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has had some experience in these matters, and has been occasionally admitted behind the scenes, to say something of the ingredients and cookery of one part of the dishes served up to the public. Whatever any considerable portion of mankind is disposed to set a value on, is always worth our observation. The appetite of the public is manifestly very nice, and its stomach very squeamish. It is not very fond of the substantials; and is disposed to reject whatever is difficult of digestion. Hence it is, that the deep thinkers and laborious writers of the last century are obliged to yield to the light, smart, and sketchy writers of the present. Hence it is, that many of the most popular authors are men of no very disciplined education, or cultivated minds. One of the cleverest and most various minded scholars of the day lately promised a dissertation on the ideal of a magazine, but I am not aware that he proceeded farther than the ideal of an inkstand. I was anxious to see what his ingenuity could devise as the To kalov of any thing which springs out of, and is addressed to a tribunal so fluctuating and despotic as public caprice. The general run of contributors seems, however, to be in the least danger of suffering from any modifications in the character of magazines; inasmuch, as having no fixed and certain colours of their own, they imbibe, like the cameleon, the hues of their domiciles. Of the mechanical part of their operations the reader may not be displeased to hear something; although it is like raising the curtain and showing that what resembled gold is tinsel and frippery. Such, therefore, as have upon this subject," a vision of their own," I admonish, as Rousseau does the young ladies, to skip the rest of this article, should it chance that any have proceeded thus far. Those of whose style and manner I am about to speak, are the tip top magazine writers par métier, and “for the law of writ and the liberty they are your only men."

I have already mentioned the difficulty of setting out;-let us suppose the pons asinorum passed, and the subject chosen. It need not be one on which the writer has ever read or reflected. Oh, no! it must be one

which is likely to be taking with the public, it must please the million. When the late Lord Kaimes was asked the best method to study some particular subject, he replied," write a pamphlet about it." And this is the way with our author. He ransacks his brains in the first place, for images and illustrations; for by a singular inversion of the old method of writing, his illustrations suggest the ideas, and not the ideas illus trations. This, it must be admitted, is a much more compendious and expeditious way of writing. There is no necessity that there should be any connexion or congruity between the opinions. The law of succession is shamefully disregarded, and cach second does not, as in the old gradation, stand heir to the first. The more disjoined, remote, and multifarious they are, the more comprehensive must be the intellect which createsand I may add too-that understands them. If the leading opinions are manifestly absurd and paradoxical, so much the better, as their defence affords a wider scope for ingenuity. Cicero recommends sucking orators to "flesh their maiden swords" in the defence of paradoxes, and there is no disgrace in following the counsels of Cicero. The management of similes and metaphors is one of the most intricate departments of the art. In this respect my friend X. is immensely clever. To be sure, his figures sometimes drag one way and his thoughts another, like a couple of ill paired hounds, but generally his articles are a simile-chase in little. No sooner does he start one, than he makes game of it ;-opening in full cry-pursuing over hill and dalethrough clear and obscure-morals and metaphysics-bush and quagmire the panting reader toiling after him in vain, till coming in at the death, he finds himself, like Fitzjames, separated from all who set out with him, and alone in a desert country. But the chase is ended, and the article done. Thus an idea is like a cloud-a camel-an elephant-an ousel, and at last-very like a whale. This, I take it, is the summit of cleverness; not only because it proves a command of images, but also because it enables a man to write without sense or meaning. My friend X. therefore passes for the first

magazine writer of the day-his comparisons are so wonderful, and his metaphors (as Swift has it) such as one never met-afore. Next to the simile is the quotation. But this is a science by itself, on which some ingenious person has composed a large volume, by the aid of which, and an index, the most unfurnished head is able to cope with the most learned. The Dictionary of Quotations, however, is a very wicked book, as the infidelity of its interpretations often betrays the confidence reposed in them. The beauty of this essential part of fine writing consists mainly in quoting from the older English poets, and a few of those of our day who are pretty generally unread. Shakspeare, however, is the great storehouse of quotation; not for his sentiment, or imagery, or delineation of character or poetry; but for some quaint phrase, some obsolete and fantastic expression, or some ludicrous combination of words. An article gemmed off with bits in this way is like a frosty night studded with stars"-or it reminds one of Indian hangings,-a dark ground, spotted with bits of yellow foil, flung on without order, measure or object, except to dazzle and spangle. For my own part, I detest this trade of work, and never quote, except to show the deformity as a warning to others, as the Spartans taught their children sobriety by making their slaves drunk.

In the affair of style, a great deal of genius is occasionally shown. It is no easy matter to suit the shifting tastes of readers, and hit the public, as it were, between wind and water. At present, the melancholy manner is in vogue. A tender shade of sorrow must be flung over all our thoughts, and even the pleasures of life are uninteresting, unless we can squeeze out of them some mournful reflection, or dress them up in querulous exaggeration. The ladies are particularly partial to this weeping philosophy, which two or three volumes of lacrymose essays have made still more fashionable. Not a scribbler sits down to whine out an article without asking with Master Stephen for "a stool to be melancholy upon;" and as he dips his pen in ink,sighs out" præcipe lugubres cantus, Melpomene !" But this tone of sim

ple sadness shows itself especially in our ruralities. The meanest leaflet among the smoke-tinged denizens of city bowpots, is pregnant "with thoughts that lie too deep for tears." In order to do the sentimental well, one should have-but let a great coryphæus in this line describe the requisites, "he should have an indestructible love of flowers, odours, dews and clear waters; of soft airs, winds, bright skies, and woodland solitudes, with moonlight bowers." These tearful tributes are copiously paid likewise, when wandering in that" atmosphere of melancholy sentiment" which breathes over scenes consecrated by the memories of past events, or when bending over the monuments of departed grandeur. Then is it that the tide of sorrowing reflection wells forth-that the heart aches with the agony of grief, and the eye dims with the tear of sensibility! There is another style, not quite so much cherished by the gentle sex, but very much admired by incipient orators. It is infinitely more elevated and elaborate, and possibly somewhat à soufflé. I will cite a specimen from a famous magazine contributor, which is in my opinion very grand." But oh! there never will be a time with bigotry— she has no head, and cannot thinkshe has no heart, and cannot feelwhen she moves, it is in wrath-when she pauses, it is amid ruin-her prayers are curses—her god is a demonher communion is death-her vengeance is eternity--her decalogue is written in the blood of her victims; and if she stoops for a moment from her infernal flight, it is upon some kindred rock to whet her vulturefang for keener rapine, and replume her wing for more sanguinary desolation." Addison never wrote any thing half so fine as this. Some may think that the sarcastic observation of Madame du Deffand on the style of Monsieur Thomas might be applied to it," prick it, and it bursts;"

I think differently; and although it is rather too papilionaceous and gorgeous at first, after a little familiarity," the ear becomes more Irish and less nice." There is yet another style, which though more limited in its circulation, is still pretty often before the public. It may be called the confectionary style of writing.

It is full of" precious and golden recollections,"" voluptuous abstractions," and "dim visitations," "stately remembrances,"-" intense and genial dallyings," -"delicate crispnesses," and "jagged venerablenesses;"-it finds a sense of deep and mysterious antiquity in every thing," and "every thing is imbued with sympathy and imagination;"in short, it is one of the greatest inventions, in the way of fine writing, that modern times can boast of. It ensures a never failing variety, inasmuch as recognising no necessary connexion between words and things, and no relations between words themselves, the consequence is, that one epithet is as fit and becoming as another, and whether we say venerable jaggedness, or jagged venerableness, it is equally intelligible and correct. Whoever understands arithmetic, has only to apply the rules of permutation and combination to Johnson's Dictionary, and he may generate an infinite variety of the most original and striking phrases. The sentiments which are conveyed in this style are precisely such as might be expected, and the union forms what the author of the Antient Mariner calls "a sweet jargoning." A single extract is as imperfect in the way of sample as the brick is of the palace; but I cannot forbear citing one of the miraculous and boundless excellences of this mode of composition, in the following description of a tragedy:-"A tragedy is a foreboding indication of destiny, a noble piece of high passion, sweetened, yet not broken, by rich fancy, and terminating in an awful catastrophe, ennobled by imagination's purest and most elemental majesties." This sort of writing bears evidently the stamp and impress of the writer's mind.

Formerly, matter, precision, and perspicuity, were reckoned among the requisites of good writing-but all that has been abolished as useless and impertinent, and a great deal of labour, vexation, study, observation, and reflection, have been thereby spared. "Thinking is now an idle waste of thought, and nought is every thing." I have heard, that a patent has been, or is about to be, taken out for an automaton writer, the principle of which is, that after being wound up it is only necessary

to fling into it a certain number of pages of Johnson, or any other vocabulary, and they come out completely formed into the shape of an article. It may be said, that this is not an original invention, but an imitation of the famous block-machine at Portsmouth, which instantly converts a rude piece of wood into a perfect block. Be this as it may, if the principle be not new, the application is ingenious and original. I am fearful, however, that here, as in all cases where manual labour is to be superseded by machinery—a great number of hands will be flung out of employ, by enabling publishers to manufacture their own stuffs. A literary Ludditism may be apprehended therefore among the Magazine writers.

There remain two or three other classes which deserve to be held up to notice and admiration, but I must temper my inclination to show the lions to the patience of the spectators; and, indeed, whatever specific differences exist among the various orders, still the generic character is uniform. I shall pass over the decent heaviness of one, and the incompetent flippancy of anotherthe simpering innocence which "hath no offence in it," and that dark malignity which, for the worthless renown of a sarcasm, stabs a fellow creature to the heart,-leaving to Swift the enumeration of their common properties.

The trivial turns, the borrow'd wit, The similies that nothing fit; The cant which every fool repeats, Town jests and coffee-house conceits. Descriptions tedious, flat, and dry, And introduced-the Lord knows why. Some of these artists are very indefatigable readers. Nothing is left unexamined, and nothing is rejected as unworthy of perusal. Every thing is fish which comes into their net. Their purpose is not to amass knowledge, or arrive at truth, but to glean from the toils of others all that may spare them the expense of thought. They in this resemble those birds whose furtive nature leads them to pilfer from the nests of others the materials for their own. It may be doubted, whether these predatory incursions into strange dominions are strictly justifiable, notwithstanding that piracy and theft were held not unbecoming by the Greeks,

provided they were exercised craftily and quietly; and that Sir Thomas More-a very conscientious judge-lays it down as a justifiable cause of war, if those who have territory to spare will not yield it up to those who are manifestly in want. On this principle, a magazinist looks upon a library as his domain, and the works of all who have preceded him as his fair property; and he extracts from them, some times with gentle disclaimings and sometimes with awful rapacity, the ornaments as well as the materials; the sentiment as well as the imagery; whatever can illustrate a position, or round a sentence, whatever may "point a moral, or adorn a tale."

Scarcely any one is so unfortunate as not to have his ambition gratified, in being regarded as a wonderful man of parts, by some dozens of admiring imitators. Trinculo was a god to Caliban, and the young periodical has always some great exemplar, some sacred idol, before whom he bends in adoration, on whose altar he devotes the primitic of his enterprize, in the glare of whose fame his buds of promise open out into fragrance, and whose virtues he copies with a Chinese fidelity of imitation; and so he becomes, in process of years, himself "a Triton of the minnows." Thus, naturalists say, that every flea is covered with a race of smaller fleas; and there is no scribler so mean, that he has not some meaner one in his suite, and so on, down to an infinite littleness. One amusing result of this is the conspiracy to laud each other. The itch for scribbling is not greater than the itch for praise. Mr. A. scratches Mr. B., and Mr. B. tickles Mr. C., who in his turn soothes the irritation of Messrs. A. and B., and so on, through all the letters of the alphabet. Here is no Turkish jealousy, no hesitating dislike, no sneering eulogy; it is the willing homage of congenial intellects to genuine desert. I am quite delighted with this universal epainetism, it is so affectionate and brotherly; it evinces, by the frank recognition of rival merit, the entire absence of that invidious feeling which has been charged upon literary men, from Petrarch's age to ours. These reciprocal scratchings some persons affect to regard with a

contemptuous scorn, in my mind, with very little reverence for true genius.

The ancient sophists, who methodized their quackery with surpassing ingenuity into the form and repute of a regular science, constructed the skeletons of speeches and argumentations, which by shifting head and tail-pieces might be adapted to every subject. In the same way sets of magazine articles might be manufactured for every month in the year, with blank titles. A little generalization, from the practice of the more distinguished writers, would "pluck out the heart of their mystery," and form a rare and curious treatise with "the Art of Hashing-up" for its title, and "the oldest things the newest kind of ways" for its motto. My own ambition does not aspire to be a legislator in the art, but my scrinia are at the command of any one who is desirous of achieving any fame of this sort. From the extreme facility with which practised hands perform these task-works, and the pence and praise which pursue this triumph, it is not surprising that the tribe has increased so immensely, that its population, as a Malthusian might say, begins to press hardly upon the means of subsistence. Every one is ambitious of enrolling his name in the glorious catalogue - every one has a feverish thirst to be one of the thousand bubbles that float along the stream of popularity, which glitter and swell until they burst in their own inflation. What a sad misemployment is this, after all, of those divine capabilities for good and useful, and often great and splendid actions, with which we are endowed. Eager for what?-to live upon the tongue and be the talk; to be pointed at as a distinguished contributor to the

-; or as the writer of that singularly clever article"April Musings;"-or, as (and this is the summit of fame) the suspected editor of the Swift, who understood these matters, and estimated them rightly, has wittily ridiculed the month's toil about an article, which is at last read over a dish of tea, and then flung aside for ever,-by comparing it to the month of care and labour expended in fattening a chicken, which is devoured in a moment. A moment's attention

is all that is spared to the article, and of the highest talent are not always then it

Goes to be never heard of more,
Goes where the chicken went before.

Among these throngs, who are seduced by the glare of notoriety, we sometimes meet with one gifted with nobler qualities, and destined to a kinder and more enduring recompense. Such an one is sure at last to emerge from the equivocal reputation, which attends on the labours I have been considering, and win for himself a station and a name which become the property of his country. To discourage his exertions by ridicule would be inhuman. It is never proper but when applied to such as, utterly unfitted to instruct or delight by their acquirements and talents, rush boldly into the lists, and importunately exact that praise which is only due to the loftiest exertions of genius and imagination. In vain,—a few years of experience, and all these false presentments and blear illusions melt away before the sad realities of truth. The fortunes

unclouded and happy-what must be those of impudent pretenders? The pursuit of literary glory is often a melancholy enterprize. What numbers perish in the struggle! Days of unremitted and uncertain toil-nights of sleeplessness-envy and wantwasting anxiety and defeated hopethe spunging house and the jailthese are some of the realities which are concealed beneath the fair and goodly outside which allures the young enthusiast. Our excessive admiration of genius, and its bright and wonderful creations, is greatly mitigated, when we learn the hard conditions to which it is subjected. And even of those who have escaped the shoals and rocks which so thickly beset the voyage of literature, and whose years are crowned with affluence and honour-how many do we see like Potemkin in his old age playing with his jewels and the insignia of his various orders, and then bursting into tears when he found, at last, and too late, that they were only baubles.

P.

THE DOWNFAL OF DALZELI.

1.

The wind is cold, the snow falls fast,
The night is dark and late,
As I lift aloud my voice and cry

By the oppressor's gate.
There is a voice in every hill,

A tongue in every stone;

The greenwood sings a song of joy,
Since thou art dead and gone;

A poet's voice is in each mouth,

And songs of triumph swell;

Glad songs, that tell the gladsome earth
The downfal of Dalzell.

2.

As I raised up my voice to sing

I heard the green earth say,
Sweet am I now to beast and bird,
Since thou art past away:

I hear no more the battle shout,
The martyrs' dying moans;

My cottages and cities sing

From their foundation-stones;

The carbine and the culverin's mute

The deathshot and the yell

Are turn'd into a hymn of joy,

For thy downfal, Dalzell.

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