the pocket of all Europe: it would not be exactly the thing comme il faut to permit a positive atrocity of this kind; and hence we have Magazines, and hence we have a portion of the public who subscribe to these Magazines (through sheer pity), and hence we have Magazine publishers (who sometimes take upon themselves the duplicate title of "editor and proprietor"),-publishers, we say, who, under certain conditions of good conduct, occasional puffs, and decent subserviency at all times, make it a point of conscience to encourage the poor-devil author with a dollar or two, more or less, as he behaves himself properly and abstains from the indecent habit of turning up his nose. We hope, however, that we are not so prejudiced or so vindictive as to insinuate that what certainly does look like illiberality on the part of them (the Magazine publishers) is really an illiberality chargeable to them. In fact, it will be seen at once that what we have said has a tendency directly the reverse of any such accusation. These publishers pay something other publishers nothing at all. Here certainly is a difference-although a mathematician might contend that the difference might be infinitesimally small. Still, these Magazine editors and proprietors pay (that is the word), and with your true poor-devil author the smallest favours are sure to be thankfully received. No: the illiberality lies at the door of the demagogue-ridden public, who suffer their anointed delegates (or perhaps arointedwhich is it?) to insult the common sense of them (the public) by making orations in our national halls on the beauty and conveniency of robbing the Literary Europe on the highway, and on the gross absurdity in especial of admitting so unprincipled a principle that a man has any right and title either to his own brains or to the flimsy material that he chooses to spin out of them, like a confounded caterpillar as he is. If anything of this gossamer character stands in need of protection, why we have our hands full at once with the silk-worms and the morus multicaulis. But if we cannot, under the circumstances, complain of the absolute illiberality of the Magazine publishers (since 510 SOME SECRETS OF THE MAGAZINE PRISON-HOUSE. pay they do), there is at least one particular in which we have against them good grounds of accusation. Why (since pay they must) do they not pay with a good grace and promptly? Were we in an ill-humour at this moment we could a tale unfold which would erect the hair on the head of Shylock. A young author, struggling with Despair itself in the shape of a ghastly poverty, which has no alleviation-no sympathy from an every-day world, that cannot understand his necessities, and that would pretend not to understand them if it comprehended them ever so well-this young author is politely requested to compose an article, for which he will "be handsomely paid." Enraptured, he neglects perhaps for a month the sole employment which affords him the chance of a livelihood, and having starved through the month (he and his family) completes at length the month of starvation and the article, and despatches the latter (with a broad hint about the former) to the pursy "editor" and bottle-nosed "proprietor" who has condescended to honour him (the poor devil) with his patronage. A month (starving still), and no reply. Another month-still none. Two months more-still none. A second letter, modestly hinting that the article may not have reached its destination-still no reply. At the expiration of six additional months, personal application is made at the "editor and proprietor's" office. Call again. The poor devil goes out, and does not fail to call again. Still call again;—and call again is the word for three or four months more. His patience exhausted, the article is demanded. No-he can't have it-(the truth is, it was too good to be given up so easily)—"it is in print," and "contributions of this character are never paid for (it is a rule we have) under six months after publication. Call in six months after the issue of your affair, and your money is ready for you-for we are business men ourselves-prompt." With this the poor devil is satisfied, and makes up his mind that the "editor and proprietor" is a gentleman, and that of course he (the poor devil) will wait as requested. And it is supposable that he would have waited if he couldbut Death in the meantime would not. He dies, and by the good luck of his decease (which came by starvation) the fat "editor and proprietor" is fatter henceforward and for ever to the amount of five and twenty dollars, very cleverly saved, to be spent generously in canvas-backs and champagne. There are two things which we hope the reader will not do as he runs over this article: first, we hope that he will not believe that we write from any personal experience of our own, for we have only the reports of actual sufferers to depend upon; and second, that he will not make any personal application of our remarks to any Magazine publisher now living, it being well known that they are all as remarkable for their generosity and urbanity, as for their intelligence and appreciation of Genius. ANASTATIC PRINTING. It is admitted by every one that of late there has been a rather singular invention, called Anastatic Printing, and that this invention may possibly lead, in the course of time, to some rather remarkable results-among which the one chiefly insisted upon is the abolition of the ordinary stereotyping process-but this seems to be the amount, in America at least, of distinct understanding on this subject. In every "There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, "without some strangeness in the proportions." The philosopher had reference, here, to beauty in its common acceptationbut the remark is equally applicable to all the forms of beauty-that is to say, to everything which arouses profound interest in the heart or intellect of man. such thing, strangeness-in other words novelty-will be found a principal element: and so universal is this law that it has no exception even in the case of this principal element itself. Nothing unless it be novel-not even novelty itself-will be the source of very intense excitement among men. Thus the ennuyé who travels in the hope of dissipating his ennui by the perpetual succession of novelties, will invariably be disappointed in the end. He receives the impression of novelty so continuously that it is at length no novelty to receive it. And the man, in general, of the nineteenth century-more especially of our own particular epoch of it—is very much in the predicament of the traveller in question. We are so habituated to new inventions that we no longer get from newness the vivid interest which should appertain to the new-and no example could be adduced more distinctly showing that the mere importance of a novelty will not suffice to gain for it universal attention than we find in the invention of Anastatic Printing. It excites not one fiftieth part of the comment which was excited by the comparatively frivolous invention of Sennefelder ;but he lived in the good old days when a novelty was novel. Nevertheless, while Lithography opened the way for a very agreeable pastime, it is the province of Anastatic. Printing to revolutionise the world. By means of this discovery anything written, drawn, or printed, can be made to stereotype itself, with absolute accuracy, in five minutes. Let us take, for example, a page of this Journal; supposing only one side of the leaf to have printing on it. We damp the leaf with a certain acid diluted, and then place it between two leaves of blotting-paper to absorb superfluous moisture. We then place the printed side in contact with a zinc plate that lies on the table. The acid in the interspaces between the letters immediately corrodes the zinc, but the acid on the letters themselves has no such effect, having been neutralised by the ink. Removing the leaf at the end of five minutes, we find a reversed copy, in slight relief, of the printing on the page-in other words, we have a stereotype plate, from which we can print a vast number. of absolute facsimiles of the original printed page-which latter has not been at all injured in the process-that is to say, we can still produce from it (or from any impression of the stereotype plate) new stereotype plates ad libitum. Any engraving, or any pen-and-ink drawing, or any MS. can be stereotyped in precisely the same manner. The facts of this invention are established. The process is in successful operation both in London and Paris. We have seen several specimens of printing done from the plates described, and have now lying before us a leaf (from the London Art-Union) covered with drawing, MS., letterpress, and impressions from woodcuts-the whole printed from the Anastatic stereotypes, and warranted by the Art-Union to be absolute facsimiles of the originals. The process can scarcely be regarded as a new invention -and appears to be rather the modification and successful application of two or three previously ascertained principles VOL. III. 2 L |