22 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



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 doc- 

 trines maintained in the article under considera- 

 tion, and its tendency either to promote or re- 

 tard the practical adoption of those liberal prin- 

 ciples 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 any- 

 thing by the new system. Neither perhaps can 

 they be said to have lost, for though of two ar- 

 ticles of equal merit an editor would naturally 

 choose the one which should carry the additional 

 recommendation of a name of recognized author- 

 ity, yet any marked superiority in literary brill- 

 iance 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 honor- 

 able 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 anx- 

 ious 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 anon- 

 ymous system was hidden behind a screen and 

 robbed of his well-earned distinction. In truth, 

 however, it is impossible for a writer of real dis- 

 tinction to remain anonymous. If a writer in a 

 periodical interests the public, they are sure to 

 find out who he is. The writer on Goethe in the 

 last number of the Quarterly Review is as well 

 known as the writer on "Equality" in the last 

 number of the Fortnightly Review. 



A<rain, there is unfathomable folly in a periodi- 

 cal affecting an eternal consistency, and giving 

 itself the airs of continuous individuality, and 



being careful not to talk sense on a given ques- 

 tion 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 char- 

 acter 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 an- 

 onymity 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 

 cf 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 

 disabuses ; that would be both extremely ungrate- 

 ful 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 speak- 

 ing on these subjects, which to Mr. Napier's gen- 

 eration 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 in- 

 sight 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 my- 

 self some intelligible picture of him, both as a bi- 

 ographical and as an historical figure, in both of 



