Text: James E. Heath, “The Knickerbocker and the Gentleman's Magazine,” Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond, VA), vol. V, no. 10, October 1839, p. 708

[page 708, col. 1, continued:]

THE “KNICKERBOCKER,” AND THE “GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.’

We desire to notice more frequently than we do, some of the magazines of our country, distinguished for literary excellence. In future we are resolved to do it, even to the exclusion of other matter. If our instrumentality can recommend them to southern patronage, we shall lend it with pleasure. We are all laboring tn the same cause, and if we can help each other, it is our duty to do so. In Virginia, to say nothing of other southern states, there are many country gentlemen of wealth and education, who, by subscribing for a dozen, or even half a dozen periodicals, might diffuse in their neighborhoods a taste for the delightful recreations of literature, and that taste, if excited, would supplant the relish for gross pleasures. How few of our families are reading ones, in the strict sense of the term! Besides the newspaper, the Farmers’ Register, the Sporting Magazine, and the year's almanac, a few trashy novels, constitute, it is feared, the major part of the libraries of our otherwise social, agreeable and hospitable country houses. If our squires won’t read themselves, why don’t they provide solid and substantial nutriment for their wives, sons and daughters ? We insist upon it, that they cannot spend their surplus cash better. Here, for example, is the Knickerbocker of New York; we have before us the August number, and a very pleasant, instructive, and delightful one it is. The letter on the London theatres,” from “the author of an American in Paris,” is absolutely worth, to a man of true taste, a whole year's Knickerbocker subscription. Not Washington Irving himself, nor “Boz,” nor Willis, nor any of the host of periodical writers, ever delighted us more. We wish our readers could share the pleasure we experienced in reading that one article. The Knickerbocker, by the way, is not only freighted in its monthly voyages by the rich adventures of Geoffrey Crayon” — but another great name will be shortly added to the list of its contributors. Charles Dickens, the inimitable Boz the author of Pick Wick, Oliver Twist, &c. &c., is about to adorn its pages with his truly original and fertile mind. His thoughts will appear on this side of the Atlantic, in their fresh and virgin state. We are all tiptoe to see how he will first address an American audience.

Here too, on our table, is “Burton's Gentleman's Magazine,” for September, and a very gentlemanly magazine it is. If our [column 2:] readers have never seen Burton on the stage, they have been deprived of a rare pleasure, and his recent great success on the New York boards, has given him a new claim to the rank of the very first of American comedians. How truly praiseworthy is it in Burton, in the midst of histrionic fame and popularity, not to forget that he is also a useful and effective member of the republic of letters. He is not only a fine actor, but an admirable writer; as a critic, he cuts with one of the keenest edged knives we have ever seen, and woe be unto the luckless wight who is obliged to submit to his operations. They are absolutely withering, as one or two specimens in the September number will abundantly testify. We are pleased to find that our old assistant, Edgar A. Poe, is connected with Burton in the editorial management of the “Gentleman's Magazine.” Mr. Poe, is favorably known to the readers of the Messenger, as a gentleman of fine endowments; possessing a taste classical and refined; an imagination affluent and splendid, and withall, a singular capacity for minute and mathematical detail. We always predicted that Mr. Poe would reach a high grade in American literature, but we also thought and still think, that he is too much attached to the gloomy German mysticism, to be a useful and effective writer, without a total divorce from that sombre school. Take for example, the tale of “the Fall of the House of Usher,” in the September number of the Magazine, which is understood to be the production of his pen. It is written with great power, but leaves on the mind a painful and horrible impression, without any redeeming admonition to the heart. It resembles a finely sculptured statue, beautiful to the eye, but without an immortal spirit. We wish Mr. Poe would stick to the department of criticism; there, he is an able professor, and he uses up the vermin who are continually crawling, unbidden, into the literary arena, with the skill and nonchalance of a practised surgeon. He cuts them up by piece-meal; and rids the republic of letters, of such nuisances, just as a good officer of police sentences to their proper destination, the night-strollers and vagabonds who infest our cities. We sincerely wish Mr. Poe well, and hope that he will take our advice in good part. The September number of the Magazine, is embellished by a fine portrait of Richard Penn Smith, a respectable American dramatist arid poet. Besides various other interesting pieces, it contains an excellent article on Gymnastics, understood also, to be from the pen of Mr. Poe.