The public, meanwhile, began at once to exercise that censorship which is a somewhat whimsical but very substantial witness to the value of an enterprise which is only technically private. The Lowell Institute, for example, is on a foundation so exclusively personal that there is not even a nominal board of trustees to be consulted in its management: the courses of lectures which it offers are absolutely free; yet ever since its establishment it has been subjected to criticism, good or ill natured, which would seem to imply some indefeasible right on the part of the public that criticises. Really, the criticism is simply an ingenuous expression of the profound interest which the public takes in a noble trust. Somewhat in the same way when the _Atlantic_ was established, the public refused to regard it as offering wares which people might buy or not as they liked. It recognized it as a literary organon, as a power for good or ill; it was immensely interested in it, and showed its interest by attacking it severely on occasions. Such an occasion, especially, was the appearance of Dr. Holmes’s “Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” in which this writer, who had leaped into popularity through the “Autocrat,” delivered himself of opinions and judgments which were regarded by a good many as dangerous and subversive, all the more dangerous by reason of their wit and entertaining qualities. If one could believe many of the newspapers, Dr. Holmes was a sort of reincarnation of Voltaire, who stood for the most audacious enemy of Christianity in modern times. Some intimation of what Lowell was to encounter as editor may be gathered from a few words in a letter to T. W. Higginson, written at the end of his first year, when “The Autocrat” had already drawn the fire of one class of critic. “I only look upon my duty,” he says, “as a vicarious one for Phillips and Sampson, that nothing may go in (before we are firm on our feet) that helps the ‘religious’ press in their warfare on us. Presently we shall be even with them, and have a _free_ magazine in its true sense. I never allow any personal notion of mine to interfere, except in cases of obvious obscurity, bad taste, or bad grammar.” And Mr. Norton prints[123] a letter written shortly after to Dr. Holmes, which shows clearly the cordial support which the editor gave his contributor.