I] MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS u 



undertaking one of the most risky of literary speculations, 

 the starting a new illustrated magazine, devoted apparently 

 to art, antiquities, and general literature. A few numbers 

 were issued, and I remember, as a boy, seeing an elaborate 

 engraving of the Portland Vase, which was one of the illustra- 

 tions ; and in those days before photography, when all had 

 to be done by skilled artists and engravers, such illustrations 

 were ruinously expensive for a periodical brought out by a 

 totally unknown man. Another of these illustrations is now 

 before me, and well shows the costly nature of the work. It 

 is on large paper, n^ by 8£ inches to the outer line of the 

 engraving, the margins having been cut off. It is headed 

 " Gallery of Antiquities, British Museum, PI. I.," and contains 

 forty distinct copper-plate engravings of parts of friezes, 

 vases, busts, and full-length figures, of Greek or Roman art, 

 all drawn to scale, and exquisitely engraved in the best style 

 of the period. The plate is stated at the foot to be ■ Pub- 

 lished for the Proprietor, May ist, 1811," four years after my 

 father's marriage. It shows that the work must have been of 

 large quarto size, in no way of a popular character, and too 

 costly to have any chance of commercial success. After a 

 very few numbers were issued the whole thing came to grief, 

 partly, it was said, by the defalcations of a manager or book- 

 keeper, who appropriated the money advanced by my father 

 to pay for work and materials, and partly, no doubt, from the 

 affair being in the hands of persons without the necessary 

 business experience and literary capacity to make it a 

 success. 



A few old letters are in my possession, from a Mr. E. A. 

 Rendall to my father, written in 1812 and 18 13, relating to 

 the affair. They are dated from Bloomsbury Square, and 

 are exceedingly long and verbose, so that it is hardly possible 

 to extract anything definite from them. They refer chiefly 

 to the mode of winding up the business, and urging that the 

 engraved plates, etc., may be useful in a new undertaking. 

 He proposes, in fact, to commence another magazine with a 

 different name, which he says will cost only sixty guineas a 

 number, and can be published at half a crown. He refers 



