as those by which we enjoy the light of the sun, the pleasant air, and the fresh water. The newspaper is the elemental form of modern literature. Who is not interested in it? Who is not reached by it? The railway, the steamboat, and the telegraph, all add to its importance. Every improvement that is made in the art of communication and travel contributes to its dignity and increases its utility. No class is beyond its influence. There is not a man, there is hardly a woman, who is not more or less dependent on it. And vast as this sort of publication is in extent, imperious the necessity which creates it, universal the craving which it supplies, it is but a small part of the infinitely extended literature which has arisen in this country. So marvellous now, indeed, are the mechanical aids to publication, so immensely have the pecuniary risks been reduced, so abundant are the facilities for the acquisition and the diffusion of knowledge, that we have ventured to rate the concurrence at this moment of so many fortunate arrangements and contrivances as something hardly less grand in itself, important to literature, and powerful on society, than the discovery of an alphabet or the invention of printing. And the immediate result of the mighty impulse which has thus been given to the press, the result which contains in itself all other results, is that with the multiplication of its issues have come also their division and subdivision. There is no such thing in nature as mere multiplication; multiplication always entails a difference; increase of quantity necessitates change of kind. To give a very vulgar illustration-every publican understands this principle: When he opens a shop, he knows that it will not suffice merely to add to the number of existing shops; he knows that he must make his gin-palace different from other gin-palaces. So he announces his speciality-whether it be that his place is a house of call for painters and glaziers or for carpenters; or that he keeps a dwarf in the backparlour; or that he is an American, and abounds in iced drinks; or that he is great in Scotch stores; or that he is perfect in Yarmouth ale and

Norfolk dainties; or that he is a free-mason; or that he is a Drury Lane clown, and offers his customers a laugh; or that he is a pugilist, and rejoices in the patronage of gentlemen with hard fists and broken noses. He invites not all the world to his tap: he is not indifferent as to his customers: he selects them, he spreads his net for them, he offers one particular bait. It is on precisely the same principle-the principle which Mr Herbert Spencer has most ably illustrated in his essay on The Law of Progress, and which our physiologists, with whom it is a favourite, term the law of differentiation-that the enormous increase of periodical literature causes division and endless subdivision. In former times a journal might appeal to all classes alike for support, or at most to one of two classes-Whig and Tory. Now, it is more rare, and it is every day becoming rarer, to find a newspaper independent of class support, and addressing itself indifferently to every educated man of whatever party; attentive to every interest and attracted by every subject. Our periodical literature is essentially a classified literature. The sphere of every new publication is more and more limited. Every class has its organ; every topic finds a journal; every interest has a friend in the press. And this system of classification is so complete that here we have a genuine system of popular representation. If literature does not reach every individual of the community, it certainly represents every class, and represents it all the more truly, inasmuch as the journalism which is thus representative is the work, not so much of professed writers, not so much of a distinct order, as of men identified by origin, by interest, by calling, with the particular class or particular subject to which the periodical gives its chief attention. Authors are not a class by themselves; but every class adds authorship to the list of its accomplishments. Consequently every class has the means of asserting itself in literature; and journalism is to be regarded, not as the weapon of certain secret societies, of cliques and coteries, of cabals and leagued assassins, but as a reflection of

public feeling, a representation of popular opinion,-a mirror that, if at times, like the ocean, ruffled with storm, and distorting the semblance of the heaven above it, is yet, on the whole, a faithful mirror, far more faithful than we could have expected such a living and heaving mass of mighty waters to be. These are obvious facts; they stare us in the face; and, trite as they may appear, they give quite a new aspect to the question that has been raised as to the anonymous and as to the commercial character of the press.

It must be confessed that at first sight there is something very ugly about the anonymous, and that at the first mention of the word every generous mind is roused to suspicion. It seems to belong to that curious list of things forbidden, beginning with the Ballot, which bears the stigma of being un-English. It is infamy to write anonymous letters, and the attempt has been made to prove that there is something equally contemptible in anonymous publication. It is a Chinese law that he who accuses any one anonymously is worthy of death, even if the accusation should be true. If a man has anything to say, why has he not the frankness to acknowledge it? If he is bent on exposing the conduct of any one he knows, why does he not give the accused the advantage of knowing his assailant? If he chooses to praise any of his friends, why does he not enable the public to judge of his partiality, his sincerity, or his worth, by accepting the responsibility? If Brown chooses to attack a duke in a letter which the newspapers publish with an assumed signature, why should not the duke in all fairness have the power to say that the writer of the letter is this insect Brown-this blue-bottle, this wasp, this musquito, and none of the real lords of creation? Such is the objection to the anonymous as urged by the public; and the answer is, first of all, that the press is not strictly anonymous. The conductors of the press assume the responsibility of all that they publish. The individual writer may be unknown, just as the individual compositors are unknown, the papermaker is unknown, the ink

manufacturer is unknown; but the printer or the publisher is always ready to answer for whatever he issues-is always within reach of the law. It is evident, however, that this reply is scarcely satisfactory. It does not fully meet the objection. It is true that there are parties responsible for any offence that comes within the scope of the law; but how about the parties more immediately concerned ?-how about the veritable writers?-how about the greatest culprit of all-the unnamed editor, who plans all the mischief and rolls all the thunder? It is to these parties that the objection specially applies, and all the more pungently because a man of straw is put forward to bear the brunt of criticism. The objection means- "You, Mr Editor, and your associates, fight under a mask; you throw stones from behind a wall; you insist on being anonymous; you insist upon doing what in this country we regard as cowardly; you are not acting as gentlemen. Would Smith have written that article against the Jews if he had been compelled to sign it? Would Smythe have so lauded the Manchester politics in his own proper person? Besides which, there are a great number of peccadilloes that defy law, and that are only to be punished by public opinion. To meet these offences, we, the public, can make nothing of your representative man, your printer; we want to pour our vengeance on the individual sinner. Give us his name! Name! Name if you dare!" The accusation, it will be observed, calls in question the behaviour of individuals as individuals, as men, as gentlemen, as members of society; and in so far as we have been able to gather it, the defence on which these individuals rely is that they are but parts of a system, that the system necessitates secresy, and that the creatures of a system cannot be blamed for succumbing to the requirements of the great machine in which each plays but an insignificant part. It is impossible to give up names, they say. It is essential to the organisation of the press that it should be secret. A great public journal must of necessity be the work of a considerable number of hands, some

The

of them writing from the most opposite points of view; and although an organ of opinion thus constituted can never attain perfect consistency, yet without the anonymous it would be impossible to reach even that degree of harmony which is at present attainable-that continuity of thought and sentiment which is its life and power. Without the anonymous, too, the editor of a paper established in reputation would be very much ham pered in the selection of his staff. If he sees a clever albeit unknown writer, he can, under the present dispensation, avail himself of his services. The fact of his being unknown is of no consequence. article which he contributes has a claim on the public attention simply from the circumstance of its appearing in the columns of such or such a newspaper. The time may no doubt come when it may be advantageous both to the article and to the writer of it that the authorship should be known, but at first publicity would have been anything but a benefit to the aspirant, and would probably have prevented his contributions from being fairly judged according to their merits-would probably, therefore, have entirely excluded them from the pages of the well-established periodical, and so compelled the periodical to depend on the assistance of a small clique of known writers. Besides the advantage thus obtained by enlarging the resources of an editor, some members of the press may add, that a certain power is gained as the result of mystery. A journal has a right to acquire as much power as it can; it desires to give to every contribution the prestige and momentum which belong to it as a whole; and as, for the sake of acquiring this momentum, writers are found ready to sacrifice their individuality, and to remain for ever unknown, so there seems no reason why the public should complain, and should not accept unreservedly a system which is essential to the liberty and power of the press, and which may therefore be described as in a great measure the source of all the benefits that flow from a press free and strong. But neither is this argument quite satisfactory; at least

it is not satisfactory to those persons who, somewhat paradoxically, and knowing, as they must do, that American journalism, which is anything but the secret affair that it is in this country, has an influence very far from being proportionate to its means

an influence not to be compared, indeed, with that of English journalism maintain with Mr Sidney Herbert that the anonymous ought to be abolished in order to increase the power of newspapers, and give greater effect to the articles. Still less is it satisfactory to those who think that the press is already too strong, and who do not see the necessity of confirming or enlarging its power. Even such a man as De Tocqueville has declared that he does not entertain that firm and complete attachment to the liberty of the press which things that are supremely good are wont to excite in the mind, and that he approves of it rather from a recollection of the evil which it prevents than from a consideration of the advantages which it creates; while Montaleinbert has represented Liberty in the character of an unhappy swain declaring to the press, "Nec tecum nec te sine vivere possum." If Montalembert and De Tocqueville write in this strain, we need not be surprised that men of weaker minds and of less philosophical views should look with jealousy on the greatness of the press, and should wish to curtail its power. To these the argument that the anonymous is essential to the vigorous action of journalism is anything but convincing. It shows, indeed, that writers and editors, in preserving their incognito, are acting under the exigencies of a system, and are so far to be individually exonerated from any imputation of cowardice or meanness; but it does not show that the system itself is necessary. If the anonymous be necessary to journalism, it may still be, for all that the argument proves to the contrary, but part of a necessary evil, and English journalism may deserve all the reproaches and all the scorn that have been heaped upon it by some of our public

men.

Now it seems to us, that in most of the discussions regarding the pe

riodical press, a great deal of misapprehension arises from the fact, that the old idea of journalism as a fourth estate-as a distinct power in the realm-still exists. We trust that in our last article it was made sufficiently clear that it is the merest fallacy to regard the press as in any sense a fourth estate; it is but a second representation of the third. It has a constituency as real and an election as genuine as any that the House of Commons can boast. But there is this difference between the two systems of representation which we enjoy in the press and in Parliament: parliamentary representation is a district representation, while that of the press is for the most part a class representation. Pursue this distinction to its last result, and what does it come to It comes to this, that whereas the parliamentary deputy represents certain individuals, the literary organ represents certain abstractions. No doubt the member of Parliament is an exponent of principles as well as of individuals; and the literary organ, in the discussion of opinions and the advocacy of interests, has to do also with individuals. The one implies the other; yet directly, as we have said, the parliamentary representation is of individuals, the journalistic representation is of classes, interests, subjects, opinions-in one word, abstractions, things which do not exist except in thought. But if there be any truth in this view of the function of the English press, is it not palpable that it necessitates anonymous writing? If it be true that, unlike the journals of France and America, which represent individual opinions and interests, English newspapers and periodicals represent class or party opinions and interests, is it not natural-is it not inevitable, that the advocacy of these opinions and interests should be published as the advocacy, not of individuals, but of a class or of a party-in one word, should be anonymous? Away with all these discussions as to whether the signature of articles would increase or diminish the power of the press! The question that is here involved is not whether the power of the press may be increased or dimin

ished, but whether the character of the press is to be reversed or not? Shall the English journals represent classes as heretofore-a characteristic that of late years has been developed with extraordinary vigour ?--or shall they represent individuals as in America, where the editor's name is under the heading of the newspaper, and the authority of the journal is identical with his personal influence? To sign or not to sign?—that is the question; but as applied to the English press it is only another form of the question, To be or not to be? The anonymous is the corner-stone of class journalism it is the one postulate of the English system; and when we are asked to abolish it, the proposition really is to change the nature of the system, to violate all the traditions and subvert all the principles upon which the press, that Englishmen make their boast, has been founded, and through which it has won all its battles. Whether the principle of class journals should be retained or not, is a question which may be very safely left to the English public, for out of this principle it has come to pass that the press is no longer a fourth estate, that it is a popular representation, that to a very large extent it is in fact-the public.

Nor is it only on these grounds that the defence of the anonymous rests. There is another consideration upon which we desire mainly to insist, because it places the defence of the anonymous, not on the necessity of maintaining the interests of the press, but on the necessity of maintaining the interests of the public, which, for the sake of argument, we shall suppose to be different from those of the public journals, since it must be more satisfactory if we can prove our point, if we can show the advantages of anonymity without reference to the immediate benefit derived from it by the press.

And this will not be difficult, if we carefully consider all that is involved in the prodigious extension of periodical and other literature, as described above. What means this unexampled activity? What means this wonderful appetite for letterpress? What means the birth of one new publication after another, fast as we can count them?

What means this popularising of literature? What means this popularising of it, not only in the usual sense, that it is read by the people, but also in the other sense, that it is the product of the people? What means all the inquisition of our writers, who seem to be more and more prying every day, who seize upon new subjects, who leave nothing alone? It means universal publicity; it means a publicity that, if unchecked, will in time regard nothing sacred, nothing private; it means the glare of day without an inch of shadow; it means a compulsory show without the possibility of retirement; it means a desolating publicity, a blasting publicity. It must not for a moment be supposed that we undervalue publicity. We believe in its benefits; we accept it as the vital air of England; in the majority of instances we have fearless confidence in the public scrutiny of affairs, and, after such a confession of our faith, we can scarcely be misunderstood when we now add that publicity is not everything in life; that the rights of the private individual are to be respected as much as those of the public; that in home there is something sacred, and in retirement there is something inexpressibly sweet; that we are not willing to surrender to the vulgar gaze all our inmost thoughts and all our hidden life; that there are innumerable things which we do with our right hand, and which we desire to conceal from our left; that, in a word, publicity has its limits, and may be so abused as to become nothing less than a public nuisance. But where shall we find a check to such a dangerous publicity? Where shall we draw the line between what ought to be public and what ought to be private? Where is the standard by reference to which we may be able to measure our conduct and guard our words? Let no one say that we trust to an imaginary check and a delusive standard when we suggest that the habit of the anonymous is the safeguard of privacy, that it limits the discussions of the press, that it debars personalities, that it abolishes egotism.

If we

are asked in what way the anonymous acts as a preventive of undue

publicity, the answer is not far to seek.

And it may be observed, to begin with, that those who object to the anonymous, do, by the very fact of objecting, admit that it has an influence in determining the choice of subject and the style of treatment. It has indeed a very great influence, though not of the kind which is generally supposed. A thousand examples might be given, but perhaps it will be sufficient to imagine a writer having occasion to quote Lord Macaulay. If he were writing in Maga, or in almost any newspaper, he would simply make the quotation and state the authority. But suppose that he were writing in a journal which attaches no importance to the principle of the incognito, and permits its writers to speak each for himself, what would be the inevitable tendency of such a system? If the writer had the advantage of Lord Macaulay's acquaintance, might he not be tempted, in making the quotation we have suggested, to add that it is from the work of " my friend Macaulay?" Here is the thin end of the wedge which threatens to invade all privacy. In time the writer gains greater assurance, and he proceeds to solve some knotty problem with the announcement that his friend Macaulay once made to him in conversation the pregnant remark which throws a new light upon the subject. Here the wedge is driven deeper, and privacy is still further invaded. By-andby he has again occasion to refer to the great historian, and, wishing to throw a little liveliness into his style, he puts what he has to say into the form of an anecdote, in which Lord Macaulay is represented as dining at the brilliant table of Mr A., and seated next to the witty Lady B., who asked him abruptly if he had seen that strange book of C.'s? Here the intrusion is almost complete. It requires but very little more license, and we should learn from the public prints whether our historian takes tea, coffee, or cocoa for breakfast, who is his hatter, at what hour he dines, whether he has a good cook, and whether he is fond of grouse. Personalities such as these are common as the day in the American