Autobiography by John Stuart Mill (easy books to read txt) 📖

discredit would probably be brought upon

Radical principles. He could not, however, desert Mr. Bentham, and he

consented to write an article for the first number. As it had been a

favourite portion of the scheme formerly talked of, that part of the

work should be devoted to reviewing the other Reviews, this article of

my father's was to be a general criticism of the _Edinburgh Review_ from

its commencement. Before writing it he made me read through all the

volumes of the _Review_, or as much of each as seemed of any importance

(which was not so arduous a task in 1823 as it would be now), and make

notes for him of the articles which I thought he would wish to examine,

either on account of their good or their bad qualities. This paper of my

father's was the chief cause of the sensation which the _Westminster

Review_ produced at its first appearance, and is, both in conception and

in execution, one of the most striking of all his writings. He began by

an analysis of the tendencies of periodical literature in general;

pointing out, that it cannot, like books, wait for success, but must

succeed immediately or not at all, and is hence almost certain to

profess and inculcate the opinions already held by the public to which

it addresses itself, instead of attempting to rectify or improve those

opinions. He next, to characterize the position of the _Edinburgh

Review_ as a political organ, entered into a complete analysis, from the

Radical point of view, of the British Constitution. He held up to notice

its thoroughly aristocratic character: the nomination of a majority of

the House of Commons by a few hundred families; the entire

identification of the more independent portion, the county members, with

the great landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oligarchy

was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share of power; and finally,

what he called its two props, the Church, and the legal profession. He

pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this

composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession

of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and

become the predominant section by the aid of public opinion, without any

essential sacrifice of the aristocratical predominance. He described the

course likely to be pursued, and the political ground occupied, by an

aristocratic party in opposition, coquetting with popular principles for

the sake of popular support. He showed how this idea was realized in the

conduct of the Whig party, and of the _Edinburgh Review_ as its chief

literary organ. He described, as their main characteristic, what he

termed "seesaw"; writing alternately on both sides of the question which

touched the power or interest of the governing classes; sometimes in

different articles, sometimes in different parts of the same article:

and illustrated his position by copious specimens. So formidable an

attack on the Whig party and policy had never before been made; nor had

so great a blow ever been struck, in this country, for Radicalism; nor

was there, I believe, any living person capable of writing that article

except my father.[2]

 

In the meantime the nascent _Review_ had formed a junction with another

project, of a purely literary periodical, to be edited by Mr. Henry

Southern, afterwards a diplomatist, then a literary man by profession.

The two editors agreed to unite their corps, and divide the editorship,

Bowring taking the political, Southern the literary department.

Southern's Review was to have been published by Longman, and that firm,

though part proprietors of the _Edinburgh_, were willing to be the

publishers of the new journal. But when all the arrangements had been

made, and the prospectuses sent out, the Longmans saw my father's attack

on the _Edinburgh_, and drew back. My father was now appealed to for his

interest with his own publisher, Baldwin, which was exerted with a

successful result. And so in April, 1824, amidst anything but hope on my

father's part, and that of most of those who afterwards aided in

carrying on the _Review_, the first number made its appearance.

 

That number was an agreeable surprise to most of us. The average of the

articles was of much better quality than had been expected. The literary

and artistic department had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a barrister

(subsequently a police magistrate), who had been for some years a

frequenter of Bentham, was a friend of both the Austins, and had adopted

with great ardour Mr. Bentham's philosophical opinions. Partly from

accident, there were in the first number as many as five articles by

Bingham; and we were extremely pleased with them. I well remember the

mixed feeling I myself had about the _Review_; the joy of finding, what

we did not at all expect, that it was sufficiently good to be capable of

being made a creditable organ of those who held the opinions it

professed; and extreme vexation, since it was so good on the whole, at

what we thought the blemishes of it. When, however, in addition to our

generally favourable opinion of it, we learned that it had an

extraordinary large sale for a first number, and found that the

appearance of a Radical Review, with pretensions equal to those of the

established organs of parties, had excited much attention, there could

be no room for hesitation, and we all became eager in doing everything

we could to strengthen and improve it.

 

My father continued to write occasional articles. The _Quarterly Review_

received its exposure, as a sequel to that of the _Edinburgh_. Of his

other contributions, the most important were an attack on Southey's

_Book of the Church_, in the fifth number, and a political article in

the twelfth. Mr. Austin only contributed one paper, but one of great

merit, an argument against primogeniture, in reply to an article then

lately published in the _Edinburgh Review_ by McCulloch. Grote also

was a contributor only once; all the time he could spare being already

taken up with his _History of Greece_. The article he wrote was on his

own subject, and was a very complete exposure and castigation of

Mitford. Bingham and Charles Austin continued to write for some time;

Fonblanque was a frequent contributor from the third number. Of my

particular associates, Ellis was a regular writer up to the ninth

number; and about the time when he left off, others of the set began;

Eyton Tooke, Graham, and Roebuck. I was myself the most frequent writer

of all, having contributed, from the second number to the eighteenth,

thirteen articles; reviews of books on history and political economy, or

discussions on special political topics, as corn laws, game laws, law of

libel. Occasional articles of merit came in from other acquaintances of

my father's, and, in time, of mine; and some of Mr. Bowring's writers

turned out well. On the whole, however, the conduct of the Review was

never satisfactory to any of the persons strongly interested in its

principles, with whom I came in contact. Hardly ever did a number come

out without containing several things extremely offensive to us, either

in point of opinion, of taste, or by mere want of ability. The

unfavourable judgments passed by my father, Grote, the two Austins, and

others, were re-echoed with exaggeration by us younger people; and as

our youthful zeal rendered us by no means backward in making complaints,

we led the two editors a sad life. From my knowledge of what I then was,

I have no doubt that we were at least as often wrong as right; and I am

very certain that if the _Review_ had been carried on according to our

notions (I mean those of the juniors), it would have been no better,

perhaps not even so good as it was. But it is worth noting as a fact in

the history of Benthamism, that the periodical organ, by which it was

best known, was from the first extremely unsatisfactory to those whose

opinions on all subjects it was supposed specially to represent.

 

Meanwhile, however, the _Review_ made considerable noise in the world,

and gave a recognised _status_, in the arena of opinion and discussion,

to the Benthamic type of Radicalism, out of all proportion to the number

of its adherents, and to the personal merits and abilities, at that

time, of most of those who could be reckoned among them. It was a time,

as is known, of rapidly rising Liberalism. When the fears and

animosities accompanying the war with France had been brought to an end,

and people had once more a place in their thoughts for home politics,

the tide began to set towards reform. The renewed oppression of the

Continent by the old reigning families, the countenance apparently given

by the English Government to the conspiracy against liberty called the

Holy Alliance, and the enormous weight of the national debt and taxation

occasioned by so long and costly a war, rendered the government and

parliament very unpopular. Radicalism, under the leadership of the

Burdetts and Cobbetts, had assumed a character and importance which

seriously alarmed the Administration: and their alarm had scarcely been

temporarily assuaged by the celebrated Six Acts, when the trial of Queen

Caroline roused a still wider and deeper feeling of hatred. Though the

outward signs of this hatred passed away with its exciting cause, there

arose on all sides a spirit which had never shown itself before, of

opposition to abuses in detail. Mr. Hume's persevering scrutiny of the

public expenditure, forcing the House of Commons to a division on every

objectionable item in the estimates, had begun to tell with great force

on public opinion, and had extorted many minor retrenchments from an

unwilling administration. Political economy had asserted itself with

great vigour in public affairs, by the petition of the merchants of

London for free trade, drawn up in 1820 by Mr. Tooke and presented by

Mr. Alexander Baring; and by the noble exertions of Ricardo during the

few years of his parliamentary life. His writings, following up the

impulse given by the Bullion controversy, and followed up in their turn

by the expositions and comments of my father and McCulloch (whose

writings in the _Edinburgh Review_ during those years were most

valuable), had drawn general attention to the subject, making at least

partial converts in the Cabinet itself; and Huskisson, supported by

Canning, had commenced that gradual demolition of the protective system,

which one of their colleagues virtually completed in 1846, though the

last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone in 1860. Mr. Peel,

then Home Secretary, was entering cautiously into the untrodden and

peculiarly Benthamic path of Law Reform. At this period, when Liberalism

seemed to be becoming the tone of the time, when improvement of

institutions was preached from the highest places, and a complete change

of the constitution of Parliament was loudly demanded in the lowest, it

is not strange that attention should have been roused by the regular

appearance in controversy of what seemed a new school of writers,

claiming to be the legislators and theorists of this new tendency. The

air of strong conviction with which they wrote, when scarcely anyone

else seemed to have an equally strong faith in as definite a creed; the

boldness with which they tilted against the very front of both the

existing political parties; their uncompromising profession of

opposition to many of the generally received opinions, and the suspicion

they lay under of holding others still more heterodox than they

professed; the talent and verve of at least my father's articles, and

the appearance of a corps behind him sufficient to carry on a Review;

and finally, the fact that the _Review_ was bought and read, made the

so-called Bentham school in philosophy and politics fill a greater place

in the public mind than it had held before, or has ever again held since

other equally earnest schools of thought have arisen in England. As I

was in the headquarters of it, knew of what it was composed, and as one

of the most active of its very small number, might say without undue

assumption, _quorum pars magna fui_, it belongs to me more than to most

others, to give some account of it.

 

This supposed school, then, had no other existence than what was

constituted by the fact, that my father's writings and conversation drew

round him a certain number of young men who had already imbibed, or who

imbibed from him, a greater or smaller portion of his very decided

political and philosophical opinions. The notion that Bentham was

surrounded by a band of disciples who received their opinions from his

lips, is a fable to which my father did justice in his "Fragment on

Mackintosh," and which, to all who knew Mr. Bentham's habits of life and

manner of conversation, is simply ridiculous. The influence which

Bentham exercised was by his writings. Through them he has produced, and

is producing, effects on the condition of mankind, wider and