the way
of able men of this special class than our fathers ever dreamed of;
and this, curiously enough, just by giving them an opportunity of
writing much, and of thinking incessantly. It is not, it would seem,
by being born among ploughmen and mechanics, and destined to live by
tilling the soil, or by making shoes or hobnails, that the 'genial
current of the soil is frozen,' and superior talents prevented from
accomplishing their proper work: it is by being connected with some
cheap weekly periodical, or twice or thrice a week newspaper, and
compelled to scribble on almost without pause or intermission for
daily bread. We have been led to think of this matter by an
interesting little volume of poems, chiefly lyrical, which has just
issued from the Edinburgh press,--the production of Mr. Thomas
Smibert, a man who has lived for many years by his pen, and who
introduces the volume by a prefatory essay, interesting from the
glimpse which it gives of the literary disadvantages with which the
professionally literary man who writes for the periodicals has to
contend. Periodical literature is, he remarks, 'to all intents and
purposes a creation of the nineteenth century, in its principal
existing phases, from Quarterly Reviews to Weekly Penny Magazines.
Newspapers,' he adds, 'may justly be accounted the growth of the same
recent era, the few previously published having been scarcely more
than mere Gazettes, recording less opinions than bare public and
business facts.' The number of both classes of periodicals is now
immensely great; and 'equally vast, of necessity, is the amount of
literary talent statedly and unremittingly engaged on these journals,
while a large additional amount of similar talent finds in them
occasional and ready outlets for its working.' 'When one or two
leading Reviews, Quarterlies, and Monthlies alone existed, they called
for no insignificant individual efforts of mind on the part of their
chief conductors and supporters, and those parties almost took rank
with the authors of single works of importance. But within the last
twenty years periodical literature has become extensively hebdomadal,
and even diurnal; and, as a necessary consequence, the essays of those
sustaining it in this shape have decreased in proportionate value, at
once from the larger amount of work demanded, and from the shorter
time allowed for its execution. Such essays may serve the hour fairly,
but can seldom be of high worth ultro