it is impossible to believe in."
France and Napoleon threatened across the narrow channel. England still
growled at the loss of her American colonies. It was as yet the England
of the old regime. The great reforms were to come thirty years later--the
Catholic Emancipation, the abolishment of slavery in the colonies, the
suppression of the pocket boroughs, the gross bribery of elections, the
cleaning of the poor laws and the courts of justice.

It was in this dark hour of English history that the writers polished their
brasses and set up as Persons. And if the leading articles that they wrote
of mornings stung and snapped with venom, it is natural that the book
reviews on which they spent their afternoons had also some vinegar in them,
especially if they concerned books written by those of the opposition. And
other writers, even if they had no political connection, borrowed their
manners from those who had. It was the animosities of party politics that
set the general tone. Billingsgate that had grown along the wharves of the
lower river, was found to be of service in Parliament and gave a spice and
sparkle even to a book review. Presently a large part of literary England
wore the tags of political preference. Writers were often as clearly
distinguished as were the ladies in the earlier day, when Addison wrote his
paper on party patches. There were seats of Moral Philosophy to be handed
out, under-secretaryships, consular appointments. It is not enough to say
that Francis Jeffrey was a reviewer, he was as well a Whig and was running
a Review that was Whig from the front cover to the back. Leigh Hunt was not
merely a poet, for he was also a radical, and therefore in the opinions of
Tories, a believer in immorality and indecency. No matter how innocent
a title might appear, it was held in suspicion, on the chance that it
assailed the Ministry or endangered the purity of England. William Gifford
was more than merely the editor of the Quarterly Review, for he was as well
a Tory editor whose duty it was to pry into Whiggish roguery. Lockhart and
Wilson, who wrote in Blackwood's, were Tories tooth and nail, biting and
scratching for party. Nowadays, literature, having found the public to be
its most profitable patron, works hard and even abjectly for its favor.
Although there are defects in the arrangement, it must be confessed that
the divorce of literature from politics contributes to the general peace of
the household.

Th