University of Virginia Library

Walter Bagehot: Some New Attributions
by
Robert H. Tener

I. Bagehot and the Inquirer

For nearly one hundred years Walter Bagehot has been known as the contributor who supplied the weekly Unitarian newspaper, the Inquirer, with a brilliant series of letters in 1852 on Louis Napoleon's coup d'état.[1] And for some time it has been realized that Bagehot's contributions were not confined to these letters, for I pointed out in the Times Literary Supplement a dozen years ago that an 1852 review of Lord Cockburn's life of Francis Jeffrey is unquestionably his, since much of the concluding paragraph was afterwards incorporated verbatim into his well-known essay on the founders of the Edinburgh Review.[2] Nevertheless, despite Bagehot's known association with the Inquirer, it would appear that no really thorough search through its files for additional material has ever been made, notwithstanding the statement of Bagehot's latest editor, Dr. St. John-Stevas, claiming that he and his research assistant had examined all the numbers of this weekly for which Bagehot could possibly have written but had found no new articles.[3]

Recently, however, while making an inspection of the Inquirer over the four years of Bagehot's potential connection with it, I discovered that it yields at least seven articles which may be safely attributed to him, largely on internal evidence. (To these I add one new ascription from the Spectator.) The seven attributions from the Inquirer consist of three leading articles on current political matters, a review of Matthew Arnold, and a series of three letters on university reform. Although clearly not so significant as Bagehot's longer essays, they deserve to be known, for they provide us with glimpses of his earliest political views, demonstrate his continuing interest in higher education, and offer the sole instance of an article on Matthew Arnold's poetry in the entire corpus of his writings.[4] They also show that Bagehot had a much longer and somewhat closer connection with the Inquirer than the coup d'état letters in 1852 suggested.

That connection was rather inexactly referred to by R. H. Hutton who first disclosed Bagehot's authorship of these letters:

This account errs through inaccuracy and lack of detail. In fact, Bagehot's letters appeared in 1852, not 1851, and in fact—as has already been pointed out—the letters were not his only contribution. Indeed, the latter is suggested in the Inquirer's obituary on Bagehot, which asserted that he had "contributed many letters and reviews of great vivacity to this journal in the years 1851-2."[6] But just as that account, too, is in error about the date when Bagehot began to contribute, so it fails to indicate the number of years he was connected with the paper. Like most writers on Bagehot since, the author of the obituary seems to assume that he made no contributions after 1852. I will now show that he continued to write for the Inquirer until August, 1855.

His connection with this weekly was obviously dependent upon the editorial tenure of his friends, R. H. Hutton and John Langton Sanford. I have recently provided evidence that proves conclusively that these two men were connected with the paper for four years, that Hutton contributed to it in 1851-52, that he seems to have been an assistant editor under

Sanford for the last half of 1853, and that for the whole of 1854 and 1855 they were joint editors.[7] The period of this collaboration is crucial for Bagehot's contributions; not being a Unitarian himself, he was dependent on his two friends for entry into the Inquirer's sectarian columns. Hence, if there is no sign of his hand in these columns prior to his letters on Louis Napoleon, it is not surprising that there is nothing by him after 1855. What happened in between, however, is what we may turn to now.

Bagehot's first letter on the coup d'état was published on January 10, 1852; the last of the seven letters appeared on March 6. On April 10 his review of Cockburn's life of Lord Jeffrey was published. The seven pieces I attribute to him on what is chiefly internal evidence appeared thereafter from 1853 to 1855, and are examined now in chronological order.

(1) "Mr. Gladstone," Inquirer, May 7, 1853, p. 289.

In his political and historical essays Bagehot repeatedly alludes to Lord Liverpool, Lord John Russell, Peel, and Disraeli; the author of this leading article does so, too. Bagehot often quotes from Milton, Macaulay, and John Henry Newman; the author does so here. And just as Bagehot remarked in his essay on Gladstone (National Review, XI [July, 1860], 221, 238), that no one more "remarkably embodies" Oxford education than Gladstone, that the creed which Gladstone acquired at Oxford "broke down" when tried by the test of "real life," and that he therefore had to formulate his principles anew, so the Inquirer writer says:

But the passages in this Inquirer leader which most strongly suggest Bagehot's hand are these: first, a favourite anecdote, and next, a parody. The favourite anecdote Bagehot quoted in identified writings published before and after this date. Speaking of the cabinet of Lord Liverpool as it flourished thirty years before, the Inquirer writer asserts, "When anything was too bad to be justified or defended, they were wont to say, 'we must apply our majority to this question.'" A year before, in his fifth letter to the Inquirer on the coup d'état (Feb. 7, 1852, p. 83), Bagehot remarked of the same period, "In those times, I have been told the great Treasury official of the day, Mr. George Rose . . . had a habit of observing, upon occasion of anything utterly devoid of decent defence, 'Well, well, this is a little too bad; we must apply our majority to this difficulty.'" And three years after the Inquirer leader, Bagehot remarked in his National Review

essay on Peel (Vol. III, July, 1856, p. 167): "There is a legend that a distinguished Treasury official of the last century, a very capable man, used to say of any case which was hopelessly and inevitably bad: 'Ah, we must apply our majority to this question' . . ."

One other passage in "Mr. Gladstone" may be paralleled with an almost verbatim reproduction of it in a well-known essay by Bagehot. In speaking of what is agreeable to Englishmen, the author of the Inquirer leader declared:

Three months later, in "Shakespeare," Prospective Review, IX (August, 1853), 422, Bagehot presented almost exactly the same parody of Gladstone's guarded verbosity as an illustration of what the British public likes:

(2) "Empedocles on Etna," Inquirer, August 27, 1853, pp. 548-549.

Completely characteristic of Bagehot are the allusions to Thiers, Louis Napoleon, and Carlyle in this review. The flavour of his style and manner emerges clearly in both the following passages, the first of which concludes on a note of Bagehotian realism.

Not only did Bagehot frequently refer to Thiers the year before in his Inquirer letters on Louis Napoleon's coup d'état, but he also wrote at length in Letter VI (February 14, 1852, p. 99) of "The celebrated Emile de Girardin," "the old editor and founder of the Presse," and the "leading French journalist" of his day. Bagehot assures his correspondent that in consequence he reads the Presse regularly. Very probably, then, de Girardin's advice about being oneself lies behind what Bagehot wrote in the meantime concerning style, for in his well-known essay on Hartley Coleridge (Prospective Review, VIII [November, 1852], 529) we find this: ". . . we believe that the knack in style is to write like a human being. Some think they must be wise, some elaborate, some concise; Tacitus wrote like a pair of stays; some would startle, as Thomas Carlyle, or a comet, inscribing with his tail. But legibility is given to those who neglect these notions, and are willing to be themselves . . ."

This passage from "Hartley Coleridge" reminds us of another clue to authorship in the review of Empedocles on Etna, its reference to Thomas Carlyle: "It has been said that Mr. Carlyle's book on the French Revolution reads like an affidavit; 'this, I, Thomas Carlyle, came and perceived' . . ." Although "reads like an affidavit" is not so witty as "wrote like a pair of stays," the form of the expression is parallel. Moreover, Bagehot's essays contain numerous references to Carlyle. To mention only those which were published before this review, he is cited in the essays on Festus, Oxford, and Shakespeare, as well as in the one on Hartley Coleridge and in the letters on the coup d'état; indeed, in the first essay his French Revolution is referred to at length.

The humour in this review is consonant with Bagehot's authorship. Of the poems in the volume being appraised, the reviewer writes: "This is what 'A' has thought of the universe; it may not be a compliment to the latter . . ." And of the strange tranquilizing effects which civilization has on men (always potentially violent) the reviewer remarks, "That a grown man should be found to write reviews is in itself a striking fact. Suppose you asked Achilles to do such a thing, do you imagine he would consent?"

The Inquirer's comments on Shelley remind us of Bagehot's lifelong admiration of that poet. The reviewer speaks of the fascination and the power of Shelley's writings, "especially at a certain period of life . . . [though of] defects and shortcomings . . . it is not difficult for a matured taste to find many, both ethical and artistic . . ." This seems to be in brief form what Bagehot later wrote of Shelley more discursively in "Tennyson's Idylls," National Review, IX (October, 1859), 370-371:

The Inquirer reviewer describes life in the modern world in ways strongly reminiscent of Bagehot the social psychologist:

This passage reads like a compact version of the famous doctrine that Bagehot had scattered through his letters the year before on the coup d'état, for even there "dulness" is used as a synonym for the more notorious "stupidity" which Bagehot preached as being essential to social order. There Bagehot had argued (Letter III, January 24, 1852, p. 52) that the "something" in national character which secures social order, "the most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent, and on a large scale . . . is much stupidity." He then adds as illustration:

Throughout the letters on the coup d'état, but especially in Letters IV and V, Bagehot had argued that the desire for revolution—for what he calls "excitement"—needs constant curbing if order is to be secured. A like idea is discerned by the Inquirer reviewer in Arnold's poems. He remarks that in them we perceive a mind "whose great feeling is a longing for keen excitement, and at the same time a clear persuasion that such excitement is impossible . . ."

The Inquirer next criticizes Empedocles on Etna for the many faults in its execution and remarks that "it can hardly be reckoned among the best of our author's compositions." However, the reviewer concedes that the poem does contain "some fine lines"; he then quotes the whole of Act II, ll. 235-275, the lines beginning "And yet what days were those, Parmenides!" In "Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry," National Review, New Series, I (November, 1864), 36-37, Bagehot states that Empedocles on Etna is "a poem undoubtedly containing defects and even excesses," but then quotes as evidence that Arnold's work nevertheless contains unquestionable poetry exactly the same lines as are found in the Inquirer review.[8]

Perhaps the strongest piece of internal evidence supporting Bagehot's authorship of this review is the phrase it adopts from philosophy, a phrase of Plato's which was peculiarly memorable to Bagehot. The reviewer speaks of a mind which strives for autonomy and independence, a mind which "has got rid of the lumber of ages—has disdained ancient fables and tedious traditions—has gone out 'itself by itself,' as the old philosophy used to speak—has seen, thus alone, a distinct vision of life, and has related it to us, if not in the best of words, at least in those that are most characteristic of itself." The previous year, in his essay on Hartley Coleridge (Prospective Review, VIII [November, 1852], 533), Bagehot had remarked of the poetry of self-delineation: "The first requisite of this poetry is truth. It is in Plato's phrase the soul 'itself by itself' aspiring to view and take account of the particular notes and marks that distinguish it from all other souls." Five years after the Inquirer review, Bagehot, in "Charles Dickens," National Review, VIII (October, 1858), 461-462, wrote that in the mind which applies itself to theory "the deductive understanding, which masters first principles, and makes deductions from them, the thin ether of the intellect, — the 'mind itself by itself,'—must evidently assume a great prominence." And Bagehot goes on to describe the mind of Plato. But much later, in his English Constitution, Bagehot recalled Plato's phrase in connection with the mind which extracts from itself the essential truths about reality and then posited an old philosopher who fancied that by ardent excogitation "he might by pure deduction evolve the entire Universe. Intense self-examination, and intense reason would, he thought, make out everything. The soul 'itself by itself,' could tell all it wanted if it would be true to its sublimer isolation."[9] The presence of the philosophical phrase, "itself by itself," in this Inquirer review of 1853 makes it nearly certain to my mind that Bagehot was the author. But what clinches the matter, I believe, is a piece of external evidence.

This external clue is a letter printed long ago in Mrs. Barrington's Life of Bagehot, the significance of which has escaped the attention of students of Bagehot probably because they looked in the wrong place for the article Bagehot proposed writing, in the Prospective Review instead of in the Inquirer. From Langport on August 15, 1853, Bagehot wrote to Richard Hutton: "By way of the next step I strongly advise you to write the article on Atheism which you mentioned and to get the review made over to you as soon as may be. I should like to write for you a short article on the new Series of M. Arnold's poems. They are not very much in themselves, but they show character and afford, I think, matter for a short paper and no reading up of any subject will be necessary, which is a great blessing and consideration."[10] Bagehot's mention of a "review" in this letter has no

doubt led scholars to look into the Prospective Review for the article he proposed. If they had realized that at this time Hutton was also assisting as editor of the Inquirer, and in that capacity was soliciting contributions from his friends, they would in all probability have turned up this review of Arnold's poems. But they would also have discovered in the same issue on pp. 546-547 a leading article entitled "English Atheism" which in my opinion contains strong evidence of Hutton's hand. Bagehot's letter, then, is valuable external evidence for the authorship of the only review he ever produced on the poetry of Matthew Arnold and for one of the earliest articles by his most intimate friend.

(3-5) "On the Organization and Extension of the Universities—Three Letters"

Bagehot first expressed his views on the universities in mid-Victorian Britain in the essay which he published two years before this series of letters: "Oxford," Prospective Review, VIII (August, 1852), 347-392. That essay was a commentary on the Royal Commission report on Oxford, a commission established by Lord John Russell; the letters represent Bagehot's response to Lord John's bill which sprang from the report, and gave him an opportunity not only to repeat his remarks on the nature and function of universities in a complex, modern society, but also to recapitulate his ideas on the organization and administration of these institutions. Not surprisingly, then, we find in the letters passages which closely parallel remarks in the essay. And Bagehot being Bagehot, we not surprisingly also find in the letters something of the humour which enlivens the essay and other writings.

(3) "The Universities—Letter I," Inquirer, March 25, 1854, pp. 187-188.

In this letter the humour which seems to me to have a Bagehotian flavour occurs in the following passages on the first page. The Inquirer's correspondent writes: "It is a great advantage to be commonplace in your remarks (people say they are so just) . . ." Next, after announcing that he will discuss the driest topic connected with universities, the constitution of their governments, the writer says, "I cannot help the subject being tedious, though Lord John might reflect before he took the public into such places . . ." Somewhat maliciously the writer remarks in an aside, "I suppose stupidity is of no consequence in an infallible Pope . . ." A little later, after objecting that the Heads of Houses would be, in the Oxford of 1854, the worst persons to rule the university, he makes this concession: "In one respect . . . I maintain they excel all potentates—I mean that of personal grandeur. It has been said that they are too august. But this is only by captious and critical persons. Right feeling men, who have been permitted to see a grave head placidly doing nothing, will admit at once that they have observed the grandest and most imposing of human beings."

Of the passages in the letter for which parallels may be found in the

essay, the following seems to show Bagehot clarifying and making more explicit what he had written earlier: This appears to be an expansion upon the following passage in "Oxford" (p. 386): Of parallel passages, however, the most striking is a quotation from Bagehot's favourite novelist. The Inquirer correspondent writes, "You remember Sir Walter Scott used to aver 'there never was a Dominie who was not weak'." In the Oxford essay Bagehot wrote (p. 366): "'I never,' said Sir Walter Scott, 'knew a Dominie that was not weak'."

(4) "On the Extension of the Universities—Letter II," Inquirer, April 1, 1854, pp. 196-197.

The allusions to Bacon, Cobden, Wellington, and Derby are all characteristic of Bagehot (all are referred to in the essay on Oxford), and they show touches of his humour or parallelisms with his identified writings. For instance, the Inquirer correspondent humourously remarks that "it will be no longer, as in the last war, a principal parliamentary difficulty that the Duke of Wellington would persist in winning victories at places not mentioned in the classics." As for parallelisms, the writer further states, "Mr. Cobden took occasion, not long ago, to speak with disrespect of 'all the works of Thucydides' . . ." In the essay on Oxford, Bagehot had written that the uneducated man "knows as well as Mr. Cobden what is to be found in all the works of Thucydides . . ." (p. 366).

Other kinds of parallelism are discoverable, as well. The writer in the Inquirer states, "An uneducated man has an opinion on every question which you ask him; some writer says that if you ask a common person what colour is the unseen side of the moon, he would have an answer ready . . ." In the essay on Oxford, Bagehot had written (p. 366), "An uneducated man has no notion of being without an opinion: he is distinctly aware whether Venus is inhabited . . ."

(5) "On the Extension of the Universities—Letter III," Inquirer, April 15, 1854, pp. 226-227.

This letter repeats several of the ideas which Bagehot had introduced into his essay on Oxford: that out of simple justice Dissenters should be admitted into Oxford and Cambridge, although in practical terms this would not result in much of an increase in their student bodies; that most people should not attend a university (it would disqualify them for living) but should receive a practical training in a trade; but that those people in the community who require an intellectual discipline in order to pursue a profession or to take broad views of modern society will find a university education indispensable. In this letter, too, something of Bagehot's humour appears: "The plan for a solicitor's education is to rear him in suits; for a miller's to involve him in flour; for a butcher's, to lead the dawning faculties gently and tenderly to the topic of meat."

Parallels in sentence form, as well as in idea, may be found between this letter and Bagehot's writing elsewhere. The Inquirer correspondent states: "The great security for a man's perpetually thinking of his business is his not knowing anything else to think of; the great security for his doing his duty is his not knowing anything else to do." Two years before in the third letter on the coup d'état (January 24, 1852, p. 52) Bagehot had written: "The best security for people's doing their duty is that they should not know anything else to do; the best security for fixedness of opinion is that people should be incapable of comprehending what is to be said on the other side."

Finally, in this last letter on university education the writer in the Inquirer employs at length an anecdote from Scott which Bagehot had used more briefly:

In "Oxford," Prospective Review, VIII (August, 1852), 366, Bagehot declared that "literary men as much over-estimate the importance of literature as the currier in the legend the repulsive resources of the substance leather."

What, for me, puts the capstone on this argument that Bagehot wrote these letters on university reform is the fact that each letter, like each of the letters on the coup d'état, is signed "Amicus."

(6) "Aristocratic and Unaristocratic Statesmen," Inquirer, April 28, 1855, pp. 257-258.

Bagehot refers to Paley, Napoleon, Palmerston, and Lowe in his identified writings; the author of this leading article does so, too. The humour

in this article, though subdued, is reminiscent of Bagehot's. For instance, the author says that it cannot be denied that the traditional English view that statesmen should be gentlemen has been recently assailed: Though the irony that sharpens those last two sentences is absent from my next example, there is a Bagehotian echo in it: the Inquirer writer remarks that Lord Chancellors are "authorised vulgarities," a phrase which brings to mind Bagehot's remark that George III was "a consecrated obstruction." And the author of this leading article concludes his defence of Britain's current statesmen with a term (italics mine) which similarly evokes the flavour of Bagehot's wit: "We must adhere to the Aborigines of Downing-street; after all, they are the best that we have."

The writer in the Inquirer argues that though it is often said that higher education disqualifies men from practical life, we must not forget that it can also make us more qualified:

This seems to be similar to what Bagehot wrote three years before in his essay on Oxford (Prospective Review, VIII [August, 1852], 368):

When to the Inquirer's remarks given in the quotation above, which puts gentlemen into the practical affairs of government, we add its opening statement that the English "wish to be governed by gentlemen," we can see that the writer is very close to Bagehot's recommendation at the end of his essay on Peel (National Review, III [July, 1856], 174), that for statesmen "you must be content with what you can obtain—the business-gentleman."

Finally, one brief quotation can be paralleled in one of Bagehot's essays. The writer in the Inquirer speaks of the "'great manslaying profession' (as Carlyle called it)." In "Edward Gibbon," National Review, II (January, 1856), 1, Bagehot wrote of "the 'great manslaying profession' (as Carlyle calls it) . . ."

(7) "Statesmen," Inquirer, August 4, 1855, pp. 481-482.

Like Bagehot in so many of his political writings, the author of this first leader refers to Burke, Chatham, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Peel, Russell, and Gladstone. And as Bagehot does so often in essays both literary and political, the writer here mentions Plato and quotes Sir Walter Scott. But what is even more significant in this leading article is the number and nature of parallel passages. Indeed, so much of the material here anticipates almost verbatim several passages in Bagehot's famous essay on Sir Robert Peel, published the following year, that this Inquirer article looks like a first draft. There is space here for only a few parallels.

For instance, the Inquirer has this (p. 481):

In "The Character of Sir Robert Peel," National Review, III (July, 1856), 147, Bagehot wrote: The writer in the Inquirer outlines what average men want (p. 481): "What they desire is a man who will carry out their views . . . Such a man they found in Sir Robert Peel . . . The powers of a first-rate man have seldom been so perfectly united with the creed of a second-rate man." In his National Review essay on Peel, Bagehot wrote (p. 150): "Our people would have statesmen who thought as they thought. If we wanted to choose an illustration of these remarks out of all the world, it would be Sir Robert Peel. No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman—the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man."[11] Then, again, the writer in the Inquirer states (p. 481), "The most harrowing thing to the intellect is routine; the most confusing is distraction. Now the life of a Prime Minister is a distracting routine." In his essay on Peel in the National Review Bagehot writes (p. 160), "The most benumbing thing to the intellect is routine; the most bewildering is distraction: our system is a distracting routine."

But the National Review is not the only journal of the day in which we can find Bagehot closely following what was written in this leader in

the Inquirer. In "Average Government," Saturday Review, March 29, 1856, p. 429, he thus compresses the material given above in the first quotation from the Inquirer: "The condition of a free government is that you must persuade the present generation; and the gouvernement des avocats, as the Emperor Nicholas called it, has this for its principle—that you must persuade the average man." More important than that parallel, however, is a passage in the Saturday Review which, in its conclusion, provides an exact parallel to a passage from the Inquirer not yet quoted. The Inquirer states (p. 481): "'Public opinion, Sir,' said a competent person, 'means the opinion of the bald-headed man at the end of the omnibus.'" In the Saturday Review (p. 429) Bagehot wrote: "'It is all very well,' said an able Whig, 'for the Times to talk of the intelligence of public opinion . . . public opinion, Sir, is the opinion of the bald-headed man at the end of the omnibus.'"

II. Bagehot and the Spectator

After Bagehot took full control of the Economist in 1861 and Hutton ceased to be its literary editor and became instead in June of that year the literary editor and co-proprietor of the Spectator, the two men not only remained staunch friends but also from time to time in the 1860's and 1870's helped one another with contributions. It has been known for long that Bagehot contributed to the Spectator such articles as a review of Thackeray's Adventures of Philip (1862), an article on Boscastle in Cornwall (1866), a travel letter on Spain (1868), and an obituary of George Grote (1871). In the Times Literary Supplement (August 11, 1961, p. 515), I supplied evidence to show that Bagehot had written the subleader, "French Religiousness and M. Renan" (1863), which Dr. St. John-Stevas has subsequently included in his collected edition of Bagehot. Now I should like to suggest Bagehot's authorship of an earlier subleader.

"The Trash of the Day," Spectator, September 7, 1861, pp. 976-977.

The allusions to Gibbon, Lord Eldon, Palmerston, and Sir John Herschel are all characteristic of Bagehot. The phrase, "intellectual voluptuary," used of the unnamed statesman who avoided reading the last of the Waverley novels, appears in Bagehot's essay, "Sir George Cornewall Lewis," National Review, XVII (October, 1863), 500. The image which I now italicize in the statement, "A great deal of fine thought . . . lies, so to say, in solution in the literature of the time," can be found, somewhat apologetically, in Bagehot's "Tennyson's Idylls," National Review, IX (October, 1859), 389: "The amount of thought which is held in solution, — if we may be pardoned so scientific a metaphor, — in Mr. Tennyson's poetry is very great." The adjective, "floating" ("the floating 'trash' of the literary world") is a favourite of Bagehot's: it appears, for instance, in the essays mentioned above on Peel, Tennyson, Renan, and on pure, ornate, and grotesque art, and in Bagehot's. well-known essays on Clough, and Sterne and Thackeray. Finally, two quotations may be paralleled in

Bagehot's identified writings. The Spectator writer says, "The young readers of every generation have had an instinctive feeling that the row of standard authors in the library were somehow 'papa's books;' that they concerned other ideas, other feelings, another life than their own." This is close to what Bagehot had remarked in "The Waverley Novels," National Review, VI (April, 1858), 444: "Even standard authors exercise but slender influence on the susceptible minds of a rising generation; they are become 'papa's books;' the walls of the library are adorned with their regular volumes; but no hand touches them." And near the end of the subleader the Spectator author writes: "Talleyrand used to say that there was some one cleverer than Napoleon, cleverer than Voltaire — c'est tout le monde." In his essay on Sir George Cornewall Lewis (National Review, XVII [October, 1863], 517), Bagehot wrote: "'There is some one,' said a great man of the world, 'wiser than Voltaire, and wiser than Napoleon, c'est tout le monde.'"

I have deliberately presented the evidence for attribution in full, because it is only when the evidence is heavily marshalled that the skeptic may be kept at bay. Moreover, the appearance of parallels in article after article not only highlights Bagehot's favourite anecdotes, insights, and beliefs, but also reveals Bagehot the literary artist winnowing permanent grain from journalistic chaff. And it further reminds us of one of the main strategies that Bagehot the publicist employed to persuade the readers of his age: repetition. This iteration makes more clear than ever before that Bagehot's dominant concern in the 1850's was Britain's urgent need for great statesmen, a concern which underlies not only these leading articles in the Inquirer, but also the letters on the universities, the review of Empedocles on Etna, and even, though distantly, the Spectator subleader on "The Trash of the Day."

Notes