THE SERIAL LITERATURE OF ENGLAND.
Considering the number of periodicals at present published in Great Britain, the extent of their aggregate circulation, and the range and variety of topics discussed in their pages, their effect on the public mind of that country for good or evil can scarcely be overestimated. A magazine holds a middle place between the legitimate literature of books and the ephemeral and generally ill-digested effusions of newspapers, and appeals, especially to the middle classes, as it were, in science, taste, and art. Business men who have not time to read long histories or elaborately compiled scientific works, and indolent ones who have not industry enough to do so, seek information or pleasure in perusing their periodicals, while the traveller as he is hurried along over the ocean or the railroad, and the overwrought student as he closes his ponderous folio or lays aside his pen, alike find recreation and relief in the lighter and more mirthful contributions which, judiciously dispersed, usually grace the pages of our monthly and semi-monthly press. Books, too, of late have accumulated to such a fearful extent that the bibliographer finds it impossible to read even a moiety of them to ascertain their value, and so is forced to form his opinion of them second-hand by accepting the dicta of the industrious reviewer, whose decision, when judiciously and intelligently given, thus becomes of the utmost benefit to authors and readers.
Of late years the number and variety of English magazines have greatly increased, and we presume the patronage bestowed on them has kept pace with their growth. We would be glad to be in a position to say that, in liberality of spirit, fairness and originality, the improvement is equally apparent; but such is not the case, and in this respect forms a marked contrast to the progress which distinguishes a similar class of publications in this and some European countries. Propriety of expression and artistic construction of sentences, which have always characterized the composition of English writers, even of second or third order of ability, remain, but much of the force, mental grasp, and wide range of view, as well as profound and exact knowledge, which once distinguished their criticisms and essays, are wanting. We are aware that the generation of able men whose genius once illuminated the columns of Blackwood, Fraser, Household Words, etc., has passed away; but why have they left us no literary heirs, no worthy successors, to fill their places and wield their trenchant pens? Has the English mind deteriorated, or is it that English public taste has become so corrupted by the unwholesome sweets of the Trollopes, the Braddons, and like sensationalists, that it rejects the salutary food presented it by more serious and natural writers? We can hardly believe that this latter is the efficient cause; for before the era of Griffin, Dickens, Thackeray, Lever, and many other favorite authors, several of whose admirable novels and essays first reached the public through the magazines, the taste of the masses was even more vitiated by the romances of the last century, hundreds of which were sure to be found on the shelves of every circulating library in the country. Neither can we properly attribute this "dearth of fame" to a want of adequate pecuniary reward; for we are assured that encouragement in this respect is sufficiently ample, and, compared with that of a generation ago, might be called munificent. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that there is an actual present deficiency of mentality among the majority of English writers—another indication, perhaps, of that decay of the Anglo-Saxon race, so-called, in England which has been so long and so pertinaciously asserted by her rivals. It is certainly true that the spirit of money-getting is more and more engrossing the attention of the people; and, while other and younger nations, like Russia, Germany, and the United States, are rapidly growing into immense proportions, both artistic and literary as well as politically, England, wrapped up mentally in her own self-conceit, as she is geographically shackled by the four seas, is sinking into comparative provincialism.
The tone and temper of her writers when treating foreign subjects, we submit, amply prove this, were all other evidence wanting. Their views of the affairs of other nations lack fairness, amplitude, and, not unfrequently, truthfulness, and always seem like those of men who look upon the broad outer world through the wrong end of a spy-glass. Can anything be more unjust than the following passage, which we find en passant in an article on France in the May number of Blackwood?
"There is, however, one cause of hopelessness as regards France, and for the life of me I do not see how it is to be encountered. Here are the people who not only asserted that they were the politest and most civilized, but the bravest and boldest in Europe, now exhibiting themselves not only as utterly degraded and debased, but actually as destitute of courage as of morals."
Apart from the want of generosity exhibited by the writer above in thus ungraciously stigmatizing an unfortunate ally, his estimate of her condition is exceedingly unfair, and, as he professes in the article to have been a frequent visitor to her shores in bygone days, we must attribute his obliquity to something else than ignorance. In her recent struggle, France showed nothing like cowardice; but, on the contrary, her children, veterans and recruits, exhibited a courage and heroism worthy of her proudest days of military glory. Her signal and rapid overthrow was due to other causes than the want of bravery of her soldiers. Within the space of about two hundred days, her badly organized, poorly equipped, and generally indifferently commanded troops fought seventeen pitched battles and one hundred and sixty-five general engagements against three-quarters of a million of the best disciplined troops in Europe. Of the merits of the quarrel we have nothing to say, but we feel assured that the troops of Kaiser William would feel little complimented at being told that their splendid victories were gained over a demoralized and cowardly nation. As to France being destitute of morals, the contrary is the fact. It is true that Paris, like London and other large centres of population, contains much that is immoral and unholy; but Paris is no longer France, and those best acquainted with the whole country allege that religion was never more securely enthroned in the hearts of the people, nor her ministers so much respected, as at the present moment.
American questions are treated by our transatlantic contemporaries in a manner somewhat different. Occasionally they speak of us in impartial and even complimentary terms, but generally in a vein of lofty patronage, such as an indulgent and much-enduring father might be supposed to use to his erring but not altogether godless offspring. If we exhibit a leaning toward Russia, we are forthwith admonished to beware of encouraging despotism; if we recall our ancient friendship with France, we are likely to be reminded that with England we are the same in language, blood, and religion; but, if there is a treaty favorable to the "mother-country" to be concocted, or a European coalition adverse to the interests of our mother aforesaid apprehended, Shakespeare, Milton, and Newton are resurrected and become our joint inheritance, and Great Britain and the United States are instantly declared to be two, and the only two, "free governments in the universe" having a common interest and a common destiny. Occasionally this maternal surveillance is varied by an allusion to our social or topographical peculiarities, really ludicrous from its very absurdity, while it shows, with all this assumption of superiority, how very inaccurate is the knowledge of our kind relations. In a late article on the destruction of the ancient forests, a writer in the Fortnightly Review gravely protests against "the further destruction of scenery unique in Great Britain, and, if represented in America at all, but imperfectly represented by the oak openings of Michigan." Now, if an American were to talk of the extensive prairies of Caermarthenshire or the picturesque mountains of Kent, his ignorance of the physical peculiarities of even those small subdivisions would be apt to evoke the severe censure of our London critics.
Again, in their reviews of American works, the English magazines, whether through design or from want of knowing better, usually fall into serious error in respect to the constituent elements of our population. They affect to regard the American mind simply as a mere emanation of that of England, weakened, it is true, by time and distance, but still worthy of some consideration. How such a patent fallacy can be tolerated in that country, our nearest European neighbor as we are her best customer, is incomprehensible. We have, it is true, generally adopted what was good in her civil polity at the time of the Revolution, and the majority of us speak her language as our native tongue; but we are no more English than we are German, Irish, French, or Spanish in our origin, temperament, habits of thought, or development of genius. We are all these combined, as well as something more which only the free spirit of a republic can call into being, and, if modesty would permit us, we could say with truthfulness that there is contained within that word "American" all the best elements of every European race. The latest instance of this self-deception we recently noticed in Saint Paul's Magazine, in what was otherwise a very excellent notice of Hawthorne's works.
But America has the advantage of the practical arguments of material prosperity and rapidly developing æsthetic tastes on her side, and is fast becoming indifferent to adverse criticism. With less fortunate countries, like Ireland, for instance, the case is altogether different. The English magazine writers, when at a loss for an illustration or "an awful example," never hesitate to draw on the history or pretended history of the sister kingdom for the required materials. We have before us some dozen periodicals published in London and Edinburgh, the majority of the articles in which are either on Irish topics or contain allusions to the affairs of that unfortunate and misgoverned people, and that, too, as it may be supposed, in no very partial or eulogistic terms. This unrelenting hostility to a weak nation, while it may do very well for placemen and land-agents who live by the griefs and afflictions of others, is unworthy the chivalrous spirit which should distinguish the true knight of the quill. We fear, however, that Burke's saying with regard to the chivalry of the middle ages is equally applicable to our own times, and that the free lances of the English metropolis, who will fight in any and every cause, are more in demand than the earnest searchers after truth and the honest correctors of public morals.