irst
would probably fill a considerable library. But the examples which
really deserve exhumation are very few, and I doubt whether any can
pretend to vie with the masterpieces of Defoe and Swift. Both these
great writers were accomplished practitioners in the art, and the
characteristics of both lent themselves with peculiar yet strangely
different readiness to the work. They addressed, indeed, different
sections of what was even then the electorate. Defoe's unpolished
realism and his exact adaptation of tone, thought, taste, and fancy to
the measure of the common Englishman were what chiefly gave him a
hearing. Swift aimed and flew higher, but also did not miss the lower
mark. No one has ever doubted that Johnson's depreciation of _The
Conduct of the Allies_ was half special perversity (for he was always
unjust to Swift), half mere humorous paradox. For there was much more
of this in the doctor's utterances than his admirers, either in his
own day or since, have always recognised, or have sometimes been
qualified by Providence to recognise. As for the _Drapier's Letters_ I
can never myself admire them enough, and they seem to me to have been
on the whole under-rather than over-valued by posterity.

The 'Great Walpolian Battle' and the attacks on Bute and other
favourite ministers were very fertile in the pamphlet, but already
there were certain signs of alteration in its character. Pulteney and
Walpole's other adversaries had already glimmerings of the newspaper
proper, that is to say, of the continual dropping fire rather than the
single heavy broadside; to adopt a better metaphor still, of a
regimental and professional soldiery rather than of single volunteer
champions. The _Letters of Junius_, which for some time past have been
gradually dropping from their former somewhat undue pride of place
(gained and kept as much by the factitious mystery of their origin as
by anything else) to a station more justly warranted, are no doubt
themselves pamphlets of a kind; but they are separated from pamphlets
proper not less by their contents than by their form and continuity.
The real difference is this, that the pamphlet, though often if not
always personal enough, should always and generally does affect at
least to discuss a general question of principle or policy, whereas
Junius is always personal first, and very generally last also. On the
other hand, Burke, whether his productions be called Speeches or
Letters, Thoughts