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The Westminster Review

About This Item

  • Title: The Westminster Review
  • Date: 5 November 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01212
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 5 November 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Thara Michaelis Francesca Boston Jason Stacy Karie Cobb Stephanie Blalock
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Westminster Review." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01212.xml (TEI)
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THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.1—

We have received from the publishers, Leonard Scott & Co.,2 No. 79 Fulton street, the current number of this most liberal of the English Quarterlies. For literary men and for readers of wide sympathies and cultivated tastes, this is now, and must continue to be, so long as it is maintained with an equal amount of ability, the exponent of the farthest advanced mind of the age. The present number opens with a light and sparkling article on “Female Dress in 1857,” in which the ladies receive what we can hardly help regarding as rather an unjust castigation on the score of their little frivolities and extravagance in the matter of costume. One might as well find fault with the tulips for budding as with the more expansive part of humanity for blossomining into “gorgeous array.” No woman can be expected to part with a constituent of her nature, though all masculine-dom were to set up newspapers to enforce the unreasonable demand. An article on “Political Priests” follows, and is succeeded by a review of a highly interesting book entitled “Quedah; or, Adventures in Malayan Waters.” Buckle’s “History of Civilisation in England,” furnishes the text for an elaborate paper. Mrs. Browning’s magnum opus, “Aurora Leigh,” is reviewed, at a somewhat late day, one would think. The writer recognizes the beauty, large-heartedness and bravery of the book but in common with most judicious reviewers bears hard on its artistic defects. Five other articles of various degrees of ability follow, and the reviews of cotemporary literature, which is the specialty of this serial, are able, and pungent as usual.

Notes:

1. The Westminster Review was a British liberal quarterly magazine, established in 1823 by philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). [back]

2. Leonard Scott & Co. was a New York publishing company created by Leonard Scott (1810–1895) that focused on reprinting British magazines. [back]

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