238 ZEAL FOR a:; CHAP. But though the Company lield all this power, ' their tenure of it was of such a kind that they could not exercise it perversely or whimsically without doing a great harm to their singular trade ; for the whole scheme of their existence went to make them, not autocratic, but represen- tative, in their character ; and they were obliged, by the law of their being, to keep themselves as closely as they could in accord with the nation at large. This, then, was the great English journal ; and whether men spoke of the mere printed sheet which lay upon their table, or of the mysterious organisation which produced it, they habitually called either one or the other 'The Times.' jMoreover, they often prefixed to the word such adjectives and participles as showed that they regarded the subject of their comments in the light of a sentient, active being, having a life beyond the span of moi-lal men, gifted with reason, armed with a cruel strength, endued with some of the darkest of the human passions, but clearly liable hereafter to the direst penalty of sin.*
- The form of spcccli wliii;li thus impersonates a manufactory
ami its wares has now so olitained in our laiigua^^c that, dis- carding the forcible cpithets, one may venture to adopt in writ- ing, and to give 'The Times' the same place in grammatical construction as though it were the jirojjcr name of an angel or a hero, a devil or a saint, or a sinner already condemned. Custonr makes it good English to say: 'The "Times" will protect him;' 'The "Times" is savage ; ' 'The "Times" is crushing him;' 'The blessed "Times" has put the thing right;' 'That d d "Times" has done all the mischief.'
