The Times rose into notice through its diligence and promptitude in furnishing Continental intelligence, at a time when foreign news was the most interesting commodity in the market; but at present it engrosses every other department. It grew obscene and furious during the revolutionary war; and the nicknames which Mr. Walter bestowed on the French Ruler were the counters with which he made his fortune. When the game of war and madness was over, and the proprietor wished to pocket his dear-bought gains quietly, he happened to have a writer in his employ who wanted to roar on, as if any thing more was to be got by his continued war-whoop, and who scandalized the whole body of disinterested Jews, contractors, and stock-jobbers, by the din and smithery with which, in the piping time of peace, he was for rivetting on the chains of foreign nations. It was found, or thought at least, that this could not go on. The tide of gold no longer flowed up the river, and the tide of Billingsgate and blood could no longer flow down it, with any pretence to decency, morality, or religion. There is a cant of patriotism in the city: there is a cant of humanity among hackneyed politicians. The writer of the LEADING ARTICLE, it is true, was a fanatic; but the proprietor of the LEADING JOURNAL was neither a martyr nor confessor. The principles gave way to the policy of the paper; and this was the origin of the New Times.
This new Morning paper is one which every Tory ought to encourage. If the friend of the people cannot away with it, the friend of power ought not to be without it. Nay, it may be of use to the liberal or the wavering; for it goes all lengths, boggles at no consequences, and unmasks the features of despotism fearlessly and shamelessly, without remorse and without pity. The Editor deals in no half measures, in no half principles; but is a thorough-paced stickler for the modernized doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance. Dr. Sacheverel, in his day, could not go beyond him. He is no flincher, no trimmer; he ‘champions Legitimacy to the outrance.’ There is something in this spirit, that if it exposes the possessor to hatred, exempts him from contempt. The present Editor of the New, and late Editor of the Old Times, whatever we may think of his opinions, must be acknowledged to be staunch, determined, and consistent in maintaining them. He is a violent partisan, blind to the blots in his own cause; and, by this means, he often opens the eyes of others to them. He has no evasion, no disguises. Let him take up a wrong argument (which he does on principle) and no one can beat him in pushing it to the reductio ad absurdum: let him engage in a bad cause (which he does by instinct) and no consideration of prudence or compassion will make him turn back. He is a logician, and will not bate one ace of his argument. He goes the utmost length of the spirit, as well as the principles, of his party. If we like the spirit of despotism, we see it exemplified in his views and sentiments: if we like the principles, we find them in full perfection, and without any cowardly drawback in his reasonings. He is the true organ of the Ultras, at home or abroad. It is the creed, we believe, of all legitimate princes, that the world was made for them; and this sentiment is stamped, fixed, seared in inverted but indelible characters, on the mind of the Editor of the New Times, who, we believe, would march to a stake, in testimony of the opinion that he and all mankind ought to be held as slaves, in fee and perpetuity, by half a dozen lawful rulers of the species. He lays it down, for instance, in so many words, that ‘Louis XVIII. has the same undoubted right (in kind and in degree) to the throne of France, that Mr. Coke has to his estate of Holkham in Norfolk:’ and from this declaration he never swerves, not even in thought. Other writers may argue upon the assumption of this principle, or now and then, in a moment of unexpected triumph, avow it; but he alone has the glory and the shame of making it the acknowledged, undisguised basis of all his reasoning. He is fascinated, in short, with the abstract image of royalty; he has swallowed love-powders from despotism; he is drunk with the spirit of servility; mad with the hatred of liberty; flagrant, obscene in the exposure of the shameful parts of his cause; and his devotion to power amounts to a prostration of all his faculties. It is strange, as well as lamentable, to see this misguided enthusiasm, this preposterous pertinacity in wilful degradation. Yet it is not without its use. Its honesty warns us of the consequences we have to dread: as its consistency insures us some compensation in some part or other of the system. There is no pure evil, but hypocrisy. Every principle (almost) if consistently followed up, leads to some good, by some reaction on itself. It is only by tergiversation, by tricking, by being false to all opinion, and picking out the bad of every cause to suit it to our own interest, that we get a vile compost of intolerable and opposite abuses. Thus, we should say that superstition, while it was real, with all its evils, had its redeeming points, in the faith and zeal of those who were actuated by it, into whatever excesses they might be hurried: but we object entirely to modern fanaticism, which is the patchwork product of a perverted intellect, with all the absurdity and all the mischief, without one particle of sincerity, to justify it. Despotism even has its advantages; but we see no good in modern despotism, which has lost its reverence, and retains only the odiousness of power. The State Doctor of the New Times is, however, a perfect Preux Chevalier, compared with some of his hireling contemporaries: another Peter the Hermit, to preach an everlasting crusade against Jacobins and Levellers, and to rekindle another Holy War in favour of Divine Right. There is a dramatic interest in the fury of his exclamations, which induces us to make some allowance for the barbarism of his creed. He is less mischievous than when he wrote in the Old Times, which trimmed between power and popularity, and oiled the wheels of Despotism with the cant of Liberty. He does not now fawn on public opinion, but sets it at defiance, both in theory and practice. He does not mix up the grossness of faction with the refinements of sophistry. He does not uphold the principles, and insult the persons, of the aristocracy. No one was more bitter against the late queen, or more able or strenuous in the cause of her enemies; but he maintained a certain respect for her rank and birth. He did not think that every species of outrage and indecency, heaped on the daughter of a prince, the consort of a king, was the most delicate compliment that could be paid to royalty; but conceived, that when we forget what is due to place and title, we make a gap in ceremony and outward decorum, through which all such persons may be assailed with impunity. Perhaps this starched, pedantic preference of principles to persons, may not, after all, be the surest road to court favour; but we respect any one who is ever liable to a frown from a patron, or to be left in a minority by his own party. There is nothing truly contemptible, but that which is always tacking and veering before the breath of power.
This naturally leads us to the Courier; which is a paper of shifts and expedients, of bare assertions, and thoughtless impudence. It denies facts on the word of a minister, and dogmatizes by authority. ‘The force of dulness can no farther go:’—but its pertness keeps pace with its dulness. It sets up a lively pretension to safe common-places and stale jests; and has an alternate gaiety and gravity of manner:—The matter is nothing. Compared with the solemn quackery of the Old or New Times, the ingenious editor is the Merry-Andrew of the political show. The Courier is intended for country readers, the clergy and gentry, who do not like to be disturbed with a reason for any thing, but with whom the self-complacent shallowness of the editor passes for a self-evident proof that every thing is as it should be. It is a paper that those who run may read. It asks no thought: it creates no uneasiness. In it the last quarter’s assessed taxes are always made good: the harvest is abundant; trade reviving; the Constitution unimpaired; the minister immaculate, and the Monarch the finest gentleman in his dominions. The writer has no idea beyond a certain set of cant phrases, which he repeats by rote, and never puzzles any one by the smallest glimpse of meaning in what he says. This lacquey to the Treasury, in short, puts one in mind of those impudent valets at the doors of great houses—sleek, saucy, empty, and vulgar—who give short answers, and laugh into the faces of those who come with complaints and grievances to their masters—think their employers great men, and themselves clever fellows—eat, drink, sleep, and let the world slide!
The Sun is a paper that appears daily, but never shines. The editor, who is an agreeable man, has a sinecure of it; and the public trouble their heads just as little about it as he does.
The Traveller is not a new, but a newly-conducted evening paper; which, if it has not much wit or brilliancy, is distinguished by sound judgment, careful information, and constitutional principles.
We really cannot presume to scan the transcendent merits of the Morning Post and Fashionable World—and, in short, the other daily papers must excuse us for saying nothing about them.
Of the Weekly Journalists, Cobbett stands first in power and popularity. Certainly he has earned the latter: would that he abused the former less! We once tried to cast this Antæus to the ground; but the earth-born rose again, and still staggers on, blind or one-eyed, to his remorseless, restless purpose,—sometimes running upon posts and pitfalls—sometimes shaking a country to its centre. It is best to say little about him, and keep out of his way; for he crushes, by his ponderous weight, whomsoever he falls upon; and, what is worse, drags to cureless ruin whatever cause he lays his hands upon to support.
The Examiner stands next to Cobbett in talent; and is much before him in moderation and steadiness of principle. It has also a much greater variety both of tact and subject. Indeed, an agreeable rambling scope and freedom of discussion is so much in the author’s way, that the reader is at a loss under what department of the paper to look for any particular topic. A literary criticism, perhaps, insinuates itself under the head of the Political Examiner; and the theatrical critic, or lover of the Fine Arts, is stultified by a tirade against the Bourbons. If the dishes are there, it does not much signify in what order they are placed. With the exception of a little egotism and twaddle, and flippancy and dogmatism about religion or morals, and mawkishness about firesides and furious Buonapartism, and a vein of sickly sonnet-writing, we suspect the Examiner must be allowed (whether we look to the design or execution of the general run of articles in it) to be the ablest and most respectable of the publications that issue from the weekly press.
The News is also an excellent paper—interspersed with historical and classical knowledge, written in a good taste, and with an excellent spirit. Its circulation is next, we believe, to that of the Observer, which has twice as many murders, assaults, robberies, fires, accidents, offences, as any other paper, and sells proportionably. Shadows affright the town as well as substances, and ill news fly fast. We apprehend these are the chief of the weekly journals. There are others that have become notorious for qualities that ought to have consigned them long ago to the hands of the common hangman; and some that, by their tameness and indecision, have been struggling into existence ever since their commencement. There is ability, but want of direction, in several of the last.
As to the Weekly Literary Journals, Gazettes, &c. they are a truly insignificant race—a sort of flimsy announcements of favoured publications—insects in letters, that are swallowed up in the larger blaze of full-orbed criticism, and where