網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

THE FASHIONABLE MONTHLIES.*

WE have written below the names of some half dozen monthly papers which we take to be fair samples of what we term-not ungallantly, because sincerely-our lady-literature. For we think we may safely characterize those we have named as feminine, and each one, in its way, "fruitful and foodful as the old Ephesian statue with the three tier of breasts." We would by no means be understood to say that all the journals enumerated below shall be in existence at the time this meets the eye of the reader, or even at our present writing. But, that they, and more, ejusmodi, have been printed and scattered at some seasons during the year past, we have the evidence, first, of sundry lying by us in green, blue and purple; and second, the testimony of the metropolitan prints, enriched with some such morceau of criticism as this "The Lady's Companion for this month, is if possible superior to its predecessors. There are articles from Prof. Ingraham, Mrs. Ellet, Park Benjamin, Edgar Poe-the mention of these names is sufficient to insure our readers one of the richest treats lately offered to the public."

It is surely very creditable to the conductors and correspondents of these magazines, that, so far as they are men, they have given up their manly appetites, and devoted themselves to the amusement of our cit

[blocks in formation]

izen ladies; to say nothing of all the little girls who have a hearty monthly laugh at the outre fashions, and the young seamstresses who fall into a passion with the blond, and the flowers, and with mimicking the attitudes-and the ten thousand factory girls, such as are not taken up with their own comparatively mas culine "Lowell Offering," who sigh over these bewitching monthliesand the lively-witted school-boys, grown too old for the Thousand and One Nights, and Baron Munchausen, who love to mingle up pius Eneas and Xenophon's parasangs, and a game at marbles, with a fashionable story about kid-slippers, or a-la-mode beef, and white wineand finally the country coteries of young and old single women, who by dint of husbanding their moneys, delight themselves with a very fair representation of these fecundated issues. For, are there not enough of men's books beside? Are there not Plutarchs and Prideauxs and Lockes to supply matter which presents some opposition, and so sticks closer to the ribs? And for times of relaxation, are there not the sto ries of the Yahoos, or the Brobdignags, or the whole Waverley series? And for rhymes, are there not Pope, and Dryden, and Dr. Donne, for grown up men, and Mother Goose for men ungrown? It is somewhat singular that until within a quite recent period, the demand for that species of literature which we have taken under review, has been ex

ceedingly limited; and it is equally singular that the enlarged demand has increased the supply of produ cers to a most astonishing degree, and of producers wonderfully well adapted every way to the ends in view. Very unlike the fact which obtains in political economy, that a new demand is scantily fed, by ill

furnished producers, we venture to say that there could never have been in any age of letters, or under the best regulated system of instruction, a class of writers so beautifully suited to humor the pretty idleness and innocent vanities of women and children, as those whose names are most honorably bestowed down the backs of these boudoir books. It would be by no means foreign to our purpose, as the annalist of literary changes and novelties, to inquire how this demand originated how it is, and how discreditable it is, that the youthful minds of the country, particularly of our cities-with exceptions so few, that they can be almost individuated-are becoming captivated with nothing, so much as that foppery and nonsense of which these ornamented papers are the true indices. But we reserve that inquiry for some future occasion, confining ourselves at present to the tone and character of the supply. Not least among the elegancies which deserve remark in the periodicals before us, are the gay covers, contrived with, we must say it, no very happy ingenuity, for humoring the fevered curiosity for newness and strangeness. Thus, we have upon one a vignette taken from a popular British sporting work, representing an English country squire's company, rook shooting. The New York engraver has metamorphosed the shooters of the original into men and women, but by an unhappy oversight has left the multitude of rooks fluttering overhead in all imaginable, but very needless fright. What the appositeness of this may be, that it should form the outside gem to "Sargent's New Monthly," we are unable to discover. Another cover attacks national pride;-there are banners and darts and olive branches interwoven; and an eagle, clutching fiercely the imprint, "American Literature." On either side are scantily clad boys, standing on columns, with hats brimful of Vol. II.

13

blossoms, which last are falling in very accommodating festoons about the heads of a little lady and gentleman, who are sitting very composedly in niches of the columns, reading-Graham's Magazine. Next in importance to the covers, whose prettinesses we can not half enumerate, we reckon the engravings,— sometimes of a young lady very engagingly pressing a lock, or a pocket handkerchief, or a scrap of paper, to her bosom; again, a loveletter held before the eyes of a very lascivious looking miss; sometimes a portrait of Emma-some. times of Lucy-sometimes of both. Relieved at intervals is this gallery of graces, with some portraiture of individual or scene, which has the extraordinary merit of conveying an idea of the original, however imperfect it may be, to the mind of the curious looker-on. After the engravings, so called for distinction's sake, appear the fashion plates— each one differing from the others, each the latest style, each the only genuine Paris mode, each "imported at immense expense.

A kindred difference we can not help observing in the literary attractions; but as we are without any precision of judgment in reference to pink hoods and en gigot sleeves, we must confess great diffidence of our own opinion in regard to the genuineness of the womanish poetry, and fashionable nouvelettes, which intersperse the pages of the embellished monthlies. Not that Mr. Willis's writings have not more charms for us than Park Benjamin's sonnets, or than Mr. Poe's "Lucius O'Trigger" style-just as a tastefully trimmed straw hat, over a blooming face, impresses us more favorably (we confess it) than a city milliner's wax bust, or all a haberdasher's finery lavished about the peaked visage of two-score. All the journals are alike in one or two particulars. Each one seems resolutely bent on admitting nothing, which by any pos

[ocr errors]

sibility shall carry any sort of ra tional information to their readersstimulate them to any new inquiries in morals, letters, or art-or tax in the smallest degree their intellectual functions. The writers seem all to have entered into the spirit of the enterprising publishers, and have rounded their labors with a currente calamo grace, which must to that class of readers who deny themselves the fatigue of thinking, prove irresistibly attractive. Even where, as in some few numbers, a subject is proposed which at first sight appears to offer something for mental digestion, it is treated in such an admirably extemporaneous way, that all opinions militant, if the reader chance to have them, are lost in the charming idlesse, with which these lady-writers invariably suffuse the mind. We will copy a short pas sage, that will serve to show with what an expansive grasp these wri, ters discuss the topics of the day :"The man Miller predicts that the globe which we inhabit will be destroyed in April, 1843. Alas! on how frail a foundation is based poor human reason. Since the Matthias delusion, (the most disgusting in the annals of human folly,) and the Mormon humbug, I have not been surprised at any manifestation of human fanaticism. How are such things to be explained? [How?] The melancholy fact is, that not one man in five hundred is an original independent thinker. Like sheep, we must have our bell-wethers to follow over fences and through fields, into whatever quagmire they may see fit, in their sapience, to lead us. Either through inertness or timidity we shrink from the labor and responsibility of drawing up from the inexhaustible wells of thought and reflection within our spirits [!] opin ions of our own. It is so much easier to adopt those of other people, frail and fallible dogmatists it may be, whose judgments are the offsprings of selfishness, prejudice and

delusion!" There is a very inge. nious summing up of the character of this sort of writing, in an old number, if we remember right, of the Boston Miscellany. Mr. John Neal of Portland, (a writer of no little notoriety,) has been telling a tweedle-dee story about a man and his wife and their portraits, which after bringing to a close in a stri kingly dramatic way, he adds: "Are there not millions of stories like this afloat in the memories of people who never think of bringing them out, or of acknowledging their exis tence by word or sign? To all such, allow me to say, shame on you! for a pack of mumchances. What on earth are you good for? Think you that magazine writing, or stage-coach conversation, is to be made up of axioms and apothegms, of essays and homilies? No; both should be sprightly and natural and ever changing-mutable as the leaves of autumn playing in the sun. shine, or the chiming sea, when the blue waves are flashing with perpet

ual evolution !"

This Mr. Neal in classing stagecoach conversation and magazine writing-such magazine writinghas blundered upon the truth in the matter. And, for so doing, we award him high credit-nay, downright praise; and the more readily, from the conviction that he stands in want of it. But we are slow to believe with Mr. Neal, that there are millions of such stories afloat; perhaps our fears make us incredulous, for in what awful catastrophe would not the publication of even one million such stories involve the literary world!

We do not say, that there do not appear occasional gems in these magazines of literature and art,— sometimes of poetry, sometimes of really valuable prose material; but such are rare, and are growing rarer and rarer. For they are not the things for readers who gloat at fash ion-plates. They are inevitably

skipped by that numberless class who look for paragraphs about the "dear young man," and the pretty kid slippers, and Miss Angelina Miggs, and old castles, and dead ba bies, and howling madmen. Some of the earlier papers of the Boston Miscellany were of sterling worth; but how resulted it? Soon was intimated "the intention of the pub. lishers to make a decided change to give a larger proportion of articles of a lighter and more sprightly character to remodel it entirely, and adapt it to the popular taste of the day." But they still retained Mr. Tuckerman at its head, and Mr. Tuckerman wished to indulge in some quite readable remarks about the old poets; but the readers clamored for more stage-coachism and less sense, and now those booked for the Miscellany are served with Graham. Let this latter take warning shorten its critical remarks-hint to Mr. Cooper to send on more stories about pocket handkerchiefs and less matter of fact [?] about naval commanders; and to Longfellow to retain his erudition for his professional chair, and if possible transmit some such little popular gems as crept into his romance about "Leathery Stockings" and "I know a maiden fair to see."

But, in brief, what get we for our money's worth? Ten tales of fashionable life, from ten men and women of noisy name, all which help along in their small way, to the widening of factitious distinc tions in society; give a palpable reality to the dogmas of fashion; set on fire the heads of silly women, with descriptions of French dinners, and parlor ornaments : a dozen songs and sonnets, at the hands of ever singing sonneteers-rich in nothing but the quackery of words and sentiments, (save some few glorious exceptions, for how can Bryant write poor poetry?) In addition to these, a couple of engravings, which if intended, as we infer

from the designations employed to make a title,* as studies of art, will no way gratify a good taste, and every way harm a poor taste. Finally, we have a plate of the fashions-a tumbler of punch to milliner women and mantua-makers→→→ making poor apprentice girls, poorer, in their apish styles, unpalatable to sensible women, and leading the soi-disant gentlewomen of metropolitan rank, to headlong extravagance in spending modesty and money.

To assume a somewhat more serious tone, we like not least, and yet little enough among the peculiarities of these ornamental papers, their parade of names famous in the tittle-tattle of the day, not wholly unleavened by some belonging to writers, who in their own sphere, and with proper exertion, are most creditably known. What an ab. surd caprice is this, that the printing of a name though ever so much honored, is to make good, or affect one iota, the readableness, or the contrary, of any one of the ten thousand tales, or rhymes, put forth in these journals of mental dissipa tion ! We had supposed-to all appearances, erroneously-that periodical writing ought to be judged by its intrinsic excellence, and not from any previous eclat pertaining to this or that man of renown. We had supposed that these stated issues to the literary world, gained their chief charm, and appropriateness, from the very fact that the discussions therein, were without a name, and sequitur-to be applauded, or condemned, just in proportion to their efficacy, for instructing or properly directing the public mind. We had supposed that the habit, now grown venerable, of collecting various opinions under one cover, and the responsibility of one

* Graham's is a "L

or

ture and Art." Do. of Boston MiscelMagazine of Literalany. Do. of Pioneer, and others.

more known directors, had come into use, under the general appre hension that those opinions would have more force, and carry more authority with them, if issued under such a veil as regarded authorship, and so form together a consistent, yet various code of opinions, which the public might look upon, not as the vagaries of one or more minds whose bias was known and chronicled, but as an expression of the general tone of thought. But, we are reasoning upon a common-sense standard, one that would not at all apply to the jealousies of Palamon and Arcite, or to Miss Leslie's Magazine. Yet why not, Messrs. Sargent & Co., issue the letters of N. P. Willis, if you will buy them, in a volume by themselves-say a quarterly; then again, a little budget of poems and sonnets-a story book, by Mrs. C. Lee Hentz-each embellished with one of Mr. Dick's illustrative plates. Thus readers might consult their fancies in the purchase, and where the loss to the world, or the printer? Plain enough where, as regards this latter individual; and here is disclosed the happy weight of the names. Messrs. So-and-so, though very agreeable writers when interpaged with a sparkling extravaganza by Willis, or J. K. Paulding, would be very unsaleable ones if imprinted by themselves. Thus the scheme operates, not only to give a lucrative place to the second class of writers; but for the publishersthe interspersion of some very pretty stories from some very pretty writers, renders palatable the secondrate and the more obtainable effusions. Where the benefit lies to the public in these monthly evacuations of sometime healthy minds, under personal hand, it would be hard to designate. On the contrary, such of that public, as make a literary living off the tables set at the Bowery, and by Louis A. Godey, are obliged to sup upon

Prof. Ingraham, in a sonnet, for the pleasure of having dined on a cast. away plot of J. F. Cooper. But, we have the charity to suppose, that a majority of the readers we are considering, from their ignorance of what real literary excellence is, relish indifferently, J. Q. Adams, and Morton McMichael; just as the Hunnish grenadiers, unlearned in the arts of Apicius, ate as stoutly, steaks stewed between them and their saddles, as the palace dinners of Valentinian ?

But, we consider this system of making a favorite writer's name, the cloak for any after literary sins, objectionable in many other and altogether less remediable points of view. With the publisher, it is a safe, in fact, an unavoidable means, for filling his pages with trash. He pays for the name, and is paid for the name-nothing else whatever. We have moreover, been accustomed to regard that class of periodicals, whose professed object is to amuse, (if we must have them,) and the coterie of which we are now discussing, as very safe and harmless parade-ground for young writers. This, for for many reasons. We have considered that the amusement of women and chil dren through letter-press, belonged rather to adventurers on literary ground, than to old and tried mind; since these latter had more pressing duties-once more profitable, always more vital. It does strike us with a feeling not unlike disgust, to see an honored, and perhaps justly honored name, paraded before a page of foolery, which a tyro might surpass in those chiefest charms to the thousand readers-exaggera tion and voluptuousness. We have farther regarded these periodicals, properly conducted, as safe ground for fledglings, since these come in contact there, with no great truths which they could harm by misrepresentation, and no common-sense affairs, which their extravagance

« 上一頁繼續 »