The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-03 00:00:00

MAGAZINES FOR AUGUST.

The magazines we all taken au interest in just now are
not the brown, fawn-coloured, golden, green, red, drab,
purple monthlies—are not Blackwood, Fraser, Cornhill,
Belgravia, United Service. Temple Bar—they are maga-
zines more cumbrous and more sombre, filled not with
light literature, but with gunpowder. Yet, for all that,
the periodical jumble of publications known and perpetu-
ated by that name now for upwards of a century comes
tumbling into our hands as surely as the calendar months
succeed each other, whether the great armies of France
and Prussia contend the one with the other in battle array
on the soil of what is called Rhineland.

A necessarily hurried glance through the principal month-
lies as they now lie before us in many a radiant colour,
satisfies us for once that we don't miss very much by our
inability to linger over them.
Blackwood is chiefly remarkable for having very little
to say that affects the interest of the public generally at
this moment. It descants " About what the Old Egy-
ptians knew" for example, and prattles forth some vers de
socUt6 about the " Wishes of a Dumb Waiter" (save the
mark !) and gives a tenth instalment of its serial story of
" Earl's Dene," and scoffs at Mr. Rossetti, the Poets'
Poet, as he has been called, meaning by that the poet of
Mr. Morris, and of Mr. Algernon Swinburne. One
admirable paper it has, but it is after date—" Our Own
Commissioner's Report" (meaning Maga's) about " The
Greek Massacre." Is not Our own Commissioner, by the
way, that friend of us all Charles Lever, otherwise Harry
Lorrquer, otherwise Cornelius O'Dowd? Who cares,
however, now about the massacre in Greece ?—does
even Sir Henry Bulwer ? who has a motion relating to it
to bring on this evening in the House of Commons, now
upon the eve of its prorogation.
Fraser again talks, through the lips of Mr. Allingham,
about " Seven Hundred Years Ago." Nay, it tells us,
through the pen of Mr. Stephen, about the "Alps in the last
century." True, but it has an in memoriam notice of the
late Lord Clarendon, and an article on the " Causes of the
War," and another, like a whiff from Rhineland, about
" Gunpowder and Modern Artillery."
Cornhill we have hardly patience to turn over, even fret-
fully, now that Charles Reade has done with his sensa-
tional story in it of " Put Yourself in his Place." The
other companion serial; " Against Time," is evidently also
drawing to its close. The oddest thing of all among the
contents is a paper about "St. Helena," with not one word
in it about its one sole interesting memory—its association
with the close of the epic history of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Belgravia has its chief, almost only, attraction in the
continuation of the already enthralling tale about " Fen-
ton's Quest," from the hand of the authoress of " Aurora
Floyd." Yes—there is another matter of interest among
the miscellaneous contributions, Mr. Sala's notes on the
Portrait of Mr. Pickwick. Among other " hands "
whose lively work is here recognisable, are Tom Hood
and Walter Thornbury, and Mortimer Collins, and Percy
Fitzgerald.

Britannia—" needs no bulwark, no towers along the
steep" we were going to say, that is—no war articles or
gunpowder flavour of any kind. It goes in for such harm-
less things as slashes at the smaller representatives of the
literature (!)of the day—the one who sits for his portrait
this time being what is called the "Literary Bagman."
The editor of the magazine, Arthur h Beckett, and no
other we presume, has written a tribute to the memory of
Charles Dickens, coupled, in rather bad taste as it seems
to us, with a savage, almost spiteful attack on what he
terms " Dickenism."

The Gentleman's mainly rests its claim upon the reader's
attention on its two serial stories, the one " Malvina," by
Sutherland Edwards, the other the " Christian Vaga-
bond," by Blanchard Jerrold. The July number of the
Gentleman's will hardy run into a second edition, however,
as the June number did wholly and solely because of
Blanchard Jerrold's charming memorial chapter on our
great Novelist and Humorist.

The New Monthly, the Month, London Society, the United
Service Magazine and a shoal of other gaily tinted periodi-
cals, from half-a-crown to a shilling, nay, remembering
the first mentioned and the little primrose-covered Argosy:
from three and sixpence to sixpence, litter the table,
floor, and chairs about us as we sweep them ont of the
way to turn to the last telegram from the seat of war.