ADVICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. 151 



sive of regret that the tale would not suit The Magazine. The 



reader, if he has ever had returned upon him a paper upon which he has 

 appended a tolerable portion of his literary reputation, may be able to 

 form some idea of my indignation against that Vandahsh act. Here 

 was a love tale, which had about it the evident traces of more labour, 

 both mental and physical, than ever love-tale before bore, and yet it 

 was rejected. I put it aside, and set about another, of a more sombre 

 cast — more in unison with the temperament of the editor, who I learned 

 to be a thinking Scotchman. TliC fate of this differed little from the 

 former : it was returned with a hint that the paper was rather too long , 

 but that, in other respects, there were some good points about it. I 

 read the tale over and over twenty times, and could not for the life of 

 me discover even a word that seemed out of place ; so chary are we of 

 our paper bantlings. I tried to cut it down, but found it impossible : 

 ■ — brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. " No," I exclaimed, " I will not 

 spoil it ; some other editor may discover its merits." So I put it aside. 



In this way I went on for several months ; when one day I mentioned 

 to a friend of mine, who had considerable experience in those matters, 

 how difficult it was to hit tlie peculiar vein of writing which suited the 

 magazines. He seemed irclined to think otherwise, and said, that the 

 very nature of the subjects would incline to the same impression. I 

 then said that I had been plaguing editors for months back with la- 

 boured contributions, but had had all returned upon me — to be sure, with 

 some such salvo as this : that the subject was too old, the matter too 

 voluminous, and such-like hints. " I should like," said my friend, " if 

 you have anv of those papers by you, to see some of them." The love 

 tale, which I considered a chef-d'auvre, was the first which I showed 

 him. As 1 handed it down from an old press which stood in a corner 

 of the room, my friend exclaimed, with a loud laugh, as I untied a piece 

 of red tape from what looked more like one of those chancery briefs in 

 the case of Atwood and Smale, than a modest contribution to a maga- 

 zine, " Well may you fairly say you have been plaguing editors with 

 papers, if this be a fair specimen. Who, in the name of all that is good 

 or reasonable, could expect an unfortunate editor to sit down and read a 

 voluminous quarto like this, with its additamenta of blots, bad writing, 

 and dirty paper. You are, I see," says he, " entirely unacquainted 

 with some of the important items in this great affair, as you call it, of 

 writing for the periodicals. They are apparently trifling ; but take the 

 assurance of one who has had some little experience, both as contri- 

 butor and editor, that they are indispensable to success in these wordy 

 matters. In the first place, you must know, that the nature of maga- 

 zines is such as to exist only by variety, and cannot consequently afford 

 space for your quarto contributions, except at the sacrifice of excluding 

 more amusing matter. Papers that have any chance of insertion should 

 not exceed three or four pages ; they should be written in a clean, fair 

 hand, without blot or stain. I cannot give you any idea of the 

 favourable impressions which a contribution in a neat, gentlemanly 

 manner, leaves on the mind of an editor. They are generally men of 

 extensive reading, and are not strangers to fine writing, be it ever so 

 good; they will hardly take the trouble to read over a slovenly paper. 

 A communication in a form such as I here advise, has this great ad- 



