NOTE BY THE EDITOR.-When I was conducting the "Pimlico Chronicle and Fashionable Intelligencer"-it is several years since, and the magazine is now only to be found in the British Museum (imperfect), and on the top shelves of libraries, and in other out-of-the-way and inaccessible places, though the P. C. and F. I. was a success in its day, which was not quite so great a reading day as this is-there

VOL. IV.-NEW SERIES,

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came into my hands a variety of MS. productions, good, bad, and indifferent. Now, the work that an Editor has to do may be done conscientiously and well, and at great cost of time and labour, or it may be performed easily and pleasantly, and without much toil or expenditure of midnight gas. He may invite correspondence, and open his pages to all the world; in which case he will be sure to receive heaps of tales, essays, poems, sketches, and speculations, together with much well-intentioned advice, providing him no end of reading, and causing him much loss of time and temper, especially if he endeavour to winnow from the mass of straw a few grains of wheat; or he may make arrangements with some half-dozen literary friends who know how to write for the public, to send in a certain portion of "copy," in weekly or monthly portions, as the case may be, and boldly announce inside the cover, or over his leader, that "in no case will MS. be returned." I am almost ashamed to say that, in the conduct of the P. C. and F. I., I adopted the latter method, and, consequently, had a tolerably easy time of it. My usual plan, in those pleasant days, was to select sufficient prose and poetry to fill the Number, and then to take my -getting ideas" I used to call it-in town or country, till my proofs were ready, the printer's boy waiting in the passage generally while I read them through. By the way, the term "Printer's Devil" is no more used in a printing-office than "scene-shifter" in a theatre; in the one the term is warehouse-boy, errand-boy, or apprentice, and in the other, carpenter. I take some credit to myself for now, for the first time, correcting a popular error, and willingly make a present of the discovery to Mr. Timbs, for his next edition of "Things not Generally Known."

case

Notwithstanding the "Notice," however, and in spite of all discouragements, young people afflicted with the cacoïthes scribendi would "submit the enclosed to the kind consideration of the Editor,” and would insist on dropping weighty parcels of MS. into the Editor's box, and would perseveringly write to inquire when "The Lost Duke" or "Lines to a Snowdrop" would be likely to appear "in the pages of your esteemed and ably-conducted periodical." And thus, though I carefully refrained from replying to the urgent inquiries of numerous uninvited contributors, and continually referred to the "Notice," my collection of literary curiosities increased rapidly. So rapidly, indeed, that I was in the habit, on coming home of an evening-after a party, say, or a visit to the theatre-to empty the contents of my Editor's Box into an old tea chest, left by a former tenant, and let them lie there till I had leisure and inclination to look through the offerings of my unknown friends. And, now I think of it, what a splendid fellow that former tenant must have been, to have his tea in by the chest! Of course he had his sugar by the loaf, at least; and his wine by the pipe, and his cigars by the case, and his tobacco by the hundred-weight! Entertaining his friends upon a grand scale, he must have been a jolly sort of Templar-of the fat and monkish, rather than the military or studious order, one would fancy. But I, too, was jolly, after a fashion, in those old wainscotted rooms, with an outlook to the Thames, which I don't remember as being very dirty in those youthful days; or, if it were, people did not make much fuss about it. Many is the cigar I've smoked as I sat at the window and gazed out upon the lazy, grimy stream, with still lazier and grimier barges floating on its bosom, and even yet lazier and grimier men lying full length on the coal sacks; and many is the daydream I've indulged in, and the verse I've strung together, in which “" roam” rhymed with "home," and "love" to "prove," and all the rest of the sentiments that are common to men of twenty-two or thereabouts. At such times it was that, throwing myself well back in my old arm-chair-also a legacy from the former tenant-peace be with him, whoever he may be !-I used to get Tom, my clerk, to hand up the contents of the tea chest, parcel by parcel, so that at any rate I might satisfy my conscience by examining the MSS., and seeing that no really good thing was allowed to suffer by neglect. Tom was the joint property of Paprewaight and myself, and I can truly say I did not take much work out of my half. Indeed, except the copying of a few letters, and the ordering of our dinners from the " Rainbow," in Fleet

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Street, his principal business was to scrawl faces on the blotting paper, and answer the few visitors who came up the staircase as far as the third floor. I can see the process now as plainly as if nearly twenty years had not gone by, and the days were all yesterdays, thoughtless of to-morrows! There was I, sitting at the window, and Tom upon his precious marrowbones, grubbing about among the dusty contents of the tea chest, and handing me such specimens as seemed likely to yield anything in the way of reward. Dry work it was, too. I generally smoked a cigar, while Paprewaight pretended to be busy reading in a distant part of the room, his prematurely bald head shining over his spectacles, and his bright eyes gleaming through the glasses, in the cosiest way imaginable. And thus I used to get through my editorial work in the lazy luxuriant fashion belonging only to one period of a writing man's life. Pale ale was not popular then; so I used to take coffee with my cigar, and make believe to like it.

In justice to the contributors, I must say that I certainly looked through the majority of their MSS.; though you may judge of their predominating quality by the necessity for a printed form like this:

for

The Editor of the "Pimlico Chronicle and Fashionable Intelli:encer" presents his com. pliments to , and, while thanking kind preference, regrets that valuable contribution, entitled suitable for its pages. TEMPLE

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is not

This "smoother," as we used to call it, Tom would render perfect by filling in the blanks, in a neat running hand to correspond with the lithography, and the transaction would be completed by addressing and posting the letter. But the tea chest getting fuller and fuller, nevertheless, I one day told Tom to "clean it out and get rid of the rubbish." Which he did, very speedily, by disposing, the Vandal, of a pillow-case full of prose and poetry, love, passion, feeling, romance, history, biography, criticism, and speculation, all included--to the butterman in Essex-street, at twopence a pound!

But, in order that nothing good might be passed over, I presided over the sacrifice, and was enabled, I will admit, to select two or three bundles which appeared to be written in a style which promised something for their contents. Your real writer for the press seldom indulges in flourishes, and never writes on both sides of the paper. Well, when the tea chest was nearly empty; and Tom, with hands and face like a dustman's, was getting hot from so much stooping, I thought I might as well take a turn at the work, especially as my cigar had gone out and the sun had gone in, and the sweet summer twilight was fast creeping over the river, and the merry hum of the children in the Temple Gardens was growing fainter and fainter, and I had yet to dress for dinner, which I promised to take with Paprewaight at a West End club. So, rising from my chair, I threw the end of my cigar out of the window, and dived my hand into the receptacle for refreshment,-I refer to the tea for which the chest had been made, years before, in the flowery land, and not to the poetic flights and romantic incidents of the MSS., for no amount of dilution would have rendered some of them digestible. The chest, as I said, was nearly empty, but when I put my hand in, I felt a bundle cool and smooth within my grasp, and drew forth, fresh and clean, and with a dainty inviting look about it, really charming, amid all the surrounding dust and mouldiness, a manuscript tied with a bit of pink ribbon. "A prize, Tom!' I exclaimed; and forthwith I had the gas lighted and sat down to read. I did not go to the West End club to dinner that evening; but read and read till I had got through the story; and such as it is, I present it to you. I have preserved it ever since without discovering the author, and I now print it in the hope that the lady or gentleman by whom the tale was originally forwarded, "with compliments," to the Editor of the P. C. and F. I., may come forward and claim the cheque which the publisher keeps, ready drawn, and filled up to the amount of —, who shall say how many hundred pounds, payable to bearer?