mankind, and when the press is said to form public opinion and influence thought, it is by a process of infusion and pounding administered to readers of this deferential class. Those who fear the power of the press chiefly dread its influence upon this particular description of reader, the people whose educational acquirements and staple of information are derived from newspapers. They make up the great bulk of the public, and hence by an inverse process "public opinion" comes to be reflected in the newspapers, and journals acquire the prestige of being its organs. The professors of homespun thought and "original "—that is to say individual-ideas, have died out as a class like the knights' errant of chivalry, or the privateers of an age upon which we look with kindly commiseration. The apparition of an organ professing to be original might be a nine days' wonder, but no one would seriously believe in it. We have ceased to reverence genius-we have become "practical."

(9)

II.

NEWSPAPER-WRITERS.

THERE is excellent reason why the professors of journalism should be limned. While their productions are public property, they themselves preserve a strict incognito. They are not like the writers of books, who go about labelled with the titles of their works. For aught the diner-out, the lounger at his club, or the toiler over the heath and stubble knows to the contrary, the individual with whom he is brought into the closest contact may be the author of those tremendous "we's" in that morning's Thunderer; or the genius who so dexterously dissected in the previous Saturday the last accession to the stock of light literature. There are more reasons than are dreamt of in the popular philosophy why the workers of the press are

not ambitious of personal notoriety, but that which lies on the surface is sufficient. An introduction to the curious public would, in too many cases, incur a very serious risk of breaking the charm. English journalism owes much to mystery. A superstitious respect for the unknown is a trait in the national character, and it comes out most strongly, perhaps, in the matter of current intelligence. Tell a man that a certain person whom you are prepared to name has narrated a marvellous adventure, and he will deem it a point of honour not to be taken in. Tell him you saw it in the papers, and he believes it incontinently. Who put it there is a matter of profound indifference. He has no desire to be told. The respectable anonymous is his idol, and he would rather consent to be crushed to death by his own particular Juggernaut than tolerate an iconoclast. If, however, the case were different, and the British public were as inquisitive as they are now devoid of curiosity, it is highly improbable they could pick up any considerable amount of information.

Who among the passing multitude would suspect that the railway station brougham that draws up

with a feeble crash, smacking strongly of three shillings and sixpence an hour, at the door of the penny Illuminator, brings its "brilliant" contributor on his weekly visit to town for the double purpose of cashing-up and collecting instructions? He is not retained exclusively on any one periodical, and would scorn to enter into such an arrangement. It is because the round of his offices-or, as he is pleased to call them, his publishers-is so numerous, that it is more economical to retain the "brougham" for the day than to indulge in a succession of hansoms. Not that the brilliant contributor ever thinks seriously of expense. He has only to sit down for half or three-quarters of an hour-as the whim takes him-to coin money. He began his career by writing for love and by inspiration, but a tolerably long experience of work for the press has proved that it is apt to become monotonous as a pure pastime, and after a while comes to be pleasing only as it is paid for. The brilliant contributor is generally loud of voice, and bold, to the extent of being boisterous, in his demeanour, a glib and grandiose talker, full of anecdote, a walking emporium of quotations, and as ready to dash off a

pleasant paper for padding, or a leading article, on anything or nothing indifferently, as to endorse a cheque, or crack a bottle of claret. He is a Bohemian and "a child of nature; " at home everywhere and his own master nowhere; a citizen of the world, but of an order which the world is very much inclined to disown, and on which, in the long run, it seldom looks with an eye of favour. It is amused by him, but nothing more. There is another variety of the brilliant contributor, who stands in relation to the last as the jackdaw to the peacock. He has neither the physique nor the nerve-power necessary to play the character. His whole being is set in a minor key, with a shrill, weak, piping falsetto as the fitting exponent of his diminutive nature. His most brilliant pyrotechnics are mere pretty drawing-room fireworks-flashy, noisy, and very prone to go off without either light or sound to dignify the explosion. A most uncertain genius is the lesser "brilliant;" every now and again he is full of promise, and as often the humble and apologetic instrument of a signal collapse. He is like a public singer with a small stock of songs, or a fashionable preacher with a limited number of