The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-06-20
TUESDAY, JUNE 20. 1899.


We read a paragraph some weeks
ago in the New York Saturday Review
upon the depreciation in the maya
zines. Years ago we saw and stated
that there was an evident decline. They
are of less interest now than they nave
ever been in thirty years. We refer
mainly to the American pictorial month
lies. Even the Atlantic Monthly is less
strictly literary thar we remember to
have seen it. 1t gives more than hall
of its space to a class of articles that
would be adapted to the Forum and
North American Review and Science
Monthly. We recently looked over
Harper's Monthly for June, and did not
read an article of any kind, scarcely
ten lines. We thought it would be a
waste Il do so when there were hun
,dreds of good books accessible, and
such literary publications at hand as
London Times's Literature" and that
best Of American literary publications
"a weekly New York Saturday Re-
view" We read the New York Book
man" from it's first issue years ago un-
til last December, when we quit SUD-
scribing to it because OF one or two
spftefuI, unfair critical articles we read
is one or more of it's numbers. 1t keeps
up it's interest fairly we'll, but we noted
no actual improvement. AS to its get
up" geographically and pictorially, We
thought we discovered a falling away.
Certainly the ugly pictures at the head
of departments did not impress us as
a gain, but something repulsive, as If
copies of the Anticipated pictures in
some old spelling book or reading DOCK
of sixty or seventy years since. In the
able, scholarly, thoughtful London
Literature" we read a paper that i'm
pressed us headed The Decadence of
Magazines" The distinguished editor,
Mr.. Trail, thinks that the literary
standard Of wen the English maya
zines has been seriously lowered, and
he finds hat the best of all, the ven
erabFe Blackwood, which has had for
seventy years such a striking array
of contributors, some of them famous
yet, and some eve great, has shown
a lowering of it's standard. He says
that for a decade the decay of the mag
-azines has been apparent. Referring
g~to the able and popular literary ex-
ponents, Literature" thus designated
some of the organs and contributors:
1.-THE Edinburgh was the Repository Of
the Occasional Productions of Macau-
lay; Frasers's, of those of Carlyle;
BlackWood, of those of more Men OF
Genius than we have space to men
tom; the early Cornhill, of those of
' Uvh IN olarou. thn later Corr hill of those
OF r. l.. Stevenson; Macmillan-to come
as near modern times as one can-of
those of Mr.. Rudyard Kipling in the
days when his genius was as yet his
only passport to editorial favour. 1t
is a goodly list, and one which any one
with a good M can easily eX-
tend. Studying it-and remembering
tha most of the celebrities whom it
commentaries were not yet celebrated
In the days when they did their best
agazi work-one sees clearly that
the chief ambition of the early maya
zine editor was to be literary.
The contention is that now the cit
erary'' is not the chief contention with
the magazines and reviews. All but
Longman's among the older monthlies
has given up the distinctive aim. In
this country the only literary caterers
u L dlC IC cAiN
two or three critical monthlies or semi
monthlies. Mr.. Trail IA and we
she1ieve 1T is true:
1.-The rest have given themselves over
to ideals with which literature Gas
distinguished from mere prose compost
tion) has nothing whatever to do. Via
are these ideals? They vary. of course.
according to the price of the magazines,
and the nature of the public to Which
they are addressed: but it is not very
difficult to classify them. To begin
with, there is the pursuit of the notable
name. This may not be SO bad in Eng
q man has only to fall off a ladder and
break his leg in order to be
solicited to send short stories
from his sick bed to the yellow press;
but 1T is not a phenomenon with which
any of us can pretend to be Unfamiliar.
The name that is notable in letters may
take it's turn with the names that are
notable in other departments of en-
Ndeavour; but there are no indications
that 1t is preferred to them"
The pictures have usurped the places
OF the men OF genius and of rare literary
skill. The difference between the doz-
ems of illustrated and other magazines
and the literary candidates of the past
is as wide from ocean to ocean, or as
MIR. Trail says, from pole to pole"
He farther admits that there is a GER
tain interest in this sort of raree-
show, and he declares with proper
spirit that the magazines that are
produced to meet the prevailing taste
and demand .'have about as much to
do with literature as have the Black
books and White-papers." Mr.. Trail is
0n the right track. He sees precisely,
|we may not doubt, how it is in his own
richly productive land, that abounds in
scholars and accomplished m~en-of-let-
ters (and some gifted woman, too, and
ne knows just what is the character of
most of the stuff hat loads the maya
zine guns that are row fired at an anx-
and expectant people who '1--a
|7early'' the sensational and lurid, ind
mo rave no genuine taste or relish for