The Sun.
London, England, 1826-08-31 00:00:00

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No. 10,599.

LITERATURE.

TIIE CLUB.—A SERIES of ESSAYS, originally publiahed
in the MANCHESTER IRlS.—Mancheager. pp. 191.

The rise of periodical literature occasioned an un-
precedented sensation throughout Eneand. Before
the days of Steele, Addison, and Budgell, the only ac-
cessible knowledge was through the medium of elabo-
rate quartos ;and we have ourselves seen in the Read-
ing Room of the British Museum, a goodly folio, de-
scriptive of London life and manners, by one Donovan,
a schoolmaster of Ipswich, which, in our present im-
proved state would bp barely sufficient to form the
staple of two respectable Essays for the Literary
Gazette.' But from the period of the first appearance
of the Spectator (a penny paper, published twice, and
occasionally three times a week, somewhere about the
year 1708), periodical literature has never once retro-
gaded or become extinct ; as we will here briefly show
in summing up the different works of this class that
have since been spawned upon the Public." On the
demise of the Spectator, which died after an unusually
notorious existence, the Taller, conducted by Steele,
took its place, and by many—ourselves among the
number—has been preferred to its predecessor from its
superior versatility of style, and its closer and more
eloquent criticisms. The knowledge of life perhaps in
both instances was equal. " The Guardian," a dull
formal periodical, conducted by Pope—the most pros-
ing of all prose-writers, and the most jesuitical of
Correspondents, Swift himself not excepted—suc-j
ceeded to the Taller, but was remarkable for nothing
but one solitary impressive tale, called ' The
Santon Barsisa," from which Lewis took his plot of
the Monk; and one exquisite piece of irony contributed
by Pope himself on the subject of his own and Phil-
lips's Pastorals. On the decease of Nestor lronside,
a nom-de-guerre for the Editor, a weekly paper enti-
tled the " Alchymist," conducted by the son of Eus-
tace Budgell, struggled into existence, but was in a
few months eclipsed by Dr. Johnson's Rambler---a
pompous but brilliant periodical, which, had it pos-
sessed nothing better than the magnificent tale of
the " ten days entertainment by Sultan Memnon,"
would have one down to remotest posterity. This
was succeeded by Hawkesworth's Adventurer, a palpable
but ingenious imitation of the Rambler ; and this
again by the Idler, the most familiar and spirited of
all Dr. Johnson's prose-compoSitions. By the bye,
we will just pause a moment to request Geoffrey
Crayon, when he next sketches the portrait of a Cock-
ney in the country, to draw from personal observation,
and not from the 2d volume of the Idler--verbum
sap. On the demise of this last, a host of minor pe-
riodicals took the field, among the best of which we
may notice en passant the " Observer," by CuMber-
land ; the " World," by Chesterfield ; the " Connois-
seur," by Bonnell Thornton ; the " Citizen of the
World," by Goldsmith ; the " Lounger," and his still
more exquisite " Mirror," by Mackenzie, which last
1119 been deservedly admired tui the finest specimen of
the elegant but familiar style that has appeared since
the days of Addison. Its knowledge of life, indeed,
if we except the individual touches of' character in
"`Umphraville" and " Caustic," was any thing but
profound ; but then its tenderness and beauty of
sentiment—amounting almost to the effeminate
—amply redeemed all defects. In saying this we
of course allude to " Louisa Venoni" and " La
Roche," which every one remembers. The demise of
the Mirror brings us down to the times of Godwin,
'a writer of a totally different stamp from an, that had
ever preceded him, who about the year 1790, put
forth a periodical paper, entitled the ".Enquirer ; in
which he broached a variety of ingenious metaphysical
speculations, drawn wholesale from Helvetius, and
thus converted this branch of literature into a channel
as yet unexplored. Of course we' need not say that
his ,4 Enquirer" found no " enquirers" in the public ;
it was in fact a bad vehicle for communicating philo-1
sophy, being far too flimsy and fugitive in its nature ;
so its talented author was compelled, however re-
luctantly, to discontinue it. From this period, 1790,
down to the year 1814, a partial interregnuin occurs
in periodical literature : the. times, indeed, were too
much absorbed in politics to devote the requisite atten-
tion to the belles lettres ' • but even supposing this were
not the leading cause of its decay, what public encou-
ragement could there possibly have been for a writer
who knew human nature, and could sketch human
character, when such a besotted whining driveller as
Hayley was the Magnus Apollo of his day : the one
paramount idol, whose applause was fame, whose
condemnation destruction ? Yet that such was the
case ; that such an egregious coxcomb was actually
once at the head of English literature, and ruled
it with almost unprecedented despotism; the annals of
the day attest, and more especially the posthumous
correspondence of Gibbon, who reckoned so highly
on the sanction of a name like Hayley's for his
history, that he positively postponed the pub-
lication, until the author of " The Triumphs
of Temper" had condescended to recommend it
with an ode. But we return to our subject.. It
was in the year of 1815. or 16 (we are not quite cer-
tain which) that the very name of a periodical paper,
in which the same endless sketches of monotonous life
and character were du repeated, began to nauseate
the public mind ; and hence it was provided with
a dose of a different
description in the shape of
Biackivood's Magazine. This spirited periodical,
the undoubted descendant of the good old Tatters and
literature which Spectators, but qualified to suit the prejudices, literary
and moral, of the day; took at once the exalted rank in
Unikihuravville'isc
of the former Is .l3' ff Nestor Ironsides,
it has since so ably sustained. In lieu
(mine
quad,
odi ,
it ;neersntains,
oddities aS gave us original
Christopher North, Doctor
black, "et hoc genus
Scott, Tim ( , t admirably sketched cockney of the
Hihlands), and
O'Dolierty.
above all, of our own friend, the con-
vivial`Phis astcharacter we boldly put
forward as the beau 'd •
de Coverley is
• and
am )18 s Western _
f
Congreve's Sir TN
goo-di En,glish joy—Sir Roger
brains) ; but O'Dolierty is
Witwood (despite his lack of
a concent
'We accordingly recomm •
m r
end hi as a model for all
ation of them all.
future periodical essayists A should have been lad
to have seen a small portion of his spirit—his intellect
an-.„ g
'—hiss good humour—and true
transferred to thepages of " the Club
Lueish heartiness—
; a name, the very