The Virginia Literary and Evangelical Magazine, Richmond, 1818-1828; Wm. and Mary Qrtly. V19-4 Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** The Virginia Literary and Evangelical Magazine, Richmond, 1818-1828 Alfred J. Morrison William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Apr., 1911), pp. 266-272. THE VIRGINIA LITERARY AND EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE, RICHMOND, 1818-1828 COMMUNICATED BY ALFRED J. MORRISON Few things begin of themselves, and it should not be overlooked that before the Literary Messenger was established in 1835 the reading public in Virginia had been accustomed to a magazine of its own. Beginning in 1818, for ten years the Virginia Literary and Evangelical Magazine, primarily a religious periodical, contained much of a general nature, every month tacitly declaring that its duty was to the State as well as to the church, and that as long as there was no other Virginia periodical of a secular character, this must have an eye to both in- terests. A subsidiary purpose of the editor (in which he was successful, as developments after his death showed), was to arouse latent talent, so abundant in the community. "We are persuaded", he remarks in No. 9 of the first volume, "that we shall subserve the best interests of the country if by means of our work we can rouse the understandings and call forth the exertions of educated and ingenious men". The first number of this Virginia Magazine appeared in January, 1818, conducted by John H. Rice, with the assistance of Moses Hoge, D.D. (president of Hampden- Sidney College), John D. Blair (the Rev. Dr. Blair, of Richmond), George A. Baxter (president of Washington College, Lexington), and others, among them John Matthews, then of Shepherdstown, later president of Hanover College, Indiana. The subscription price was three dollars in advance or four dollars at the end of the year, payable in notes good in the subscriber's community. Postage, under 100 miles, was 5 cents and 2 mills a number; under fifty miles 3 1/2 cents. Vol. I was "Printed by Wm. W. Gray: for the Editor". Vol. II. appeared "From the Franklin Press: W. W. Gray, Printer". Vol. IV., No 1, "By Nathan Pollard: at the Franklin Office"; No. 12, "at the Sign of Franklin's Head". After Vol. VII. the style is "Pollard and Goddard: at Page 267. the Franklin Printing Office, opposite the Old Market". The Franklin Office is described as having been the best job office in Virginia. From it were published several works, now rare, among them (1822) the Franklin Almanac, "at the Sign of Franklin's Head, Richmond, where country merchants and dealers can be supplied on accommodating terms." It is remarkable that this magazine generally contained no miscellaneious ad- vertisements (not from necessity, but as a policy), a precedent which religious journalism has not observed. The editor, John Holt Rice, was a man whose memory Virginia will not willingly let pass away. He died in 1831, and the most active years of his life covered a mementous period in the history of the State, fifteen years in which a great deal was a-foot, much was accomplished, and much projected that failed of accomplish- ment. Dr. Rice was born in Bedford county, the son of one of the old county clerks. He went to school to his uncle, a minister of the Established Church; was then a student at Liberty Hall Academy, Lexington (now Washington and Lee Univerisity); then tutor at Hampden-Sidney College, and pastor of a church in that region. He came to Richmond in 1812, where the burning of the theatre had greatly increased religious activities. That phase of his work alone was no sinecure, for Virginia's heritage from the eighteenth century was not particularly evangelical. But beyond that sphere, or rather as enlarging it, Dr. Rice set himself to take an active part in the best life of the Stte, which it was his object to influence through the pulpit, the press, and the school. In 1822 he was offered the presidency of Princeton College, but as a Virginian preferred to organize and set running a theological seminary for Virginia. He died in Prince Edward county, where for eight years he had been head of the of Union Seminary. Although removed from Richmond, he continued to edit his Magazine, still published there. The interests of John Holt Rice were wide. He was doubtless a Whig in politics, the Whig school having had its beginnings before his death; the he was a Union man in the best Page 268. sense, because he had travelled over the greater part of the country and knew what the Union was. One of the most interesting series of articles in the Virginia Magazine is that by the editor, recording his observations of the New England country, called "A Journey in New England" (Vols. V. and VI). At the end is the remark, "According to my whole observations, there is wanting nothing but better acquaintance between the Northern and Southern people to do away prejudices and promote the cordiality which ought to exist between citizens of the same country." It will be sufficient here to give the titles of a few of the less technical articles in this Magazine to show what its influnce must have been at that time. Vol. I. - "Remarks on the Study of Natural Philosophy"; "On the True Theory of the Universe"; "On Conversation" and "On Reading to Excess", by Melancthon, who was Dr. Conrad Speece, of Augusta county, a life-long friend of the editor. Dr. Rice was chary of poems; his mind was practical. Speece may have had him in mind when he wrote the verses "I love to sit down with a friend of my youth, Long tried and found steadfast in kindness and truth; To talk while we heed not the march of the sun, Of what we have seen and have felt and have done." Of the first volume Dr. Rice's "Excursion into the Country" has more regard for tillage than primroses. In No. 12 Academicus writes of the "Errors of Genius Exemplified". In reviewing the work of the first year the editor is with warrant complacent: "In the 576 pages of the first volume, with the exception of religious intelligence, there are not fifty pages which are not of domestic origin, written on purpose for this Magazine. And this is more, it is believed, than can be said respecting any other Journal of the kind either in this country or in Europe." The second and succeeding volumes show such titles as "On Usury", "On the Manner in Which Some People Spend Their Page 269. Time", "Remarks on the Edinburgh Review's Strictures (Sydney Smith's strictures) on American Genius." "The Letter of a Lunatic", "Probably Moral Effects of the Present Scarcity of Money", "Brief History of a Genius", by Astutus; "Remarks on Toleration and Liberality", "The Utility of Distributing Books", "French Mountaineers", "Remarks on Historical Novels", "Sketch of Past and Present Times" (reflections occasioned by a letter from the father of Patrick Henry), "Review of Bowring's Specimens of the Russian Poets", "Systems of Astronomers", "An Account of the Island of Malta", "On the Improvement of the People", "A New Project" (an article which is supposed to have had much to do with keeping Dr. Thos. Cooper, of England, out of the University of Virginia), "The Abolition of Christmas", "On the Freedom of the Press", "The Present State and Prospects of Europe", "On the Study of the Classics", "Present Condition and Prospects of the Mohamedan Power" (by James Marsh, professor in Hampden-Sidney College, later president of the University of Vermont), "Sir William Jones", "The Influnce of the Reformation on the American Revolution", "Review of Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron", "A Query Respecting the Letter Y", "On Acrimony in Trifling Disputes", "A Notice of Webster's New Dictionary", "A Glimpse at Human Nature", "A Review of the Cultivation of Female Intellect in the United States", "Ad- vantages and Disadvantages of the Married State", "On the Study of Languages", "A Tale for the Times", "Christmas Literature" (a new species), "The Literary Spirit of the Age", "Education of the Deaf and Dumb", "French Literature", "Women Not Unequal to Men", "Lord Byron". This mere list of titles, interesting in itself, is doubly so by comparison, when it is remembered that the North American Review was established in 1815 and Blackwood's Magazine in 1817. But what is of most value locally in this Virginia Magazine is the large proportion of space given to the consideration of the status of Virginia, politically, educationally and in a literary Page 270. way. For instance, "The Necessity of a Better System of Instruction in Virginia" (I., No. 6); "Objections to the Present Plan of Education, and Some Suggestions of a Better" (II., 4); "Wishes Respecting a Treatise on Education"; "Series of Letters on Education" (Vol. VI); "Primary Schools" (VIII., 7); "Letters to the President and Directors of the Literary Fund" (Vol. IX.); "In- temperance Among the Coloured People" (IX., 1); "Thoughts on Slavery" (II., 7), etc., etc. These articles, many of them written by the Editor, are an exposition of his very statesmanlike views. He believed that slavery was an evil, and that heated agitation of that question was an evil. And he was convinced that the system of primary education in the State was essentially mistaken. To quote his own words, he was working with others for a Revival of Learning in Virginia, one obstacle to which was the policy of public schools for the indigent only. A part of his programme also was gradual emancipation with deportation, and an insistence on the importance of the church keeping quite out of politics. John Holt Rice, as every statesman must, had a due regard for the past, as that from which the present is sprung. On reading Hening's Statues at Large, then publishing, he asks (VII., 1), "Why is there no Antiquarian or Historical Society in Virginia? I have no doubt but there lie, moulding in old trunks, in closets and garrets, many letters and other manuscripts of men of former times, which a society, properly organized and well conducted, might bring out of obscurity and preserve from destruction. My only object is to throw out hints which will set others thinking". The Franklin Press, as is well known, published in 1819 the Works of Captaine John Smith, now a rare book, sold at that time for $2.25 in boards of $2.50 bound. The Magazine reproduced from time to time certain historical documents, such as "T. M.'s History of Bacon's Rebellion"; "A Letter from General Washington to Governor Henry" (1777); "John Clayton's Voyage to Virginia" (1688). In addition, the Virginia Magazine contained such historical articles as "A Memoir of Commissary Blair", "A Life of Samuel Davies", Page 271. "Memoir of William Graham (rector of Liberty Hall Academy), "A Sketch of Lower Virginia" (VI., 5), "Thoughts on the Character of Our Revolutionary Patriots", suggested by a perusal of Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry. Among books reviewed it is pleasant to see the Poems of William Maxwell (I., 9), the biographer of Dr. Rice, who was later president of Hampden-Sidney College and Editor of the Virginia Historical Register, foreshadowed in his friend's Magazine. Nor did the Magazine overlook the "Essays of Conrad Speece", pub- lished by Ananias Davisson, Harrisonburg, 1818. This book of 236 pages, was called The Mountaineer, being a series of essays first brought out in the Republican Farmer, of Staunton. The review is faborable, as is also that of Maxwell's Poems. "With this book in my hand," writes the reviewer, Melancthon, "I will no more suffer the assertion to pass in silence that Virginia has not yet produced a poet worthy of the title". The same number contains a notice of "Rhododaphne or the Thessalian Spell". Poem by Richard Dabney. Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1818. Of books reviewed, of a more directly practical sort, may be mentioned, The Report of the Engineers of the James River and Kanawha Canal (III., 1, "We are persuaded this is the grandest scheme ever projected in Virginia"), The Memoirs of the Virginia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture [John Taylor, President], Shepherd & Pollard, Richmond, 1818, (in which book appears the statement that "cotton will soon be a drug") and Hugh Paul Taylor's Historical Sketches of the Internal Improvements of Virginia, 430 pp., $2.50 bound. The review (VIII., 3) is not of the book, but of the proposed contents. It is to be hoped this book was published. Enough has been said to show that John Holt Rice the editor of the Virginia Literary and Evangelical Magazine, was one of the first Virginians of his day. In conducting this work, one of his specific purposes was the "review of the new publications, native and foreign, essays on education, remarks on public schools, essays on morals and manners and on national character as affected by religion and literature, new discoveries in the Page 272. sciences and new improvements in the arts. * * * * In conducting the literary department of our Journal", the Editor remarks in another place (cf. Maxwell's Rice, p. 134), "we s hall allow ourselves very great latitude. We have adopted this general term, indeed, because no better occurred, but the truth is, we in- tended that our Magazine shall occasionally serve as a vehicle of valuable essays on Agriculture, Inland Navigation, the construction of Roads, the great concern of Schools and whatever our correspondence will furnish for the promotion of Internal Improvement. We believe that the enterprising people of this country only want information on this subject to stir them up to a degree of zeal and activity, which has never yet been witnessed among us. In this view, we not only freely offer our pages for communications of this kind, but we earnestly entreat those who possess knowledge to impart it for the benefit of their country".