articles, embracing, and frequently exhausting, an immense variety of questions, bear strongly impressed upon them the cloquent sarcasm and indomitable energy of Lord Brougham, the sly and biting humour of Sidney Smith, and the cool and polished raillery of Jeffrey. The latter distinguished personage still is supposed to retain the management of the Edinburgh; and the almost invariable brilliancy of its disquisitions amply compensates for the loss of many powerful and accomplished writers among its earlier supporters. Scott was an occasional contributor to this Review, and his papers 'are invaluable relics of that intellect which has made him the Shakspeare of his age the most masterly, because the most humane and sympathizing, of the modern painters of human

nature.

As his political opinions were totally discordant from those of the Review, the subjects which he selected are all of a purely literary nature; adding another, and superfluous proof, of the wonderful learning, splendid genius, and benevolent heart, of the Author of Waverley and Marmion.

It is impossible to estimate justly the vast influence exerted by these great rivals upon Public Opinion in England. Possessed of a very large circulation, looked upon by all as the exponents of important parties in the state their anthorship shrouded in a veil of mystery, which, like the piquante mantilla that gives such attractiveness to the dark eyes of the Andalusian beauty, is not worn with any very prudish degree of tenacity the contests of these intellectual athletes are ever the object of intense interest. The weapons which they wield in the arena have been in general weighted with learning, pointed with wit, and polished by courtesy ; and if the poison of party-feeling may be occasionally detected sullying, while it envenoms them, the stain is but transient; for the dignity of their position, as organs of two great parties, embracing in their ranks all the property, the rank, and the intelligence of the country, precludes any departure from a subdued though earnest tone of dissertation.

The view of the immense field of periodical literature in England, of which the present essay embraces but a part,

(the consideration of the character and effects of the Newspaper Press making the subject far too voluminous for one of our papers) the completion of which we hope to present to our readers on a future opportunity, will render necessary a distinction between the degree of political influence enjoyed by the leading reviews, and that possessed even by the most able of the daily or weekly journals; the persuasive or converting power being in the latter case far inferior in energy indeed it may be asserted that while the Review leads, the Newspaper rather expresses, public opinion, a point of distinction which we hope to have some other and fitter opportunity to demonstrate.

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Next in importance to the two great reviews, and devoted less to serious discussion than to a mingling of grave and gay, with the frequent relief of poetry, tales, and the lighter products of intellect, is « Blackwood's Magazine. This, like the Quarterly, is the advocate of existing institutions; a journal which has supported its long-established and European reputation by an unvarying degree of merit, unparallelled, believe, in literary history. Among the multitude of great names that have been connected with Blackwood's Magazine, may be mentioned Scott; James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, long a constant contributor, whose tales and ballads are the very essence of fun and pathos; Professor Wilson, the present Editor, the author of a series of imaginary conversations, which have long excited the alternate laughter, tears, and admiration of his readers; De Quincey, the author of the « Confessions, of an Opium-Eater », one of the most striking and original of modern works; the learned and witty Maginn, and a host of other celebrated persons. In Blackwood too appeared that series of papers of such engrossing and painful interest, the Diary of a Late Physician, and more recently a tale of great merit, (attributed to the same eloquent author, Mr. Warren) entitled Ten Thousand a-Year."

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Advocating, and with equal ability, the same political doctrines, Fraser's Magazine » has, during a career of forty years sustained an increasing reputation. It is in the gay and caustic pages of Fraser that the topic of the day is sure to be found,

discussed with singular smartness and electric brilliancy of effect; while its Tales, Poetry, and lighter materials are invariably conceived with originality, and executed with a strong and delicate touch.

It would indeed be inconceivable if a party, strong at least in numbers, which carries, still farther than the Edinburgh, Whig or soi-disant Liberal principles, should be without an organ for its sentiments.

The Radical, or Ultra-Liberal, doctrines are represented by the Westminster Review,» a quarterly publication, which developes the theories of its supporters with considerable talent, and, in general, with a praise-worthy moderation of language. This journal has published several articles of remarkable merit on subjects connected with the Fine Arts. Into that innocent and sacred atmosphere the heated breath of factious passion cannot intrude; and the wild rhapsodies of republicanism give place to cool and elevating discussions, where moderate varieties, and brotherly dissimilitudes (1) can give interest without provoking recrimination.

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Among the Monthly journals, all more or less replete with wit and wisdom, with fun and pathos, we can afford to notice only the New Monthly, the « Metropolitan, and the Dublin University, Magazines; the two former edited by two of our most distinguished and popular Novelists, the late Theodore Hook, and Captain Marryatt, the author of Peter Simple. As may be expected, these Magazines contain ample indication of the genius of their Editors in Romances from their pen, continued through many numbers.

We cannot resist, in this place, expressing our serious disapproval of a system which has lately become general in our literature; we mean the practice of publishing Novels in the monthly parts of the various periodicals. This, we think, has a most injurious effect upon the work so placed before the public; an effect equally pernicious to the author and the reader. The former is induced to make, and the latter to expect, a monthly sacrifice of nature, of dramatic arrangement,

() Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus.

and of good taste, to the craving for unnatural excitement, which demands that each number shall contain some violent coup-de-théatre, some unexpected explosion of incident, to the total destruction of that sustained and regulated interest which arises from a well-concocted and maturely deliberated fable. It was not thus that the Giants of English Romance conducted their drama, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, and Scott. They were not compelled to fill the gaping ravenous maw of the public Cerberus with these intoxicating and indigestible gobbets of exaggerated interest and we doubt the possibility of any writer, however gifted, however conscientious, being long able to resist the temptation afforded by this system, and to abstain from agonizing and distorting his conceptions, and mistaking the writhings of morbid frenzy for the healthy vigour of good sense and propriety.

Independently of thus pandering to the taste for violent excitement, this practice appears objectionable on another account, not unworthy of notice, though arising from a pecuniary consideration. It is the custom for the publishers of these romances (who are generally the publishers also of the Review in which they thus disjointedly appear) to give them to the Public in the usual form of 3 vols post Octavo » before their conclusion has appeared in the periodical: thus, by a paltry trick of trade, the reader's curiosity to know the end of the Romance, is made his inducement to purchase, in effect, the same work twice over. We are surprised that authors of distinction should allow themselves to be the instruments of so unprincipled a piece of commercial ingenuity.

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Our notice would not be complete were we to omit « Bentley's Miscellany, a literary pot-pourri of great merit and originality, whose gaieties and gravities, in prose or verse, are of the highest order of light and airy amusement. It was originally edited by Mr. Dickens, the Author of the « Pickwick Papers," Nickleby, and other works, all exhibiting the delicate appreciation of character, power and flexibility of description, and deep humour, which have gained him the just reputation of being the Fielding of his age; but at present it is under the direction of Mr. Ainsworth, who has justified the choice by

several Romances of striking power. Nor must the quaint and refined wit of «Thomas Ingoldsby pass without our meed of admiration, whose wild and wondrous tales of goblin pranks are, like the Ballad-book of old Gawain Douglas, full of brownyis and bogilis, and are recounted with a dry drollery equally appropriate and inimitable.

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Of the number of periodicals devoted either wholly or principally to criticism, or to some particular object of professional interest, it will be sufficient to enumerate the titles. The Literary Gazette and the « Athenæum, both weekly journals of long standing, contain short and lively essays on topics of momentary interest, enriched besides with elaborate reports of the transactions of scientific societies. The United Service Journal chronicling all the notabilia of the Army and Navy, occasionally contains articles of great general interest.

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The British and Foreign Quarterly is principally devoted to Continental literature. The Asiatic Journal» a publication conducted with ability, presents us with full intelligence respecting the gigantic Eastern Empire of Great Britain.

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The Farmer's Magazine presents us with agricultural, the .Law with legal information; the Phrenological is devoted to reading the dreams of Craniology.

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The Civil Engineer brings us tle latest news from the Harbour, the Work-shop, or the Mine; the Railway informs us of the establishment or progress of one more filament in that immense net-work of Iron Roads which is rapidly covering the whole face of the country. The « British and Foreign Medical Review and the Lancet give us the most interesting intelligence from the hospital and the dissecting-room; the latter proving the appropriateness of its title by the sharpness, the brilliancy, and not unfrequently by the salutary effect of its keen and stinging strictures on the practice of the Physician. Tait's and Chambers' Magazines provide a banquet of cheap and innocent amusement for the Labourer and the Artisan; while the Magazine of Domestic Economy contains valuable hints for the careful HouseKeeper. Last, though not least, we mention the Sporting Magazine," which mingles with the annals of the Turf and