One other case occurred during my conduct of the _Review_, which
similarly illustrated the effect of taking a prompt initiative. I
believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's _French
Revolution_, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in
the _Review_. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace
critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had
time to pre-occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and
published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions
of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves.
Neither in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the
impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any
particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one of the cases (the
article on Carlyle) I do not think the execution was good. And in both
instances, I am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, who
had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made
any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would have produced
the same effect. But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting
a new life into Radical politics by means of the _Review_, I am glad to
look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do
mediate service to things and persons that deserved it. After the last
hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared, it was time
for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money which the
_Review_ cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as
a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of
my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner
from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the
general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles,
but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the _Dissertations_)
which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In
the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I
pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his
philosophy. The substance of this criticism _I_ still think perfectly
just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at
that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument
of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its
work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing
more harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when a
counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is good in
Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this criticism of its
defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by vindications of the
fundamental principles of Bentham's philosophy, which are reprinted
along with it in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I
attempted to characterize the European reaction against the negative