The Panjandrum by Anthony Trollope — Read

We hardly feel certain that we are justified in giving the following little story to the public as an Editor's Tale, because at the time to which it refers, and during the circumstances with which it deals, no editorial power was, in fact, within our grasp. As the reader will perceive, the ambition and the hopes, and something of a promise of the privileges, were there; but the absolute chair was not mounted for us. The great we was not, in truth, ours to use. And, indeed, the interval between the thing we then so cordially desired, and the thing as it has since come to exist, was one of so many years, that there can be no right on our part to connect the two periods. We shall, therefore, tell our story, as might any ordinary individual, in the first person singular, and speak of such sparks of editorship as did fly up around us as having created but a dim coruscation, and as having been quite insufficient to justify the delicious plural.

It is now just thirty years ago since we determined to establish the Panjandrum Magazine. The "we" here spoken of is not an editorial we, but a small set of human beings who shall be personally introduced to the reader. The name was intended to be delightfully meaningless, but we all thought that it was euphonious, graphic, also -- and sententious, even though it conveyed no definite idea. That question of a name had occupied us a good deal, and had almost split us into parties. I -- for I will now speak of myself as I -- I had wished to call it by the name of a very respectable young publisher who was then commencing business, and by whom we intended that the trade part of our enterprise should be undertaken. Colburn's was an old affair in those days, and I doubt whether Bentley's was not already in existence.