The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844: Volume 23, Number 3Various
Philosophy
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844: Volume 23, Number 3
Various
Periodicals
Inversion should be naturally suggested, not forced. . . . IT is to be
inferred, we fear, that the late 'principal editor' of the '_Brother
Jonathan_' does not take it in good part that the new proprietors of that
now popular journal saw fit to arrest its rapid decadence, by a removal of
the inevitable cause of such a consummation. Lo! how from his distant
down-east ambush, with characteristic phrase, he denounces them as
'cowards' and 'puppies!' Whereupon, in a response appropriately brief, the
'brave few' of the 'principal editor's' old readers who have 'endured unto
the end,' are informed by the new incumbent, that the tabooed ci-devant
functionary 'seems disturbed because he was not suffered to kill the
'Brother Jonathan' as he had killed every journal in which he was
permitted to pour out his vapid balderdash. He is a perfect BLUEBEARD
among newspapers. He no sooner slaughters one, than he manages to get hold
of another, and butcher that with the same remorseless indifference.' The
editor adds: 'He once enjoyed the honor of some connection with the 'New
World,' and would have consigned that well-known sheet to the tomb of the
Capulets, had not the publishers foreseen the danger, and escaped in
season.' We merely note these facts, as corroborative of a remark or two
of our own, in our last issue. . . . '_An Incident in Normandy_', we
shrewdly suspect, is _not_ 'from the French;' if it be, all that we have
to say is, that such pseudo-rhapsodists as the writer could never by any
possibility _love_ nature. The thing is altogether _over-done_. A
Frenchman's opinion, however, COWELL tells us, should never be taken where
the beauties of nature are concerned, _unless they can be cooked_. There
is another grave objection to the article; which consists in the undue
frequency of Italian and French words and phrases, foisted into the
narrative. We have a strong attachment to plain, perspicuous _English_.
Ours is a noble language, a beautiful language; and we hold fully with
SOUTHEY, who somewhere remarks that he can tolerate a Germanism, for
family sake; but he adds: 'He who uses a Latin or a French phrase where a
pure old English word does as well, ought to be hung, drawn and quartered,
for high treason against his mother-tongue.' . . . '_The Song of the New
Year_, by Mrs. NICHOLS, in a late number,' writes a Boston correspondent,
'is an excellent production, and a fair specimen of the improved style of
our occasional American verse. Suppose a book-worm should light on poetry
of equal merit among FLATMAN'S, FALCONER'S, PRIOR'S, or PARSELL'S
collections? Would it not shine forth, think you? Indeed our lady-writers
are wresting the plume from our male pen mongers unco fast.' 'That's a
fact.' Mrs. NICHOLS has a sister-poet at Louisville, Kentucky, who has a
very charming style and a delicious fancy. A late verse of hers in some
'_Lines to a Rainbow_,' signed 'AMELIA,' which we encountered at a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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