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    make it bow down before the resistless might of mind ? Is it nothing , to exercise the noblest of all power , that of originating minds ovpr comprehending minds ? It is in the power of writers who possess the qualities before enumerated , to make a public , a constantly increasing public , who would be their true and constant disciples , who would with reasoning energy follow at their

    leading , as fast as they comprehended them . Such writers might possess the power of the orators of elder Greece , immeasurably increased , in the proportion that the power of the printing-press exceeds that of the amanuensis . Can they resist such a spiritstirring cause ? Gan they wantonly abandon so magnificent a power , for the sake of remaining the sybarites of the drawingroom ? Are the feast and the wine cup more precious to them than the honest applause of their fellows ? Can lisping prettiness

    tempt the writer ' s pen , which should give forth masculine energy in piercing words , to raise men ' s minds to lofty thoughts ?—can lisping prettiness tempt such a writer ' s pen to the base adoration of those things which his judgment condemns ? If it can , such a man shall not excel . He shall not be a teacher of the people , but the hireling and despised parasite of those , whose yoke will ere long be shaken off ; whose object i § alike , whether they assume the name of a bold and unblushing Tory , or of a hypocritic and mope mischievous Whig .

    It is a difficult thing for any single writer to stand out from the mass , and work with effect . If he would write an article for a review or a magazine , the editor , —who , contrary to what should be the case , is frequently inferior in intellect to his contributors , — the editor exercises his inferior judgment , and mercilessly lops away all that i » honest or useful , frequently interposes some matter of his own in direct opposition to the views of the writer , and

    thus sends it forth to the world , a bald , naked , marrowless thing , only calculated to disgust , and not to instruct . If he would write for a newspaper , he can only be permitted to tread in the steps of the editor , according to the line of politics which has been taken up . Some periodicals will admit no political articles ; they profess to be purely literary , and will not allow politics ever to be hinted at . Yet the very prohibition is an absurdity . What book

    of travels can be written , without politics forming a part ? What book of geography is without politics ? What novel is without them ? What book of law or jurisprudence ? In short , do not politics and political economy enter into almost every portion of the whole business of life ? Can a man buy a loaf , without

    thinking of the corn laws r Can he swallow his glass of wine without thinking of how much duty it has paid ? Can he talk of trade , without thinking how it is affected by the operations of government ? Can he remember without grumbling , that he is debarred from drinking excellent French wines , and from eating foreign fruit at a cheap rate P And must he not ask himself why this

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    310 On the Morality o / AutkoPS .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 310, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/22/