Periodical Literature--how sweet is the name! 'Tis a type of many of the
most beautiful things and events in nature; or say, rather, that _they_
are types of _it_--both the flowers and the stars. As to flowers, they
are the prettiest periodicals ever published in folio--the leaves are
wire-wove and hot-pressed by Nature's self; their circulation is wide
over all the land; from castle to cottage they are regularly taken in;
as old age bends over them, his youth is renewed; and you see childhood
poring upon them, prest close to its very bosom. Some of them are
ephemeral, and their contents are exhaled between the rising and the
setting sun. Once a-week others break through their green, pink, or
crimson cover; and how delightful, on the seventh day, smiles in the
sunshine the Sabbath flower--the only Sunday publication perused without
blame by the most religious--even before morning prayer. Each month,
indeed, throughout the whole year, has its own flower-periodical. Some
are annual, some biennial, some triennial, and there are perennials that
seem to live for ever--and yet are still periodical--though our love
will not allow us to know when they die, and phoenix-like re-appear from
their own ashes. So much for flowers--typifying or typified;--leaves
emblematical of pages--buds of binding dew-veils of covers--and the
wafting away of bloom and fragrance like the dissemination of fine
feelings, bright fancies, and winged thoughts!
The flowers are the periodicals of the earth--the stars are those of
heaven. With what unfailing regularity do the Numbers issue forth!
Hesperus and Lucifer! ye are one concern! The pole-star is studied by
all nations. How beautiful the poetry of the moon! On what subject does
not the sun throw light! No fear of hurting your eyes by reading that
fine, clear, large type on that softened page. Lo! as you turn over, one
blue, another yellow, and another green, all, all alike delightful to
the pupil, and dear to him as the very apple of his eye! Yes, the great
Periodical Press of heaven is unceasingly at work--night and day; and
though even it has been taxed, and its emanations confined, still their
circulation is incalculable; nor have we yet heard that Ministers intend
instituting any prosecution against it. It is yet Free, the only free
Power all over the world. 'Tis indeed like the air we breathe--if we
have it not, we die!
Look, then, at all our paper Periodicals with pleasure, for sake of the
flowers and the stars. Suppose them all extinct, and life would be like
a flowerless earth, a starless heaven. We should soon forget the seasons
themselves--the days of the week--and the weeks of the month--and the
months of the year--and the years of the century--and the centuries of
all Time--and all Time itself flowing away on into eternity. The
Periodicals of external nature would soon all lose their meaning, were
there no longer any Periodicals of the soul. These are the lights and
shadows of life, merrily dancing or gravely stealing over the dial;
remembrancers of the past--teachers of the present--prophets of the
future hours. Were they all dead, spring would in vain renew her
promise--wearisome would be the long, long, interminable
summer-days--the fruits of autumn would taste fushionless--and the
winter's ingle blink mournfully round the hearth. What are the blessed
Seasons themselves, in nature and in Thomson, but Periodicals of a
larger growth? They are the parents, or publishers, or editors, of all
the others--principal contributors--nay, subscribers too--and may their
pretty family live for ever, still dying, yet ever renewed, and on the
increase every year. We should suspect him of a bad, black heart, who
loved not the Periodical Literature of earth and sky--who would weep not
to see one of its flowers wither--one of its stars fall--one beauty to
die on its humble bed--one glory to drop from its lofty sphere. Let them
bloom and burn on--flowers in which there is no poison, stars in which
there is no disease--whose blossoms are all sweet, and whose rays are
all sanative--both alike steeped in dew, and both, to the fine ear of
nature's worshipper, bathed in music.
Only look at Maga! One hundred and forty-eight months old! and yet
lovely as maiden between frock and gown--even as sweet sixteen! Not a
wrinkle on cheek or forehead! No crow-foot has touched her eyes--
"Her eye's blue languish, and her golden hair!"
Like an antelope in the wilderness--or swan on the river--or eagle in
the sky. Dream that she is dead, and oh! what a world! Yet die she must
some day--so must the moon and stars. Meanwhile there is a blessing in
prayers--and hark! how the nations cry, "Oh! Maga, live for ever!"
We often pity our poor ancestors. How they contrived to make the ends
meet, surpasses our conjectural powers. What a weary waste must have
seemed expanding before their eyes, between morning and night! Don't
tell us that the human female never longs for other pastime than
"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer."
True, ladies sighed not then for periodicals--but there, in the depths
of their ignorance, lay their utter wretchedness. What! keep pickling
and preserving during the whole mortal life of an immortal being! Except
when at jelly, everlastingly at jam! The soul sickens at the monotonous
sweetness of such a wersh existence. True that many sat all life-long at
needlework; but is not that a very sew-sew sort of life? Then oh! the
miserable males! We speak of times after the invention, it is true, of
printing--but who read what were called books then? Books! no more like
our periodicals, than dry, rotten, worm-eaten, fungous logs are like
green living leafy trees, laden with dews, bees, and birds, in the
musical sunshine. What could males do then but yawn, sleep, snore,
guzzle, guttle, and drink till they grew dead and got buried?
Fox-hunting won't always do--and often it is not to be had; who can be
happy with his gun through good report and bad report in an a' day's
rain? Small amusement in fishing in muddy water; palls upon the sense
quarrelling with neighbours on points of etiquette and the disputed
property of hedgerow trees; a fever in the family ceases to raise the
pulse of any inmate, except the patient; death itself is no relief to
the dulness; a funeral is little better; the yawn of the grave seems a
sort of unhallowed mockery; the scutcheon hung out on the front of the
old dismal hall, is like a sign on a deserted Spittal; along with sables
is worn a suitable stupidity by all the sad survivors.--And such, before
the era of Periodicals, such was the life in--merry England. Oh!
dear!--oh! dear me!
We shall not enter into any historical details--for this is not a
Monologue for the Quarterly--but we simply assert, that in the times we
allude to (don't mention dates) there was little or no reading in
England. There was neither the Reading Fly nor the Reading Public. What
could this be owing to, but the non-existence of Periodicals? What
elderly-young lady could be expected to turn from house affairs, for
example, to Spenser's Fairy Queen? It is a long, long, long poem, that
Fairy Queen of Spenser's; nobody, of course, ever dreamt of getting
through it; but though you may have given up all hope of getting through
a poem or a wood, you expect to be able to find your way back again to
the spot where you unluckily got in; not so, however, with the Fairy
Queen. Beautiful it is indeed, most exquisitely and unapproachably
beautiful in many passages, especially about ladies and ladies' love
more than celestial, for Venus loses in comparison her lustre in the
sky; but still people were afraid to get into it then as now; and
"heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb," lay buried in dust. As
to Shakspeare, we cannot find many traces of him in the domestic
occupations of the English gentry during the times alluded to; nor do we
believe that the character of Hamlet was at all relished in their halls,
though perhaps an occasional squire chuckled at the humours of Sir John
Falstaff. We have Mr. Wordsworth's authority for believing that Paradise
Lost was a dead letter, and John Milton virtually anonymous. We need say
no more. Books like these, huge heavy vols. lay with other lumber in the
garrets and libraries. As yet, Periodical Literature was not; and the
art of printing seems long to have preceded the art of reading. It did
not occur to those generations that books were intended to be read by
people in general, but only by the select few. Whereas now, reading is
not only one of the luxuries, but absolutely one of the necessaries of
life, and we now no more think of going without our book than without
our breakfast; lunch consists now of veal-pies and Venetian
Bracelets--we still dine on Roast-beef, but with it, instead of
Yorkshire pudding, a Scotch novel--Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore
sweeten tea for us--and in "Course of Time" we sup on a Welsh rabbit
and a Religious Poem.
We have not time--how can we?--to trace the history of the great
revolution. But a great revolution there has been, from nobody's reading
anything, to every body's reading all things; and perhaps it began with
that good old proser Richardson, the father of Pamela, Clarissa, and
Sir Charles Grandison. He seems to have been a sort of idiot, who had
a strange insight into some parts of human nature, and a tolerable
acquaintance with most parts of speech. He set the public a-reading, and
Fielding and Smollett shoved her on--till the Minerva Press took her in
hand--and then--the Periodicals. But such Periodicals! The Gentleman's
Magazine--God bless it then, now, and for ever!--the Monthly Review,
the Critical and the British Critic! The age had been for some years
literary, and was now fast becoming periodical. Magazines multiplied.
Arose in glory the Edinburgh, and then the Quarterly Review--Maga,
like a new sun, looked out from heaven--from her golden urn a hundred
satellites drew light--and last of all, "the Planetary Five," the
Annuals, hung their lamps on high; other similar luminous bodies emerged
from the clouds, till the whole circumference was bespangled, and
astronomy became the favourite study with all ranks of people, from the
King upon the throne to the meanest of his subjects. Now, will any one
presume to deny, that this has been a great change to the better, and
that there is now something worth living for in the world? Look at our
literature now, and it is all periodical together. A thousand daily,
thrice-a-week, twice-a week, weekly newspapers, a hundred monthlies,
fifty quarterlies, and twenty-five annuals! No mouth looks up now and is
not fed; on the contrary, we are in danger of being crammed; an empty
head is as rare as an empty stomach; the whole day is one meal, one
physical, moral, and intellectual feast; the Public goes to bed with a
Periodical in her hand, and falls asleep with it beneath her pillow.
What blockhead thinks now of reading Milton, or Pope, or Gray? Paradise
Lost is lost; it has gone to the devil. Pope's Epistles are returned to
the dead-letter office; the age is too loyal for "ruin seize thee,
ruthless king," and the oldest inhabitant has forgotten "the curfew
tolls."--_Blackwood's Magazine._
* * * * *