814_ and _Paris Re-visited_ in 1815, was an
admirable editor, and all was going exceedingly well until he plunged
into a feud with _Blackwood's Magazine_ in general, and John Gibson
Lockhart in particular, the story of which in full may be read in
Mr. Lang's _Life and Letters of Lockhart_, 1896. In the duel which
resulted Scott was shot above the hip. The wound was at first thought
lightly of, but Scott died on February 27, 1821--an able man much
regretted.

The magazine did not at first show signs of Scott's loss; it continued
to bear the imprint of its original publishers and its quality
remained very high. With Lamb and Hazlitt writing regularly this
could hardly be otherwise. But four months after the death of Scott
and eighteen months after its establishment the _London Magazine_
passed into the hands of the publishers Taylor & Hessey, the first
number with their imprint being dated August, 1821. Although for a
while no diminution of merit was perceptible and rather an access
of gaiety--for Taylor brought Hood with him and John Hamilton
Reynolds--yet the high editorial standards of Scott ceased to be
applied. Thenceforward the decline of the magazine was steady.

John Taylor (1781-1864), senior partner in the firm of Taylor &
Hessey, was known as the identifier of Sir Philip Francis with the
author of "Junius," on which subject he had issued three books.
Although unfitted for the post, he acted as editor of the _London
Magazine_ until it was again sold in 1825.

With the beginning of 1825 Taylor made a change in the magazine. He
started a new series, and increased the size and the price. But the
experiment did not answer; the spirit had evaporated; and in the
autumn he sold it to Henry Southern (1799-1853), who had founded
the _Retrospective Review_ in 1820. The last number of the _London
Magazine_ to bear Taylor & Hessey's name, and (in my opinion) to
contain anything by Lamb, was August, 1825. We have no definite
information on the matter, but there is every indication in Lamb's
_Letters_ that Taylor was penurious and not clever in his relations
with contributors. Scott Lamb seems to have admired and liked; but
even in Scott's day payment does not seem to have been prompt. Lamb
was paid, according to Barry Cornwall, two or three times the amount
of other writers, who received for prose a pound a page. But Lamb
himself says that the rate for him was twenty guineas a sheet, a sheet
being sixteen pages; and he t