Page images
PDF
EPUB

Bell's Weekly Messenger is a favorite with the old-fashioned, half-educated Whigs, and is a good family paper. It is twaddling in its opinions, and may be called a slowpaced, half-asleep chronicle. We are not aware that any man of intellectual mark is or has been connected with it. It has a large circulation among the pudding-headed country squires and farmers.

heights of a clerk in the St. Catharine Docks. the coach. The high mettle of Pegasus reBecoming tired of that employ, so unconge- quires an Apollo, and not a Phaeton. nial to a man strongly inclined to "pennyBell's Life in London is a sporting paper, a-lining," he entered the service of Whit- and has no political or literary influence. takers of Paternoster Row, the well-known publishers. Becoming connected with the press, he engaged as dramatic critic to a Sunday paper, where his natural shrewdness and independence of opinion found fitting employ. He then purchased the old Monthly Magazine, which expired in his editorial hands after an existence of nearly a century. We may mention, as a proof of his defective education, that when he published his play Garcia, he put every line upon the Procrustean bed of ten syllables, and printed it with a stoical indifference to the sufferings of metre and sense. The consequent result was, that many a line commenced with the concluding word of the previous sentence. Jer-ized its present management, cannot fail rold likened it to a disciplinarian who cuts all his regiment to the same stature; taking the tall man's head off to place upon the short man's shoulders; presenting the strange appearance of, here a leg cut off at the ankle, and so on, thrown in like odds and ends to make up so many distinct homogeneities.

The failure of Jerrold and Dickens, two men of such undoubted talent, to make even decent editors, is by no means surprising. An editor's life is one of sustained effort; there are no fits and starts in his duties. Now, men of quick and lively parts are the slaves of their inclinations; all routine is distasteful; and when the first excitement of a novel position has died away, apathy soon ripens into disgust, and the public are amazed to find that the most brilliant contributors are the worst possible conductors of a journal or review. It may be taken as a settled fact, that a man of genius is precluded by nature from being an efficient editor. The same applies to all superintending positions, such as managers, and may possibly account for Brougham's comparative failure at the Lyceum."

Jerrold has originated some score of periodicals. They have begun brilliantly, and died miserably. The Illuminated Magazine, the Shilling Magazine, and the paper above named, are the last three instances of his inability to lead such undertakings to a successful issue. It seems that men of genius are admirable horses when properly harnessed, but they are incapable of driving

During the last two years a new paper called the Leader has appeared, under the editorial care of Thornton Hunt. This is understood to be the organ of the Unitarians and liberals, and if continued with the same tact, energy and ability that have character

to supersede the Examiner. Southwood Smith, Fox, Horne, Leigh Hunt, and several of that "school," are its chief contributors. We observe that it is frequently quoted by our own publications, more especially by Griswold in that judicious melange of literature, the International.

The best of the cheap papers is the Weekly Times, the cost of which is three pence English. This is really a very well conducted publication, containing all the news, chit-chat, and a few tolerably well written editorials. It is printed, however, on an inferior paper, and is only circulated among the poorer classes.

Although the Illustrated London News was first commenced merely to puff a quack medicine, it has grown up to a circulation and reputation which confer considerable influence upon it. Its principal editors are Charles Mackay and R. H. Horne. It is so well known on this side the Atlantic, that it is needless to call attention to the excellence of its pictorial embellishments. The only approach to it here is the New-York Illustrated News, published by Strong. Still this is very inferior to its London and Paris prototypes.

The Ladies' Paper is also another London pictorial periodical, deserving of high praise for the spirit and finish of its designs. The Pictorial Times, commenced by Spottiswood, the great printer, as a, rival to the London Illustrated News, some ten years since, is now incorporated with it. Spottiswood sunk

the enormous sum of sixty thousand pounds before he abandoned the Pictorial Times.

In some cases the intimacy of an author with a critic is positively injurious. We We shall not recapitulate the cheaper know of several instances in which Oxenford, Sunday publications, as they belong to a the dramatic critic of the Times, was comvicious school, both of politics and morals. pelled (owing to the jealous supervision of They are rather the mental and moral filth De Lane, the editor) to be more severe than of English literature than wholesome food- he was really justified in, owing to his intithe offal of the public mind. They are un-macy with Marston and Traughton, whose fortunately very numerous, and have a wide plays had been recently produced. circulation. After the Sunday Times possibly Lloyd's is the best; but they are all bad, and are sad evidences of the depraved taste of the inferior classes of the British people. A calm review of the London Press leads us to this conclusion: that although not so immediately and locally influential as either of those of New-York or Paris, it is practically freer than either. It is true, that many obstacles to the establishment of a newspaper exist there, which do not here; but this may be an advantage.

Another marked difference between our press and that of France and England, is the emolument. The editor of the Times has from $6,000 to $8,000 per annum. Lockhart of the Quarterly has $8,000,nearly $2,000 for each number of the Review he issues. Contrast these emoluments with the miserable stipend paid to our editors and contributors, (the result of the want of an international copyright law,) have at once the secret of our infe

and you riority.

The wonder is that we do so well, when we are obliged to compete with the pirated editions of these costly journals.

Another point of contrast is in the care with which the Reviews preserve the incognito of their contributors. Mr. Herand lost his engagement on the Quarterly Review entirely on account of informing some friends in a party that he had written an article in the forthcoming number.

We must not omit to notice another difference in the press of London and New-York: it is in libel. Nothing is more difficult in London than to get an attack upon personal character inserted in any paper; even the most abandoned, such as the Age and Satirist, require strong proof and heavy bribing. Few things surprise foreigners more than the facility afforded here for the attack on private character. This eagerness for scandal is attended with the bad effect of an indifference to public opinion; thus curing one evil by establishing a greater. The punishment in England for libel is very severe, and almost immediate. No legal subterfuges can defer the evil day if the offense is proved. It matters not how unpopular the abused man may be, the judge invariably charges without fear or favor. There was a case of this some years ago in An article in one of the leading papers of the matter of the Duke of Brunswick versus London, being well paid for, is elaborately Gregory. The former, although almost an written. Every available authority is consid-outlaw, got heavy damages, which consigned ered; and at all events, whatever may be the his libeller to Newgate. party bias of the writer, the data are correct. The proprietors and editors watch very jealously any personal influence an actor, manager, singer or author may wish to exert upon their columns. A solitary instance may now and then occur, as in that of the Examiner, where Forster's intimacy with Dickens and Macready renders his critiques upon either of those mere laudations; but even here it is cautiously done, and is partly owing to the proprietor Fonblanque himself being also a friend to those "favored ones." Generally speaking, intriguing with the press in London is playing with edge tools, the chances being more than equal that you will cut your own fingers in the experiment.

In presenting this brief sketch of English Journalism to our readers, it is not our intention to compare it with our own. One or two strong contrasts have been noticed; but they were so self-evident as to suggest themselves to all. It would be unjust to expect from our young press the refinement, depth, finish and scholarship of a nation whose literature is the greatest existing; whose dramatists surpass Eschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes and Euripides; whose philosophers throw Aristotle, Plato and Xenophon in the shade; whose poets equal Homer; and whose historians surpass Herodotus and Thucydides. This is a task we prefer leaving to our journalists themselves,

that they may see where they fall short, and | supply the deficiency.

This

pirations, or possess passions stronger than truth, avarice, pleasure or fear; but what is Journalism is well worthy of being made true of one man being true of all, does not as perfect as possible. Its importance is apply to men except in questions of probecoming more apparent every day. It gress. There is no modern Joshua to bid is not too much to assert, that the welfare the sun of knowledge stand still; for one of mankind materially rests in its hands. single day, even the apparent rest of the We all know the important results of giant is merely to gird his loins for a noone earnest preacher; empires have been bler fight; a pause for a bolder spring. shaken, creeds destroyed, and crusades un- Nature has implanted in all of us a love of dertaken. It took years, then, to accom- novelty. Hope is the pillar of fire by night, plish these great ends, because the preachers the cloud by day. However happy we may were few; still the objects, however great, have been with the flesh-pots of Egypt, the were achieved. Now, instead of one man, promised land, with all the uncertainties of the laborers are legion. The newspaper the mysterious future, leads us on. alone dispatches an army of preachers every demand for a greater sphere is most intense morning, and public opinion, the great in the class now called upon to govern. motor of the age, is thus more powerfully Every year we behold younger and fresher affected in one day than in a generation of men guiding public affairs. The age of the olden times. When it is borne in mind, precedents, anti-impulse, selfishness and that on an average five persons read each Machiavellism is rapidly passing away; the paper it is not stating too much, that nearly sceptre is taken already from palsy and father a quarter of a million of people are canvassed confessors, and grasped by the vigorous hands every day on this or that side of the great of men whose beards are not gray with the questions that agitate the public mind. We cold-blooded iniquities of an official routine, all know the influence of a personal canvass, which has long annihilated every generous that in short it determines the success of feeling. We have an evidence in the proan election. Now, the mind is so consti-gress of the age of what journalism has tuted as to give greater credence to the silent, unimpassioned advocacy of a wellwritten article, than to the obsequious or pompous argument of a man who may say that one word too much, which destroys all that has gone before; that overproving so fatal to conviction. It also avoids those chances of personal antipathies which belong by nature to all of us. A newspaper has a still more powerful advantage over a personal advocate, in its facility of reiteration, till the man is convinced by insensible degrees, and his old prejudices worn away. If a verbal applicant fails in the first instance, common courtesy precludes a repetition, while a newspaper returns every morning to the charge, and wearies a man into the surrender of his opinion. What is true of one, affects all; and thus, by almost imperceptible proselytism, political questions are carried, frequently by the very men who had till then followed an adverse creed.

done in the recent reception of Kossuth in England. We say nothing of his release from captivity, chiefly through the means of Lord Palmerston, a man whose "poetical feelings" have long been destroyed by thirty-five years of political service. This, however, only makes our case the stronger, for the public voice compelled him to be the zealous instrument of its will. In saying this, we do not mean to detract from the merit justly due to that distinguished statesman, but merely quote it as an instance of popular progress. An additional sign of the times is found in Gladstone's exposé of Neapolitan villainies; in Palmerston's giving his official sanction to the exposure, and his manly rebuke to Prince Castelcicala's jesuitical vindication of his royal master. We do not think our press has given this spirited letter the credit it deserves. It strikes us as heing the boldest manifesto ever issued in Europe, coming, as it does, from the minister of one sovereign to another with whom there is no previous quarrel.

The press has this great virtue: its tendency is progress; its watchword, like Napoleon's, is ever "forward;" it cannot retrace its steps. A man, however great his We repeat, all this has been done by the devotion to liberty, may turn traitor; he press. The press released Kossuth, sustainmay outgrow his youthful and glorious as-ed Turkey, and will, in time, abolish every

VOL. VIII. NO. VI. NEW SERIES.

35

abuse. With this glorious mission before | sibilities; much is required of those to whom it, how lamentable is it to see the miserable much is given. Every man is the journalist personal animosities existing among so many of his own houshold; there he is bound, as of the leading journalists. Surely the very much as any other editor, to take care that prominence of their position ought to counsel nothing offensive to morals, freedom, reliforbearance. They should remember they gion or taste, finds entrance. We will not squabble on the house-tops. These exhibitons go so far as a celebrated English poet, that are, however, becoming less frequent, and every man is a prophet; but we will adopt will, as a matter of course, gradually soon be his other doctrine, that he has a mission to altogether extinct. It will be seen that we perform, the complete fulfilment of which have merely considered journalism as a polit- will constitute the perfect happiness of manical power. This, although the most prom- kind. How greatly the press of the world inent, and eventually the most important, can further this "consummation most deas producing the most massive, visible re- voutly to be wished," is apparent, and needs sults, does not so immediately come home no argument on our part. We have the to the million as its function of universal most unquestionable evidence of the rapid informer and confidential adviser. improvement of this Fourth Estate, and every day increases its utility and power.

The dweller in the nineteenth century, in a free country, with a free press, has much to be In our next we shall treat of the Parisian thankful for-to be proud of; and much, too, press, now or lately one of the most immeto be ashamed of. These all imply respon-diate political agents in the world.

THEORIES OF EVIL,

FROM THE POETS "FESTUS"-"FAUST"-"MANFRED "—"PARADISE LOST"-BOOK OF JOB.

THE impenetrable mystery involved in the question of the origin of evil seems in all ages to have been a fruitful cause of that excitation of the imaginative faculty from which has flowed the profoundest poetical thoughts which, upon the pages of literature, stir the souls of men.

"Festus," the last of the productions of genius having this origin, has been condemned by an able writer in our pages for its false theology, its evil tendency, and its want of artistic merit.

It has, however, merits which cannot be denied. Some of these have suggested the present paper; and, although we give the work a prominent position for our present purpose, we will not be considered as allowing it a precedence of, or equality with, those immortal works with which we bring it into comparison.

cuss it anywhere. But if the origin of evil is a mystery, its continued existence is equally so. It causes the first step-which "counts" more than all after-in the genuine thought of every lifetime; it is the initiative of doubt-the Shadow on the Threshold of manhood. It is symbolized in every creed and mythology. Jupiter, Pluto - Oromaedes, Arimines-God, Lucifer; good and evil were always divinities and demons for humanity. Man finds himself to be a composite creature. His nature is dual. Conscience and the flesh are in eternal antagonism, and he has invested the opposing principles with form and power, and given them supermundane attributes. But, withal, he never ceases to inquire whence it is that, in a creation of good, he is made half evil; why the light has a companion shadow; why he is not able to reach the ideal perfection which exists in every mind, as a pure statue in a dark niche; why he is

The origin of evil was and is the great difficulty and stumbling-block of all theologies. We cannot discuss the subject here, and are not qualified ("Open confession is good for the soul," says the adage) to dis- and his inquiries conclude as they com

"A love in desolation masqued; a power Girt round with weakness:"

defeated enemy; but there is a terrible fascination even in his misery. We see him first in the fiery pit, surrounded by his unfortunate brethren, immediately after the great final battle in which he was overthrown.

menced, in doubt and vexation of spirit. | the bold will and ready expedients of a great Every mind which can think, thinks over captain. We gaze upon him as upon a this question. It analyzes until analysis has reached nothings. It faces the sun until blindness comes, and it is compelled at last to fall back upon faith, as a certain reserve behind which it can entrench itself. When it is beaten back and planted in its old position, the necessary ordeal is passed; it has gone through the furnace, like Abed-nego, and happiness becomes possible.

The greatest minds of all time have grappled with this difficulty. They have always retreated upon humility, and a belief in a Mediator, a Saviour, a Messiah. All creeds have the Redeemer. Prometheus was the Christ of the Greeks; and invariably the synonyme of the Redeemer is-Love. All philosophy leads us to this. Man must love, or he cannot be redeemed. Man, without love, is lost; the curse is upon him; he belongs to Hell, and not Heaven. We find this moral in "Faust," in "Paradise Lost," in "Sartor Resartus," in "Festus." We discover that this is the ultimate conclusion of all great thinkers. Earth is God's or the Devil's. Man is a fiend or an angel; there is the fearful alternative; and it is consoling to the rear and main array of mankind, that the avante garde has hope, and marches on the road of time with an assured and trusting spirit.

But our greatest men have been occupied not only with the existence and origin of evil, but also with its nature and development. They have always personified it, and we can read their beliefs in the personifications. The Lucifer of Milton is not the Lucifer of Göethe. Evil, as personified by Mrs. Browning, is very different from that of "Festus." It is, therefore, worth while to glance at their several creations. It is wholly impossible, though, to give the characteristics of each in a brief notice, for each would require an exclusive essay; and we can merely note down our impressions, without proof or comment.

The evil of our universe, according to John Milton, is pride. Lucifer is to him the proudest of the proud. He invests the fallen spirit with fierce strength, fierce beauty, pride above all mortal pride, and its necessary consequence-hate. We shudder while we admire his creation. We have an involuntary respect for the Defeated One, who retains, amid the tumult and ruin of retreat,

"Round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and stedfast hate;" and when our minds are filled by the fearful picture, which is dashed by huge shadows, like one of Martin's engravings, the "dungeon horrible," the flames which give no light, "but rather darkness visible," the

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

With ever burning sulphur unconsumed," through the ghastly midnight around, we hear that muttered half-soliloquy which is intended for the ear of Beelzebub, but which Satan compares his will outlast all time. He indulges in a present with his past. brief reminiscence of Heaven, but soon turns to the affairs of the moment, and endeavors to revive the sinking energies of his followers. He knows not repentance-he will not condescend to lamentation.

He leaves tears,

vain regrets, and useless gnashing of teeth,
to inferior natures, and for him

"All is not lost; th' unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else, not to be overcome."

He does not supplicate or threaten. He has
no weakness. His pride is Titanic as his
form, which lies floating many a rood upon
the burning lake. Though "racked by
deep despair," he shuts his hopelessness in
his heart, and rises to renew the battle. His
future is pain; but he resolves that it shall
be defiant pain. He can endure an eternity
of torment better than a moment of submis-
sion. He can retain his predominance over
his lost compeers only by a superiority in
endurance; and in lofty words of scorn and
strength he rouses the seared hearts around
him, and endeavors to make them partakers
of his desperate pride. They start into re-

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »