newspapers, where there is no attempt to preserve the incognito. At the head of every journal the editor's name is printed in conspicuous letters; and the result is-what? Are writers afraid to comment severely? Does the publicity of the newspaper organisation make the journalists timid, circumspect, considerate of the feelings? It does just the reverse. The personalities in which almost every newspaper throughout the Union indulges are something astounding. One New York paper, during the late panic, published the name of every gentleman who bought a silk dress for his wife or gave a dinner-party to his friends. We all know how common it is for the American journals to criticise by name the personal appearance of ladies at balls and at watering-places. It is quite possible that American ladies may be found to relish such notoriety; but such notoriety is here regarded as not less un-English than, on the other hand, is the secresy of the ballot. The feeling that would actuate an American editor in so boldly intruding upon privacy would be something like this: Here am I, known to my subscribers and readers, not merely in an official capacity, not merely as a mysterious editor, but as a private man. I give my name and address,-Jonathan Slick, of Thirty-first Street. But since all the bowie-knives and revolvers of the Union know where I am to be found, and since I stand before the world in my proper person, I have a right to greater liberty than if I sheltered myself behind the brick wall of a low, cowardly, anonymous usage; the editor and the man shall be identified; everything I hear or see shall be public property; I am but an engine of publicity; my private character is swallowed up in my editorial function; and I may indulge in personalities which pass current in conversation, but which, if I were an anonymous scribe, I could not have the audacity to print." Such is the natural result of the system. We do not, indeed, presume to say that a system is omnipotent, that license is impossible under a good system, and that moderation is out of the question under a

bad system. We are speaking of probabilities, of the results that naturally flow from certain causes which we are quite capable of appreciating. As a fact, we find that in the only free press in the world which ignores the principle of the anonymous, and is at the same time powerful and well-developed, personality is a common vice. In the only other free press which exists, and which is also powerful and well developed-namely, in the English press-we find the law of anonymity nearly absolute, and concurrently with this law we find that personality is almost unknown. It is true that English journalists have in their time indulged in unbecoming personalities; but the practice has always been reprobated, and in almost every instance the concealment has been unreal, the authorship has been but flimsily disguised. Personality is, in fact, the obverse-the complement of egotism, and egotism has free scope only by abolishing the incognito. If we, the writers, may be egotistical, it follows, as the night the day, that you, the readers, shall be the first to feel it by our invading your privacy and infringing on your little egotisms. Suppose for a moment the system of signed leaders in full play. We do not believe that writers would prove to be cowardly; they would not shrink from hitting as hard as they now do, when it is necessary to hit; but there would be introduced a system of toadyism, a habit of deciding questions on personal grounds, a superfluity of the tu quoque argument that would be simply intolerable, and that would in the end involve the ruin of the press. Fancy a signed leader announcing that the acts of any of the Napiers are not dictated by absolute wisdom. We confess to liking the Napiers even when they are most savage, and to admiring them even when they are most wrong; and this, we take it, is the general feeling. But suppose a writer venturing to acknowledge a doubt as to whether Sir Charles Napier was half an inch taller or shorter than his brother makes him out to be-what would be the consequences? Why, the unfortunate signer would be denounced as a mendacious libeller, and

the public would be regaled with his personal quarrels for weeks. It would be discovered that his hair is of an inflammatory tinge; that his great-grandaunt was an Italian; that he has been known to take pale ale and oysters at some tavern. The writer, too, would retaliate, and find out similar irrelevancies in the personal history of his antagonist. But put the invisible cap upon him, bid him go forth into 80ciety and into the world, bid him write without ever taking off his cap. The result is that he ceases to be a private individual, his egotism is of no use to him, what he has to write he must write on public grounds; it is no longer Smith who writes, but Smith divested of his egotism-Smith, who is compelled by his invisible cap to forget that part of his nature which is peculiar to himself and essentially private-Smith, who is forced to regard only that part of his consciousness which identifies him with every other member of the community-Smith, no longer the individual unit, but the representative

man.

And the writing of this representative man published anonymously through the medium of a journal has yet another advantage intimately connected with the foregoing. It will be apparent when we call to mind the observation of De Tocqueville, that democratic journalism has a strong tendency to be virulent in spirit and bombastic in style. He is speaking of the French and of the American press of twenty-five years ago, and we accept the fact without altogether accepting the explanation. The whole system as to the influence of newspaper writing upon style and treatment is very interesting and suggestive, although somewhat difficult. Mr De Quincy (whose most fugitive writings have a worth which we do not often find in more laboured compositions, and are now being collected at a rate which sorely tries the patience of his many and ardent admirers) has written a remarkable but by no means exhaustive essay on it, which will be found in the American reprint of his works; and most of us can to a certain extent trace the influence of newspaper phi

losophy, reporting style, and pennya-lining sentiment on the current of conversation, and on different phases of literature. Nor would we speak altogether regretfully of that influence. If here and there we find the vestiges of "flimsy," the evidences of stereotype, and a certain recklessness of assertion, and magniloquence of phrase, which naturally flow from the necessity of writing about all things, great and small, with assurance and dash at a moment's notice; yet also in breadth and clearness of view, in practical purpose, in sharpness and brevity of statement, in impatience of dulness, and in various other characteristics, we trace the same great influence as an influence for good. Now, the virulence and bombast which M. de Tocqueville found in the journalism of France and America, and which he regarded as a consequence of democracy, are but the natural results of throwing aside the incognito. They are due, not to the form of government, but to the form of journalism. What is virulence without personal feeling and how is personal feeling to be repressed if the incognito is abolished? Again, we must observe that forms of this kind are not invincible-are not absolute; the principle of the anonymous is not a sovereign remedy for all ills. But although it cannot accomplish everything, it can effect a great deal; and it is the natural order of things, that if we wish to render the discussions of a Babel of thinkers free from virulence, we must make them impersonal; and to make the discussions of such a multitude impersonal, they must be made anonymous. As of virulence, so of bombast. What becomes of it, if it is not nourished by egotism? If a man has to stand face to face with 50,000 listeners, he must raise his voice till it cracks; he must feel embittered with a sense of his own insignificance. own insignificance. But let him. address these 50,000 not in his own person; give him the use of a great speaking-trumpet, which a newspaper is in reality-why, then, backed by its authority, possessed of its momentum, endowed with an influence which not one man in a million can personally acquire,

he can afford to be calm; there is no occasion for roaring and ranting; he can think without virulence, and he can write without bombast. So that, to give the sum of all, if the anonymous is abolished, and we are permitted to speak each in his own name and each in his own character, then gradually it must come to this -not only that privacy will be invaded, not only that retirement will be a jest, solitude an impossibility, and home the shadow of a dream, but public life also will be outraged -public intercourse will be bitter as Marah-public talk will swell with pride, glitter with tinsel, and nauseate us with its magniloquence infinitely more than it now does with its dulness.

The certainty of this conclusion will be increased if, at the risk of some tediousness in the repetition, we again refer to the enormous rapidity with which periodical literature is spreading itself. Everybody is reading, every class is writing. Now, with regard to such rapid development, there is no truth which we have been so anxious to impress upon our readers as this-that each day periodical literature is becoming more and more truly the product of the people. This will be still more evident when we come to speak of the Tract literature of the country. Further evidence will be apparent when we proceed to examine the prize essays which are now so common, and the system of amateur writing which has sprung up in connection with them. The peculiar development of commercial literature, and especially advertisements, is an additional illustration of the same truth. And the true key to that penny literature, which has so much puzzled some of the critics, is, that it is the incipient product of the popular pen. The question has been raised, Who is it that reads the penny serials? Who are the unknown public of 3,000,000 readers for whom these periodicals exist? But a far more important question is, Do these periodicals exist entirely for the readers? Who is it that writes the penny serials? What would become of them if that system of correspondence which is carried on at such

length on the last page of each were abolished? And what does that correspondence indicate as to the efforts at composition of the innumerable subscribers? As we have read the various answers, what most of all attracts our notice is, that an immense number of people, with little practice and no skill, are trying to compose, are ambitious to appear in print, are pruning their feathers for a flight. The people, in fact, are writing for themselves. Remember the wellknown incident of the girls going to Richardson to have their love-letters written by him, whence the novelist acquired such facility in this style of composition that he threw his fictions into the epistolary form. Just as the days of such letter-writers are pastevery one being able either to write for himself or to procure some intimate friend to do it-so also the days of a literary class are numbered, and every one is able either to compose for himself what will pass muster in print, or to find some one in his own circle who will assist him. Everybody reading, every class writing, literature permeating everywhere, publicity sought for every interest and for every order, every private individual feeling called upon to address the public; what must be the effect if the cacoethes scribendi, the rage for publicity, the universality of print, is not placed under some control? We maintain that the custom of the anonymous is the only control possible, and that it exerts an influence at once powerful and highly beneficial. And the point of our argument here is, that we must regard not only the present but also the future of the English press. The sort of publicity which at present exists, is as nothing, when compared with that which seems to await us in the future, when, by some mysterious process, every event of our lives may be photographed (either literally or metaphorically) and perpetuated, if not actually published. Think of the rage for biographical incidents, and personal details, and private diaries, which has been developed of late years-think of all the biographical dictionaries and portrait-galferies that have been sold-and observe how vigorously the photograph

and the etching have ministered to this craving for personal acquaintance, how the cheapness of travelling has brought a legion of unknown but curious visitors to the door of every celebrity, how the facilities of postage have given a spur to the collection of autographs: why, all this is but the beginning it is the mere bud-it is the egg of the swan which contains in it the war of Troy. Where is all this to end, even if we retain the anonymous? and if we abolish the anonymous-if we abolish the only formal check upon personality that we possess-who shall answer for the consequences?

It may be said that all these arguments apply with equal force to the ballot. But not so. There is but one argument for the ballot, and that a bad one-that it is an antidote to intimidation, a shield for cowardice. We do not believe in this argument, which, however, has been urged in defence of the anonymous as well as of the ballot. Voters are not to be intimidated; neither are writers. The question of secresy must rest on entirely different grounds; and any man who considers the matter attentively, must see that anonymous voting is one thing, anonymous writing quite another. A vote is an act which is rendered legally binding, and which has a definite influence on the administration of affairs-a power over the welfare of every member of the community: an article is but the expression of an opinion, which has no legal force, which must go for what it is worth, and which derives all its weight, not from the character of the writer, but from the strength of his reasoning. The one is an act in which the only question to be considered is, Who does it? Who is the voter? The other is an act in which the only question to be considered is, What is it? What are the facts? If there be any truth in the contrast which we drew between the parliamentary system of representation and the representation afforded by the pressthe former representing certain individuals, the latter representing certain abstractions-then evidently the arguments which prove the anonymous to be an essential of newspaper organisation, prove the very reverse

with regard to parliamentary constituencies. The member of Parliament representing individuals, these individual persons ought to be known; the journal representing not individuals, but classes, interests, opinions, persons' names are of no account, and the habit of the anonymous is the logical result of the system. And yet again, there is another difference between voting and writing. Voting is a very simple act; there are no two ways of doing it. Writing, on the other hand, is a very complex affair; there are many ways of writing; innumerable motives, innumerable experiences, innumerable peculiarities are brought into play. We have endeavoured to show that if authorship were revealed, innumerable personalities and egotisms would be imported into a discussion which, under a system of anonymous writing, is based entirely on public grounds. It is therefore necessary to calculate the cost. Which is the greater evil-anonymous writing or personal discussion? Shall public matters be treated only on public grounds, in which case the publicity of the writers is out of the question? Or shall privacy be invaded, shall personalities be bandied about, shall egotism be the order of the day, for no other reason than that inquisitors may know who are the individuals who presume, through the press, to direct popular opinion-individuals whom Montalembert has described in his recent pamphlet on the Indian debate as beings "without mission and without responsibility," therefore persons without a recognised standing, without a legal character, without a name? The fact is, that secret voting is an accompaniment of writing that is not secret. Secresy in the one case and publicity in the other balance each other. Abrogate the anonymous, and introduce personality into the public life of journalism, then the ballot may be called for to temper the excesses of the press. It would be the only refuge from the egotism, the intrusion, the violation of privacy, which is the vice of confessed authorship in newspapers. The nearest approach to these evils which will be found in English journalism, shows itself in

the system of correspondence peculiar to the provincial press. Our London Correspondent" has a weekly column to himself; his name is not mentioned, but from the form into which his observations are thrown, he has the opportunity of giving expression to his own personality, of indulging his peculiar egotisms, and of presenting to his readers a fulllength portrait of himself. On the whole, the London correspondent is an amusing rather than a dangerous personage. With the soul of Jenkins he has something of Robin Goodfellow in him-the same astonishing ubiquity, an equal love of mischief, an omniscience that is by no means "canny." He always knows what the Prime Minister is thinking about; there is a little bird that tells in his ear why it was that Prince Albert blew his nose at a particular time; he has discerned the political significance of a little bit of blue in the Queen's dress. He is like that wonderful major-domo in Kotzebue's play who, one would imagine, is on affectionate terms with all the crowned heads of Europe, and gets love-letters from the finest ladies in all the capitals of the world; and when the contents of his pockets are examined, the letter from Constantinople turns out to be a dunning from his tailor-the billet from Rome, the score of his washerwoman. We must, however, do our provincial contemporaries the justice to say that, although the good taste of these letters is sometimes questionable, yet, on the whole, there is not often committed any serious breach of privilege. A writer, born apparently to chronicle small beer, may think it necessary to report that he saw the member for the county imbibing soda-water at the Crystal Palace with evident relish, and we half expect him immediately afterwards to draw his inferences as to the condition of the honourable gencemar's intestines, and as to his Capacity for port wine. What preYuhan! Why does he not indulge a că ofensive personalities as are wed in the correspondence of Anticariat press? Good sense, it and and we have no doubt My tistances good sense every consideration.

But in most cases the influence at work is similar to that which makes Catholics in England different from Catholics abroad. Here they breathe the free air of Protestant institutions, and they profess a tolerance which ill accords with the Papal system. It is even so that correspondents who are practically released from the restraints of the anonymous, yet writing to newspapers in which the etiquette of the mask and domino is strictly observed, are compelled to show some regard for the same code, and to assimilate their practice to the practice of the incognito.

We have dwelt thus lengthily on the question of the anonymous, because in this one question is involved the whole character of the English press-the nature of its mission, the glory of its history, the seal of its destiny. The question that has been raised as to the commercial character of the press, is by no means so important; yet it is worthy of consideration, if not for its own sake, yet as enabling us to trace distinctly the relation of journalism to public opinion. The statesmen whom, in the commencement of this article, we described as seeing in the anonymous organisation and the mercantile objects of the press, its two leading characteristics-its two determining forces-the sum and substance, the form and spirit of all else-are perfectly right. Those only are wrong who see nothing but danger in these characteristics.

When the periodical press is accused of venality, the charge refers both to the hireling writers, and to the conductors, who, as Mr Bright says, think more of the sale of newspapers than of truth. The sting of the accusation has especial reference to the conductors, who are supposed to determine the policy of a journal by considerations rather of profit and loss than of right and wrong. But before we turn to this-the really important aspect of the question-it may not be amiss to say a few words with regard to the supposed mercenaries of the press-the hirelings who sell their pens for bread. And that we may not appear to be fighting the air, we fix upon a writer, a clergyman, an Edinburgh Reviewer,