 | Phœnixiana; or, Sketches and burlesques |  |
ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPERS.
A year or two since a weekly paper was started in London,
called the “Illustrated News.” It was filled with tolerably
executed wood cuts, representing scenes of popular interest,
and though perhaps better calculated for the nursery than the
reading room, it took very well in England, where few can
read, but all can understand pictures, and soon attained an
immense circulation. As when the inimitable London Punch
attained its world-wide celebrity, supported by such writers
as Thackeray, Jerrold and Hood, would-be funny men on this
side of the Atlantic—attempted absurd imitations—the “Yankee
Doodle”—the “John Donkey,” &c., which as a matter of
course proved miserable failures; so did the success of this Illustrated
affair inspire our money-loving publishers with hopes
of dollars, and soon appeared from Boston, New York and other
places, Pictorial and Illustrated Newspapers, teeming with
execrable and silly effusions, and filled with the most fearful
wood engravings, “got up regardless of expense” or any thing
artist tear his hair and rend his garments. A Yankee named
Gleason, of Boston, published the first, we believe, calling it
“Gleason's Pictorial (it should have been Gleason's Pickpocket)
and Drawing Room Companion.” In this he presented
to his unhappy subscribers, views of his house in the
country, and his garden, and for aught we know, of “his ox
and his ass, and the stranger within his gates.” A detestable
invention for transferring Daguerreotypes to plates for engraving,
having come into notice about this time, was eagerly
seized upon by Gleason, for farther embellishing his catchpenny
publication, duplicates and uncalled for pictures were
easily obtained, and many a man has gazed in horror-stricken
astonishment on the likeness of a respected friend, as a “Portrait
of Monroe Edwards,” or that of his deceased grandmother,
in the character of “One of the Signers of the Declaration
of Independence.” They love pictures in Yankeedom;
every tin peddler has one on his wagon, and an itinerant lecturer
can always obtain an audience by sticking up a likeness
of some unhappy female, with her ribs laid open in an
impossible manner, for public inspection, or a hairless gentleman,
with the surface of his head laid out in eligible lots,
duly marked and numbered. The factory girls of Lowell, the
Professors of Harvard all bought the new Pictorial. (Professor
Webster was reading one, when Dr. Parkman called on
him on the morning of the murder.) Gleason's speculation
was crowned with success, and he bought himself a new
cooking stove and erected an out-building on his estate, with
Inspired by his success, old Feejee-Mermaid-Tom-Thumb-Woolly-horse-Joyee-Heth-Barnum,
forthwith got out another
Illustrated Weekly, with pictures far more extensive, letterpress
still sillier, and engravings more miserable, if possible,
than Yankee Gleason's. And then we were bored and buffeted
by having incredible likenesses of Santa Anna, Queen
Victoria and poor old Webster, thrust beneath our nose, to
that degree that we wished the respected originals had never
existed, or that the art of wood engraving had perished with
that of painting on glass.
It was, therefore, with the most intense delight that we
saw a notice the other day of the failure and stoppage of
Barnum's Illustrated News; we rejoiced thereat, greatly, and
we hope that it will never be revived, and that Gleason will
also fail as soon as he conveniently can, and that his trashy
Pictorial will perish with it.
It must not be supposed from the tenor of these remarks
that we are opposed to the publication of a properly conducted
and creditably executed Illustrated paper. “On the contrary,
quite the reverse.” We are passionately fond of art ourselves,
and we believe that nothing can have a stronger
tendency to refinement in society, than presenting to the public,
chaste and elaborate engravings, copies of works of high
artistic merit, accompanied by graphic and well written
essays. It was for the purpose of introducing a paper containing
these features to our appreciative community, that we
of challenging comparison, and defying competition, that we
have criticised so severely the imbecile and ephemeral productions
mentioned above. At a vast expenditure of money,
time and labor, and after the most incredible and unheard of
exertion, on our part, individually, we are at length able to
present to the public an Illustrated publication of unprecedented
merit, containing engravings of exceeding costliness
and rare beauty of design, got up on an expensive scale, which
never has been attempted before, in this or any other country.
We furnish our readers this week with the first number,
merely premising that the immense expense attending its
issue, will require a corresponding liberality of patronage on
the part of the Public, to cause it to be continued.
PHŒNIX'S PICTORIAL,
And Second Story Front Room Companion.
Vol. I.] San Diego, October 1, 1853. [No. I.
Portrait of His Royal Highness Prince Albert.—Prince
Albert, the son of a gentleman named Coburg, is the husband
children. He is the inventor of the celebrated “Albert
hat,” which has been lately introduced with great effect in
the U. S. Army. The Prince is of German extraction, his
father being a Dutchman and his mother a Duchess.
Mansion of John Phœnix, Esq., San Diego, California.
House in which Shakespeare was born, in Stratford-on-Avon.
Abbotsford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott, author of
Byron's Pilgrim's Progress, &c.
The Capitol at Washington.
Residence of Governor Bigler, at Benicia, California.
The Battle of Lake Erie, of which our Artist presents a
spirited engraving, copied from the original painting, by
Hannibal Carracci, in the possession of J. P. Haven, Esq.,
was fought in 1836, on Chesapeake Bay, between the U. S.
Frigates Constitution and Guerriere and the British Troops
under General Putnam. Our glorious flag, there as everywhere
was victorious, and “Long may it wave, o'er the land
of the free, and the home of the slave.”
Fearful accident on the Camden & Amboy Railroad!!
Terrible loss of life!!!
View of the City of San Diego, by Sir Benjamin West.
Interview between Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the
Duchess of Sutherland, from a group of Statuary, by Clarke
Mills.
Bank Account of J. Phœnix, Esq., at Adams & Co.
Bankers, San Francisco, California.
Gas Works, San Diego Herald Office.
Steamer Goliah.
View of a California Ranch.—Landseer.
Shell of an Oyster once eaten by General Washington;
showing the General's manner of opening Oysters.
There!—this is but a specimen of what we can do if liberally
sustained. We wait with anxiety to hear the verdict
of the Public, before proceeding to any farther and greater
outlays.
Subscription, $5 per annum, payable invariably in advance.
INDUCEMENTS FOR CLUBBING.
Twenty Copies furnished for one year, for fifty cents.
Address John Phœnix, Office of the San Diego Herald.
| Phœnixiana; or, Sketches and burlesques | |