Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked
off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder
giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and
ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have
assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in
Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope,
to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the
entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops,
forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs,
cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily
walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the
art of limner or sculptor.

For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been
indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of
periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and
higher than the brief and barren resume of current events to which the
Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and
affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and
artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of
publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention
to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature
rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or
_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of
the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this
class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached
the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a
host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced
in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741,
Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and