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the same time, the editor finds at his disposal a most tempting array (so far as quantity and variety are concerned) of gratuitous contributions; for there is in America a mob of not "gentlemen" altogether men and women "who write with ease," and whose "easy writing" seldom escapes the correlative proverbially attached to easy writing. This is, in a great measure, owing to the system of school and collegiate education, which, by working boys and girls of fourteen and upwards at "compositions" and "orations" about as assiduously as Etonians are worked at "longs and shorts," makes them "writers" before they know how to read, and gives them a manner before they can have acquired or originated matter. Most of these people are content to write for nothing; they are sufficiently paid by the glory of appearing in print; many of them could write no better if they were paid. And it certainly is a temptation to be offered a choice gratis, among a variety of articles not absolutely unreadable, while you would be compelled to pay handsomely for one good one.

But the specific evils of such a system are numerous. In the first place, it prevents the editor from standing on a proper footing towards his contributors. Many a man who is not so engrossed with business but that he can afford to write for nothing, would, nevertheless, find an occasional payment of forty or fifty dollars a very timely addition to his income, and would prefer that way of making money to many others. But, in comparison with the editor, he appears positively a rich man, and as such is ashamed to ask for any pecuniary recompense. He feels, therefore, as if he were doing a charitable and patronising, or at least a very friendly act, in contributing, and will be apt to take less and less trouble with his contributions, and write chiefly for his own amusement; while the editor, on his part, does not like to run the chance of offending a man who can write him good articles occasionally, and feels a delicacy about declining to insert whatever the other writes.

Next, it often stands in the way of honest criticism. Men can be paid in flattery as well as in dollars, and the former commodity is more easily procurable than the latter. If the editor eulogises the author of "and other Poems," as at least equal to Tennyson, there is a

chance that some of the "other poems"

may come his way occasionally. Of course, if he were able and willing to pay for good articles, he could always command the service of good contributors, and need not stoop to so unworthy a practice.

Thirdly, it destroys all homogenousness and unity of tone in the periodical, by preventing it from having any permanent corps of writers. The editors must furnish good articles now and then, to carry off their ordinary vapid matter; and, accordingly, they are sometimes under the disagreeable necessity of paying for them; but not sufficiently often to make it worth the while of a writer, to whom the pecuniary consideration is an object, to attach himself permanently to any of their concerns. Hence, those men who expect to derive any appreciable part of their income from writing in periodicals, are continually changing their colours, and essentially migratory. And as the principal attraction of the unpaid writers is their variety, which is best provided for by frequently changing the supply of them, while one great inducement to themselves is the gratification of their vanity, which is best promoted by their appearing in the greatest number of periodicals, they also become migratory, and without permanent connexion. Accordingly, it is not uncommon for a periodical to change its opinions on men and things three or four times a year. Frequently, too, these changes are accompanied by disputes about unsettled accounts, and other private matters, which have an awkward tendency to influence the subsequent critical and editorial opinions of both parties. Now and then they lead to libel suits sometimes to still greater extremities.

But the worst consequence of all is, the suspicion cast upon all offers from periodicals to really eminent writers, by the failure of editors (through had faith, or inability, or both) to fulfil promises made to their contributors. Some of these cases are positively startling. In one instance, a distinguished author was promised, or given to understand, that he would have as much as thousand dollars a year. He wrote for two years steadily, and never received two cents.

We see, then, one great radical cause of inferiority in American periodical literature, affecting it in all its departments. But there are other influences which espe

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cially conspire to pervert and impede criticism. Some of these will be obvious, on referring back to our hints at the requisites for a critic. We said that he should be in the highest sense of the term a liberally educated man. Now this is what very few of the American periodical writers, professed or occasional, are. The popular object of education in the new world is to make men speak fluently and write readily about anything and everything speaking and writing which, from their very fluency and readiness, tend to platitude and commonplace. Those studies which depend on and form a taste for verbal criticism are pursued in a very slovenly and unsatisfactory manner; the penchant being for mathematics, from their supposed practical tendencies. Men read much, but they do not "mark, learn, and inwardly digest." Their reading is chiefly of new books, a most uncritical style of reading, to which the words reference, comparison, illustration, are altogether foreign. Again, we said that our critic must not only be able to form, but ready to express his own opinion. in short, that he must be bold and independent. Now this is no easy or common thing in America, not so much from want of spirit and fear of the majority, as from want of habit; the democratic influence moulding all minds to think alike. At the same time, it must be admitted that a spurious public opinion does often exercise a directly repressing influence. Cooper says, in his last novel, that the government of the United States ought to be called the Gossipian, and certainly Mrs. Grundy is a very important estate in the republic. Then there are many powerful interests all ready to take offence and cry out. The strongest editor is afraid of some of these. And if these influences have such power over a newspaper, which has mercantile intelligence, advertisements, and other great sources of support, much more must they affect a magazine or re

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*It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the absurdity of this fallacy. Every man who reads anything better than newspapers, finds frequent use for his classics in the way of explaining quotations, allusions, &c., while nothing can be imagined more utterly useless in every-day life than Conic Sections and Differential Calculus, to any man not professionally scientific. But because arithmetic is the introductory branch of mathematics, and also the foundation of bookkeeping, it is thought that working a boy at mathematics will make him a good man of business.

view. One great aim of an American magazine, therefore, is to tread on nobody's moral toes, or, as their circulars phrase it, "to contain nothing which shall offend the most fastidious" be the same Irish renegade, repudiator, or Fourierite. Accordingly, nearly all the magazines and reviews profess and practise political neutrality; and the two or three exceptions depend almost entirely on their political articles and partisan circulation. It was once mentioned to us by the editor of a Whig (Conservative) Review, that he had one Democratic subscriber. And we know another editor who is continually apologizing to his subscribers, and one half of his correspondents, for what the other half write. This has not always been the case. The Southern Literary Messenger was established to write up "the peculiar institutions," and therefore only suited to and intended for the southern market; but there was a time when, under the management of Mr. E. A. Poe, an erratic and unequal, but occasionally very brilliant writer, it had considerable circulation in the north. And the "Democratic Review," while it contained and paid for good articles, was subscribed to, and even written for by many Whigs.

Another enemy of true criticism in America is provincialism. There is no literary metropolis which can give decisive opinions, and the country is parcelled out among small cliques, who settle things their own way in their own particular districts. Thus, there are shining lights in Boston, who are "small potatoes" in New-York; and "most remarkable men" in the West, whom no one has remarked in the East. Sometimes, indeed, these cliques contrive to ramify and extend their influence into other places. This is effected by a regular system of flattery "tickle me and I'll tickle you;" nor is there even an endeavour to conceal this. For instance, when the classical lion of a certain clique had been favourably reviewed by a gentleman in another city, whose opinion was supposed to be worth something, the periodical organ of the clique publicly expressed its thanks for the favour, and in return dug up a buried novel of the critic's, and did its best to resuscitate it by a vigorous puff. Here was a fair business transaction, with prompt payment. We have observed that the tendency of American reviewing is to indiscriminate praise. The exceptions

to this (setting aside some rare extravagances, which resemble the efforts of a bashful man to appear at ease, attempts to annihilate Cooper, or Tennyson, for instance) usually spring from some of the private misunderstandings we have aluded to; e. g. two litterateurs quarrel, one of them is kicked out of doors, and then they begin to criticise each other's writings. And the consequence is, that it is next to impossible to pass an unfavourable opinion upon anything, without having personal motives attributed to you, and getting into a personal squabble about it. When an author, or an artist, or an institution is condemned, the first step is, to find out, if possible, the writer of the review, and the next to assail him on private grounds. Indeed, the author's friends do not always stop at pen and paper. Some years ago, an English magazinist charged a fair versifier of the West with having "realized" some of his inspirations a very absurd claim by the way, there was nothing in the disputed stanzas which would have done any man much credit. Soon after, the Kentucky papers announced that a friend of the lady had gone out express by the last steamer, for the purpose of "regulating" the Englishman. What the result was we have never heard.

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Such are some of the causes which militate against the attainment of a high standard in American periodical literature. For some years it went on very swimmingly on credit; but it is exceedingly doubtful, to say the least, if the experiment could be successfully repeated. We have seen that many of these obstacles are directly referable to the fact that the editorship of Monthlies and Quarterlies does not tempt men of capital into it; and it is not difficult to perceive that such of the others as are surmountable, can be most readily overcome by remunerating those engaged in the business. If good critics. are well paid, it will be worth men's while to study to become good critics; and if a periodical is supported with real ability, it will make its way in spite of sectional or party prejudices, as we have seen was the case in some instances. And since it is plain that the republication of English magazines must interfere with the home article, the conclusion seems inevitable, that the passing of an international Copyright Law would be the greatest benefit that could be conferred on American periodical literature.

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