gentle, seem to have sprung up in his nature as from celestial seed. An air of inexpressible purity is spread over his compositions. There is not one premeditated line, in his prose or verse, which can be associated with a base or immoral idea, It may be said of him with truth, that, although he has been the source of much pure delight to thousands, he has never made his talents ministers of evil, or sought popularity by pampering depraved tastes. Throughout his works we ever find beauty linked with goodness.

The reprints of what are called the "modern periodcal essayists," including the present collection of the writings of Talfourd, naturally suggest a comparison between the periodical literature of the present age and that which existed in England during the latter half of the last century. No publisher, however enterprising, would hazard a republication of articles extracted from the old European and Gentleman's Magazines, and the Monthly Review. Indeed, until the establishment of the Edinburgh Review, in 1802, there were few, if any, periodicals worthy of comparison with the critical journals of the present day. Before that period, the regular monthly visiters to the fireside and the study were conducted by men of inferior abilities, and rarely contained articles worthy of preservation. Dulness answered to dulness, and weakness worshipped wit. On the publication of any work by an author of reputation, the reviewer tamely and timidly followed the footprints of his opinions and investigations, and rarely attempted more than a meek digest of both. No task can be more severe than to travel through the sterile tracts of periodical literature during the period we have indicated. The very appearance of an old magazine is suggestive of

insipidity and dulness. We can pick up little in it but the dry chips and shavings of thought and knowledge. Letters from country gentlemen about some subject in which none but country gentlemen can be supposed to take any interest, communications from small antiquarians, on small antiquities,—a large number of metrical pieces which no country editor would now dare to publish in his poetical corner, the ambitious struggle of the meanest mediocrity to look like moderate talent, the coquetry of Mr. Robert Merry, the divine poet, with Miss Anna Matilda, the sad poetess, both hailing from Della Crusca, an infinite number of little epistles on little subjects, devoid alike of forcible thought and vigorous expression,- everything, in short, but things of interest and excellence, composed the material of most periodicals during the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. The reviews, conducted for a short period by Gilbert Stuart and Dr. Smollett, were, by virtue of their rancor and malice, an exception to the stupidity of the mass. But flatness, insipidity, an absence of valuable information and mental vigor, a cringing and creeping deference to established codes of criticism, and a sickening weakness of expression, characterized most monthly journals during that period, when their contributors peopled the mansion-houses of fat-witted country squires, and the attics and cellars of Grub-street. How that unfortunate portion of our fellow-creatures known by the name of the "reading public" could not only purchase, but read, these stupid apologies for literature, is a mystery more puzzling than the debated authorship of Junius. It is impossible to discern the exact point in the descent of literature, when its productions will cease to command the money, and excite the attention, of the

simple and the well meaning. People in all times have their own peculiar methods of obtaining misery at a cheap rate. We buy ninepenny reprints of fashionable

novels.

But the Edinburgh Review disturbed the smoothly stagnant waters of monthly and quarterly dulness. The tone of its early numbers was such as to make all disciples of stupidity, and all professors of bathos, fear and tremble. It was radical, revolutionary, almost piratical, in its warfare against existing abuses. It had the hardihood to consider folly, affectation, and undue pretensions, as crimes deserving of severe punishment. Its principal writers were men of clear intellect, with a fine perception of the ludicrous, a large command of the language of persiflage, and a singular union of the sharp, fleering tone of literary coxcombs, with the accomplishments of scholars and men of taste. They were distinguished for subtlety, rather than amplitude of comprehension; and were better fitted to discern with delicate tact the faults and absurdities of hacks and pedants, than to detect, appreciate, and foster the writings of great, but undisciplined, genius. They battled as fiercely against Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, and Montgomery, as they did against the poor poetasters and literary fops and hirelings, whose names it would be almost a disgrace to remember. The success of their first efforts against book-makers, and the favor with which their lively and malicious pleasantry was received by the public, appear to have impressed them with a magnified idea of their own importance and powers. They constituted themselves, with a quiet assurance almost unparalleled in literary history, the judges of the whole realm of letters; stated and abandoned their own laws of criticism at

pleasure; considered the publication of a book as primâ facie evidence of crime, of which only great merit could be received in apology; summoned every writer to their tribunal, and dealt out to him eulogy or blame, as their tastes, whims, wit, or politics, might prompt; were often intolerant and harsh in their judgments, where the victim could bring strong recommendations to mercy; and, by the mingled force of talent and assurance, they contrived for a series of years, and in a time affluent in great names, to exercise a predominant influence upon public opinion, and to give the tone to public taste. Grub-street fought desperately at first, to regain its old dominion; but it soon fell, "pierced through and through with cunning words," and was buried beneath the weight of its own explanatory, defamatory, and lugubrious pamphlets, forty of which, excited by articles in the Edinburgh, and accusing it of all modes and shows of literary injustice, dropped drearily from the press in one year. The success which attended the great Quarterly gave a strong impulse to periodical literature. Magazines and reviews multiplied rapidly. Almost all the talent of Great Britain found its way occasionally into their pages. Each of the great political and religious parties had its code of criticism, its rank and file of periodical essayists, its representatives of party principles and party literature. Each journal attempted to surpass its contemporaries in vigor, brilliancy and point. A certain fierceness of tone was infused into criticism. No writer, however high his genius, or noble his motives, could publish a book, without suffering insult and injustice from some one of these flashing and bitter exponents of cliques and parties.

We have intimated our high opinion of the value of the essays and disquisitions with which British periodi

cal literature is now so amply filled. An eminent publishing house in Philadelphia has very wisely undertaken to reprint these, and to give them a general circulation in the United States. To this enterprise we owe the collection of Talfourd's prose writings,-gems which were originally set in the Retrospective Review and New Monthly Magazine, but which did not attract, in that form, perhaps from the very fineness of their workmanship, the attention they deserved. They bear in almost every sentence marks of care and labor, and are distinguished from the compositions of contemporary essayists, not only by peculiarities of temperament and opinion, but by the sedate beauty and calmness of their tone. We can perceive in them none of that deliberate fury, that spasmodic and convulsed energy, that incessant struggle after brilliancy, which characterize the style of most writers for the English magazines. They do not appear to be the productions of haste, prejudice, or whim, but seem to have been carefully meditated in those hours of the author's life which were peculiarly favorable to chasteness of thought and felicity of composition. Nothing appears in them calculated to suggest the hired hack, torturing his mind into something like vigor, inspired by a distant view of eight guineas a sheet.

His critical writings manifest on every page a sincere sympathy with intellectual excellence and moral beauty. The kindliness of temper, and tenderness of sentiment, by which they are animated, are continually suggesting pleasant thoughts of the author. He festoons the scalpel of the critic with roses. Hatred, scorn, and dogmatism, rarely vex the unruffled stream of his thoughts and emotions. A fine humanity pervades and harmonizes his mind. But his sweetness of disposition in many cases