The Express.
London, England, 1850-04-22 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Fourth Estate. Contrthittione totomk a Hietori
Newspapers, sad of the Ltberty of the Prat By P.
ILNICIET HUNT. 2 vols. Baguio.
Why the press is called " The Fourth Fatale," is a
matter on which we believe a good deal of popular •
misapprehension prevails, at least so far as repel
the powers with which it is thus placed on a par. In
the debate on Friday night Mr. Disraeli took occasion
to administer a web-merited rebuke to the Australian
committee for their bunglinfrabout the three estates.
It certainly might have beenexpeeted that membered-.
the home would have known better. Bat the serer
which makes the sovereign one of the three estates is •
very common. Mr. Disraeli defined an " abets" is. •
this eases, to be " a class of subjects invested with
political power.." Had he, betted or political said
" politico-legislative," his definition would have been
more precise; and he propriety of adding the press,
to the lords spiritual, lords temporal, • and commons,
would follow as a matter of doom. All theme classes
of the people, exercise de jure and de facto phi ioo-
legislative fenetiora ; sun there is no other class,
however influential in other respects, of wham the •
mine can be predicated.

What were the precise views of so subtle cad pro.
found a politician as Burke, when he first applied the
term "Fourth Berate" to the rising power which he
had done so much to educate and to elevate, is more •
than we should like to vouch for. It may have been
an accidental expression, caught up and remembered'
for its happiness, end invested witn a currency which
he did not anticipate for it. Or it may have
been the utterance on his part of a conviction lung en-
tertained and meditated 00. Technically and philo-
sophically, the phrase might be caviled at. Some
people argue that there must be three estates in a
rearm, and that there cannot by possibility be more.
And them who look on the Press as the church mili-
tant of modern times would concur in this, and re-
garding the bishops as nullities, consider them as re-
placed in the triple arrangement by the uoconsai
crated but all-persuasive hierarchy of the broadsheet.
In a popular sense, nothing could be hap.
pier than Burke's expression ; though we are not
sure that he would be much gratified It he could come
to life now, and behold to what • formidable extent
his prophecy has been verified.
That no popular compendium—indeed no history in
any shape—existed of the rise, progress, and present
condition of a power so influential for good and evil,
has long been a matter of surprise among literary.
men. Yet when none of the toarth estate themselves
stepped forward to remedy this deficiency, it could
scar rely be expected that others should take in hand to
celebrate the rise of • power, whose wide-spread and
ever-increasing influences must naturally excite deep
jealousies and misgivings In those who represent or
adhere to the authorities which it threatens to dis-
place. Not only are all who dread the influence, or
mistrust the good sense of the peeple, hoeile to the
pretensions of the press ; but purely literary men, not
wedded to extreme opinions on any side, look with a
certain coldness on all displays of its power.
It war, therefore,
altogether a happy thought of
Mr. Hunt to break the ice in this direction. Even
were his volumes less interesting and dens ably exe-
cuted than they are, he would deserve high credit,
and merit the especial thanks of his brethren of the
press for having set them the example of doing for
themselves what others appeared unwilling to do for
them. In fact, by none other would the work be
done as it ought. None bet those who have had a prac-
tical experience of the working of this mighty power
can adequately appreciate its importance, its charac-
ter, the boundaries placed by nature to its uses and
its abuses, and above all the difficulties that had to be
overcome by those who have brought it to i:s preterit
prosperous state. Powerful as the press is in its
proper sphere, there are many of men's aims to the
furtherance of which it is almost useless to attempt to
app4: it. Recluses and enthusiasts are constantly
dreaming dreams of this kind, and forming projects of
working miracles by the aid of the press, to which,
when they come to make the experiment,ttev find that
somehow or other it refuses cordially to lend itself.
And men of the same or of a cognate character, con-
templating its features in their closets, apart from the
throng and tumult in which it " moves, and breathes,
and has its being," are prone to exaggerate both its
merits and its detects, and assign to it quite a dif-
ferent share in the development of man's destinies
from that which it has actually played.
The peculiar lecture of this, the so-called fourth
estate of constitutional realms, as developed in this
nineteenth century, is, that it unites two functions,
both tolerably ancient and highly respectable in
themselves, but which had not previously, unless
under peculiar circumstances, been exercised in con-
cert, i. e., the receding of public events, and the
criticism of them. Previously to the eighteenth
century the former of these functions belonged
principally to the news-writer, scriptorial or typo-
graphical, and the latter to the pamphleteer. During
the greater part of the last century, though
what had been the special province of the pamphlet
was invaded by the newspaper, the former yet pre-
served mach of its circulation and authority. Now,
no one, who has any sense, writes a pamphlet, unless
debarred by one circums once or another, from ex-
pressing his opinions through some organ of the
press ; and even the Reviews, which were at first, in
essence and intention, joint stock issues of pamphlets,
and succeeded to much of their authority, are now
forestalled on all subjec's of high and pressing
interest by the daily or weekly press. It is
this fusion of powers hitherto shared among two or
three separate and often rival influents, that, in our
opinion, constitutes the importance and marks the
mature development of what is called the fourth estate.
The various professions which have thus merged
in the modern newspaper are probably much
more ancient, and have been much more uni-
versally diffused, than is commonly imagined.
What we call news must have been from the
earliest period that political society was constituted
• commodity of such value, that it is difficult to con-
ceive Low the statesman, whether king or demagogue,
could get cn without • regular supply of it. And
the regularity of the supply once substantiated, the
supplier of course assumes a protessio::al oharetter.
Nor is it the statesman alone who cannot do without
,
, news. Social news has its value as well as
- .
political. In fact, there is no state of society
' that has not had its newsman under one
shape or another. The bigger, the story-teller, the
minstrel, the pedlar, have been ever the newsmen of
primitive, pesters' or agricultural communities. The
physician and the priest have also performed this func-
tion among many others which from time to time
they have had occasion to practise. As Dor kings and
statesmen, they have always had their spies and
scouts of great or lesser note. Doubtless Nimrod and
Sesastris took as much care to obtain accurate know-
ledge of all that was going on as Pitt or Buonaparte ;
and had, we dare say, just as natural • liking fur
scandal that did not concern them.
... . . .

-
The mention of mighty politicians like these brings
us directly to the class from which, in our opinion,
the fourth estate has sprung, and to many of whose
most important functions it has practically succeeded.
The bulletins (efiurna), which appear to have been
regularly issued by the government of the Roman
empire, or under its patronage, are generally taken
to be the earliest example of published news; the pri-
sate news-letters of the 17th oentury,wheee trenference
from manuscript to print is the perneemn *aliens of
the modern newspaper, had likewise its precedents in
ancient Rome; of which, if we mistake not, two or
three examples, i, e., letters of news, written to hint
by persons specially employed for the purpose,—are
preserved among the correspondence of Cicero. Such
is the most ancient paternity generally claimed for
the newswriter. But for our parr, wo look
upon the private dealers in news-letters of
either ancient or modern times as of
secondary importance to the powerful clime
whom we take to be the true predecessors in power,
in usefulness, and in authenticity, of that which now
boasts to be a fourth estate of the realm—we mean
the diplomatic body. Not only before the invention
of printing, but long after, down to the compa►atively
recent period when authentic news could be found in
newspapers, it was the principal business of the am-
bassador to write a regular daily chronicle of every-
thing that occurred in the state to which he
was deputed, and on the fidelity and weight
of their reports have all the great operations
of ancient and modern history depended. What a
host of talent was enlisted in this department in mo-
dern times, and with what tact and talent the duty
was performed, the archives of many realms soli.
ciently attest, and the use made of them by the his-
torians of our day have made popularly known. Now-
a-days the statesman owes his knowledge of public