sty of the quarterlies being above the range of the properly
so-called "public" mind, the simple family circle looked forward with
chief complacency to their New Year's gift of the Annual--a delicately
printed, lustrously bound, and elaborately illustrated small octavo
volume, representing, after its manner, the poetical and artistic
inspiration of the age. It is not a little wonderful to me, looking back
to those pleasant years and their bestowings, to measure the difficultly
imaginable distance between the periodical literature of that day and
ours. In a few words, it may be summed by saying that the ancient Annual
was written by meekly-minded persons, who felt that they knew nothing
about anything, and did not want to know more. Faith in the usually
accepted principles of propriety, and confidence in the Funds, the
Queen, the English Church, the British Army and the perennial
continuance of England, of her Annuals, and of the creation in general,
were necessary then for the eligibility, and important elements in the
success, of the winter-blowing author. Whereas I suppose that the
popularity of our present candidates for praise, at the successive
changes of the moon, may be considered as almost proportionate to their
confidence in the abstract principles of dissolution, the immediate
necessity of change, and the inconvenience, no less than the iniquity,
of attributing any authority to the Church, the Queen, the Almighty, or
anything else but the British Press. Such constitutional differences in
the tone of the literary contents imply still greater contrasts in the
lives of the editors of these several periodicals. It was enough for the
editor of the "Friendship's Offering" if he could gather for his
Christmas bouquet a little pastoral story, suppose, by Miss Mitford, a
dramatic sketch by the Rev. George Croly, a few sonnets or impromptu
stanzas to music by the gentlest lovers and maidens of his acquaintance,
and a legend of the Apennines or romance of the Pyrenees by some
adventurous traveler who had penetrated into the recesses of their
mountains, and would modify the traditions of the country to introduce a
plate by Clarkson Stanfield or J. D. Harding. Whereas nowadays the
editor of a leading monthly is responsible to his readers for exhaustive
views of the politics of Europe during the last fortnight; and would
think himself distanced in the race with his lunarian rivals, if his
numbers did not contain three distinc