its rivals. No Chancellor of the Exchequer-not even Mr. Gladstone himself in his most ingenious moments-ever equalled the dexterous manipulation of figures which this annual crisis produced. When the impressed stamp became unnecessary, there was even a finer field for inventive argument, inasmuch as the returns left a portion of the circulation unknown, and omne ignotum pro magnifico. This absurdity did not originate in the country; the Times of this day does not disdain to make an excerpt from the Returns, in order to show how large is its scale in comparison with that of its contemporaries; and even the Saturday Review, while pointing out that such boasting of circulation is contemptibly vulgar, with characteristic ingenuity insinuated that its own sale was so many thousand copies. Nor have the publishers of a magazine of high standing thought it beneath them to advertise the amount of that periodical's circulation. Strange that, in connexion with literature, a course should be taken which an ordinary tradesman would despise. A tailor or a wine-merchant who advertised the amount of his sales, and angrily declared that they exceeded those of some obnoxious rival, would fail to recommend himself to customers with any common sense. But it is not unusual, when the annual Stamp Returns are issued, to see the leading articles of all the papers in a country town devoted to analysing those Returns; and of course each irrefragably shows that its own is the largest circulation. Whatever momentous events, political or social, may be occurring, those Stamp Returns annihilate them for the country editor. He has to prove that the Muddleton Mail is a better "advertising medium" than the Muddleton Journal; and this he will do, though there may be an invasion of England, or though Dr. Cumming's predictions may be in course of fulfilment. And he must at the same time be conscious that all his readers are insufferably bored by statements of whose falsehood they are perfectly aware.

Without being severe towards the country editor,-an entity whose rapid disappearance is certain,-we may admit that for him to fulfil his duties properly is almost impossible. In the first place, he is badly paid. A man of education and literary aptitude can scarcely be expected to work for from one to two hundred a year. The result is, as I have already remarked, that the local poetaster, a self-educated genius,—a Quallon or a Close,-develops into the editor. Again, the editor is generally compelled to act as reporter also; and this menial work takes him to magistrates' courts, obliges him to note down the obtusities of town-councillors, sends him to public-houses and police-stations in search of news. Will a gentleman do these things? Then, even in the larger towns of England, that mystery which enfolds the London editor is impossible. Every body is known; that delightful metropolitan incognito which makes life so pleasant is quite out of the question. Why, here in London you may live in Holy Groves, say, with Anonyma on one side of you, and Jacob Omnium on the other, and the greatest swindler of the age in Elysium Villa across the way; and although you greatly ad

mire the houri's unapproachable brougham, the journalist's mighty thews and sinews, the pseudo-millionaire's charming strawberry-fêtes, you may never know who either of them is. Neither do they know any thing about you. But in a country town every body is known; and you cannot have a quiet quarrel with your wife without Mrs. Grundy's hearing of it. I can mention a case strictly in point. Negotiations were in progress for engaging a London journalist of my acquaintance to conduct a daily paper in Birmingham. One of his preliminary suggestions was, that his name should not be generally known; that there should be some reticence maintained about the editorship of the paper. He was told that this was impracticable, there being reason to fear that the correspondence between him and the projectors of the journal was already talked about! If this were the case in Birmingham, what must it be in the minor towns of England? And if every body knows the editor of a country newspaper, it is scarcely possible for him to act independently.

Sometimes the provinces produce an editor whose career is to that of his brethren as a comet's to an ordinary orb's. Some seven years ago I was staying at a fashionable watering-place, and received much delectation from a most abnormal journal. Strangely enough, its editor contrived to envelop himself in mystery. He was great fun; so great, that I used the scissors freely upon his paper, and will now quote one or two of his prolusions. Piccolomini had just paid the town a visit. Quoth our editor: "She is a gem of a girl. If she is a descendant of a line of popes, she does honour to St. Peter's Chair. She acts perfectly; she sings deliciously. We went reluctantly to her concert, for the wretched old screech-owl that edits the Athenæum said she could not sing. . . The very spirit of music dwells in her; she is eager to sing; she carries all the humour and pathos of Italy in that statuesque head of hers; her voice has the intoxication of champagne." Pleasant for Piccolomini, if not for the editor of the Athenæum; let us hope the latter never saw his contemporary's opinion of him.

This unique editor had unique correspondents, and gave them unique "notices" in return. Here is a specimen of the latter: "H. MXHLGK: Jsxbe-ahy-ylgz-gu-elzzlxy-zu-zahz-hkkxlyy." I hope his correspondent was edified. One gentleman wrote to him complaining that the Greek and Latin quotations had raised the price of dictionaries. Another lamented that the paper was unlike other papers. "You have not had one solitary allusion to that 'wonderfully enormous gooseberry which our respected neighbour, Mr. Spring, of Hoggett Hill, picked last week from one of his bushes;' nor have you announced the death, by the gun of a gamekeeper, of a yellow-hammer with a red tail as it was flying in the neighbourhood of Sandy-Potts."

Rhyme as well as prose, nicknames as well as more reputable figures of rhetoric, adorned the editorial page. There was a leader of the local politicians called Muddeman; our editor christened this gentleman's

followers the "Muddy-maniacs." An extremely unpopular parish-doctor left the town, and went to Banbury; whereupon there appeared the following parody of an antique nursery-rhyme:

"Ride an old horse

To Banbury Cross,

To see a quack doctor upon a pale horse:
With phials in his fingers and boots on his toes,
He shall have patients wherever he goes,

And the folks will need patience wherever he goes."

Not so bad for a country paper in these unepigrammatical days. This was the period when Thackeray was delivering his lecture on The Four Georges; his allusion to King George I.'s probable locus in quo may be remembered. The Countess of Kendal had fancied that he reappeared at Twickenham in the guise of a blackbird. "Twickenham," said Mr. Thackeray, "is a nice cool shady spot, and one might have fancied the poor wicked old king in a worse place." "Is this wit?" asks our country editor. "Is it not rather the jeer of an elderly infidel buffoon, which might well be suppressed, if not in deference to the tone of modern society, at any rate in courtesy to the royal lady, descended from poor King George, whom this fellow professes to honour?"

There was a charming coolness about this editor of ours, which must have made a good many people very angry. "Somebody proposed the other day," he tells us, "that that singular entity the M.P. should be examined before achieving his full honours. The magistrate is an entity no less singular, and we think might as well have a little education before he reaches the bench. One of our magistrates had last week to lecture a girl who was suspected of larceny, and begun thus: 'Had you have been this case proved against you,' &c. A course of Lindley Murray would do this individual good." In the very same number we find a good story of a worthy member of the Local Board of Health. In a contract drawn up by the solicitors of that body, it was announced that some difficulty had occurred by reason of " a clerical error." This gentleman at once got up to say that "he didn't see what the clergy had to do with it." It may be supposed that the journal which I have been describing did not soon permit him to hear the last of that.

The town in which I was staying boasted a Master of the Ceremonies. Not easily forgotten will be the flutters caused by his call when first I took up my residence there. My wife and daughters were perfectly delighted by the intoxicating novelty. While we were in residence, the position was vacated; and I think a Rear-Admiral was succeeded by a Major. How is it that naval or military experience is necessary for an M.C.? Why should cannon-balls lead to the chief conduct of the ballroom? Our editor volunteered to teach him his duties. "He must not adhere to the aristocracy only. Members of the cottonocracy-with pretty daughters to whom they can give 50,000l. each-deserve introduc

tions. Displacement of the English aspirate not to be objected to. He must attend Board-of-Health meetings, keep the members in order, and send Mr. away in charge of a police-sergeant when he gets on the table and gesticulates." The first of these clauses has a good deal in it, I suspect. Fashionable watering-places with an M.C., and plenty of balls, fancy-fairs, and archery-meetings, are mere girl-markets. They are the very places, too, in which rank and money may best come to an understanding. Doubtless the gallant Major has done infinite service in this way during the years which have elapsed.

Lord Palmerston visited Manchester in 1856. A correspondent in that city describes the veteran Viscount's adventures very much in the editor's own style. "Cotton pays its respects to its illustrious visitor in a most wholesale manner. It sticks Lord Palmerston up in Peel Park, and reads him an address. Cotton then carries him off to the Town Hall, and reads him several more addresses. The Chamber of This, the Chamber of That, and the Chamber of the Other, poured speeches on his devoted head, till the wearied Premier must have wished, long before the ceremony was over, that one of the Chambers had been a bed-chamber. Cotton takes Lord Palmerston to the Mechanics' Institute, and follows him about note-book in hand. Lord P. makes a remark: Cotton takes it down. Lord P. relates an anecdote: Cotton laughs approvingly, and books it. Lord P. looks rather tired with speeches, addresses, and crowds of odoriferous people: Cotton thinks he pales before the glory of Manchester." The last touch is exquisite. We are elsewhere told that "the Premier is a man whose common sense is so perfect as to be almost wit;" and the definition is not a bad one.

The establishment of a Free Public Library was an object for which this newspaper fought gallantly and victoriously. It was decidedly unpopular, except with the poorer rate-payers. Your fashionable wateringplace has always its half-dozen private libraries, which suffice for the visitors and opulent residents. The rich tradesmen who form the local government of such a town are seldom alive to the importance of providing intellectual food for the working classes. One strong argument against it was, that it would injure "the vested interests." On inquiry, this phrase was found to mean the library-keepers and the licensed victuallers; and it was declared on all hands that their resolute opposition would be fatal to the scheme. Our editor ridiculed the notion. "These two occupations," he remarked, "do not form a majority of the ratepayers, or the town would be queerly peopled; its inhabitants being all either booksellers fond of alcoholic liquids, or innkeepers who did nothing but read novels." It is satisfactory to know that the "vested interests" were beaten, and that the town of mineral waters and flirtations had its Free Library.

Of course there were other journals in this town, and their intense dislike for their rival was very amusing. One of them prophesiedour editor revenged himself by reprinting the prediction-that a few

VOL. X.

L

months would "witness a stinging close, that very few hoodwinked partisans now opposed to us little dream of. Let he that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Here you have a specimen of the ordinary country editor, so enraged that he loses all his small stock of grammar, and cannot even quote Scripture without an error of syntax. Against the keen blade of the unique journalist whom I have described, what chance had this poor fellow? And our editor had the cruelty to ridicule him in verse also. Certain legends, imitations of Tom Ingoldsby's, were published in the paper; and one of these recounted the discomfiture in his wooing of Sir Guy Deloraine, and how he consoled himself by starting the Mirror,-the opposition journal whose exquisite English has been quoted above.

"And from that to this (say historians wise)

The Mirror has always been managed by Guys;
And the race has gone on getting better so fast,
That each one was a much greater Guy than the last :
Which renders, I guess,

The hebdomadal mess

Of whoever may read it by no means a pleasant one;

For fancy! a much greater Guy than the present one!"

An eccentric editor this: there are a good many English country towns that would be none the worse for a similar writer, to remove their stagnation and shock their prejudices. I also recollect an audacious journalist in Bristol, who coolly took to criticising the clergy of that city and neighbourhood. Every Sunday he looked in upon one of them, and gave a clever and caustic summary of what he saw and heard. There was marvellous improvement in the quality of Bristol sermons while this series of papers lasted. I have often thought that London might advantageously imitate this practice of Bristol journalism, with some modifications. Criticism is good for us all; but the preacher utters his opinions where he cannot be answered, and is entirely free from critical treatment. The best of modern writers would scarcely do his work thoroughly if he were in similar case. Now, if the clergy knew that their faults, blunders, platitudes, would be as relentlessly exposed as if they had occurred in a speech or a book instead of in a sermon, we should soon have a reform in the style of our pulpit prolusions. Educated men are in the present day afraid to go to church, so wearisome is the sermon by which the noble prayers are followed. It has been suggested that to read a sermon by some eminent author, or to give no sermon at all, would be better than the present plan. Unquestionably it would; but there are prejudices against either arrangement; and a good sermon, not too long, dealing with such points as are especially important to the congregation assembled, is an excellent thing in its way. A clergyman ought to know something about his parishioners-ought to have something to say to them besides mere abstract divinity once every week. If he were subjected to constant criticism, he would be compelled to learn the art of preaching.