Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/266

222 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, severely and peremptorily exercised by an editor ' glowing with zeal — an editor always imbued since even the days of his boyhood with that eager spirit of journalism which instinctively seea in publicity a cure for all ills of State, and can scarcely cast eyes on the bloom of a newly- caught ' piece of intelligence ' without a passion- ate longing to seize and broach it whilst fresh. If the statements I already have made, and the passages I am going to quote, show delin- quencies on the part of the ' Times ' which few or none will defend, I may now trust that some apprehension of the qualities and temperament of Mr Delane, and of the task he had to perform will serve to shelter his memory from no small part of the blame which might otherwise attach to an editor who suffered the journal he guided to make pernicious disclosures, and failed to curb the excesses of which we are going to hear. To give the direction of the ' Times ' to Delane in the interest of the journal itself was to main- tain, and even increase its giant strength, to enhance its literary excellence, and to keep it closely, warmly in harmony with the opinion and the passions of the country ; but, to make 1dm also a censor, charged to watch on belialf of the State, and protect it against indiscretions committed by the journal he served, was to lay on him a task clashing stubbornly with the rest of his duties, and one against which his whole nature, reinforced by the effect of long training, would tend to make him rebel. [)autioii that Why the owners of the ' Times ' failed to