The ecclesiastical and religious tone of the Review, during the first twenty years of its existence, was imparted to it mainly by Sydney Smith. He had a good deal more wit than charity; was not ashamed to steal his sermons from Taylor, Hooker and Barrow, that he might save time to shoot sarcasms at Wesley and "the nasty Methodists," and shower ridicule upon Wilberforce and "the patent Christians at Clapham;" and seemed to have little reverence for any part of the Establishment which he defended, except its tithes and its titles. He pleaded for toleration and emancipation, not so much because Dissenters and Catholics deserved them, but because to grant them would silence clamor, and more firmly secure the power and patronage, and exalt the dignity of "the Church." But, though it breathed a good deal of this spirit, the Review always contended for religious freedom, and, when need be, was as hearty in its assaults upon the miter of the primate, and its ridicule of the starched robes of the bench of bishops, as of ranters and patent Christians. Sydney Smith hated tyranny, but he loved money; he was a humane man, and no ascetic or bigot; and it was his superabundant wit, and the ludicrous light in which almost everything struck his mind, that gave edge to his sarcasms, and made him seem more uncharitable than he really was. Two of his articles in the Edinburgh carried through Parliament a bill extending to all grades of felons the full benefit of counsel when on trial. Previous to this, counsel, even in capital cases, were not allowed to address juries in favor of prisoners, and before a poor wretch could get half through a stammering speech in his own behalf, he was generally choked off by the judge, that he might be the more speedily strangled by the hangman. Ah! old Dean Swift humanized; few men have done more to explode error, shame bigotry, and expose abuses, than thou!
As a political journal, the influence of the Edinburgh Review has, to a great extent, passed away. Its power and glory culminated during the administration of Earl Grey. Till then, it shone in unrivaled splendor, pouring its beams in the path of progress, and shedding more light around the footsteps of reform than all other like sources combined. Other luminaries, fresher in their rising, and reflecting the opinions of the awakened mind of England, have dimmed its fires. It has grown wayward, timid, conservative, and aristocratic, touching gingerly, and with gloved fingers, topics which it once handled without mittens. From the hour it became the organ of power, it ceased to be the herald of the people. In its decline, it has occasionally roused itself, and struck a blow for freedom, which revived the memory of the glorious days before the blight of Conservatism came upon it. It has shared the fate of the Whigs, and of all Quarterlies, as the organs of political opinion. Periodical literature has seen a revolution in the public taste. Quarterlies and Monthlies hardly survived the advent of railways. The electric telegraph, which can barely keep pace with the revolutions of parties and states, has made even Weeklies seem stale. The Penny Magazine defies the Quarterly, and the Daily Press rules the hour. But, ten thousand thanks to the Edinburgh Review, for ushering in an era which has made its own existence no longer necessary to the politician and the statesman.
A brief notice of a few other liberal periodicals will close this chapter.
The London Quarterly having failed to destroy the influence of the Edinburgh, a less stately and more lively periodical was planted on the spot where the great Whig champion bore sway, to encounter its politics with the lighter weapons of wit and satire, and dispute its mastery in the field of polite letters and criticism. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine entered the lists in 1817. Reckoning among its contributors some of the ripest scholars and rarest wits of the times, it occupies a first place among literary journals, while able partisans sprinkle its pages with the spiciest vindications of ultra Tory politics. During the reform-bill excitement, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine was sent forth as an antidote to Blackwood. A corps of rare essayists and critics have given it a highly respectable position in the literary world, and its political articles, written with vigor and eloquence, have kept pace with the advancing step of the age.
After several unsuccessful attempts had been made to establish a permanent Quarterly journal in London, to support the liberal side in politics, Mr. Bentham and his disciples started the Westminster Review, in 1824. Leaping into the arena far ahead of the Edinburgh, it drew its blade in defense of the radicals, and proposed fundamental reforms in the Constitution of the country. Reflecting the views of its celebrated founder, it has advocated, with great ability, unqualified suffrage, freedom of trade, the dissolution of the union of Church and State, the abolition of the hereditary feature of the House of Peers, the abrogation of the court of chancery, and a complete remodeling and codification of the laws of the realm. Bentham, Bowring, Col. Thompson, and Roebuck have been among its political contributors, and many of its literary articles have been of a high order. Carlyle has published in it several characteristic essays. It exhibits more courage and soul than any of its cotemporaries, and is the most democratic Quarterly in the kingdom. The Eclectic Review, a periodical devoted rather to ecclesiastical reforms, though it indulges in literature and politics, has, under the control of Dr. Price, a distinguished Baptist clergyman, rendered good service in the cause of philanthropy. Robert Hall and John Foster, names familiar to scholars and divines in both hemispheres, used to contribute to its pages. The New Monthly Magazine, under the editorship of Campbell, and afterward of Bulwer, though chiefly devoted to literature, espoused the liberal side in politics. For a time it received the contributions of our accomplished countryman, Mr. Willis.
But, it is not the Quarterly and the Monthly that originate and guide public opinion. At best, they but follow in its wake. The Weekly and the Daily trace the channels in which its currents flow. And here we are launched upon an ocean of periodical literature. From the days of Wilkes' "North Briton," down to those of Punch's "Charivari," a constantly swelling mass of newspapers has borne the cause of the People forward from triumph to triumph. Confining our view to those standing out of the mass, on peculiar and independent ground, the eye is at once attracted by the Register and the Examiner—the greatest of their class. The former was founded by William Cobbett, the latter by Leigh Hunt; the one uttering the discontents of the lower class of radicals, the other reflecting the opinions of the higher. Of Cobbett's writings I have already spoken at considerable length. He was the best exponent of the wrongs, prejudices and hates of the subterranean strata of English society, that has ever appeared. The Examiner was established in 1809. It displayed a much higher order of literary talent than the Register, but was equally radical in politics, and scarcely less violent in its attacks on public men and institutions. Hunt was repeatedly prosecuted by the Government, and lay two years in prison for a libel on that decoction of treachery and lechery, the Prince of Wales. While in jail, he composed some of his best poems. The Examiner has always displayed marked ability and brilliancy, both in its political and literary departments. While under the editorship of Mr. Fonblanque, a writer of extraordinary vigor and taste, it ordinarily produced political articles executed in a style that would have adorned the Edinburgh Review, while their doctrines were congenial to the progressive genius of the times. Among its frequent contributors is the intrepid, proud, humane, eccentric Walter Savage Landor, a poet of keen sensibilities, an ardent lover of truth and freedom—a man, "take him all in all." Latterly, the reformatory tone of The Examiner is somewhat modified, but it maintains its place in the front rank of the weekly literary and political press. The Spectator deservedly holds a high position in this department of newspapers. At first it was strongly radical in its politics; but, like the Examiner, it has latterly abated its tone without diminishing its ability.
Belonging to the same general class as the Examiner and Spectator, are the various periodicals that have borne the name of Douglas Jerrold. Mr. Jerrold has written successful melodramas, comedies, and farces for the theaters; sparkling essays for the classic Blackwood; humorous and serious tales for the New Monthly; stories and squibs for Punch; political "leaders" for first-class newspapers; besides sketches, criticisms, and "articles" without number for the million. Abounding in wit, sarcasm, humor, pathos, philosophy and fun, there runs through his writings a large vein of unadulterated humanity, which gives life and heart to the whole. He wages holy war against fustian literature, sham statesmanship, sectarian cant, legalized injustice, and titled tyranny. If England's periodical writers were of his temper and metal, the good time foreshadowed by Mackay, would soon come, when
"The pen shall supersede the sword,
And right, not might, shall be the lord."
Having unexpectedly fallen upon Punch, in connection with Mr. Jerrold, I will say that that eccentric person deserves honorable mention among English Reformers. His unparalleled wit is tempered with love to mankind; his sympathies are with the million; and he displays in his weekly walk and conversation a great deal more humanity, quite as much Christian charity, (though far less "religion,") as "The Church of England Quarterly Review," the organ of High Church Toryism. Punch is too much of a man to send Mr. Shore to prison, or to excommunicate Mr. Noel.
The People's Journal and Howitt's Journal are successful attempts to mingle tasteful literary essays with radical political disquisitions, and bring them within the reach of every-day men of business and toil. Though many accomplished writers contributed to their pages, the Howitts, who originated the enterprise, were for some time its animating soul. The educated radicalism of England found an organ in these journals, whose tone harmonized with their sympathies. High as is Mr. Howitt's literary reputation, it is as a political and social reformer that his name will be the most widely known. His "History of Priestcraft," published in 1834, while he lived in Nottingham, and which met a sale of some 20,000 copies, gave him eclat in a new field, brought him some money, which he needed, and an election as alderman of that town, which he did not want at all. Four years afterward, he published "Colonization and Christianity," which led to the formation of the British India Society, to the abolition of slavery in the peninsula of Hindostan, and to efforts to relieve from oppression and stimulate to enterprise the myriads that swarm in that long-neglected portion of the empire. Mr. Howitt's writings in behalf of Complete Suffrage, Religious Toleration, and Irish Relief, are as honorable to the benevolence of his heart as are his numerous literary works to the fertility of his genius.