The Modern Athens 26

The Modern Athens 26

The oldest literary journal in the Athens,--the one which was once

named after the whole of Scotland, and which is now named peculiarly

after the Athens, is perhaps the one which should be taken as the

proper test of her literary powers.

 

Professing to be of no party in politics, but to set forth the

literature of the day in an independent and gentleman-like style,

and having the stamp of hoary eld, and the connexion of the foremost

bookseller of the Athens to recommend and push it into notice, one

would suppose that the Edinburgh Magazine would be elegant in its

structure, and extensive in its circulation. But it is neither the one

nor the other. When I was in the Athens, the reputed editor was one of

those miserable and pretending quacks who can write nothing, and whose

taste and opinion are not worth a single straw,--a fellow, who would

indeed pretend to an intimacy with the illustrious men both of England

and of Scotland, but who never, by any chance, could have been in

company with one of them; and who had been appointed to this miserable

editorship, because nobody who could write a single page, or give a

sensible opinion upon a single book or subject, could be found, that

would have any thing to do with it.

 

The great success of the Edinburgh Review tempted the cupidity of

other booksellers; and, as there was no possibility of contending with

it in the same class of writing, or on the same side of politics, a

journal of a novel description, not only in the Athens, but in the

world generally, was begun. The celebrity of the Review, and the

superiority of the Whig advocates, had given a Whig bias, at least as

far as speech was concerned, to all the young lawyers of any spirit

and pretensions. To so great a degree had this been carried, that even

the sons of the most super-ultra devotees to the existing system spoke

against sinecures, and hinted that there were such things as the rights

of the people. Great alarm was the consequence; because the holders of

office found that they would be spoiled of their honours and emoluments

through the liberality of their own children. The fear was, no doubt,

groundless; for had they taken themselves as a test of patriotism,

they would have found that office and emolument are not things of such

feeble power. But they were alarmed, and cast about to devise means

for reclaiming the wandering boys back to the good old and profitable

path. There was a sort of simultaneous movement on the part of the boys

themselves. They had taken up the Whig song, just because it was the

popular one at the time; and they had looked for a share of that public

approbation and renown, which had for a considerable time been bestowed

upon the more illustrious of the Whigs. But they were disappointed:

either they had made an undue estimate of their own powers, or the

demands already established upon this approbation and renown were as

great as it could bear. Considering the quarter whence these unnatural

infants of place came, they were probably suspected,--at any rate,

they were left for a few years, dancing attendance at the heels of the

Whigs, in a neglect more contemptuous and complete than was wise in the

one party, or fair toward the other.

 

This happened just about the time when there was a sort of movement

against the Whigs on the part of the Tories, and a sort of movement

from them on the part of the people. An appetite was, in short,

created, which called for food different from the sapless husk of the

Edinburgh Magazine, and the hard and political fare of the Review.

Various causes conspired to give body to this appetite; and Blackwood’s

Magazine was the thing produced. Still the party would not have had

courage actually to start that Magazine; for there was a sort of

belief afloat, that anybody, who would venture to publish in the Athens

that which was not Whig, would fail, and anybody who would attack the

Whigs would be mauled for his pains. The Magazine was started by very

plain and unpretending--at any rate, unwarlike Athenian men of letters.

They had a misunderstanding with Blackwood; he got rid of them, and the

Athens began to taste the racy productions of the Tory press. Even this

cannot be reckoned an Athenian production; for England and Ireland had

to be ransacked ere contributors could found, and even yet, Blackwood,

with the aid of his brother the bailie, is editor.

 

When a sufficient number of those who, as was supposed, would not be

kept back either by moral or by literary scruples, had been collected

together, the campaign was commenced. At first, they seemed to have

only two objects in view,--the vilification of all persons who were

supposed to be either directly or indirectly connected with the Whigs,

more especially with the Edinburgh Review; and a disposition to boast

of their own debauchery, immorality, and want of principle, in order to

disarm any one who might attack them upon that ground.

 

Slander, especially if it be levelled against persons whom the vulgar

account it boldness to attack, and couched in careless and indifferent

terms, is always sure to please somebody; and, from what I saw and

heard, there are no people to whom it is more agreeable than to certain

parties in the Athens. Accordingly, those opinions which, for half an

age, the people of the Athens had been taught to receive, without so

much as questioning their soundness, were turned into burlesque and

ribaldry; and those persons to whom they had been accustomed to look

up with respect and veneration, were ridiculed and abused. As those

opinions and those persons were alike obnoxious to the ruling faction

in the Athens--though that faction had never ventured to express its

dislike--they received the new style of writing with no common degree

of delight and gratitude. Themselves and their cause had been so

long and so severely cudgelled and exposed, that they had given up

all hopes of having any thing said in their favour. Therefore, they

regarded the productions of those, who took up that line of conduct

merely because it was the only one in which they had even a chance of

success, as hearty and devoted champions; and the writers, finding that

they met with more patronage, and patronage which promised to lead

to more advantageous results than they had calculated, became more

and more decidedly partisans, and waxed more bold and barefaced in

their attacks. A coarse and clumsy imitation of the biblical style,

which would have passed unnoticed, but for its local applications,

and its gross personality, gave very general offence, and for that

reason procured them a notoriety which otherwise they would probably

never have obtained; and some cruel insinuations against a venerable

personage whom the whole country had looked up to as a model, both of

a man and of a philosopher, were believed to give him so much pain,

when the decay of nature had all but put an end to a long career of

usefulness and celebrity, that they fancied no one was too low or too

high for feeling their attacks.

 

It must be allowed that both novelty and talent were displayed in those

productions,--at least in some of them. The style and manner were

altogether new: a sort of virgin-soil, as it were, had been turned up

for culture; and though by far the greater portion of its produce was

weeds, and weeds too of the rankest description, yet they had all the

vigour and greenness of a first crop. Periodical writing had for a

long time consisted of abstract disquisitions, or tales which had no

decided locality, or connexion with individual and existing character;

and whatever may have been the practices of the writers, they kept up

a regular show of sobriety and morality in their writings. But the

writers of Blackwood’s Journal not only seasoned their productions

with unsparing personality, but affected to be adepts in debauchery,

and pretended to keep no secrets from their readers, even in the most

unseemly of their carousals. Having manufactured ideal names and

characters for themselves, they treated these in the most unceremonious

manner; and this, in some measure, took off the edge of that

indignation which otherwise would have been felt at their treatment

of real characters. More than any thing, they succeeded; and success

is generally received as the test not only of ability, but of a good

cause, in literature as well as in war. If Blackwood’s Magazine had

never got into considerable circulation, the writers in it would have

been regarded as miserable and malicious rebels from the honest cause

of literature; but as they were in so far successful, they obtained in

some degree the renown of heroes.

 

Among those writers there were, unquestionably, some of talents far

superior to what may be supposed the average of those who contribute

to ordinary magazines; and though these for a time took part in the

ribald practices of the publication, and were pleased for a season with

that eclât which such practices are supposed to afford; yet still, new

in what might be considered as the most blamable perversions of their

talents, there were gleams of a better spirit, and promises that they

could not always follow the same course. That some of the best of them

have already done so, is apparent from the altered spirit of the later

numbers, in which there is an attempt at the same external appearance,

but a visible paucity in spirit; and the probability is that, ere long,

Blackwood’s Magazine, which has always had a considerable portion of

its articles from London, will gradually derive its supplies more and

more from that quarter, or dwindle to the same inanity as its monthly

brother of the Athens.

 

Indeed, the whole tenor of Blackwood is of a description which cannot

be permanent. It offers no principle upon which the mind of an

unprejudiced and independent man can dwell at the time, and as little

to which any body can refer afterwards for the purpose of obtaining

information. Personality, if bold, daring,--or, to use one of its

own terms, _blackguard_ enough, is sure to make a noise at the time;

but its interest is short in proportion to its intensity. For the

philosophic discussion of any one subject, for the establishing of any

one principle in science, in morals, or in politics, or for any one

addition to the stock of human information, it is in vain to look back

at the book; and though people talk about it (and they talk less and

less about every successive number,) at the period of its appearance,

it may be supposed to pass of necessity into the same speedy oblivion

as the animosities or whims by which it was produced; and that future

men will have no more desire to know how written slander was managed in

the days of Blackwood, than they have at present to know in what terms

the ladies of Billingsgate rated each other when the Tower of London

was a seat of royalty.

 

Some may indeed suppose, that as this species of writing is not

kept back by any inflexibility of principle from bending round all

the sinuosities, and accommodating itself to all the crooked paths

of corruption, it will continue to find enough of support from the

official men of the Athens, and their coadjutors and underlings

throughout Scotland; this, however, is by no means the case. Those

persons have no love for literature of any description: their deeds

are such as will not bear any kind of light, and the whole of their

hopes are centred in the one circumstance of the public’s being kept

in ignorance of what they are doing. Like criminals under trial, their

only chance is in an attempt to shake the credibility of the witnesses

against them; and if they attempt a direct defence of themselves, it

is sure to render their offences more palpable, and their condemnation