Excerpt from The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, Vol. 46: From January to June, 1826; Part the First
IN the Preface to our last Volume we had to expatiate on the vast and progressive increase of Literature and Literary aspirants; though not without apprehensions that over-production would eventually lead to some lamentable revulsion. Unhappily our fears have been realized. At no period did the productions of the pen and the press receive so terrible a blow, as during the current year. The Man of Genius and the Soissare and Paste-man - the Poet and the Poetaster - have been involved in one ruinous vortex. Even the last Waverley novel was hawked about for a purchaser, when two years ago a general skirmish would have ensued among the Booksellers, to obtain the copy-right, had it been ofi’ered for public sale. The shock sustained by the different Periodical Publications has been, as it were, electric yet we have for tunately escaped the percussion, and been as powerfully supported as ever. The Seats Magazine, one of our earliest emulators, could not find a purchaser at sol, though once worth as many hundreds. The European Magazine, a once formidable opponent, has quietly retreated, like another Teucer, behind the shield of the Monthly Magazine. Thus the two Editors, though Rival Warriors, have adopted the prudent axiom of the old man in the fable separated ye fall - but united ye stand. Perhaps the premature death of the New European was an awful warning to the enfeebled parent - As to the crowd of twopenny Publi cations, some of which we noticed in our last volume, under the an ticipation of their certain dissolution, even independently of the ex isting distresses - they have been scattered like chafl’ before the storm, or as dust in the whirlwind; whilst to the Public the Projectors were never known or heard of, and were generally too insignificant to ex cite inquiry. (see vol. Xcv. I. 4 Meanwhile not a few of the Brokers in Literature have ceased to drink wine out of the skulls of Authors. As their vintage has failed, their libations to the Sacred Nine no longer flow; and the skulls of their literary scribes are con sequently no longer in demand - sine vino nullum poculum.
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