Page:The London Magazine, volume 9 (January–June 1824).djvu/15

This is New Year's Day—for we of course presume that our Readers are cutting open our leaves on the first day of January; and it is generally expected that Editors should take this annual opportunity of speaking satisfactorily of what they have achieved, and prophesying lustily of what they intend to do:—they refer to their past pages;—they boast of their added talent;—in short, they would have good easy readers believe, that they have already produced the best possible Magazine,—and that they are on the very eve of producing a better. It is no unusual case that this prophesied amendment is all that the reader ever sees:—It is truly "a flourish of trumpets, and enter Tom Thumb." Now although this be the New Year—it shall be no year of promise with us.—We will tell none of your naughty Editorial lies for the sake of any custom;—not we. We will be no deceptive showmen,—hanging up a gorgeous portrait of our Lion's Head—with a mane like a muff,—and then taking the money, and exhibiting a mastiff. We can only say, at a word, that we have lost none of our old Writers, that we have gained several new ones,—and that we have added very considerably to our readers. Our pens are keen,—our spirits are good—and with the hearty old wish of "a happy New Year" to our friends,—we plunge at once into all the treasures of 1894.

A.—(no—that's not it—get out of the way, T. T. L!—Thy verses are always in the way!) A.—is brief but dull:—Thus is poor Merit suffocated.

We are obliged to Philo-Cant for his letter from Cambridge, although we can make no use of it. It is quite dear that he has not yet resolved himself into a style; for such a little pleasant wilderness of prose we never yet endeavoured to disentangle. Colleges, Proctors, Blue Devils, Buggies, Bullies, Bricks, Books, cum muultis aliis, mix together confusedly like Peers, Patriots, and Mechanics at a public meeting. The letter is a full mad sheet of memoranda,—which, although amusing to an editor who knows how to extract a single nut from a heap of husks, would poze the inexperienced. If Philo-Cant could let his spirit leave off dancing, and take to the decency of order, we think he might tell us something about Cambridge that would suit the Editor and his Readers too.

The Verses in bad English, with a motto in worse Latin, are sent, per post, "to the place from whence they came."

Vita in Animâ, who defends "the appearance of the Ghost during the interview between Hamlet and the Queen," would do more if he were to attempt the defence of his brother for earwigging him in the garden, and making him a ghost at all. We never heard of any particular objection to his appearance, except by those persons who were not favourable to the sort of prize show of ghosts which the managers have endeavoured to make it.