MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS n 



Having neglected the law so long, and probably having 

 a distaste for it, he apparently thought it quite hopeless to begin 

 to practise as a solicitor, and being entirely devoid of business 

 habits, allowed himself to be persuaded into undertaking one 

 of the most risky of literary speculations, the starting of a 

 new illustrated magazine, devoted apparently to art, antiquities, 

 and general literature. A few numbers were issued, and I re- 

 member, as a boy, seeing an elaborate engraving of the Port- 

 land Vase, which was one of the illustrations ; and in those 

 days before photography, when all had to be done by skilled 

 artists and engravers, such illustrations were ruinously ex- 

 pensive 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 

 &| inches to the outer line of the engraving, the margins having 

 been cut off. It is headed " Gallery of Antiquities, British Mu- 

 seum, PL I.," and contains forty distinct copper-plate engrav- 

 ings of parts of friezes, vases, busts, and full-length figures, of 

 Greek or Roman art, all drawn to scale, and exquisitely en- 

 graved in the best style of the period. The plate is stated at 

 the foot to be " Published 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 ad- 

 vanced by my father to pay for work and materials, and partly, 

 no doubt, from the affair being in the hands of persons with- 

 out 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 1813, relating to the 

 affair. They are dated from Bloomsbury Square and are ex- 

 ceedingly long and verbose, so that it is hardly possible to ex- 

 tract anything definite from them. They refer chiefly to the 

 mode of winding up the business, and urging that the en- 

 graved plates, etc., may be useful in a new undertaking. He 



