A more honourable class of men than those who form the majority of the London publishers does not exist, nor have the interests of Literature, as distinguished from commercial interests, ever found heartier and more ungrudging support, than they have long found in three or four of the leading firms, and as they are now finding in two or three of the firms which have been more recently established. But, unhappily, this is not everywhere the case. While the firms, to which I have referred, have never, in any way, attempted to interfere with the independence of reviewers, others have made no secret of their intention to make their patronage in advertisement dependent on favourable notices of their publications. The strain of temptation and peril to which editors are thus exposed may be estimated by the fact that, a flattering review may, if supplemented by similar ones, put some three hundred a year into the pockets of their proprietors, while severity and justice would involve a corresponding loss. It need hardly be said that no editor of a respectable review would allow any definite understanding of this kind to exist, or that any publisher would ever dare to suggest it, but there can be no doubt that such considerations have to be taken into account almost universally, and place serious restraint on freedom of judgment. There is, it is true, another aspect of this question. Publishers must protect themselves. Though reviews offend much more frequently on the side of dishonest and interested puffery, they are very often made the vehicles of equally unscrupulous rancour and spite. If they do their readers injustice, by attempting to foist bad books on them, they do every one concerned injustice, by damning good ones. No one could blame a publisher for declining to support a paper which was continually making his books the subjects of unmerited attacks. But a publisher who attempts to prevent the truth from being told, and so secures, or seeks to secure, currency for his spurious wares, is guilty of an act which borders closely on fraud. Another circumstance very favourable to the encouragement of inferiority, and not of inferiority only, but of charlatanism and imposture, is the increasing tendency to regard nothing of importance compared with the spirit of tolerance and charity. An all-embracing philanthropy exempts nothing from its protection. Every one must be good-natured. Severity, we are told, is quite out of fashion. Such censors as the old reviewers are now mere anachronisms. It is vain to plead that tolerance and charity must discriminate; that, like other virtues, they may be abused, and that in their abuse they may become immoral; that there are higher considerations than the feelings of individuals; and that, if to give pain or annoyance admits of no justification but necessity, necessity may exact their infliction as an exigent duty.