Why should we dismiss the reading public with contempt, when we have so little chance with the next generation? Literature formerly was a sweet Heremitress, who fed on the pure breath of Fame, in silence and in solitude; far from the madding strife, in sylvan shade or cloistered hall, she trimmed her lamp or turned her hourglass, pale with studious care, and aiming only to ‘make the age to come her own!’ She gave her life to the perfecting some darling work, and bequeathed it, dying, to posterity! Vain hope, perhaps; but the hope itself was fruition—calm, serene, blissful, unearthly! Modern literature, on the contrary, is a gay Coquette, fluttering, fickle, vain; followed by a train of flatterers; besieged by a crowd of pretenders; courted, she courts again; receives delicious praise, and dispenses it; is impatient for applause; pants for the breath of popularity; renounces eternal fame for a newspaper puff; trifles with all sorts of arts and sciences; coquettes with fifty accomplishments—mille ornatus habet, mille decenter; is the subject of polite conversation; the darling of private parties; the go-between in politics; the directress of fashion; the polisher of manners; and, like her winged prototype in Spenser,
‘Now this now that, she tasteth tenderly,’
glitters, flutters, buzzes, spawns, dies,—and is forgotten! But the very variety and superficial polish show the extent and height to which knowledge has been accumulated, and the general interest taken in letters.
To dig to the bottom of a subject through so many generations of authors, is now impossible: the concrete mass is too voluminous and vast to be contained in any single head; and therefore we must have essences and samples as substitutes for it. We have collected a superabundance of raw materials: the grand desideratum now is, to fashion and render them portable. Knowledge is no longer confined to the few: the object therefore is, to make it accessible and attractive to the many. The Monachism of literature is at an end; the cells of learning are thrown open, and let in the light of universal day. We can no longer be churls of knowledge, ascetics in pretension. We must yield to the spirit of change (whether for the better or worse); and ‘to beguile the time, look like the time.’ A modern author may (without much imputation of his wisdom) declare for a short life and a merry one. He may be a little gay, thoughtless, and dissipated. Literary immortality is now let on short leases, and he must be contented to succeed by rotation. A scholar of the olden time had resources, had consolations to support him under many privations and disadvantages. A light (that light which penetrates the most clouded skies) cheered him in his lonely cell, in the most obscure retirement: and, with the eye of faith, he could see the meanness of his garb exchanged for the wings of the Shining Ones, and the wedding-garment of the Spouse. Again, he lived only in the contemplation of old books and old events; and the remote and future became habitually present to his imagination, like the past. He was removed from low, petty vanity, by the nature of his studies, and could wait patiently for his reward till after death. We exist in the bustle of the world, and cannot escape from the notice of our contemporaries. We must please to live, and therefore should live to please. We must look to the public for support. Instead of solemn testimonies from the learned, we require the smiles of the fair and the polite. If princes scowl upon us, the broad shining face of the people may turn to us with a favourable aspect. Is not this life (too) sweet? Would we change it for the former if we could? But the great point is, that we cannot! Therefore, let Reviews flourish—let Magazines increase and multiply—let the Daily and Weekly Newspapers live for ever! We are optimists in literature, and hold, with certain limitations, that, in this respect, whatever is, is right!
It has been urged as one fatal objection against periodical criticism, that it is too often made the engine of party-spirit and personal invective. This is an abuse of it greatly to be lamented; but in fact, it only shows the extent and importance of this branch of literature, so that it has become the organ of every thing else, however alien to it. The current of political and individual obloquy has run into this channel, because it has absorbed every topic. The bias to miscellaneous discussion and criticism is so great, that it is necessary to insert politics in a sort of sandwich of literature, in order to make them at all palatable to the ordinary taste. The war of political pamphlets, of virulent pasquinades, has ceased, and the ghosts of Junius and Cato, of Gracchus and Cincinnatus, no longer ‘squeak and gibber’ in our modern streets, or torment the air with a hubbub of hoarse noises. A Whig or Tory tirade on a political question, the abuse of a public character, now stands side by side in a fashionable Review, with a disquisition on ancient coins, or is introduced right in the middle of an analysis of the principles of taste. This is a violation, no doubt, of the rules of decorum and order, and might well be dispensed with: but the stock of malice and prejudice in the world is much the same, though it has found a more classical and agreeable vehicle to vent itself. Mere politics, mere personal altercation, will not go down without an infusion of the Belles-Lettres and the Fine Arts. This makes decidedly either for the refinement or the frivolity of our taste. It is found necessary to poison or to sour the public mind, by going to the well-head of polite literature and periodical criticism,—which shows plainly how many drink at that fountain, and will drink at no other. As a farther example of this rage for conveying information in an easy and portable form, we believe that booksellers will often refuse to purchase in a volume, what they will give a handsome price for, if divided piecemeal, and fitted for occasional insertion in a newspaper or magazine; so that the only authors who, as a class, are not starving, are periodical essayists, as almost the only writers who can keep their reputation above water are anonymous critics. But we have enlarged sufficiently on the general question, and shall now proceed to a more particular account of the state of the Periodical Press. We consider this Article, however, as an exception to our general rules of criticizing, and protest against its being turned into a precedent; for if our several contemporaries were to criticize one author as a constant habit, there would be no end of the repeated reflections and continually lessening perspective of cavils and objections, which would resemble nothing in nature but the Caffée des Milles Colonnes!
The staple literature of the Periodical Press may, we presume, be fairly divided into Newspapers, Magazines, and Reviews; and of each of these, if we have courage to go through with it, we shall say a word or two in their order.
The St. James’s Chronicle is, we have understood, the oldest existing paper in London. We are not quite sure whether it was in this or in another three-times-a-week paper (the Englishman[[13]]) that we first met with some extracts from Mr. Burke’s Letter to a Noble Lord in the year 1796, and on the instant became converts to his familiar, inimitable, powerful prose style. The richness of Burke showed, indeed, more magnificent, contrasted with the meagreness of the ordinary style of the paper into which his invective was thrown. Let any one, indeed, who may be disposed to disparage modern intellect and modern letters, look over a file of old newspapers (only thirty or forty years back), or into those that, by prescription, keep up the old-fashioned style in accommodation to the habitual dulness of their readers, and compare the poverty, the meanness, the want of style and matter in their original paragraphs, with the amplitude, the strength, the point and terseness which characterize the leading journals of the day, and he will perhaps qualify the harshness of his censure. We have not a Burke, indeed—we have not even a Junius; but we have a host of writers, working for their bread on the spur of the occasion, and whose names are not known, formed upon the model of the best writers who have gone before them, and reflecting many of their graces.
Let any one (for instance) compare the St. James’s Chronicle, which is on the model of the old school, with the Morning Chronicle, which is, or was at least, at the head of the new. This paper we have been long used to think the best, both for amusement and instruction, that issued from the daily press. It is full, but not crowded; and we have breathing-spaces and openings left to pause upon each subject. We have plenty and variety. The reader of a morning paper ought not to be crammed to satiety. He ought to rise from the perusal light and refreshed. Attention is paid to every topic, but none is overdone. There is a liberality and decorum. Every class of readers is accommodated with its favourite articles, served up with taste, and without sparing for the sharpest sauces.[[14]] A copy of verses is supplied by one of the popular poets of the day; a prose essay appears in another page, which, had it been written two hundred years ago, might still have been read with admiration; a correction of a disputed reading, in a classical author, is contributed by a learned correspondent. The politician may look profound over a grave dissertation on a point of constitutional history; a lady may smile at a rebus or a charade. Here, Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan, maintained their nightly combats over again; here Porson criticized, and Jekyll punned. An appearance of conscious dignity is kept up, even in the Advertisements, where a principle of proportion and separate grouping is observed; the announcement of a new work is kept distinct from the hiring of a servant of all work, or the sailing of a steam-yacht.
The late Mr. Perry, who raised the Morning Chronicle into its present consequence, held the office of Editor for nearly forty years; and he held firm to his party and his principles all that time,—a long term for political honesty and consistency to last! He was a man of strong natural sense, some acquired knowledge, a quick tact; prudent, plausible, and with great heartiness and warmth of feeling. This last quality was perhaps of more use to him than any other, in the sphere in which he moved. His cordial voice and sanguine mode of address made friends, whom his sincerity and gratitude insured. An overflow of animal spirits, sooner than any thing else, floats a man into the tide of success. Nothing cuts off sympathy so much as the obvious suppression of the kindly impulses of our nature. He who takes another slightly by the hand, will not stick to him long, nor in difficulties. Others perceive this, and anticipate the defection, or the hostile blow. Among the ways and means of success in life, if good sense is the first, good nature is the second. If we wish others to be attached to us, we must not seem averse or indifferent to them. Perry was more vain than proud. This made him fond of the society of lords, and them of his. His shining countenance reflected the honour done him, and the alacrity of his address prevented any sense of awkwardness or inequality of pretensions. He was a little of a coxcomb, and we do not think he was a bit the worse for it. A man who does not think well of himself, generally thinks ill of others; nor do they fail to return the compliment. Towards the last, he, to be sure, received visitors in his library at home, something in the style of the Marquis Marialva in Gil Blas. He affected the scholar. On occasion of the death of Porson, he observed that ‘Epithalamia were thrown into his coffin;’ of which there was an awkward correction next day,—‘For Epithalamia read Epicedia!’ The worst of it was, that a certain consciousness of merit, with a little overweening pretension, sometimes interfered with the conduct of the paper. Mr. Perry was not like a contemporary editor, who never writes a sentence himself, and assigns, as a reason for it, that ‘he has too many interests to manage as it is, without the addition of his own literary vanity.’ The Editor of the Morning Chronicle wrote up his own paper; and he had an ambition to have it thought, that every good thing in it, unless it came from a lord, or an acknowledged wit, was his own. If he paid for the article itself, he thought he paid for the credit of it also. This sometimes brought him into awkward situations. He wished to be head and chief of his own paper, and would not have any thing behind the editor’s desk, greater than the desk itself. He was frequently remiss himself, and was not sanguine that others should make up the deficiency. He possessed a most tenacious memory, and often, in the hottest periods of Parliamentary warfare, carried off half a Debate on his own shoulders. The very first time he was intrusted with the task of reporting speeches in the House of Commons, a singular lapse of memory occurred to him. Soon after he had taken his seat in the Gallery, some accident put him out, and he remained the whole night stupified and disconcerted. When the House broke up, he returned to the office of the paper for which he was engaged, in despair, and professing total inability to give a single word of it. But he was prevailed upon to sit down at the writing-desk. The sluices of memory, which were not empty, but choked up, began to open, and they poured on, till he had nearly filled the paper with a verbatim account of the speech of a Lord Nugent, when his employer, finding his mistake, told him this would never do, but he must begin over again, and merely give a general and historical account of what had passed. Perry snapped his fingers at this release from his terrors; and it has been observed, that the historical mode of giving a Debate was his delight ever afterwards. From the time of Woodfall, the Morning Chronicle was distinguished by its superior excellence in reporting the proceedings of Parliament. Woodfall himself often filled the whole paper without any assistance. This, besides the arduousness of the undertaking, necessarily occasioned delay. At present, several Reporters take the different speeches in succession—(each remaining an hour at a time)—go immediately, and transcribe their notes for the press; and, by this means, all the early part of a debate is actually printed before the last speaker has risen upon his legs. The public read the next day at breakfast-time (perhaps), what would make a hundred octavo pages, every word of which has been spoken, written out, and printed within the last twelve or fourteen hours!
The Times Newspaper is, we suppose, entitled to the character it gives itself, of being the ‘Leading Journal of Europe,’ and is perhaps the greatest engine of temporary opinion in the world. Still it is not to our taste—either in matter or manner. It is elaborate, but heavy; full, but not readable: it is stuffed up with official documents, with matter-of-fact details. It seems intended to be deposited in the office of the Keeper of the Records, and might be imagined to be composed as well as printed with a steam-engine. It is pompous, dogmatical, and full of pretensions, but neither light, various, nor agreeable. It sells more, and contains more, than any other paper; and when you have said this, you have said all. It presents a most formidable front to the inexperienced reader. It makes a toil of a pleasure. It is said to be calculated for persons in business, and yet it is the business of a whole morning to get through it. Bating voluminous details of what had better be omitted, the same things are better done in the Chronicle. To say nothing of poetry (which may be thought too frivolous and attenuated for the atmosphere of the city), the prose is inferior. No equally sterling articles can be referred to in it, either for argument or wit. More, in short, is effected in the Morning Chronicle, without the formality and without the effort. The Times is not a classical paper. It is a commercial paper, a paper of business, and it is conducted on principles of trade and business. It floats with the tide: it sails with the stream. It has no other principle, as we take it. It is not ministerial; it is not patriotic; but it is civic. It is the lungs of the British metropolis; the mouthpiece, oracle, and echo of the Stock Exchange; the representative of the mercantile interest. One would think so much gravity of style might be accompanied with more steadiness and weight of opinion. But the Times conforms to the changes of the time. It bears down upon a question, like a first-rate man of war, with streamers flying and all hands on deck; but if the first broadside does not answer, turns short upon it, like a triremed galley, firing off a few paltry squibs to cover its retreat. It takes up no falling cause; fights no up-hill battle; advocates no great principle; holds out a helping hand to no oppressed or obscure individual. It is ‘ever strong upon the stronger side.’ Its style is magniloquent; its spirit is not magnanimous. It is valiant, swaggering, insolent, with a hundred thousand readers at its heels; but the instant the rascal rout turn round with the ‘whiff and wind’ of some fell circumstance, the Times, the renegade, inconstant Times, turns with them! Let the mob shout, let the city roar, and the voice of the Times is heard above them all, with outrageous deafening clamour; but let the vulgar hubbub cease, and no whisper, no echo of it is ever after heard of in the Times. Like Bully Bottom in the play, it then ‘aggravates its voice so, as if it were a singing dove, an it were any nightingale.’ Its coarse ribaldry is turned to a harmless jest; its swelling rhodomontade sinks to a vapid common-place; and the editor amuses himself in the interval, before another great explosion, by collecting and publishing from time to time, Affidavits of the numbers of his paper sold in the last stormy period of the press.