any of their Transmontane admirers, know what is really fitted for
them in political institutions--what will really do them good--what
is really suited to the genius of the people and the requirements
of the country. Political institutions are like plants that cannot
always bear transferring from one region to another: they require the
process of becoming acclimatised, and, on their first introduction
into a new country, demand the fostering shelter of the hot-house and
the gardener's constant care. Because a representative constitution
is supposed to be the acme of human wisdom in the latitude of Great
Britain, it does not therefore follow that it will flourish so far
south as Naples; and because a national guard is reckoned the _ne plus
ultra_ of national institutions at Paris, we are by no means sure that,
it would produce any good results at Rome. It seems, in fact, to us to
be one of the monomanias of the present age, that the same Procrustean
bed of representative government is laid out for all people that
think they require more political liberty than they are at present in
possession of; and should the inhabitants of Timbuctoo, of Canton, of
Tobolsk, of Alexandria, and of Morocco, take it into their heads, some
fine day, to send deputations to the united _quidnuncs_ of London and
Paris, requesting the transmission of constitutions for their several
states, we have no doubt that a couple of legislative houses, and a
corps of national guards, _à pied et à cheval_, would be immediately
recommended, as equally applicable to their several wants. It seems
to be the privilege of civilised Europeans to think that the right of
governing themselves is the essence of civil freedom: far more true, in
the vast majority of cases, would it be to say, that it constituted the
essence of political thraldom. It is a social truth, most unpalatable
to ninety-nine-hundredths of mankind, but not therefore the less
true, that ninety-nine men out of a hundred are not fit to govern
themselves, even in the relations of social life, and far less in those
of political. And so it is with nations: for one nation that has really
prospered under the plan of self-government, there are ninety-nine that
have brought on themselves evils which, under a less popular system,
they would have avoided. If the physical and social condition of a
people be taken as a test; if the durability of their institutions, if
the dignity and influence of their government, be quoted, as proofs of
the advantages of their several forms of political institutions, we
really know not any constitutional form to which, _ceteris paribus_, we
could appeal as deciding the question against those of a monarchical
tendency. If the privilege of taxing themselves to an amount that
defies all power of redemption, and cripples the resources of the
nation to a point that menaces its existence as an independent power,
in the struggle of nations; if the freedom of conducting commercial
affairs in such a manner that every seventh year shall bring the whole
trading interests of a country to the very verge of bankruptcy; if the
balancing of the influence of the several classes so badly, that at
length the lower threaten to swallow up the upper in a wild flood of
irreligion and anarchical spoliation; if the system of "_propter vitam
vivendi perdere causas_" be adopted as the acme of perfection--if all
this be considered fit and proper, then let a constitutional monarchy
be preached up as the model for every nation under the sun. But we
cannot wish so ill to any of our fellow-men as to advise them to
relinquish present good, however small, for the prospect of such evil,
however seductive. We do not approve of plying the poor Red man with
fiery liquors till his tribe becomes exterminated; and in the same way
we would withhold the intoxicating draught of self-government from the
lips of those people who hitherto have sucked in their milk, as babes,
at the hands of others.
To us it is a bad sign that the Italians should be calling out for
representative assemblies, and for national guards. They are not fit
for the former, nor can they be so for the next hundred years--we
should not congratulate them even if they obtained these dangerous
tools, wherewith to play at the hazardous game of legislation: and as
for national guards, they do not want them, inasmuch as nobody is going
to invade them; and if an invasion were made by a northern nation, we
know, by long experience, that the national guard would be perfectly
useless. The Italians "don't fight;" they bluster and talk big, like
the Spaniards, and run away ere the first shot is fired. Ten thousand
Germans or Frenchmen, may march from one end of Italy to the other
without meeting any man that dares fire at them, except from behind
a rock or a stone wall. The Italians must be made of sterner stuff,
before they take upon themselves the responsibility of bearing arms.
The position of the several sovereigns in Italy is such, that their
opposition to the wishes of Austria, if that opposition be real,
creates in us some surprise. The King of Sardinia ought to know, by the
long and sad experience of those who have preceded him on his slippery
throne, that there is no chance of safety for him in a European
struggle, unless he depends on the House of Austria. France always has
been, and always will be, a treacherous neighbour to Piedmont; and she
will never cease coveting Savoy until she has made it her own, or has
been deprived even of the power of envy. The Grand Duke of Tuscany is
so closely related to the Emperor that family interests alone ought
to make their policy identical; and the King of Naples, like the King
of Sardinia, has no firmer support for his foreign power than the
friendship and countenance of the Court of Schönbrunn. The Pope is
certainly an independent prince, and at his wish to keep the Holy See
free from all foreign influence we cannot feel surprised: it is the
healthiest, because the least unnatural, symptom of the whole crisis.
For Austria, we can well conceive that the prudent and cautious policy
of that ably conducted monarchy must dictate excessive jealousy and
suspicion of these popular movements. Austria, more than any other
power in Europe, has the truest cause to pride itself on the good
results of its peculiar system of government, as demonstrated by the
solid and practical wellbeing of the States under its paternal sway.
As much as any state of the Continent has it cause to abhor those
systems of anarchy which, under the guise of patriotism, lead only to
revolution and misery: and as one of the great conservators of the
monarchical principle in politics, it is called upon, by its very
station and dignity, to check rather than to encourage what may very
possibly prove to be only a spurious attempt to gain licentiousness,
rather than freedom. Lombardy, no doubt, is allied to its illustrious
rulers most unwillingly; but it does not therefore follow that it would
be in the least degree more prosperous and happy if left to itself. On
the contrary, we have no doubt that, could Lombardy receive at once
the full license to establish its own form of government, it would
split into as many petty states as there are large cities in it, and
would be plunged into all the horrors of civil contest. It is a most
fortunate thing for the north of Italy that it is under the strong hand
of the most steady and respectable power in Europe--one whose rulers
will never set it a bad example, who are able to protect it from all
aggression, and who watch over its social and internal progress with
unceasing care. The Lombards, like the Irish agitators, may cry out
for "Repeal of the Union;" but the granting of that repeal would be
the signing of the death-warrant of national prosperity. Austria is no
enemy to rational, well-balanced liberty: there is no country in the
world where _real_ liberty and happiness are more widely diffused, or
more intensely felt. Its people are free from the clamours of noisy and
frothy patriotism, which, when stripped of its false clothing, proves
nothing more than vulgar and self-interested ambition. They enjoy all
the blessings of good government, and are able each man to sit under
his own fig tree, and to see all around him in a state of unmixed
prosperity. Such a power as this will not readily give way to the
declamations and "pronunciations" of the rabble; it will rather wait
for the amelioration of the national character; and, when it finds its
subjects fit for some of the introductory processes of self-government,
it will concede them.
We could wish to see the other powers of Italy taking advice from
Austria, and not hastening onwards too rapidly along that path, wherein
a return is so unpleasant and so difficult. Far better would it be
for them to be too slow than too hasty with political innovation: the
safety of such a retardatory course is certain, whereas the success of
a more rapid advance is exceedingly problematical.
As for England, whatever tends to the real benefit of Italy must tend
also to her advantage. She has so many commercial, if not political
relations with that country, that the well-being of a considerable
class of her customers cannot but promote the interests of her own
traders. But Italy revolutionised will not be the Italy that now
imports large quantities of our goods, and that pays for them in
valuable products of first-rate necessity to the English consumer.
Italy, well governed and prosperous, will always offer a good mart for
British goods; and therefore, upon this ground alone, Great Britain
is especially concerned to see that the Peninsula remains quiet and
healthy. But, to take a higher view of the state of things, it is the
true interest of England--whatever Radical orators and Whig statesmen
may think--to ally herself with the friends of order in Europe, and
to avoid all connexion with the promoters of wars and tumults. France
would be delighted at seeing Italy convulsed from one end to the other,
were not the crafty occupant of her throne afraid of thereby injuring
the solidity of his own dynasty. But for England, there can be no
second course to pursue; and having gained her own freedom through
the long experience and the severe trials of centuries, she can never
honestly encourage other nations to hope for similar results by the
proceedings of a few months and weeks. If she does, or rather if her
ministers tamper with the revolutionary party in Italy, or elsewhere,
instead of supporting the cause of steady government, she abdicates the
high position she holds in the European family, and deserves to lose
those multifarious advantages,--those numerous possessions, which she
holds only on the tenure of being the great supporter of reasonable
freedom, and international justice.
THE PERIODICAL LITERATURE OF AMERICA.
BRITISH readers are not unacquainted with the American newspaper press,
as, not to mention the numerous extracts from transatlantic papers in
the columns of London journals, the merits of that press formed, but a
few years ago, a topic of controversy between two London Quarterlies.
But of American magazines and reviews they seldom hear any thing. This
is certainly in no degree owing to the scarcity of these publications,
for they are as numerous, in comparison, as the newspapers, have a very
respectable circulation, (in some cases nearly four thousand,) and that
at the not remarkably low price of four or five dollars _per annum_.
Neither is it to their insignificance at home, for their editors make
a considerable figure in the literary world, and their contributors
are sufficiently vain of themselves, as their practice of signing or
heading articles with their names in full would alone show.[47] Indeed
Willis's idea (so ridiculed by the _Edinburgh_,) of a magazine writer
becoming a great lion in society, is not so very great an absurdity if
applied to American society. Nor is this due to the fact that their
topics are exclusively local; for there is scarcely a subject under
heaven of which they do not treat, and a European might derive some
very startling information from them. The _Democratic Review_, for
example, has a habit of predicting twice or thrice a-year that England
is on the point of exploding utterly, and going off into absolute
chaos.[48]
"Perhaps," interrupts an impatient non-admirer of things American
generally, "it is because they are not worth hearing any thing about."
And this suggestion is not so far from truth as it is from politeness.
Considering the great demand for periodical literature in the New
World, one is surprised to find it so bad in point of quality. Not
that the monthly and quarterly press is disfigured by the violence
and exaggeration that too often deform the daily. Over-spiciness is
the very last fault justly chargeable upon it. In slang language, it
would rather be characterised by the terms "slow," "seedy," "remarkably
mild," and the like. Crude essays filled with commonplaces, truisms,
verses of the true _non Di non homines_ cast, tales such as shop-boys
and milliners' girls delight in, and "critical notices" all conceived
in the same spirit of indiscriminating praise, make up the columns of
the monthlies; while the one or two more pretending publications which
now represent the quarterly press, are of a uniformly subdued and
soporific character.
Now the first phenomenon worthy of notice is, that this has not always
been the case. It was very different eight or nine years ago. The three
leading cities of the north, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, had
each its Quarterly: the _Knickerbocker_, a New York magazine, boasted
a brilliant list of contributors, headed by Irving and Cooper, and its
articles were frequently copied (sometimes without acknowledgment,)
into English periodicals. This change for the worse is worth
investigating, at least as a matter of curiosity.
"I don't know that it _is_ a change for the worse," says a prim
personage in spectacles. "If your periodical literature dies out
entirely, you need not be very sorry. I shouldn't be if ours did." And
then come some murmurs of "light," "superficial," "unsound," and more
to the same effect.
"My good sir, this in the face of Maga! not to mention the _Quarterly_
and the _Edinburgh_. With such _faits accomplis_ against you, what
_can_ you say?"
"I don't believe in _faits accomplis_. They are the excuse of the timid
man, and the capital of the unprincipled man. _Fait accompli_ means, in
plain English, that 'because it is so, therefore it ought to be so'--a
doctrine which I, for one, will never assent to."
"Well, there is something in that last position of yours. We will
condescend, therefore, to argue the question. Let me ask you, then,
"_First_, Do you see any _primâ facie_ improbability in supposing that
a man may write a very good essay, who could not write two good volumes
octavo; or a racy and interesting sketch, who could not put together a
readable novel; or a few graceful poems, without having matter enough
for a volume of poetry?
"_Secondly_, Is a treatise necessarily profound, because it is long; or
superficial, because it is of practicable dimensions?
"_Thirdly_, When you use the term 'superficial,' do you really
believe and mean to imply that periodical writers are in the habit of
discussing subjects which they do not understand? Would you say, for
instance, that Macaulay's reviews denote a man ignorant of history, or
that Sedgwick knows less geology than the man who wrote the _Vestiges
of Creation_, or that Mitchell knew less Greek than Lord Brougham?
"But perhaps it is the literary criticism to which you object. You
are an author yourself, perhaps, though we have not the pleasure of
recollecting you. You have written a good-sized volume of _Something,
and Other Poems_, and cannot bear that your thoughts and rhymes
should be scrutinised and found fault with by a reviewer--that your
immortal fire should be tested in so earthy a crucible. In that case
you will find many more or less distinguished names to sympathise with
and encourage you. There is Bulwer, with whom the word critic is an
exponent of every thing that is low, and mean, and contemptible; and
on our side of the water (sorry are we to say it) a much milder man
than Bulwer--Washington Irving--has spoken of the critical tribe as
having little real influence, and not deserving more influence than
they have; while of the small fry of authorlings, there is no end of
those who are ready to rate the reviewer roundly for 'finding fault
with his betters.' One cannot even condemn an epic of impracticable
length and hopeless mediocrity--nay, not so much as hint that verses
are not necessarily poetry--without being assailed by an unceremonious
_argumentum ad hominem_--'You couldn't make better.'[49] And perhaps
the critic could not. It is more reasonable to suppose that he wouldn't
if he could, entertaining the commendable conviction, that to spend
a day, much more a month or a year, in writing middling verse, is an
awful waste of time. But what an absurd irrelevancy of counter-charge!
Suppose Brummell had found fault with the (Nug ee?) or Buckmaster
of his day for misfitting him, and the schneider had replied, 'Mr
Brummell, you couldn't make as good a coat in a year.' 'Very probably
not,' the beau might have retorted; 'but my business is to wear the
coat, and yours to make it.' Must a man be able to concoct a _bisque
d'écrevisse_ himself, before he can venture to hazard an opinion on
the respective merits of the _Trois Frères_ and the _Café Anglais_? Or
shall he be denied the right of giving a decided vote and holding a
decided opinion in politics, because he has not ability or opportunity
to become a cabinet minister to-morrow? In seeking to put down, or
affecting to despise criticism, the author makes a claim which no
other distinguished character ventures. The artist does not insist on
controlling the judgment of his contemporaries,[50] still less the
statesman. Did a premier fulminate his dictum to the effect that no
journalist had a right to find fault with his measures, he would raise
a pretty swarm of hornets about his ears. By what precedent or analogy,
then, can the poet, or novelist, or historian, set himself up as
autocrat in that realm of letters, which is proverbially a republic?
"Besides, suppose for a moment that all professional critics were
Sir-Peter-Lauried in the most complete manner, who should help to guide
the popular mind in determining on the merits of a work? Are we to
trust the written puffs of the author's publisher, or the spoken puffs
of his friends? Or are _authors_ only to judge of authors, and is it
quite certain that in this way we shall always obtain unprejudiced
and competent judgments? Or shall we make an ultimate appeal to the
public themselves, and decide a book's merits by its sale--a test that
would put Jim Crow infinitely before Philip Van Artevelde? No doubt a
_bad_ critic is a very bad thing; but it is not a remarkably equitable
proceeding to judge of any class by the worst specimens of it; and
surely it is no fairer to condemn critics _en masse_, because some
of them have formed erroneous judgments or uttered predictions which
time has falsified, than it would be to condemn authors _en masse_,
because many of them have written stupid or dangerous books. Let us
ask ourselves soberly what a critic is--not the caricature of one
that Bulwer would draw, but such an idea of one as any dispassionate
and well-informed man would conceive. In the first place, criticism
depends very much on taste, and taste is of all faculties that which
is founded on and supported by education and cultivation. Therefore
the critic must be a liberally educated man in the highest sense of
the term. And as he has to be conversant with niceties of thought and
expression, philology and the classics should have formed a prominent
element in his education. We should be very suspicious of that man's
critical capacity, who had not thoroughly studied (by which we do _not_
mean being able to speak) at least one language besides his own. Then,
as a matter of course, before beginning to write about books, he must
have read many books of all sorts, and not only read, but studied and
comprehended them. All which will help us to see why the professional
critic is likely to be a better judge of books than the professional
author, because the preparation of the former renders him eminently
eclectic; while the latter is apt to have a bias toward peculiarities
of his own, and thus to judge of others by a partial standard.
"Next, the critic must be a courageous and independent man. His
judgment upon a book must be entirely irrespective of any popular
outcry for or against it. If he is at all apt to float with the
opinions of others, he cannot be the adviser and assistant of the
public, but will only encourage accidental error or premeditated
deception. For a similar reason, he will keep all personal and private
considerations out of view. He must not be supposed to know the author,
except as exhibited in his works. But while personality is the bane of
criticism, partisanship, moral or political, is so far from being a
hinderance to the critic, that it is actually an aid to him. If he has
legitimate grounds for praising a coadjutor or condemning an opponent,
he will write all the better for his partisanship; for, indulging that
partisanship, he feels himself, if he be an honest partisan, to be
also serving the public. We do not pretend to have enumerated all the
requisites for a critic. There are some natural qualities, which, if
not indispensable, are at least a great assistance. Thus we find men
who have the same immediate perception of styles that portrait painters
have of countenances, and can immediately assign to any anonymous
writing its author, though the peculiarities which distinguish that
author be so slight that it is not easy to illustrate, much less to
explain them. And thus, if you ask such a man, 'How do you know that
---- wrote this? What turn of expression or traits of style can you
point to?' He will reply, 'I can't give you any reason, only I am sure
it is so;' and so you will find it to be. He knows it, as it were,
by intuition." But we have already said quite enough on the general
question; so let us leave our friend to wipe his spectacles, and come
back to our particular case.
In examining the causes of the inferiority of American periodical
literature, the most readily assignable, and generally applicable is,
that its contributors are mostly unpaid. It is pretty safe to enunciate
as a general rule, that, when you want a good thing, you must pay for
it. Now the reprints of English magazines can be sold for two dollars
_per annum_, whereas a properly supported home magazine or review
cannot be afforded for less than four or five. Hence no one will
embark a large capital in so doubtful an undertaking; and periodical
editorship is generally a last resource or a desperate speculation. One
of the leading magazines in New York--perhaps, on the whole, the most
respectable and best conducted--was started with a _borrowed_ capital
of 300 dollars, (say £65.) But it is hardly necessary to remark that
the proprietors of a periodical should have a fair sum in hand to begin
with, that they may secure the services of able and eminent men to
make a good start. The syllogistic conclusion is obvious. At 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.