r to a writer. The writer is
absorbed in his subject, and has been less accustomed to think of the
public. But this exercise of a claim to a general acquiescence in the
judgment and experience of a man who has the best reasons for trying
to judge rightly, is a very different thing from the duty of drilling
contributors and dressing contributions as they were dressed and
drilled by Jeffrey. As Southey said, when groaning under the
mutilations inflicted by Gifford on Iris contributions to the
_Quarterly_, "there must be a power expurgatory in the hands of
the editor; and the misfortune is that editors frequently think it
incumbent on them to use that power merely because they have it"
(Southey's Life, iv. 18). This is probably true on the anonymous
system, where the editor is answerable for every word, and for the
literary form no less than for the substantial soundness or interest
of an article. In a man of weakish literary vanity--Jeffrey was
evidently full of it--there may well be a constant itch to set his
betters right in trifles, as Gifford thought that he could mend
Southey's adjectives. To a vain editor, or a too masterful editor, the
temptation under the anonymous system is no doubt strong. M. Buloz,
it is true, the renowned conductor of the _Revue des deux Mondes_, is
said to have insisted on, and to have freely practised, the fullest
editorial prerogative over articles that were openly signed by the
most eminent names in France. But M. Buloz had no competitor, and
those who did not choose to submit to his Sultanic despotism were
shut out from the only pulpit whence they were sure of addressing the
congregation that they wanted. In England contributors are better
off; and no editor of a signed periodical would feel either bound or
permitted to take such trouble about mere wording of sentences as
Gifford and Jeffrey were in the habit of taking.

There is, however, another side to this, from an editor's point of
view. With responsibility--not merely for commas and niceties and
literary kickshaws, but in its old sense--disappears also a portion of
the interest of editorial labour. One would suppose it must be more
interesting to command a man-of-war than a trading vessel; it would be
more interesting to lead a regiment than to keep a tilting-yard. But
the times are not ripe for such enterprises. Of literary ability of
a good and serviceable kind there is a hundred or five hundred times
more in the country than the