Chapter 16

Of the value of Brougham's contributions we cannot now judge. They will not, in spite of their energy and force, bear re-reading to-day, and perhaps the same may be said of three-fourths of Jeffrey's once famous essays. Brougham's self-confidence is heroic. He believed that he could make a speech for Bolingbroke, but by-and-by he had sense enough to see that, in order to attempt this, he ought to read Bolingbroke for a year, and then practise for another year. In 1838 he thought nothing of undertaking, amid all the demands of active life, such a bagatelle as a History of the French Revolution. "I have some little knack of narrative," he says, "the most difficult by far of all styles, and never yet attained in perfection but by Hume and Livy; and I bring as much oratory and science to the task as most of my predecessors." But what sort of science? And what has oratory to do with it? And how could he deceive himself into thinking that he could retire to write a history? Nobody that ever lived would have more speedily found out the truth of Voltaire's saying, "_Le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui est son frère_." The truth is that one learns, after a certain observation of the world, to divide one's amazement pretty equally between the literary voluptuary or over-fastidious collegian, on the one hand, who is so impressed by the size of his subject that he never does more than collect material and make notes, and the presumptuous politician, on the other hand, who thinks that he can write a history or settle the issues of philosophy and theology in odd half-hours. The one is so enfeebled in will and literary energy after his _viginti annorum lucubrationes_; the other is so accustomed to be content with the hurry, the unfinishedness, the rough-and-ready methods of practical affairs, and they both in different ways measure the worth and seriousness of literature so wrongly in relation to the rest of human interests.

The relations between Lord Brougham and Mr. Napier naturally suggest a good many reflections on the vexed question of the comparative advantages of the old and the new theory of a periodical. The new theory is that a periodical should not be an organ but an open pulpit, and that each writer should sign his name. Without disrespect to ably conducted and eminent contemporaries of long standing, it may be said that the tide of opinion and favour is setting in this direction. Yet, on the whole, experience perhaps leads to a doubt whether the gains of the system of signature are so very considerable as some of us once expected. An editor on the new system is no doubt relieved of a certain measure of responsibility. Lord Cockburn's panegyric on the first great editor may show what was expected from a man in such a position as Jeffrey's. "He had to discover, and to train, authors; to discern what truth and the public mind required; to suggest subjects; to reject, and, more offensive still, to improve, contributions; to keep down absurdities; to infuse spirit; to excite the timid; to repress violence; to soothe jealousies; to quell mutinies; to watch times; and all this in the morning of the reviewing day, before experience had taught editors conciliatory firmness, and contributors reasonable submission. He directed and controlled the elements he presided over with a master's judgment. There was not one of his associates who could have even held these elements together for a single year.... Inferior to these excellences, but still important, was his dexterity in revising the writings of others. Without altering the general tone or character of the composition, he had great skill in leaving out defective ideas or words, and in so aiding the original by lively or graceful touches, that reasonable authors were surprised and charmed on seeing how much better they looked than they thought they would" (Cockburn's _Life of Jeffrey_, i. 301).

From such toils and dangers as these the editor of a Review with signed articles is in the main happily free. He has usually suggestions to make, for his experience has probably given him points of view as to the effectiveness of this or that feature of an article for its own purpose, which would not occur to a writer. The writer is absorbed in his subject, and has been less accustomed to think of the public. But this exercise of a claim to a general acquiescence in the judgment and experience of a man who has the best reasons for trying to judge rightly, is a very different thing from the duty of drilling contributors and dressing contributions as they were dressed and drilled by Jeffrey. As Southey said, when groaning under the mutilations inflicted by Gifford on Iris contributions to the _Quarterly_, "there must be a power expurgatory in the hands of the editor; and the misfortune is that editors frequently think it incumbent on them to use that power merely because they have it" (Southey's Life, iv. 18). This is probably true on the anonymous system, where the editor is answerable for every word, and for the literary form no less than for the substantial soundness or interest of an article. In a man of weakish literary vanity--Jeffrey was evidently full of it--there may well be a constant itch to set his betters right in trifles, as Gifford thought that he could mend Southey's adjectives. To a vain editor, or a too masterful editor, the temptation under the anonymous system is no doubt strong. M. Buloz, it is true, the renowned conductor of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, is said to have insisted on, and to have freely practised, the fullest editorial prerogative over articles that were openly signed by the most eminent names in France. But M. Buloz had no competitor, and those who did not choose to submit to his Sultanic despotism were shut out from the only pulpit whence they were sure of addressing the congregation that they wanted. In England contributors are better off; and no editor of a signed periodical would feel either bound or permitted to take such trouble about mere wording of sentences as Gifford and Jeffrey were in the habit of taking.

There is, however, another side to this, from an editor's point of view. With responsibility--not merely for commas and niceties and literary kickshaws, but in its old sense--disappears also a portion of the interest of editorial labour. One would suppose it must be more interesting to command a man-of-war than a trading vessel; it would be more interesting to lead a regiment than to keep a tilting-yard. But the times are not ripe for such enterprises. Of literary ability of a good and serviceable kind there is a hundred or five hundred times more in the country than there was when Jeffrey, Smith, Brougham, and Horner devised their Review in a ninth storey in Edinburgh seventy-six years ago. It is the cohesion of a political creed that is gone, and the strength and fervour of a political school. The principles that inspired that group of strong men have been worked out. After their reforms had been achieved, the next great school was economic, and though it produced one fine orator, its work was at no time literary. The Manchester school with all their shortcomings had at least the signal distinction of attaching their views on special political questions to a general and presiding conception of the modern phase of civilisation, as industrial and pacific. The next party of advance, when it is formed, will certainly borrow from Cobden and Bright their hatred of war and their hatred of imperialism. After the sagacity and enlightenment of this school came the school of persiflage. A knot of vigorous and brilliant men towards 1856 rallied round the late editor of the _Saturday Review_,--and a strange chief he was for such a group,--but their flag was that of the Red Rover. They gave Philistinism many a shrewd blow, but perhaps at the same time helped to some degree--with other far deeper and stronger forces--to produce that sceptical and centrifugal state of mind, which now tends to nullify organised liberalism and paralyse the spirit of improvement. The Benthamites, led first by James Mill, and afterwards in a secondary degree by John Mill, had pushed a number of political improvements in the radical and democratic direction during the time when the _Edinburgh_ so powerfully represented more orthodox liberalism. They were the last important group of men who started together from a set of common principles, accepted a common programme of practical applications, and set to work in earnest and with due order and distribution of parts to advocate the common cause.

At present [1878] there is no similar agreement either among the younger men in parliament, or among a sufficiently numerous group of writers outside of parliament. The Edinburgh Reviewers were most of them students of the university of that city. The Westminster Reviewers had all sat at the feet of Bentham. Each group had thus a common doctrine and a positive doctrine. In practical politics it does not much matter by what different roads men have travelled to a given position. But in an organ intended to lead public opinion towards certain changes, or to hold it steadfast against wayward gusts of passion, its strength would be increased a hundredfold if all the writers in it were inspired by that thorough unity of conviction which comes from sincerely accepting a common set of principles to start from, and reaching practical conclusions by the same route. We are probably not very far from a time when such a group might form itself, and its work would for some years lie in the formation of a general body of opinion, rather than in practical realisation of this or that measure. The success of the French Republic, the peaceful order of the United States, perhaps some trouble within our own borders, will lead men with open minds to such a conception of a high and stable type of national life as will unite a sufficient number of them in a common project for pressing with systematic iteration for a complete set of organic changes. A country with such a land-system, such an electoral system, such a monarchy, as ours, has a trying time before it. Those will be doing good service who shall unite to prepare opinion for the inevitable changes. At the present moment the only motto that can be inscribed on the flag of a liberal Review is the general device of Progress, each writer interpreting it in his own sense, and within such limits as he may set for himself. For such a state of things signature is the natural condition, and an editor, even of a signed Review, would hardly decline to accept the account of his function which we find Jeffrey giving to Mr. Napier:--"There are three legitimate considerations by which you should be guided in your conduct as editor generally, and particularly as to the admission or rejection of important articles of a political sort. 1. The effect of your decision on the other contributors upon whom you mainly rely; 2. its effect on the sale and circulation, and on the just authority of the work with the great body of its readers; and, 3. your own deliberate opinion as to the safety or danger of the doctrines maintained in the article under consideration, and its tendency either to promote or retard the practical adoption of those liberal principles to which, and _their practical advancement_, you must always consider the journal as devoted."

As for discovering and training authors, the editor under the new system has inducements that lie entirely the other way; namely, to find as many authors as possible whom the public has already discovered and accepted for itself. Young unknown writers certainly have not gained anything by the new system. Neither perhaps can they be said to have lost, for though of two articles of equal merit an editor would naturally choose the one which should carry the additional recommendation of a name of recognised authority, yet any marked superiority in literary brilliance or effective argument or originality of view would be only too eagerly welcomed in any Review in England. So much public interest is now taken in periodical literature, and the honourable competition in securing variety, weight, and attractiveness is so active, that there is no risk of a literary candle remaining long under a bushel. Miss Martineau says:--"I have always been anxious to extend to young or struggling authors the sort of aid which would have been so precious to me in that winter of 1829-30, and I know that, in above twenty years, I have never succeeded but once." One of the most distinguished editors in London, who had charge of a periodical for many years, told the present writer what comes to the same thing, namely, that in no single case during all these years did a volunteer contributor of real quality, or with any promise of eminence, present himself or herself. So many hundreds think themselves called, so few are chosen. It used to be argued that the writer under the anonymous system was hidden behind a screen and robbed of his well-earned distinction. In truth, however, it is impossible for a writer of real distinction to remain anonymous. If a writer in a periodical interests the public, they are sure to find out who he is.

Again, there is folly unfathomable in a periodical affecting an eternal consistency, and giving itself the airs of continuous individuality, and being careful not to talk sense on a given question to-day because its founders talked nonsense upon it fifty years ago. This is quite true. There is a monstrous charlatanry about the old editorial We, but perhaps there are some tolerably obvious openings for charlatanry of a different kind under our own system. The man who writes in his own name may sometimes be tempted to say what he knows he is expected from his position or character to say, rather than what he would have said if his personality were not concerned. As far as honesty goes, signature perhaps offers as many inducements to one kind of insincerity, as anonymity offers to another kind. And on the public it might perhaps be contended that there is an effect of a rather similar sort. They are in some cases tempted away from serious discussion of the matter, into frivolous curiosity and gossip about the man. All this criticism of the principle of which the _Fortnightly Review_ was the earliest English adherent, will not be taken as the result in the present writer of Chamfort's _maladie des désabusés_; that would be both extremely ungrateful and without excuse or reason. It is merely a fragment of disinterested contribution to the study of a remarkable change that is passing over a not unimportant department of literature. One gain alone counterbalances all the drawbacks, and that is a gain that could hardly have been foreseen or expected; I mean the freedom with which the great controversies of religion and theology have been discussed in the new Reviews. The removal of the mask has led to an outburst of plain speaking on these subjects, which to Mr. Napier's generation would have seemed simply incredible. The frank avowal of unpopular beliefs or non-beliefs has raised the whole level of the discussion, and perhaps has been even more advantageous to the orthodox in teaching them more humility, than to the heterodox in teaching them more courage and honesty.

Let us return to Mr. Napier's volume. We have said that it is impossible for a great writer to be anonymous. No reader will need to be told who among Mr. Napier's correspondents is the writer of the following:--

"I have been thinking sometimes, likewise, of a paper on Napoleon, a man whom, though handled to the extreme of triteness, it will be long years before we understand. Hitherto in the English tongue, there is next to nothing that betokens insight into him, or even sincere belief of such, on the part of the writer. I should like to study the man with what heartiness I could, and form to myself some intelligible picture of him, both as a biographical and as a historical figure, in both of which senses he is our chief contemporary wonder, and in some sort the epitome of his age. This, however, were a task of far more difficulty than Byron, and perhaps not so promising at present."

And if there is any difficulty in recognising the same hand in the next proposal, it arises only from the circumstance that it is this writer above all others who has made Benthamism a term of reproach on the lips of men less wise than himself:--

"A far finer essay were a faithful, loving, and yet critical, and in part condemnatory, delineation of Jeremy Bentham, and his place and working in this section of the world's history. Bentham will not be put down by logic, and should not be put down, for we need him greatly as a backwoodsman: neither can reconciliation be effected till the one party understands and is just to the other. Bentham is a denyer; he denies with a loud and universally convincing voice; his fault is that he can _affirm_ nothing, except that money is pleasant in the purse, and food in the stomach, and that by this simplest of all beliefs he can reorganise society. He can shatter it in pieces--no thanks to him, for its old fastenings are quite rotten--but he cannot reorganise it; this is work for quite others than he. Such an essay on Bentham, however, were a great task for any one; for me a very great one, and perhaps rather out of my road."

Perhaps Carlyle would have agreed that Mr. Mill's famous pair of essays on Bentham and Coleridge have served the purpose which he had in his mind, though we may well regret the loss of such a picture of Bentham's philosophic personality as he would surely have given us. It is touching to think of him whom we all know as the most honoured name among living veterans of letters,[1] passing through the vexed ordeal of the young recruit, and battling for his own against the waywardness of critics and the blindness of publishers. In 1831 he writes to Mr. Napier: "All manner of perplexities have occurred in the publishing of my poor book, which perplexities I could only cut asunder, not unloose; so the MS. like an unhappy ghost still lingers on the wrong side of Styx; the Charon of ---- Street durst not risk it in his _sutilis cymba_, so it leaped ashore again." And three months later: "I have given up the notion of hawking my little Manuscript Book about any further; for a long time it has lain quiet in its drawer, waiting for a better day." And yet this little book was nothing less than the History of the French Revolution.

[Footnote 1: Carlyle died on February 5, 1881.]

It might be a lesson to small men to see the reasonableness, sense, and patience of these greater men. Macaulay's letters show him to have been a pattern of good sense and considerateness. Mr. Carlyle seems indeed to have found Jeffrey's editorial vigour more than could be endured:

"My respected friend your predecessor had some difficulty with me in adjusting the respective prerogatives of Author and Editor, for though not, as I hope, insensible to fair reason, I used sometimes to rebel against what I reckoned mere authority, and this partly perhaps as a matter of literary conscience; being wont to write nothing without studying it if possible to the bottom, and writing always with an almost painful feeling of scrupulosity, that light editorial hacking and hewing to right and left was in general nowise to my mind."

But we feel that the fault must have lain with Jeffrey; the qualifications that Lord Cockburn admired so much were not likely to be to the taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not prevent the most original of Mr. Napier's contributors from being one of the most just and reasonable.

"I have, barely within my time, finished that paper ['Characteristics'], to which you are now heartily welcome, if you have room for it. The doctrines here set forth have mostly long been familiar convictions with me; yet it is perhaps only within the last twelvemonth that the public utterance of some of them could have seemed a duty. I have striven to express myself with what guardedness was possible; and, as there will now be no time for correcting proofs, I must leave it wholly in your editorial hands. Nay, should it on due consideration appear to you in your place (for I see that matter dimly, and nothing is clear but my own mind and the general condition of the world), unadvisable to print the paper at all, then pray understand, my dear Sir, now and always, that I am no unreasonable man; but if dogmatic enough (as Jeffrey used to call it) in my own beliefs, also truly desirous to be just towards those of others. I shall, in all sincerity, beg of you to do, without fear of offence (for in _no_ point of view will there be any), what you yourself see good. A mighty work lies before the writers of this time."

It is always interesting, to the man of letters at any rate if not to his neighbours, to find what was first thought by men of admitted competence of the beginnings of writers who are now seen to have made a mark on the world. "When the reputation of authors is made," said Sainte-Beuve, "it is easy to speak of them _convenablement_: we have only to guide ourselves by the common opinion. But at the start, at the moment when they are trying their first flight and are in part ignorant of themselves, then to judge them with tact, with precision, not to exaggerate their scope, to predict their flight, or divine their limits, to put the reasonable objections in the midst of all due respect--this is the quality of the critic who is born to be a critic." We have been speaking of Mr. Carlyle. This is what Jeffrey thought of him in 1832:--

"I fear Carlyle will not do, that is, if you do not take the liberties and the pains with him that I did, by striking out freely, and writing in occasionally. The misfortune is, that he is very obstinate, and unluckily in a place like this, he finds people enough to abet and applaud him, to intercept the operation of the otherwise infallible remedy of general avoidance and neglect. It is a great pity, for he is a man of genius and industry, and with the capacity of being an elegant and impressive writer"

The notion of Jeffrey occasionally writing elegantly and impressively into Carlyle's proof-sheets is rather striking. Some of Jeffrey's other criticisms sound very curiously in our ear in these days. It is startling to find Mill's _Logic_ described (1843) as a "great unreadable book, and its elaborate demonstration of axioms and truisms." A couple of years later Jeffrey admits, in speaking of Mr. Mill's paper on Guizot--"Though I have long thought very highly of his powers as a reasoner, I scarcely gave him credit for such large and sound views of _realities_ and practical results as are displayed in this article." Sir James Stephen--the distinguished sire of two distinguished contributors, who may remind more than one editor of our generation of the Horatian saying, that

"Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis, ... neque imbellera feroces Progenerant aquilae columbam"

--this excellent writer took a more just measure of the book which Jeffrey thought unreadable.