| <Saturday Review 25 October 1856: Lewes: Dr Kitto>
| As in duty bound, we have read Dr. Kitto’s Life, but though 
| the subject of the book was a remarkable man, and though 
| his life is worth recording, we cannot conscientiously 
| recommend any other person to follow our example. Mr. 
| Ryland has consecrated no less than 695 large octavo 
| pages, well filled, to the memory of his hero, and if their 
| <p> ‘reception by the public’ </p> should be such as the 
| author <p> ‘ventures to anticipate,’ </p> certain other 
| papers in his possession may be expected by way of an 
| <p> ‘interesting sequel.’ </p> Now, as we have intimated, 
| Dr. Kitto was a good and able man, but he certainly hardly 
| deserves a biography considerably longer than the whole 
| of the historical books of the Old and New Testaments, 
| longer than a volume of Blackstone’s <hi> Commentaries, 
| </hi> and nearly as long as any two volumes of Hume’s 
| <hi> History. </hi> There is a method of things, and there 
| are certain limits to all things, as the Latin Grammar tells 
| us; and the very worst method of biography is that in which 
| all limits are forgotten. Let biographers, and especially that 
| class of biographers who are distinguished as <p> 
| ‘religious’, </p> bear in mind the fact, that if every man 
| were to publish a full account of his life, from the 365 
| breakfasts to the 365 evening prayers at which he annually 
| presides, he might fill a whole library; and they may 
| possibly arrive at the conclusion that a little knowledge is 
| all that is wanted upon many subjects, and that people 
| sometimes write letters, and sometimes make journeys, of 
| some of the details of which the world is well content to 
| remain in ignorance.
| The story of Dr. Kitto’s life is a strange and painful one. He 
| was born at Plymouth, in 1804, of very poor parents and at 
| the age of twelve fell from the top of a ladder, on which he 
| was engaged at his work, into the street, 35 feel below. He 
| fell on his head, and though he afterwards almost 
| completely recovered his health, his hearing was entirely 
| destroyed. Incapacitated by his misfortune from all the 
| ordinary pursuits of boys of his own age, he was for some 
| years thrown very much on his own resources, and during 
| that period laid the foundation of the literary tastes which 
| afterwards occupied him through life. he was passionately 
| fond of reading, and the means to which e had recourse to 
| satisfy his taste throw a singular light on the difficulties 
| which at that time surrounded a youth who happened to be 
| at once poor and inquisitive. He waded about in the 
| harbour, picking up bits of rope and old iron, by which he 
| occasionally cleared as much as 4d. a week. Disable in 
| this occupation by an accident which nearly lamed him, he 
| bought twopenny worth of paper, and a corresponding 
| stock of paints, and set up as an artist. This gave him an 
| income of 2˝d. a week. In one extraordinary week he 
| cleared 8d. From imitative he turned to decorative art, and 
| drew up coloured labels, announcing “Milk and Cream,” or 
| “Lodgings for Single Men” which contributed in a slight 
| degree to the recruiting of his purse. When by any of these 
| means he had accumulated 3d. he was able to buy a book 
| <p> “containing either an abstract or reprint of popular 
| fictions, and sometimes tales founded on Shakspeare and 
| other early dramatists.” </p> For many years he pursued 
| his taste, under the pressure of great hardships of various 
| kinds, but at length his abilities attracted the attention of 
| some kind and friendly persons at Plymouth, who obtained 
| not only money assistance for him, but also permission to 
| study as much as he pleased in the library of the town. Mr. 
| Ryland prints vast masses of his correspondence with his 
| benefactors at this period, of which we can only say, that 
| though it is certainly creditable enough to the intelligence of 
| a self-educated lad, it is quite destitute of any intrinsic 
| value, and does not seem to us to contain any particular 
| promise of originality of thought or dept of understanding.
| On leaving Plymouth, Kitto obtained employment, first as a 
| dentist’s assistant, and afterwards as a printer in an 
| establishment at Malta connected with the Church 
| Missionary Society. He subsequently returned to England, 
| in consequence of some misunderstanding with his 
| employers, and falling in with his original master, Mr. 
| Groves, the dentist, agreed to accompany him to the East 
| as tutor to his sons. Mr. Groves was a remarkable man. he 
| seems to have been zealous and pious, but somewhat 
| crotchety and scrupulous, as he found it impossible to 
| associate himself to any ecclesiastical body whatever. 
| Being, however, strongly imbued with religious zeal, he set 
| out on his own account to evangelize Persia, gave up his 
| prospects in England and transported himself, his wife, his 
| three children, and Dr. Kitto, to Bagdad, for that purpose. 
| His scheme ended, as all isolated schemes of that kind 
| must end, in misery and discomfiture; but there is 
| something touching in the courage with which he 
| attempted to carry it out. Having arrived at Bagdad, by way 
| of Russia ~~ the journey through which Dr. Kitto’s Journal 
| describes at great length and in the most uninteresting 
| manner ~~ the whole party fell into such a series of 
| calamities as seldom falls simultaneously upon a city. First 
| of all, the plague broke out and destroyed, says Dr. Kitto 
| ~~ though the calculation is obviously of the roughest kind 
| ~~ about fifty thousand persons, or two-thirds of the 
| population. Then the Tigris overflowed its banks, and, 
| filtering through the loose soil, undermined and threw down 
| about seven thousand houses, destroying some fifteen 
| thousand souls. Finally, there was some quarrel between 
| two pashas, one of whom besieged the town with twelve 
| thousand men and bombarded it ~~ not very effectively, it 
| is true, as many of the balls were made of clay ~~ for some 
| considerable time. In the plague, Mrs. Groves, and some of 
| the servants, died; and the whole family isolated 
| themselves entirely from the world around them for many 
| months. It would not be easy to imagine a more desolate 
| condition that that of a perfectly deaf man, confined for 
| many months amongst people dying of the plague, in a city 
| which was being bombarded, and where the house might 
| at any moment ~~ and on one occasion positively did ~~ 
| fall into subterraneous pools of water; and all this with the 
| consciousness that, except as tutor to two little boys, he 
| was doing no human being any good, for he does not 
| appear to have known the language, and his deafness 
| would have prevented his talking, if he had.
| Kitto not unnaturally took an opportunity of returning to 
| England, where, soon after his return, he married. His only 
| provision for his family was an engagement with the <hi> 
| Penny Magazine, </hi> then lately set on foot by Mr. C. 
| Knight. The terms on which he was engaged are curious, 
| as evidence of the enormous labour which is imposed 
| upon a person obliged to live by periodical literature. His 
| duties were as follow: ~~ <p> “For the <hi> Penny 
| Magazine </hi>: to write one original article weekly of about 
| three columns ~~ to prepare tow or three columns more 
| from the contributions of correspondents, or from books ~~ 
| to read the first proofs ~~ to register the suggestions of 
| correspondents ~~ to answer letters with real names and 
| addresses ~~ to bring contributions into a fitting shape, and 
| to return useless articles. For the <hi> Companion to the 
| Newspaper: </hi> ~~ to prepare the Monthly Chronicle of 
| Events, and to analyse Parliamentary Papers. For the <hi> 
| Printing Machine: </hi> ~~ to prepare the Journal of Facts 
| in Science, Education, Statistics, &c.; and for the <hi> 
| Companion to the Almanack: </hi> ~~ to prepare the 
| Chronicle of the Session, the Parliamentary Abstract, and 
| the Register of Events. For all this, besides various 
| incidental duties, Kitto received 16l. per month.
| The rest of the book corresponds to the dismal vista of 
| proofs and printer’s devils opened by such a prospectus. 
| Kitto worked sixteen hours a-day. He rose up early, and 
| took his rest late. He read a meals ~~ he read as he 
| walked to his business ~~ he read as he walked home ~~ 
| and he never seems to have taken any holiday or 
| relaxation whatever from 1834 till 1854, when he went 
| abroad to die of over-work.
| His story is not an eventful one, and is almost as dreary in 
| the reading as it must have been in the living; but he 
| succeeded in bringing up ten children in moderate comfort 
| and in great respectability. He was cheered by the society 
| of a most devoted and amiable wife, and he made some 
| contributions to English literature, of which competent 
| judges speak with considerable approbation. That in all his 
| troubles and dangers, and especially in the constant 
| suffering entailed upon him by the loss of his hearing, he 
| was sustained by firm religious faith, we do not doubt; and 
| we are equally sure that the lesson taught by that fact is a 
| striking one. It is a great pity that it has been encumbered 
| by his biographer in such a mass of utterly irrelevant and 
| unreadable matter, that very few people will take the 
| trouble to learn it.