is is disorderly
manuscript. Empson, Mr. Napier's well-known contributor, was one of
the worst offenders; he would never even take the trouble to mark his
paragraphs. It is my misfortune to have a manuscript before me at this
moment that would fill thirty of these pages, and yet from beginning
to end there is no indication that it is not to be read at a single
breath. The paragraph ought to be, and in all good writers it is, as
real and as sensible a division as the sentence. It is an organic
member in prose composition, with a beginning, a middle, and an end,
just as a stanza is an organic and definite member in the composition
of an ode, "I fear my manuscript is rather disorderly," says another,
"but I will correct carefully in print." Just so. Because he is too
heedless to do his work in a workmanlike way, he first inflicts
fatigue and vexation on the editor whom he expects to read his paper;
second, he inflicts considerable and quite needless expense on the
publisher; and thirdly, he inflicts a great deal of tedious and
thankless labour on the printers, who are for the most part far more
meritorious persons than fifth-rate authors. It is true that Burke
returned such disordered proofs that the printer usually found it
least troublesome to set the whole afresh, and Miss Martineau tells
a story of a Scotch compositor who fled from Edinburgh to avoid
Carlyle's manuscript, and to his horror was presently confronted with
a piece of the too familiar copy which made him cry, "Lord, have
mercy! Have _you_ got that man to print for!" But most editors will
cheerfully forgive such transgressions to all contributors who will
guarantee that they write as well as Burke or Carlyle. Alas! it is
usually the case that those who have least excuse are the worst
offenders. The slovenliest manuscripts come from persons to whom
the difference between an hour and a minute is of the very smallest
importance. This, however, is a digression, only to be excused partly
by the natural desire to say a word against one's persecutors, and
partly by a hope that some persons of sensitive conscience may be led
to ponder whether there may not be after all some moral obligations
even towards editors and printers.

Mr. Napier had one famous contributor, who stands out alone in the
history of editors. Lord Brougham's traditional connection with the
Review,--he had begun to write either in its first or third number,
and had written in it ever since--his e