Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), January 25, 1845, vol. 1, no. 4, p. ??

[page 61, column 2, continued:]

THE SOUTHERN QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. XII. Charleston, S. C.

This is a very respectable looking periodical, hardly if at all inferior to the North American, or any of the foreign Quarterlies, in its externals. It must have been very quietly conducted, for we do not remember ever having heard it spoken of, or of seeing it in any of our bookstores or reading rooms. It professes to advocate Southern interests, but it is conducted by a New England man, Mr. Whitaker, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, who preached, once, in New Bedford. Any literary publication that narrows itself down to so small a compass as South Carolina prejudices must, of course, be exceedingly narrow in its moral dimensions. But we do not find anything very exclusive in this number, excepting an article on Annexation — which, being written by a professed admirer of Mr. Calhoun, is, of course, strongly impregnated with the flavor of his prejudices. The longest article in the Review is devoted to the writings of Cornelius Matthews. While the reviewer complains in no moderate terms of the hardships of American authors, arising from lack of sympathy among their own countrymen, he does not, himself, appear to be aware that there are any other American writers beside the subject of his paper and Judge Longstreet. He hints at Halleck and Jack Downing, but makes no mention of any other American author. While talking about home, his eyes are stretched across the water. Probably he does not consider the Northern States as a part of the Union. He denies the quality of humor to any American author, and appears to be profoundly ignorant of the existence of Washington Irving, Hawthorn [[Hawthorne]], Joseph Neal, Paulding, Holmes, Sands, and a score or two more. In speaking of Mr. Matthews’ merits, he makes him run the gauntlet through a host of tall men from the time of Homer down to Dickens; aa a poet, he [page 62:] measures him with the Greeks; PS a dramatist, with Fletcher, Congreve, and Shakspeare; as a humorist, with Hogarth; as a novelist. with Fielding, Smollet, Scott, and Dickens. This is a rather severe trial, but the reviewer entertains a high opinion of the genius of Mr. Matthews, notwithstanding the cruel test that he tries him by. The article is written in a very grave and solemn tone, but it contains two witticisms, though they are of a rather ponderous character; he calls the English Jam Ox, and the Irish Sans Potato. Without quarrelling with him for emasculating the national emblem of the English, we must object to the new name for the Irish — it should be Sans-everything-but-Potato, if sans anything.