Sir John Barrow, J. Wilson Croker, Isaac Disraeli, A. W. Kinglake,
Lord Salisbury and W. E.
Gladstone.[1] The Westminster Review
(1824), established by the followers of Jeremy Bentham, advocated
radical reforms in church, state and legislation. In 1836 it was
joined to the London Review (1829), founded by Sir William Molesworth,
and then bore the name of the London and Westminster
Review till 1851, when it returned to the original title. Other
quarterly reviews worth mentioning are the Eclectic Review (1805–1868),
edited down to 1834 by Josiah Conder (1789–1355) and
supported by the Dissenters; the British Review (1811–1825); the
Christian Remembrancer (1819–1868); the Retrospective Review
(1820–1826, 1828, 1853–1854), for old books; the Foreign Quarterly
Review (1827–1846), afterwards incorporated with the Westminster;
the Foreign Review (1828–1829); the Dublin Review (1836), a Roman
Catholic organ; the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review (1843–1847),
the Prospective Review (1845–1855), given up to theology and
literature, previously the Christian Teacher (1835–1844); the North
British Review (1844–1871); the British Quarterly Review (1845),
successor to the British and Foreign Review (1835–1844); the New
Quarterly Review (1852–1861), the Scottish Review (1853–1862),
published at Glasgow; the Wesleyan London Quarterly Review
(1853-); the National Review (1855–1864); the Diplomatic
Review (1855–1881); the Irish Quarterly Review (1851–1859),
brought out in Dublin; the Home and Foreign Review (1862–1864);
the Fine Arts Quarterly Review (1863–1865); the New Quarterly
Magazine (1873–1880); the Catholic Union Review (1863–1874);
the Anglican Church Quarterly Review (1875); Mind (1876), dealing
with mental philosophy; the Modern Review (1880–1884); the
Scottish Review (1882); the Asiatic Quarterly Review (1886; since 1891
the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review); and the Jewish Quarterly
Review.
The monthly reviews include the Christian Observer (1802–1857), conducted by members of the established church upon evangelical principles, with Zachary Macaulay as the first editor; and the Monthly Repository (1806–1837), originally purely theological, but after coming into the hands of the Rev. W. J. Fox made entirely literary and political. The Fortnightly Monthlies. Review (1865), edited successively by G. H. Lewes, John Morley, T. H. S. Escott, Frank Harris, Oswald Crawfurd and W. L. Courtney, was intended as a kind of English Revue des deux mondes. Since 1866 it has appeared monthly. The Contemporary Review (1866), long edited by Sir Percy Bunting, and the Nineteenth Century (1877), founded and edited by Sir James Knowles (q.v.), and renamed Nineteenth Century and After in 1900, are similar in character, consisting of signed articles by men of mark of all opinions upon questions of the day. The National Review (1883), edited successively by Alfred Austin, W. Earl Hodgson, and L. J. Maxse, is alone in taking editorially a pronounced party line in politics as a Conservative organ. Modern Thought (1879–1884), for the free discussion of political, religious and social subjects, and the Modern Review (1892–1894) may also be mentioned. Other monthlies are the Indian Magazine (1871); the Irish Monthly (Dublin, 1873); the Gaelic Journal (Dublin, 1882); the African Review (1892) and the Empire Review (1900). The Monthly Review (1900–1908), edited till 1904 by Henry Newbolt, was for some years a notable addition to the high class literary monthlies.
The weekly reviews dealing generally with literature, science and art are the Literary Gazette (1817–1862), first edited by William Jerdan; the Athenaeum (1828), founded by James Silk Buckingham, but successfully established by C. W. Dilke, and long edited in later years by Norman MacColl (1843–1904), and afterwards by Mr Vernon Rendall; and the Academy (1869). Weeklies. Among those which also include political and social topics, and are more particularly dealt with under Newspapers, may be mentioned, the Examiner (1808–1881), the Spectator (1828), the Saturday Review (1855), the Scots or National Observer (1888–1897), Outlook (1898), Pilot (1900–1903), and Speaker (1890), which became the Nation.
Soon after the introduction of the literary journal in England, one of a more familiar tone was started by the eccentric John Dunton in the Athenian Gazette, or Casuistical Mercury, resolving all the most Nice and Curious Questions (1689–1690 to 1695–1696), afterwards called The Athenian Mercury, a kind of forerunner of Notes and Queries, being a penny weekly sheet, with a quarterly critical supplement. In the last part the publisher announces that it will be continued “as soon as ever the glut of news is a little over.” Dunton was assisted by Richard Sault and Samuel Wesley. Defoe's Review (1704–1713) dealt chiefly with politics and commerce, but the introduction in it of what its editor fittingly termed the “scandalous club” was another step nearer the papers of Steele and the periodical essayists, the first attempts to create an organized popular opinion in matters of taste and manners. These little papers, rapidly thrown off for a temporary purpose, were destined to form a very important part of the literature of the 18th century, and in some respects its most marked feature. Although the frequenters of the clubs and coffee-houses were the persons for whom the essay-papers were mainly written, a proof of the increasing refinement of the age is to be found in the fact that now for the first time were women Tatler, &c. specially addressed as part of the reading public. The Tatler was commenced by Richard Steele in 1709, and issued thrice a week until 1711. The idea was at once extremely popular, and a dozen similar papers were started within the year, at least one half bearing colourable imitations of the title. Addison contributed to the Tatler, and together with Steele established and carried on the Spectator (1710–1714), and subsequently the Guardian (1713). The newspaper tax enforced in 1712 dealt a hard blow at these. Before this time the daily issue of the Spectator had reached 3000 copies; it then fell to 1600; the price was raised from a penny to twopence, but the paper came to an end in 1714. Dr Drake (Essays illustr. of the Rambler, &c., ii. 490) drew up an imperfect list of the essayists, and reckoned that from the Tatler to Johnson's Rambler, during a period of forty-one years, 106 papers of this description were published. Dr Drake continued the list down to 1809, and described altogether 221 which had appeared within a hundred years. The following is a list of the most considerable, with their dates, founders and chief contributors:—
Tatler (April 12, 1709 to Jan. 2, 1710–1711), Steele, Addison, Swift, Hughes, &c.; Spectator (March 1, 1710–1711 to Dec. 20, 1714), Addison, Steele, Budgell, Hughes, Grove, Pope, Parnell, Swift, &c.; Guardian (March 12, 1713 to Oct. 1, 1713), Steele, Addison, Berkeley, Pope, Tickell, Budgell, &c.; Rambler (March 20, 1750 to March 14, 1752), Johnson; Adventurer (Nov. 7, 1752 to March 9, 1754), Hawkesworth, Johnson, Bathurst, Warton, Chapone; World (Jan. 4, 1753 to Dec. 30, 1756), E. Moore, earl of Chesterfield, R. O. Cambridge, earl of Orford, Soame Jenyns, &c.; Connoisseur (Jan. 31, 1754 to Sept. 30, 1756), Colman, Thornton, Warton, earl of Cork, &c.; Idler (April 15, 1758 to April 5, 1760), Johnson, Sir J. Reynolds and Bennet Langton; Bee (Oct. 6, 1759 to Nov. 24, 1759), O. Goldsmith; Mirror (Jan. 23, 1779 to May 27, 1780), Mackenzie, Craig, Abercromby, Home, Bannatyne, &c.; Lounger (Feb. 5, 1785 to Jan. 6, 1787), Mackenzie, Craig, Abercromby, Tytler; Observer (1785 to 1790), Cumberland; Looker-on (March 10, 1792 to Feb. 1, 1794), W. Roberts, Beresford, Chalmers.
As from the “pamphlet of news” arose the weekly paper wholly devoted to the circulation of news, so from the general newspaper was specialized the weekly or monthly review of literature, antiquities and science, which, when it included essay-papers, made up the magazine or miscellaneous repository of matter for information and amusement. Several Modern Magazines. monthly publications had come into existence since 1681, but perhaps the first germ of the magazine is to be found in the Gentleman's Journal (1691–1694) of Peter Motteux, which, besides the news of the month, contained miscellaneous prose and poetry. Dr Samuel Jebb included antiquarian notices as well as literary reviews in his Bibliotheca literaria (1722–1724), previously mentioned, but the Gentleman's Magazine, founded in 1731, fully established, through the tact and energy of the publisher Edward Cave (q.v.), the type of the magazine, from that time so marked a feature of English periodical literature. The first idea is due to Motteux, from whom the title, motto and general plan were borrowed. The chief feature in the new venture at first consisted of the analysis of the journals, which Cave undertook personally. Prizes were offered for poetry. In April 1732 the leading metropolitan publishers, jealous of the interloper Cave, started the London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer (1732–1784), which had a long and prosperous career. The new magazine closely copied Cave's title, plan and aspect, and bitter war was long waged between the two. The rivalry was not without benefit to the literary public, as the conductors of each used every effort to improve their own review. Cave introduced the practice of giving engravings, maps and portraits, but his greatest success was the addition of Samuel Johnson (q.v.) to the regular staff. This took place in 1738, when the latter wrote the preface to the volume for that year, observing that the magazine had “given rise to almost twenty imitations of it, which are either all dead or very little regarded.” The plan was also imitated in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The Gentleman's Magazine was continued by Cave's brother-in-law, David Henry, afterwards by John Nichols and his son.[2] Cave appears to have been the first
- ↑ The centenary of the Edinburgh Review was celebrated in an article in October 1902, and that of the Quarterly Review in two articles April and July 1909. See also On the Authorship of the First Hundred Numbers of the Edinburgh Review (1895), by W. A. Copinger, and The First Edinburgh Reviewers in Literary Studies (1879), vol. i, by W. Bagehot.
- ↑ The first series of the Gentleman's Magazine or Trader's Monthly Intelligencer, extended from January 1731 to December 1735, 5 vols.; the Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle from January 1736 to December 1807, vols. 6–77; new series, January 1808 to December 1833, vols. 78–103; new series, 1834–1856, 45 vols; new (third) series, 1856–1865, 19 vols.; new (fourth) series, 1866–1868, 5 vols. A general index to the first twenty vols. appeared in 1753. S. Ayscough brought out an index to the first fifty-six vols, 1751–1786 (1789), 2 vols., and one by J. Nichols, 1787–1818 (1821), 2 vols. A complete list of the plates and woodcuts (1731–1813) was published in 1814, and another list (1731–1818), in 1821. The Gentleman's Magazine Library, being a classified collection of the chief contents of the Gentleman's Magazine, from 1731 to 1868, is now being edited by Mr G. L. Gomme (1883, &c., vols. 1–17).
