769,
the _Morning Post_ and _Morning Herald_ by Dudley Bate in 1772 and 1780,
and the _Times_ by Walter in 1788. The modern editor was to appear
during the war. Stoddart and Barnes of the _Times_, Perry and Black of
the _Morning Chronicle_, were to become important politically. The
revolutionary period marks the transition from the old-fashioned
newspaper, carried on by a publisher and an author, to the modern
newspaper, which represents a kind of separate organism, elaborately
'differentiated' and worked by a whole army of co-operating editors,
correspondents, reporters, and contributors. Finally, one remark may be
made. The literary class in England was not generally opposed to the
governing classes. The tone of Johnson's whole circle was conservative.
In fact, since Harley's time, government had felt the need of support in
the press, and politicians on both sides had their regular organs. The
opposition might at any time become the government; and their supporters
in the press, poor men who were only too dependent, had no motive for
going beyond the doctrines of their principals. They might be bought by
opponents, or they might be faithful to a patron. They did not form a
band of outcasts, whose hand would be against every one. The libel law
was severe enough, but there had been no licensing system since the
early days of William and Mary. A man could publish what he chose at his
own peril. When the current of popular feeling was anti-revolutionary,
government might obtain a conviction, but even in the worst times there
was a chance that juries might be restive. Editors had at times to go to
prison, but even then the paper was not suppressed. Cobbett, for
example, continued to publish his _Registrar_ during an imprisonment of
two years (1810-12). Editors had very serious anxieties, but they could
express with freedom any opinion which had the support of a party.
English liberty was so far a reality that a very free discussion of the
political problems of the day was permitted and practised. The English
author, therefore, as such, had not the bitterness of a French man of
letters, unless, indeed, he had the misfortune to be an uncompromising
revolutionist.

NOTES:

[118] _History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the
Abolition of the Slave-trade by the British Parliament_ (1808). Second
enlarged edition 1839. The chart was one cause of the offence taken by
Wilberforce's sons.

[119] Cf. Sir J. Stephen's