liveable with. He does not care for trifles. But it is your acid-sensitive (I must join words like Mirabeau's Grandison-Cromwell, to get what I mean) and your cold-querulous people that need to have angels to live with them. Now education has often had a great deal to do with the making of these choice tempers. They are somewhat artificial productions. And they are the worst.

I

DUNSFORD. You know a saying attributed to the Bishop of about temper. No? Somebody, suppose, was excusing something on the score of temper, to which the bishop replied, "Temper is nine-tenths of Christianity."

MILVERTON. There is an appearance we see in nature, not far from here by the way, that has often put me in mind of the effect of temper upon men. It is in the lowlands near the sea, where, when the tide is not up, (the man out of temper) there is a slimy, patchy, diseased-looking surface of mud and sick sea-weed. You pass by in a few hours, there is a beautiful lake, water up to the green grass (the man in temper again) and the whole landscape brilliant with reflected light.

ELLESMERE. And to complete the likeness, the good temper and the full tide last about the same time with some men at least. It is so like you, Milverton, to have that simile in your mind. There is nothing you see in nature, but you must instantly find a parallel for it in man. Sermons in stones you will not see, else I am sure you might. Here is a good hard flint for you to see your next essay in.

MILVERTON. It will do very well, as my next will be on the subject of population.

ELLESMERE. What day are we to have it? I think I have a particular engagement for that day. MILVERTON. I must come upon you unawares. ELLESMERE. After the essay you certainly might. Let us decamp now and do something great in the way of education, teach Rollo, though he is but a short-haired dog, to go into the water. That will be a feat.

CHAPTER IX.

ELLESMERE Succeeded in persuading Rollo to go into the water, which proved more, he said, than the whole of Milverton's essay, how much might be done by judicious education. Before leaving my friends, I promised to come over again to Worth Ashton in a day or two, to hear another essay. I came early and found them reading

their letters.

"You remember Annesleigh at college," said Milverton, "do you not, Dunsford ?

DUNSFORD. Yes.

MILVERTON. Here is a long letter from him. He is evidently vexed at the newspaper articles about his conduct in the matter of and writes

to tell me that he is totally misrepresented.

DUNSFORD. Why does not he explain this publicly? MILVERTON. Yes, you naturally think so at first, but such a mode of proceeding would never do for a man in office, and rarely, perhaps, for any man. At least so the most judicious people seem to think.

I have known a man in office bear patiently, without attempting any answer, a serious charge which a few lines would have entirely answered, indeed turned the other way. But then he thought, I imagine, that if you once begin answering, there is no end to it, and also, which is more important, that the public journals were not a tribunal which he was called to appear before. He had his official superiors.

DUNSFORD. It should be widely known and acknowledged then, that silence does not give consent in these cases.

MILVERTON. It is known, though not, perhaps, sufficiently.

DUNSFORD. What a fearful power this anonymous journalism is!

MILVERTON. There is a great deal certainly that is mischievous in it: but take it altogether, it is a wonderful product of civilization-morally too. Even as regards those qualities which would in general, to use a phrase of Bacon's, "be noted as deficients" in the press, in courtesy and forbearance for example, it makes a much better figure than might have been expected; as any one would testify, I suspect, who had observed, or himself experienced, the temptations incident to writing on short notice, without much opportunity of afterthought or correction, upon subjects about which he had already expressed an opinion.

DUNSFORD. Is the anonymousness absolutely necessary?

MILVERTON. I have often thought whether it is. If the anonymousness were taken away, the press would lose much of its power, but then why should it not lose a portion of its power, if that portion is only built upon some delusion.

ELLESMERE. It is a question of expediency. As government of all kinds becomes better managed, there is less necessity for protection for the press. It must be recollected, however, that this anonymousness (to coin a word) may not only be useful to protect us from any abuse of power; but that, at least, it takes away that temptation to discuss things in an insufficient manner, which arises from personal fear of giving offence. Then, again, there is an advantage in considering arguments without reference to persons. If well-known authors wrote for the press and gave their signatures, we should often pass by the arguments unfairly, saying, “Oh, it is "only So-and-so: that is the way he always looks at 66 things," without seeing whether it is the right way for the occasion in question.

MILVERTON. But take the other side, Ellesmere. What national dislikes are fostered by newspaper articles, and

ELLESMERE. Articles in Reviews, and by books. MILVERTON. Yes, but somehow or other, people imagine that newspapers speak the opinion of a much greater number of people

ELLESMERE. Do not let us talk any more about it. We may become wise enough and well-managed enough to do without this anonymousness: we may