JOHN STUART MILL. 343 



first acting editor, as I am informed, was Mr. Thomas Falconer, a bar- 

 rister, and now a county court judge, Mill guiding him, "but not being 

 the active correspondent with contributors. During Mill's absence in 

 the autumn of 1836, Mr. Falconer did all the editing uncontrolled, 

 and, in the exercise of his editorial discretion, rejected Carlyle's article 

 on Mirabeau, which Mill had previously approved of ; the rejection 

 was afterward reversed by Mill, who printed the article in the follow- 

 ing January (1837). Although not the impression left by the narra- 

 tive in the " Autobiography," I am constrained by the facts within my 

 knoAvledge to believe that Robertson's period as assistant editor must 

 have begun in the summer of 1837 ; and Molesworth's retirement could 

 not have been till the end of the year. This affects our estimate of 

 the numbers issued at Mill's sole risk. Molesworth may have borne the 

 cost of ten or eleven numbers, which would leave Mill seven or eight, 

 of the eighteen in all. Molesworth expended, no doubt, a considerable 

 sum in starting it ; and Mill must have been both very sanguine and 

 also very much bent upon propagating his views in politics, philosophy, 

 and literature, to take the whole risk upon himself. He paid his sub- 

 editor, and also sixteen pounds a sheet to the contributors that took 

 payment. On these eight numbers he must have lost considerably. I 

 can form some estimate of the loss from knowing what Hickson paid 

 to contributors, when he took over the " Review," and worked it on 

 the plan of making it pay its own expenses, he giving his labor gratis.* 



* I was well acquainted with Mill's sub-editor, John Robertson, now dead. He was 

 a fellow townsman, and was the medium of my introduction to Mill. I had, for several 

 years, abundant opportunities of conversing with him, and learned a great deal about Mill 

 during our intercourse. But he was very reticent about his own relations with Mill ; he 

 never told me, at least, what was his pecuniary allowance as sub-editor ; nor did he ex- 

 plain how they worked together in the matter of editing : his habit was to style himself 

 editor, and to seem to take the sole management. He has not left behind him any 

 record of the connection between him and Mill ; while I know enough of his history to 

 make me doubt whether it commenced in 1836. Those that knew Robertson were not a 

 little taken aback by Mill's character of him : " A young Scotchman, who had some 

 ability and information, much industry, and an active, scheming head, full of devices for 

 making the ' Review' more salable, etc." I remember on one occasion when Mr. Dis- 

 raeli, in the House of Commons, quoted Mill as an authority on some economical view, 

 Lord John Russell, in reply, spoke of him as a learned author ; the next time I met him, 

 he accosted me with his humorous twinkle, "You see what I am now, according to Lord 

 John Russell." The malapropos here was not even so bad. Robertson's attainments 

 were of the slenderest description, and his industry very fitful ; but he could make a vigor- 

 ous and brilliant display both in composition and in conversation. He contributed strik- 

 ing articles to the " Review," his best being his " Cromwell." He was also a very good 

 writer of newspaper articles. His impetus and suggestiveness in conversation drew out 

 Mill, who never talked better than he did with him. But although he made friends in 

 London circles and in the clubs, he was very distasteful to many of Mill's associates, and 

 increased the difficulties of carrying on the " Review " ; being, in fact, for a novus homo, 

 as Henry Mill styled him, somewhat arrogant. He took much interest in the Scotch Non- 

 Intrusion controversy, and coached the Melbourne Government upon the question. 

 About 1844 he disappeared from London, and was afterward rarely heard of. Mill 

 scarcely ever mentioned his name in later years. His widow has gathered together the 



