The Examiner began publication in early 1808. Leigh Hunt and his brother John were partners in and co-editors of the weekly paper. Leigh Hunt describes its name-choice in his Autobiography:

It was named after the Examiner of Swift and his brother Tories. I did not think of their politics. I thought only of their wit and fine writing, which, in my youthful confidence, I proposed to myself to emulate; and I could find no previous political journal equally qualified to be its godfather. Even Addison had called his opposition paper the Whig Examiner. (173)

The Examiner's politics were indeed far from Swift's; it was a radical, reformist journal that took aim at any target that smacked of hypocrisy, moral flabbiness, or otherwise abhorrent politics. Hunt's Autobiography is a curious document, for the vigor of Hunt's Examiner days seem to have left him and been replaced with something akin to remorse:

When I remember the virtue as well as knowledge which I demanded from everybody whom I had occasion to notice, and how much charity my own juvenile errors ought to have considered themselves in need of (however they might have been warranted by conventional allowance), I will not say I was a hypocrite in the odious sense of the word, for it was all done out of a spirit of foppery and "fine writing" and I never affected any formal virtues in private;--but when I consider all the nonsense and extravagance of those assumptions, all the harm they must have done me in discerning eyes, and all the reasonable amount of resentment which it was preparing for me with adversaries, I think what a simpleton I was, and how much of the consequences I deserved. It is out of no "ostentation of candour" that I make this confession. It is extremely painful to me. (174)

This is a far cry from the incredible rectitude that concluded their “Prospectus” in the first issue:

Above all, the New Paper shall not be disgraced by those abandoned hypocrites, whose greatest quackery is their denial of being quacks. Their vile indecency shall not gloat through the mask of philanthropy, sickness shall not be flattered into incurability, nor debauchery indulged to the last gasp by the promises of instant restoration. If the paper cannot be witty or profound, it shall at least never be profligate” (8)

The Examiner was witty, and, we believe, was at moments profound. As to its profligacy, we cannot be certain, but the Hunt brothers most certainly would not entertain it in any way in the objects of their writing.

We have chosen, as our object of study, The Examiner in the year of 1812. We chose this year because it was this year, in their March 22^nd issue, that the Hunts published “The Prince on St. Patrick’s Day.” It was for this article that the brothers were charged with libel, subsequently convicted, and sentenced to two years in prison.

We could have chosen a number of years using either intrinsic or extrinsic guides. On the intrinsic front, we may have pegged our year-choice to writers published in The Examiner (Keats and Hazlitt were both regular contributors by 1816), to literary battles that raged around the publication and, in particular its editor (see The Cockney School?), or, perhaps more obviously but no less simply, to the first year of The Examiner. If we chose instead to look to the “outside” of the publication, we may have chosen 1811 (the year the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent) or1815 (the end of the Napoleonic Wars). Of course, the notions of inside and outside are thornier than they at first appear, and regardless of which impulse at first appears to guide one’s choice it soon becomes clear that the two are inextricable. We perhaps naively thought at first that 1812 was a year in which these two “realms” seemed to intersect in a meaningful way. We chose an event, of sorts, and allowed that to help us make our choice. In retrospect, it is easy to question all of our impulses and assumptions, but if we are honest, that was our initial reason for choosing 1812.

Our project, then, was to produce an intensive study of The Examiner in the year of 1812—a kind of synchronic project that took one publication’s commentary on current events, artistic productions, and people as its object. To burrow into one year of one publication swiftly becomes a simultaneous process of moving outwards. While we have become perhaps too intimately acquainted with the year 1812, as represented in the pages of The Examiner, we have had to acknowledge 1812’s recalcitrance: it is still, in fundamental ways, unknown.

These observations are common enough, but they may work as a sort of preemptive apology. There are many aspects of The Examiner that we could not address. Each issue was (quite literally) crammed with text that was mashed into two columns of small type. We have not listed all (or even most) of the materials within the weekly. Much of the material in The Examiner was culled from the London Gazette and other periodicals as well as the proceedings of the House of Lords and of the House of Commons. A typical issue begins with a "Political Examiner," a lead article, usually written by Leigh Hunt. Next could come supporting materials for that lead article (reprinted speeches, culled reports, etc.). "Foreign Intelligence" is useally the next section, in which countries are usually listed with relevant news from other reports or from correspondents. Next comes "Provincial Intelligence" (news from beyond London) which is followed by reports onf the Imperial Parliament with subsections for both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, usully comprised of notes of the going's on in the week or transcriptions of speeches. A list of bankputcies is in every issue. "The Examiner" section is next. Like the "Political Examiner," it was usually penned by Leigh Hunt, and it is in this section that foreign affairs are discussed. This section is usually much shorter than the "Political Examiner," usually occupying no more than a column or a column and a half. Smaller news pieces with or without subject headings and letters are intermixed in the following pages. "The King's Illness" suceceds these; it offers an update on George III's state. Then, a "Fine Arts" or "Theatrical Examiner" (also often written by Leigh Hunt) would habitually follow, in which reviews are offered. Next comes the "Law" section which traces current cases, as does the next "Old Baily" section. Lastly, there are marriage and death listings. The contents for each issue shift; sections are added and taken away. More often than not, what at first appears to be a section is really a topic-heading, and it will be in place for only one issue. Each issue is 16  pages long, and positively brims with information. As the list above indicates, there is such a profusion of information in the pages of this journal, that to give each section full attention would be too Herculean a task given the purview of our project. This is due, in part, to the double nature of The Examiner. Like most newspapers, and, one could argue, any publication, it has the curious status of being both a historical document, in that one can glean a great deal of information about its times from it if for no other reason than because it is a product of those times, and also being a commentary on its own circumstances, circumstances it is reporting on. This double nature is particularly pronounced in The Examiner, which had a strong editorial mandate and posesses a curiously tight architechtonic structure.  The Examiner speaks to itself as often as it speaks to the politics and circumstances of its day; sections support other sections, infromation is chosen because it supports claims made in other sections, and so on. A full issue of the examiner is on our flickr site here.

A few comments on a couple of the neglected areas of the journal: letters, which appeared in most issues, are a curious object in The Examiner. Because of their tone and their pseudonymous or semi-anonymous authorship, it is difficult to determine if the Hunt brothers and their friends penned them, or if they were, indeed, submitted by readers.We do have some letters to the editor on the following subjects our flickr site:

brutality

foreigners

D. I. Eaton

D. I. Eaton

D. I. Eaton (continued from above)

and, my personal favorite, a letter from a friend of the Prince Regent's wig-maker on the Prince's grooming habits:

wigs

As well, we have not discussed “The Examiner” section of the paper, which, like the “Political Examiner” was frequently signed by Leigh Hunt. “The Examiner,” more than the “Political Examiner” dealt with foreign affairs, particularly the Peninsular War, Napoleon, and other continental issues. The war with the United States is strangely absent from both of this section, though it is discussed elsewhere in the journal.

The sections we do go into detail about are the “Political Examiner” and the “Theatrical Examiner.” As well, we have investigated the Hunt’s libel charge, libel in the early 19^th century, the semiotics of The Examiner, and The Examiner’s circulation. Our sidebar offers easy access to this information. May we suggest two links that give general sense of the year 1812: http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/18chome.htm http://english.ucsb.edu:591/rchrono/,   

To conclude our introduction, we offer Edmund Blunden’s brief chronology of the Hunts’s editorship of The Examiner:

1808, January. John and Leigh Hunt issue the “Examiner.”

1812, December. They are found guilty of a libel on the Prince Regent.

1813, Febuary. They are imprisoned.

1815, Febuary. Released. Subsequent decline of the fortunes of the “Examiner.” Its literary character much developed.

1821, November. Leigh Hunt sails for Italy. John Hunt again imprisoned for political libel—2 years.

1825, October. Leigh Hunt returns to London. His brother presumes him to have forfeited his rights to the “Examiner” editorship. Dispute and estrangement.

 (xi)

Works Cited.

Blunden, Edmunt. The Examiner Examined. London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1920.

Hunt, Leigh. The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. Ed. J. E. Morpurgo. London: Cresset Press, 1949.

"Prospectus." The Examiner. Ed. John and Leigh Hunt. 1.1: 6-8.