keep the
haps has the honest, capable reviewer had the satisfaction of knowing that his adverse criticism has produced good results.102 One of the difficult problems connected with literary criticism and book reviewing is that of the comparative merits of the
signed and the unsigned review . There is, and can be, no middle ground , — the review is signed or it is anonymous, and it is equally true that there is, and can be, no compromise between two hostile camps that defend or attack anonymity in criticism . The abuses of anonymous criticism were much in evidence in
the early years of the nineteenth century , - personal spite, rancor, and revenge were all indulged in under the cover of
anonymity. In protest against these evils, Richard Cumberland in 1809 founded the London Review of which the distinguishing feature was to be that each writer should put his name to the article .” 103 “ It was this last terrifying clause,” his biographer
says, " which hindered and finally put an end to the new maga
zine.” 104 Cumberland himself, in the Introductory Address to the London Review , explains that his real object was to correct a prevailing abuse . “ Booksellers of all degrees had purchased
themagazines, and behind the bulwark of anonymity dealt terrific blows at their opponents' publications, while they lavished
praises upon their own ." 105 Walter Scott had noted the danger of the plan , for he wrote to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of “ the extraordinary proposal that each contributor shall place his
name before his article, a stipulation which must prove fatal to the undertaking.” But Scott himself had always liked the cover of anonymity and wrote to Sharpe concerning the Quarterly authorship a secret, and if you can get the accompanying notices published, one in the North American , and the other in the Evening Journal, without betraying it , do so .” — Passages from Correspondence , p . 107.
102 B . L . Gildersleeve gives an account of a review ofan edition of a Greek author edited by a man " who transcended everything I had ever known or imagined in the way of incompetence.” The result of the review was that the textbook was withdrawn by the publishers, and therefore the re
view was not published . — “ The Hazards of Reviewing,” The Nation , July 8 , 1915 , IOI: 49 - 51
103 Henry Crabb Robinson , Diary, I, 189. 104 S . T . Williams, Richard Cumberland , p . 272 .
Williams states that only two numbers were published, but Robinson says, “ Four half- crown quarterly numbers were published .” Diary , I, 189 . 105 S . T . Williams, Richard Cumberland , p . 273 .
