published of a New Jamaica Magazine which was started about 1798.
The Jamaica Magazine (1812–1813), the Jamaica Monthly Magazine
(1844–1848), and the Victoria Quarterly (1889–1892), which contained
many valuable articles on the West Indies, were other
magazines The West Indian Quarterly was published at Georgetown,
British Guiana, from 1885 to 1888. At Georgetown was
also published the well-known Timehri (1882–1898) which contained
many important historical articles. In Trinidad the Trinidad
Monthly Magazine was started in 1871, and the Union Magazine
in 1892.
Malta had a Malta Penny Magazine in 1839–1841, and the Revue historique et littéraire was founded in Mauritius in 1887. Many magazines dealing with the colonies have been published in England, such as the Colonial Magazine (1840–1843).
See F. Cundall, Bibliographia Jamaicensis (1902–1908).
India and Ceylon
Calcutta.—The first Indian periodical was the Asiatick Miscellany (Calcutta, 1785–1789), probably edited by F. Gladwin The Calcutta Monthly Register was published in 1790, and the Calcutta Monthly Journal from 1798 to 1841. Among other early Calcutta magazines were the Asiatic Observer (1823–1824), the Quarterly Oriental Magazine (1824–1827), and the Royal Sporting Magazine (1833–1838). The Calcutta Literary Gazette was published in 1830–1834, and the Calcutta Review, still the most important serial of the Indian Empire, first appeared in 1846 under the editorship of Sir J. W. Kaye.
Bombay.—The Bombay Magazine was started in 1811 and lasted but a short time. The Bombay Quarterly Magazine (1851–1853) gave place to the Bombay Quarterly Review, issued in 1855.
Madras.—Madras had a Journal of Literature and Science and the Oriental Magazine and Indian Hurkuru (1819). The Indian Antiquary was started at Bombay in 1872 and still continues. Of other contemporary magazines the Hindustan Review (Allahabad), the Modern Review (Calcutta), the Indian Review (Madras), the Madras Review, a quarterly first published in 1895, and the Calcutta University Magazine (1894), are important.
Ceylon.—In Ceylon the Religious and Theological Magazine was started at Colombo in 1833, the Colombo Magazine in 1839, the Ceylon Magazine in 1840, and the Investigator at Kandy in 1841. Of contemporary magazines the Tropical Agriculturist was started in 1881, the Ceylon Literary Register (1886–1896), afterwards the Monthly Literary Register and the Ceylon National Review in 1893. In Burma the quarterly Buddhism appeared in 1904. Singapore had a Journal of the Indian Archipelago from 1847 to 1859, and the Chinese Repository (1832–1851) was edited at Canton by Morrison.
See “Periodical Literature in India,” in Dark Blue (1872–1873).
France
We owe the literary journal to France, where it soon attained to a degree of importance unapproached in any other country. The first idea may be traced in the Bureau d’adresse (1633–1642) of Théophraste Renaudot, giving the proceedings of his conferences upon literary and scientific matters. About the year 1663 Mézeray obtained a privilege for a regular literary periodical, which came to nothing, and it was left to Denis de Sallo counsellor of the parliament of Paris and a man of rare merit and learning, to actually carry the project into effect. The first number of the Journal des savants appeared on the 5th of January 1665, under the assumed name of the sieur d’Hédouville. The prospectus promised to give an account of the chief books published throughout Europe, obituary notices, a review of the progress of science, besides legal and ecclesiastical information and other matters of interest to cultivated persons. The criticisms, however, wounded alike authors and the clergy, and the journal was suppressed after a career of three months. Colbert, seeing the public utility of such a periodical, ordered the abbé Gallois, a contributor of De Sallo’s, to re-establish it, an event which took place on the 4th of January 1666. It lingered nine years under the new editor, who was replaced in 1675 by the abbé de la Roque, and the latter in his turn by the president Cousin, in 1686. From 1701 commenced a new era for the Journal, which was then acquired by the chancellor de Pontchartrain for the state and placed under the direction of a commission of learned men. Just before the Revolution it developed fresh activity, but the troubles of 1792 caused it to be discontinued until 1796, when it again failed to appear after twelve numbers had been issued. In 1816 it was definitely re-established and replaced under government patronage, remaining subject to the chancellor or garde-des-sceaux until 1857, when it was transferred to the control of the minister of public instruction. Since 1903 the organization of the publication has changed. The state subsidy having been withdrawn, the Institute voted a yearly subscription of 10,000 francs and nominated a commission of five members, one for each section, who managed the Journal. Since 1909, however, the various sections have left to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres the entire direction of the Journal, while still paying the annual subsidy. It now restricts itself to publishing contributions relating to antiquities and the middle ages and Oriental studies.
Louis Auguste de Bourbon, sovereign prince of Dombes, having transferred his parliament to Trévoux, set up a printing press, and was persuaded by two Jesuits, Michel le Tellier and Philippe Lalleman, to establish the Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des sciences et des arts (1701–1767), more familiarly known as the Journal des Trévoux, long the best-informed and best-written journal in France. One feature of its career was its constant appeal for the literary assistance of outsiders. It was continued in a more popular style as Journal des sciences et des beaux-arts (1768–1775) by the abbé Aubert and by the brothers Castilhon (1776–1778), and as Journal de littérature, des sciences, et des arts (1779–1782) by the abbé Grosier.
The first legal periodical was the Journal du palais (1672) of Claude Blondeau and Gabriel Guéret, and the first devoted to medicine the Nouvelles découvertes dans toutes les parties de la médecine (1679) of Nicolas de Blégny, frequently spoken of as a charlatan, a term which sometimes means simply a man of many ideas. Religious periodicals date from 1680, and the Journal ecclésiastique of the abbé de la Roque, to whom is also due the first medical journal (1683). The prototype of the historico-literary periodical may be discovered in La Clef du cabinet des princes de l’Europe (1704–1706), familiarly known as Journal de Verdun, and carried on under various titles down to 1794.
Literary criticism was no more free than political discussion, and no person was allowed to trespass either upon the domain of the Journal des savants or that of the Mercure de France (see Newspapers) without the payment of heavy subsidies. This was the origin of the clandestine press of Holland, and it was that country which for the next hundred years supplied the ablest periodical criticism from the pens of French Protestant refugees. During that period thirty-one journals of the first class proceeded from these sources. From its commencement the Journal des savants was pirated in Holland, and for ten years a kind of joint issue made up with the Journal des Trévoux appeared at Amsterdam. From 1764 to 1775 miscellaneous articles from different French and English reviews were added to this reprint. Bayle, a born journalist and the most able critic of the day, conceived the plan of the Nouvelles de la république des lettres (1684–1718), which at once became entirely successful and obtained for him during the three years of his control the dictatorship of the world of letters. He was succeeded as editor by La Roque, Barrin, Bernard and Leclerc. Bayle’s method was followed in an equally meritorious periodical, the Histoire des ouvrages des Savants (1687–1704) of H. Basnage de Beauval. Another continuator of Bayle was Jean Leclerc, one of the most learned and acute critics of the 18th century, who carried on three reviews—the Bibliothèque universelle et historique (1686–1693), the Bibliothèque choisie (1703–1713), and the Bibliothèque ancienne et moderne (1714–1727). They form one series, and, besides valuable estimates of new books, include original dissertations, articles and biographies like our modern learned magazines. The Journal littéraire (1713–1722, 1729–1736) was founded by a society of young men, who made it a rule to discuss their contributions in common. Specially devoted to English literature were the Bibliothèque anglaise (1716–1728), the Mémoires littéraires de la Grande Bretagne (1720–1724). the Bibliothèque britannique (1733–1734), and the Journal britannique (1750–1757) of Maty,[1] who took for his principle, “pour penser avec liberté il faut penser seul.” One of these Dutch-printed reviews was L’Europe savante (1718–1720), founded chiefly by Themiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, with the intention of placing each separate department under the care of a specialist. The Bibliothèque germanique (1720–1740) was established by Jacques Lenfant to do for northern Europe what the Bibliothèque britannique did for England. It was followed by the Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique (1746–1759). The Bibliothèque raisonnée des ouvrages des savants (1728–1758) was supplementary to Leclerc, and was succeeded by the Bibliothèque des sciences et des beaux-arts (1754–1780). Nearly all of the preceding were produced either at Amsterdam or Rotterdam, and, although out of place in a precise geographical arrangement, really belong to France by the close ties of language and of blood.
Taking up the exact chronological order again, we find the success of the English essay-papers led to their prompt introduction to the Continent. An incomplete translation of the Spectator was published at Amsterdam in 1714, and many volumes of extracts from the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian were issued in France early in the 18th century. Marivaux brought out a Spectateur Français (1722), which was coldly received; it was followed by fourteen or fifteen others, under the titles of La Spectatrice (1728–1730), Le Radoteur (1775), Le Babillard (1778–1779), &c. Of a similar character was Le Pour et le contre (1723–1740) of the abbé Prévost, which contained anecdotes and criticism, with special reference to Great Britain. Throughout the 18th century, in France as in England, a favourite literary method was to write of social subjects under the assumed character of a foreigner, generally an
- ↑ Matthew Maty, M.D., born in Holland, 1718, died principal librarian of the British Museum, 1776. He settled in England in 1740, published several books, and wrote the preface to Gibbon’s first work, Étude de la littérature.
