No More Learning

There was a stronger fibre in Skelton, whose pseu-
donym Shirley was subscribed to some of the most readable of
the papers contributed to Fraser's Magazine and Blackwood's
Magazine during the latter half of the nineteenth century. From
his earliest production Nugae Criticae to The Table Talk of
Shirley, Skelton showed great skill as an essayist, blending in a
rare degree the love of nature with the love of books, and im-
parting both to the reader through a style redolent of the writer's
own personality. Skelton was a historian as well as an essayist.
Though he is, perhaps, sometimes advocate rather than judge in
his essays and books on Mary queen of Scots, they who most
widely differ from him in opinion must be sensible of, and grateful
for, the charm of his presentation of the case.
Of all this group, the greatest was Robert Louis Stevenson?
Versatility was one of Stevenson’s most conspicuous qualities, for,
besides being the foremost essayist since Lamb and a master of
fiction, whether in the form of romance or in that of short
story, he was also a dramatist and a poet. The essay, however,
was the form in which he first gave promise of his future distinc-
tion, and the publication of Ordered South may be regarded as
his real entrance upon literature. Ordered South lifts the veil
from Stevenson's life and gives insight into conditions which
profoundly affected all his work. It is the essay of an invalid,
and an invalid Stevenson was destined to remain till the end.
But he was an invalid with the spirit of a robust adventurer.
A victim to tuberculosis, who, at times, could scarcely breathe
and who seemed to need all his energies in order merely to live,
he was a lover of the sea and a daring voyager, and, long after he
had reached manhood, still played, with tireless zest, a war-game
of his own invention. In his case, broken health did not quench,
but rather stimulated, the heroic in his nature. Hence, feeble as
was his hold on life, in forty-four years he accomplished far more
than the vast majority of those who live the full span in the en-
joyment of vigorous health. The body was weak, but the spirit
was indomitable. It was the eagerness of his spirit and his keen
1 See, ante, vol. XIII, chap. vi.
11
E. L. XIV.
CH. III.


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162
[CH.
Critical and Miscellaneous Prose
sympathy with men of action that saved Stevenson from the be-
setting sin of the artist in words, the temptation to subordinate
meaning to sound.
It was not until the publication of Treasure Island as a
separate volume in 1883 that Stevenson was generally recognised
as a great writer; but, prior to that, he had written and published
some short stories and many essays. The records of personal
experience which are embodied in An Inland Voyage and in
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes are essentially essays.
Fugitive papers were gathered into volumes, intimate and con-
fidential, as in Virginibus Puerisque, or critical, as in Familiar
Studies of Men and Books. Both in matter and in manner
they were excellent, but they did not make their author
famous. Other volumes, akin in spirit and substance, were
added in later years—fragments of autobiography and travel,
such as The Amateur Emigrant, The Silverado Squatters
and in the South Seas, and collections of miscellaneous
In
papers, such as Memories and Portraits and Across the Plains.
In all his work of this class Stevenson is easy, graceful and
friendly, except on occasion, when, as in A Christmas Sermon,
the tone is too lofty for these adjectives. But there, too, he
.
is intimate, and there, perhaps more clearly than anywhere
else, he reveals the moral interest which underlies most of
his work.
The body of short stories grew along with the essays, and
Stevenson was a master of story-craft no less than of essay-craft.
He never surpassed some of his earlier tales : The Pavilion
on the Links and Thrawn Janet both appeared before Treasure
Island. But, among English-speaking people, it is difficult to
make a great reputation out of short stories. The stories pub-
lished under the title The New Arabian Nights were supposed
to be responsible for the unpopularity and failure of London,
the periodical in which they originally appeared. Stevenson
might, therefore, have added masterpieces such as Markheim
and The Beach of Falesa, and still have remained obscure. But,
after Treasure Island, he was obscure no longer, and the brilliant
success of that excellent story for boys won readers for the essays
and the short stories who, save for it, would have paid no heed
to them. It made Stevenson a prosperous man, and did much
to determine the direction of his subsequent efforts. It was
followed by a series of romances—Kidnapped, with its sequel
Catriona, The Black Arrow, The Master of Ballantrae and


## p. 163 (#193) ############################################

111]
Stevenson,
Rands
163
others, down to his masterpiece Weir of Hermiston and the un-
finished St Ives. In these romances, Stevenson is at his best, like
Scott, when he is dealing with his native land ; but a comparison
with the Waverley novels shows that, fine as his work is, it falls
decidedly short of the greatest. Only in Weir of Hermiston does
he for a moment rival Scott. Stevenson was growing till he
died, and the wonderful creation of the old judge, one of the
best drawn characters in prose fiction, deepens the regret that
his days were numbered. Like Dickens, he had the excellent
habit of identifying himself with his characters, and this, no doubt,
explains his success. He acted their parts while he dictated, and
imitated their voices.
In other departments, Stevenson's work was less excellent.
The dramas wherein he collaborated with Henley were not very
successful ; but it must be added that their failure was largely
due to imperfect acquaintance with the conditions of the theatre.
Both writers were too highly gifted to produce work destitute of
literary merit, and Beau Austin, in particular, seems, from this
point of view, to deserve more success than it won.
Stevenson has been called the laureate of the nursery, but the
title has also been claimed for William Brighty Rands; and it
seems more justly to belong to the elder writer. Certainly,
Rands preceded Stevenson, and the latter has nothing finer than
Rands's 'Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World. From 1864
onwards, in Lilliput Levee, Lilliput Revels, Lilliput Lectures and
Lilliput Legends, in verse and in prose, Rands was second only to
Lewis Carroll and Juliana Horatia Ewing in the production of
those books about childhood and for childhood, which are among
the most striking features of recent English literature. He wrote
and wrote well, for adults as well as for children. His essays,
Tangled Talk, are, it is true, disappointing ; but his Chaucer's
England, though not a work of profound learning, is a very
interesting book; and his Henry Holbeach, Student in Life and
Philosophy, proves that he was a thinker as well as a skilful
writer. The uncertainty of the judgment of contemporaries is
vividly illustrated by the fact that this striking book passed
almost unnoticed and remains unknown except to students, while
Sir Arthur Helps's commonplace Friends in Council, which is also
the work of a student in life and philosophy,' won for its author
a high place among writers of the second grade. Helps attempted
history, the drama and prose fiction, as well as the dialogue on
social questions by which he won his fame. His histories are
a
11-2


## p. 164 (#194) ############################################

164
[CH.
Critical and Miscellaneous Prose
treated elsewhere? His dramas are forgotten. His Realmah
resembles the works of Disraeli in that it is partly political, but
it is not, like them, a document of historical significance. His
Brevia, a collection of short essays and aphorisms, makes con-
spicuous that lack of substance which is evident in Friends in
Council. This charge cannot be brought against the thought of
William Rathbone Greg, whose Creed of Christendom, in spite of
its sympathetic moderation, in 1851 fluttered the dove-cots of
orthodoxy. Enigmas of Life, fully twenty years later, testified
to his permanent interest in the ultimate problems of existence.
The expression is sometimes striking, but the principal charm of
the book arises from the atmosphere of sincerity which pervades
it. Greg was a philosophical politician, as well as a philosophical
student of religion ; and, in Rocks Ahead and Mistaken Aims
and attainable Ideals of the Artizan Classes, and in a number
of essays, he showed himself to be by no means easy in mind as to
the tendency of the times. Like Bagehot, he saw that democracy
was inevitable, and, like Bagehot, he felt that the problem how to
give the masses their due share of power without making them
all-powerful was still unsolved.
The nursery work of Rands links on, at one point, to the work
of Andrew Lang’, whose many-coloured fairy books were, of course,
not of his own composition, but gathered out of many lands and
many ages in the course of his studies in mythology and folk-lore.
Lang seemed to have all the necessary gifts of the essayist; yet,
already, his essays have lost somewhat of their flavour. Only now
and then, as in the lightly humorous philosophy of prefaces in the
preface to The Orange Fairy Book, does Lang strike the true
note firmly; and he has not enough of this quality to keep his
l
essays in permanent remembrance. He dissipated his powers and
attempted too much. Folk-lore, the occult, history, the Homeric
question, literary criticism—in all he was active. Under such
conditions, it was scarcely possible to be quite first-rate in any
department. Specialists in each could point out his mistakes;
but it remains much to his credit that he never failed to make
himself interesting. The fact that, whether right or wrong, he is
interesting in every page of his short sketch of English literature
is not the least striking illustration of this power.
Two 'rolling stones,' both of whom gathered moss, as the
elder hinted in the title of one of his books, were Laurence
i See, ante, chap. 11.
? See, ante, chap. II, and vol. XIII, chap. vi.


## p. 165 (#195) ############################################

IN]
Oliphant. Hearn
165
Oliphant and Lafcadio Hearn. Oliphant's books bear testimony
to his wanderings. His earliest volume dealt with Khatmanda ;
and his next, The Russian Shores of the Black Sea, caused him
to be consulted when the Crimean war broke out. In two wars,
he acted as correspondent of The Times. He was in Japan while
Japan was still in the medieval stage, and nearly lost his life in an
attack in which the weapon of the assailant was a two-handed
sword. So stirring a life afforded rich materials for various
lively narratives from his pen, and for the essays which were
gathered up near the close of his life in Episodes in a Life of
Adventure. But the most extraordinary episode of all was
Oliphant's subjection to the 'prophet' Thomas Lake Harris,
whom the disciple believed to be not only a prophet, but the
greatest poet of the age,' and to whom he surrendered the whole
of his property. One outcome of this discipleship was Sympneu-
mata, a singular book, the joint composition of Oliphant and his
wife, who both wrote, or believed that they wrote, under the
dictation of a spirit. Other products were of a very different
sort; for Oliphant seems to have united with this trait of enthu-
siasm a marked talent for business, which the prophet was shrewd
enough to employ for his own benefit. Hence, The Autobiography
of a Joint-Stock Company, in which Oliphant embodied the
knowledge he had gained of the methods of American financiers.
In the literary sense, however, Oliphant's most valuable work was
the satiric fiction Piccadilly, which shows him to have been a keen
observer and a penetrating critic of the society of his time.
Long afterwards, he returned to the realm of fiction in Altiora
Peto, and proved that he still retained his old fineness of touch.
Lafcadio Hearn began his career as a contributor to two
Cincinnati journals, but it was a subsequent residence at St Pierre,
Martinique, that gave him the materials for his first noteworthy
work, Two Years in the French West Indies. In this, he showed
that power to receive and faithfully to reproduce impressions,
which was his special gift; and his position in literature must
depend upon this gift as it was exercised in relation to Japan,
whither he migrated in 1891. Probably no one can instruct
the man of the west about what Japan was before the completion
of the process of modernisation so well as Hearn ; but that he
does so on the strength of mere impression is shown by the fact
that, though he married a Japanese wife, he could neither speak
to her or to his children in their own language, nor, after a residence
of fourteen years, so much as read a Japanese newspaper. What
a


## p. 166 (#196) ############################################

166
сн
Critical and Miscellaneous Prose [CH. III
is valuable in his work is not his reasoned opinions, but the feeling
produced in his soul by what he saw and heard ; and it is im-
portant to notice, as Gould insists, that what he saw was little
more than a blur of colour; for he was ‘probably the most myoptic
literary man that has existed. ' Hence, the best of the Japanese
books is the first, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, because in it
he was forced to rely almost wholly on impression. In his later
volumes, he reacts on the impressions and injures them. For this
reason, the latest, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation, though
the most ambitious—for it is an attempt to present in one lordly
dish the cream of all he had learnt about Japan—is far from being
equal to those early glimpses. Besides scenes, Hearn produced
tales, both in America and in the Japanese period. He betrays
in them an unhealthy love of the gruesome; but he could, on
occasion, rise to a high level, as he proved by his masterpiece in
this form, the story of Karma.
While Oliphant and Hearn found their literary capital in the
distant and unfamiliar, the sphere of Richard Jefferies was, as the
title of one of his volumes indicates, the fields and the hedgerows
around us. His task was to show that the unfamiliar lay beneath
men's eyes. He belongs to the class of field naturalists like
White of Selborne, and, in days more recent than even those of
Jefferies, Denham Jordan, who is better known by his pen-name
'A Son of the Marshes. ' But Jefferies was more ambitious than they
and wider in his range. In Hodge and his Master, he deals with
the human element in rural life; but he does not show that complete
comprehension which he shows of beast and bird and flower. His
name first became familiar through The Gamekeeper at Home ;
and, for the ten years of life which remained to him, he was a
diligent writer. All who are qualified to judge, testify to his
accuracy of observation as recorded in volume after volume, down
to Field and Hedgerow, which appeared after his death ; but,
while the style is good, there is a marked tendency to catalogue
minute facts which, doubtless, have a value as natural history, but
hardly any from the point of view of literature. On the other
hand, a certain vein of poetry is present in all the works of
Jefferies. It is especially rich in Wood Magic, and it gives charm
to the fine spiritual autobiography, The Story of My Heart.


## p. 167 (#197) ############################################

CHAPTER IV
THE GROWTH OF JOURNALISM
To pass from the conditions recorded in the chapter entitled
'The Beginnings of English Journalism' to those with which
the close of the nineteenth century was familiar, is almost like
being carried on the magic carpet of oriental romance from the
middle of the Sahara to the bustling, electricity-lighted thorough-
fares of a modern European capital. The chapter to which
reference is made treats of the hand-written letter in which
some, more or less professional, observer, for the benefit of a
few known subscribers in the country, detailed whatever gossip
he was able to pick up in the taverns and streets of London. His
lineal descendants are still to be seen in the writers of the London
letter which figures in the columns of nearly every daily provincial
paper, and finds, latterly, a counterpart in several of the journals
established in London. The information in these London letters
differs, for the most part, from that which is to be obtained in
the ordinary news columns, and has nothing in common with the
reasoned leading article, in which is discussed the uppermost
political incident of the day. The chapter above referred to took
its readers from these manuscript letters through various experi-
ments in printed news-books and sheets of intelligence, issued by,
or in behalf of, groups of politicians, or news purveyors, to the
establishment of The London Gazette and the few occasional
journals which made their appearance towards the end of the
seventeenth century. The transition from a small pamphlet
containing some definite piece of news, and bearing an appropriate
title, to the sheet published periodically under a distinctive and
'regularly repeated name, carrying not one but a great variety of
collected items of news, was, in itself, great; but, when the change
was brought about, the convenience and attractiveness of it
ensured permanence.
i See, ante, vol. vii, chap. xv.


## p. 168 (#198) ############################################

168
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
>
There was even a public ready for the news writer. Howell,
in his Familiar Letters, tells that the ploughman, the cobbler
and the porter would spare no effort to educate their children,
and the records of the university of Cambridge show numerous
instances of the sons of husbandmen being entered as students.
Apart, then, from the necessity to the merchant and trader of being
acquainted with current events, it is natural that the country,
as a whole, should wish to be supplied with news. Dr Johnson
characterised English common folk as more educated, politically,
than the people of other countries, and this because of the
popularity of newspapers. The extent of the influence of the
cheap newspaper in the early part of the eighteenth century is
shown by the petition of publishers against the legislation
described by Swift as ruining Grub street by the imposition
of a tax which extinguished all halfpenny newspapers and many
of the more highly priced. It was urged that halfpenny news-
papers were used very largely throughout the country as a means
of teaching children to read, and that, without them, there would
be a failure in this respect. In these conditions, statesmen could
not fail to recognise that the newspaper press might be made to
serve their purposes, and they did not hesitate to employ men of
marked ability and political knowledge to supplement or give
finish to the work of the professional inhabitants of Grub street.
For these higher services, payment was made, sometimes in coin-
Swift says that he refused £50 offered to him by Harley in 1710–11
-and, otherwise, by statę or church preferment, or by admission
to social comradeship. Publishers of newspapers, also, found it
to their profit to employ writers who could mix the useful with the
pleasant.
The growth of journalism in the eighteenth century was ex-
pedited by Palmer's establishment of a series of stage coaches,
leaving London at stated hours and carrying parcels as well as
passengers, distribution being thus much more rapid and regular
than when it depended upon the older waggon. Meanwhile, news-
papers had to struggle against the hand of authority. Prose-
cutions for libel were numerous, and daring writers had to stand in
the pillory, besides being imprisoned and fined. Parliament, in
especial, was jealous of the news collector; though, now and
again, some member might protest that the constituencies had a
right to know how their parliamentary representatives spoke and
voted, leading politicians and the houses, as a whole, resented,
i Section viii, Letter viri (circa 1646).


## p. 169 (#199) ############################################

IV] Eighteenth Century Newspapers 169
as breaches of privilege, any account of their proceedings, and
Cave, one of the earliest and most celebrated of parliamentary
reporters, recorded the discussions as if they took place in China,
referring to individual statesmen by entirely fictitious names,
which, like those employed in Gulliver's Travels, were, doubtless,
understood by very many readers. Nor were prosecutions for the
publication of parliamentary reports confined to London. Quite
early in the eighteenth century, some of the leading provincial
cities and boroughs could boast their own newspapers.
The
Newcastle Courant was established in 1711, and its publication
continued into the second half of the nineteenth century. The
Liverpool Courant was printed in 1712, Berrow's Worcester
Journal in 1709, The Salisbury Postman in 1715, The York
Mercury about 1720, The Leeds Mercury and The Northampton
Mercury in 1720. Manchester, somewhat late in the field, had a
newspaper, The Gazette, in 1730. Cave, in 1722, sent reports of
,
the proceedings of parliament to The Gloucester Journal, whose
owner, thereupon, was brought into direct conflict with the house
of commons.
Some of the journals in this intermediate period were, in fact,
collections of essays; and the writers of the chief among them,
such as Swift, Addison and Steele, are dealt with in other chapters.
Johnson's essays, for the most part, were, like those of Goldsmith,
,
written as the literary attractions of news-sheets; it being recog-
nised that the public, while eager to buy current news, wanted,
also, some more substantial and lasting literary food. Like
similar efforts of journalism at the end of the nineteenth century,
they were composed with rapidity,recording momentary impressions
aroused, probably, by some piece of current gossip; being, in
this respect, entirely removed from the earlier essay associated
with the name of Bacon. Through the whole period, however, is
to be noted a constant progress in the collection and dissemina-
tion of news.
Charles Lamb divided books into two classes, one of which is
literature, and the other not; and, perhaps, it may be said that
some journalism is literature and other is not. A sketch of
journalism in the nineteenth century must include both, whether
or not it attempts to differentiate between them. In any reasoned
survey of the period, it is impossible to ignore among newspaper
writers a changing attitude which synchronised with a change in
their readers. The journalism of the beginning of the century
was, mainly, intended for the wealthy and educated classes, though


## p. 170 (#200) ############################################

170
[ch.
The Growth of Journalism
underneath it was a stratum of popular writing struggling against
authority which gladly would have suppressed it; at the end, with
the exception of a few weekly reviews—and, perhaps, of a few
penny daily papers, and of The Times—journalism appealed
to a lower average of social standing, and, making allowance
for educational progress in the nation, to a lower average of
literary appreciation. The enormous circulations of which today
certain newspaper owners loudly boast result, largely, from
an endeavour to cater for classes whose education has been
restricted to the elementary school, or who, of more advanced
schooling, always run with the crowd-possibly a tendency
natural to democratic times. Writing so near to these develop-
ments, it would be premature to pronounce judgment upon
them.
As to amenities, journalism, in many ways, has improved during
the century. Nojournal in the front rank would now apply to a rising
statesman language such as The Times, in the early forties, used about
Macaulay, when it referred to him as 'Mr Babbletongue Macaulay,'
and said, 'he was hardly fit to fill up one of the vacancies that have
occurred by the lamentable death of Her Majesty's two favourite
monkeys. ' One may suppose that Sir Walter Scott had such con-
ditions in mind, when, having dissuaded his son-in-law Lockhart
from journalism, he wrote : ‘none but a thorough-going black-
guard ought to attempt the daily press, unless it is some quiet
country diurnal. ' Dickens's sketch of Eatanswill journalism was
very little of an exaggeration. On the other hand, it is doubtful
whether, in the closing years of the century, there was such intimate
connection between journalism and writers upon whose work
time will impress the hallmark of literature, as in the first half of
the century. The newspaper work of Coleridge was done in the
last years of the eighteenth century, and the beginning of the
nineteenth. Many of Hazlitt's criticisms of literature, art and
the drama were written for daily or weekly journals. Perry, pro-
prietor and editor of The Morning Chronicle, complained of the
length of Hazlitt's dramatic criticisms; but the public for which the
journal was written looked for articles which, in the literature of
the country, have taken a position far above that accorded to the
writings of any dramatic critic—and there were several of dis-
tinguished ability—at the end of the century. Charles Lamb,
also, was a dramatic critic, and, although what he did, in this
domain, is of less value than much of his other writing, it
possesses permanence, because a man so steeped as was Elia in
6


## p. 171 (#201) ############################################

Iv]
Art Criticism
171
Elizabethan literature could scarcely fail to invest his criticism with
atmosphere?
In regard to another branch of art, if we turn to Lamb or
to Hazlitt, by way of gauging the alteration in the attitude of
critics—and, therefore, apparently, of their readers—towards
painting, we find that criticism, at the beginning of the century,
dealt with the artist's ability to imagine and realise some scene or
incident, taking for granted all questions of technique and of what,
nowadays, is styled decorative pattern, whereas, recent art criticism
has been more and more devoted to these? Hazlitt, who, like
many modern critics, had received, unprofitably, some training
as a painter, protests against the idea that a critic ought to
possess practical acquaintance with the art, and the protest
involves the belief that a critic, writing for the public, has nothing
to do with the artist's craftsmanship. The alteration of attitude
has thus been enormous, and, intellectually, the later outlook is
smaller. In the political world, also, while the average of writing,
and, possibly, of instructed thought, no matter to what side or
party it may be devoted, has, doubtless, improved, there is now
less direct connection between statesmen of the first rank and
journalism. Greville could point to articles in The Morning
Chronicle of the fifties as attributable either to Palmerston or
to the ambassador of Napoleon III; The Times could make and
maintain an unique reputation abroad, because it was supposed to
voice the opinions of important members of the British govern-
ment. Henry Reeve, who, between 1840 and 1855, wrote for
The Times 2482 leading articles, characteristically dwelt, in his
journal, on the surpassing value of his knowledge of cabinet
matters. Perhaps, allowance must be made for his pride in his
work; but the association between cabinet ministers and certain
newspapers was, undoubtedly, intimate in the first half of the
century. On the other hand, a large degree of independence
was shown, and, although great editors might not un-
,
naturally, be influenced by the society in which they moved, they
did not come under suspicion of corruption. Their general
1 Much dramatic criticism by Leigh Hunt, as, later, that by G. H. Lewes, comes
within the same class, being based on literary principles.
? As an instance, in the case of Charles Lamb, may be cited the papers he wrote
for The Athenaeum in 1833. There is no mention of Titian's brushwork. Lamb's
interest in the Ariadne lay in the artist's conception of the situation indicated by
Ovid, and his power of impressing this conception upon the mind of an intel.
igent observer. This, also, was Thackeray's standpoint, in his criticisms of
paintings.


## p. 172 (#202) ############################################

172
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
character, in this respect, appears in a letter from earl Grey to
princess Lieven in 1831 :
I saw the article last night in The Courier, and it vexed me very much. We
really have no power over that, or any other paper in great circulation. All
that we can do is by sending them sometimes articles of intelligence (bat
even to this I am no party) to conciliate them, when public opinion is not
against us. But when there is a strong general feeling, as in the case of
Poland, it is quite impossible to control them.
Lord Palmerston, in reply to Horsman, who had insinuated that he
was influencing The Times, protested that, between himself and
Delane, there was no bond but that of ordinary social intercourse.
At the present day, though, occasionally, information is given
privately by ministers to journalists, the latter have grown more
and more shy of seeming to be under the influence of ministers;
they are afraid lest a reputation of this kind should damage them
in public estimation. Ministers, on their part, have adopted a
somewhat different method of appealing to the public, or to
foreign powers. The development of reporting, and of the trans-
mission of news, has led them chiefly, though not invariably, to
make their appeals from the public platform, or from their places
in parliament. This change has caused the political pronounce-
ments of our leading journals to be regarded as less weighty.
How far they represent a large mass of public opinion is always
debatable; a political party having the support of the great majority
of journals with large circulations has, at times, gone to the country
only to find itself in a very decided minority. In sum, therefore,
journalism would seem to have lost authority because statesmen
have adopted other means of publishing their views, while it has
not gained materially in influence derived from a pretension
to represent the general trend of opinion in the country, or,
what is even more questionable, to direct this opinion. In 1888,
there arose a controversy as to whether journalism was advancing
or retrograding. The Spectator held that the influence was
declining yearly. Matthew Arnold, in 1887, describing what was
known as the new journalism, said :
It is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instinct;
its one great fault is that it is feather-brained. It throws out assertions at
a venture, because it wishes them true;. . . and to get at the state of things
as they truly are, seems to have no concern whateverl.
Prophets, in journalism or politics, are always unsafe.
Two features of newspaper work which had their rise in the
1 The Nineteenth Century, May 1887.


## p. 173 (#203) ############################################

IV]
The War Correspondent
173
nineteenth century are the leading article and special correspond-
ence discussing foreign affairs, or describing war. The war corre-
spondent, indeed, may be said to have been born, run his full course
and expired in the second half of the century. Reputations such
as were made by W. H. Russell, of The Times, in writing of the
Crimean war, or by Archibald Forbes, of The Daily News, in the
Franco-Prussian war, and Henry Labouchere, describing Paris
in a state of siege, are no longer possible. Lord Raglan com-
plained that The Times published information which, even with the
then limited means of transmission, found its way back to Russia,
and interfered with his plans; both French and Germans thought
the messages of Forbes and his colleagues similarly detrimental;
and, in the war between this country and the Boers, which closed
the century, a very severe censorship was set up, which practically
extinguished the independence of the war correspondent. In
the wars of the earlier part of the twentieth century, military
authorities have kept war correspondents very many miles away
from the front, and government censorships have come into play,
with most striking effect. Foreign correspondents-of whom,
Henry Crabb Robinson, sent out by The Times in 1807, was one
of the earliest-have maintained their position. So, too, has the
leading article, despite the judgment of Richard Cobden, when he
was one of the proprietors of The Morning Star, that people did
not like leading articles,' and also despite the practice, followed by
a large part of the halfpenny press, of avoiding reasoned exposi-
tions of political principles.
The nineteenth century, however it may be contemned by
later critics of the Victorian drama, painting, music and fiction,
was, indeed, a period of revolution, and its changes in regard to
journalism were such that, whereas, at the beginning of the
century, a newspaper circulating two or three thousand copies a
day was looked upon as phenomenally successful, by the end of
the century, circulations rising to 250,000 or more daily were
recorded of the penny newspapers, which had now become the
dearer class; and much larger of the halfpenny press. There
had also been a multiplication in the number of daily and weekly
journals; and, in their supply of news, some of the best of
the provincial papers rivalled the majority of those published
in London. In the year 1800, so far as there is definite in-
formation,
barring the Irish capital, there were no daily journals published outside
London, and the total number of news sheets was only about 250, as


## p. 174 (#204) ############################################

174
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
compared with nearly 2500 at the present time. Today, the total of daily
papers alone is over 2401.
In 1815, the number of newspapers in the United Kingdom was
252 ; but this was on the eve of an increase in the duties, and,
subsequently, there was a fall. In 1824, it is stated? ,
there were published in the United Kingdom, 266 papers in all. . . . In the
present year (1874) the aggregate number is 1585. Estimating the news
sheets printed in 1824, we cannot place the number at more than 30 millions.
In the present period, we do not doubt that the issue is 650 million sheets
per annum.
In 1832, E. L. Bulwer Lytton (afterwards lord Lytton), in his
famous speech advocating the abolition of the stamp, reckoned
that every newspaper paid 18. 4d. a sheet (a paper-maker's sheet)
in paper-duty, 4d. in stamp-duty and 38. 6d. for each advertise-
ment, this being equal, with cost of printing and agency added, to
5td. on a 7d. paper; so that but 14d. was left for literary and
other expenses, and for profits. To carry the figures a little
further, it is said that, in 1782, there was published in the United
Kingdom one newspaper to 110,000 inhabitants; in 1821, one to
90,000; and, in 1832, one to 55,000%. But the figures do not tell
the whole story. There had been a complete revolution in the
speed of printing. Prior to 1814, not more than 750 impressions
an hour could be obtained from one machine, and, if more than
one machine were operated, for each was required a duplicate set
of types. In 1814, John Walter, the second of that name who
owned The Times, showed that, with the aid of steam, newspapers
could be printed at the rate of 1100 copies per hour. Various
improvements were made afterwards, greatly expediting the work.
But, half-way in the century, papermakers made long rolls of
paper, to run in a press fitted with cylinders on which were
fixed, in the first instance, type, and, afterwards, cast metal plates
reproducing pages of type ; so that, by the end of the century, one
cylindrical press could print, at the rate of 25,000 copies per
hour, journals twice the size of those issued at the beginning of
the century. Further, when a mould of a page of type has been
taken, the printer can cast plates for about a dozen presses,
each producing its 25,000 copies, and, by the application of
photography to etching, it is possible to illustrate these rapidly
produced journals. The substitution of mechanical type-setters,
1
1 Sell's Dictionary of the World's Press for 1901.
? Francis, John C. , History of the Athenaeum, vol. 11, p. 326.
* Partington’s British Cyclopaedia of Arts, Sciences, etc. , vol. II, p. 94.


## p. 175 (#205) ############################################

IV]
Nineteenth Century Journalism 175
and, more especially, the linotype, for hand composition, has
greatly quickened and cheapened this department of production.
Viewed from the mechanical standpoint, therefore, journalism
shared to the full the inventive ability which marked the period,
and to this is due, in part, its extraordinary growth.
The collection and presentation of news may be regarded as
one of the applied arts—the application of literature to the
recording of current, and often very transient, facts, providing,
however, abundant material from which historians may reconstruct
the life of the century. The student of Greek and Roman history
must, of necessity, have recourse to such inscriptions as time
and vandalism have failed to obliterate; from these, he en-
deavours to picture the actual conditions of peoples, their every-
day work, their amusements, morality, hopes and fears. The
journalism of the nineteenth century is a much ampler record of
human activity in almost every direction, and this rapidly multi-
plied in volume as the century neared its close. Even advertise-
ments are indicative of national life, its industries and amusements,
educational and social institutions ; often of religious or political
and social thought. News embodied in today's journals is more
detailed and plastic. The development of reporting, aided by
railway transit, by telegraphy and, still later, by the telephone,
has placed readers in almost immediate touch with the thought of
the whole world ; and any observant person who has seen the
growth in size of the daily papers during the last quarter of the
century, and of the increasing variety of their reports, ought to
be able to trace many fresh paths of public activity, for example,
the formation of societies, and the holding of meetings for the
discussion of ideas upon every conceivable subject. Important,
too, has been the discovery that paper could be made from wood
pulp. But for this, it is certain there could have been no such
multiplication of newspapers as the century saw.
The extension of British journalism has been the result,
largely, of cheapness and of ability to obtain news in in-
creasing quantity, and, in some respects, with greater accuracy
-always with increasing speed. This was made possible only by
a constant growth of revenue from advertisements. In the course
of the century, shipping, manufacturing and finance were multi-
plied as if by some magician's wand, and, for daily information
regarding them, men of all classes had resort to the news-
paper press; the cost to individuals of obtaining such informa-
tion for themselves being, in most instances, prohibitive. The


## p. 176 (#206) ############################################

176
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
construction of railways, and even the invention of the motor-
car, have revolutionised the means of placing newspapers in the
hands of readers. The enterprise shown in distributing The
London Evening Courier before the days of railways has been
outdone.
Politically, the century was highly favourable to the advance
of the newspaper press. In its earlier years, the nation was
exercised about the Napoleonic war. Later came demands for
the abolition of the corn-laws, catholic emancipation, popular
education, the extension of the franchise, with a host of other
political changes, often consequential upon what had gone before ;
the Crimean war, the Indian mutiny, the expansion of the British
empire, also did their part. The growing number of religious sects,
of projects for social betterment, the multiplication of universities
and of scientific and literary societies, new being added to old,
partly as a result of the university extension movement, the growth
of trade unions, the spread of concerts and of tours by dramatic
companies, each of them advertising and requiring notices of its
performances, the increasing work of representative local govern-
ing bodies, the planting of the schoolmaster in every little parish-
these things have converted the newspaper press from a luxury
into what seems to be a necessity of daily life. In Great Britain,
it must further be noted, newspapers, for most of the century,
have been unfettered by peculiar and restrictive legislation or
censorship. In earlier years, this was not so. It was held illegal
to publish the report of a criminal case heard before a magistrate,
but not finally decided ; and verdicts for libel were given against
newspapers on this account. Prosecutions at the instance of
governments were numerous ; parliament often called editors and
proprietors to its bar. The press, however, after not a little
struggling, was able to assert a large degree of freedom, though it
is noteworthy that, when the Newspaper society was founded, in
May 1837, one of its chief concerns was the amendment of the law
of libel, and that, seventy years later, the same subject was still
under consideration.
One consequence of the increased mechanical rapidity of
journalism in all its branches is the gradual disappearance, not
of Bohemianism, but of alcoholism, among journalists. It is
1 In Chas. A. Cooper's Fifty Years of Newspaper Work, it is related that, in 1865,
The Scotsman of Edinburgh altered its system of sending parcels by railway with such
effect that, whereas in February 1865, the circulation of the paper was 17,000 copies
per day, in 1877, it had grown to 50,000.


## p. 177 (#207) ############################################

IV]
The Revolution in Journalism
177
impossible to imagine the occurrence, at the end of the century, of
an incident like that detailed in James Grant's Newspaper Press,
when the one reporter left on duty by his colleagues in the house of
commons fabricated, for the benefit of an Irish colleague, a speech
by Wilberforce, eulogising the virtues of the potato, with the
result that the speech appeared in all the London newspapers
except The Morning Chronicle, on which the practical joker
himself was employed. Nor would it be possible for a famous editor
to be intoxicated night after night, like the editor of The Aurora,
depicted in William Jerdan's autobiography. Jerdan was a man
of considerable pretensions to literature, and, in 1817, produced
The Literary Gazette, the earliest weekly venture of the kind; for,
though The Examiner made a feature of dramatic, and, to some
extent, of literary, criticism, its main intention was political.
Newspaper men have become as reputable and trustworthy as
any workers in the nation. Proprietors and editors demand from
their staffs unvarying fitness for duty; a Coleridge, working
only when in the humour, could have little chance of employ-
ment. Nor would a brilliant but irregular Maginn (Thackeray's
captain Shandon) be likely to edit a newspaper written by gentle-
men for gentlemen,' or even one written, as sometimes seems to
happen, by the ignorant for the ignorant. Journalism, moreover,
has been yoked with the requirement of special knowledge of
science, the arts and literature. Journalism, in short, passed
through a revolution in the nineteenth century.
The business of providing the public with news has always
been precarious; more so in London than in the provinces,
though, even in the latter, there are many instances in which
newspapers have sprung up, made a reputation and maintained
it during many years, bringing wealth to their proprietors, and
providing professional writers with what appeared to be per-
manent means of livelihood, and have then been overtaken by
competitors, and, eventually, been extinguished. Still, there are,
in different parts of the country, many which have run their course
through the nineteenth century, and others which, though with
altered titles, can show a similar continuity. In London, there
are only three daily journals able to make such a boast. The
Morning Post has had a continuous history since 1772; The
Times was started by the first John Walter in 1785, as The Daily
Universal Register, a title which, on 1 January 1788, gave place
to The Times; and The Morning Advertiser was founded in 1794.
In this sketch of nineteenth-century English journalism, priority
12
E. L. XIV.
CH. IV.


## p. 178 (#208) ############################################

178
The Growth of Journalism [CH.
>
may be given to The Times because, undoubtedly, during the
greater part of the century, it was foremost among British news-
papers; its fame in other countries far exceeded that of any of
its contemporaries; it was the first newspaper to be printed by
steam-power (29 November 1814); it was the first to send special
correspondents—as Wotton said of ambassadors—to lie abroad';
it was the first to commission one of its staff, W. H. Russell, as a
war correspondent; it was the first to print what is known as a
parliamentary sketch or leading article; it was the latest to oppose
the abolition of the stamp and paper duties, or to lower its price
in the various stages through which other ventures showed the way,
until, recently (1915), it has been compelled, by pressure of com-
petition, to take its place among the penny morning papers ;
finally, until a few years into the twentieth century, it was mainly
the property, and always under the active control, of the Walter
family. Early in its career, it adopted the policy of enlisting
among its contributors men of eminence in politics, in science,
in literature, in the arts and in religion. During the greater part
of its existence, the pecuniary profits of The Times were very
large, and it could procure information by means too expensive
for its contemporaries. Such was its position, that most people
believed it to be beyond challenge by any rival". The first John
Walter was its first editor; he resigned his sceptre into the hands
of the second John Walter in 1803. The Times had already
achieved notoriety by certain libels, for some of which John
Walter spent sixteen months in Newgate. His efforts to obtain
news from the continent, and especially from France, brought
the paper reputation among politicians and financiers; he was
competing with the well-established Morning Chronicle under
the editorship of James Perry, who had surrounded himself with
a brilliant literary staff, and had effectively organised the reporting
of parliament by relays of reporters who could produce their copy
in time for publication in the next morning's Chronicle. Perry's
method of organisation is still in force. John Walter the second
learned by experience that the business of a proprietor interfered
with editing, and he left much authority in the hands of members
of his staff. Henry Crabb Robinson, sent out as foreign cor-
respondent in 1807, was, in the next year, installed as foreign
editor, and, some two years or so later, Dr (afterwards Sir) John
Stoddart was appointed general editor. The British press, as a
i See, for instance, Andrews's A History of British Journalism (1859), in the passage
discussing the attitude of The Times towards the repeal of the stamp duty.


## p. 179 (#209) ############################################

Iv]
The Times
179
whole, was violent in attacking Napoleon, who, in 1802, pressed
the British government to
adopt the most effectual measures to put a stop to the unbecoming and
seditious publications with which the newspapers and writings printed in
England are filled.
The government admitted that 'very improper paragraphs have
lately appeared in some of the English newspapers against the
Government of France'; but they repudiated responsibility, and
suggested that the first consul might sue the newspapers in the
English courts. There was a prosecution of a French newspaper
published in London; but nothing came of it. The Times was
among Napoleon's most coarse and violent assailants. Indeed, in
1817, John Walter, for this reason, removed Stoddart, installing
Thomas Barnes, already on the staff of the paper—the first of two
editors whose fame has never been excelled. When lord Melville
had been dismissed from office in 1805, Peter Stuart, proprietor
and editor of The Oracle-brother of the more famous Dan Stuart,
of The Morning Post—defended Melville in an article reflecting
severely upon the House of Commons. There were long debates
in the chamber, and, in the course of them, the chancellor of the
exchequer said,
It was almost the common fault of those connected with the press that they
assumed a loftier tone, and perhaps gave themselves more importance, than
naturally belonged to them.
The Times has never been wanting in a sense of its own im-
portance, and, whatever mistakes may have been made by it in the
course of the nineteenth century, it has, throughout, been above
suspicion of corruption. For the rest, The Times opposed the
repeal of the corn-laws, until it was converted, not by argument,
but by the magnitude of the demonstrations in Manchester and
elsewhere, and by the wealth and local status of the men who took
part in them. It opposed Stratford Canning's policy of main-
taining the Turkish empire against Russian attack, until it saw
that Palmerston, heading steadily for war with Russia, had the
country at his back. Later, in the Russo-Turkish war of 1876, it still
supported the Turks; but, towards the end of the century, as
the attitude of important British politicians differed considerably,
in this respect, from that of their predecessors, it turned to the
1 As to the quarrel of The Times with Bright and Cobden in 1863, see Morley's
Life of Richard Cobden, chap. XXXII, and R. H. Fox Bourne's English Newspapers,
vol. 11, pp. 188, 189.
12-2


## p. 180 (#210) ############################################

180
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
6
opposite side. These changes need not have resulted from a
desire to discover what the public wanted, and to satisfy the
want; The Times was neither always lagging behind the views
of those classes for which more particularly it was written, nor
always anxious to see which way it ought to jump.
That The Times possessed enormous influence under Barnes
and his successor (1841), John Thaddeus Delane, is indicated in
all the political memoirs of the period. In the first number of
The Saturday Review (3 November 1855), it was stated that one
of the chief functions of the vigorous newcomer was to undermine
this influence ‘by the exercise of common-sense and ordinary
perspicacity: 'No apology,' it wrote, “is necessary for assuming
that this country is ruled by The Times. We all know it, or if we
do not know it, we ought to know it. ' In 1834, lord Althorpe
had written to Brougham, then lord chancellor, 'What I wanted
to see you about is The Times; whether we are to make war on
it, or come to terms. By politicians, it was read, in its opposition
days, for the slashing articles, first, of Peter Fraser, and, next, of
captain Edward Sterling, father of John Sterling, the friend of
Carlyle. Sterling is said to have put into lively and vigorous
language ideas already floating in the minds of his readers. He
gained for The Times the title “The Thunderer', by writing, 'We
thundered out the other day an article on social and political
reform ''; and, of his writing, Wellington, in 1812, said 'Here is
someone not afraid to write like a man. ' Macaulay, as is recorded
by Thomas Moore in his diary, contributed verses to The Times in
1831. Leigh Hunt, radical though he was, wrote literary reviews
for it; Coleridge made advances to the second John Walter,
proposing the impossible—that he should be appointed editor,
with a perfectly free hand as to policy; George Borrow, while
wandering in Spain, collecting materials for his famous book,
acted as correspondent for The Times, and, writing with a freedom
from the dignity which hedged in staff-writers of the great
journal, became, it is said, a model for many who wrote for the
cheaper newspapers. According to Escott, the young lions'-
(Matthew Arnold's name for the writers on The Daily Telegraph)
-owed much to Borrow, and one of captain Hamber's staff on
The Standard ‘had so steeped himself in Borrow's pure and easy
phrasing that some of the disciple's Letters from Corsica were
mistaken by experts for the Master's own. But it is to Peter
Fraser, a veritable man-about-town in behalf of his paper, that
1 Escott's Masters of English Journalism, p. 175.


## p. 181 (#211) ############################################

IV]
John Thaddeus Delane
181
was attributed the influence won in the city of London by The
Times, in the first quarter of the century. The Times always
desired to feel the pulse not only of Westminster, but, also, of
the city; it scarcely recognised public opinion in the manu-
facturing centres; hence, in part, at least, its opposition to all
the great political evolutions of the century. Under Delane, The
Times attained a larger cosmopolitan standing. It is said that
Barnes furnished his coming successor with useful introductions,
including one to Charles Greville of The Memoirs. Delane was,
perhaps naturally, and certainly by training, more given to society
than Barnes ; he was not a writer in the same sense as his
predecessor ; at no time did he write much, and, in later years,
he confined himself almost solely to receiving information which
enabled him to direct or control other men. Disraeli had ap-
peared in The Times with his Runnymede Letters (1836) and had
won the friendship of Barnes? . He had some practical experience
of newspaper work in behalf of his party, and formed notable
conclusions upon the value of journalism? Delane's advent was
followed shortly by the defeat of the Melbourne administration,
and much credit for this was taken by, and given to, The Times.
Delane had a cross bench mind; though representing the con-
servative tendencies largely inherent in the professional and
well-to-do classes, he was yet ready to criticise freely, not merely
the government of the day, whatever its party complexion, but, also,
a great mass of constitutional and social anomalies, thus paving
the way for reforms. The famous letters by S. G. O. (lord Sidney
Godolphin Osborne, who, twenty-five years after the appearance of
his letters, read the service at Delane's funeral), were a rousing
call for better conditions for the agricultural labourer. In 1839,
The Times had opposed the duties on corn; but, apparently, John
Walter was personally hostile to Sir Robert Peel, and The Times
attacked both Peel and Sir James Graham. Especially was it
against Peel's suggestion of a sliding scale of duties; but, to
Bright and Cobden and the anti-Corn-law league, it was con-
sistently adverse, though it assisted them grudgingly when op-
position was seen to be useless.
A notable illustration of the way in which Delane picked up a
policy is connected with the Crimean war. During the Aberdeen
administration of 1852, the eastern question came to a head.
i See, ante, vol. XIII, chap. XI.
? It is certain that, at the time of his weekly newspaper, The Press (1853), he
looked up to The Times articles as a model.


## p. 182 (#212) ############################################

182
[CH.
The Growth of Journalism
Thomas Chenery was then Constantinople correspondent of The
Times, and reflected the opinions of Stratford Canning, the
British ambassador. In September 1853, Delane wrote to Chenery,
fiercely declaring it to be
impossible for you to continue to be our correspondent, if you persist in
taking a line so diametrically opposed to the interests of this country. . . .
You seem to imagine that England can desire nothing better than to
sacrifice all its greatest interests, and its most cherished objects, to support
barbarism against civilisation, the Moslem against the Christian, slavery
against liberty, to exchange peace for war-all to oblige the Turk. Pray
undeceive yourself.
)
Aberdeen drifted; Palmerston became the favourite of the classes
for which The Times wrote; and Delane adopted the policy
Chenery had been advocating.
During the war, The Times, by means of the letters written by
W. H. Russell, its correspondent with the army in the Crimea,
rendered signal service to the nation. There was then no press
censorship, and Russell described freely conditions which brought
needless suffering upon our troops. The facts gave rise to a loud
outcry, and Florence Nightingale, assisted by ‘S.