The Club Magazine. No. I. September.—Here is a new magazine,
compiled, we are told, by the "Amateur Authors' Club." The intro- duction is not particularly wise, but it makes one modest request which it is impossible to refuse. "You, respected public, will scarcely begrudga your active brethren any particular item of enjoyment, intellectual or otherwise, so at least that it be innocent in itself and harmless to you." If it is to be distinctly understood that this magazine is an "item of enjoyment" intended for tho "active brethren" who write it, and not for the public, no one has the right to make any objection, and the critic has nothing more to do than to offer a little friendly advice which may help to make the enjoyment as perfect of its kind as may be. As a whole, the number wants a backbone ; more than one of the articles is smartly written enough ; there is nothing that shows solidity or power ; the most serious, on Mr. Gladstone's "Chapter of Autobio- graphy," being especially weak. What can the writer be thinking of. when he says, "The ethics of religion and politics are not only different, but positively opposed; while the spirit of the one. is self-abasement, the spirit of the other is self-aggrandisement " ? There is a theory with which this statement would suit, but it is scarcely the theory which we should look for here. The best thing in the magazine is a "sporting sketch" called "My Bicycle." It is monstrously improbable that a man invalided by a hunting accident should take to bicycle-riding as a safe and gentle exercise; this absurdity apart, the little tale is written with much liveliness and graphic force. The editor must excuse us if we say that he is some- what tedious with his "classical romance." Classical romances are apt to be tedious, unless they are managed with great skill. And it is absolutely necessary that they should be scrupulously exact in all matters of spelling, &c., while the "hills of (Egosthena" and the " Aleagonitim Sea" have a barbarous smack about them.
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