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    Our contemporary , the Saturday Review , havingtaken somewhat seriously to heart the slight sketch of its character and position we gave a fortnight ago , undertakes a long and lab oured reply to our brief statement in three dense columns of its last week ' s number . It professes itself specially surprised and aggrieved athaving been attacked at all in such a quarter ; but if the Leader is as liberal as our contemporary generously represents it to be , it was surely quite natural that we should object to sectarianism and intolerance in literature as well as in politics and religion . And this was the whole point of the obnoxious sketch . We simply intimated that our contemporary ' s position is

    essentially a narrow and sectarian one , that its criticism was characteristically cold and negative , and that its sympatliies were unpopular . But so far from questioning its right to occupy such a position , we expressly stated that , though rather Quixotic , there was much in the attempt to maintain it which interested and pleased us . Our contemporary , however , resents this general estimate of . its position , and endeavours to rebut it by reiterated professions , explanations , and illustrations . But the article headed ' Light Literature and the Saturday Review , ' intended as a triumphant proof that we are wrong , affords decisive , though , of course , unconscious and indirect evidence , that the

    representation was essentially just . Our readers may remember that after having noticed the narrow and isolated position of the paper , we touched , incidentally , on some of the causes and consequences of this . An explanation of its general character we suggested might be found in the fact , that its contributors were a clique of University men . Our contemporary censures this reference as irrelevant . " Whether the writers of this journal , " it gravely says , " are so fortunate as to be on good terms with each other , and to have enjoyed the benefit of a University education , are questions which may be of some importance to themselves , but

    can have but little interest for the public . " These points , however , are by no means so unimportant as our contemporary seems to think . They have a direct influence on the character of the journal , or we should not have noticed them . A University education , if turned to proper account , is no doubt a good thing '; but at best it only starts a man in life , and the training of the schools is only introductory to the wider education of the world . Mere University tuition may easily become an evil . If a man , after leaving college , still looks at the world from a lecture-room point of view , and converting the narrow tests of academic distinction into an absolute standard of excellence , allows Ins college traditions to colour

    his feelings , contract his views , and pervert his judgment , he is m great danger of becoming a proser and a pedant , instead of a wise and useful member of society . Suppose a number of such men , associating continually with each other , and you have a University clique . No doubt there is something amiable aud interesting in such a union . It is good and pleasant anywhere , bat especially at college and amongst undergraduates , to see brethren dwelling together in unity . Nothing is more delightful than , to witness the ardent friendships that thus spring up between sets of men who arc always to be found in each other ' s rooms ; but though interesting in a social point of view , it may be doubted whether such unions arc the best schools for acquiring broad , impartial views , wide sympathies , and sound judgments . On the

    contrary , such exclusive intercourse tends rather to narrow than enlarge the mind . The men have their strong partialities and aversions in common ; they foster each other ' s literary and political loves and hates ; and amongst undergraduates there is no great harm in this . There is an evident sincerity , a freshness of enthusiasm in their passionate denunciation of popular authors , aud their equally passionate defence of unknown or forgotten heroes , which gives an irresistible charm even to their extremes ! views . But if , after leaving college , they continue to associate on the same terms , cherishing each other ' s limited views and partial sympathies , after the boyish enthusiasm which made them interesting lias passed away , you have a clique of cynical , nil admirari critics , instead of ardent debaters and ainiablo enthusiasts . Supposo such a clique to decide that their views arc important enough to possess a weekly organ , and you have a Saturday Rooioio . Their previous training , no

    doubt , gives to such writers some advantages in discharging the duties of their new position . Tho article before us proves that tho united brethren havo their virtues . They nrc modest—they livo ou good terms with each other , and havo had a university education ; they lmvo a patriotism move genuine than is to bo found in other writers ; they thank God they arc not as other journalists aro—shallow dreamers , and vain enthusiasts—nor even as these poor popular writors ; they steer between tho extremes of despotism nud democracy , as tho truo regenerators of sooioty . They M'o benevolent—thcro is kindness oven iu tho soverily of l . hoir patcnml chastisement—they rebuke only to reform ; their ' only object ' iu criticising a celebrated writer has been ' to load him to form a just cstinmto of the vocation for which nature designed him . ' Jfinally—they uro magnanimous : they allow that Mr , Robson ia amusing , and that Mr . Auiiuu . ' Smith is souuiblo j thoy have ' never denied even Mr . Jjbjirold ' s talents . ' But Ihero is i \ reverse to tho medal . Nothing is altogether perfect ; and ,

    pertinacity of attack which was at first rather inexplicable to those who were ignorant of the principle on which its criticism was conducted , but which now ceases to excite . surprise . Our contemporary is indignant , however , at the supposition that it attacks Mr . Dickens because he is popular , and proceeds to offer an elaborate account of ' our position' in reference to Mr . Dickens , ' our quarrel' with that gentleman , ' our charge' against him , ' our only object in criticising him , ' &c . But really the reasons offered in explanation and defence are so poor and puerile , that it is difficult , and certainly for their own sake needless , to speak of them seriously . If they are sincerely offered , which we see no reason to doubt , this only shows what intellectual blindness as well as self-deception a false position naturally tends to produce . We shall briefly refer to the alleged grounds of attack as illustrating the general position of the Saturday Reviewers and their way of defending it .

    notwithstanding their virtues , even Saturday Reviewers have , as we ventured to hint , their failings and partialities like other men . We suggested that one of the'natural results of our contemporary ' s position was , that it should attack popular writers and popular literature . If one journal , for instance , were notoriously more popular , and enjoyed a far wider circulation than any other , it would naturally be the object of special attack . Now the Times , with all its errors and mistakes , is admitted to reflect the popular feeling in the . main far better and more faithfully than any other journal , and scarcely a number of the Saturday Review appears in which it is not bitterly assailed . Again , if there were any author ' beyond comparison the most popular writer of the day , * of course he would be the object of esjpecial vituperation ; and accordingly we find that the Saturday Review pursues Mr . Dickens with a stolid

    They attack Mr . Dickens , not because he is a popular writer , but because , being so , he makes himself , as they say , ' a legislator and philosopher / and thinks himself at liberty to speak on the most important subjects . This , they consider , ' little less than a crime . ' It may well be asked , Why ? Why is Mr . Dickens , or any other distinguished writer , to be prohibited from speak , ing seriously on the public questions of the day ? That because a man writes interesting books , he should forfeit the common rights of a citizen is a dogma of the Saturday Reviewers , which very aptly illustrates the way in which they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel . " We do not think , " they say , iu grave censure , on our having written a distinguished name without the usual prefix , " that a man forfeits the rights of society by writing books ; " but it appears

    that he does forfeit the ordinary privileges of a citizen and a patriot , if he is unhappily guilty of writing interesting ones . But , in reality , the charge is altogether unfounded . Mr . Dickens has not come forward as a public man , or offered himself in the character of a legislator and political philosopher at all . With the exception of one or two speeches , the last of which was delivered some years ago , he has taken no active part in public affairs , and steadily declined repeated invitations to do so . Had he offered himself , like Mr . Thackeray , as a candidate for a seat iu Parliament , there would have been at least some colourable ground for the charge of the Saturday Reviewers . We are far from saying that he is not at perfect liberty to do this without violating any law except the capricious one framed by the Reviewers ; but as the case

    stands , their charge is utterly baseless . Mr . Dickens has strictly confined himself within the limits of his art , in pleasantly satirizing some of the admitted short-comings of Government Officials . The Saturday Reviewers , however , seeing much deeper into a millstone than their neighbours , discover crime aud treason , a deep-laid conspiracy to undermine the constitution , and destroy the country , in these humorous sketches . They altogether deny the right of a popular author to touch upon such subjects , which are , it would appear , sacred to Saturday Reviewers . This is another of the critical canons elaborated by the painful industry of our contemporary . Fortunately , it

    is as novel as it is irrational and unjust . From the days of Aristophanes till now , the follies and vices of men in authority have been recognized as the legitimate objects of satire for the poet , wit , or humorist of the day . With us such sketches have been specially popular , and our literature contains an amusing gallery of official incapablcs , from Justice Shallow and honest Dog-E 13 HRY downwards . But our contemporary decides that such sketches are no longer tolerable , and having laid down the law , proceeds to make an example of Mr . Dickens na a notorious offender . Notwithstanding , howevor , the hard words , tho weak , prolix reasoning , and ' damnable iteration , ' with which tho new doctrine is enforced , we continue to believe that a humourist is at

    perfect liberty to satirize , in a pleasant spirit , the weak points of existing institutions . He may do it well or ill , and that is a proper question for criticism ; but he is not to be condemned as a criminal for doing it at all . A . nd our indignant contemporary may rest assured that justice will bo done by the oritics and the public , without tho assistance of the policeman , which it acorns disposed to recommend . But the moat amusing part of our contemporary ' s assault on Mr . Dickens

    is the point at which it is chiefly made , llis pleasant fiction of tho Ciroumlocution Oillcc is , in the eyes of ( lie Saturday Reviewers , tho head and front of lib offomliug . It is hero that the true DoanisiiiiY spirit comes out—the amusing olUoiiil gravity , tho stolid official z . cal , tho uttor inability to perceive a joke They look upon tho Circumlocution Ollico not only na a complete failure in point of art , but as a moral and political offmica of tho gravest maguitude . They smell treason iu that How not to do it , ' and think it flat perjury to call a prince ' s brother a . Barnacle Can it bo that they have a latent

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    No . 382 , Jvm 18 , 1857 . ] T H E L E A P E R . 689

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 18, 1857, page 689, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2201/page/17/