The most famous contributions to the _London Magazine_ during Scott's
régime were Lamb's _Essays of Elia_. Those charming productions, now
ranked among our dearly treasured classics, were not received at first
with universal approbation. The long and justly forgotten Alaric A.
Watts said of them: "Charles Lamb delivers himself with infinite pain
and labour of a silly piece of trifling, every month, in this Magazine,
under the signature of Elia. It is the curse of the Cockney School that,
with all their desire to appear exceedingly off-hand and ready with all
they have to say, they are constrained to elaborate every sentence, as
though the web were woven from their own bowels. Charles Lamb says he
can make no way in an article under at least a week." In July, 1821, the
_London Magazine_ was purchased by Taylor and Hessey. Although Thomas
Hood was made working-editor, the _Blackwood_ idea of retaining
editorial supervision in the firm was followed. Within a few months De
Quincey contributed his _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_--the
most famous of all the articles that appeared in the magazine. Lamb[D]
and De Quincey continued to write for the magazine for several years.
Other contributors, especially of literary criticism, were Barry
Cornwall, Carlyle, Hazlitt, Henry Cary and, toward the end, Walter
Savage Landor. The magazine became less conspicuous after 1824 and
dragged out an obscure existence until 1829; but it is probable that no
other periodical achieved the standard of purely literary excellence
represented by the _London Magazine_ during the first five years of its
existence.

In February, 1830, James Fraser published the first number of _Fraser's
Magazine for Town and Country_. The magazine was not named after the
publisher but after its sponsor, Hugh Fraser, a "briefless barrister"
and man about town. The latter enlisted the aid of Maginn who had
severed his connection with _Blackwood's_ in 1828. In general,