brought a volume or two in his pocket to show us
the character of [the firmʼs] most ambitious publications; especially choosing, on my behalf, any which chanced to contain good engravings”,
and he writes that “we all took” an interest “in the embossed and gilded” annual
(
Ruskin, Works, 35:91).
The gift of
Friendshipʼs Offering earned no approval from
Ruskinʼs mother, however,
who on
31 October 1829 wrote to apprise
John James that “
Charles has given
John a
Friendshipʼs Offering”,
and who concluded that “upon the whole [the publication] does not improve” the mind: “the plates are well done but they are not interesting”,
and “the tales are horrible enough”, and “the poetry very so I think”
(
letter of 31 October 1829 [
Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 208]).
This copy of the annual presented by
Charles in
late October 1829 would probably have been the recently published volume “for
1830,” one of the volumes edited by
Pringle
(see
Friendshipʼs Offering).
It contained contributions by his longtime friend,
(ca. 1770–1835),
whom
Pringle was likely responsible for introducing personally to the Ruskins at
Herne Hill,
sometime between
14 January and 19 February 1832.
In
1834, this connection proved significant for the Ruskins—at least as significant as another great man with whom
Pringle remained more closely associated in
Ruskinʼs memory—namely,
Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), to whom
Pringle introduced
Ruskin as a prodigy
(see
Ruskin, Works, 35:93, 34:96–97).
Rogers did admit
Pringle to his circle, as
Vigne confirms (
Vigne, Thomas Pringle, 191–92),
but we have only
Ruskinʼs much later, barbed accounts of the episode, wherein the boy allegedly failed to flatter
Rogers adequately about the poetry of his topographical volume,
Italy,
and instead found greater interest in the engraved vignettes for the
1830 illustrated edition, and in the pictures on
Rogersʼs walls.
Accordingly,
Pringle chided his charge for failing to attend to the conversation of great men.
The anecdote may or may not be plausible, but a more significant and fundamental question concerns the motivation and outcome of
Pringleʼs introduction of the fourteen‐ or fifteen‐year old boy wonder
to
Rogersʼs famous palace of art,
St. James Place, where the poet had entertained the literati of Regency and early Victorian
London
(see
Account of a Tour on the Continent: Discussion—Mentors, and
Samuel Rogers (1763–1855)).