in
the decades subjected to the first influence of the French Revolution that
the English daily paper took its start as an agent to influence public
opinion.

It was therefore rather more than one hundred years ago that writers came
to a better prosperity. They came out of their garrets, took rooms on the
second floor, polished their brasses and became Persons. I can fancy that a
writer after spending a morning in the composition of a political article
on the whisper of a Cabinet Minister, wrote a sonnet after lunch, and
a book review before dinner. Let us see in what mood they took their
advancement! Let us examine their temper--but in book reviewing only, for
that alone concerns us! In doing this, we have the advantage of knowing the
final estimate of the books they judged. Like the witch, we have looked
into the seeds of time and we know "which grain will grow and which will
not."

In 1802, when the Edinburgh Review (which was the first of its line to
acquire distinction) came into being, the passion of the times found voice
in politics. Both Whigs and Tories had been alarmed by the excesses of the
French Revolution; both feared that England was drifting the way of France;
each had a remedy, but opposed and violently maintained. The Tories put the
blame of the Revolution on the compromises of Louis XVI, and accordingly
they were hostile to any political change. The Whigs, on the other
hand, saw the rottenness of England as a cause that would incite her to
revolution also, and they advocated reform while yet there was time. The
general fear of a revolution gave the government of England to the Tories,
and kept them in power for several decades. And England was ripe for
trouble. The government was but nominally representative. No Catholic,
Jew, Dissenter or poor man had a vote or could hold a seat in Parliament.
Industrially and economically the country was in the condition of France
in the year of Arthur Young's journey. The poverty was abject, the relief
futile and the hatred of the poor for the rich was inflammatory.
George III, slipping into feebleness and insanity, yet jealous of his
unconstitutional power, was a vacillating despot, quarrelling with his
Commons and his Ministers. Lord Eldon as Chancellor, but with as nearly the
control of a Premier as the King would allow, was the staunch upholder of
all things that have since been disproved and discarded. Bagehot said of
him that "he believed in everything which