One matter has been lately discussed which may serve as a starting-point for what I have to say. A French author who came the other day to observe our manners and customs, was impressed by the fact that so much of our writing is anonymous. The public, that is, reads without knowing who are its instructors, and the instructors write without incurring any definite personal responsibility. The problem is naturally suggested, whether such a system be not morally objectionable. Ought not a man who undertakes to speak as an authority let us know who he is, and therefore with what authority he speaks? The question could hardly be answered satisfactorily without some study of the facts; and especially of the way in which the system has grown up. I can only notice one or two obvious reflections. A century ago we boasted--and we had reason to boast--that the English Press was the freest in Europe. It was already a very important factor in political life. But at that period the profession of letters was still regarded as more or less disreputable. The great author--the poet, divine, or historian--was indeed fully as much respected as he is now; but to write for money or to write in periodicals was held to be not quite worthy of a gentleman. Byron, for example, refused to take money for his poetry, and taunted others for taking money, until so much money was offered to him that he swallowed his scruples. Burns, though as much in need of money, had shortly before refused to write for money; and Wordsworth held that his high calling imposed upon him the duty of rather repelling than seeking the popularity by which money is to be won. We have changed all this, and the greatest modern authors are less apt to disavow a desire for pay, than to complain that their pay is insufficient. The employment--it can hardly be called the profession--of periodical writing, again--the only kind of writing which could make literature a source of a regular income--was long regarded as a kind of poor relation of the respectable or so-called learned professions, clerical, legal, and medical. Jeffrey, whose fame now rests upon his position as the editor of _The Edinburgh Review_, was for a long time anxious to conceal his employment as not exactly creditable. In the year 1809 the benchers of Lincoln's Inn passed a resolution that no one should be called to the Bar who had written for money in a newspaper. Writers in newspapers since that time have frequently risen to the Bench, and have been not the least honoured of Cabinet Ministers. Yet the sentiment which involved a certain stigma has only disappeared in this generation. And the historical cause seems to be obvious. The newspaper Press had gradually grown up in spite of authority. It had first been persecuted, and writers had escaped persecution by consenting to be spies or dependants upon great men. Half the hack-authors aspired to subsidies from the secret-service