We have been looking pretty closely into the United Service
Journal, and have been very much gratified at discovering the quantity of activity and ability at work under its livid backs. We perceive that this vent for the military and naval officers, who are, ex °Pio, greater scribblers than attomies, will turn to admirable use. Military men are always drawing up papers, representations, aud formal memorials, and get into a great habit of composition : they are very methodical, and this serves them instead of Oxonian logic ; and they have generally something to write about, which is more interesting than Cambridge mathematics. As soon as any journal is considered and held to be an organized channel of commu- nication of any large and important branch or profession, it must necessarily be useful, and to a certain degree entertaining : for the great secret of interesting others, is to be interested yourself. But what profession or class can embrace such interesting subjects as the United Service? The hair-breadth escapes by land and sca- the chivalrous achievements of great-souled men—the deep reaches of an able tactician — the grand crises of war and battle the ebb and flow of an individual contest—these and ten thousand other • Principles or Political Economy, 2nd edition, pp.952 to 457. points make the Army and Navy service a most admirable. material and subject matter for a journal: but this is not all, nor half. We have an old opinion, that no merely mercenary maga- zine can ever succeed ; other and more powerful motives must im- pel than so much per sheet ; and for an Army and Navy journal, the unpaid and able contributors will be almost as numerous as the names in the Army-list. Hence success. . Here is an excep tion to the dictum, " every paid contributor is an ass." Granted —when he writes not for pelf, but for the paltry satisfaction of see- ing his own no:lsense in print ; but not when he has higher or othr motives titan Fay—such as interest in his service, original views, personal te:vent tires, new schemes.
The Fourteenth Number of the libreign Quarterly Review has appeared. The orbit of this periodical planet is a regular one; its quarterly phases give a steady light of considerable volume. The momentum is considerable ; the density we have not yet nicely calculated, but it appeal's not a little solid. There are several arti- cles of value—such as the luminous history of French Finance. We are quite honest in saying, that we hold this journal to be a model, in its spirit, its conduct, and its industry.
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