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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
bat let that p&ss . We gladly ttiin Irfcni the idea of siidH A comptt-• risdn , to prdtfest against thfe wht > Ies&lfe caluffiiiy upon our own . peribdtcal literattiri ^ in thfe note , tibbert Hal l was € tn extfabrdirikry ffiafi : we hdpe the publication of his Mfcrtibirs will soon giv& tis occasion and additional materials for a fttir analysis of his peculiar geriius ; blit everybody kncftvs that he was somewhat addicted ib strong expressions . In the present instance he has indulged iri them most unwarrantably , and we are astonished that
so calm and candid a writer should have gravely cited him as a witness . It would be difficult to point out a topic of public importarice and interest , within the last quarter of a century , of which the best discussion is not to be found in the pages of some periodical . And reviews are read by thousands whom the books would never r £ ach . They bring all classes of subjects home to all classes of men . On all the great points of legislative and legal
reform , of foreign policy , of commercial restriction , of political economy , bur periodicals are storehouses of information and of Argument . True , the writers take different sides , simply for the reason that the ablest thinkers are yet far from agreement . But they cannot be . farther from it than they would be without so rapid and convenient a mode of communication with orie another and . with the public . Then how rich they are in science , history , and literature ! Pretty pocket ledgers , in which the accounts of discovery and production are regularly posted up , putting us in
possession of a totality which , without a division of mental labour , would be utterly unattainable . The Quarterly , the Tory Quarterly , deserves embalming for its literary articles . As for the antipathies and partialities , they are usually such as everybody knows where to look for . They are usually such as would exist in books if there were no reviews , and be more likely to do mischief ; they would exist in men ' s minds if there were neither , and be then most mischievous of all . The rhodomontade , about their being written by the wickedest and stupidest of men , scarcely deserves answer . What great name is there in modern literature
that is not associated with periodical writing ? What poets have we had so inspired as to be above the criticism of Southey and Scott , and Moore and Campbell ? Will geographers object to the ignorance of Barrow , or speculative men demur to the acuteness of Jeffrey , or the meditative philosopher pretend that his reveries cannot be appreciated by Carlyle ? Are the * unbiassed suffrages of the public * waiting for books which shall tell us more of political economy than Chalmers , and M'Culloch , and
Peyronnet Thompson ? The name of Playfair should go for something in physics , and that of Mill in metaphysics . Where will Lytton Bulwer find better novelists ? Will the orator challenge Macaulay from his jury , or the statesman demand a trial by his Peers , and appeal from the Chancellor ? One might almost make the * line stretch out to the crack of doom / Periodicals are
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 815, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/23/
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