[ 690 ] [JUNE, 



OUR ANNIVERSARY ! 



THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE AND THE PUBLIC A MYSTERY. 



LORD BYRON'S Cain is not the only mystery of modern times. The 

 course of every thing great and magnificent, is almost constantly enve- 

 loped in a sort of solemn gloom and uncertainty. When the JDuke of 

 Wellington concerted with Lord Lyndhurst the ingenious plot " to trip 

 up his majesty's ministers," it was with the most impervious secrecy ; and 

 when Harlequin catches the Clown by the skirt in the pantomime, it is 

 with a stealthy and noiseless footstep. Thus the birth-place of Homer, 

 the prince of poets, and Bamphyld Moore Carew, the monarch of beggars, 

 are alike doubtful and unknown. Every thing around us is a mystery. 

 The Niger has been rolling along its mighty flood, arid the Monthly 

 Magazine diffusing its beauty, in equal silence and solitude. The charm 

 of our articles is universally acknowledged ; we speak, and Lady Caroline 

 Seymour's eye brightens into hope ; we are silent, and Mr. Peregrine 

 Stubbs is urgent for the last number of Blackwood, to soothe him into a 

 melancholy repose. The sweet balmy air of our poetry is continually 

 flowing over the parched and feverish surface of society, yet no man can 

 say whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. Our editor is veiled from the 

 gaze of the profane like the Oriental Mokannah j and our contributors 

 are only guessed at as they walk in their unearthly loveliness along the 

 streets of the city. 



This mystery will soon be at an end for ever ! The veil that hides the 

 resplendent features of our editor will be rent asunder, and the names of 

 our contributors lifted up in their golden beauty, before the wondering 

 and enchanted eyes of the multitude. Yes ! what Richard Lander has 

 performed for the African river we will accomplish for the Monthly Maga- 

 zine j we will discover the source of its power to the public ! 



Since the foundation of the new dynasty, (whom the muses grant long 

 to reign ! ) our efforts have been unremittingly directed to the improve- 

 ment of our internal policy, and the extension of our correspondence with 

 foreign countries. We need not say that our endeavours have been 

 crowned with the most triumphant success. We have an uneducated 

 poet in every village from Clapham to the Land's End, and a contributor 

 and friend in every town from the commercial money-getting Amsterdam, 

 to the sunny and voluptuous home of the Neapolitans. Lander has been 

 appointed our agent at Timbuctoo, and Captain Pogson among the Chitta- 

 gongs. The present season has been styled particularly the season of 

 knowledge. It has been our object to direct our attention especially to 

 those quarters where instruction, though most needed, is very seldom 

 adequately imparted. We allude to that class of men who, by some sati- 

 rical writers, have been designated Crowned Heads. 



Here we rejoice to say that our success has far exceeded our most 

 ardent anticipations. Louis Philippe has ordered twenty copies of our 

 magazine every month from Galignani, and the Shadow of the Universe, 

 the celestial Tsing-tan-zea, has learnt English on purpose to read our 

 miscellany. In China, the effects of our influence are becoming rapidly 



