THE MAGAZINES FOR MAY.
ON the morning of the first of the month, the usual supply of books on our table is observed to be coated with a layer of slender productions of every variety of colouring. A flight of butterflies appear to have rested from their progress, and to have gathered about the bulkier and more stationary prominences of the tabular store. This papilionaceous clustering is no other than the perio- dical chrysalises called Magazines, just taking wing, and as a first place of rest, alighting on our table,—a spot intermediary between their nidus and the wide fields of the public notice.
The activity of this branch of our literature is extraordinary 1 the number of the publications coexistent, and the quantity of talent and the amount of capital employed upon them, are worthy of attention. The undertaking of a periodical work is not a light, responsibility, and it is in its nature very different from the publi- cation of a book. It is to establish a regular and continued inter- course with the world—a long acquaintance, and an interchange of kind offices. One party, to be sure, is incog.; and the other is invisible, from being scattered in the great mass of the public : but still they meet on the arena of the yellow or the drab; and, after the manner of carrying on commerce by some nations, they exchange their wares without the intervention of persons. Here we put our salt, there they put their cowries : it is a bargain, and the parties retire mutually satisfied with what each has gained : and thus is the connexion established. Month by month the commerce is renewed, until a sort of necessity of habit comes to exist, and a warm feeling of benevolence and acquaintanceship is kept up between persons who only are aware of each other's sub- stantiveness by the production and the consumption of a piece of brain-work.
Wi.-! occupy a different position in respect of the papilionaceous tribe of literature. We are neither consumers nor purveyors : we have no mysterious intercourse to keep up: we do not look for the arrival of any particular work, as to that of a friend bringing intel- lectual pabulum of a kind that suits our mental digestion. No WILSON. or CAMPBELL IS to us the incarnation of periodical wis- dom, whose oracles we look to spell over during the leisure of a month. We are, alas ! acquainted with the priesthood; and, like LUCIAN, know too much of the adyta, to approach their altars with vulgar reference. The loss is ours : we should be glad of the return of the days of innocence, when the first day of the month and the royal mail brought as it were a sacred draught of intelligence from the fount of Literature itself. Very different are the feelings with which we now survey our motley table, from those with which we formerly cut the string and tore the covering, most uneconomically, of our Monthly Magazine,—the more welcome and the more important, if, as its travelling companion was en- sconced perdue (as it four times a year happened), a consequential Quarterly, modester in its colour, robuster in its form, more conse- quential in its air, and altogether carrying greater weight of metal, and bearing a higher commission. What sensations were produced by "our First Magazine," would take as long to tell as did those of Ema's First Play ; and we leave the description to others, who have felt them as keenly as we ever did, and who have not now so many actualities to occupy them. The welcome we now give to the " swarm" which has been somehow charmed into our study, would not flatter those who have spent so much painful attention upon them. So many rival claimants assembled in such a crowd, and each evidently struggling and striving for notice with both lungs and arms, form altogether a not agreeable vision, to one who in brief time has to decide upon the pretensions of the whole fry. In spite frequently of the excellence of the materials, and the general talent displayed by all, and the particular genius exhibited by some, the result of so much mental gluttony is a surfeit—a headache, and its natural reaction, a certain portion of disgust. This feeling, indeed, is often experienced in proportion to the ability displayed by the writers : universal dulness would simply dispose to sleep, or musing, or other mental idleness; but when, perhaps, in every one periodical, three or four calls of a different, and each of a stimulating character, are made upon the attention, pleasure sinks into fatigue,and fatigue sets up another action. But a truce to our enumeration of the pains of the first day of the month : let us look to their cause—we have made it out to be, we believe, excess of pleasure. Let us see what we have got : let us take an external survey of the gay parterre spreading all over in quadrangular plots, like the survey of an estate. The first which attracts the eye is the United Service Journal. like a stain of blood—all red. Then the Quakerish Metropolitan, with its sign of wisdom, its Minerva head—indicating that the cover at least is inspired. Fraser's Magazine, with its thistles and roses, is also formal in colour, but wants the preciseness of Mr. CAMPBELL'S; and indeed carries with it a careless air, approach- ing that which is • in slang termed the raffish. Tail is all of a modest blush, with a just-come-out air of elegance and retiredness —and that in spite of the Wigsby beplastered on its front. If" Fiat JUstitia," its motto, were carried into execution, this head should be immediately cut off—" ruat eselum." Blackwood, opposite, still frowns grimly as usual, with an underground of humorous smiles, happily typified by the wood-cut it bears on its face—a mixture of blurt and light. The character and appearance of the New Monthly, it is difficult to make out: it is neither lively nor dull—it is undisfigured by device : so far so good—and on the whole, its air is gentlemanly and unintrusive. But where is the Old Monthly P Under what big book is it hidden ? We have turned up the whole contents of the table, and it is missing ! Surely it is not extinct? it has not gone to the shades, like so many of its predecessors—and after a late regeneration, too, and when we had hoped better things of it ? The British Magazine, which is the clergyman's periodical, is the gravest of all in colour, and yet the lightest in aspect : it has a silk stocking pepper-and- salt dapperness about it, that must be smart in spite of all humble pretensions to the contrary : this is the dandyism of the Church. The Repertory of Patent Inventions, and the London Medical and Physical Journal, are like two daubs of gamboge. The Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science is also of a most ambitious complexion, but has got some brick-dust mixed with its yellow ochre, which gives it a more substantial air than the mere stains we have spoken of.
But now for the interior.
On the whole, the Periodicals of this month are more brilliant or less dull than ordinary. Fraser, by which we are too often offended, both in points of taste and principle, decidedly contains the most remarkable article of the month. Internal evidence pro- claims it to be Mr. CARLISLE'S; and the subject is BOSWELL'S Life of Johnson. It is written in a very peculiar style, as are all this gentleman's compositions ; but the style is not more peculiar than the principles which he applies to the consideration of literature. They are borrowed from German philosophy. All nature is a sys- tem of antagonism, and man consists of two opposite natures : this is a small portion of a theory that is made to pervade the universe. Many of its applications are curious, and when clothed in a cum- brous, magnificent, and yet somewhat homely eloquence, by such writers as Mr. CARLISLE, the effect produced is in the highest de- gree imposing. Our readers may have an opportunity of trying its value, if they take the trouble to peruse Mr. CARLISLE'S view of the character of BOSWELL, pp. 382-386. It will be seen, that bulk is the great component part of this species of writing ; that the colouring of the mass, derived from the imagination of the writer, is poor or splendid according as that is feeble or powerful; and that the novelty of the effect is attributable chiefly to the play of principles which we are unaccustomed to, and which, if plainly presented to us, we should treat as visionary and unfounded in truth. The rest of Fraser we cannot notice with praise: it is con- ducted on a system nowhere more strongly condemned than in one of its own columns of the present Number, where Mr. CARLISLE expounds the abomination of evil speaking and idle writing. Blackwood has this month one of Wiesores extravaganzas, in which he first knocks down and then knocks up the whole creation. When WILSON sits down to write, the world appears to him a mere game at ninepins : or perhaps he is the incarnation of im- mortal Punch—he sets all law at defiance, slaps, bangs, and stabs both friends and foes, and all in the merest gayety of heart. In the article we are speaking of, which is on the Poems of ALFRED TEN- NYSON (a young poet of genuine talent), Mr. WILSON first sets to and abuses, with a charming play of the imagination and an un- sparing application of slang, Mr. TENNYSON and all his critics : he seems animated with the bitterest contempt for the whole party, and withheld no opprobrium : the poet's imbecility is proved by extracts of every kind; and the critics, of course, fall with the work they have praised. When the unhappy bard is sufficiently bespattered, — after he has been laid prostrate, has been pommelled and bruised, with all the means of annoyance that science and bottom can apply to his discomfiture,—the writer seems, not to repent of his work, but seized with a sudden passion of setting up the idol he had pulled down. The miserable spectacle of a poet is raised on high; and though the dirt is not cleared away, it is gilded over with praise as hearty as the abuse; and the Ebonite retires with the satisfaction of having both unmade and made a poet. This is the last trick of our Periodical Punch : he is a fellow of infinite wit and talent, but as to their employment, he has never .yet been troubled with any conscientious scruples. Boys think nothing of a hit, provided it is given "in play ;" thus the Blackwood Punch hopes that his hardest knocks will be forgiven, for there is no malice. noun seems to think so : he has been punched black and blue a thousand times,—and what is worse, set up as a standing butt, either to let fly at as a target, or to hide behind as a shelter or cloak: yet, though feeling dreadfully sore, he puts on a rueful smile (in his Autobiography), and tells us he is not offended—it was all in play. The Lord deliver us from such horse-play! Besides this article, the May Blackwood is a dead letter: its poli- tics are repetitions a hundred times served up, and its literature this Month is of a very commonplace character. Punch has chosen
this Magazine for his box, and therefore do we stand about it laughing at antics we ought perhaps to frown upon.
The character. of the New Monthly is greatly improved since its change of editor. It has contained papers of considerable perma- nent value, which at the same time have had much present attrac- tion. The regular supply of articles is superior, and their general standard is considerably higher in the New Monthly than in any of its contemporaries. The politics of the work seem to be chiefly taken up by the editor himself; who, as a member of Parliament, will have some advantages—but perhaps more drawbacks. A sort. of Parliamentary etiquette is entailed upon him : he is, as the Irish- man said he could not be, in two places at once. The privileges in the House embarrass him out of it. In our opinion, a man cannot be- long to both the ruling powers, the Press and the Parliament: they are jealous of each other at adistance, and when they approach col- lision takes place. Thus, as we fancy, the tone of the politics of the New Monthly is lower than it would be in such a crisis as this, if a man of the editor's talents were not embarrassed by double duties and rival tribunals. It is impossible to serve both God and Mammon. Nevertheless, and with this drawbfick, if' it be any, the general excellence of the New Monthly places it, for the pre- sent mouth, above all its rivals • and more particularly its imme- diate rival, Mr. CAMPBELL'S Metropolitan ; concerning which we shall say not a word, except this—that we should be most glad to see the editor better employed. He is not and never was adapted to fill the office of editor of a magazine. The United Service Journal is an excellent military periodical ; at least it is made so by its correspondents—if it could be marred, it would be so by the anti-popular political principles, or rather prejudices, of the conductors. They are not, we hope, in unison with those of the great body of the Army and theNavy—assuredly not of the latter. We strongly recommend some enterprising publisher to commence a military periodical more in consonance with the Liberal principles of the day and the opening prospects. of the country. The correspondence alone, which in such a work is the main staple, would nearly support it ; a nd we have reason to believe that a medium of this character would be most accept- able to the great mass of the United Service. We find that our article has extended to limits which render it necessary that we should adjourn the question till the first day of June. We had intended to say something encouraging and admo- nitory to Mr. TAIT, whose first number we welcomed in last month with the ringing of bells; but we are constrained to wait for his third appearance on the Periodical stage. In the mean time, we may observe that he has sonic pleasant aesthetic papers—such as those on Shaking Hands, on Female Letter-writing, and some o thers.
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