KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. MY DEAR PUBLIC. THE EDITOR. No. II. I have ever been desirous that our intercourse should be of the most unreserved character ;-that I should not win you with words of "sweet breath composed," but with plain and direct dealing;-that there should be no artifice or mystery in any of our transactions ;-that you should see me with all my livery of vices and imperfections ;-and that you and I should occasionally come down from our patronising and editorial stilts, to gossip for an hour, like honest and pains-taking people as we are. It was upon this principle that, in the first information which I afforded you upon the subject of this Magazine, I told you, without hesitation, of all those upon whom I relied for support. I have continued to affix the Christian and surname of every contributor to his production ;-each man is responsible for his opinions ;-and his town and country address, are they not found in the Court Guide? Of those names, few were known to fame; and the editor of the Old Times is therefore pleased to say that our talent is green. Be it so. There are thirteen gifted individuals in London who are regularly engaged for the staple articles of the Monthly Magazines, and I admit that none of those gentlemen are amongst our forces. Mr. Christopher North is therefore pleased to call us “a clan of young scholars." Be it so. You and I have no objection to youth and freshness. You have probably been led to imagine that a great deal of laborious fore-thought is necessary in the conduct of a periodical work, of the magnitude and character of the Quarterly Magazine. You are exceedingly mistaken. You probably think that, within three days of the commencement of a quarter, a solemn conclave is held of all the contributors; and that, after hours of the most anxious deliberation, each man undertakes his task, and performs it within a week of the time spe cified. You are grievously in error. All such opinions belong to the empire of humbug. Chance, my dear friend, chance-which decides the management of a case in Chancery, or a debate in the Commons, or a treaty at a Congress-is the great instrument by which an editor works. Those who would make you believe otherwise are slaves and blockheads, and ought never to aspire to any literary authority, beyond the compilation of the Newgate Calendar, or the Old Monthly Magazine. When I talk about chance you must not run away with a notion that the "anonymous" gentlemen, who drop their misbegotten imps at the publisher's door, like Rousseau (the sentimental scoundrel) deposited his five children at the Foundling, have any thing to do with my suffrages for your favours. I utterly abhor all the tribe. I set out with a determination to be exceedingly patient and just in my dealings with these unfortunate people. For four months of the last summer did I do nothing but work my way, like a mole, through the dirt and darkness of their lucubrations. They all write good clerklike hands-cunning dogs;—they all appeal to one's taste and liberality, and unquestionable judgment-oily rogues ;-they all profess the most anxious desire to meet one's suggestions for the improvement of their commodities-most gentle knaves. Hang them all! My heart is ossified by their unvarying stupidity. I have read seventy-eight regular prose articles, serious, ludicrous, narrative, sentimental, historical, criticaland I would not give "the Black Chamber," and that was bad enough, for all of them. I have paid the heavier penalty of deciphering one hundred and twenty-two copies of occasional verses, and I solemnly pronounce they were not worth two lines of the "Seven Sleepers," and that was execrable. I hereby give private notice (excuse me, my dear Public, for the digression), that if the aforesaid are not fetched away before the 1st of April, they will be charitably presented to the Museum, or any other publication that may be desirous of accelerating its natural destiny. From this hour I will never read another anonymous contribution. Why do they bore me? Have they no conscience? Does not the death of the Album weigh heavy on their hearts? Have they not the European to support? They are the property of the Old Periodical Press: "Behold her hundred sons, and each a dunce." The chance, of which I have been speaking, my dear friend, is that which is caused by the uncertainty, the fickleness, the creative power, and the procrastination of talent. We have wenty-five regularly enrolled contributors, myself included ; nd we shall be glad to add any gentleman who can produce roper certificates of learning, ability, and right principles. But these, our beloved associates, are all subject to the "skiey influences"-to caprice-to a fondness for pleasure-to the call of higher duties. Shall I pretend to controul them? Apollo forbid! We have force enough to meet any emergency; and the temporary defection of one knot of friends gives those who are upon duty a deeper sense of their high responsibility. We relieve guard-we keep watch and ward,' or we revel, in harmonious alternation. We can dispense any time with a first-rate contributor, as Reynolds would leave out a particular colour in a picture, to show he could do without it. It is by this philosophical abandonment to circumstances that I am enabled to produce novelty by the simplest means. Articles “like variegated tulips show ; 'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe." Thus, our last number was as buoyant as a balloon ;-our present is as stately as a ship. Vyvyan and Medley were the carpet champions of No. II.;-Merton and Murray are the mailed knights of No. III. I love Vyvyan, and so do you my dear Public; he wrote forty pages, for the leaves were green and the birds were singing, when we last appeared before you-he has not written a line for us excepting two enigmas, now the mists are heavy. N'importe. Let him speak for himself: Dear Frederic, Glasgow, Dec. 1, 1823. Christopher North is a bam from his wig to his slipper. I never had the luck to be married, or to eat powldoodies at Ambrose's: though I assuredly mean to taste both blessings the first opportunity. I am too busy, which means I am too idle, to do a line for Maga. Tell Knight that I am going to Barbary or to Bedlam,—or that I am walking for a wager or training for a fight, or that I am turned parson or pig-driver, or, in short, what you please, my sweet Frederic, for you lie à merveille. Adieu. Look well to your health, dear Frederic. It is time for you to look grave and read Greek. Love to Julia, and compliments to her ladyship, and health to the Club, and a merry Christmas. Remember what I told you about the cup, and do not forget the pippins and carraway seeds. Au revoir. To Frederic Vernon, Esq. VYVYAN JOYEUSE. Pursuing the same principle of candour, I am bound, my dear Public, to make you acquainted with the aberrations of other of our luminaries-mad comets that come we know not when, and go we know not whither: Perplexing" not me, I assure you. "with fear of change And next of Davenant. He was deeply pledged for a critique on Monti ;"-for a serious poem of at least 500 lines; for a dissertation on-I forget what, for I have lost his letter. Dear Friend, he gives us "Lines to Anna," &c. that were too late for Number II., having been misdirected to Mr. John Williams, Shoemaker, Trumpington-street, Cambridge. We must be thankful for what he gives. Peter Ellis had at least two sheets reserved for him. Somehow or other they have been filled without his assistance. His explanation is characteristic: Dear Fred. I write to say that I have not time for a word. P. E. The caprices of genius are certainly extremely amusing.Medley undertook to work out a conceit pregnant with fun and humour;-it would have sprung a mine of laughter, With the highest reverence for the power of your great favourite the Man of Opium, he thought that you would relish a good-natured parody, to be called "The Confessions of an English Beef-eater." Heavens! how we chuckled together over his pictures of the vegetable innocence of his boyhood, for his father was of the Pythagorean school;-how we sympathized with his Eton temptations, in that diurnal warfare of mutton against his potatoe-cleaving appetite;-how we shuddered at his fate at Cambridge, when Montgomery seduced him into a mouthful of the abomination of beef, and he dreamt that night of whole droves of fat oxen;-how we exulted when finally he lapsed into an almost Abyssinian hunger after the forbidden food, from the sirloin of the country-gentleman to the bif-stik of the Restaurateur;-how we wept, when he grew of an enormous fatness, lost a fellowship at Trinity, and read nothing but Doctor Kitchiner for five years and a half. My dear Public, you would have enjoyed these details, and you shall yet enjoy them. But Medley has been occupied-he has become the pupil of a special pleader, and is attending the rehearsal of a new farce at Drury-lane. In the mean time he endeavours to console us with the following laughter-provoking article of a Scotch Friend, who, he says, "is studying Hindostanee under the auspices of his learned countryman Doctor Gilchrist, and whose contribution consists of one of his daily exercises :"— AGE. As the pomegranate hangeth not upon the tree while it is covered with blossoms, so neither is wisdom found in him whose locks are black and shining, and whose eye sparkles with youth. The voice of the aged man is weak and his ear is closed with deaf ness, but he knoweth the truth; and happy is the young man when he hearkeneth unto his words. Like a swift horse governed by a skilful rider is the vigour of youth, guided by the wisdom of age. The life of man is as a high mountain. Behold! the traveller is weary and faint when he reacheth the summit thereof, but he seeth afar off, he remembereth the hills and the valleys, and his eye followeth the rivers as they run to and fro at his feet. As a cloud when it swims before the sun darkeneth the yellow corn and the green sea and the white sails of ships which anon shine out again under the full ray, even thus is the soul of youth chequered with fears and hopes; but age is like the calm twilight which is shed equally over all the earth. Behold the lofty cedar when it stretches forth its arms, and the branches of it are covered with leaves; it is swayed by the winds, and the tempests have dominion over it; but when its arms are withered by age, and its leaves lie scattered abroad, then doth the trunk thereof stand firm, and brave the angry storms. Thus it is with man: when his cheeks glow with health, and his veins are filled with blood, then doth passion rule over him, and waywardness is in all his doings; but age cometh, and his resolutions are steadfast. Yet length of days bringeth no knowledge to the fool, neither is he weary of his folly. He is as one journeying in the night, who seeth not the face of the country through which he passeth. The sower maketh not bread of the seed; he putteth it into the earth, and at the harvest it is returned to him an hundred fold: but the fool wasteth his youth in vanity, and when age cometh he is ashamed of his emptiness. As the snow of the mountains lieth for ever under the sun and yet is not melted, so is the heart of the fool dead to the lessons of experience. Who is he whom the young man derideth and the old man pitieth? even he who uttereth the words of folly when his face is covered with wrinkles, and who mimicketh the frolics of youth with the crazy limbs of age. But when the wise man attaineth to the fulness of years, then is he at the pinnacle of his glory. He stretcheth forth his hand, and the people are mute; he speaketh, and they put faith in his words. Though darkness sitteth on his eye-lids, and his hands tremble with weakness, yet repineth he not, for many await his bidding, and strive with one another to run before his desires. His death is like the setting of the sun which leaveth the earth in darkness, and they who remain shine only as the stars. This fragment is for the special edification of my friend Doctor Heavyhit; and if you read it, my dear Public, you are to blame. Shafto, who was a candidate for our club in May last, and who has ever since been preparing materials for his initiatory paper, is a connoisseur in every department of art. But his |