town and county offices giving him pre- he has secured a competency which ineminence as a real estate lawyer. sures comfort for the rest of his life. ANGUS MACKINNON. By industry and judicious investments EARLY PERIODICAL LITERATURE OF THE OHIO VALLEY. VI. CONWAY'S DIAL. "THE Dial: A Monthly Magazine for Literature, Philosophy and Religion. M. D. Conway, Editor. Horas non numero nisi serenas. Cincinnati. No. 76 West 1860." Third Street. Thus reads the title-page of a bound volume of one of the most original, peculiar and audacious publications that ever issued from the press. The work is complete in twelve numbers, just filling the eventful months of the memorable year 1860, the year of Lincoln's first election, the year after John Brown's raid and before the fall of Sumter. The opening article in the January number, entitled, "A Word to Our Readers," concludes with the following paragraph: "The Dial stands before you, reader, a legitimation of the spirit of the age, which aspires to be free; free in thought, doubt, utterance, love and knowledge. It is, in our minds, symbolized not so much by the sun-clock in the yard as by the floral dial of Linnæus, which recorded the advancing day by the opening of some flowers and the closing of others; it would report the day of God as recorded in the unfolding of higher life and thought, and the closing up of old superstitions and evils; it would be a dial measuring time by growth." When Moncure Daniel Conway penned this paragraph he had not completed the twenty-eighth year of his very active life, though he had begun an aggressive literary career ten years before. Born in Virginia in 1832, he graduated from Dickinson college in 1849, then studied law, and in 1851 entered the ministry as a Methodist preacher. Before ascending the pulpit he had written for the Southern Literary Messenger, the Richmond Examiner and the Ladies' Repository, and had put forth a vigorous pamphlet advocating the introduction of the New England system of free schools in Virginia. He had, also, not only repudiated all sympathy with the system of slavery, but had begun a war on that institution as fierce as the pen could wage. Some time in 1852 he withdrew from the Methodist church and went to Cambridge, where he entered the Divinity school, from which he graduated a "broad-gauge" Unitarian, or, rather, an Emersonian transcendentalist. From 1854 to 1856 he was pastor of the Unitarian society at Washington City. The reason for his leaving Washington for Cincinnati is thus given in his own language: "I was by a majority of five of the Unitarian congregation in Washington City declared to be too radical in my discourses on slavery for the critical condition of that latitude; and, therefore, I was invited to become minister of the First Congregational church in Cincinnati, Ohio." This was in 1856. Conway's thinking, writing and preaching became more and more independent, liberal and unpopular with religious denominations. He disbelieved in the supernatural elements of Christianity, and published what were regarded as flippant "Tracts for Today" and discourses in "Defense of the Theater," and on the "Natural History of the Devil." The Such was the history and record of the young man, M. D. Conway, at the period when the Dial was conceived and born. His mind was saturated and dripping with speculative philosophy and the thought and dream of the Concord seer. very name of the new magazine was identical with that of the celebrated Boston "organ," conducted in 1840-5 by Margaret Fuller and R. W. Emerson, of which the western journal, as Conway confessed, aspired "to be an Avatar." The great majority of pieces in the Dial were written by Conway, even in cluding several bits of poetry, "Eola," "Amor Respicit Coelum," etc. He wrote a series of ten papers, a sort of didactic story in the Carlylesque style, called "Dr. Einbohrer and His Pupils," in which are discussed various problems of evolution, life and faith. Other of his articles are, "Excalibur: A Story for Anglo-American Boys," being a dramatic history of John Brown's sword; Brown's sword; "The God with the Hammer," "The Two Servants," "Nemesis of Unitarianism," "Swedenborgian Heretic," "The Magic Duet," "The Word," " Moral Diagnosis of Disease" and "Who Discovered the Planet ?" The last named was widely copied and the poet Longfellow praised it. The Dial had a number of able contributors, several of them distinguished in letters. Among these was Rev. O. B. Frothingham, who published in the Dial a complete work running through nine numbers, entitled, "The Christianity of Christ." This was the earliest published work of importance by the author. Emerson honored his friend and admirer by sending occasional contributions in prose and verse to the Cincinnati periodical. The essay, "Domestic Life," was published October, 1860, and "The Story of West Indian Emancipation," in November. The quatrains-" Cras, Heri, Hodie," "Climacteric," "Botanist," "Forester," "Gardener," "Northman," "From Alcuin," "Nature, ""Natura in Minimus," "Orator," "Poet," "Artist," were originally printed in Conway's Dial. A number of the early poems of W. D. Howells adorn the pages of the Dial. Of these I name, "The Poet," "Misanthropy" and the lines beginning, "The moonlight is full of the fragrance Of the blooming orchard trees." It rests upon undeniable authority that the first printed notice of his work that Howells ever saw was a little review of the "Poems of Two Friends," published in the Dial for March, 1860. The notice says, "Mr. Howells has intellect and culture, graced by an almost Heinesque familiarity with high things; and if it were Translations from Taussennel, Balzac and other French authors were furnished the Dial by Dr. M. E. Lazarus. The longest of these was a complete translation of Balzac's "Ursula." R. D. Mussey wrote for the Dial a striking allegorical composition on love, with the figurative title, "My Sculptured Palace Walls." A very remarkable and, to most minds, shockingly irreverent article on "Prayer " was contributed by the late Orson S. Murray. The object of the writer was to prove that all prayer is unmitigated evil. Mr. Conway added a comment to the article, disclaiming responsibility for its sentiments and combatting them. Orson Murray was a noted anti-slavery agitator, and opposer of the church. Whittier described him as a "man terribly in earnest, with a zeal that bordered on fanaticism, and who was none the more genial for the mob violence to which he had been subjected." He was born in Orwell, Vermont, September 23, 1806; removed to Ohio in 1844, where he published a radical paper, The Regenerator, which had been started in New York. He died at his residence, near Foster's, Warren county, Ohio, June 14, 1885, aged seventy-nine. He had prepared his own funeral sermon, or "Death bed Thoughts," which were read on the day of his burial. An exceedingly attractive and suggestive feature of the Dial was a department called "The Catholic Chapter," a monthly collection of religious and moral aphor isms from all sources, ancient and modern, which, no doubt, was the beginning of Conway's "Sacred Authology." The best and most readable of Conway's own writing in the Dial is the part included under the head of "Critical Notices." In this sort of work the versatile editor was crisp, piquant and wonderfully discriminating. His genius is essentially literary, and he reads and reviews books con amore. The year 1860 was prolific of significant books, especially in the line of controversy, religious and political, and of dis cussion, scientific and philosophical. A few of the numerous works reviewed with more or less thoroughness in the Dial, were Henry Ward Beecher's 'Views and Evidences of Religious Subjects' and Edward Beecher's 'Concord of Ages,' both progressive; Sir William Hamilton's 'Logic,' the Political Debates of Lincoln and Douglas' and Redpath's 'Life of John Brown,' Darwin's 'Origin of Species,' Hawthorne's 'Marble Faun' and George Eliot's Mill on the Floss,' and, in poetry, 'Lucile' and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.' The editor's breezy criticism of Whitman contains an amusing passage, which is here quoted because it kills two or more birds with a well-slung stone. It reads as follows: "A friend of ours told us that once, when he was visiting Lizst, a finedressed gentleman from Boston was an. nounced, and during the conversation the latter spoke with great contempt of Wagner (the new light) and his music. Lizst did not say anything, but went to the open piano and struck with grandeur the opening chords of the Tannhäuser over ture; having played it through, he turned and quietly remarked, 'The man who doesn't call that good music is a fool.' It is the only reply which can be made to those who do not find that quintessence of things which we call poetry in many passages of this (Whitman's) work." In a short but cordial notice of Coggeshall's Poets and Poetry of the West,' published at Columbus in 1860, occur these resounding sentences: "But we do not fear that any man will carefully read this book without seeing that the west has a symphony to utter, whose keynote is already struck, and which is to make the world pause and listen. The world has heard the song of Memnon in the Orient; it must now turn to hear the Memnon, carved by the ages, as it shall respond to the glow of the Occident." The very last one of the seven hundred and seventy-eight pages included in the Dial is devoted to a reverential and laudatory heralding of Emerson's 'Conduct of Life,' the sheets of which the Boston master furnished in advance to his Cincinnati disciple. The Dial was self-supporting. It was largely patronized by Jews. In his "Parting Word" to the reader, the proprietor wrote: "We confess to some complacency regarding what we have. done, and can never be brought to look upon the Dial as, in any sense, a failure. We could name one or two papers that we have been enabled to lay before the public, and claim that they alone were worth all the toil and expense which our project has involved with editor or subscriber. Sweeter verses have never been sung in the land than some which have been wafted from the branches of the Dial through the country. And we rest from our labors quite sure that we shall see the day when the numbers remaining on hand will be insufficient to supply the demand for them.” W. H. VENAble. Partial list of literary periodicals published in the Ohio valley from the year 1819 to 1860: The Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine. Monthly. Wm. Gibbs Hunt, Lexington, Ky., August, 1819, to July, 1821. The Literary Cadet. Weekly. Dr. Joseph Buchanan, Cincinnati, November, 1819 Twenty-three numbers were issued and then the Cadet was merged in the Western Spy, which was thereafter published as the Western Spy and Literary Gazette. The Olio. Semi-monthly. John H. Woods and Samuel S. Brooks, Cincinnati, 1821. Continued for one year. The Literary Gazette. Weekly. John P. Foote, Cincinnati, January, 1824, to December, 1824. Revived by Looker and Reynolds, who continued it for eight months in 1825. Gallagher, Cincinnati, 1826. Survived less than one year. The Western Review. Monthly. Timothy Flint, Cincinnati, May, 1827, to June, 1830. Transylvania Literary Journal. A college paper. Prof. Thos. J. Matthews, Lexington, Ky., 1829. Masonic Souvenir and Pittsburgh Literary Gazette. A quarto weekly. Flint called it, "in form and appearance the handsomest in our valley." 1828. The Shield. Weekly. R. C. Langdon, Cincinnati, 182. Survived two years. The Ladies' Museum. Weekly. Joel T. Case, Cincinnati, 1830. Survived one or two years. The Illinois Magazine. Monthly. James. Hall, Shawneetown, Ill., October, 1830, to January, 1832. The Cincinnati Mirror and Ladies' Parterre. Edited by Wm. D. Gallagher. Published by John H. Wood. Semi-monthly. First number issued October 1, 1831. At the beginning of the third year Thomas H. Shreve went into partnership with Gallagher and the two bought the paper, enlarged it, and issued it weekly under the name Cincinnati Mirror and Western Gazette of Literature. In April, 1835, the Chronicle was merged in the Mirror and The Academic Pioneer and Guardian of Edu- The Literary Pioneer. Nashville, Tennessee, 1833. The Western Gem and Cabinet of Literature, Science and News. St. Clairsville, Ohio. Semimonthly, and afterwards weekly. Gregg and Duffey. Mrs. Dumont and Mrs. Sigourney were contributors. 1834. Kept up about a year. The Western Messenger. Cincinnati and Louisville. Western Unitarian Association. Edited by Ephraim Peabody, James Freeman Clarke, James H. Perkins and W. H. Channing. June, 1835, to April, 1841. The Family Magazine. Cincinnati, Eli Taylor. Started in 1836 and published six years or more. The Western Literary Journal and Review. Cincinnati, Wm. D. Gallagher, 1836. One volume. Western Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. Louisville, W. D. Gallagher and John B. Marshall, 1837. Five numbers only. The Hesperian; or, Western Monthly Magazine. Columbus and Cincinnati, Wm. D. Gallagher and Otway Curry, May, 1838, to 1841. The Literary News-Letter. Weekly. Louisville, Kentucky, Edmund Flagg, 1839. One year. The Monthly Chronicle. Mansfield, Ohio, 1839. Literary Examiner and Western Review. Pittsburgh, E. B. Fisher and W. H. Burleigh. Monthly. Eighty-four pages to a number. 1839. Published about a year. The Buckeye Blossom. Xenia, P. Lapham and W. B. Fairchild, 1839. The Family Schoolmaster. Richmond, Ind., Halloway and Davis, 1839. The Western Lady's Book. Cincinnati. Edited by an association of ladies and gentlemen. Published by H. P. Brooks. Began August, 1840. Short lived. The Ladies' Repository and Gatherings of the West. Cincinnati, Methodist Book Concern, 1841 to 1876. In the year 1877 the Methodist Book Con cern began to publish the National Repository, which was kept up for four years. Cincinnati, Austin T. The Western Rambler. Southwestern Literary Journal and Monthly Review. nessee. "the re The Democratic Monthly Magazine and Western The Herald of Truth. Cincinnati, L. A. Hine, Cincin The Great West. Literary newspaper. nati, E. Penrose Jones, May 5, 1848, to March, 1850. Sackett's Model Parlor Paper. Cincinnati, Egbert Sackett and F. Colton, December, 1848. Eight numbers issued. The Phonetic Magazine. Forty-eight pages. Monthly. Partly in the reformed spelling. Longley Brothers. Type of the Times. Successor to above. Weekly octavo. Same publishers. Edited by Elias Longley and William Henry Smith. The Shooting Star. Cincinnati, S. H. Minor. The Western Mirror. G. W. Copelan and "Sam'l Gentleman's Magazine. Cincinnati, J. Milton The Hipean. Cooper Female Institute, Dayton, Moore's Western Lady's Book. Cincinnati. The Western Pioneer. Chillicothe, S. Williams. The Columbian. Literary newspaper. Cincin- |