ABOUT to commence a new round of annual toil, it is not improper that we should commune with our readers how this year we best can ply OUR GROWING WORK. In a recent articlè, in a popular British Magazine, the low state of periodical literature in this country is very properly ascribed to our peculiar mode of publication. In Europe, the booksellers purchase magazines by wholesale from the publisher, and the business of retail being thus scattered among a number, it can be conducted with promptness and punctuality. Within a few hours after the work is thus distributed the proprietor is indemnified for the use of his capital, his mechanics are paid, his ar tists are rewarded, and those whose pens have been put in requisition, may unclose their barred doors to the hungry dun in any form that may please his fancy or his fears. Magaziners enjoy no such advantages in this country. They must employ agents at enormous commissions, because subscribers will not take the trouble of remembering that a small sum of money should be paid punctually when it is due. They neglect it until they are reminded by an agent, who receives so large a reward for his ser- . vices, that little or nothing in the shape of profit is left to the persons whose whole time has been appropriated to the composition of the work. The amount expended in this manner, alone, would enable us, if it could be saved, to increase the embellishments and the value of this Miscellany at least two-fold. This we pledge ourselves to demonstrate, if every subscription is paid at this office annually in advance. The Editor had flattered himself that the service in which he has been engaged, would have attracted to his aid "the choice and master-spirits of this age." An editor, unless he is blessed with the versatility of a Crichton, or the abundant granary of a Dryden, cannot be always another and the If he is condemned to toil same. Single, and conscious to himself alone Of pleasures to the heedless world unknown, his pages will weary by dulness and disgust by uniformity. It is impossible for one mind to grasp the Cynthia of the minute: the bow of Apollo cannot always be strung. While we gaze at the fleeting colours of Fashion, the metaphysician has entangled the careless reader in his meshes, and Poetry has winged her flight to other regions. But if the Editor has been compelled to rely so much upon the resources of an individual it is not a little gratifying to learn from substantial testimony that his exertions have been liberally scanned. He now feels an assurance that in his next voyage there will be "water enough to keep him buoyant;" and he therefore commits his little bark once more to the stream, with a confidence that she will neither be stranded nor forgotten, and that when she returns it will not be With over-wearied ribs, and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the inconstant winds. |