Berwick that he laid in that store of literary information which used to puzzle friend and foes alike, as he illustrated his arguments with choice bits from Swift, apt couplets from Pope, recondite passages from Dryden, lines from Goldsmith and Thomson. Big volumes in short-hand still survive full of copious extracts from authors, chiefly in old standard English literature, whom he loved to quote throughout his journalistic career, and he was specially fond of the old-fashioned poetry, with its formal measure, and its feet that are as stately as a minuet.

In 1842 Russel was appointed editor of the Fife Herald.' In his new post he had more congenial work, and in his new residence he had more genial society. The best qualities of the journalist now got free play, and the Scotch political leaders soon recognised his power and welcomed his friendship, while eager readers enjoyed his articles, bubbling over with exuberant nonsense, or, rather, extravagant sense, and sedate citizens shook their heads over his audacious assaults on time-honoured ways. Politics in Fife were keen, and party feelings were strong, so that every week the Whig Fife Herald' and the Tory Fife Journal' attacked each other with appalling fury. The Tory paper was under the editorship of James Bruce, an able, genial, accomplished man (not unknown in literature, by his Classic Portraits' and 'Eminent Men of Aberdeenshire '), and while the rival papers were in deadly hostility the rival editors were boon companions, and would make merry at night over the virulent leaders of the morning in which they assailed each other, and sometimes they would secretly exchange editorial chairs, and assault their own papers with ferocity.

6

In the course of two years Russel, after an unsuccessful application for the editorship of a Glasgow paper, became editor of the 'Kilmarnock Chronicle,' newly started, and for six months he resided in that town, of which he had ever afterwards no very savoury recollections. During this time, also, he had been appointed by Mr. Duncan Maclaren to write leaders in an Anti-Corn Law newspaper, called The Chronicle,' at the rate of 50l. a year, and to attack with all his force the Protectionist party. This brought him into correspondence with the great League Council, and under the notice of Richard Cobden. Soon, however, a post was offered him which fulfilled his journalistic ambition. His writings in Cupar had attained more than local fame, and were sometimes quoted in influential papers throughout Scotland, and attracted the attention of the proprietors of the Scotsman.' In 1845 he was appointed sub-editor, while he was occasionally to act also as a reporter. Mr. Charles Maclaren, who was at that time the editor-in-chief, was the type of a hard-headed, sagacious, unhumorous Scotchman. He knew political economy as thoroughly as he did geology. His conscientious articles were written with great pains, and the sentences were so carefully rounded, that they immediately rolled off every reader's recollection; and he would examine a ridiculous town council

squabble with as much sobriety as he would a piece of Silurian strata. A joke he could in a manner see, but certainly he could not feel it; and he would laboriously turn it round and round, as if it were a curious specimen, and carefully examine it to see what was in it. For instance, someone having quoted from Candide' the incident which veraciously relates that every time Dr. Pangloss coughed he spat out a tooth, the editor, gravely calculating how few teeth man. has at his best estate, after a pause of serious rumination, very thoughtfully remarked, 'Well, he couldn't go on long at that rate.' Now, however, he had a colleague who was his opposite in everything except staunch Liberalism and steady accuracy, and he could only marvel mutely and awfully, as does a sedate hen that has hatched a duckling, at the exuberance of humour and the fertility of the resource of his sub-editor. In perfect astonishment he observed that his young man could joke on everything. Now,' added he, for my pairt I can joke, but then I joke with deeficulty.' By the end of the year, Mr. Maclaren ceased to act as editor, although he held the post formally till 1849, when he finally retired, owing to an honourable aversion at receiving credit for work he had not done.

We have been told by one who heard them that the last words of Lord Elgin on his deathbed were, 'I wonder what the "Times" will say of me,' and this anxiety assuredly did not arise from fear of what The Times' itself might say, but of what his country thought of him; for he knew well that what such a paper said to-day, society either had thought yesterday or would repeat to-morrow. People are apt to estimate very lightly the power of a Scotch paper in comparison with that of such great English contemporaries. In London there are so many able newspapers, all competing with each other, each speaking to some particular section of readers, and trying to neutralize the effect of the others, that no one journal is omnipotent. But in Scotland, where there was only one powerful representative Liberal paper, which had no Conservative rival of any force, which was read by men of both parties and of all ranks, its influence was enormous to shape political thought in every town and village in the country, and every class of the people. When Russel sat in the editor's chair, article after article came forth which surprised by its easy mastery of every political subject, and delighted by its easy humour; and as each morning's paper appeared eyes scanned eagerly the columns to see if there was another racy article out, and as they read the eyes brightened, the mouth relaxed into an expectant grin, and the grin widened into a broad laugh. Every wide political question was discussed with admirable pith and ingenuity; but what the ordinary people enjoyed most, we suspect, was often his 'admirable fooling,' and no country gives finer scope for it than Scotland, with its few important towns, its many self-important citizens. Public bodies, busy bodies, and presbyteries were invaluable to him, and after he had exhausted many a leader upon some foolish divine or eminent citizen, he knew that he would break out in fresh places

6

again, and afford scope for his Gargantuan mirth. There are pickings on him yet,' the editor would confidently say.

6

While Russel staunchly supported Whig measures and Whig leaders, he never felt it the duty of a journal which assumes a high place to be the mere mouthpiece of a party or the obsequious echo of a statesman. Never extreme in his views, he said that the present Lord Derby, if he only joined the Liberal side-a wish now fulfilledwould represent best his principles. Whenever an aggressive or retrogressive movement was on foot, he firmly set his foot upon it. He was too honest to justify measures which he deemed unjustifiable, whatever people might say, or however subscribers might murmur. Bravely and alone The Scotsman' ridiculed the alarms of Papal Aggression and condemned the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill of 1851, when even staid citizens lost their head, as much as fanatic Protestants, who, like those who take hay-fever the moment they smell grass, can never be expected to keep their senses when the faintest whiff of Pope is in the air.' Then in one day, by one post, a third of the subscribers gave up the paper-and that was no slight matter at a time when the subscribers were only a twelfth of the present number. In the course of his editorship he had many a hard fight to make in defence of his Whig principles. In his own town he was not always successful. In vain he tried to moderate the bitter bigotry which in the Anti-Maynooth agitation led to Macaulay's rejection in Edinburgh; in vain he tried to hush the anti-papal outcry which led to the abortive Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; in vain he opposed the petty Radical cliques which caused nobodies to be sent to represent the Scottish capital in Parliament; single-handed he fought when in 1854 Macaulay retired, and fortunately Adam Black was returned. In 1868 we find him anxious to get a man of mark to stand for the city. He asked Dickens, but in October Dickens wrote: My conviction that I am more useful and happy as I am than I would be in Parliament, is not to be shaken. There is no man in Scotland from whom I would consider this suggestion a greater honour.' And months before-in July-Russel had been in correspondence with Sir Henry L. Bulwer, who consented at his request to stand if there was any chance of success. But though not omnipotent in Edinburgh, his influence was immense throughout the country. When Sir W. Harcourt swooped down upon the Kirkcaldy burghs to oust in 1858 the old Whig member, The Scotsman' attacked him with unequalled energy and persistency day by day. Harcourt rejoined as day by day Russel assailed him, and no terms were measured, no love was lost. It is well known how a criticism on Mr. Duncan Maclaren, M.P., caused an action of libel in 1856, resulting in damages of 400l. against The Scotsman.' 'Very hard,' as Russel would plaintively remark, for only quoting what somebody else had said.' Libelled for having likened a respectable M.P. to a snake,' the editor said, in a very rare pun, referring to his opponent's arithmetical skill, "if he is not a snake, no one can deny at least that he is a remarkNo. 609 (No. cxxix. n. s.)

6

6

X

able adder.' Muleted in damages for the freedom of his pen, Russel retained through all this matter the sympathy of the public, and four years after, a handsome testimonial was presented to him for his unsurpassed services to the Liberal cause. In ecclesiastical questions the same impartial love of fairness and freedom was shown. Evangelical, Ritualist, Broad Churchman, Gorham, Bennett, Colenso in England, Dr. Robert Lee in Scotland, had each and all toleration demanded for them; and it mattered nothing to him that after some bold article, next morning's post brought letters from indignant subscribers, saying, 'Sir, be good enough to cease sending me your paper from this date.'

6

When Mr. Russel joined 'The Scotsman' it came out twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday; and only when the newspaper stamp duty was abolished, in 1855, did it come out daily, and even then at first in the modest dimensions of a moderate-sized pocket-handkerchief. In the old bi-weekly times it was comparatively easy work for a journalist. Then he could think out, read up, and talk over a subject, while an editor like Maclaren gravely tapped out geological specimens with his hammer, or Russel grew wild over curling; and when he had written on it, two days at least would pass before fresh news would arrive to cruelly overturn, like a castle of cards, every ingeniously constructed theory. Mr. Russel illustrated the contrast between present days of hurry and the leisurely times when news jolted laboriously along at ten miles an hour by post, by the little incident of a clerk in The Scotsman' office in London being locked out, and unable by his knocking to rouse the sleeping clerk within. In a minute he wires to the office in Edinburgh, requesting a telegram to be sent to the office in Fleet Street, to bid the slumbering clerk let him in. Quickly the telegram comes, and the tinkle of the bell opens the sleeper's eyes, and he reads the message, 'Open the door. While all-important news took days to travel when Russel began work, long before he ends it a message travels 900 miles in a few minutes on the insignificant errand of directing that a door be opened, while the man hardly leaves the door-step till it is done. And yet he considered that the average articles of to-day are quite as good as in the deliberate days of old. Albany Fonblanque wrote two short leaders a week for the Examiner,' and found his strength exhausted, and needed his two or three months of autumn yachting to recruit; but the modern journalist, who has six articles a week, at least, to write, works at high pressure. He cannot elaborate, and often is in consequence all the more successful. The points that strike the editor's mind to-night are just those which will convince the citizen's mind to-morrow; the arguments which come soonest into his head are exactly those which will most readily enter into other people's. No doubt leaders, which, like rolls, must come piping hot to breakfast, get a little stale by keeping; but they form that daily bread which nourishes wonderfully the political system of the people.

Russel for many years had to go off to his office every night,

and returned about three or four o'clock in the morning, after seeing the paper through the press. Sometimes he wrote three articles a day, and, if in the spirit, would do them with great rapidity. Two books he had always by his side-a concordance to Shakespeare and a concordance to the Bible, both of which he knew astonishingly well. When in conversation as to any acrostic a Scriptural light' was needed, he was sure to find it. If he was wont to startle reverent natures by the audacity with which he couched his humour in biblical phrase, and shocked even still more some Presbyterian souls by his irreverence in using the quaint language of the Shorter Catechism, he after all meant no harm. Indeed the articles which annoyed some prudish minds most, we suspect, he did not write. While often admiring friends would say or write to him that they were glad to recognise his fine Roman hand at last'-he having written without intermission for months; at other times they would pleasantly say of an article he had never touched, 'One of the best things you ever did, Russel.' Of course on these trying occasions he looked in answer with an air of simple bashfulness which confirmed them in their sagacious opinion, and gave them the satisfactory impression they had done and said a very kind thing.

6

While thus busy day and night in his editorial work, he had to correspond with and to be interviewed by political and local magnates from all quarters; not only Whig leaders to advise, but burghs in search of a candidate and candidates in search of a burgh; different classes, who besought him to find a class representative; and farmers, who came to him professing themselves indifferent as to political opinions, but wishing from him a member soond on hares and rabbits.' If an unknown candidate started for any place, he knew at once all his antecedents; or, if he did not at the moment recollect, up went his spectacles over his forehead, his features puckered with aggrieved perplexity, as he muttered, rubbing his bald head, Bless my soul! My memory must be going,' merely because he did not remember what it would be a marvel if any mortal knew ; then gradually his face would brighten as he called to mind some appearance or disappearance of the gentleman in question in rather equivocal circumstances, and with rather shady views, long years ago, in some obscure nook of the political world. On one occasion Lord John Russell was wondering in some company who a certain person was, when the editor reminded him that he had been one of his lordship's own secretaries.

6

Besides these distractions, he found time for reading and for reviewing, for occasionally writing for the Edinburgh,' or the "Quarterly,' or for Blackwood.' Turning to one article in the Edinburgh' on 'The Highlands-Men, Sheep and Deer,' we find a very good example of his thorough and careful work, his curious versatility of illustration and argument, in the manner in which he exposes the outcry against depopulation raised by poets, theorists, sentimental uneconomists and politicians. The manner in which he begins must