and savage spirit, not unaccompanied by consummate ability, has prevailed in the English political press; a spirit which would be tolerated nowhere else in the relations of life. As a necessary consequence, such writing has usually been anonymous;—Junius, in all his characteristics, was not an exception, but a type;—and because anonymous, irresponsible. We have in England the singular spectacle of a whole class of writers, many of them possessed of powers that would under other circumstances have insured them fame, content to pass their lives in obscurity, unknown to the world, which daily feeds on the produce of their indefatigable pens. It is useless to speak of exceptions: the tendency of the system is inevitable. This freedom, this license of the press, has been indispensable to England; but its advantages are dearly bought. If the German error be in criticising political action with the same scientific conscientiousness that is applied to literary or abstract questions, so that with them, as with Hamlet, action loses the name of action; the English fault is no less, of applying to literature the same dashing critique that is unscrupulously used with respect to character and opinion. The favorite is he who can stand being knocked, without being knocked down; or, if he be down, can rise again. They show Byron as a proof of the value of the system, as if, had there been no "Edinburgh," there would have been no Byron. But, though Byron could defend himself, who cannot see that he was sensitive, and that the truculent English criticism, of which the "Edinburgh Review" was but one form, soured the whole milk of his genius; urged him to tours de force, to show that he was not to be sneered at; and incited him to every folly in literature and life, lest the world should discover that he had a genial and poetical nature?
The extravagant praise of mediocre celebrities is a necessary, and nearly as injurious, part of the system. The author is placed in a false position: he writes for all men; but he finds he must choose a party, or, giving up the hope of a nation s attention, write for a coterie.
Again, it is doubtful if the licentiousness of the press in England has not been injurious to freedom of thought, para-
