‘Coming Reviews cast their shadows before!’
We cannot condescend to enumerate them. Before we quit this part of our subject, we must add, that Scotland boasts but one original newspaper, the Scotsman, and that newspaper but one subject—Political Economy.—The Editor, however, may be said to be king of it!
Of the Magazines, which are a sort of cater-cousins to ourselves, we would wish to speak with tenderness and respect. There is the Gentleman’s Magazine, at one extremity of the series, and Mr. Blackwood’s at the other—and between these there is the European, which is all abroad,—and the Lady’s, which is all at home,—and the London, and the Monthly, and the New Monthly—nay, hold; for if all their names were to be written down, one Article or one Number would hardly contain them—so many of them are there, and such antipathy do they hold to each other! For the Gentleman’s Magazine we profess an affection. We like the name, we like the title of the Editor, (Mr. Sylvanus Urban—what a rustic civility is there in it!)—we like the frontispiece of St. John’s Gate—a well-preserved piece of useless antiquity, an emblem of the work—we like the table of contents, which promises no more than it performs. There we are sure of finding the last lingering remains of a former age, with the embryo production of the new—some nine days wonder, some forlorn Hic jacet—all that is forgotten, or soon to be so—an alligator stuffed, a mermaid, an Egyptian mummy—South-sea inventions, or the last improvement on the spinning-jenny—an epitaph in Pancras Church-yard, the head of Memnon, Lord Byron’s Farewell, a Charade by a Young Lady, and Dr. Johnson’s dispute with Osborn the bookseller! Oh! happy mixture of indolence and study, of order and disorder! Who, with the Gentleman’s Magazine held carelessly in his hand, has not passed minutes, hours, days, in lackadaisical triumph over ennui! Who has not taken it up on parlour window-seats? Who has not ran it slightly through in reading-rooms? If it has its faults, they are those of an agreeable old age; and we could almost wish some ill to those who can say any harm of it.
The Monthly Magazine was originally an improvement on the Gentleman’s, and the model on which succeeding ones have been formed. It was a literary Miscellany, variously and ably supported—a sort of repository for the leading topics of conversation of the day; but it has of late degenerated into a register of patents, and an account of the proprietor’s philosophy of the universe, in answer to Sir Isaac Newton! Other publications have succeeded to it, and prevailed. Which of these is the best, the London or the New Monthly? We are not the Œdipus to solve this riddle; and indeed it might be difficult, for we believe many of the writers are the same in each. But both contain articles, we will be bold to say, in the form of Essays, Theatrical Criticism, Jeux-d’esprit, which may be considered as the flower and cream of periodical literature. To those who judge of books in the lump, by the cubic contents, the binding, or the letters on the back, and who think that all that is conveyed between blue or yellow or orange-tawny covers, must be vain and light as the leaves that flutter round it, we would remark, that many of these fugitive, unowned productions, have been collected, and met with no unfavourable reception, in solid octavo or compact duodecimo. Are there not the quaint and grave subtleties of Elia, the extreme paradoxes of the author of Table Talk, the Confessions of an Opium-eater, the copious tales of Traditional Literature, all from one Magazine? We believe, the agreeable lucubrations of Mr. Geoffrey Crayon also first ventured to meet the public eye in an obscure publication of the same sort—
‘With a blush,
Modest as morning, when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phœbus!’
To say truth, some such ordeal seems almost necessary as a passport to literary reputation. The public like to taste works in the sample, before they swallow them whole. If in the two leading Magazines just alluded to, we do not meet with any great fund of anecdote, with much dramatic display of character, with the same number of successful experiments in the world of letters as at an earlier period of our history, yet the reader may perhaps think the want of these in a great measure compensated by a better sustained tone of general reflection, of mild sentiment, and liberal taste; which we hold, in spite of some strong exceptions, to be the true characteristics of the age. The fault of the London Magazine is, that it wants a sufficient unity of direction and purpose. There is no particular bias or governing spirit,—which neutralizes the interest. The articles seem thrown into the letter-box, and to come up like blanks or prizes in the lottery—all is in a confused, unconcocted state, like the materials of a rich plum-pudding before it has been well boiled. On the contrary, there may be said to be too much tampering with the management of the New Monthly, till the taste and spirit evaporate. A thing, by being overdone, stands a chance of being insipid—the fastidious may end in languor—the agreeable may cloy by repetition. The Editor, we are afraid, pets it too much,—and it is accordingly more remarkable for delicacy than robustness of constitution, and, by being faultless, loses some of its effect.
Over-refinement, however, cannot be charged as the failing of most of our periodical publications. Some are full of polemical orthodoxy—some of methodistical deliration—some inculcate servility, and others preach up sedition—some creep along in a series of dull truisms and stale moralities—while others, more ‘lively, audible, and full of vent,’ subsist on the great staple of falsehood and personality, and enjoy all the advantages that result from an entire contempt for the restraints of decency, consistency, or candour. There is no pretence, indeed, or concealment of the principles on which such works are conducted: and the reader feels almost as if he were admitted to look in on a club of thorough-going hack authors, in their moments of freedom and exaltation. There is plenty of slang-wit going, and some shrewd remark. The pipes and tobacco are laid on the table, with a set-out of oysters and whisky, and bludgeons and sword-sticks in the corner! A profane parody is recited, or a libel on an absent member—and songs are sung in mockery of their former friends and employers. From foul words they get to blows and broken heads; till, drunk with ribaldry, and stunned with noise, they proceed to throw open the windows and abuse the passengers in the street, for their want of religion, morals, and decorum! This is a modern and an enormous abuse, and requires to be corrected.
The illiberality of the Periodical Press is ‘the sin that most easily besets it.’ We have already accounted for this from the rank and importance it has assumed, which have made it a necessary engine in the hands of party. The abuse, however, has grown to a height that renders it desirable that it should be crushed, if it cannot be corrected; for it threatens to overlay, not only criticism and letters, but to root out all common honesty and common sense from works of the greatest excellence, upon large classes of society. All character, all decency, the plainest matters of fact, or deductions of reason, are made the sport of a nickname, an inuendo, or a bold and direct falsehood. The continuance of this nuisance rests not with the writers, but with the public; it is they that pamper it into the monster it is; and, in order to put an end to the traffic, the best way is to let them see a little what sort of thing it is which they encourage. Both of the extreme parties in the State, the Ultra-Whigs as well as the Ultra-Royalists, have occasionally trespassed on the borders of this enormity: But it is only the worst part of the Ministerial Press that has had the temptation, the hardihood, or the cowardice to make literature the mere tool and creature of party-spirit; and, in the sacredness of the cause in which it was embarked, to disregard entirely the profligacy of the means. It was pious and loyal to substitute abuse for argument, and private scandal for general argument. He who calumniated his neighbour was a friend to his country. If you could not reply to your opponent’s objections, you might caricature his person; if you were foiled by his wit or learning, you might recover your advantage by stabbing his character. The cry of ‘No Popery,’ or ‘the Constitution is in danger,’ was an answer to all cavils or scruples. Who would hesitate about the weapons he used to repel an attack on all that was dear and valuable in civil institutions? He who drew off the public attention from a popular statement, by alluding to a slip in the private history of an individual, did well; he who embodied a flying rumour as an undoubted fact, for the same laudable end, did better; and he who invented a palpable falsehood, did best of all. He discovered most invention, most zeal, and most boldness; and received the highest reward for the sacrifice of his time, character, and principle. If the jest took, it was gravely supported; if it was found out, it was well intended: To belie a Whig, a Jacobin, a Republican, or a Dissenter, was doing God and the king good service; at any rate, whether true or false, detected or not, the imputation left a stain behind it, and would be ever after coupled with the name of the individual, so as to disable him, and deter others from doing farther mischief. Knowledge, writing, the press was found to be the great engine that governed public opinion; and the scheme therefore was, to make it recoil upon itself, and act in a retrograde direction to its natural one. Prejudice and power had a provocation to this extreme and desperate mode of defence, in their instinctive jealousy of any opposition to their sentiments or will. They felt that reason was against them—and therefore it was necessary that they should be against reason,—they felt, too, that they could extend impunity to their agents and accomplices, whom they could easily screen from reprisals. Conscious that they were no match for modern philosophers and reformers in abstract reasoning, they paid off their dread of their talents and principles by a proportionable contempt for their persons, for which no epithets could be too mean or hateful. These were therefore poured out in profusion by their satellites. The nicknames, the cant phrases, too, were all in favour of existing institutions and opinions, and were easily devised in a contest where victory, not truth, was the object. The warfare was therefore turned into this channel from the first; and what passion dictated, a cunning and mercenary policy has continued. The Anti-Jacobin was one of the first that gave the alarm, that set up the war-whoop of reckless slander and vulgar abuse. Here is a specimen.