The following is part of a review which appeared in The National Standard, of John Galt’s Stories of the Study published in 1833 -
“For this is one of the great charms of Mr Galt’s works, that he makes his reader his friend; he throws so much of his own shrewd, honest, and kindly character into the pages of his romances, […] that his readers become his friends. What a multitude of friends must Mr Galt have gained!”
Stories of the Study is a collection of tales of vary
variable type and quality. Many reviews
at the time mention “The Greenwich Pensioner”
“On one occasion I was at Greenwich with two friends from the country; we were taken to see a blind sailor who had reached the antediluvian age of more than fivescore. […] This old man was literally alone in the world; his patriarchal age, his solitary condition, and the asylum assigned to him, were interesting to the imagination, and, in thinking lately, I threw together the following imaginary narrative.”
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| Greenwich |
Naturally, Galt's home town of Greenock gets a mention in the old mariner's tale -
"Long ago, when America belonged to England, and we had beat
the French in all the four quarters of the globe, the Virginy trade was
briskest in the Clyde, and my father, who was an English sailor, went to look
for bread at a town called Greenock, in the west of Scotland, where he was told
berths were plentiful, and sailors in request.”
Interestingly the review appeared in the National Standard, or to give it its full name - The National Standard of Literature, Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts was owned at the time by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) best known for his novel Vanity Fair, published around 1848 . Thackeray bought the National Standard in 1833, but it only lasted until 1834 when he ran out of money!
However, the reviewer certainly seemed to have a knowledge of Galt's works and concludes -
