MAGAZINES. 



ing refused to advance Dryden a 

 sum of money for a work in which, 

 he was engaged, the enraged bard 

 sent a message to him, and the fol- 

 lowing lines, adding, "Tell the dog 

 that he who wrote these can write 

 more : 



'With leering looks, bull-faced, and freck- 

 led skin, 



With two left legs, and Judas-coloured 

 hair, 



And frowsy pores, that taint the ambient 

 air.' " 



The bookseller felt the force of 

 the description, and to avoid the 

 completion of the portrait, immedi- 

 ately sent the money. 



CHEAPNESS OF LITERARY WORKS. 



' ; As a curious literary fact," says 

 Cottle, " I might mention that the 

 sale of the first edition of the Lyr- 

 ical Ballads was so slow, and the 

 severity of most of the reviews so 

 great, that their progress to obli- 

 vion, notwithstanding the merit 

 which I was quite sure they possess- 

 ed, seemed to be ordained to be as 

 rapid as it was certain, I had given 

 thirty guineas for the copyright ; 

 but the heavy sale induced me at 

 length to part with them at a loss 

 the largest proportion of the im- 



pression of five hundred to Mr. 

 Arch, a London bookseller. 



" On my reaching London, hav- 

 ing an account to settle with Messrs. 

 Longman and Eees, the booksellers 

 of Paternoster Eow, I sold them all 

 my copyrights, which were valued 

 as one lot, by a third party. On 

 my next seeing Mr. Longman, he 

 told me that, in estimating the va- 

 lue of the copyrights, Fox's Ac/imed 

 and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads 

 were 'reckoned as nothing.'' ' That 

 being the case,' I replied, ' as both 

 these authors are my personal 

 friends, I should be obliged if you 

 would return me again these two 

 copyrights, that I may have the 

 pleasure of presenting them to the 

 respective writers.' Mr. Longman 

 answered, with his accustomed li- 

 berality, ' You are welcome to them.' 

 On my reaching Bristol, I gave Mr. 

 Fox his receipt for twenty guineas, 

 and on Coleridge's return from the 

 north, I gave him Mr. Words- 

 worth's receipt for his thirty gui- 

 neas ; so that whatever advantage 

 has arisen subsequently from the 

 sale of this volume of the Lyrical 

 Ballads, I am happy to say, has 

 pertained exclusively to Mr. Words- 

 worth." 



MAGAZINES. 



Sir John Hawkins, in his Me- 

 moirs of Johnson, ascribes the de- 

 cline of literature to the ascendency 

 of frivolous Magazines, between the 

 years 1740 and 1760. He says that 

 they render smatterers conceited, 

 and confer the superficial glitter of 

 knowledge instead of its substance. 



Sir Bichard Phillips, upwards of 

 forty years a publisher, gives the 

 following evidence as to the sale of 

 the Magazines in his time : 



" For my own part, I know that 

 in 1790, and for many years pre- 

 viously, there were sold of the trifle 

 called the Town and Country Ma- 



gazine, full 15.000 copies per month; 

 and, of another, the Ladies' Maga- 

 zine, from 16,000 to 22,000. 'Such 

 circumstances, were, therefore, cal- 

 culated to draw forth the observa- 

 tions of Hawkins. The Gentleman's 

 Magazine, in its days of popular 

 extracts, never rose above 10,000 ; 

 after it became more decidedly an- 

 tiquarian, it fell in sale, and con- 

 tinued for many years at 3000. 

 There was also a lighter work, the 

 European Magazine, and one better 

 selected, called the Universal Maga- 

 zine, both of which sold also to the 

 latter extent. These were the perio- 



