PERIODICALS.

Lord Lyndhurst once said, at a public dinner, with reference to the
numberless marvels of the press, that it might seem a very easy thing to
write a leading article, but that he would recommend any one with strong
convictions on that point, only to _try_. We confidently appeal to the
experience of all the conductors of the leading journals of Great
Britain, from the quarterly reviews to the daily journals, convinced
that they will all tell the same unvarying tale of the utter
incompetency of thousands of very clever people to write articles,
review books, &c. They will all have the same experiences to relate of
the marvelous failures of men of genius and learning--the crude cumbrous
state in which they have sent their so-called articles for
publication--the labor it has taken to mould their fine thoughts and
valuable erudition into comely shape--the utter impossibility of doing
it at all. As Mr. Carlyle has written of the needle-women of England, it
is the saddest thing of all, that there should be sempstresses few or
none, but "botchers" in such abundance, capable only of "a distracted
puckering and botching--not sewing--only a fallacious hope of it--a fond
imagination of the mind;" so of literary labor is it the saddest thing
of all, that there should be so many botchers in the world, and so few
skilled article-writers--so little article-writing, and so much
"distracted puckering and botching." There may be nothing in this
article-writing, when once we know how to do it, as there is nothing in
balancing a ladder on one's chin, or jumping through a hoop, or
swallowing a sword. All we say is, if people think it easy, let them
try, and abide by the result. The amateur articles of very clever people
are generally what an amateur effort at coat-making would be. It may
seem a very easy thing to make a coat; but very expert
craftsmen--craftsmen that can produce more difficult and elaborate
pieces of workmanship, fail utterly when they come to a coat. The only
reason why they can not make a coat is, that they are not tailors. Now
there are many very able and learned men, who can compass greater
efforts of human intellect than the production of a newspaper article,
but who can not write a newspaper at all, because they we not
newspaper-writers, or criticise a book with decent effect, because they
are not critics. Article-writing comes "by art not chance." The efforts
of chance writers, if they be men of genius