‘Perdition catch my soul, butI do love thee,And when I love theenot, chaos is come again.’
‘Perdition catch my soul, butI do love thee,And when I love theenot, chaos is come again.’
His conceptions were remarkable for bold earnestness. His discordant voice, insignificant figure, and slightly-misshaped feet, seemed to pass miraculously away before the glowing energy of his spirit; to the imaginative spectator he visibly expanded, and filled the stage, and towered over the inferior actors of larger physical dimensions; his action, expression of countenance, intelligent emphasis, and vigour of utterance, lifted, kindled, and glorified, as it were, his merely human attributes, and bore him, and those who gazed and listened, triumphantly onward in a whirl of passion, a concentration of will, or a chaos of emotion.
As far as contemporary memoirs elucidate the subject, it is evident that gross violations of elocutionary taste were habitual both prior to and succeeding the time of Betterton. This actor, with remarkable physical disadvantages, appears to have had the most decided genius—especially for tragedy. We have no accounts of the effects of tragic personation exceeding those recorded of Betterton; so truly did he feel the emotion represented, that it is said his colour, breathing, accent, and looks betrayed an incessant and absolute sympathy with the part; as Hamlet he turned deadly pale at the sight of the ghost; and Cibber emphatically declares that his tone, accentuation, and the whole management of his voice were faultlessly adapted to each passage he recited. Garrick seems first to have established a taste for the refinements of the art; his style, compared to what had been in vogue, was singularly chaste; he embodied the great idea of unity; and when he first appeared, his manner, expression of countenance, inflection of voice, and whole air, instantly revealed the character, of which he did not lose sight for a moment. The Kemble school has been tracedto Quin; but its individuality was trenched upon vitally by Kean, although it has been, in many essential features, renewed by the elder Vandenhoff and Macready. It is contended by its ardent votaries that Kean sacrificed the dignity of his art—so ably sustained by John Kemble and his renowned sister—to mere effect; that he substituted impulse for science, and excited sympathy by powerful but illegitimate appeals to emotion. This, however, is a narrow statement, and like the old dispute about Racine and Shakspeare, the classic and romantic, the natural and the artistic, resolves itself into the fact that the principle of a division of labour is applicable to art as well as social economy. In Cato and Coriolanus and Wolsey, the traits of Kemble were perfectly assimilated; in the more complex part of Richard, and the still more impetuous one of Othello, the energy, quickness, intense expression, and infectious action of Kean were not only electrical in their immediate effect, but appropriate in the highest degree in the view of reflection and taste. Thus, too, Cooke as Sir Pertinax McSycophant, Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, Cooper as Virginius, Kean as Shylock, Macready as Werner, and Booth as Iago, made indelible, because highly characteristic, impressions. The actor, like the author and artist, has hisforte—a sphere peculiarly fitted to elicit his powers and give scope and inspiration to his genius; and it is here that we should estimate him, and not according to a comparative and irrelevant standard.
The lives of actors partake of the extreme alternations and varied excitement of their profession. To the philosopher there is nothing anomalous in the frequent contrast between the lessons of virtue they enact and the recklessness of their habits. When we consider how much they are the sport of fortune, and how often poverty and contempt form the background to the picture of love, triumph, or wit, in which they figure; and remember the constant draft upon nervous sensibility and the resources oftemperament, as well as intelligence, it is their lot to undergo, we cannot reasonably wonder that extravagances of conduct, vagaries of habit, and a proneness to seek pleasure in the immediate, characterize players. ‘Players,’ says Hazlitt, ‘are the only honest hypocrites.’ It is proved by judicial statistics, that ‘of all classes they are the freest from crime;’ while their charitable sympathies are proverbial; in marriage and finance, however, they are the reverse of precisians; yet few more pleasing examples of domestic virtue and happiness can be found than some recorded in histrionic memoirs. A kindly but acute observer who long fraternized with the craft, Douglas Jerrold, said of the strolling player: ‘He is the merry preacher of the noblest, grandest lessons of human thought. He is the poet’s pilgrim, and in the forlornest byways and abodes of men, calls forth new sympathies, sheds upon the cold, dull trade of real life an hour of poetic glory. He informs human clay with thoughts and throbbings that refine it; and for this he was for centuries a “rogue and a vagabond,” and is, even now, a long, long day’s march from the vantage-ground of respectability.’ Through the annals of the English stage there may be traced a vein of romantic vicissitude as suggestive as any the written drama affords:—Wilks, generous and spirited, abandoning a profitable engagement in Dublin, with language as noble in its key as one of Fletcher’s characters, to allay the conjugal jealousy of a brother actor; Nell Gwynn discouraged in her theatrical ambition by the manager, becoming orange-girl to the theatre in order to be in the line of her aspirations, which, when realized, made her the mistress of a king and the envy of courtiers; Mountfort killed in an impromptu duel with a noble rival for the love of Mrs. Bracegirdle; the charming Mrs. Woffington disguised as a man, at a country ball, undeceiving the affianced of her disloyal lover; the beautiful Miss Bellamy meditating suicide on the steps of Westminster Bridge; Savage asleep on a street-bunk, and, three days after, the admired guest at alord’s table; the eccentricities of Cibber’s daft daughter; Holcraft’s affecting story of his boyhood, and the ludicrous self-importance displayed in his account of his trial for treason; the fascinating dialogue of the benevolent Mrs. Jordan with the Quaker in the rain under a shed; Jerrold’s father playing in a barn upon an estate that was rightfully his own; and Douglas himself, the future dramatic author, carried on the stage by Kean, as the child in Rolla. Palmer fell dead while personating The Stranger, in consequence of the excess of sorrow which the situation induced, he having just been stricken by a great domestic bereavement; Williams was killed by Quin; and Mountford and Clive murdered. Quin’s memorable jokes; Cooke’s lapses from more than Roman dignity and Anglo-Saxon sense to a worse than Indian sottishness; Grimaldi, whom Hook called ‘the Garrick of Clowns,’ and to whom Byron gave a silver snuff-box, leaving buffoonery and harlequin whirls to train pigeons, collect flies, or meet with London robbers; Matthews, after keeping the Park audience in a roar for hours, crossing the river to stroll in pensive thought under the trees at Hoboken; and the versatile and admired Hodgkinson dying at a solitary tavern on the road to Washington, amid the horrors of pestilence, and his body thrown into a field by slaves; Booth’s extraordinary fits of contemplative originality, and the grotesque night adventures in which Kean was the leader, are but incidental glimpses of a world in which the violent, fantastic, and reckless instincts of human nature are wantonly displayed, yielding curious material for the metaphysician, and ample scope for charity. An English poet has brought together many such anecdotes of Kean—some touching in the highest degree, some superlatively ridiculous, and others shocking to the heart,—yet all kindled with the forlorn glory of genius, like the scathed form of Milton’s fallen angel. And what a mercurial compound was Samuel Foote—London’s great source of funand satire for years,—whose chance observations became proverbs, who used to find a seat for Gray the poet, stand ruefully against the scenes to have his artificial leg attached, and then go forward to set the house in a roar,—as ingenious as Steele in evading ‘injunctions,’ who lived by his ‘takings off,’ over which the grave Johnson shook with merriment, and whose ‘wits’ were literally his capital, whereby he realized three fortunes! It is no wonder people frequented Macklin’s ordinary when he quitted the stage; nor that they listened until far into the night to that ‘perpetual showman of the extraordinary in manners, adventure, sentimentality, and sin’—Elliston,—whose ‘I’ll never call you Jack, my boy, again,’ equalled in comic zest the tragic force of Kean’s ‘God bless the child,’ inBertram, who made life itself a comedy, and played the ‘child of fortune’ to the end; exuberant in vagaries, a vagabond by instinct, celebrating the ‘triumph of abstinence by excess,’ and with ‘eccentricity absolutely germane to his being,’ yet could so perfectly enact the ‘regal style’ in common life that Charles Lamb declared he should ‘repose under no inscription but one of pure Latinity.’ TheMemoirs of Grimaldiwas the first book Dickens published, and in that biography of a harlequin are the smiles and tears of a genuine romance. In the perusal of such an experience we realize how directly comedy springs from human life; thepiazzasof Spain and Italy, with their motley crowds and glib dialogue, gave birth to the theatre. What a curious fact in human nature is the relation of seeming to being in the drama. Dr. Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, was dining with the celebrated Betterton, and said: ‘Pray, Mr. Betterton, inform me what is the reason you actors can affect your audiences with speaking of things imaginary as if they were real, while we of the church speak of things real which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why, my lord,’ replied the player, ‘the reason is plain. We actors speak of things imaginary as if theywere real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’ It has been observed that there are no English lives worth reading except those of players, who, ‘by the nature of the case, have bidden respectability good day;’ and a grave literary critic explains on higher grounds than thisabandon, why there is an intrinsic charm in an actor’s memoirs, when he remarks that, ‘notwithstanding everything which may be said against the theatrical profession, it certainly does require from those who pursue it a certain quickness and liveliness of mind.’
The very nature of the vocation is inciting to vagrant propensities and thoughtless adventures. The English theatre originated in strollers who performed in inn-yards; and the Greek drama is associated with the ‘cart of Thespis.’ I have seen an itinerant company of Italians perform a tragedy in the old Roman amphitheatre at Verona, on a spring afternoon, to a hundred spectators grouped about the lower tiers of that magnificent relic of antiquity, where gladiators once contended in the presence of thousands. It was an impressive evidence of the universality of dramatic taste, which, however modified by circumstances, always reasserts itself in all nations and climes. The best historians, cognizant of this, make the condition and influence of the theatre a subject of record; and its phases undoubtedly mirror the characteristic in social and national life more truly than any other institution. It was a great bone of contention between the Puritans and Cavaliers; Macaulay finds it needful to revert to the subject to illustrate the reign of Charles II. and the Commonwealth, and Hildreth to mark the difference of public sentiment in New England and the other States after the revolution. Its critical history in England would afford a reliable scale by which to measure the rise, progress, and lapses of civilization and public taste. Upon this arena the great controversy between nature and art, rules and inspiration, eclecticism and adherence to a school,which, under different names, forms an everlasting problem to the votaries of intellectual enjoyment, was boldly fought. And the discussion once inspired by Kemble and Kean has been renewed by the respective advocates of Rachel and Ristori.
The diminished influence of the stage is obvious in its comparative isolation. ‘The dramatic temperament,’ observes Mrs. Kemble, ‘always exceptional in England, is becoming daily more so under the various adverse influences of a civilization and society which fosters a genuine dislike to exhibitions of emotion, and a cynical disbelief in the reality of it, both necessarily depressing, first its expression, and next its existence.’ This social repudiation of the dramatic instinct undoubtedly affects its professional development; and the stage in Great Britain, of late years, with the exception of the lyric drama, appeals far more to the amusing than the tragic element; the comic muse and the melodrama have long been in the ascendant. The social character which once rendered the stage in England a connecting link between literature and the town, refined circles and the public at large, no longer exists; that such a relation naturally obtains we perceive in the mutual advantages then derived from its recognition; authors and actors, indeed, have a reciprocal interest in the drama, while the tone of society and manners is directly influenced by, and reflected from, the theatre; much, therefore, of the deterioration of the latter is owing to its being in a great degree abandoned by those whose taste, character, and personal influence alone can redeem it from abuse and degradation; for it has been well said that the theatre is respectable only in proportion as it is respected. A traditional charm and intellectual dignity, as well as social attractiveness, linger around the memory of its palmy days;—when Quin so nobly befriended the author ofThe Seasons; when Steele was a patentee, and Mrs. Bracegirdle inspired the best authors to write for her, and received a legacy fromCongreve; when Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith discussed new plays and old readings with Garrick, and Mrs. Oldfield remembered poor Savage in her will; or Sheridan vibrated between the greenroom and the dress circle. Similar pleasing associations belong to the era of Mrs. Siddons, when she doffed the majestic air of Lady Macbeth to mingle with the literati of Edinburgh; and nightly saw Reynolds, Gibbon, Burke, and Fox in the orchestra. Peg Woffington charmed Burke, and incited him to his first successful literary effort; and Archbishop Tillotson profited by the elocution of Butterton. We are told, in corresponding memoirs, of Kitty Clive’s ‘clear laugh,’ ‘fair Abington with her dove-like looks,’ ‘charming Mrs. Barry,’ and ‘womanly Mrs. Pritchard.’ There is no vocation so directly inspired by love of approbation; the stimulus of applause is an indispensable encouragement, and popular caprice vents itself without limit in deifying or degrading the children of Thespis. It is not to be wondered at that diseased vanity often results from such adulation as attends the successful actor. ‘Is it possible,’ asks Sir Lytton, ‘that this man—so fondled, so shouted to, so dandled by the world—can, at bedtime, take off the whole of Macbeth with his stockings?’ The old essayists criticized the stage with efficiency; men of political fame watched with interest over its destiny; men of genius proclaimed its worth, and men of birth took an active part in its support and direction. Thus encouraged and inspired, actors of the higher order felt a degree of responsibility to the public, and indulged in aspirations that gave elevation and significance to their art. Its evanescent triumphs, when compared with those of letters, painting, or sculpture, have often been lamented; Cibber is eloquently pathetic on the subject, and Campbell has expressed the sentiment in a memorable stanza. In one respect, however, the fragility of histrionic renown is an advantage; no species of enjoyment from art has been made the theme of such glowing reminiscence;as if inspired by the very consciousness that the merit they celebrated had no permanent memorial, intelligent lovers of the drama describe, in conversation and literature, the traits of favourite performers and the effects they have produced, with a zest, acuteness, and enthusiasm rarely awarded the votaries of other pursuits. What genial emphasis, even in the traditional memory of Wilks’ Sir Harry Wildair, Barry’s Jaffier, Quin’s Falstaff, Henderson’s Sir Giles, Yates’ Shakspeare’s Fools, Macklin’s Shylock, Harry Woodworth’s Captain Boabdil, Cooke’s McSycophant, Siddons’ Lady Macbeth, and Kean’s Othello! Yet in no art is eclecticism more a desideratum; our great actors proverbially suffer for adequate support in the minor characters; rivalry and division of labour sadly mar the possible perfection of the modern stage. Walpole, who was an epicurean in his dramatic as in his social tastes, sighed for the incarnation in one prodigy of the voice of Mrs. Cibber, the eye of Garrick, and the soul of Mrs. Pritchard. In Cibber’s eulogies upon the tragic genius of Betterton, or the inimitable drollery of Nokes,—Hunt’s genial memoirs of Jack Bannister, Lamb’s account of Munden’s acting, Campbell’s tribute to Mrs. Siddons, and Barry Cornwall’s description of Kean’s characters,—there is a relish and earnestness seldom devoted to the limner and the bard, who, we feel, can speak best for themselves to posterity. Indeed, the heartiness of appreciation manifested by literary men towards great actors, is the result of natural affinity. There is something, too, in the mere vocation of the latter, when efficiently realized, that excites intellectual and personal sympathy. The actor seems a noble volunteer in behalf of humanity,—a kind of spontaneous lay-figure upon which the drapery of human life may be arranged at pleasure;—he is the oral interpreter of the individual mind to the hearts of the people; and takes upon himself the passion, wit, and sentiment of types of the race, that all may realize their action and quality.
‘What is it but a map of busy life?’—Cowper.
Irememberhow vivid was the impression of Paris life, in its contrasts and economy, derived from the distribution of the ‘Entr’ Acte’ at the Opera Comique, announcing the death of Talleyrand. Cinti Damoreau had just warbled afinalein thePré Aux Clercs, and the applause had scarcely died away, when a shower of neatly-printed gazettes were seized and pondered. There was a minute description of the last hours of a man associated with dynasties and diplomacy for half a century, who had been the confidant of the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, and a few moments before bade farewell to earth and Louis Philippe; and all these historical and incongruous memories solemnized by death, filled up the interval of a gay and crowded opera, and the pauses of an exquisite vocalist;—a more bewildering consciousness of the past and present, of art and history, of intrigue and melody, of mortality and pastime, it is difficult to imagine.
The newspaper is not only a map but a test of the age; its history is parallel with civilization, and each new feature introduced is significant of political and social changes; while its tone, style, and opinions, at any given time, indicate the spirit of the times more definitely than any other index. If we scan, with a philosophic eye, thesefugitive emanations of the press, from their earliest date to the present hour, we find that they not only record events, but bear indirect, and therefore authentic, testimony to the transitions of society, the formation of opinions, and the actual standards of public taste. Hence they are eminently characteristic to the annalist. Compare the single diminutive sheet which, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, formed the London newspaper, almost wholly occupied with state papers and the statistics of a battle in some distant region, with a copy of the present leading Tory journal in the same latitude; the extent and variety of its contents, the finished rhetoric of its leading articles, the scholarly criticism, fully reported debates, thorough detail of news, foreign and domestic, local and universal, personal and social—evince how the resources of the world have multiplied, the refinements of life progressed, and the intellectual demands of society risen. News, like all other desirable things, was, at the origin of newspapers, a monopoly of Government; theGazettea mere instrument of courts: now, the daily journal, in free countries, is the legitimate expression of the popular mind; its comparative liberty of utterance is the criterion of political enfranchisement; and where entire scope is afforded, it takes as many forms as there are sects, theories, and interests in a community. Thus, from being a mere record it has become an expositor; from heralding royal mandates it has grown into an advocate of individual sentiments; and daguerreotypes civil life, in its swiftly-moving panorama, with incredible celerity and faithfulness. The improvements in the modern journal are chiefly owing to those in human intercourse. The steam-engine and the electric telegraph, by rapidly concentrating the knowledge of events at central points, give both the motive and the means of vitality and completeness to the newspaper. A remarkable effect, however, of these facilities is that they have diminished what may be called the personal influence of the editor, and reduced thedaily journal, in a great measure, to its normal state—that of a dispenser of news. The success of the newspapers, for instance, in the commercial metropolis of this country, and also in London, is at the present day more the result of enterprise than talent. The paper which collects the earliest and most complete intelligence of passing events is the most successful. When these materials of interest were not so abundant; when days and weeks elapsed between the publication of important news, the vehicles of this evanescent but much-desired commodity were kept alive by the individual talent and information of editors. Their views were earnestly uttered and responded to; and the paper was eagerly seized for the sake of its eloquence, its argument, or its satire. It is true, indeed, that a degree of thisprestigestill belongs to the daily journal; but theéclatof the writer is now all but lost in the teeming interest of events; the editor, who, in less exciting times, would have been the idolized lay-preacher or improvisatore of the town, must content himself with judiciously compiling new facts, vividly describing passing events, and making up from his foreign and domestic files an entertaining summary of news. His comments are necessarily brief; no opportunity is afforded carefully to digest the knowledge he acquires, or to compare the occurrence of to-day with its parallel in history. Accordingly he glances at the new book, utters his party dictum on the last legislative act, gives a vague interpretation to the aspects of the political horizon, and refers to the full, varied, and interesting details of ‘news,’ for both the attraction and the value of his journal. A curious effect of this modern facility in accumulating news is that of anticipating the effect of time, or superseding the interest of artificial excitements. So various, incessant, and impressive are the incidents daily brought to our knowledge, so visible now is the drama of the world’s life, that we have scarcely time or inclination for illusions. History seems enacting; changes, once the work of years, are effected inas many months, and we are so accustomed to the wonderful that sensibility to it is greatly diminished. Imagine the scientific discoveries, the political revolutions, the memorable facts of the last twenty years, all at once revealed to one of our ancestors, at the epoch when editors used to board vessels at the wharf to glean three months’ English news for their weekly readers; when political items, marine disasters, advertisements, and marriages, were all printed in the same column and type, and notice was formally given that the postman would start on horseback in a week, to convey letters a hundred miles! Compare, too, the terse, emphatic style of the modern press to the old-fashioned prolixity, and the practice of publishing both sides of a public question on the same sheet, with the existent division of newspapers into specific organs; the original extreme deference to authority with the present bold discussion of its claims; and the even tenor of the past with the eventful present. Each period has its advantages; and the enduring intellectual monuments of the earlier somewhat reproach the restlessness, diffuse, and fragmentary life of to-day. ‘The patriarch of a community,’ says Martineau, ‘can never be restored to the kind of importance which he possessed in the elder societies of the world; from their prerogatives he is deposed by the journal, whose speechless and impersonal lore coldly but effectually supplies the wants once served by the living voice of elders, kindling with the inspiration of the past.’
To discover the public feeling of an epoch as well as its social economy, historians, not less than novelists, wisely resort to a file of old newspapers. In James Franklin’s journal, commenced at Boston in 1722, and afterwards removed to Newport, for instance, we find controversies between the clergy and the editors of the province, discussions on the utility of inoculation, advertisements of runaway slaves, and notices of whippings and the pillory—all characteristic facts and landmarks of the progress ofcivilization. The advanced culture of the Eastern States is evident from the contemporaneous republication in one of their daily prints of the poetry of Shenstone, Collins, and Goldsmith, and in another of Robertson’s History; there, too, we find Whitfield’s preaching theologically analyzed, and the manner of theSpectatorandTatlerat once imitated. Federalism was incarnated in theColumbian Centinel; and in another organ, of the same community, at an earlier period, the contributions of Otis and Quincy prepared the public mind gravely to assert the rights for which the colonies were about to struggle. The financial essays of Morris and others taught them, through a similar medium, the principles of currency, exchange, and credit; Dennie induced, in the same way, a taste for elegant literature; and the journals of Freneau and Bache embodied the spirit of French political fanaticism. History, indeed, records events in their continuity, and with reference to what precedes and follows; but the actual state of public sentiment in regard to such exciting affairs as Hamilton’s duel, Jefferson’s gunboats, Genet’s mission, Perry’s victory, the Freemason’s oath, the death of Washington, California gold, and Kossuth’s crusade, is most vividly reflected from the diverse reports, opinions, and chronicles of the newspaper press.
It is impossible to estimate the fusion of knowledge and argument brought about by the press in free countries, whereby public sentiment is formed and concentrated. Truth, even the most sacred, was propagated in the world ages ago by oral and written communication; perhaps it was then more cherished and better considered; but without modern facilities of intercourse like the press, it is difficult to imagine how a political organization like our own could be regulated and conserved; how universal reputations could be so speedily created, the discoveries of science made available to all, or charitable and economical enterprise be expanded to their present wide issues. The establishment of prolific and cheap journals in New York, in1830, was an event of incalculable historical importance. The universal interest in public affairs justifies, in this country, the greatest editorial enterprise; while the growing value of our journals, as means of reference, make it desirable their form should be convenient;—the book-shape ofNiles’ Registeris one reason it is so much consulted. The variety of talent and opinion enlisted in American journalism, the fights and flatteries of its conductors, the alacrity and seasonableness which is its chief ideal, are traits which absolutely reflect the normal life of the people; the church and schoolhouse, which inaugurate an American settlement, are instantly followed by the newspaper; and as the antiquarian now searches theBoston News-LetterorPennsylvanian Gazettefor incidents of the Revolutionary war, or statistics of colonial trade, he will, a century hence, find in the journals of to-day the economical questions, the social gauge, the daguerreotyped enterprise, fillibusterism, and popular tastes of this era.
The stagnation of business and the lapse of metropolitan fashionable life, which so emphatically mark midsummer in America, make that wonderful chart of life, the daily newspaper, more sought and enjoyed than at any other time. From the merchant in his counting-room to the stranger in the hotel-parlour, from the passenger in suburban cars and steamboats to the teamster waiting for a job, there is observable a patience and attention in reading newspapers such as one seldom perceives at more busy periods of the year. And if we were to cite a single characteristic sign of the times, as of universal import, it would be American journalism. The avidity with which the papers are seized at watering places, the habit of making their contents the staple of talk, and the manner in which they are conducted in order to meet the popular demands, are facts indicative of modern civilization which no one can ignore who would rightly appreciate its tendency and traits. These are brought out and made conscious, to a remarkable degree,in the leisure intervals which midsummer alone affords to our active and busy people.
The truth is that newspaper reading is the exclusive mental pabulum of a vast number in this country; and to this circumstance is to be ascribed the amount of general information, and ready, though superficial ideas, on all kinds of subjects, which so astonish foreigners. If you converse with your neighbour in the railway cars, or listen to the remarks at thetable d’hôte, hear what the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and gentlemen, so gregariously locomotive now, have to say—you will find that the daily press furnishes nine-tenths of the subject-matter and the speculative inspiration. There never was a time or a country where this ‘fourth estate,’ as it has been well called, enacted so broad and vital a function. Every year our press has become more personal and local on the one hand, and more comprehensive on the other. Cowper’s idea of seeing life through the ‘loop-holes of retreat,’ can now be realized as never before. However sequestered may be the summer home of our citizens, they have but to con the daily journals and know all that goes on in the great world, with a detail as to events, persons, and places, which not only satisfies curiosity, but imagination. Nothing is too abstract for the discussion, or too trivial for the gossip, of the American journal. It concentrates the record of daily life at home and abroad; and has so encroached upon the province of the old essayists, the excitements of fiction and the materials of history, that more or less of the literature of each may be found in every well-conducted newspaper.
And yet so undesirable is the unseasonable or excessive dependence upon newspaper reading, considered with reference to high culture and refined individuality, that, of all indirect benefits of modern travel, perhaps none is more valuable, as a mental experience, than an Eastern tour which cuts off the usual excitements and routine of civilized life, and especially that intense and absolute relation withthe present fostered by the newspaper. Under the palms, on the Nile, and amid the desert, to a thoughtful mind and sensitive organization, it is blissful and auspicious to feel isolated awhile, not only from the busy material life of the age, but from its chart and programme—the newspaper; and so be able to live consciously for a season in the past, and feel the solemn spell of solitude and antiquity. The modern deluge of journalism, it has been said, with more truth than we can at present quite appreciate, ‘bereaves life of spirituality, disturbs and overlays individuality, and often becomes a mania and a nuisance, to keep out of which is the only way to keep sacred. It is a sad barbarism,’ continues the same writer, ‘when men yield to every impulse from without, with no imperial dignity in the soul which closes its apartments against the virulence of the world and from unworthy intruders.’[32]A Swedish archæologist proves, by relics found in graves in Europe and America, that man in the savage state makes in form, and as far as possible in material, identical utensils and weapons; so, in civilized nations the same abuses and traits characterize the periodical press. Crabbe’s description of the newspaper in England, eighty years ago, finds a curious parallel in that of Sprague in America, fifty years later.
The individual needs an organ in this age wherein and whereby he may record or find reflected his opinions; the great evil is, that he who directs this representative medium may be a ‘landless resolute,’ a Bohemian adventurer, without convictions or interest. It is to Burke and the opposition, who protected printers from the House of Commons in 1770, that the ‘Fourth Estate dates its birth;’ and Burke was right in his declaration—‘posterity will bless this day.’ Under the ancientrégimeone in a hundred Parisians only could read. After the Revolution, all became interested in battles; to read the news became indispensable;hence it has been well said:—‘Napoleon a appris à lire aux Parisiennes. Le professeur leur a coûté cher.’ The biographer of Volney records that philosopher’s testimony against the newspaper as a means of popular culture:—‘L’auteur des Ruines, appelé à la chaire d’Histoire, accepté cette charge pénible, mais qui portrait avec elle lui offrir les moyens d’être utile: tout en enseignant l’histoire, il voulait chercher à diminuer l’influence journalière qu’elle exerce sur les actions et les opinions des hommes; il la regardait à juste titre comme l’une des sources les plus fécondes de leurs préjugés et de leurs erreurs.’ De Tocqueville indicates, in a different way, his sense of the casual adaptation of the newspaper, which he describes as ‘a speech made from a window to the chance passers-by in the street.’ Among other tests which the rebellion in the United States has thoroughly applied, is that of the press; and it is no exaggeration to say that thereby London and Paris journalism has been completely denuded of theprestigeof integrity and humanity, save as exceptional traits.
The deliberate protest of an eminent public man like Cobden is sufficient proof of this fact in regard to the great British organ. He writes:—‘A tone of pre-eminent unscrupulousness in the discussion of political questions, a contempt for the rights and feelings of others, and an unprincipled disregard of the claims of consistency and sincerity on the part of its writers, have long been recognized as the distinguishing characteristics ofThe Times, and placed it in marked contrast with the rest of the periodical press, including the penny journals of the metropolis and the provinces. Its writers are, I believe, betrayed into this tone mainly by their reliance on the shield of impenetrable secrecy. No gentleman would dream of saying, under the responsibility of his signature, what your writer said of Mr. Bright yesterday. I will not stop to remark on the deterioration of character which follows when a man of education and rare ability thus lowers himself, ay, even in his own eyes,to a condition of moral cowardice. We all know the man whose fortune is derived fromThe Times. We know its manager; its only avowed and responsible editor—he of the semi-official correspondence with Sir Charles Napier in the Baltic, through whose hands, though he never pen a line himself, every slander in its leaders must pass—is as well known to us as the chief official at the Home Office. Now the question is forced on us whether we, who are behind the scenes, are not bound in the interests of the uninitiated public, and as the only certain mode of abating such outrages as this, to lift the veil and dispel the delusion by whichThe Timesis enabled to pursue this game of secrecy to the public and servility to the Government—a game (I purposely use the word) which secures for its connections the corrupt advantages, while denying to the public its own boasted benefits of the anonymous system.’
The LondonTimeshas won, and popularly confirmed for itself during the American war for the Union, the name of ‘Weathercock,’ only fixed awhile by atradewind, and veering, with shameless alacrity, at every mercenary and malicious breath; while never before in the history of the world has the line of demarcation between what is true and comprehensive, and what is interested and partisan, been made so emphatically apparent to the common mind as in the vaunts, vagaries, and vacillations of journalism. On the other hand, one of the most remarkable evidences of the benefit of popular education, as well as an unique contribution to the materials of history, may be found in the letters of the soldiers of the Union army, written from the seat of war to their kindred, and printed in the local journals; thousands of them have been collected and arranged, and they naïvely describe every battle as witnessed and fought by as many individuals. Never before were such materials of history available. In view of the great result—the elimination of vital truth by public discussion—the expression as well as the enlightenment and discipline of public sentimentthrough the press, we have ample reason to agree with Jefferson, who declared, ‘If I had to choose between a Government without newspapers, or newspapers without a Government, I should prefer the latter.’
A son of Leigh Hunt, in a voluminous work entitledThe Fourth Estate, has written the annals of the English press;—of which Count Gurowski has well said that it ‘addresses itself to classes, but seldom, very seldom, to the people itself, as the only national element.’ The English press mentions the name of the people, to be sure, but speaks of it only in generalities, not in that broad and direct sense as is the case in America. Whole districts, communities, and townships in England, as well as on the Continent, exist without having any newspaper—any organ of publicity. Therein England is under the influence of centralization, as are the other European States. Almost every township and more populous village in the free States in the Union has its organs, whose circulation is independent, and does not interfere with that of those larger papers published in the capitals of States, or in the larger cities.
A philosophical and authentic history of the newspaper would, however, not only yield the most genuine insight as to public events and the spirit of the age, it would also reveal the most exalted and the lowest traits of humanity. The cowardly hireling who stabs reputations—as thebravoof the middle ages did hearts—for a bribe; and the heroic defender of truth and advocate of reform, loyal with his pen to honest conviction amid the wiles of corruption and the ignominy of abuse—in a word, the holy champion and the base lampooner are both represented in this field. It is one of the conditions of its freedom, that equal rights shall be accorded all; and the wisest men have deemed the possible evils of such latitude more than compensated by the probable good. Perhaps our own country affords the best opportunity to judge this question; and here we cannot but perceive that private judgment continuallymodifies the influence of the press. We speak habitually of each newspaper as the organ of its editor; and the opinion it advances has precisely as much weight with intelligent readers as the individual is entitled to, and no more. The days when the cabalistic ‘we’ inspired awe have passed away; the venom of a scurrilous print, and the ferocity of a partisan one, only provoke a smile; newspapers here, instead of guiding, follow public opinion; and they have created, by free discussion, an independent habit of thought on the part of their readers, which renders their influence harmless when not useful. Yet the abuses of journalism were so patent and pernicious thirty years ago, that Hillhouse thus entered his wise protest against the growing evil: ‘Many of our faults, much of our danger, are chargeable toa reckless press. No institutions or principles are spared its empiric handling. The most sacred maxims of jurisprudence, the most unblemished public characters, the vital points of constitutional policy and safety, are dragged into discussion and exposed to scorn by presumptuous scribblers, from end to end of the nation.’ Printers originally issued gazettes, and depended upon contributions for a discussion of public affairs—news whereof they alone furnished: gradually arose the editor; and two conditions soon became apparent as essential to his success—prompt utterance of opinion, and constant reannouncement and advocacy thereof. Cobbett declared the genius of journalism to consist inre-iteration, upon which distinction a witty editor improved by substitutingre-irritation.
As a political element, journalism has entirely changed the position of statesmen, and seems destined to subvert the secret machinery of diplomacy. These results grow out of the enlightenment and circulation of thought on national questions induced by their constant public discussion by the press; their tendency is to break up monopolies of information, to scatter the knowledge of facts,and openly recognize great human interests. By condensing the mists of popular feeling into clear and powerful streams, or shooting them into luminous crystals, the judgment, the sympathies, and the will of mankind are gradually modified. Hence, all who represent the people are acted upon as they never could have been when authority was less exposed to criticism, and the means of a mutual understanding and comparison of ideas among men less organized and effective. It has been justly observed that no danger can result from the most seductive ‘leader’ on a public question, while the same sheet contains a full report of all the facts relating to it. The pamphlet and gazette of Addison’s day, and earlier, are now combined in the newspaper. In great exigencies, however, the immediate promulgation of facts may be a serious national peril. An experienced American editor, and careful observer of the phenomena of the Rebellion, thus emphatically testifies to the possible evil of an enterprising press: ‘I believe most strongly now, that this Rebellion would have been subdued ere this, if, at the outbreak, the Government had suppressed every daily newspaper which contained a line or a word upon the war question, except to give the results of engagements. Our daily journals have kept the Confederates minutely and seasonably informed. The greater the vigilance and accuracy of these journals, the greater their value to the enemy.’ But a more significant result than this may be found in the test which the Rebellion has proved, not only to social and national, but to professional life, and especially the editorial. How completely has the prestige of newspapers as organs of opinion faded away before the facts of the hour! What poor prophets, reasoners, historical scholars, patriots, andmen, have some of the conductors of the press proved! With what distrust is it now regarded; and how does public confidence refuse any nucleus but that of individual character. The press, therefore, as a popular organ, is unrivalled. It nowillustrates every phase, both of reform and conservatism, every religious doctrine, scientific interest, and social tendency. Take up at random any popular newspaper of the day, and what a variety of subjects and scope of vision it covers, superficially indeed, but to the philosophic mind none the less significantly; the world is therein pictured in miniature—the world of to-day.
Probably the most universal charm of a newspaper is the gratification it affords to what phrenologists call the organ of eventuality. Curiosity is a trait of human nature which belongs to every order of mind, and actuates the infant as well as the sage. To its more common manifestations the newspaper appeals, and indeed originated in this natural craving for incident. In its most sympathetic degree, this feeling is the source of the profound interest which tragedy inspires, and its lower range is the occasion of that pleasure which gossip yields. It is a curious fact that the same propensity should be at once the cause of the noblest and the meanest exhibitions of character; yet the poetic impulse and reverent inquiry of the highest scientific intelligence—intent upon exploring the wonders of the universe—is but the exalted and ultimate development of this love of the new and desire to penetrate the unknown. The everlasting inquiry for news, which meets us in the street, at the hearthstone, and even beside the bier and in the church, constantly evinces this universal passion. How often does that commonplace question harshly salute the ear of the reflective; what a satire it is upon the glory of the past; how it baffles sentiment, chills enthusiasm, and checks earnestness! The avidity with which fresh intelligence, although of no personal concern, is seized, the eagerness with which it is circulated, and the rapidity with which it is forgotten, are more significant of the transitory conditions of human life than the data of the calendar or the ruins of Balbek. They prove that we live altogether in the immediate, that our dearest associations may be invadedby the most trivial occurrence, that the mental acquisitions of years do not invalidate a childish love of amusement, and that the mere impertinences of external life have a stronger hold upon our nature than the deepest mysteries of consciousness. ‘It seems,’ wrote Fisher Ames, ‘as if newspaper wares were made to suit a market as much as any other. The starers, and wonderers, and gapers engross a very large share of the attention of all the sons of the type. I pray the whole honourable craft to banish as many murders, and horrid accidents, and monstrous births, and prodigies from their gazettes, by degrees, as their readers will permit; and, by degrees, coax them back to contemplate life and manners, to consider events with some common sense, and to study Nature where she can be known.’ On the other hand, this curiosity about what does not concern us, is undoubtedly linked with the more generous sympathies, and is, in a degree, prompted by them; so that philanthropy, good fellowship, and the amenities of social life and benevolent enterprise, are more or less the result of the natural interest we feel in the affairs of nations and those of our neighbour. If the newspaper, therefore, considered merely as a vehicle of general information in regard to passing events, has a tendency to diffuse and render fragmentary our mental life; on the other hand, it keeps the attention fixed upon something besides self, it directs the gaze beyond a narrow circle, and brings home to the heart a sense of universal laws, natural affinities, and progressive interests. But curiosity is not altogether a disinterested passion; and it is amusing to see how newspapers act upon the idiosyncrasy or the interest of readers. The broker unfolds the damp sheet at the stock column; the merchant turns at once to the ship-news; the spinster first reads the marriages; the politician, legislative debates; and the author, literary criticisms; while lovers of the marvellous, like Abernethy’s patient, enjoy the murders. To how many human propensities does the newspaper thus casually minister! Oldgentlemen are, indeed, excusable for losing their temper on a cold morning, when kept waiting for a look into the paper by some spelling reader; and, to a benign observer, the comfort of some poor frequenter of a coffee-house oracularly dispensing his gleanings from the journals, is pleasant to consider,—a cheap and harmless gratification, an inoffensive and solacing phase of self-importance. We can easily imagine the anxious expectancy with which the visitors at a gentleman’s country-seat in England, before the epoch of journals, awaited the news-letter from town,—destined to pass from house to house, through an isolated neighbourhood, and almost worn out in the process of thumbing.
Three traditions exist to account for the origin of newspapers. The first attributes their introduction to the custom prevalent at Venice, about the middle of the fifteenth century, of reading the written intelligence received from the seat of war, then waging by the Republic against Solyman the Second, in Dalmatia, at a fixed time and place, for the benefit of all who chose to hear. French annalists, on the other hand, trace the great invention to a gossiping medical practitioner of Paris, who used to cheer his patients with all the news he could gather, and, to save time, had it written out, at intervals, and distributed among them; while an English historian, quoted by Disraeli the elder, says, ‘they commenced at the epoch of the Spanish Armada; and that we are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh for the first newspaper.’[33]The same authority conjectures that the word gazette is derivedfromgazzerótta, a magpie, but it is usually ascribed togazet, a small coin,—the original price of a copy in Venice. One of the most startling relics of Pompeii is the poster advertising gladiators. The oldest newspaper in the world, according toL’Imprimière, is published at Pekin. It is printed on silk, and has appeared every week for a thousand years. Whatever the actual origin, however, it is natural to suppose that a gradual transition from oral to written, and thence to printed news, was the process by which the modern journal advanced towards its present completeness. It is remarkable that the retrograde movement essential to despotism in all interests, is obvious in the newspaper;—censorship driving free minds from written expression, as in the recent instance of Kossuth when advocating Hungarian progress.
A rigid and complete analytical history of the newspaper would perhaps afford the best illustration of the social and civic development of the civilized world. Commencing with a mere official announcement of national events, such as the ancient Romans daily promulgated in writing, we find the next precursor of the public journal in that systematic correspondence of the scholars of the middle ages, whereby erudite, philosophical, or æsthetic ideas were regularly interchanged and diffused. From this to the written circular, distributed among the English aristocracy, the transition was a natural result of economical and social necessity; and the historian of the subject in Great Britain finds in the popularity of the ballad a still further development of the same instinct and want expressing itself among the people. As their vital interest in civic questions enlarged, pamphlets began to be written and circulated on the current topics of the day; then a periodical sheet was issued containing foreign intelligence, among the earliest specimens whereof is,The Weekly Newes from Italy and Germanie, which first appeared in 1622. It is a characteristic fact that the first two special newspaper organs that were published in Englandwere devoted to sporting[34]and medical intelligence. But it was reserved for the last century to expand these germinal experiments into what we now justly consider a great civilizing institution. When Burke[35]began to apply philosophy to politics, and Junius to set the example of memorable anonymous writing on public questions, and Wilkes to battle for the liberty of the press, new and powerful intellectual and moral elements were infused into journalism; to these, vast mechanical improvements gave new diffusion; discussion gave birth to systems, invention to new industrial interests, social culture to original phases and forms of popular literary taste and talent. In England, Hazlitt’s psychological criticisms, Jerrold’s local wit, Thackeray’s incisive satire, the descriptive talent of scores of travelling reporters, and the dramatic genius of such observers as Charles Dickens, blended their versatile attractions with the vivid chronicle of daily news and the elaborate treatise of political essayists; while in France, from Rousseau, Grimm, and Mirabeau, to Thiers and St. Beuve, the journal represented the sternest political and the most finished literary ability; from the oldJournal Etranger, devoted to scandal, to Marat’sAmi du Peuple, the vicissitudes and the genius of France are enrolled in her journalism.
The French papers have the largest subscription, those of London the most complete establishments, and in America they are far more numerous than in other countries; over three thousand are now published, and their price is aboutone-seventh that of the English. The tone of the American press is usually less dignified and intellectual than that of France and England. It has also the peculiarity of being maintained, in a great degree, by advertisements; thus the commercial as well as the party element—both dangerous to the elevation of the press—enter largely into its character here. It has been said of penny-a-liners that they are to the newspaper corps what Cossacks are to a regular army; and the activity of journalism in Great Britain, and the detail of its enterprise, are signally evidenced by such a class of writers, as well by the fact that in 1826, when Canning sent British troops to Portugal, newspaper reporters went with the army—a custom which in the Crimean, East India, and recent American war, has given birth to such memorable correspondence. The shipping intelligence of United States journals is more minute, the philosophical eloquence of those of Paris more striking, and the details of court gossip and criminal jurisprudence more full in those of London,—characteristics which respectively mirror national traits and the existent state of society in each latitude. The shareholders of the LondonTimeshave occasionally divided a net profit of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds—the well-earned recompense for the complete arrangement and efficient exercise of this greatest of modern instruments. It is not surprising that the most renowned of writers have availed themselves of a medium so direct and universal. Chateaubriand wrote in theJournal des Débatsagainst Polignac; Malte-Brun contributed geographical articles to the same print; Benjamin Constant’s views were unfolded in theMinerve Française; Lafitte’s opinions found expression in theJournal du Commerce. Lamartine’s ideal of a journal is one which has ‘assez de raison pour convenir aux hommes sérieux, assez de témerité pour plaire aux hommes légeres, assez d’excentricité pour plaire aux aventereux.’ With all the restrictions to which despotism in France has subjected the press, its history as a whole is as Protean as Paris life,and reflects the tendencies of national character. As early as 1650, there was aGazette de Burlesque, soon after aMercury Galant; theJournal des Débatsis devoted to facts and its own dignity, theSièclerepresents mercantile interests,La Presseis full of ideas, and has been well described as partaking of the nature of a torrent which ‘se grossit par la resistance.’[36]Napoleon depended on theMoniteur, and kept the press low because he feared its influence more than an army. The proprietors of theConstitutioneloften pay a hundred and fifty francs for a single column. William Livingston wrote effectively, in 1752, in theIndependent Reflector, of New York, against Episcopal encroachments. Freedom of the press, in America, was established by the trial of the printer Zenger. Kossuth was a journalist while at the head of a nation. Cavour began his public career in the same capacity, and Heine was the admirable correspondent of leading German journals for many years. Centralization vastly increases the influence of journalism in Paris, and its history there is a perfect index of the successive revolutions. From Benjamin Franklin to Walter Savage Landor, and from Junius to Jack Downing, these vehicles of ideas have enshrined memorable individualities as well as phases of general opinion. Jefferson, Hamilton, Rufus King, De Witt Clinton, and Everett—all our statesmen—have been newspaper writers.
Specimens of recorded thought from the earliest to the present time would aptly mark the history of civilization; the writings on stone, wax, bones, lead, palm-leaves, bark,linen, and parchment—inscribed by patient manual toil, denoting the era when knowledge was a mystery and its possessor a seer; illuminated chronicles and missals representing its cloistered years;—black-letter, the transition period when it began to expand, although still a luxury; and the newspaper, illustrating its modern diffusion and universality. The scribe’s vocation was at once superseded by the invention of printing, and the scholar’s monopoly broken up; hence the scarcity and value of books prior to the times of Faust and Caxton, can scarcely be appreciated by this generation. Wonderful indeed is the contrast to the American traveller, as he muses beside the Anapus at Syracuse, over the papyrus vegetating in its waters,—between the scrolls of antiquity engrossed on this material, and the twenty thousand closely-printed sheets thrown off in an hour by one of the mammoth daily presses of his native country. This rapidity of production, however, is almost as oblivious in its tendency as the limited copies produced by the pen and transmitted in manuscript. It may be said of exclusive newspaper writers and readers, with a few memorable exceptions, that their intellectual triumphs are ‘writ in water;’ and melancholy is that fate which condemns a man of real genius to the labours of a newspaper editor; fragmentary and fugitive, though incessant, are his labours,—usually destructive of style, and without permanent memorials; when of a political nature, they often enlist bitter feelings and promote a knowledge of the world calculated to indurate as well as expand the mind. A veteran French writer for the press describes the editor’s life as always ‘troublée et militante.’ An American poet,[37]whose divine art is a safeguard against the worst evils of journalism, in a recent history of his paper, thus speaks of the influence of the employment upon character:—