Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-09-04

Has gone by the board The " Y
Courier and Enquirer notices this event as
follows
"Thee mon, says one of Mr. PuncL's pugilists
20 another 'whoy thees only waIkin about to save
thy funeral expenses" similar remark MIGHT
have been made with regard to Psan0,a's Na0o-
zine at any time during the last four or FIVE months
1t has been dead for that time to all intepts and
purposes: its funeral expenses are now paid and il
IS decentiy buried iD an unknown tomb The death
OF ti.s once prominent periodical was not peeun-
AIRY death Tor 1t has been reasonably profitable for
lhIee or Tour years past and its very lfeless
WIN douoiless be worth the six thousand dollars
"hich are said to have been paid for it. Its de-
cease was a moral and intellectual one: it COM
ineEced NE with original vgor; but before il final
ly passed away from our eyes il had become fee
BILE mitator; and the only interest which it excited
In the breasts of those who took pride 10 the
strength Of its earlier years. due to the sympa
thy which they felt for the successful and highly
garded man OF letters who was one OF its last pro-
prietors.
The fact of the extinction of a magazine like this
which had taken, unpretendinely, and for some
time had held so high a position, in whose pages
three or four regulations we're made that extended
across the ocean, to which writer's whose reputa-
tons had long been firmly established were once
frequent contributors, and which had for years
been profitable, this fact is one of some irIpor-
lance and significance 10 our literary annals. Its
potential decease took place some three or four
months ago, when it became feeble imitator of
Hdrper's Magazine; and the change in its charac-
ter was not only deplorable, but, Judged from our
point OF view, entirely unnecessary. For we have
good authority for saying that when its antepenul
innate owners purchased it, it was paying yearly
profit OF four thousand dollars and if it were put
ting that sum clear, into the pockets of its publish
ers, they could not reasonably expect IT, being the
magazine that was, to do more, except in the way
OF more or less gradual increase of circulation.
FHt1tdDa's Magazine was established with certain
professions, and certain promises and those of the
public who are interested in our higher literature
had the right, We speak deliberately, the right,
to expect, that unless the publication proved dis
astrous, those professions and promises should be
met But although the magazine has always been
profitable, its character has been SO entirely
changed that it had of late no distinctive character
at all Laudable motives, far as individuals
were concerned, may have led a step by which
1t was hoped to make the magazine pay the def
cheney Arising from other business; but the purpose
apparent to the world, and with which we have to
do, and which we have to condemn, was plainly to
make the publication more profitable by making it,
as the phrase is, more popular In other words
this means, to make it poorer, lower its tone to
make it appeal to the unthnking, the uncultivated
she frivolous rather than the thoughtful the cult
waited, and the earnest.