1 From the Examiner. PERIODICALS AND SERIAL PUBLICATIONS FOR 1852. THE number of periodicals seems, by its increase, to indicate an increase in the number of cursory readers. A book done up in the small pill of a review, appears to be now in almost every case more popular than the book itself; and opinions, as presented by the original thinker or investigator, are found to have no chance against opinions presented like soup in the condensed form, and portable, to be diluted for use in the water of common conversation. The character of the new periodicals, and the change of tone visible in some old ones, indicate however, on the part of their proprietors, an improved opinion of the public taste. In our old friends the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews we have not much change to report. The change which does appear in them arises from the altered temper of the times without, not of the minds within. The Edinburgh Review, established from the first upon the basis of liberal opinions, which have in this country, if not elsewhere, since been steadily gaining ground, continues to be politically speaking in harmony with an increasing public. The Quarterly, adhering to a political standard around which the whole mind of the country becomes every year less disposed to rally, has long ago judiciously accepted the necessity of finding compensation for the unpopularity of its political in the increased pleasantness of its literary character. The article on Junius in the present number, however, which endeavors to make out a case in favor of Thomas Lord Lyttleton, (the "wicked" Lord,) is more ingenious than powerful in argument; and we are clearly of opinion, even making the large concessions demanded by the writer's theory, that the controversy is left by this paper much as it was before. Upon one political subject, concerning which the most opposite parties in England sympathize, we have to thank the Quarterly for an able paper-the French Autocrat, The notice of Mr. Gladstone's translation of Farini, on the other hand, written in a spirit of affection for the King of Naples, and including an episode of It indignation at the "rebel attorney Kossuth," tries the good humor of its readers. The Westminster Review comes out with a new face from the hands of Mr. Chapman, and discusses with some boldness and some vigor (though with hardly as much of either as the announcements might have led us to expect) the most interesting questions of the day. It does not claim assent to its opinions, but the right of free inquiry. lightens its intelligent and moderate essays on the relation between employers and employed, and the general troubles of humanity, with pleasant talk about molluscous animals and the happiness of oysters. Moreover, to supply the demand of those who wish, in these book-writing days, to know what is being written in all places on all themes, it closes with summaries of the contemporary literature in England, America, Germany, and France. For the same class of readers (certainly a large one) the New Quarterly Review presents us this month with its number One, being a half-crown digest of current English literature, with a short notice of French books, and a shorter one of German publications. This new Quarterly Review contains a large amount of matter in double columns of tolerably close print, and its criticisms seem to be written with ability. We descend from the quarterly to monthly publications. Blackwood opens the new year with a great deal of light reading; and, among other matter, Mr. Albert Smith's account of his journey up Mont Blanc is to be found in it. But My Novel is still the chief attraction, and many readers will deplore those revolving moons (to quote Mr. Puff) which appear destined very shortly to bring this delightful tale of Sir Edward Lytton's to a close. Blackwood avoids French politics; but he has an extremely dismal political article, a wail over free trade, to begin his number, and a glorification of Disraeli's "Life of Bentinck" to conclude it. Blackwood is among the onemonthlies what the Quarterly is among the three-monthlies, and we might find a similar | purpose. Here also we have new candianalogy between the Westminster and Fraser. dates for the attention and good-will of the Fraser's Magazine may now be accounted public. second to none, indeed superior to almost all, of its own class. More than tinged, as it no doubt is, with the opinions of that peculiar school in which Mr. Kingsley is a master, its political comments are at the same time characterized by an earnestness, and its literary papers by a grace, that satisfy the reader. We observe in its present number fresh intimations of this, and the commencement of a new and characteristic fiction by the author of Alton Locke. The Gentleman's Magazine commences its new volume subject to that reform in his affairs which Mr. Urban instituted sundry months ago. The historian and the antiquary may now enjoy a magazine which shows all the information and experience, and not a trace of the decrepitude of age. Its editor, Mr. Bruce, is a representative of that class of literary inquirers, not only learned, careful, and painstaking, but also most agreeable. He keeps steadily in view, too, the rights and interests of his class; and has been the means of obtaining for them several valuable privileges and facilities of research, withheld till his intelligent agitation showed the absurdity of witholding them any longer. Bentley's Miscellany continues to court readers with the attraction of a monthly portrait and memoir of some distinguished man. It seems also to be gradually dropping the purely light character to which it formerly aspired, and to cater for that taste for information which has been increasing among readers generally. Sharpe's Magazine commences its fifteenth volume with the present month, and offers to its readers a considerable as well as very pleasant shilling's worth. A new monthly, the British Journal, launched with the year 1852, is offered to the public at the price of sixpence only. It includes among the contributors to its first number Mrs. Cowden Clarke and Miss Frances Brown, and apparently aims at combining, under one cover, solid, even scientific papers, with light reading. Another monthly which with the new year makes its first bow to the public, is the Cabinet, offering to provide in itself a fourpenny magazine of literature, history, poetry, information, biography, criticism, fiction, and correspondFrom the first number we are not able to form any opinion as to its chances of The Biographical Magazine, a sixpenny journal, edited by J. Passmore Edwards, proposes to narrate the lives of celebrated men and women, particularly those whose words or deeds have any bearing on the present age. The opening number contains biographic sketches of Louis N. Bonaparte, Louis Kossuth, Marshal Soult, John Banim, and the late Bishop of Norwich; it commences also a sketch of Jean Paul. So far as we have dipped into this magazine we find its papers written with liberality of temper and good sense. Similar in form and price, published at the same office, and conducted by the same editor, is the Poetic Review, and Miscellany of Imaginative Literature. "It will show," says its prospectus, "the philosophy of poetry, and the poetry of philosophy." We doubt whether it will accomplish its design. Macphail's Edinburgh Journal continues to commend itself to Scotch ecclesiastical readers by papers of a limited order of criticism, but carefully written, and by bold and uncompromising denunciations of the Man and Woman of Sin. The Colonial Magazine is an old friend, devoted to a subject interesting to a large and important section of the public. It contains a series of very valuable papers. Another large section of the community is addressed by the Journal of Design and Manufactures, with its usual array of illustrations and specimens of woven fabrics. The present number opens with an important paper by Mr. Dyce, on the education of artists and designers, and the remaining articles in every respect keep up the high character of the journal in which they appear. Then we have Paxton's Flower Garden, loved by all horticulturists, and often praised by us. From these monthlies we leap back to the quarterlies again, for the purpose of noticing two journals, devoted, like the magazines just noticed, to a special end. The Journal of Agriculture, in addition to a large mass of information valuable to farmers, contains a discussion on the Irish Land Question, an article on agricultural engineering, and other matters interesting beyond the circle of readers for which the Journal is more particularly designed. The Zoist, another quarterly journal conducted with much ability, should be read by those who wish to know what is being done and said by true believers We now come to a class of monthly maga- on the subjects of phrenology and mesmerzines devoted each of them to some especialism. The papers of Dr. Elliotson in particu ence. success. lar are distinguished by all those qualities of subtlety and courage in investigation, as well as candor and boldness in describing its results, which have made him remarkable alike for his opinions and the unselfish sacrifices he has made to enforce them. He contributes to the present number a paper on the cerebral formations of the murderers Manning, and there is another very curious and interesting paper by Mr. Chauncy Hare Townshend. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal has lost none of its old reputation, and co-exists with Mr. Dickens's Household Words, a journal so far differing in manner as to wear its wellmerited popularity, and to spread through its vast range of readers not alone amusement but information and instruction in all the great questions of the day, without the slightest detriment to the interests of its Scotch brother laborer. The Messrs. Chambers have also commenced with the new year what they call a Pocket Miscellany, consisting of amusing papers reprinted in cheap and handy volumes from the early quarto numbers of their journal-as a literary companion for the railway, the fireside, or the bush. Within the same category perhaps should come certain new additions to Mr. Routledge's" popular library," and among them, with primary claims to notice and respect, two volumes of Twice Told Tales, by that American novelist who has recently achieved such deserved popularity in England. Here, too, we may also mention a little library of graver character, published by Mr. Pickering, with the taste for which he is famous both in selection and production-a collection of "Christian Classics," in eighteenpenny and two shilling volumes, to which the latest additions are Bishop Hall's Occasional Meditations and Meditations and Vows. dicious selections which appear monthly, under the title of Half Hours of English History; and for the Imperial Cyclopædia. Under this latter head the tenth part of the Cyclopædia of the British Empire,' most carefully and cleverly compiled, lies now before us. Then, under the series sent forth by the same publisher, entitled the Country House, instruction is offered this month upon the subject of The Piggery; and in the series called Rural Handbooks, issued by another publisher, Mr. Orr, very much in the same form, and also at a shilling, a very complete little treatise is offered on The Cow. The Messrs. Longman's valuable shilling series of The Travellers' Library is continued with unabated vigor on its original plan, and offers this month, to railway readers and others, a re-print of Mr. Macaulay's brilliant essays on the Life and Writings of Addison and Horace Walpole. To railway readers also, and to all others who love pleasant, graceful writing, Mrs. Cowden Clarke presents her fourteenth tale, the last but one in her series, of the Girlhood of Shakspeare's Heroines. It is a different class of readers who will be interested in the second quarterly part of A Narrative of the Kaffir War, plainly written, and with no literary merits of style, but illustrated by official documents which make it valuable. We may note here also Chapman's British Railway Guide, for railway readers an admirable thing, but the contents of which are not exactly pleasant matter to beguile the time of those who sit at home. at home. Nor will it be inappropriate to add to our list those indispensable periodical visitors-The Pocket Peerage and Baronetage of Great Britain and Ireland, a well arranged, compact, and most convenient little volume; and Webster's Royal Red Book, to the careful correctness of which useful compilation, as well as its facility of reference by the ingenious mode of printing adopted, we have Among periodical works which do not come under the old-fashioned class of magazines, we have to notice an edition of Shak-repeatedly borne testimony. speare issued by Mr. Knight in sixpenny Here we discover that we omitted the first parts, portable in form, with notes placed in number of the Garden Companion from the a marginal column instead of at the foot, and list of new serials devoted to a special purin the same column little figures also, illus- pose, which may properly be called magatrative of costume. This is called the Com-zines. This Florists' Journal, conducted by panion Shakspeare, of which each part is to contain a single play. The first part, now before us, containsKing John; and the edition, when complete, is to form three volumes. The re-issue by the same publisher of a very handsome and carefully revised National Edition of the Pictorical Shakspeare, reaches this month its part 29. To Mr. Knight we are indebted also for the ju Mr. Henfrey and other able men, contains two admirable colored plates of heaths and chrysanthemums drawn from nature, besides wood engravings executed in the best style. The letter-press is designed to contain popular descriptions of new plants; and information, botanical and horticultural, interesting to the amateur, without any attempt at technical description. This magazine, which adds cheapness to its other recommendations, deserves complete success. Returning to our serials, we find this present January, 1852, selected for the commencement of a re-issue of the Portrait Gallery, with biographies, as published originally by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The re-issue will be completed in twenty-four parts, each part containing seven portraits. Other serials claiming notice belong to the pleasant walks of fiction, re-issued, or issued for the first time. While awaiting the new circle of friends to whose hearths we are to be introduced by Mr. Dickens at the close of next month, we are invited to read the History, in monthly parts, of Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, the reprint of which, from the magazine in which we have already enjoyed it heartily, commences with the present month. The public, allured by Mr. Leech's delightfully humorous pencil, (as keen for horseflesh as for human,) will find pleasure, we think, in Mr. Sponge's pen. The writer is a thorough master of his subject, and treats it with a fullness of knowledge, breadth of comicality, and racy sense of enjoyment, that surely entitle him to a large and laughing audience. Mr. Lever's monthly publication of the Daltons reaches its twenty-first part, and Mr. Ainsworth's Mervyn Clitheroe stands now at No. 2. It is too early to speak of Mr. Ainsworth's story, but it has made a successful beginning, with good promise of character and incident in a new and agreeable vein. Turning from gay to grave, we close our catalogue of serials by calling attention to the most important first appearance of the month, the first quarterly part of Doctor Wm. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Those who are familiar with the value of those other standard works of a like kind, produced under the same editor, the Dictionaries of Greek and Roman Biography, and Mythology, and of Antiquities, will appreciate the gain that must accrue to English scholarship by the completion, with this last dictionary, of an entire body of classical information that will have no parallel in any other language. The ALMANACS for 1852 now claim attention. There is the British Almanac and Companion, able as ever, and containing, of course, among other matter, essays on the Exhibition and the Census of 1851. There is the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, full of valuable statistics having reference to the United States. There is the Banking Almanac, with a complete Banking Directory and very convenient Diary attached. The Family Almanac and Educational Register contains so full an account of the colleges, endowed grammar schools, &c., and their management, as to be a book of great importance to all men who are studying or advocating any questions of educational reform. The Post Magazine Almanac is strong upon the subject of Insurance Companies. The Farmers' Almanac provides, as usual, information fitted to the wants of its supporters. The Comic Almanac shows this year no lack of its usual humor, providing for another class the wonders of George Cruikshank's pencil; and Punch's Almanac and Pocket Book, with a capital colored plate and etchings by Leech, and full of mirth in the letter press, keeps up the reputation of our ancient jester. To another class the Scottish Temperance League Register and Abstainers' Almanac will give precisely those statistics which it wants. The Reformers' Almanac and Political Year Book contains a summary of the session of 1851, and of the acts passed therein, with other matter dear to politicians; while the Fine Arts Almanac and Artists' Remembrancer spreads its sail out for a breath of favor from again another class. This Fine Arts Almanac seems to us excellently compiled, and to be worth taking up for reading or reference apart from the mere accidents or incidents of the day. Those goodly spiders, Raphael and Zadkiel, spread their nets for the ignorant, and trade like good astrologers on superstition; while Messrs. Deane and Dray trade like good ironmongers, and, according to a fashion common among tradesmen in our day, issue Deane's Illustrated Almanac, with numerous pictures of knives and forks, fire-irons, and cinder-sifters. We have not mentioned in this rapid sketch more than a sixth part of the serials submitted to the public. Let any gentleman, therefore, who may think of ordering his bookseller to send him monthly all the periodicals, pause and consider. We were breaking off, when suddenly one duty was remembered, a duty which it is always pleasant to discharge, and with the performance of which we must conclude our summary. It is to call attention to the great ability displayed by Mr. Bohn in the selection, month after month, of sterling matter for his Antiquarian, Classical, and Standard Libraries. Of all the new year's periodicals and serials we would give the first place to these. We have, in the three series, three books for January, 1852, the titles of which alone bespeak the claim of Mr. Bohn to our thankful remembrance. They are the first volume of a new edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Works, the fourth volume of a translation of Vasari, and Lucretius trans lated literally into prose, with the metrical version of Mason Good as an appendix. To a large class of readers the cheap and accessible edition of Browne will be peculiarly welcome. This first volume is occupied by the Vulgar Errors. From Fraser's Magazine. MR. BENJAMIN DISRAELI AS LEADER AND LEGISLATOR. MR. DISRAELI is the de facto leader of the who may one day be his friends, or at least Tory Opposition, or Country Party, in the the object of his guardianship. If, to gain House of Commons. The position is bril- a temporary triumph, he makes too great an liant and commanding. It has dazzled and onslaught on principles, he unsettles the gratified the ambition of some of the greatest foundation of his future dominion. Thereorators and most powerful statesmen of past fore, in his uttermost hostility there must and present times. Not to go too far up mingle somewhat of prudent caution and pathe stream of parliamentary history, there ternal care. While a negative, not to say a are the names of Pitt, Canning, and Peel; fictitious policy will serve as a pretext for men who labored hard and long at their assaults, there must always be a positive constitutional task, by their tactics and their policy in reserve. To harmonize these two, oratory forging with patient toil the weapons yet not disclose too much of either, demands wherewith they made the laws. For, the tact, finesse, and political probity of no comlegitimate leader of an opposition must not mon order; at least in the present day, when be regarded as a mere partisan chief, al- political strife is no longer internecine, and though it is for him to lead the assault or to the result of every fresh struggle adds to the defend the breach. A man called by his arguments for systematic compromise. Here party to that high and honorable post, and is but the outline of the qualifications reconfided in by them while there, becomes an quired in a Leader of Opposition, not of the important and necessary part of the great powers and qualities they imply. Eloquence, constitutional machine. Besides his militant personal influence, tact, strategic genius, functions, he is the interpreter of the grow-temper, foresight, magnanimity, knowledge, ing wants or the bafiled wishes of at least a considerable portion of the community; the wisdom of our system providing that those wants and wishes shall be reduced to some practicable shape, so that the responsibility of new legislation shall fall on those who oppose the old, and thus the nation be never left without lawgivers and laws. The Leader of the Opposition, therefore, becomes de facto a ruler of the people, long before he is so de jure. If he rightly comprehends his mission, even his strategy must be prospective. Like a general manoeuvring in a friendly country, he must never gain victory at too great a loss to the body-politic. In wounding even his political adversaries, he runs the risk of too deeply injuring those even to the minutest details,-how rare in their separate manifestation, and still more rare in combination! Bearing these conditions in mind, the nation ought to look with jealous scrutiny at the character and pretensions of the man who fills the post of Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli is just now that man. Are we not bound then to inquire by what means he reached that post, and by what right he keeps it? This we shall endeavor to do in the following pages, premising that our tests will be applied, not to the measures Mr. Disraeli may recommend, but to the manner in which he conducts his party: so that if the result of our scrutiny be favorable to him, we shall |