Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/151

 REVIEWERS AND REVIEWED.

these days of grace when all manner of evil-doers have their apologists; when we are bidden to admire the artistic spirit of Nero and the warm-hearted integrity of Henry the Eighth; when a "cult for Domitian" and a taste for Nihilists contend with each other in our estimation; it may not be ill-timed nor unduly venturesome to offer a few modest arguments in behalf of those Pariahs of modern literature, the anonymous reviewers of the press. They have been harshly abused for so many years. They have been targets for the wrath of authors, the scorn of satirists, the biting comments of injured genius. And now, when milder manners and gentler modes of speech are replacing the vigorous Billingsgate of our ancestors; when theologians and politicians make war upon one another with some show of charity and discretion, the reviewer alone is excluded from this semblance of good-will, the reviewer alone—a thing apart from