Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1858-05-01
The Atlantic Monthly.

Ihe May Humber OF this Magazine Is on
our table. 1t is the only periodical on this
side OF the water that can compare with the
standard British reviews and monthIies.
Indeed, it is the only one that attempts Il
competition with item in point of literary
standing. Harper, Emerson, Peterson and
Others occupy a different field. They minis
ter to an entirely different order of tastes,
and as these tastes are pretty generally diff
fused, and are predominant in the large ma
jority of the reading public, and are shared
to some extent by almost every one, these
magazines have wide and merited popu-
larity. Periodicals of the Harper and EN-
erson kind have long been published, and
sustained by the public. Those who craved
more solid and weighty food for thought
were supplied from the plentiful tables of
Blackwood and the English Reviews. But
a want had long been felt of journal in our
own country which would enter the higher
regions of taste and thought, and minister to
the growing capacity of the public. from the
rich and original storehouses of the great
thinkers ind workers of our own country.
With this idea, Putnam's Monthly, under the
direction Of Geo. W. Curtis, struck a new
vein, and coming out of the ranks Of the
lighter magazines, took higher stand. Its
pages were filled with gems of History, Po-
etry, Philosophy, Science, Politics and Ro-
nance, lavishly contributed by the best
intellects of the country. As a necessary
accompaniment of this intellectual force, it
had moral force Of character. On every
great question of the day which arose, it was
bound to speak out for the right And some
of the ablest and most profound papers on
the moral, social and political topics then
before the American public, which we have
ever read, appeared in its columns. But
unfortur ately the American public was just
in the milk-and -waterish state which all
young pubics have to go through. She
(personifying said public as female, for
which we beg pardon, ladies y was Just en-
tering her teens, and had false sensiblity
on many subjects, which was terribly shock ed
at the plain and eutspoken manner in which
Putnam took hold Of Slavery, the Chivalry,
Negroes. Orthodoxy, and other subjects, and
spoke right out in meeting on them. Con-
sequcntly, the public dropped Putnam, and
Putnam dropped. The reading, educated,
thinking mind Of the country was again
without an organ in all journaldom.
In the meanwhile, however, several new
crops of Independent thinkers poured forth
from the schools. and the public, as Samivel
Weller has it, ''as she grew wider, grew
wiser" Great, stirring, practical thoughts
drifted through the country, seeking express
sion and finding none, except here and there
from some lone pulpit, or in the columns of
one or two astonishingly Independent news
papers, which dotted the country ''lke an
gels visits" &c. With these exceptions,
the thinkers, now becoming more numerous,
found nowhere a response to their thoughts.
The fossilized wisdom of the past crusted
over the Press, wherever it did try to elevate
itself from the level of sentimental love-
stories and the foolish twiddle- twaddle of
gossip and travels. There was famine of
thought in journalism. To supply this need,
to afford an exponent of all untrammeled
and independent thought, and to open to the
mass of journal readers the higher
fields of literature, art and politics. the
Atlantic Monthly was originated in Novem-
Der. The best available talent among Amer
lean writers was enlisted. Character and
individuality marked all its productions. A
success far exceeding the most sanguine
of its friends attended it's debut,
and it stepped at once by unanimous consent
into the foremost rank of American journals.
The force OF character belonging to the
magazine, and the true genuine good taste
which accompanies great intellect, were
evinced in its very appearance and typo.
graphical execution, and by the absence of
all that clap-trap and charlatanry which
characterizes some of its cotemporaries.
Its contents this month are: american
Antiquity" "Roger Pierce'-Amours De
Veyage"- 'lntellectual CHARACTERIZATION
Loo"-"Charley's Death''-"The Catacombs
of Rome"-"The Pure Pearl of Divers Bay"
-"Camile'-"The Hundred Days'-"Epi.
gram on j. "-'Beethoven his Childhood
and Youth'-"A Word to the Wisc',,-
Henry Ward Beecher'' =" Mercedes''--
''The Aotocrat of the Breakfast Table,
Literary Notices"
In the enc article, 's1he Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table," alone, is contained more
wit, more real deep thought, and more oom-
mon sense, than in cord.pils of ordinary
magazine articles.