Chapter V: Part 5

If such was the reception of the cheap press among the go-ahead New Yorkers, it need not surprise us that in our own steady-going community it should have been still less favourable. The experience of the last few months, however, has pretty well demonstrated the absurdity of the principal objections. The anticipated peril to the health of society has, as every believer in the national good sense well knew, proved a chimera. British intellect and morals fortunately are not dependent on taxes and high price; and the gradual removal of all restrictions on the freedom of the press has only shown more signally that this people needs no legal bridling to keep on the path of decency and order. The number of cheap papers has indeed proved much smaller than was anticipated, few people seeming to have been aware how much energy and capital are required for the establishment of a paying penny paper—a fact which was alone sufficient to answer the fears of those who looked in June 1855 for the coming of the Deluge. In New York the case unfortunately was far otherwise. The Father of the American Penny Press, if to any one man that title is due, must be regarded as having treated his country in a way the reverse of what St Patrick did for Ireland—as a male Pandora, in fact, who opened the lid that shut in a countless brood of very hideous creatures. The thing will end well, we hope, as we hope for a millennium; and improvement, as we have admitted, there already is. But that the birth of the cheap press in America was followed by a deluge of quackery, virulence, and indecency which has not yet entirely subsided, is a fact written in disgraceful characters on pages innumerable, and legible on the skins of men now living, had they not been tougher than bison’s hide. That such should have been the result of cheapening the favourite stimulant of the American rabble was perfectly inevitable, and that the new development of journalism was accompanied by marked features of superiority is undeniable. The increase of violence and slander was itself a point of superiority in the eyes of the vulgar herd,—for coarseness passed for strength, and scurrility for smartness, the American’s “darling attribute.” But, among a people of intense activity and inquisitiveness, the increased energy in the procuring of news (whether true or false) must be looked upon as the chief cause of the immense popularity attained in so few years by the principal American journals. To this source, rather than to any general predilection for the vile and malicious, would we seek to attribute the extraordinary success of papers in which libel and indecency constituted a regular stock in trade. This is certainly no excuse for the patronage so bestowed, but it at least helps to explain it in a way not utterly destructive of our respect for a whole community.

And now, to return to our Horace. Of his dignified manners towards his workmen the following may suffice as an example. It is interesting, moreover, as showing that the extraordinary voracity of his early years had given place to utter indifference to considerations so low as the eating of dinner:—

“There was not even the show or pretence of discipline in the office.
One of the journeymen made an outrageous caricature of his employer,
and showed it to him one day as he came from dinner. ‘Who’s that?’
asked the man. ‘That’s me,’ said the master, with a smile, and passed
into his work: The men made a point of appearing to differ in opinion
from him on every subject, because they liked to hear him talk; and,
one day, after a long debate, he exclaimed, ‘Why, men, if I were to
say that that black man there was black, you’d all swear he was
white.’ He worked with all his former intensity and absorption. Often
such conversations as these took place in the office about the middle
of the day:—

“(H. G., looking up from his work)—Jonas, have I been to dinner?

“(Mr Winchester)—You ought to know best. I don’t know.

“(H. G.)—John, have I been to dinner?

“(John)—I believe not. Has he, Tom?

“To which Tom would reply ‘no,’ or ‘yes,’ according to his own
recollection or John’s wink; and if the office generally concurred in
Tom’s decision, Horace would either go to dinner or resume his work,
in unsuspecting accordance therewith.”

With that interesting proneness to heresy of all kinds which distinguishes Mr Greeley, he soon after adopted the semi-vegetarian principles of a certain Rev. Dr Graham, who, says the biographer, “was a _discoverer_ of the facts, that most of us are sick, and that none of us need be; that disease is impious and _disgraceful_, the result in almost every instance of folly or crime.” The italics are Mr Parton’s, whose digestion, it is to be hoped, is unexceptionable.

At length, early in 1834, Horace, with two partners, started the _New Yorker_, a weekly paper, “incomparably the best of its kind that had ever been published in this country;” so good, in fact, that after seven years of hard struggle it gave up the ghost. We would rather believe that its want of success was due to the incompetency of its management; but if the editor was in the habit of uttering such unpalatable truths as is contained in the following specimen, we are afraid it must be conceded with the biographer that the _New Yorker_ was not half enough spicy, or fawning:—

“The great pervading evil of our social condition is the worship and
the bigotry of Opinion. While the theory of our political institutions
asserts or implies the absolute freedom of the human mind—the right
not only of free thought and discussion, but of the most unrestrained
action thereon within the wide boundaries prescribed by the laws of
the land, yet the _practical commentary_ upon this noble text is as
discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the thin veil of a
democracy more free than that of Athens in her glory, we cloak a
despotism more pernicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China.
It is the despotism of Opinion.”

The _New Yorker_ having never, during its whole term of existence, reached the paying point, the poor editor was obliged to keep the pot boiling by other means. In 1838 he undertook the sole charge of the _Jeffersonian_, a paper of a class peculiar to America, and denominated “Campaign Papers.” The noble purpose of the _Jeffersonian_ is thus described by Greeley himself: “It was established on the impulse of the Whig tornado of 1837, to secure a like result in 1838, so as to give the Whig party a Governor, Lieutenant-governor, Senate, Assembly, United States Senator, Congressmen, and all the vast executive patronage of the State, then amounting to millions of dollars a year.”

The _Jeffersonian_ existed only one year, having served its end. The labours of the editor were enormous; “no one but a Greeley” could have endured it all. In 1840 he started another “Campaign Paper,” in the interest of General Harrison. The absorption of the editorial mind during this exciting season is illustrated by another of those graceful anecdotes, in which our biographer delights—relating how Mr Greeley arrives late at a political tea-party (Sunday evening), and straightway plunges into a conversation on the currency; how the worthy landlady asks him in vain to take tea; how she begs him to “try a cruller anyhow,” and is rudely repulsed; how she places a large basket of these unknown delicacies on his knees, and he mechanically devours every morsel; how, fearing the consequences, she substitutes for the “cruller” basket a great heap of cheese; how the remarkable boa-constrictor gobbles it all up; and how, finally, he was _none the worse_ of it all. “Anecdotes,” says Mr P., are “precious for biographical purposes.”

The _Log Cabin_ had a circulation of from 80,000 to 90,000, and yet such was the easy virtue of the subscribers that the proprietor made nothing by it, and the last number contained a moving appeal “to the friends who owe us.” Such, also, is political gratitude, that Mr Greeley did not even receive the offer of an office in acknowledgment of his valuable services, at which his biographer is duly disgusted. He adds the following significant anecdote:—

“Mr Fry (W. H.) made a speech one evening at a political meeting in
Philadelphia. The next morning a committee waited upon him to know for
what office he intended to become an applicant. ‘Office?’ said the
astonished composer—no office.’ ‘Why, then,’ said the committee,
‘_what the h—ll did you speak last night for_?’ Mr Greeley had not
even the honour of a visit from a committee of this kind.”

Mr Greeley at length ventured on the bold experiment of starting a new daily paper. There were already eleven in New York; but a cheap Whig paper[9] was wanted, and accordingly, on the 10th April 1841, appeared the _New York Tribune_, price one cent. It began with only six hundred subscribers, and encountered much opposition, but was “from its inception very successful.” The _Tribune_, says Mr Parton, was “a live paper,” and it prospered by opposition. “FIGHT was the word with it from the start—FIGHT has been the word ever since—FIGHT is the word this day.” One thing was wanting to success—an efficient business-partner. Such a man was found in the person of Mr Thomas M‘Elrath. The biographer shouts and rubs his hands with ecstasy at such a combination of excellence as was now realised. Hear him:

“Roll Horace Greeley and Thomas M‘Elrath into one, and the result
would be, a very respectable approximation to a Perfect Man. The Two,
united in partnership, have been able to produce a very respectable
approximation to a perfect newspaper. As Damon and Pythias are the
types of perfect friendship, so may Greeley and M‘Elrath be of a
perfect partnership; and one may say, with a sigh at the many
discordant unions the world presents, Oh! that every Greeley could
find his M‘Elrath! and blessed is the M‘Elrath that finds his
Greeley!”

And woe to the Greeley that finds his Parton!

For a complete history of this respectable approximation to perfection, says Mr Parton, “ten octavo volumes would be required, and most interesting volumes they would be.” Mr Parton gives us instead the small dose of “over” 200 octavo pages, and we are bound to say that it is at least 190 too many. In these weary sheets the curious will find a full account of Mr Greeley’s exertions in defence of Fourierism, Whiggism, Teetotalism, Anti-Slavery, Woman’s Rights, and Irish Rebellion, his libels on Fenimore Cooper, his motions in Congress, his lectures, his European travels, his personal appearance, his private habits, &c. &c.

“For Irish Repeal,” among other good causes, the _Tribune_ “fought like a tiger,” the magnanimous editor accepting a place in the Directory of the Friends of Ireland, “to the funds of which he contributed liberally.” Mr Greeley is not a warlike man, as his boyish experiences have indicated, but incendiarism and bloodshed in British territory are things for which he willingly sacrifices a few dollars. Our readers are aware that the publication of the wildest fictions, pleasantly denominated “hoaxes,” constitutes an attractive element in American journalism. In August 1848, New York red-republicanism was “on the tiptoe of expectation for important news of the Irish rebellion.” The fortunate _Tribune_ obtained exclusive intelligence, and hastened to publish, “with due glorification,” a flaming account of the great battle of Slievenamon (afterwards known as “Slievegammon,”) in which 6000 British troops were killed and wounded. “For a day or two the Irish and the friends of Ireland exulted; but when the truth became known, their note was sadly changed.” The editor, we learn, was absent at the time, but there is no doubt he would have exulted as much as any man to hear of the “stench” of a three-mile shambles of British soldiers. His tone on the subject of the Russian war has betrayed no weak sympathy with the Western combatants; and doubtless he takes a brotherly interest in the insane and detestable conspiracies now or lately hatching among the unhappy exiles of Erin.

In November of that year, Mr Greeley was elected to a seat in Congress, by a machinery the corruption of which is testified by no less a person than himself. He was very active as a member, and soon made himself prominently obnoxious by exposing various legislative jobs. Some of the lively scenes that occurred are described at immense length. Mr Parton draws no flattering conclusion from the reception of his hero in the House of Representatives. Let our American friends console themselves with the assurance that his testimony is not decisive.

“An honest man in the House of Representatives of the United States
seemed to be a foreign element, a fly in its cup, an ingredient that
would not mix, a novelty that disturbed its peace. It struggled hard
to find a pretext for the expulsion of the offensive person; but not
finding one, the next best thing was to endeavour to show the country
that Horace Greeley was, after all, no better than members of Congress
generally.”

In 1849, the _Tribune_, with its habitual predilection for the fanatical and revolutionary, or, as Mr Parton loftily phrases the thing, “true to its instinct of giving hospitality to every new or revived idea,” devoted large space to the promulgation of Proudhon’s delightful ideas on the subject of Property. Among other things also, says our chronicler, it began a rejoinder to the _Evening Post_ in the following spirited manner,—the only specimen we choose to quote of Mr Greeley’s vituperative abilities:—

“You lie, villain! wilfully, wickedly, basely lie!”

This observation, placidly remarks the historian, “called forth much remark at the time.” The person to whom it was addressed was WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. With the same instinctive hospitality towards every form of delusion, the _Tribune_ opened its accommodating columns to the Spirit-Rappers, who, notwithstanding a few hundred cases of insanity and other small evils, have, in Mr Parton’s opinion, done much good. About the same time it took up the Woman’s Rights humbug, acknowledging that the ladies are perhaps unwise in making the demand, but maintaining that no sincere republican can give any adequate reason for refusing them “an equal participation with men in political rights.” A whole chapter is devoted to Mr Greeley’s platform exhibitions, which it seems are very frequent and edifying—Horace having, as Mr Parton tells us, a benevolent appreciation of the delight it gives “to _see_ the man whose writings have charmed and moved and formed us.” Not only does he lecture as often as possible, but

“At public meetings and public dinners Mr Greeley is a frequent
speaker. His name usually comes at the end of the report, introduced
with ‘Horace Greeley being loudly called for, made a few remarks to
the following purport.’ The call is never declined; nor does he ever
speak without saying something; and when he has said it, he resumes
his seat.”

The remarkable man!

In 1851, Horace went to see the World’s Fair in Hyde Park. No foolish curiosity or sentimentality instigated the philosophic editor; his main object, as announced (the American editor keeps his readers regularly informed on all his movements) in the _Tribune_, being to inspect “_the improvements recently made, or now being made, in the modes of dressing flax and hemp_, and preparing them to be spun and woven by steam or water power.”

The departure and passage are carefully described; Mr Parton having apparently paid a steward to note, watch in hand, all the phenomena of Horace’s sea-sickness. Nothing that he saw in this effete country seems to have in the least impressed his great mind. The royal procession would have faded before “a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows.” The Queen he patronisingly noticed, and was even “glad to see,” though “he could not but feel that her _vocation_ was behind the intelligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day;” but not, poor thing! “through _her_ fault.” The posts of honour nearest her person should have been confided, he thought, to “the descendants of Watt and Arkwright;” the foreign ambassadors should have been “the sons of Fitch, Fulton, Whitney, Daguerre, and Morse,” &c. &c. Hampton Court he thought “larger than the Astor House, but less lofty, and containing fewer rooms.” Westminster Abbey was “a mere barbaric profusion of lofty ceilings, stained windows, carving, graining, and all manner of contrivances for absorbing labour and money;” less adapted for public worship “than a fifty thousand dollar church in New York.” He gives credit to the English for many good qualities, but thinks them “a most _un-ideal_ people,”—he, the romantic Greeley! “He liked the amiable women of England, so excellent at the fireside, so tame in the drawing-room; but he doubts whether they could so much as _comprehend_ the ideas which underlie the woman’s rights movement.” (The amiable women of England may well console themselves under a doubt so complimentary to their common sense.) In Paris the great man was apparently in better humour, devoting two days to the Louvre—a wonderful fact. His great political sagacity shines forth in his estimate of French affairs in June 1851. France he found as “tranquil and prosperous as England herself;” as for fear from Louis Napoleon, he “marvels at the _obliquity of vision_ whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic.” In Italy his first remark was, that he had never seen a region so much in want of “_a few subsoil ploughs_.” Edinburgh, it seems, was honoured, before his return to New York, by a visit from this great unknown; and we are proud to learn that it “surpassed his expectations.”

“In the composition of this work,” says our judicious biographer, “I have, as a rule, abstained from the impertinence of panegyric.” When, therefore, he tells us that the rolling together of Greeley and M‘Elrath, after the manner of a dumpling, would result in something like perfection; that Greeley is “too much in earnest to be a perfect editor;” that “he is a BORN LEGISLATOR,” and “could save a nation, but never learn to tie a cravat;” that he is “New York’s most distinguished citizen, the Country’s most influential man,” and editor of the best paper in existence; that, in short, he is “the Franklin of this generation—Franklin liberalised and enlightened,”—we are to take these statements as the sober expression of bare hard fact; and the reader is left to conclude from them how much might have been said by a more partial and weak-minded biographer—his imagination is left to fill up the outline of a Greeley’s perfections!

But does the reader wish to see the man himself—to know his height and weight, not metaphorically, but actually, in British feet and inches, and in pounds avoirdupois? So pleasant and laudable a desire the amiable Parton is far from disappointing; for does not the great man say that “there’s no use in any man’s writing a biography unless he can tell what no one else can tell.” Here, then, reader, you have it, what no one else assuredly could, would, or should dream of telling you but the inimitable, the unapproachable Parton:—

“Horace Greeley stands five feet ten and a half inches, in his
stockings. He weighs one hundred and forty-five pounds. Since his
return from Europe in 1851, he has increased in weight, and promises
to attain, in due time, something of the dignity which belongs to
amplitude of person. He stoops considerably, not from age, but from a
constitutional pliancy of the back-bone, aided by his early habit of
incessant reading. In walking, he swings or sways from side to side.
Seen from behind, he looks, as he walks with head depressed, bended
back, and swaying gait, like an old man; an illusion which is
heightened if a stray lock of white hair escapes from under his hat.
But the expression of his face is singularly and engagingly youthful.
His complexion is extremely fair, and a smile plays ever upon his
countenance. His head, measured round the organs of Individuality and
Philoprogenitiveness, is twenty-three and a half inches in
circumference, which is considerably larger than the average. His
forehead is round and full, and rises into a high and ample dome. The
hair is white, inclining to red at the ends, and thinly scattered over
the head. Seated in company, with his hat off, he looks not unlike the
‘Philosopher’ he is often called; no one could take him for a common
man.”

Now, then, reader, if you do not give us credit for introducing you to the acme of modern biography, we pronounce you the most ungrateful and least discriminating of human beings. “If Horace Greeley were a flower,” says J. P., “botanists would call him single, and examine him with interest.” “He is what the Germans sometimes style ‘a nature.’” And if J. P. also were a flower, botanists would inevitably pronounce him “a tulip.” He is what in Scotland we sometimes call “a natural”—otherwise known as “a halfling;” or, in vernacular English, a born fool. Horace Greeley is not, to our mind, a person very agreeable or very venerable; but intensely as we dislike his bad qualities, and those of his paper (in some respects a good one—very attentive, in its own peculiar way, to literature, and excellently printed[10]), his dreary fanaticism and vulgarity, his bigoted Yankeeism, his strong anti-British feeling—much as we dislike all this, we do not like to see him made absolutely ridiculous, had he no other good quality than the pleasure he takes in farming. We are not surprised, however, to learn that he has few friends, “and no cronies.” His biographer, at least, is not among the former; for any man would accept his chance against a Kentucky rifle sooner than a biography at the hands of Mr J. Parton. There is this comfort, at least, that Horace Greeley “has no pleasures, so called, and suffers little pain,” otherwise, we imagine, the admiring scribbler would not, with such inconceivable indelicacy, have opened the doors of his closet, and exhibited him _in puris naturalibus_ to the gaze of the world.

Turn we now to the veracious record of the Life and Adventures of the Jack Ketch of editors, the redoubtable and happily unparalleled James Gordon Bennett, with whom, for several reasons, we must be brief. The author has of course sought no counsel from “Mr Bennett, nor any one connected with him.” The work is a pure labour of love, “a spontaneous act of literary justice” to the character of a noble and much maligned man. The former statement we perfectly believe, as we imagine the consultation would naturally proceed _from_ and not _to_ the subject of the memoir. As to the spontaneity, there can be little doubt that the work was prompted by the dumpy and infatuated volume of which we have attempted faintly to shadow forth the beauties,—as to “justice,” no man is more dreadfully in earnest for justice than when he defends himself. The motto prefixed from Dr Johnson is admirable: “_History, which draws a portrait of living manners, may perhaps be made of greater use than the solemnities of professed morality, and convey the knowledge of vice and virtue with more efficacy than axioms and definitions._” Which being applied to the present case, may be interpreted to signify that the life of a notorious blackguard is more eloquent than a sermon of Dr Blair, and conveys the knowledge of virtue, through the exhibition of its contrary, with more impressiveness than all the proverbs of Solomon! In this sense the Life of Mr James Gordon Bennett might, in faithful and competent hands, do as much good as the _Newgate Calendar_, or Defoe’s Autobiography of an Unfortunate Female,—it might carry along with it, as this preface says, “not a few valuable lessons.” Unhappily, however, the genius of this biographer is utterly unequal to the subject, and instead of a lifelike and instructive portraiture, he has produced a senseless and incredible daub. More speaking by far is the portrait which fronts the title-page. It represents in sharp outline the face of a hard-headed, heavy-browed, obstinate man; vulpine sagacity in the wrinkles of the mouth and the corners of the eyes; long upper-lip and heavy under-jaw, and bold vulturine nose seeming to scent carrion from afar. The eyes are upturned in sculptured lifelessness—in artistic justice, we presume, to that unfortunate ophthalmic defect known as a diabolical squint. The portrait, we say, is better than the book, and tells, though probably a flattering likeness, a clearer and more honest story.

“Is it not,” inquired Mr Dickens in New York, “a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and, notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?—Yes, sir. A convicted liar?—Yes, sir. He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?—Yes, sir. And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?—Yes, sir. In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?—_Well, sir, he is a smart man!_” Such is the satisfactory solution of the problem to which we have already alluded, the solution of the Barnum phenomenon, and with it of all analogous phenomena. Similar is the testimony of the smart young man whom we have just parted with. “Every race,” he says, “has its own ideas respecting what is best in the character of a man.... When a Yankee would bestow his most special commendation upon another, he says, ‘That is a man, sir, who generally _succeeds_ in what he undertakes.’” Let no delicate and high-minded person, therefore, be astonished that such a man as James Gordon Bennett, whom the respectability of New York has for twenty years loathingly patronised, should have attained a commanding position among the spiritual powers of the American Republic. He is a man of undeniable “smartness”—not in our sense, indeed, for we have never seen a line of his composition that exhibited anything above what could be called third-rate mediocrity of thought and style, but in the sense of keen appreciation of means and ends, audacious scheming, impenetrability to shame, and invincible endurance of chastisement. His inflictions in this respect, both moral and physical, he has uniformly turned to the best account: in a sense different from that of the Psalmist, he can say that it was good for him to be afflicted. No man probably ever made more dollars by the proclamation of his own disgrace. A mere catalogue of the horse-whippings he has undergone during his long career of inglory, would astonish the nerves of our readers.[11] Each new infliction has been prominently blazoned in the columns of the _Herald_, and the attractive words “COW-HIDED AGAIN!!!” have been duly followed by a rush of buyers and a cheering flow of cents into the pockets of the complacent victim! On this subject his own testimony and that of his biographer are singularly frank and decided:—

“Since I knew myself, all the real approbation I sought for was my
own. If my conscience was satisfied on the score of morals, and my
ambition on the matter of talent, I always felt easy. On this
principle I have acted from my youth up, and on this principle I mean
to die. Nothing can disturb my equanimity. I know myself—so does the
Almighty. Is not that enough?”

“This,” says the biographer, “_is not the language and spirit of a common mind_. It is the essence of a philosophy which has not deserted a man who has never failed to republish every slander against himself, and who has been conscious always that calumnies cannot outlive and overshadow truth.”

A man whose conscience seems never to have given him much trouble, and whose ambition has been satisfied with the acquisition of wealth and political power, may well feel easy under the whips and scorns of a whole universe! This is assuredly, and we rejoice to think so, not the language and spirit of the majority of mankind. Those only despise the approbation of their fellows who have shaken off the attributes of humanity, and accept the reverse of the proverb, that “a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” The impious allusion to the Almighty is worthy of a Couthon or a Marat.[12]

The success of such a journal as the _New York Herald_ is an undeniable blot on the community on whose follies and vices it battened into prosperity. The damning fact cannot be denied, that it was not in spite but _on account_ of their scandalous character that such journals first attracted public attention and secured a hearing. While, therefore, we diminish not a jot our abhorrence of the men who reared these monuments of their own infamy, we are bound to regard them as but the concentrated type of the character that pervaded their constituency. If the _New York Herald_ was unprincipled and obscene, the readers of the _New York Herald_ must have shared in these qualities. Its conductor may have been a scoundrel, but he certainly was no fool; he fed his readers with such food as suited their taste. Had that taste been purer, he was knowing enough to have provided cleaner fare: in a grave and religious community he would probably have preached with unctuous decorum. Already the taste of that community has improved (no thanks, assuredly, to him); the deluge of vituperation and indecency has subsided, and the _New York Herald_ has followed the temper of the time. It may not, as the helpless biographer tells us it is, be “a familiar journal at every court throughout the world, and in all intelligent communities,” but, compared with its former self, it is positively respectable.

Granting, therefore, that James Gordon Bennett was as disreputable an editor as Dr Faust’s great patron ever let loose upon mankind, it is both philosophically and historically just that we should regard him, as Germans would say, not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a highly-remarkable-and-in-itself-much-embracing-development of social existence. The half-apologetic statements on this subject by the biographer, who is in general so preposterous in his partiality and admiration as to be utterly beyond criticism, are among the most curious things in the book. After describing the state of society and of journalism previous to 1833, he says:—

“A more fortunate position of circumstances cannot be imagined than
that which presented itself for Mr Bennett’s talents at this period.
He had been moulded by events and experience to take a part in the
change which the Press was about to undergo....

“Mr Bennett was prepared in every way for the occasion. He had been
just so far injured as to urge him to take hold of the world with but
little mercy for its foibles, and with so little regard to its
opinions that he could distinguish himself by an original course in
Journalism. He felt as Byron did after the Scotch Reviewers had
embittered his soul by their harsh treatment of his ‘Hours of
Idleness.’ This was a mood highly favourable to the production of a
rare effect. The dormant spirit of the people could only be awakened
by something startling and novel, and circumstances had produced a man
for the times.”

The early numbers of the _Herald_, we are told, were “agreeable, pleasantly written, and comparatively prudish.” The habits of the editor were “exemplary.” Finding that this sort of thing was “no go,” the astute adventurer took a bolder course, and flung aside those trammels of decency and moderation which would have impeded or ruined the prospects of a weaker and less original mind. The biographer admits that his hero behaved somewhat grossly, but argues, as one might plead in defence of a vampire or a cobra-de-capello, that he merely used the weapons which nature had given him, and that at any rate he was no worse than his neighbours.

“The improved taste of the present hour will not sanction the mode in
which Mr Bennett at first undertook to be the censor of society: but
_a philosophical analysis of the means which were used in his peculiar
and eccentric course (!)_ exhibits motives as the springs of action,
which do not necessarily indicate a callous heart or a bad temper....
That Mr Bennett had been provoked to use any and all power at his
command, to overturn the wanton assailants of his character, cannot be
denied. _He had but armed himself with the best instruments heaven had
bestowed upon him_, and his mode of warfare was quite as dignified as
that which had been resorted to, and adopted for fifteen or twenty
years before, by the Press generally.”

If instead of the blasphemous word “Heaven” we substitute another more congruous to the nature of the subject, the above may be taken as a sufficiently “philosophical” view of the point at issue. A little farther on there is a still clearer admission. After telling us that the public did not care for political articles in such small sheets as the _Herald_, the biographer shows how it became _necessary_ for Mr Bennett to fill his paper with falsehood and obscenity:—

“It would have been folly, therefore, to have attempted to make a
daily offering to the public of a newspaper, such as is accepted even
at the present hour. Mr Bennett saw this—he felt it. He wrote to
create an interest for himself and the _Herald_. In this he was
pecuniarily wise, for had he taken a more dignified course, and thus
have produced only such studied articles as he had contributed to the
_Courier and Enquirer_, from 1829 to 1832, the _Herald_ would not have
existed for a single month, unless sustained by a sacrifice of capital
which it was not in the power of Mr Bennett to command. All of his
success depended upon his making a journal wholly different from any
one that was in existence.”

And in that attempt the enterprising editor succeeded to a miracle, for certainly anything approaching to the _Herald_ in its “peculiar” character, the literature of civilisation had not seen!

That there may be no mistake on the matter, the biographer, in summing up the transcendent merits of Mr Bennett near the close of the volume, assures us that the course pursued was perfectly deliberate:—

“On the 5th of May 1835, he commenced _his work of regeneration_ by
publishing the first number of the _New York Herald_, which, till it
was established, was conducted with such peculiarities as secured it
attention—_peculiarities which seemed to have sprung from a mind
resolved to carry out certain broad personal characteristics_, which
in themselves furnish the bitterest satire upon the true nature of
political and social life known to the literature of any age or
country. _The course adopted was not based on impulse. There is no
excuse for it on that ground. It was the fruit of the most careful
reflection, as is proved by the fact that the original prospectus has
not been departed from in any point whatever during a period of twenty
years._ The original design was to establish a journal which should be
independent of all parties, and _the influence of which should be
grounded upon its devotion to the popular will_—a plan which has found
numerous imitators, and which is the only one suited to satisfy the
demands of the public.”

Mr Bennett, who of course “endorses” these sentiments, is thus, it is evident, as much at ease in his “conscience” with regard to his past conduct as ever, and would, if the thing were to be done over again, do it _con amore_ again. The _popular will_—not Truth or Righteousness; the most sweet voices of the rabble, not the still small voice of the man within the breast—that, then, is the creed of this “regenerator” of journalism—_Apage Satana_.

The best type of Scottish character is eminently distinguished by force and earnestness; but as a Scotchman, when he is good, is intensely so—a Scotchman, when he sells himself to Clooty, is perhaps of all human beings the most devoted servant of that personage. Scotland, which has produced such eminent examples of genius and nobleness in this century as Thomas Chalmers and John Wilson, had the misfortune to give birth also to James Gordon Bennett. Let her not grieve, for the same England that gave birth to John Milton, was the mother likewise of Titus Oates.

THE GREEK CHURCH.

There can be no question with the philosopher, that war is one of the great sources of change in the movement of the world. Whether its purpose be conquest or defence, or its stimulant ambition or restlessness, or its immediate impulse the genius of some great leader, urging the rapacity of a people, the changes which it makes in the general mass of society are always more remarkable than those of any other instrument of human impression. Wars are the moral thunderstorms, which either cover the face of society with havoc, or purify its atmosphere. War is the shifting of the channel in which the great stream of society has hitherto flowed on, and the formation of the new course which fertilises a new region, while it leaves the old one barren; or, is like the power of steam, a pressure in its nature explosive, and marking its power only in its ruin, but capable of being guided into a general benefactor of man, and originating effects large and general beyond the means of any other mover.

To the reader of the Scriptures, the question is decided at once. War is constantly held forth as the instrument of Divine action—sometimes as punishment, sometimes as restoration, but always as subservient to a great providential intention. A voice of more than man calls Cyrus from the sands of Persia, at once to smite the pride of Babylon, and to break the chains of the Jew. The same voice summons Alexander from the hills of Macedonia to subvert Persepolis, and be the protector of the chosen people. We have the distinct declaration from the highest of all sources, that the Roman war which closed the national existence of that unhappy but memorable people, was the direct performance of the Divine will by the instrumentality of the heathen sword.

It is true, that in later history we have not the same power of ascertaining the distinct purposes of Providence. We “see through a glass darkly,” through the dimmed medium of human knowledge, through the comparison of things imperfectly shown, and the misty conjectures of man. Yet still it is a study honourable to human intelligence, and we are sometimes enabled, even by flashes and fragments of evidence, to trace without superstition or exaggeration the ways of that great Disposer, who balances the fates of nations, and whose vigilance is as sleepless as His power is immeasurable. No man conversant with modern history can doubt, that the war of the German princes in the sixteenth century sheltered the cradle of the Reformation, until the mighty infant was enabled to quit that cradle and assume maturity; or that the war with Spain and the destruction of the Armada gave English Protestantism an embodying of strength in England, and a renown abroad, which secured it from all assault either at home or abroad; or that the wars of William III., in Ireland and on the Continent, were the virtual throwing of a shield over Protestantism in England, and extinguishing by the sword in France the power which had pledged itself to the extermination of French Protestantism; or that the French revolutionary war, however originating in the national vices, had, in its conquest of the three Capitals of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, a direct connection with the vengeance of insulted justice, and the retribution of outraged humanity on the royal spoilers of unhappy Poland.

Nothing among the phases of human affairs has been a matter of older or more frequent wonder to both the philosopher and the Christian, than the condition of the country ranging along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. That, within the perpetual hearing, and almost within sight of the civilisation of Europe, with the sounds of its moral revolutions, progress, and discoveries in its ears, it has never exhibited an inclination to try the strength of its own frame in any of the exercises of self-government; that, with a population highly gifted by nature, acute, adroit, and even warlike, fifty-fold more numerous than the Turk; that, with the finest climate of the globe, the richest soil, the noblest historic recollections, the whole region, from Egypt to the Euphrates, should have exhibited its bravery in nothing but the exploits of banditti, its intelligence in nothing but the craft of the trafficker, and its philosophy in nothing but the submission of the slave, seems unaccountable.

Yet especially that Palestine, the land of which we can never speak the name, or remember the afflictions, or revolve the history, without homage, sorrow, and hope; that the soil, with every hill and valley and sea-shore sacred to the Christian heart, and the object of promises, on which we fully rely, yet which transcend all that earth has seen of blessing, power, and splendour,—the land of which Inspiration has pronounced: “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time” (Isaiah, lx. 20); that Palestine, towards which every man, Christian or Jew, looks, as the prophet in the days of the captivity looked in his prayer, should be still desolate; that even Jerusalem, whose very dust is dear to us, should be known as scarcely more than the haunt of obscure superstition, and the squabbles of Greek and Latin monks,—is among the most surprising facts of human annals.

We are by no means sanguine as to the _effect_ of the war, into which Russia has provoked the Powers of Europe. It is an impulse which may pass away—a “wind which bloweth where it listeth, and we hear but the sound thereof”—a form of ambitious frenzy, starting up from the imperial couch, and, in the first moment of exhaustion, sinking back within its curtains. But, notwithstanding all those possibilities, to chide the eagerness of human anticipation, nothing is more evident than that the war has some features which distinguish it from all the wars since the fall of the Greek Empire. It is remarkable that its first quarrel was in Jerusalem, and the express contest was for the possession of the most venerated spot in Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre. Whether this quarrel was sincere or a pretence—whether to restore injured rights or to cover a determination of wrongs—is a matter of no moment in presence of the fact that thus began the Russian war. Another obvious fact is, that though there have been expeditions to the Levant within the century, as the march of Napoleon into Syria, and the later assaults on Acre, this is the first war, since the Crusades, which ever poured the weight of the great armies and navies of England and France on the East, which ever planted a solid step on the lands under the Mahommedan rule, which ever exhibited European strength, arts, discipline, and treasure, in their actual and distinct character, to the eye of the Mahommedan. If the European forces should be withdrawn to-morrow, there can be no doubt of their having thrown a new light on the mind of the Mahommedan world. The old generation must soon pass away, and a large portion of its prejudices must pass away with it. The new generation may respect its memory, and act as the pallbearers in its obsequies, but they will not go down into its grave. Already the Turk is becoming associated with the Englishman and the Frenchman; the English discipline of the Contingent must leave its impressions, even when the Contingent shall be broken up. The pay, the punctuality, the good order, and the gallantry of the service, cannot be forgotten; and the man will be cast into a mould, manlier and more capable of progress than any Turk, since the tribe, with the “black banner” before them, descended from the slopes of the Himalaya. The Christians of the Ottoman Empire have obtained new privileges already by this war. Measures are on foot for making their testimony available in the courts of justice. They are to have the right of bearing arms in the Ottoman service—a highly important innovation, and leading to every privilege; and there can be no doubt that the Ottoman government must acknowledge its old power of oppression to be at an end, or that any attempt at persecution or violence to its Christian subjects would be under penalty of provoking resistance from its Christian allies. All those results have their origin in the war, and those are in their nature progressive. Privilege begets privilege, and the next quarter of a century, whether in the struggles of war or the activity of peace, will place the Christians of the East in a position higher than their most sanguine speculation could have contemplated before the war on the Euxine.

Views of this order give additional value to that interesting subject, the character of the Christian Church in the East. It becomes important to know how far that Church is capable of assisting the progress, aiding the energies, or even conforming to the character of a people on the eve of renovation; whether it is to continue the swamp that it has been for the four centuries since the capture of Constantinople, or to be the fount flowing with the waters of national life; whether it is to be regarded as a monument of dreary ceremonial, encumbering the soil with its weight, and of doctrines incompatible with the gospel, or as only waiting to be freed from the barbarian accumulations of antiquity, to show the world an architecture worthy of its apostolic founders, and fit for the reception of enlightened mankind.

The Greek Church has, beyond all question, high claims to the consideration of Christendom as the mother of all the churches,—founded by the Apostles, governed by the last of the Apostles,—the Church of the first Christian empire, and for the first four centuries exhibiting the most illustrious examples of virtue and ability, of patience under trial, and of piety in the propagation of the faith. In the Church of proconsular Asia was the arena in which the strength of revelation was first tried against all the power of imperial heathenism, the severer combats than against the lions of Numidia. To that province was sent the message to the “Angels of the Seven Churches;” in its neighbouring Byzantium was erected the central Church, the spiritual sun, which spread its light through the East and West, through the shores and forests of the North, and through the mountains and wildernesses of the South,—the Church which, resisting the image-worship of the Western nations, and the mysterious mythology of the East, continued for fifteen hundred years the Ark of Christianity.

The subject has been frequently touched on in the rapid publications of our time, but with an inaccuracy of detail, and an obscurity of view, which fully justifies the attempt to rectify the one, and to clear up the other.

From the fourth century, the subtle spirit of the Greeks began to exercise itself in those questions of Scripture, which, being confessedly above the range of the human faculties, are to be received on the authority of Scripture alone, as the objects of faith, and not of experience. The Arian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies began to disturb the world. The great Council of Nice (A.D. 325), an assemblage of 318 bishops, declared the voice of the Church against the doctrine of Arius; yet the heresy continued for some ages to distract the empire. When these disputes had worn themselves out, another source of disturbance exhibited itself in the Civil claims of the rival Sees of Rome and Constantinople. The Bishop of Rome demanded the Supremacy for the sitter in the ancient capital of empire; the Bishop of Constantinople demanded it for the sitter in the capital of the actual empire. But the contest was unequal. The Bishop of the West had no imperial figure to thwart his authority; the Bishop of the East stood directly under the shadow of the imperial figure. The former was the lord of the faith to the half-civilised and superstitious millions of the barbarian settlers in Europe; the latter was surrounded with as many heresies as episcopates, with keen inquiries and doubtful fidelity, with philosophy envenomed into scepticism, and with four Patriarchs, sometimes denying his doctrine, and always envying his authority.

The contest continued through two centuries, treated by the warlike emperors with contempt, and regarded by the feeble emperors with alarm. At length it was decided by Justinian, one of those characters who form epochs in history. It is only by such epochs that we can mark the progress of those unvarying years and casual trains of events which form the stream of Time. Remote history is like the remote landscape; we judge of the country only by its mountain-tops. History has done but narrow justice to this restorer of the Roman empire. It has measured his imperial strength on the scale of his personal weakness; but the true estimate of the governor of kingdoms is by what he has done on the throne. Monarchs are _actors_, with their kingdom for a stage, and the world for their audience. When they throw off the royal robe and the buskin, they are but men; but who has a right to follow them behind the scenes? In the reign of Justinian was reunited the dislocated empire. Italy and Northern Africa were conjoined. The barbarian kingdoms of Europe were reduced into submission, the celebrated Code was established which formed the body of law to Europe for nearly ten centuries, and which exists as the civil law to this day. The noblest temple of Europe (until the sixteenth century), the Santa Sophia, was built by him, and he held the sceptre with undiminished authority to the end of a reign of thirty-nine years, and a life of eighty-three!

The sole imperial weakness of Justinian was his theology; he loved to mingle in the turbid discussions of the time. In one of those discussions, to conciliate the verdict of the Roman bishop, he conferred on him the title of “Head of the Universal Church,”—a title which no man could be guiltless in either bestowing or accepting, the title belonging to Him alone who earned it on Calvary; the bestowal was a usurpation, and the adoption a crime. From this transaction, and from the year 533, the Papacy dates its assumed supremacy over the Universal Church.

The separation of the Greek and the Latin Churches was near at hand. In the seventh century Rome had adopted image-worship. In the eighth century the Emperor Leo proclaimed it an abomination, and ordered that all images should be taken from the altars. The Pope (Gregory II.) answered the command by a challenge. His answer was an Anathema. “You accuse,” said his letter, “the Catholics of idolatry: in this you betray your own impiety. You assault us, tyrant, with a carnal and military hand; we can only implore Christ that he will _send you a devil_ for the destruction of your body and the salvation of your soul. Are you ignorant that the Popes are the bands of union, the mediators of peace between the East and the West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility, and they _revere as a God on earth_ the Apostle St Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The remote kingdoms of the earth present their homage to Christ _and His viceregent_.” A war followed; Gregory sent out his “pastoral letters” through the West. The imperial troops were beaten in Italy by the peasant insurrection. A battle was fought on the banks of the Po, with such slaughter of the Greeks, that for a succession of years the people refused to eat of the fish. Rome was broken off from the empire. The imperial sovereignty of the West was at an end, after a dominion of seven centuries; and image-worship was established as the religion of the Popedom.

The schism of the churches was now begun. But the question had changed from doctrine, which the growing ignorance of the age was unable to discuss, to jurisdiction, a discussion which at once excited the ambition and fed the animosity of a time of _darkness_. The bitterness of the contest was increased in the ninth century by the elevation of Photius to the see of Constantinople.

This remarkable man was the solitary light of his age in the East. He was a layman, who had passed through the highest offices of the State, and a scholar who has left the monument of his scholarship to posterity in his celebrated _Bibliotheca_. To place him in the bishopric, the emperor deposed its former possessor, who appealed to Rome. The pope ordered his restoration; the emperor repeated his refusal.