Only a month late, the Times is finally getting around to reviewing that ungainly beast known as Lapham’s Quarterly. What does the newspaper of record think of the unapologetically intellectual thingamajob? Well:

In The New Criterion, a conservative monthly journal, Roger Kimball, the editor, twice used the word “pretentiousness” in his assessment of the new magazine. He said Mr. Lapham’s “command of inconsequentiality has elicited comment for years.” Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, found Lapham’s Quarterly “very smart” but said that because of the many contributors who were dead, “it feels a little like a museum.”

Thus, the proud tradition of slagging magazines through secondhand quotes continues. But it’s Lewis Lapham, people!