398 Mr. Leonard Huxley [June 3, 



Thackeray's pathetic sketch, "Little Scholars," is the forerunner of 

 many articles which treat the problems of social betterment, down to 

 the latest schemes for making life happier, as tried in other countries 

 and possibly to apply in England. 



Science, too, is constantly set forth in a form easily understanded 

 of the people, and linking its abstractions with other branches of life 

 and thought, first by G. H. Lewes and the astronomer Richard 

 Proctor, then by Giant Allen, and notably by W. A. Shenstone, the 

 only public school master of the day who was also F.R.S. 



Note also the miniature biographies. They belong especially to 

 the latest period of the magazine : personal sketches of a writer by a 

 fellow-writer and a sympathetic friend. 



The rule at present is for articles to be signed ; the exception 

 that they should be anonymous. In the earlier days of the 

 *' Cornhill " it was the reverse. Signatures appear only in the case 

 of eminent poets, deceased writers, such as the Brontes, and later, 

 one or two novelists and specialists. The change took place after the 

 editorship of James Payn, who held that so revolutionary a measure 

 ought not to be undertaken lightly or inadvisedly. We understand 

 the rule of anonymity better in the case of a newspaper or a Review 

 which impersonates a point of view. It is strange to us that the 

 story, the sketch from life abroad or at home, the literary study, all 

 so personal in their point of view, should be thus impersonal. Even 

 Thackeray signs but one of his contributions : Matthew Arnold is 

 anonymous on two occasions, and Anthony Trollope's name does not 

 appear at all with his first novel, " Frarnley Parsonage," and indeed 

 only on the last instalment of " The Small House at Allington." 



The " Cornhill " has passed through three stages. The first 

 lasted till the end of Leslie Stephen's editorship in 1883, following 

 the general lines already described. Under James Payn the 

 magazine took a more popular form. Fiction, whether as serial or 

 short story, was to predominate, and the price was reduced from a 

 shilling to sixpence. The change worked well for a considerable 

 time, though it was impossible to keep up the illustrations, which, 

 after three years, were abandoned, for once more a new competition 

 came into play. The process block swept away the woodcut, and 

 produced the latest type of cheap illustrated magazines. And thus, 

 although Payn was very successful in discovering new writers of 

 excellent fiction, his experiment gradually found itself floating on an 

 ebb tide, and on his retirement in 1896 the " Cornhill " entered on 

 its third stage by returning to the price of a shilling, increasing the 

 number of its pages, and resuming the older and larger proportion 

 of literary and general articles, even while as a rule keeping two 

 serials running together. 



During the war there was a long struggle with the increased cost 

 of production. This was met by reducing the number of pages of 

 the magazine. At the same time its circulation increased greatly, 



