CHAPTER X.

OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

Q. What do you understand by Periodical Literature?, A. Works published in detached portions, and at stated times; and devoted chiefly, if not exclusively, to literary or scientific subjects.

Q. Do not newspapers belong to this department of literature? A. Strictly speaking they do; though, from the circumstance of their being devoted almost entirely to political topics, and a detail of the remarkable occurrences that take place in the world, they are generally ranked as a distinct class by themselves, often styled the newspaper press. The first newspaper published in America was in 1604, called the News-letter. Q. Is periodical literature of high antiquity?

A. No; it is of comparatively recent origin, having never been apparently thought of by the ancients. Q. How can this oversight be accounted for?

A. By the want of that important instrument, the printing-press; for, had all works still to be written out by the hand, this species of literature, if known at all, must have been extremely limited.

Q. Where and when did periodical literature take its rise?

A. In France, in the year 1665, when the first work of the kind not properly political, was begun by one Dennis de Sallo, under the denomination of the Journal des Sçavans.

Q. From what time may we date its origin in England?

A. From February, 1704, when the celebrated Daniel De Foe commenced his work called the Review Q. Did the Review continue long solitary?

A. No; for it was speedily followed by the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, which, though ranked with the British Essayists, were nevertheless peri odicals.

Q. Has periodical literature extended much since that time? A. It is now, perhaps, the most extensive of all our departments of literature, and seems to command the attention of readers of all classes.

Q. At what intervals, and under what titles, do periodicals now generally appear?

4. Some are published weekly, some monthly, oth

ers quarterly, and not a few yea ly; and under the various denominations of Journals, Magazines, Miscellanies, Reviews, and Annuals.

Q. In what does the principal attraction of this kind of litera "ture consist?

A. In its containing a great variety of light, elegant, and amusing reading, with a good deal of general information, though commonly of a rather superficial character.

Q. What is supposed to be the effect of so much periodical lit erature upon the public mind?

A. While it induces some to read, who, probably, otherwise would not, it is supposed to withdraw the attention of not a few from the perusal of more regular and important works, and, by giving a mere smattering of many things rather than a thorough acquaintance with any one, to make our knowledge more su perficial than solid, and more showy than useful

CHAPTER XI.

THE COMPONENT PARTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.` [From the Edinburgh Review, 1839.]

THE English language consists of about thirty eight thousand words. This includes, of course, not only radical words, but all derivatives, except the preterits and participles of verbs; to which must be added some few terms, which, though set down in the dictionaries, are either obsolete, or have never ceased to be considered foreign. Of these, about twenty-three thousand, or nearly five eighths, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The majority of the rest, in what proportion we can not say, are Latin and Greek; Lat in, however, has the largest share. The names of the greater part of the objects of sense, in other words, the terms which occur most frequently in discourse, or which recall the most vivid conceptions, are Anglo-Saxon. Thus, for example, the names of the most striking objects in visible nature, of the chief agencies at work there, of the changes we pass over it, are Anglo-Saxon.

This language has given names to the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, and stars; to three out of the four ele

ments earth, fire, and water; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer, and winter; and, indeed, to all the natural divisions of time except one; as day, night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, midday, midnight, sunrise, sunset, some of which are among the most poetical terms we have. To the same language we are indebted for the names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form the component parts of the beautiful in external scenery, as sea and land, hill and dale, wood and stream, &c. It is from this language we derive the words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest connections, and the strongest and most powerful feelings of nature, and which are, consequently, invested with our oldest and most complicated associa tions.

It is this language which has given us names for father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, home, kindred, friends. It is this which has furnished us with the greater part of those metonymies and other figura'ive expressions, by which we represent to the imagination, and that in a single word, the reciprocal duties and enjoy ments of hospitality, friendship, or love; such are hearth, roof, fireside. The chief emotions, too, of which we are susceptible, are expressed in the same language, as love, hope, fear, sorrow, shame; and what is of more consequence to the orator and the poet, as well as in common life, the outward signs by which emotion is indicated, are almost all Anglo-Saxon; such are tear, smile, blush, to laugh, to weep, to sigh, to groan. Most of those objects about which the practical reason of man is employed in common life, receive their names from the Anglo-Saxon. It is the language, for the most part, of business; of the counting-house, the shop, the market, the street, the farm; and, however miserable the man who is fond of philosophy or abstract science might be, if he had no other vocabulary but this, we must recollect that language was made not for the few, but the many, and that portion cf it which enables the bulk of a nation to express their wants and transact their affairs, must be considered of at least as much importance to general happiness as that which serves the purpose of philosophical science.

Nearly all our nation proverbs, in which it is truly said so much of the practical wisdom of a nation resides, and which constitute the manual and vade mecum of "hobnailed" philosophy are almost wholly Anglo-Saxon. A very large

proportion (and that always the strongest) of the language of invective, humor, satire, colloquial pleasantry, is AngloSaxon.

Almost all the terms and phrases by which we most energetically express anger, contempt, and indignation, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The Latin contributes most largely to the language of polite life, as well as to that of polite literature. Again, it is often necessary to convey ideas, which, though not truly and properly offensive in themselves, would, if clothed in the rough Saxon, appear so to the sensitive modesty of a highly-refined state of society; dressed in Latin, these very same ideas shall seem decent enough. There is a large number of words, which, from the frequency with which they are used, and from their being so constantly in the mouths of the vulgar, would not be endured in polished society, though more privileged synonymes of Latin origin, or some classical circumlocution expressing exactly the same thing, shall pass unquestioned.

There may be nothing dishonest, nothing really vulgar about the old Saxon word, yet it would be thought as uncouth in a drawing-room as the ploughman to whose rude use it is abandoned. Thus the word "stench" is lavendered over into unpleasant effluvia, or an ill odor; "sweat," diluted into four times the number of syllables, becomes a very inoffensive thing in the shape of "perspiration." To "squint" is softened into obliquity of vision; to be "drunk" is vulgar, but if a man be simply intoxicated or inebriated, it is comparatively venial. Indeed, we may say of the classical names of vices, what Burke more questionably said of vices themselves, "that they lose half their deformity by losing all their grossness." In the same manner, we all know that it is very possible for a medical man to put to us questions, under the seemly disguise of scientific phraseology and polite circumlocution, which, if expressed in the bare and rude vernacular, would almost be as nauseous as his draughts and pills. Lastly, there are many thoughts which gain immensely by mere novelty and variety of expression. This the judicious poet, who knows that the connection between thoughts and words is as intimate as that between body and spirit, well understands. There are thoughts, in themselves trite and commonplace when expressed in the hackneyed terms of common life, which, if a orned by some gracefu or felicitous novelty of expression, shall assume an unwont ed air of dignity and elegance. What was trivial, becomes striking ad what was plebeian, noble.

PART V I.

ODERN BRITISH LITERATURE.
[Abridged from Montgomery's Lectures.]

CHAPTER I.

a LITERATURE UNDER THE TUDORS AND THE FIRST

STUARTS.

FM the reign of Elizabeth to the protectorate of Cromwell, inclusively, there rose in phalanx, and continued in succession, minds of all orders and hands for all work, in poetry, philosophy, history, and theology, which have bequeathed to us such treasures of what may be called genuine English Literature, that whatever may be the changes of taste, the revolutions of style, and the fashions in popular reading, these will be the sterling standards.

The standard of our tongue having been fixed at an era when it was rich in native idioms, full of pristine vigor, and pliable almost as sound articulate can be to sense-and that standard having been fixed in poetry, the most permanent and perfect of all forms of literature, as well as in the version of the Scriptures, which are necessarily the most popular species of readingno very considerable changes can be effected.

Contemporary with Milton, though his junior, and belonging to a subsequent era of literature, of which he became the great luminary and master-spirit, was Dryden. His prose (not less admirable than his verse), in its structure and cadence, in compass of expression, and general freedom from cumbersome pomp, pedantic restraint, and vicious quaintness, which more or less characterized his predecessors, became the favorite model in that species of composition, which was happily followed and highly improved by Addison, Johnson, and other periodical writers of the last century. These, to whom must be added the triumvirate of British historians, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, who