Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), May 10, 1845, vol. 1, no. 19, p. ??

[page 297, column 2:]

THE MAGAZINES.

THE KNICKERBOCKER.

DEMOCRATIC REVIEW,

HUNT’S MERCHANT’S MAGAZINE.

AMERICAN REVIEW AND WHIG MAGAZINE. — (Colton.)

The Knickerbocker presents its customary variety in its table of contents besides a grand piece de resistance, composed of A. Pike, and its Editor's table the usual variety of pleasant gossip. We are sorry to see that Mr. Clark has involved himself in a quarrel with Mr. Hudson, and more so that he should have found anything in our own columns that by transplanting will wear an appearance of hostility to that gentleman. Cur remarks, which the Editor of the Knickerbocker has quoted, were meant to apply solely to Mr. Hudson's manner, and not to his matter, for we had not heard enough of his lectures to enable us to form an opinion of his views of his subject; but we were strongly impressed with a feeling of respect for Mr. Hudson's opinions, from the little that we did hear.

The feature of the Democratic Review is an essay on education by Mr. Hudson, from which the public may form a correct idea of his style and thoughts. Many who have long been in the habit of calling all New-Englanders reformers and transcendentalists, will be struck with his strong Conservatism. Mr. Hudson has constantly an eye to the future, like the majority of his countrymen, but he also keeps an eye fixed steadity upon the past. He believes in the good old times. The Democratic has several admirable articles besides Mr. Hudson's. The Essayist on English letter writers from the time of Howell to Lamb, makes a very singular omission in leaving Horace Walpole out of his Catalogue. This is like leaving, Shakspeare out of the list of English Dramatists, or Fielding from the Catalogue of Novelists. Walpole is the only Englishman whose letters form the circulating portion of his works. We read the lettersof other authors on account of their other productions: but we read Walpole's works, because we have read his letters. We have extracted a good part of the Essay on writing for the Magazines, for its genial humor and magazinity, into another part of our columns. The portrait of the Democratic for this month is a striking likeness of McDuffie, of South Carolina, copied from a daguerreotype.

Hunts Magazine has a translation from M. Coquelin, by Henry C. Carey, of Philadelphia, on the Commercial Associations of France and England, a paper on the Erie Canal Enlargement, by J. B. Jervis, of New-York, on the Corn Trade of the United States, by Charles Hudson, of Massachusetts, a review of the Exploring Expedition, and a great amount of statistical matter.

The American Review, Mr. Colton's Whig Magazine, is almost a duplicate of the Democratic Review, excepting the complexion of its politics. The first article, by Dr. Bacon, “The Mystery of Iniquity,” is forcibly written, and infinitely more exciting than any of the mysteries’, not excepting Saul, that have recently been published. It reads very much like a chapter from the mysteries of Paris. The paper by Mr. Hudson “on reading” will do very well as a Sequal to the one on Education in the Democratic. It is worth an infinite number of such Essays as that by Pycroft, a cheap edition of which has recently been published. The review of the ‘Vestiges of Creation,’ is the most vigorous attack that has yet been made on that much abused and much be-praised work. The embellishment of the Whig Review, is a portrait of John Quincy Adams, neither very commendable as a portrait or as a work of art. The biographical sketch of the old-man-eloquent, as the country newspapers will persist in calling the venerable ex-President, contains an extract from his diary, when he was twenty-five years old, which will let him down in the eyes of good people several rounds on the ladder of fame.

Taking them together, these four works exhibit a higher reach inthe department of magazine literature, than the country has ever offered before. While the three dollar magazines, cheap and flashy, flourish best in Philadelphia, the five dollar ones thrive best in New-York; indeed it is the only place, except Richmond, Va., where one has ever thrived at all. But there is still room for another to administer [page 298:] to tastes and preserve interests, which the others neglect. No magazine in this country has yet done anything for the interests of art, but there is a growing appetite in the American people for works of artistic excellence, which we trust that some intelligent publisher will before long turn to a profitable account.