Robert Southey

Newspapers.—Their Mode of falsifying Intelligence.—Puffs.—Advertisements.—Reviews, and their mischievous Effects.—Magazines.—Novels.

I have adhered strictly to J.'s advice respecting the literature of this country, and allowed myself to read nothing but contemporary publications, and such works as relate to my objects of immediate enquiry, most of which were as little known to him as to myself. He smiles when I bring home a volume of Quaker history, or Swedenborgian theology, and says I am come here to tell him what odd things there are in England. It is therefore only of that contemporary and perishable literature which affects and shows the character of the nation that I shall speak.

Of this the newspapers form the most important branch. They differ in almost every respect from our diaries, and as much in appearance as in any thing, being printed in four columns upon a large folio sheet. Some are published daily, some twice, some thrice a-week, some only on Sundays. Some come out in the morning, some in the evening; the former are chiefly for London, and one is regularly laid upon the breakfast table, wet from the press. The revenue which they produce is almost incredibly great. At the commencement of the American war the price was twopence. Lord North laid on a tax of a halfpenny, observing, with his characteristic good humour, that nobody would begrudge to pay a halfpenny for the pleasure of abusing the minister. This succeeded so well that another was soon imposed, making the price threepence, which price Mr Pitt has doubled by repeated duties; yet the number printed is at least four-fold what it was before they were taxed at all.

Of those papers for which there is the greatest sale, from four to five thousand are printed. It is not an exaggerated calculation to suppose that every paper has five readers, and that there are 250,000 people in England who read the news every day and converse upon it. In fact, after the 'How do you do?' and the state of the weather, the news is the next topic in order of conversation, and sometimes it even takes place of cold, heat, rain, or sunshine. You will judge then that the newspapers must be a powerful political engine. The ministry have always the greater number under their direction, in which all their measures are defended, their successes exaggerated, their disasters concealed or palliated, and the most flattering prospects constantly held out to the people. This system was carried to a great length during the late war. If the numbers of the French who were killed in the ministerial newspapers were summed up, they would be found equal to all the males in the country, capable of bearing arms. Nor were these manufacturers of good news contented with slaying their thousands; in the true style of bombast, they would sometimes assert that a Republican army had been not merely cut to pieces,—but annihilated. On the other hand, the losses of the English in their continental expeditions were as studiously diminished. Truth was indeed always to be got at by those who looked for it; the papers in the opposite interest told all which their opponents concealed, and magnified on their side to gratify their partisans. The English have a marvellous faculty of believing what they wish, and nothing else; for years and years did they believe that France was on the brink of ruin; now the government was to be overthrown for want of gunpowder, now by famine, now by the stale of their finances. The Royalists in La VendÉe were a never-failing source of hope. A constant communication was kept up with them from some of the little islands on the coast which are in possession of the English, from whence they were supplied with money and arms; and the Republican commander in the district used to farm out the privilege of going to dine with the English governor, and receiving subsidies from him! Constant disappointment has as little effect upon an English politician as upon an alchemist, Quod vult, credit; quod non vult, non credit; he chuses to be deceived, not to be told what he does not wish to hear, and to have all good news magnified, like the Hidalgo, who put on spectacles when he ate cherries to make them seem the finer. A staunch ministerialist believes every thing which his newspaper tells him, and takes his information and his opinions with the utmost confidence from a paragraph-writer, who is paid for falsifying the one and misleading the other. Cephaleonomancy, or the art of divination by an ass's head, is a species of art magic which still flourishes in England.

Public events, however, form but a small part of the English newspapers, and the miscellaneous contents are truly characteristic of the freedom and the follies of this extraordinary people. In the same paper wherein is to be found a political essay, perhaps of the boldest character and profoundest reasoning, you meet with the annals of the world of fashion; the history of my lord's dinner and my lady's ball; a report that the young earl is about to be married, and that the old countess is leaving town; you have the history of horse-races, cock-fights, and boxing-matches—information that the king has taken a ride, and the princess an airing; a string of puns, and a paragraph of scandal. Then come what are called the puffs; that is to say, advertisements inserted in an unusual shape, so that the reader, who would else have passed them over, is taken by surprise. Thus, for instance, my eye was caught this morning with something about the mines of Potosi, beginning a sentence which ended in the price of lottery tickets. Puff-writing is one of the strange trades in London. A gentleman, who had just published a magnificent work, was called upon one morning by a person whom he had never seen before.—"Sir," said the stranger, "I have taken the liberty of calling on you in consequence of your publication. A most magnificent book indeed, sir!—truly superb!—honourable to the state of arts in the country, and still more so, sir, to you!—But, sir, I perceive that you are not quite well acquainted with the science of advertising.—Gentlemen, sir, like you, have not leisure to study these things. I make it my particular profession, sir. An advertisement ought always to be in a taking form,—always; there should be three different ones to be inserted alternately. Sir, I shall be happy to have the honour of serving you,—nothing is to be done without hitting the fancy of the public.—My terms, sir, are half-a-guinea for three."

Another professor called upon this same gentleman; and after he had run through the whole rosary of compliments, opened his business to this effect,—That a work so superb as the one in question must necessarily have its chief sale among people of fashion.—"Now, sir," said he, "I live very much in high life, and have the best opportunities of promoting its success. I have done a good deal in this way for Dr ——. I suppose, sir, you allow centage?"—It proved that he had done a great deal for the doctor, for he had received above a hundred pounds for him, and by way of centage kept the whole.

The advertisements fill a large part of the paper, generally two pages, and it is from these that the main profits both of the revenue and the proprietors arise. The expense of advertising is so great, that to announce a new book in the regular way amounts to no less a sum than thirty pounds. The greater the sale of a newspaper, the more numerous these become: this renders the paper less amusing, its purchasers fall off; the advertisers then lessen in their turn; and this sort of rising and falling is always going on. A selection of these advertisements would form a curious book, and exhibit much of the state of England. Sometimes a gentleman advertises for a wife, sometimes a lady for a husband. Intrigues are carried on in them, and assignations made between A. B. and C. D. Sometimes a line of cyphers appears. Sometimes Yes, or No,—the single word and nothing more. At this very time a gentleman is offering a thousand pounds to any lady who can serve him in a delicate affair; a lady has answered him, they have had their meeting, she does not suit his purpose, and he renews the offer of his enormous bribe, which in all probability is meant as the price of some enormous villainy.

Poetry also occasionally appears. I have copied from one lately an odd epigram, which plays upon the names of the various papers.

Next in importance to the newspapers are the works of periodical criticism, which are here called Reviews. Till of late years there were only two of these, which, though generally in the interest of the Dissenters, affected something like impartiality. During the late war two others were set up to exercise a sort of inquisition over books which were published, as the publication could not be prevented; to denounce such as were mischievous, and to hold up their authors to public hatred as bad subjects. Such zeal would be truly useful were it directed by that wisdom which cannot err; but it is difficult to say whether the infallible intolerance of these heretics be sometimes more worthy of contempt or of indignation. Of late years it has become impossible to place any reliance upon the opinions given by these journals, because their party spirit now extends to every thing; whatever be the subject of a book, though as remote as possible from all topics of political dissension, it is judged of according to the politics of the author:—for instance, one of these journals has pronounced it to be jacobinical to read Hebrew without points. There are other reasons why there is so little fair criticism. Many, perhaps the majority, of these literary censors are authors themselves, and as such in no very high estimation with the public. Baboons are said to have an antipathy to men; and these, who are the baboons of literature, have the same sort of hatred to those whose superiority they at once feel and deny. You are not however to suppose that the general character of these journals is that of undeserved severity: they have as many to praise as to blame, and their commendations are dealt upon the same principle—or want of principle—as their censures. England is but a little country; and the communication between all its parts is so rapid, the men of letters are so few, and the circulation of society brings them all so often to London, as the heart of the system, that they are all directly or indirectly known to each other;—a writer is praised because he is a friend, or a friend's friend, or he must be condemned for a similar reason. For the most part the praise of these critics is milk and water, and their censure sour small-beer.[4] Sometimes indeed they deal in stronger materials; but then the oil which Flattery lays on is train-oil, and it stinks: and the dirt which Malevolence throws is ordure, and it sticks to her own fingers.

Such journals, even if they were more honourably and more honestly conducted, must from their very nature be productive rather of evil than of good, both to the public and to the persons concerned in them. Many are the readers who do not know, and few are they who will remember, when they are perusing a criticism delivered in the plural language of authority, that it is but the opinion of one man upon the work of another. The public are deceived by this style. This however is a transitory evil: the effect of the praise or censure which they can bestow is necessarily short, and time settles the question when they are forgotten. A more lasting mischief is, that they profess to show the reader that short cut to wisdom and knowledge, which is the sure road to conceit and ignorance. Criticism is to a large class of men what Scandal is to women,—and women not unfrequently bear their part in it;—it is indeed Scandal in masquerade. Upon an opinion picked up from these journals, upon an extract fairly or unfairly quoted,—for the reviewers scruple not at misquotations, at omissions which alter the meaning, or mispunctuations which destroy it—you shall hear a whole company talk as confidently about a book as if they had read it, and censure it as boldly as if they had bestowed as much thought upon the subject as the author himself, and were qualified, as his peers, to sit in judgment upon him. The effect which these journals have produced is,—that as all who read newspapers are politicians, so all who read books are critics.

This species of criticism is injurious to the writer; because, it being understood that the business of a critic is to pass censure, he assumes a superiority both of information and ability, which it is not likely that he possesses in either; except over such authors as are too insignificant to deserve notice, and whom it is cruel to murder when they are dying. The habit of searching for faults, by the exposure of which he is to manifest this superiority, must inevitably injure such a man's moral character; he will contemplate his own powers with increasing complacency, he will learn to take pleasure in inflicting pain, he will cease to look for instruction, he will cease to reverence genius, he will cease to love truth. Meantime he disguises both from himself and the public his injustice to the living, by affecting for the dead an admiration which it is not possible he can feel; just as the Arian persecutors of old worshipped the saints, while they made martyrs.

Perhaps the greatest evil which this vile custom has occasioned is, that by making new books one of the most ordinary topics of conversation, it has made people neglect all other literature; so that the public, as they call themselves, deriving no benefit from the wisdom of their forefathers, applaud with wonder discoveries which are pilfered from old authors on whom they suffer the dust to lie lightly, and are deluded by sophisms which have been a hundred times confuted and exposed.

The Magazines are more numerous than the Reviews, and are more interesting, because their use is not so temporary, and men appear in them in their own characters; it is indeed interesting to see the varieties of character which they exhibit. The Monthly and the Gentleman's are the most popular: the latter has been established about seventy years, and has thereby acquired a sort of hereditary rank of which it is not likely soon to be dispossessed. The greater part of this odd journal is filled with antiquarian papers,—and such papers!—One gentleman sends a drawing of his parish church,—as mean a building perhaps as can be made of stone and mortar, which is drawn in a most miserable manner, and engraved in a way quite worthy of the subject. With this he sends all the monumental inscriptions in the church; this leads to a discussion concerning the families of the persons there mentioned, though they never should have been heard of before out of the limits of their own parish;—who the son married,—whether the daughter died single, and other matter of equal interest and equal importance. If there be a stone in the church with half a dozen Gothic letters legible upon it, and at respectful distances from each other, he fills up the gaps by conjecture: a controversy is sure to follow, which is continued till the opponents grow angry, cavil at each other's style, and begin to call names; when the editor interferes, and requests permission to close the lists against them. The only valuable part is a long list of deaths and marriages, wherein people look for the names of their acquaintance, and which frequently contains such singular facts of human character and human eccentricity, that a very curious selection might be made from it. The Monthly is more miscellaneous in its contents, and its correspondents aim at higher marks. Some discuss morals and metaphysics, others amuse the world with paradoxes; all sorts of heretical opinions are started here, agricultural hints thrown out, and queries propounded of all kinds, wise and foolish. The best part is a sort of literary and scientific newspaper, to which every body looks with interest. There are many inferior magazines which circulate in a lower sphere, and are seldom seen out of it. The wheat from all these publications should from time to time be winnowed, and the chaff thrown away.

Literature is, like every thing else, a trade in England,—I might almost call it a manufactory. One main article is that of Novels;—take the word in its English sense, and understand it as extending to four volumes of one continued tale of love. These are manufactured chiefly for women and soldier-officers. To the latter they can do no harm; to the former a great deal. The histories of chivalry were useful, because they carried the imagination into a world of different manners; and many a man imbibed from them Don Quixote's high-mindedness and emulation, without catching his insanity. But these books represent ordinary and contemporary manners, and make love the main business of life, which both sexes at a certain age are sufficiently disposed to believe it. They are doubtless the cause of many rash engagements and unhappy marriages. Nor is this the only way in which they are mischievous: as dram-drinkers have no taste for wine, so they who are accustomed to these stimulating stories, yawn over a book of real value. And there is as much time wasted in talking of them as in reading them. I have heard a party of ladies discuss the conduct of the characters in a new novel, just as if they were real personages of their acquaintance.

The circulating libraries consume these publications. In truth, the main demand for contemporary literature comes from these libraries, or from private societies instituted to supply their place, books being now so inordinately expensive that they are chiefly purchased as furniture by the rich. It is not a mere antithesis to say that they who buy books do not read them, and that they who read them do not buy them. I have heard of one gentleman who gave a bookseller the dimensions of his shelves, to fit up his library; and of another, who, giving orders for the same kind of furniture, just mentioned that he must have Pope, and Shakespere and Milton. "And hark'ye," he added, "if either of those fellows should publish any thing new, be sure to let me have it, for I choose to have all their works."