The New York herald., 1868-04-07

| tant ana suggestive.
| Bohemian Literature and Its Degenerncy.
| We have lately had occasion to look at some
of the numerous specimens of magazine litera-
ture which are now contending for public favor
as successors of the Port Folio, the first
monthly magazine of any note in this country.
! The Port Folio was originally started as
weekly in Philadelphia in 1900, and was ably
| edited by Dennie, the celebrated essayist and
| clay preacher" 1t counted among its con-
tributors Richard Rush, John Quincy Adams,
| Nicholas Biddle, Robert Walsh, Charles
Brockden Brown, Francis Hopkinson, Thomas
| Cadwallader, Gouverneur Morris and other
eminent men. Among the contributors to the
Monthly anthology, started in Boston in 1903,
were John Quincy Adams, j. S. Buckminster,
| George Ticknor and William Tudor, who
founded the North american ReoieW in 1916.
Another early American periodical was the
| An0Iectic Magazine, started in Philadelphia.
| Its name was changed to Select Reoieaos by
Washington Irving, who edited it for two years,
and J. X. Paulding and Gulian G. Verplanck
contributed to it. Without enumerating other
pioneers of the multitude of American maga-
zines and reviews which have since ap-
peared, and in nearly hundred instances
have also disappeared, we must say that when
we compare those which flourished fifty or
sixty years ago with those which are flourish
ing now the comparison Is sadly unfavorable
to the latter.
tn to twN iuVnOr Mt
comparison becomes contrast. The spirit of
| the early American periodical literature was
pure and undeiled, and the most tender reli-
gious susceptibilities were never offended. But
nowadays-from the pompous North american
| Reuieao and its satellites, the AAantic Monshiy
and the Radical, and their rivals in New York
and New Jersey, Putnom's Konk1ty and the
| Northern monthly, 6 TUT quanh (their name
| is Legion), down to The Last Sens0tion-our
quarterles, monthlies and weeklies seem to
vie with each other in making open or covert
assaults upon religion and morality.
The whole mass of Bohemian literature is
leavencd with the spirit of infdelity and lcen-
tiousness. Periodicals published in the City of
| the Puritans hesitate not to question the per-
sonality of God and the authenticity of the Scrip
lures in which the Divine will is revealed, or
| to rank the name of the late Theodore Parker
on the same level as that of the Saviour of the
world. In fact the skeptical Parker is ex-
tolled and adored by these blasphemous
! Bostonians as o sort of Yankee Jesus, in
spired with ultra modern IDEAS Even the
professed apologies for Christianity which are
occasionally put forth in Difference to the
lingering prejudices of old fashioned ortho-
doxy would appear heterodox enough to the
early fathers Of the Church.
In the same way the professed satires levclled
against RIGHTEOUSNESS, and particularly against
the indecent exposures which are now 80 com
mon on the stage and in the fashionable ball
room, are less calculated to shock and alarm
than to compete as closely as possible with the
fatal fascinations which they pretend to con-
demn. The Bohemian satirists fairly gloat over
the indecencies which they describe with sus-
picious affectation of holy horror. They
emulate in their descriptions the "prurient
pictorials' which they denounce. They dilate
with peculiar satisfaction on the naked truth
as illustrated by the ''salacious sprites" of the
ballet. They scatter swords that burn" even
when they aim at saying that music and scenery
and effects "are merely the pretext for repre-
senting the unchaste convoutions of the god
desses of impudicity at the fullest angle OF
lewdness and through the rosy medium Of
amorous suggestion"
The "mob Of gentlemen that write with
ease" is doubtless larger than in the
infancy of American periodical literature.
But we cannot admit that such contrib,,-
tors to it as Dennie, Washington Irving,
Buckminster, Edward Everett, Alexander ii.
Everett, George Ticknor, and others who
might be mentioned, have been surpassed OF
writer's by those whose names now figure con
spicuously in flaming lists OF magaznsts ant
reviewers. As we have already intimated, oul
modern moralists in their most elaborate dis
quisitions too often betray the corruptng influ
ence of the very evils against which the,
inveigh. Even when they dispffy the charm
of literary beauty their Howery pages exhale
poisonous odor; and like the fig leaves in tn,
basket of the Egyptian queen Ito borrow al
illustration, are dedled by the asps trail and
, slime, while the sly worm turks beneath
. This degeneracy Of Bohemian literature Il
| not unaccountable, however, II we remembe
that IL mirrors and reflects here, and In th,
. midst of the nineteenth century, such scenes
a are represented with impunity upon the stage
/. ! scenes for which no parallel can be found saw