2-982-580 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Late Stanley Lees Giffard, Esq., LL.D., 1858. Portrait of a '...distinguished political writer': founder and first editor of The Standard, a London newspaper. 'Dr. Giffard was well known...as having defended in the daily and quarterly press the doctrines that are now called Tory, and having exerted in their defence ability of a high order, a large amount of various learning, and much wit and eloquence...In 1811 he was called to the bar in England, but shortly afterwards devoted himself to literature, having entered on an engagement to write for the St. James's Chronicle, and contribute to the periodical literature of the day. In 1827 the Standard was started, to oppose Mr. Canning's views on the Roman Catholic claims, and Dr. Giffard undertook its direction. With the reputation of that paper as the champion of extreme Protestant opinions Dr. Giffard's name has been chiefly identified. He contributed also, however, to the Quarterly, from which circumstance he was frequently confounded with William Gifford, with whose opinions on many literary subjects and his mode of expressing them he did not always coincide. Dr. Giffard was a man of exceedingly studious habits, possessing an unexampled amount of the results of reading'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.