“ [382] sensible of the high calling of the American press,--that rising tribunal before which the whole world is to be summoned, its history to be revised and rewritten, and the judgment of past ages to be canceled or confirmed.” For one who can look back sixty years to a time when the best literary periodical in America was called “The Albion,” it is difficult to realize how the intellectual relations of the two nations are now changed. M. D. Conway once pointed out that the English magazines, such as the “Contemporary Review” and the “Fortnightly,” were simply circular letters addressed by a few cultivated gentlemen to the fellow members of their respective London clubs. Where there is an American periodical, on the other hand, the most striking contribution may proceed from a previously unknown author, and may turn out to have been addressed practically to all the world.
So far as the intellectual life of a nation exhibits itself in literature, England may always have one advantage over us,--if advantage it be,--that of possessing in London a recognized publishing centre, where authors, editors, and publishers are all brought together. In America, the conditions of our early political activity have supplied us with a series of such centres, in a smaller way, beginning, doubtless,
