Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/464

 382 . iv. NOV. n, UK NOTES AND QUERIES. THE JUBILEE OF 'THE SATURDAY REVIEW.' ON the 19th of March, 1855, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, submitted to the House of Commons his resolutions for the repeal of the com- pulsory stamp on newspapers. The, Times on the following morning vigorously de- nounced these, and characterized them as a measure for restricting the circulation of The Times, raising up an inferior and piratical Press, and sacrificing a revenue of 200,000^. a year :— " What the London papers have to expect is, that in the metropolis, and still more in the manufacturing districts, there will be published early in the day, and circulated by private hands, a cheap class of papers giving all the news ice believe to constitute our principal attraction, and to obtain which we spend immense sums of money." How groundless were these fears is now a matter of history. On June 15th, 1855, the Bill abolishing the compulsory stamp became law. The encouragement this freedom gave to new literary ventures was immediately shown. Among the most striking of these was the brilliant Saturday Review, its first number being published on the 3rd of November, 1855. The opening address stated :— "The immediate motive in coming before the public is furnished by the impetus given to periodical literature by the repeal of the Newspaper Stamp Act. The object of that measure is to enable those who assume the responsibility of pro- viding the public with accessible information or instruction, to do so without the cumbrous and expensive machinery hitherto inseparable from a newspaper The Press has, by the late change in the law, acquired freedom rather than cheapness, and of the benefits of the change the writers and proprietors of The Saturday Review desire to avail themselves." Its founder was Beresford Hope, with John Douglas Cook as editor. Cook had been editor of The Morning Chronicle since 1848, when the paper had been purchased by the Duke of Newcastle and others in the interests of the Peelites. Mr. Fox Bourne, in his 'English Newspapers,' describes it as being "a serviceable if a costly engine for the leading of the Peelites from the Conser- vatism from which they started to the Liberalism in which most of them found rest." Notwithstanding a brilliant staff of contributors, it steadily declined, and its sale dwindled to about 2,500, the loss being on the average from 10.000J. to 12.000/. a year. The Peelites got tired of this, sold it to Serjeant Glover for 1,5001., and Beresford Hope started The Saturday Review. Mr. Fox Bourne notes "that, as was proper to a continuator of The Morning Chronicle, it made it one of its special duties to oppose The Times on political grounds, and to overthrow, if it could, what it regarded is the monstrous monopoly of the overweening tyrant of Printing House Square." The prospectus which appears in the first number states that the paper " will give no news whatever, except in the way of illus- trative documents, and such facts as may be required to make its comments and criticism intelligible," and it will consist " entirely of leading articles, reviews, comments, and criticisms on the various parliamentary, social, and literary events of the day." The writers claimed to be regarded as advocates of " liberal and independent opinions." A foot-note states that the conductors " de- cline to receive books, prints, &c., gratuitously for review, as the limits of no periodical ad- mit of a proper notice of all new publications. The conductors will provide for themselves the works which they may select for criticism.' It is also stated that the publishing has been entrusted to John W. Parker & Sou, West Strand. Russia forms the subject of the first article in the first number, as it also does in that of the Jubilee issue. Another article is on ' Our Newspaper Institutions,' in which the writer considers that "no apology is necessary for assuming that this country is ruled by The Times. We all know it, or, if we do not know it, we ought to know it. H is high time we began to realize the magnificent spectacle afforded by British freedom—thirty mil- lions of Gives Romani governed despotically by » newspaper. Even the direct rivals of The Times in the daily press implicitly admit its autocracy As for the weekly newspapers, they have degenerated into the toadies of the great daily journal, and if there be one fpnn of this toadyism more ecstatic than another, it is that exhibited by the jokers oi the hebdomadal press." This article is referred to in the Jubilee number as " an amusing skit on The TimetT The varied contents of this first number include the failure of the bankers Strahan, Paul, and Bates, " a very triad of respecta- bilities," and Sir Charles Barry's " grandiose scheme" for completing the Palace of West- minster. His proposal to removeSt. Margaret's Church is strongly condemned, and Viollet le Due—" confessedly the great master of Gothic architecture in France "—is quoted as- having "expressed himself most strongly and undoubtiugly against the demolition,"' his argument being "that the church is needed to give scale to the Abbey." In * Heine, Poet and Humourist,' the dying poet i*