single heavy broadside; to adopt a better metaphor still, of a
regimental and professional soldiery rather than of single volunteer
champions. The _Letters of Junius_, which for some time past have been
gradually dropping from their former somewhat undue pride of place
(gained and kept as much by the factitious mystery of their origin as
by anything else) to a station more justly warranted, are no doubt
themselves pamphlets of a kind; but they are separated from pamphlets
proper not less by their contents than by their form and continuity.
The real difference is this, that the pamphlet, though often if not
always personal enough, should always and generally does affect at
least to discuss a general question of principle or policy, whereas
Junius is always personal first, and very generally last also. On the
other hand, Burke, whether his productions be called Speeches or
Letters, Thoughts or Reflections, is always a pamphleteer in heart and
soul, in form and matter. If the resemblance of his pamphlets to
speeches gives the force and fire, it is certain that the resemblance
of his speeches to pamphlets accounts for that 'dinner-bell' effect of
his which has puzzled some people and shocked others. Burke always
argued the point, if he only argued one side of it, and it is the
special as it is the saving grace of the pamphlet that it must, or at
least should, be an argument, and not merely an invective or an
innuendo, a sermon or a lampoon.

Sydney Smith belonged both to the old school and the new. He was both
pamphleteer and journalist; but he kept the form and even to some
extent the style of his pamphlets and his articles well apart. I may
seem likely to have some difficulty in admitting the claim of Cobbett
after disallowing that of Junius under the definition just given, but
I have no very great fear of being unable to making it good. Much as
Cobbett disliked persons, and crotchety as he was in his dislikes,