The Power Of The Thunderer

A great change had followed the reform bill, and the newspaper had improved as it became the organ of the middle class, which then rose to power. Delane of the Times had to be courted by the statesmen who had professed simple contempt for his predecessors, and in the fifties the influence of the paper had culminated till it was taken to be the authentic incarnation of public opinion. Kinglake gives a graphic (I do not say an authentic) account of the secret of the authority which enabled it to order the siege of Sevastopol. It employed, he declares, a shrewd, idle clergyman to frequent places of common resort and discover what was the obvious thought that was finding acceptance with the average man. The thought was then put as though it were the suggestion of ripe political philosophy, while the public so delicately flattered wondered at its own wisdom. - Sir Leslie Stephen in Atlantic.