Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 100.djvu/15



the marvellous capability of Bottom the Weaver were at our command, it is possible that the few introductory pages with which we herald the birth of our Hundredth Child might be graced by some faint reflection of the talents of the many notabilities who have stood sponsors for the long line of its elder brethren. But as it is given to few to emulate the genius of him who had "simply the best wit of any handicraftman in Athens," we must be content to aspire less, and tell our story with as much modesty as the consciousness of our own deserts will permit us.

Nevertheless, having once cited so distinguished an authority as Bully Bottom, we cannot part with him without adopting his own words to explain our purpose:

"To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our end."

To do so we must carry our readers back a great many years, but we will endeavour to make the retrospect as brief as possible.

Like the origin of some of the greatest nations, the commencement of the New Monthly Magazine is almost lost in the mists of antiquity. That it had a Pre-Adamite existence before it assumed the shape which it at present wears, the inspection of certain volumes a good deal discoloured by age, and having very much the appearance of Annual Registers, has fully satisfied us. There were, indeed, giants even in those days, and their names are still on the record of fame, but they laboured amidst a mass of disjointed materials which, however they might have acted as foils in the particular instances, by no means combined to create an attractive unity.

These dim ages existed antecedent to Anno Domini 1820, but in that year of grace another world sprang out of chaos, and the New Monthly Magazine, assuming very much of its present form, became a planet of the first importance in the system of periodical literature.

, a name for ever celebrated in the poetical annals of England, was the first editor, and during the ten years of his rule contributed largely to the Magazine, in prose as well as in verse, his "Lectures on Poetry," and many of the songs, ballads, and metrical pieces which are now collected in his works, being of the number. In the course of that decade his efforts were sustained by a host of able assistants, several of whom happily survived to grace the pages of the New Monthly with their contributions under its present editorship. A hasty glance at the list, enumerating only a few, will show how valuable was the aid which received.

, though not a very frequent, was still an occasional writer, and it is a matter worthy of note in this place, that the last paper he ever wrote, bearing the title of the "Sick Chamber," appeared in the New Monthly. Mr. Justice, the personal friend and literary associate of , as yet unrewarded by either coif or ermine, but with a reputation achieved which promised all that has since been fulfilled, was also our ally. "" was another, with his "Popular Fallacies," and other quaint themes. , too, who even yet has not ceased to strike his harmonious lyre. was there with his pregnant wit and teeming fancies; and, humorous alike in