The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-14 00:00:00

TILE NEW QUARTERLY.

Bentley's Quarterly Review. No. I. Pp. 34
Bentley.

The appearance of the initial number of Bentley's
Quarterly is an event in the history of periodical
literature. It is none the less remarkable an event
of its kind, the commencement at the present time
of this first-class, high-priced review, remembering
that we are now in the midst of a very storm and
tornado of cheap publications. From the highest
to the lowest, bookmen of all descriptions, writers
and publishers, authors grave and gay, publishing
houses old and new, have emulated each other,
during the last quarter of a century, in supplying
the reading public of the United Kingdom with
railway volumes and cheap serials in abundance •
Messrs. Longman have issued their Traveller's
Library—Mr. Murray his Home and Colonial
Library—Messrs. Blackwood have inaugurated the
monthly reprint of Tales from their popular maga-
zine. Mr. Charles Knight, having years ago set a
brilliant example to his brother bookmen—whether
considered as authors or as publishers—by his
Penny _Magazine and his Penny Cyclopedia, has
now more recently been setting the seal to his repu-
tation as the father of cheap literature, by his
Popular History of England and his Rational
Cyclopedia. The Messrs. Chambers, having, in
elementary treatises, run through the whole range
of human knowledge for the benefit of the million,
still sustain their repute in that way by the magic
aid of stereotype. The Messrs. Chapman and
Hall, having introduced Boz to the world as the
first and greatest of all serial novelists, are, simul-
taneously with the extension of their cheap
Select Library of Fiction, issuing from the
press revised editions of the works of
some of our most distinguished living men
of letters—including among them men of mark
like Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens. The
Messrs. Hurst and Blackett very recently, as the
enterprising sue cessors of the late Mr. Colburn,
commenced a new miscellaneous reprint of well-
known books by writers of note—the diversified
character of which has been sufficiently well indi-
cated by the contrast of the three first of the series,
viz., the story of " John Halifax," the whimsical
disquisition by Sam Slick upon " Nature and
Human Nature," and those ever delightful travels,
" The Crescent and the Cross," from the pen of the
late gifted and ill-fated Eliot Warburton. Within
this last quarter of a century, moreover, there has
sprung into existence out of this very emulation
of our publishers in the issue of cheap railway in-
struction, a new firm, whose parti-coloured volumes
have long since been scattered far and wide over,
the length and breadth of these islands, and over all
our numerous and remote colonial possessions—the
well-known cheap publishing firm of the Messrs.
Routledge.
The advantages arising from all this enterprise
are upon the instant obvious and undeniable.
Thousands now possess libraries who formerly
found one or two books ascarcely attainable luxury.
And the works thus placed within their reach are
no ephemeral effusions, but classics ineffaceably
sealed with the soul of genius, and stamped with the
tincture of immortality. Cheap polyglot Bibles,
cheap Greek and Roman masterpieces, cheap
Shaksperes, cheap poets, moralists, and historians,
cheap issues of Scott's iraverley romances, cheap
editions of great living writers like Dickens and
Bulwer and their many world-famous contem-
poraries—have for years been purchased, and are
still being purchased by the million. The middle
classes, even the more intelligent and thrifty of the
humbler classes, have been placed virtually by these
means upon a par with the wealthier sections of
society. Everyone indiscriminately has now the
means of extending his knowledge in the domains of
literature. But—together with these just and con-
spicuous benefits, rather, perhaps, we should say,
blessings, to the community at large—there have
been hardly less glaring disadvantages which have
resulted from the rapid rise and development of this
cheap railway literature. Handsome volumes have
appeared all this while from the press but very
' sparingly. Quartos and folios have years and
years back had their day—and we are now, for the
most part, happily rid of them. These we do not
regret. But what has been all this while very
frequently a subject of regret with us is the fact
that so few books of a more reasonable size have
been published in a form sufficiently handsome and
substantial to take their rank with- the standard
volumes upon our book-shelves. We are re-
joiced, however, latterly to recognise what
we cannot but regard as a wholesome reac-
tion upon the wholesale publishing of our
cheaply got up and flimsily stitched together
railway volumes. As proof positive of this right
welcome reaction we hail the appearance of Mr.
BENTLEY'S new high-priced Quarterly Review, the
typographical getting up of which is a marvel of
excellence, demanding from us the cordial expres-
sion of our very liveliest admiration. Although
we have but one solitary number of it before us—
as an example it is all sufficient. It is varied in
its contents. It is scholarly in style. It is
thoroughly independent. Appearing as it does in
the midst of a great transition period in the
politics of this country—when the landmarks of
party are broken down—and everything and every-
body seems to have gone vaguely adrift in an inun-
dation of liberalism—here shallow as shallow can
be, there deeper than can well be sounded by the
plummet of Reform -- Bentley's Quarterly
enunciates political views that it would be difficult
to define with any precision or exactitude. They
are views, indeed, hesitating almost midway be-
tween moderate Whiggism and what is called, for
want of any better title, Liberal Conservatism.
The opinions held in this free, lax, open-handed
way by the new review are chiefly discernible
throughout the opening paper—being an essay on
" English Politics and Parties." Here we find in-
dications of a talent comparable in some measure
to that evidenced of late by the very able but very
acid'abilities of [the writers who have suddenly
created a name and a fame for the Saturday
Review. In Bentley's Quarterly, as in the
Saturday Review, the contributors appear disposed
to tilt at each and all without hesitation, almost
without discrimination. In the political paper or
leading article inaugurating No. 1, for, example,
we find every political party, every distinguished
man in the House of Commons, whose name deserves
to be mentioned, ridiculed or depreciated, with one
solitary and most eccentric exception. One M.P.
alone is mentioned with anything like respect—
his opinions alone are quoted with any honour or
seriousness. And this lusus natures—tell it, we
say, from the very farce of thing, tell it in Gath,
publish it in the streets of Askelon, is the hon.
member for East Surrey, Mr. Henry Drummond.
Thrice in that one article are the opinions of Mr.
Henry Drummond mentioned, or rather distinctly
quoted, with every indication of respectful coinci-
dence. As for the rest P—Well, Mi. Bright, for
example (designated one of the ablest of our dema-
gogues), is said to have " spared no effort, and
shrunk from no falsehood," et cetera ! An allusion
to Lord Palmerston is only suggestive to the re-
viewer of " a broad grin." Lord John is commended
chiefly for his ability as a clever trickster among
party leaders. Mr. Disraeli is reprobated as a
chief without 'a shadow of principle. Sir James
Graham is sneered at as a person, politically speak-
ing, of very dubious character. Mistrust is declared
by the writer to be the universal feeling in regard
to the leaders and the chief men of Parlia-
ment and of this universal distrust the

new Review is an expression. The result
being in tone—something very like politica
cynicism. The effect upon the palate—like that of

most tonic bitters—being
appetising but unplea-
sant. We reserve our estimate of the judgment of
Bentley's Quarterly until it has had opportunity to
be more outspoken. As 3ret we feel ourselves to be
in many respects decidedly and earnestly antago-
nistic. Thoroughly and completely independent
ourselves as politicians—separated from all parties,
or sections of party whatsoever—we must, per-
force, we do, of course, bear with the absolute
independence, of our New Quarterly contemporary.
.
But we shall, consideration and pursuance of
this selfsame principle of entire independence, take
leave to differ from it decidedly—upon some mat-
ters we perceive that we shall have reason to do so
toto ece/o. But at present we care not to bandy
arguments with the gallant new comer—upon the
first moment, as it were, of our introduction to each
other. We would rather accord to him a hearty
and spontaneous welcome—coupling with it a
cordial hope that the colour it has chosen may
prove to be auspicious ! That Bentley's Quarterly
Review may be well read in its brilliant interior,
no less than well red in its brilliant exterior. For
the comfort of instant reference to the contents of
the future numbers, we would suggest that hence-
forth the contents of each should be given upon the
now blank back of the crimson covering. Number I.
includes within its 341 pages octavo as many
as ten elaborate and diversified contributions.

As a specimen of the " manner" of the first, the
political paper already particularised, we take the
following. The reviewer is talking of the disrup-
tion, in 1846, by Sir Robert Peel, of the ranks of
Conservatism. He says :

" The head and the tail of the then Conservative party
were irreparably severed. On the one side the brilliant
debaters and experienced statesmen who formed the Pc el
administration were left a distrusted and isolated knot in
furnishes, floating about with every wave
of
the House of Commons. Deprived of the ballast which a
large following
have hung as free rovers on the beam of
every party, too fickle to be hailed as friends, too formidab7e
argeepinibiloir, ing
to be attacked as foes. For a dozen years they have been
the comets of the political system, regarded by all with