The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-20 00:00:00

Soma Oderous Comparisons.

That respectable newspaper, the Evening Post, has re-
cently taken occasion to print some rather discourteous
observations about the Round Table, among which, in one
instance, after using some adjectives, whose application
must of necessity react upon their writer, it is affirmed
that the Round Table is not "as good " as the first class
literary weeklies of similar aims which aro published in
London ; not as good, to be explicit, as the Athentruin or
the Saturday Review. Now the principle which seems to
guide so many cotemporaneous journals in respect to the
eternal veracities is none of ours, and there are plenty of
journals, as it is hardly needful to say, whose aspersions
of whatever sort we shall always think it unnecessary to
notice. The Evening Post has the deserved reputation of
being, in general, no temperate and fair minded, as well as
so dignified a sheet, that for once, and in connection with
its late observations, we propose to make an exception to
our usual practice so far as to indulge in a few sentences
in reply. With these preliminary explanations, wo beg
simply to acknowledge that the Evening Post is quite right.
The Round Table is not in all respects so good a periodical
as the Saturday Review. Our cotemporary is perfectly
right; but he has not said enough. He should have added
that America is not so old a country as England, that New'
York does not contain so many people as London, that the
Houses of Parliament are larger than our city hall, that
our Trinity cannot hold a candle to Westminster Abbey,
and that neither the Evening Post nor any other paper
published in Israw York is as good a paper as the London
Times. Since frankness is in vogue, pray let us have
enough of it. Let the jewel of fair play be occasionally
heard of, even in the amenities of newspaper discussion.
We have not the slightest hesitancy iu admitting that with
all our earnest and unremitting exertions we have not, in
the course of a twelvemonth, in a community where such
undertakings have always hitherto proved failures, suc-
ceeded in making a better literary and critical weekly than
ono which has been established for many years in a highly
appreciative and ancient community, and ono which is, in
some particulars, not only the best of its class in the word,n
but probably the best which the world has ever yet seen.
To claim that we have reached the -acme of
tThaahtlet hiesr ei
ni is nothingvery l
it—and mean to make it —would be as
t
vain
as
not for a rabble
possibletfor r e respect et to achieve,
at vthatnbusP:onhlrredl
lanv‘j-7
write for intelligent and educated peoplo,n!
affectation in
of muddle-headed and half-tipsy boors, and 3
for the chamber-
We leave for certain of the dailies
finndeld of ridiculous misi-t
maid and grog-shop weeklies the Lions
and :Leh ve
.n
representations as to their
P*()sintly shine, and ono wderet,
'land unprofitable.
PeorencepTitFieiwc:oh
ttohez.eaiNr
is one in which the
object, as wo claim thepr
spoken about ourselves.
tin
we have no desire tyo
others, to have the truth etliitelletrrutoh
As
ef
d flail with the Post for prinh.
tf;
aforesaid,
rit too illiberal to be worthy of
d and ill-natured, of put-
-ions wnys, goo
fault that it prints too it e
theit. Thorn
,O.endsvo;ninwoot (filo" fi 11.1.1
may be very salutary,
el invidious. he Evening Post, we
ttiritilgt ha,
ca,tnnndptliitraitnnlint.tl.e,sinunahspat
thing
or it may be excessively
halting
off in an exhaustive com-
don Times, or even, as might be more
• comparison wi tl the Standard or the
hale'
Mall m
repeat,
But we should be sorry to push such a'
Mall Gazette.
frtrison
an ungenerous spirit. Taro situation is different,
might
the come
n
there are plenty of excellent reasons
the countries uintries aro different, the tastes of society are
why the E; ivnenifingnekst should be as deserving, or more de-
serving, in being what it IS than either of the papers last
named in being what they are. That it has exerted a
generally healthful and progressive influence upon the
community, it is but common honesty to admit. We know
not, indeed, how in the last five years the Evening Post
could have been spared and the country'yet stand where
it is. Yet it certainly is not a perfect newspaper. It is
prone to be dull and didactic. It permits itself to indulge
in prejudice, which are the reverse of cosmopolitan. It is
a trifle too timid at times, both in squarely praising what
is good and squarely denouncing what is bad. It is a
little too apt to allow trivial matters of personal taste or
distaste to cloud its sense of justice respecting obnoxious
nations, persons, or things. But, apart from these
criticisms, which are, of course, matters of individual opi-
, nion, there is no journal in the country which ought to
I be more ready to aid the aucoess of a paper with each aims