Apple tons Journal. 257 



Mr. Spencer had advised him not to undertake the 

 work of editing a periodical : 



For your own comfort, health, and happiness, I would 

 advise you not. You will be committed to a slavery full 

 of weariness and vexation. It is a great blessing to be 

 one's own master — a blessing not to be given up unless some 

 peremptory duty or need demands it. You can do quite 

 good enough in the way of public work without thus bind- 

 ing yourself. 



But if he must undertake such work, said Mr. 

 Spencer, let it be upon a monthly magazine rather 

 than a weekly paper : 



In deciding on a weekly periodical rather than a 

 monthly, you are, I think, entering upon the much more 

 serious undertaking of the two. To have perpetually 

 hangmg over you responsibilities that must be fulfilled by 

 a given date, is bad enough when the date recurs at inter- 

 vals of a month ; and when it recurs weekly, the conse- 

 quent sense of slavery must be very oppressive, and the 

 wear and tear very serious. Unless the mercantile reasons 

 in favour of a weekly periodical are overwhelming, I think 

 a monthly will be very much preferable. I think this for 

 other reasons than that named. The smallness of a weekly 

 periodical necessitates short articles, whether they are 

 otherwise desirable or not ; but in a monthly periodical 

 you may have them short or long, as the subject demands. 

 Moreover, from the exercise of this ability to treat with 

 due fulness topics that cannot be well dealt with in a small 

 space, there arises the incidental advantage of having a 

 mixture of long and short articles, so obtaining an addi- 

 tional kind of variety. I should say, too, that editorship 

 can be more satisfactorily discharged with a periodical of 

 longer intervals. More time for arrangement and more 

 12 



