A CHAPTER ON EDITORS

The Monthly Magazine.][November, 1830.

‘Our withers are unwrung.’

Editors are (to use an approved Scotch phrase—for what that is Scotch is not approved?) a ‘sort oftittle-tattle‘—difficult to deal with, dangerous to discuss. ‘A capital subject for an article, great scope, complete novelty, and ground never touched upon!’ Very true; for what Editor would insert an article against himself? Certainly none that did not feel himself free from and superior to the common foibles of his tribe. What might, therefore, be taken for a satire in manuscript, turns to a compliment in print—the exception in this, as in other cases, proves the rule—an inference we have endeavoured to express in our motto.

With one exception, then, Editors in general partake of the usual infirmity of human nature, and of persons placed in high and honorary situations. Like other individuals raised to authority, they are chosen to fill a certain post for qualities useful or ornamental to thereading public; but they soon fancy that the situation has been invented for their own honour and profit, and sink the use in the abuse. Kings are not the only servants of the public who imagine that they are thestate. Editors are but men, and easily ‘lay the flattering unction to their souls’ that theyarethe Magazine, the Newspaper, or the Review they conduct. They have got a little power in their hands, and they wish to employ that power (as all power is employed) to increase the sense of self-importance; they borrow a certain dignity from their situation as arbiters and judges of taste and elegance, and they are determined to keep it to the detriment of their employers and of every one else. They are dreadfully afraid there should be any thing behind the Editor’s chair, greater than the Editor’s chair. That is a scandal to be prevented at all risks. The publication they are entrusted with for the amusement and edification of the town, theyconvert, in theory and practice, into a stalking-horse of their own vanity, whims, and prejudices. They cannot write a whole work themselves, but they take care that the whole is such as they might have written: it is to have the Editor’s mark, like the broad R, on every page, or the N. N. at the Tuileries; it is to bear the same image and superscription—every line is to be upon oath: nothing is to be differently conceived or better expressed than the Editor could have done it. The whole begins in vanity, and ends too often in dulness and insipidity.

It is utterly impossible to persuade an Editor that he is nobody. As Mr. Horne Tooke said, on his trial for a libel before Lord Kenyon, ‘There are two parties in this cause—myself and the jury; the judge and the crier of the court attend in their respective places:’ so in every periodical miscellany, there are two essential parties—the writers and the public; the Editor and the printer’s-devil are merely the mechanical instruments to bring them together. There is a secret consciousness of this on the part of the Conductor of the Literary Diligence, that his place is one for shew and form rather than use; and as he cannot maintain his pretended superiority by what he does himself, he thinks to arrive at the same end by hindering others from doing their best. The ‘dog-in-the-manger’ principle comes into full play. If an article has nothing to recommend it, is one of no mark or likelihood, it goes in; there is no offence in it. If it is likely to strike, to draw attention, to make a noise, then every syllable is scanned, every objection is weighed: if grave, it is too grave; if witty, it is too witty. One way or other, it might be better; and while this nice point is pending, it gives place, as a matter of course, to something that there is no question about.

The responsibility, the delicacy, the nervous apprehension of the Editor, naturally increase with the probable effect and popularity of the contributions on which he has to pass judgment; and the nearer an effusion approaches to perfection, the more fatal is a single flaw, or its falling short of that superhuman standard by a hair’s-breadth difference, to its final reception. If people are likely to ask, ‘Who wrote a certain paper in the last number of ——?’ the Editor is bound, as a point of honour, to baulk that impertinent curiosity on the part of the public. He would have it understood that all the articles are equally good, and may be equally his own. If he inserts a paper of more than the allowed average merit, his next care is to spoil by revising it. The sting, with the honey, is sure to be left out. If there is any thing that pleased you in the writing, you look in vain for it in the proof. What might electrify the reader, startles the Editor. With a paternal regard for the interests of the public, hetakes care that their tastes should not be pampered, and their expectations raised too high, by a succession of fine passages, of which it is impossible to continue a supply. He interposes between the town and their vicious appetite for the piquant and high-seasoned, as we forbid children to indulge in sweetmeats. The trite and superficial are always to be hadto order, and present a beautiful uniformity of appearance. There is no unexpected relief, no unwelcome inequality of style, to disorder the nerves or perplex the understanding: the reader may read, and smile, and sleep, without meeting a single idea to break his repose!

Some Editors, moreover, have a way of altering the first paragraph: they have then exercised their privileges, and let you alone for the rest of the chapter. This is like paying ‘a pepper-corn rent,’ or making one’s bow on entering a room: it is being let off cheap. Others add a pointless conclusion of their own: it is like signing their names to the article. Some have a passion for sticking in the wordhoweverat every opportunity, in order to impede the march of the style; and others are contented and take great pains (with Lindley Murray’s Grammar lying open before them) to alter ‘if itis’ into ‘if itbe.’ An Editor abhors an ellipsis. If you fling your thoughts into continued passages, they set to work to cut them up into short paragraphs: if you make frequent breaks, they turn the tables on you that way, and throw the whole composition into masses. Any thing to preserve the form and appearance of power, to make the work their own by mental stratagem, to stamp it by some fiction of criticism with their personal identity, to enable them to run away with the credit, and look upon themselves as the master-spirits of the work and of the age! If there is any point they do not understand, they are sure to meddle with it, and mar the sense; for it piques their self-love, and they think they are boundex-officioto know better than the writer. Thus they substitute (at a venture, and merely for the sake of altering) one epithet for another, when perhaps the same word has occurred just before, and produces a cruel tautology, never considering the trouble you have taken to compare the context and vary the phraseology.

Editors have no misplaced confidence in the powers of their contributors: they think by the supposition they must be in the right from a single supercilious glance,—and you in the wrong, after poring over a subject for a month. There are Editors who, if you insert the name of a popular actor or artist, strike it out, and, in virtue of their authority, insert a favourite of their own,—as a dexterous attorney substitutes the name of a friend in a will. Some Editors will let you praise nobody; others will let you blame nobody. The first excitestheir jealousy of contemporary merit; the last excites their fears, and they do not like to make enemies. Some insist upon giving no opinion at all, and observe anunarmed neutralityas to all parties and persons;—it is no wonder the world think very little of them in return. Some Editors stand upon their characters for this; others for that. Some pique themselves upon being genteel and well-dressed; others on being moral and immaculate, and do not perceive that the public never trouble their heads about the matter. We only know one Editor who openly discards all regard to character and decency, and who thrives by the dissolution of partnership, if indeed the articles were ever drawn up. We shall not mention names, as we would not advertise a work that ‘ought to lie on no gentleman’s table.’ Some Editors drink tea with a set ofblue stockingsand literary ladies: not a whisper, not a breath that might blow away those fine cobwebs of the brain—

‘More subtle web Arachne cannot spin;Nor those fine threads which oft we woven seeOf scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee!’

‘More subtle web Arachne cannot spin;

Nor those fine threads which oft we woven see

Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee!’

Others dine with Lords and Academicians—for God’s sake, take care what you say! Would you strip the Editor’s mantel-piece of the cards of invitation that adorn it to select parties for the next six months? An Editor takes a turn in St. James’s-street, and is congratulated by the successive literary or political groups on all he doesnotwrite; and when the mistake is found out, the true Simon Pure is dismissed. We have heard that it was well said by the proprietor of a leading journal, that he would take good care never to write a line in his own paper, as he had conflicting interests enough to manage, without adding literary jealousies to the number. On the other hand, a very good-natured and warm-hearted individual declared, ‘he would never have another man of talents for an Editor’ (the Editor, in this case, is to the proprietor as the author to the Editor), ‘for he was tired of having their good things thrust in his teeth.’ Some Editors are scrubs, mere drudges, newspaper-puffs: others are bullies or quacks: others are nothing at all—they have the name, and receive a salary for it! A literary sinecure is at once lucrative and highly respectable. At Lord’s-Ground there are some old hands that are famous for ‘blocking out and staying in:’ it would seem that some of our literary veterans had taken a lesson from their youthful exercises at Harrow or Eton.

All this is bad enough; but the worst is, that Editors, besides their own failings, havefriendswho aggravate and take advantage of them. These self-styled friends are the night-shade and hemlock clinging tothe work, preventing its growth and circulation, and dropping a slumberous poison from its jaundiced leaves. They form acordon, an opake mass round the Editor, and persuade him that they are the support, the prop, and pillar of his reputation. They get between him and the public, and shut out the light, and set aside common sense. They pretend anxiety for the interest of some established organ of opinion, while all they want is to make it the organ of their dogmas, prejudices, or party. They want to be the Magazine or the Review—to wield that power covertly, to warp that influence to their own purposes. If they cannot do this, they care not if it sinks or swims. They prejudge every question—fly-blow every writer who is not of their own set. A friend of theirs has three articles in the last number of ——; they strain every nerve and make pressing instances to throw a slur on a popular contribution by another hand, in order that he may write a fourth in the next number. The short articles which are read by the vulgar, are cut down to make room for the long ones, which are read by nobody but the writers and their friends. If an opinion is expressed contrary to the shibboleth of the party, it is represented as an outrage on decency and public opinion, when in truth the public are delighted with the candour and boldness displayed. They would convert the most valuable and spirited journal into a dull pamphleteer, stuffed with their own lucubrations on certain heavy topics. The self-importance of these people is in proportion to their insignificance; and what they cannot do by an appeal to argument or sound policy, they effect by importunity and insinuation. They keep the Editor in continual alarm as to what will be said of him by the public, when in fact the public will think (in nine cases out of ten) just what he tells them.

These people create much of the mischief. An Editor should have no friends—his only prompter should be the number of copies of the work that sell. It is superfluous to strike off a large impression of a work for those few squeamish persons who prefer lead to tinsel. Principle and good manners are barriers that are, in our estimate, inviolable: the rest is open to popular suffrage, and is not to be prejudged by acoteriewith closed doors. Another difficulty lies here. An Editor should, in one sense, be a respectable man—a distinguished character; otherwise, he cannot lend his name and sanction to the work. The conductor of a periodical publication which is to circulate widely and give the tone to taste and opinion, ought to be of high standing, should have connections with society, should belong to some literary institution, should be courted by the great, be run after by the obscure. But ‘here’s the rub’—that one so graced and gifted can neither have his time nor his thoughts to himself. Our obligationsare mutual; and those who owe much to others, become the slaves of their good opinion and good word. He who dines out loses his free agency. He may improve in politeness; he falls off in the pith and pungency of his style. A poem is dedicated to the son of the Muses:—can the critic do otherwise than praise it? A tragedy is brought out by a noble friend and patron:—the severe rules of the drama must yield in some measure to the amenities of private life. On the contrary, Mr. —— is a garretteer—a person that nobody knows; his work has nothing but thecontentsto recommend it; it sinks into obscurity, or addresses itself to thecanaille. An Editor, then, should be an abstraction—a being in the clouds—a mind without a body—reason without passion.——But where find such a one?

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