to amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose,--and yet it
has the face to show itself month after month to the world, with
so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of modern
literature are aware, a very serious thing to change the name of
a periodical. By doing so you begin an altogether new enterprise.
Therefore should the name be well chosen;--whereas this was very
ill chosen, a fault for which I alone was responsible.
That theory of eclecticism was altogether impracticable. It was as
though a gentleman should go into the House of Commons determined
to support no party, but to serve his country by individual utterances.
Such gentlemen have gone into the House of Commons, but they have
not served their country much. Of course the project broke down.
Liberalism, freethinking, and open inquiry will never object to appear
in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit to
think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will
not appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking, and open
inquiry. As a natural consequence, our new publication became an
organ of liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. The result
has been good; and though there is much in the now established
principles of The Fortnightly with which I do not myself agree, I
may safely say that the publication has assured an individuality,
and asserted for itself a position in our periodical literature,
which is well understood and highly respected.
As to myself and my own hopes in the matter,--I was craving after
some increase in literary honesty, which I think is still desirable but
which is hardly to be attained by the means which then recommended
themselves to me. In one of the early numbers I wrote a paper
advocating the signature of the authors to periodical writing,
admitting that the system should not be extended to journalistic
articles on political subjects. I think that I made the best of
my case; but further consideration has caused me to doubt whether
the reasons which induced me to make an exception in favour of
political writing do not extend themselves also to writing on other
subjects. Much of the literary criticism which we now have is very
bad indeed;--. so bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonesty
and incapacity. Books are criticised without being read,--are
criticised by favour,--and are trusted by editors to the criticism
of the incompetent. If the names of the critics were demanded,
editors would be more careful. But I fear the effect would be that
we should get but little criticism, and that the public would put
but little trust in that little. An ordinary reader would not care
to have his books recommended to him by Jones; but the recommendation
of the great unknown comes to him with all the weight of the Times,
the Spectator, or the Saturday.
Though I admit so much, I am not a recreant from the doctrine I then
preached. I think that the name of the author does tend to honesty,
and that the knowledge that it will be inserted adds much to the
author's industry and care. It debars him also from illegitimate
license and dishonest assertions. A man should never be ashamed
to acknowledge that which he is not ashamed to publish. In The
Fortnightly everything has been signed, and in this way good has,
I think, been done. Signatures to articles in other periodicals
have become much more common since The Fortnightly was commenced.
After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling that
the work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our loss
in him was very great, and there was considerable difficulty in
finding a successor. I must say that the present proprietor has
been fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has done
the work with admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of course
he has got around him a set of contributors whose modes of thought
are what we may call much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself,
would not work with other aids. The periodical has a peculiar tone
of its own; but it holds its own with ability, and though there
are many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. When
the company sold it, having spent about (pounds)9000 on it, it was worth
little or nothing. Now I believe it to be a good property.
My own last personal concern with it was on a matter, of fox-hunting.
[Footnote: I have written various articles for it since, especially
two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour.] There came out in
it an article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, condemning
the amusement, which I love, on the grounds of cruelty and general
brutality. Was it possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero,
that any educated man should find delight in so coarse a pursuit?
Always bearing in mind my own connection with The Fortnightly, I
regarded this almost as a rising of a child against the father. I
felt at any rate bound to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns,
and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote my defence
of fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard to the charge of cruelty,
Mr. Freeman seems to assert that nothing unpleasant should be
done to any of God's creatures except f or a useful purpose. The
protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose;
and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in the
snow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that the
lady may have the tippet,--though a tippet of wool would serve
the purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congregation and
healthful amusement of one or two hundred persons, on whose behalf
a single fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose. I
think that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is as
needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. The absurdity
of the further charge as to the general brutality of the pursuit,
and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is to be attributed
to Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done and said in the
hunting-field,--perhaps to his misunderstanding of Cicero's words.
There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space for
further remarks. I could have it, the editor said, if I much wished
it; but he preferred that the subject should be closed. Of course
I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Freeman,--and
against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to exist
in England. And I felt that The Fortnighty was hardly the place for
the defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggested
to me that he would be glad to publish my article in a little book
to be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting generally. He was
to have the last word and the first word, and that power of picking
to pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, without
any reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If he would give
me the last word, as be would have the first, then, I told him, I
should be proud to join him in the book. This offer did not however
meet his views.
It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in opposition
to my own ideas on the subject, that the Fortnightly Review should
always contain a novel. It was of course natural that I should write
the first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar in