seemed a grave mistake to collect and reprint these Examiner articles that “ were extolled to the skies, and not without reason , while they were considered merely as leading articles ; . . . People said it was a pity that such admirable compositions should perish , — so Fonblanque determined to republish them in a book . He never considered that, in that form , they would be com
pared , not with the rant and twaddle of the daily and weekly press, but with Burke's pamphlets , with Pascal's letters, with
Addison 's Spectators and Freeholders. They would not stand this new test for a moment.” 60 The services rendered to literature by the periodical press, as they have been appraised by a French writer, must not be for gotten . M . Des Granges has given warm appreciation of these services rendered the history of romanticism . He finds that many authors who later became famous began their careers through publication in periodicals . Thus the original texts are
preserved and they show , by comparison with later collected editions, the many variations through which poems and essays often pass after their first publication . The periodical is also helpful in understanding and in reconstructing contemporaneous
criticism . When criticism is read later, especially since the critic often omits explanation of what is well understood at the time, it may seem altogether lacking in the essentials of criticism , but when read in its original setting it becomes replete with meaning.61 When all has been said on the side of the identification of
journalism with literature , it still seems clear that various subtile differences distinguish the two. Literature must always emphasize the artistic side of writing and transcends rules ,
while journalism is controlled by the space at command and by unwritten laws. In the news columns and the correspondence columns of the newspaper, the carefully arranged climax of the essayist becomes the anti-climax. The most important items
must come first and the items following must trail off into the one of least importance so that the closing paragraphs can be 60 Macaulay to Napier, June 24, 1842, Napier Correspondence, p . 394. 61 Ch . M . Des Granges, La Presse Littéraire sous la Restauration , 1815 1830 , pp . 7 – 34. T . R . Davies gives an admirable discussion of the press and romanticism
in French Romanticism and the Press. The Globe. 1906 .
