Taylor and Hessey, finding their magazine [1] goes off very heavily at
2_s_. 6_d_., are prudently going to raise their price another shilling;
and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the
number of them. If they set up against the "New Monthly," they must
change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a review
to a half-dead magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer
multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will
not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang
fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance.
And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of
yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate
Fauntleroy [2] makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes
around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed
to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become
more impressive than usual, with the change of theme. Who, that
standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most
willing to believe, have never deviated, into others' property; you
think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence.
But so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at
last have expiated as he hath done.
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