Poor Albion is no more,
The Evening Star does not rise,
And the True Briton tells nothing but lies;
Should they suppress the British Press
There would be no harm done;
There is no hope that the Times will mend,
And it would be no matter
If the Globe were at an end.[3]
Next in importance to the newspapers are the works of periodical criticism, which are here called Reviews. Till of late years there were only two of these, which, though generally in the interest of the Dissenters, affected something like impartiality. During the late war two others were set up to exercise a sort of inquisition over books which were published, as the publication could not be prevented; to denounce such as were mischievous, and to hold up their authors to public hatred as bad subjects. Such zeal would be truly useful were it directed by that wisdom which cannot err; but it is difficult to say whether the infallible intolerance of these heretics be sometimes more worthy of contempt or of indignation. Of late years it has become impossible to place any reliance upon the opinions given by these journals, because their party spirit now extends to every thing; whatever be the subject of a book, though as remote as possible from all topics of political dissension, it is judged of according to the politics of the author:—for instance, one of these journals has pronounced it to be jacobinical to read Hebrew without points. There are other reasons why there is so little fair criticism. Many, perhaps the majority, of these literary censors are authors themselves, and as such in no very high estimation with the public. Baboons are said to have an antipathy to men; and these, who are the baboons of literature, have the same sort of hatred to those whose superiority they at once feel and deny. You are not however to suppose that the general character of these journals is that of undeserved severity: they have as many to praise as to blame, and their commendations are dealt upon the same principle—or want of principle—as their censures. England is but a little country; and the communication between all its parts is so rapid, the men of letters are so few, and the circulation of society brings them all so often to London, as the heart of the system, that they are all directly or indirectly known to each other;—a writer is praised because he is a friend, or a friend's friend, or he must be condemned for a similar reason. For the most part the praise of these critics is milk and water, and their censure sour small-beer.[4] Sometimes indeed they deal in stronger materials; but then the oil which Flattery lays on is train-oil, and it stinks: and the dirt which Malevolence throws is ordure, and it sticks to her own fingers.
Such journals, even if they were more honourably and more honestly conducted, must from their very nature be productive rather of evil than of good, both to the public and to the persons concerned in them. Many are the readers who do not know, and few are they who will remember, when they are perusing a criticism delivered in the plural language of authority, that it is but the opinion of one man upon the work of another. The public are deceived by this style. This however is a transitory evil: the effect of the praise or censure which they can bestow is necessarily short, and time settles the question when they are forgotten. A more lasting mischief is, that they profess to show the reader that short cut to wisdom and knowledge, which is the sure road to conceit and ignorance. Criticism is to a large class of men what Scandal is to women,—and women not unfrequently bear their part in it;—it is indeed Scandal in masquerade. Upon an opinion picked up from these journals, upon an extract fairly or unfairly quoted,—for the reviewers scruple not at misquotations, at omissions which alter the meaning, or mispunctuations which destroy it—you shall hear a whole company talk as confidently about a book as if they had read it, and censure it as boldly as if they had bestowed as much thought upon the subject as the author himself, and were qualified, as his peers, to sit in judgment upon him. The effect which these journals have produced is,—that as all who read newspapers are politicians, so all who read books are critics.