SOME OF THE PERIODICALS FOR JANUARY *

THE gradual decline of our periodical literature is a very common subject of complaint in literary circles in these days. Your fast man of letters finds no difficulty in proving that the march of in- tellect has become far too rapid for anything in the shape of a monthly or quarterly periodical. All the best talent, he will tell

you, is well to be engaged on the daily and weekly press : the result is, that every interesting topic has become threadbare before it can ?be taken up by the second-rate hands who arc em- ployed on the magazines and reviews. Looking at the question from an opposite point of view, the sexagenarian critic comes to the same conclusion as " Young Rapid." This is the age of com- monplace: there arc scores of periodicals full of a certain me- diocre talent, but he looks in vain for sparkling articles, like those of Professor Wilson and Lockhart in Blackwood, during its early days, or like those which Carlyle, Hazlitt, Hood, De Quincy, Charles Lamb, and many other men of note, con- tributed to the London Magazine in its " golden prime," some thirty or thirty-five years ago.

Plausible as all this may seem, it is not exactly true. Some slight acquaintance with the secret history of modern periodical

• The Westminster Review. January 1856. Published by John Chapman. The British Quarterly Review. January 18.56. Published by Jackson and Wal- ford.

The National Review. January 1856. Published by Theohald. Blaektvood's Magazine. January 18.56. Published by Blackwood and Sons. Fraser's Magazine. January 1856. Published by Parker and Son. The Dublin University Magazine. January 1856. Published by Hurst and Blackett. literature will enable any person to point to hundreds of essays, sketches, and works of fiction, which have been contributed to English magazines and reviews within the last few years by first- class writers. Nor must it be forgotten, that, in comparing the staff of contributors to Blackwood during its first ten or twenty years, or to any other magazine of that period, with the men who give strength and brilliancy to Maga and her contemporaries at the present day, there is always one great advantage in favour of the former class of writers : the mature fame which they have slowly acquired is reflected back in all its splendour upon their earliest efforts, giving them in our eyes a far higher value than the mass of readers could discover when those favourite writers were in the unrecognized stage. Take Carlyle's Life of Schiller, for example: it is well known that the successive portions of that choice biography appeared in the London Magazine, in 1823-'4, without exciting one tithe of the interest which the great reading public of that day must have felt in many a literary charlatan who has now sunk into oblivion. Or, to speak of a much more widely known instance, how many years had Mr. Thackeray written for modern periodicals before his name was recognized as one which might worthily be compared with the best of the con- tributors to the old magazines in their palmiest days ? The truth is, that this notion about the decay of periodical literature is founded partly on nil-admirari-ism, partly on the old error of comparing the hallowed impressions of what we read in the golden . age of youth with the effect produced by modern writers after we have become critical and have lost the old zest for novelty. The proper test would be for a competent judge to compare any recent volume of Blackwood, for example, with a volume of the same magazine for the years 1825-'9 ; in which case, making due allow- ance for the charm of old associations, we have no doubt the judg- ment would be in favour of the years 1850-'5.

The Quarterlies.

January is one of the four months of the year in which it has seemed good to " the trade " that our trimestrial literature should be despatched from the Row to the four quarters of the world. As regards the stately old Quarterly, which needs no other dis- tinctive title, and its venerable senior the Edinburgh, they are too aristocratic to make their appearance on the first day of the month, along with their younger brethren. " A 'line must be drawn somewhere " against the encroachment of upstart, Radical, and sectarian organs ; and hence, instead of the announcement of their appearance, we are only told that " advertisements for the forthcoming number of the Quarterly must be forwarded to the publisher by the 5th January," those for the Edinburgh "on or before the 3d."

The Westminster, with characteristic punctuality, adheres to the custom of being ready for delivery by " magazine-day,"—as, indeed, nearly all the other quarterlies make a point of doing. Tracing it altogether, the present number of the Westminster is one of the best which has appeared since the " new series" began. The opening article, on " German Wit—Heinrich Heine," in addi- tion to some subtile remarks on wit and humour gives an inte- resting sketch of the German satirist's life. We cannot agree, however, with the writer in what he says about German humour, which is a much finer part of the literature of that nation than he seems to consider it. The following attempt to describe the dis- tinctive qualities of wit and humour is good so far as it goes. "Humour is of earlier growth than wit ; and it is in accordance with this earlier growth that it has more affinity with the poetic tendencies, while wit is more nearly allied to the ratiocinative intellect. Humour daws its materials from situations and characteristics ; wit seizes on unexpected and complex relations. Humour is chiefly representative and descriptive ; it is diffuse, and flows along without any other law than its own fantastic will ; or it flits about like a will-o'-the-wisp, amazing us by its whimsical transi- tions. Wit is brief and sudden, and sharply defined as a crystal : it does not make pictures, it is not fantastic ; but it detects an unsuspected analogy, or suggests a startling or confounding inference. Every one who has had the opportunity of making the comparison will remember that the effect produced on him by some witticisms Is closely akin to the effect produced on him by subtle reasoning, which lays open a fallacy or absurdity; and there are persons whose delight in such reasoning always manifests itself in laughter. This affinity of wit with ratiocination is the more obvious proportion as the species of wit is higher, and deals less with words and superficialities than with the essential qualities of things. Some of Johnson's most admirable witticisms consist in the suggestion of an analogy which immediately exposes the absurdity of an action or proposition ; and it is only their ingenuity, condensation, and instantaneousness, which lift them from reasoning into wit—they are reasoning raised to a higher power. On the other hand, humour, in its higher forms, and in proportion as it associates itself with the sympathetic emotions, continually passes into poetry : nearly all great modern humotuista may be called prose poets."

An article on " The Limited Liability Act of 1855" points out some of the most glaring defects of that statute, especially those provisions which tend to prevent its becoming of much use to working men. A. notice of Gallenga's book on Piedmont furnishes the text for a hopeful article on the " History of the House of Savoy." The article-entitled "Russia and the Allies," taking De Tengoborski and Von Reden as authorities regarding the statistics of Russia, draws a comparison between the warlike resources of that huge empire and those of the Western Powers, which must be highly encouraging to all who look upon the present war as "just and necessary." The mode in which he disposes of the dis- paraging statement that the English is not a military nation, is discriminating and just.

"The English are disposed to admit readily,. that in some sense they are not a military nation. But let us distinguish. If this mean, that our insular position, rendering us perfectly secure in ordinary times of peace, dispenses with our keeping up a semblance of war, and indisposes us to wear the sword as a part of our dress when its work as a weapon is done, we may allow that we are not military. If it mean, that we are too jealous of the prerogatives of our sovereigns, or too suspicious of the discretion of their ministers, to place in their hands the dangerous instrument of a large stand- ing army in time of peace,—if it mean, that we are too utilitarian, or too moral, to maintain a number of men in barracks or in quarters, to become idlers, drunkards, and debauchers of the daughters of the peasantry,—if it mean, that we are naturally too industrious to like playing at soldiers, when by real work we might add to the comforts of our wives and children, —then let us admit, without shame, that we are not a military _people. But if it mean, that there is wanting m the heart of an Englishman that na- tural resentment which is the basis of all virtuous indignation at wrong, of all chivalry, of all executive justice, and of all reasonable liberty,—then it is a libel to suppose it. We are not military now by actual training and practice ; but this is a defect which will be remedied in time, and effectually before this war is done. And meanwhile let us remember, that other mari- time peoples, furnishing but few citizen-soldiers—Athens, Carthage, Venice—have not been unequal to the sustaining great wars, or to the con- ducting mighty sieges. In the hands of able generals, the Mauritania's; Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, who were associated in the expeditions of Carthage, could be welded together and wielded as one army ; and in the crisis of her fortunes—in the Hannibalic war—it was no want of soldiery, no want of courage in the men who fought under her standards, no enfee- blement of her troops through the arts of peace, nor with her was it the want of a general whose strategic power was equal to his patriotism, which gave the preponderance to her enemy ; but it was the ill-working of an oligarchical constitution—it was faction at home."

The remaining three articles in the number—" Military Edu- cation for Officers," " Athenian Comedy," " Lions and Lion- hunting "—are all well worthy of perusal, the first especially so.

• Ever since the commencement of the war, the British Quarterly Review has been most indefatigable in its exposure of the evils arising from Russian encroachment and Russian diplomacy ; and, as a natural consequence, has strongly condemned the wayward conduct of the leaders of the Peace party during the last two years. As Dr. Vaughan, the editor, holds a high position among the Independent body, and as several of the wealthiest Congrega- tionalists sympathize with Mr. Bright, the course taken by their organ has exposed its conductor to a good deal of abuse. Hence the somewhat personal tone of the article on " The War—its Ethics and its Object"; in which the efforts of the Peace party to mislead the public mind are ably exposed. How far the writer is warranted in affirming that " of the fifty-nine Members sitting for Yorkshire and Lancashire, there is scarcely a third man in either county who would lay the guilt of this strife upon his country," is more than we can pretend to say. If that is the opinion they hold, the majority of them have certainly not acted in accordance with it. By those who take any interest in the new theological doctrines as expounded by the " Broad Church," the article on " The New Oxford Movement " will be read with interest. It is chiefly occupied with a discussion of Mr. Jowett's recent work ; which is described as " corresponding in the most important points with those expounded in Mr. Maurice's Essays and Mr. Kingsley's Sermons." The comparative view of " The In- fluence of Romanism and Protestantism on Civilization" is full of information on a subject which ought to interest the politician and the statesman quite as much as the theologian.

The conclusion of Murray's edition of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," is taken by the National Review as the text of a pleasant biographical essay on the life and works of Gibbon, with a glance at the great historian's times. The -writer of the article, though no servile admirer, is disposed to rate Gibbon higher than is common in these days. The following excuse for the scoffing tone of the introduction to the fifteenth chapter is a fair specimen of the tone.

" The state of belief at that time is a very large subject ; but it is proba- ble that in the cultivated cosmopolitan classes the Continental scepticism was very rife ; that among the hard-headed classes the rough spirit of Eng- lish Deism had made much way.. Though the mass of the people doubtless believed much as they now believe, yet it seems that the entire upper class was lazy and corrupt, and that there is truth in the picture of the modern divine—' The thermometer of the Church of England sunk to its lowest

point in the first thirty years of the reign of George III In their preaching, nineteen clergymen out of twenty carefully • abstained from dwelling upon Christian doctrines. Such topics exposed the preacher to the charge of fanaticism. Even the calm and sober Crabbe, who certainly never erred from excess of zeal, was stigmatized in those days as a Methodist, be- cause he introduced into his sermons the notion of.future reward• and pun- ishment. An orthodox clergyman (they said) should be content to show his people the worldly advantage of good conduct, and to leave Heaven and Hell to the Ranters. Nor can we wonder that such should have been the notions of country parsons, when, even by those who passed for the supreme arbiters of orthodoxy and taste, the vapid rhetoric of Blair was thought the highest standard of Christian exhortation.' It is among the excuses for Gibbon that he lived in such a world."

The article on " The Present State of France" is evidently by a writer who sympathizes with the French literary class in Paris and in exile ; and therefore, although his facts may be correct in the main, he takes the gloomy side, especially in his glance at the future, and in his estimate of the rate at Which the national debt is accumulating. The only way, according to the reviewer, in which the Emperor of the French can hope to consolidate biL power, is by " a succession of brilliant victories, crowned by a pro- fitable and honourable peace." Of course the enemies of the Emperor are aware of this ; and hence, though they dare not say as much, they would rather see a somewhat dishonourable peace, as the first step to the overthrow of Louis Napoleon. A much more masterly view of the war question isgiven in the article on " Foreign Policy and the Next Campaign." The writer takes a statesmanlike survey of what England might have done in Eu- rope, and of what she is still able to accomplish by her union with France.

The most striking of the other papers is on " W. M. Thackeray, Artist and Moralist." After describing Thackeray, in the former

capacity, as "probably the greatest painter of manners that ever lived," the writer goes on to show that the author of " Vanity Fair" and "Pendenms, ' ranks much lower as a moralist than his indiscriminate admirers are in the habit of placing. him. The comparison of Thackeray's genius to Goethe's may startle many persons, but it will bear investigation; as, in fact, the whole article will, and repay it with interest.

The Magazines.

Blackwood is more sober than usual this month, irrespective of Christmas-tide. The very titles of nearly all the articles show that the writers have been deeply absorbed in the serious ques- tions of the day, and have therefore had little inelination for mere amusement. First of all, we have an essay on "The Screw and its Consequences "; in which Sir Robert Peel's Act of 1844 is charged with havinge cmildlicted an incalculable amount of damage on the commercial Masses. The great cost of the war, however, is to put an end to the existing system. " The announcement of new loans at home and abroad,', we are told, " will soon so much diminish the gold in the Bank of England, that the Act of 1844 will perforce be suspended,—never again, we hope, to be revived. In a few months we shall have a suspension of the act, and pro- bably an issue of one-pound notes, setting free many millions of sovereigns for use abroad ; after which proceeding, a Parlia- mentary Committee will doubtless be appointed to reinvestigate the whole question of the currency." "The New Peace Party" is the title of an article in which the views of Sir Arthur Elton and the Gladstone school are discussed in a friendly way, by a writer whose bias may be inferred from an amusing anecdote, in- troduced at the wind-up. One of the speakers in favour of the war says, " We must not give way, or we shall be jammed and packed up in our social conditions, in such a manner that we shall be powerless to help ourselves, or a friend in time of need ; like your Malvern acquaintance, Irenieus." Then comes the

story

it fiEN ZUS—I was at Malvern some time ago undergoing the water-cure. I was a Quaker then.

" 031,87.1S—A wet one, I presume, between whiles. " TLEPOLEMITS—A dry one, as far as my experience goes. " IREN/EUS—Well, never mind. I had a friend of the Friends in the next mom. I was packed in wet sheets one day, in such a way that I was bound hand and foot, and placed in a sitting position on a chair with a metal bot- tom. Part of the process consisted in keeping up the warmth by the flame of aspirit-lamp placed under the bottom of my chair. My attendant forgot me. The heat increased ; at last it became insufferable. All the horrors of martyrdom, for no cause at all, flashed on me at once. I screamed for help to my friend in the next room. I heard his voice ; and never did the heart of drifting and starving mariner on a raft, who bad attracted the notice of a ship by his waved handkerchief, beat with greater delight. Butjudge of my feelings when the voice said, ' Friend, I am sorry for thee, and would help thee if I could, but I am packed in like manner as thyself.'

" TLEPornmus—But how is it you are sitting here safe and sound ?

" iamvars—The attendant came in just in time to rescue me from my literally galling position. But it has affected me ever since with a night- mare, which spoils my after-dinner nap, if I take it in a sitting posture."

Those readers who must have some chapters of a story in each number have not been forgotten this month. The opening portion of " A Military Adventure in the Pyrenees," though not yet equal to " Zaidee," of which it takes the place, is a fair specimen of light reading. In "Lancashire Strikes," the faults on both sides are very fairly stated, but with a bias in favour of the men. Of the remaining articles, "Drinking and Smoking" is the cleverest.

Thoughtful readers will be glad to find a few more scenes of "Friends in Council Abroad," which commenced in Fraser's Magazine for December, continued. in the January number. The writer is one who gains largely upon closer acquaintance, as all writers of any real worth do. The wit-melancholy of Charles Lamb, and a fine reflective tone, reminding us frequently of Wordsworth in his most natural passages, are visible in many parts of the scene in the wood near Spa,—that, for example, where he assigns a reason for his love of woods; or that where he quotes approvingly the remark of "a rising statesman," who in pacing the wet streets of London one night exclaimed, " This is a constant delight to me, to see the long lines of reflected light in the wheel-tracks, with their graceful eurves." The following story about the late Lord Melbourne, called up by this admiration of puddles, is too good to be lost. 4‘ 'He went one night to a minor theatre, in company with two ladies and a fashionable young fellow about town—a sort of man not easy to be pleased. The performance was dull and trashy enough, I dare say. The next day Lord Melbourne called upon the ladies. The fashionable young gentleman had been there before his Lordship, and had been complaining of the dread- fully dull evening they had all passed. The ladies mentioned this to Lord Melbourne. Not pleased ! not pleased ! Confound the man ! Didn't he see the fishmongers shops, and the gas-lights Bashing from the lobsters' backs, as we drove along ? wasn't that happiness enough for him ? ' Lord Melbourne had then ceased to be Prime Minister ; but you see he had not ceased to take pleasure in any little thing that could give it. Great men are ever young. Indeed, I do not know whether that would not form the best definition of them."

The new story in this magazine—" Kate Coventry, an auto- bio aphy, edited by the author of Digby Grand "—is aninsinp; and clever. Kate is a fast young lady, who rides races round the inner ring, down Rotten Row, finishing in front of Apaley House ; and has withal a good deal of humour, which displays itself in some sarcastic remarks on the foibles of the rougher sex. " Six Months in India" is the title of an article of which we have the first part here. The object of the writer Is to show how six months can be spent in a field of travel comparatively new and unexplored. In the East, commonly so called, there is not much of novelty left. The Pyra- mids, the First Cataract, the Heights of Lebanon, the Waters of Gennesareth, the Pincus, the Acropolis, the Plains of Troy, the Minarets of Constantinople, the Golden Horn, and the Valley of Sweet Waters, are as well known to many of the pre- sent generation as the Coliseum and the Rialto, the Bay of Naples, and the Passes of the Alps, were to their fathers and grandfathers. The man who wants to start fresh game, who is tired of German watering-places, and does not intend to go to the moors, and who has "an earnest desire to have some fresh stories to recount at his club or his fireside," is advised to place- himself in the hands of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and start on an Indian expedition, about the end of autumn. Of course the writer does not waste the time and patience of the reader in any attempt to describe what may be seen in the overland journey. His object is merely to give some notion of what the traveller will see in our great Indian empire. Mr. Browning's last volume of poetry is subjected to some sharp and discriminating criticism. The re- maining articles in the number, of which we can only give the titles, are " Prescott's Philip the Second," "Familiar Epistles from Ireland," the second and concluding part of " Last August in the Baltic," " Professor Owen and the Science of Life," and " Scotch University Reform."

The change of proprietorship does not seem to have altered the character or tone of the Dublin University Magazine. The " Dramatic Writers of Ireland," and " Missing Chapters of Irish History," being continuations of a series, could not admit of any change, and therefore we infer nothing from their appearance in this number. The opening story, however—" Balancing the Books, a. Tale of New-Year's Eve "—is as thoroughly Irish as the most ardent admirer of the Island of Saints could desire. Alto- gether, this magazine, though not less amusing than most of its brethren, is of a slighter texture than the two we have already noticed. This remark will not apply to the article entitled " Food —Drinks—Drugs " ; from which we quote the following practical suggestions for putting an end to the wholesale adulteration of We " We can point out a short cut for the anti-adulterators—they have only to put their London pride in their pockets, and to follow an Irish example. The profession of the apothecary in Ireland is a restricted one ; it is open only to men whose knowledge has been tested by examination, after they have passed a sufficient time in practically learning their art. Their proper business is to prepare and compound drugs in accordance with an authori- tative standard, and they enjoy a monopoly of the retail trade in the com- pounding of drugs for medical use. They are responsible for the due dis- charge of this duty ; and being for the moat part respectable men, they perform it conscientiously and satisfactorily. They commonly, we have reason to believe, buy their stocks from one or other of those respectable houses with whom one may deal blindfold ; and buying in small quantities, they can assure themselves of the purity of each article at a small cost of trouble. Hence it is a rare, thing to hear of misadventures with drugs, or of spurious medicines, in Ireland. In En'land, on the other hand, the name of apothecary only exists. The word has lost its original, proper, and, we rejoice to be able to add, its Irish signification. Any man who pleases may undertake to do apothecary's work : ho may open a shop, call himself chemist and druggist, and poison her Majesty's subjects, or frustrate the skill of the physician, as chance may direct. Hitherto the title of chemist and druggist might generally be taken to mean, that the person assuming it sold drugs for the use of man and beast, perfumery, and fancy articles, and was not tinctured with the slightest knowledge of chemical science. And although we are ready to ad- mit that the incorporation of the Pharmaceutical Society has initiated a change for the better, the reproach to a great extent still exists. We ven- ture to say, it will not be completely or in any degree effectually removed until the Irish example shall be followed, and a real, scientific apothecary shall be called into existence, protected by the law, and rendered propor- tionately responsible to it."