CHAPTER XXI.

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.

THE rapid growth and the enormous increase of Newspapers and Periodical journals make it necessary to discuss them separately, freely and at some length. With very many persons they have very largely taken the place of books and have induced peculiar habits of reading and of thinking, which modify the estimate and the use that are accorded to the books which continue to be read. There are many persons now living, who were bred in the wealthiest and most accessible country towns even of New-England, who can remember when the most intelligent families were content with a single weekly newspaper, issued from the nearest city or shire town. Perhaps a religious weekly was added, after religious newspapers began to be published. One or two households besides that of the clergyman or lawyer might take a Monthly as the Analectic Magazine, or possibly a Quarterly as the newly initiated North American Review; or perhaps one family read the London Quarterly and another the Edinburgh, which were then reproduced, the one in drab, and the other in blue and yellow. A daily newspaper except in the large commercial cities was unknown and unthought of, and a copy rarely found its way into the most accessible towns of the largest size. A Semi-weekly New York or Boston Advertiser, or a Philadelphia Gazette, was the height of luxury in the country towns.

But all this is now bravely changed in England and America—so far as newspapers are concerned, more em

phatically in America than in England. The United States is the paradise of newspapers, if a rank and rapid growth indicates a paradise. A daily newspaper has become a necessity of life to every city and every extemporized village on the extreme frontiers of civilization. As a medium for learning and telling news and for the manufacture and the retail of gossip, the newspaper has taken the place of the fountain and the market-place of olden times; and in times more recent, of the town-pump, the grocery and the exchange; as well as of the court-house and the cross roads of a more scattered population. We cannot finish our breakfast without the local daily, whether it be metropolitan or provincial. If we do business in the city and sleep in the country, we must despatch two or three dailies on our way to the office or the counting-room, and we reconsider and review the day by a glance at the evening journals. Instead of reading books, many read reviews of books; instead of patiently perusing history, many cram from summaries or digests in the form of partisan or critical articles. Every leading monthly has its serial novel with which to tantalize the reader and to prolong the tale; which frequently breaks off at an exciting crisis, in order to hold the tale and the periodical prominently before the minds of the greatest number of readers. Brilliant poems are secured to sell a single number. Telling articles on politics, finance and theology are no longer published in pamphlets as formerly, but they are sought for to give character to a Quarterly. Editors' "book tables," "easy chairs," "quarterly or monthly summaries" are relied upon to indicate, or regulate the current of public opinion as well as for the circulation of a variety of gossip and the discharge of any redundant editorial humor, which is various in the quality of its effervescence and pungency. The shy girl of the country, and the bold girl of the town, the fast girl of the period and the brassy girl of the pro

menade all study the fashions in some newspaper or magazine, to which are appended a flashy poem, a sensational tale and a flaunting essay. To meet the wants of those whose intellectual digestion is weak, but whose moral sense is scrupulous, newspapers of a very light pabulum are furnished, strongly flavored with a tremendously exciting story and several highly exalted essays and extracts of wonderful adventures; and these papers penetrate all parts of the country, by the force of enterprise and effrontery. The fast life which we are rightly accused of living is rendered trebly fast by the number of newspapers and journals, which allow us no repose when we seem to be at leisure either for a cheerful conversation with our fellows, or for a quiet chat with ourselves or with quiet and elevating books. The Home Library has become a place in which to read newspapers and periodicals, and sometimes its shelves contain little more than the bound volumes of the quarterlies or monthlies which a few years have accumulated.

Inasmuch as people will read newspapers and journals as well as books, and often in the place of books, it seems worth the while and almost necessary to offer some hints in respect to their value and the best or least harmful way in which they can be used. We begin with the Quarterly and Monthly journals.

The modern Quarterlies when they came into being were an inevitable necessity. The Edinburgh Review appeared as the organ of a liberal and progressive literary and political party, and it fitly ushered in the present century. The zeal and boldness of the Edinburgh as the organ of the Whigs, called forth from the Conservatives the London Quarterly and Blackwood's Magazine. Then followed the quarterlies and monthlies which were made the organs of religious parties and denominations and also of special philosophical and theological opinions. The primary object of

the most of these magazines was to furnish thorough criticisms of books of current literature, and well-considered articles upon the various topics of politics and reform in which the public were interested. In process of time, the scope of these reviews was somewhat enlarged, and they received papers of a general character upon any subjects to which certain writers had devoted special attention. In this way they became in part nothing more than a periodical vehicle for the issue of pamphlets or brief treatises. In consequence, many a writer who in earlier times would have published his book, which might be longer or shorter, now publishes a labored article. The convenience and the regularity of the review stimulates to the production of many treatises which would not otherwise have been written. Its limits and its popular character requires that the article should be condensed and spirited. This has created a peculiar style of writing-bold, trenchant, and antithetic, often eloquent and able, but always positive and unqualified. Condensed summaries take the place of long disquisitions, brief and pithy statements of expanded arguments, and bold and square assertions of guarded and qualified inductions. In the Edinburgh Review, Sidney Smith, Jeffrey and Macaulay were representative writers; in the London Quarterly, Gifford, Southey and Croker; in Blackwood, Lockhart and Wilson were master spirits. The North American Review aspired at a purely literary character and influence with no pronounced political sympathies. Buckminster, Ticknor, Sparks, and the Everetts were its characteristic writers.

The influence of these reviews upon the intellectual habits of their readers, especially of those who have read them from their youth, has been not inconsiderable. With many, they have displaced not a few of the books which had previously been considered essential in the reading of every well-informed man. Instead of reading a history with

care and in detail, many have been content to learn from a review its chief positions, its general aims and some of its more striking passages. In place of reading the original papers or documents on both sides of a controversy on politics or finance, it has been found more expeditious and convenient to read the summing up of a reviewer even though it was notorious that he wrote in the spirit of an advocate. The mastery of a distinguished author, which by the old-fashioned method could only be achieved by long and laborious processes is now seemingly achieved at a few hours' sitting, by the aid of the able and exhaustive critic who has condensed the chief results and principles into a brief essay. Instead of going to original sources of evidence, or hearing both sides of a contested question, it is more convenient to take the impressions of a writer who has volunteered to perform the labor for the reader. If the reader is not satisfied with reading a single article, he can find two or more on opposite sides, of nearly equal ability and research, and in this way form his own conclusions with comparative facility.

It must be acknowledged that periodicals are in many respects a great intellectual convenience. They abbreviate labor and place the results of the research of a few at the service and disposal of the many. They sometimes facilitate the research of the student by directing him to the original sources of which he may desire to avail himself. Oftentimes an article is better than a book. Especially is this the case when the subject is out of our line and we have time neither to look up authorities nor to study them. Many of the most intelligent of readers are remote from libraries and are unable to borrow or to purchase the books which furnish the information or the estimates which they desire. In a multitude of instances similar to these the modern review or journal serves the most important purposes. It has greatly diffused information, abbreviated