After the first two numbers, Macaulay felt constrained to retire, as his father objected to the political opinions of the magazine, but he was luckily induced to alter his mind, and to the future numbers he contributed the best of his early poems--notably, “Moncontoria” and “Ivry” and the “Songs of the Civil Wars.” Here, too, were printed Praed’s most charming _jeux d’esprits_, so called, though depth of feeling and nobleness of sentiment often lay beneath their airy bantering tone. De Quincey, then almost starving in the streets of London, was made lovingly free of its pages, and the _Quarterly Magazine_ attained a great celebrity as the most classical, and yet the lightest, gayest, and most pleasing periodical of the day.
Unfortunately a division occurred among the contributors themselves--their opinions, and the opinions they expressed, were as widely divergent as the four winds of heaven--their supply of matter was quite irregular, varying with the individual amusements of the hour--reaching, Knight tells us, to “wanton neglect;” and after many dissensions, the publisher felt “that he had to choose between surrendering the responsibility which his duties to society had compelled him to retain, or to lose much of the assistance which had given to the _Quarterly Magazine_ its peculiar character.” He could not hesitate in his choice, and with the sixth number the work ceased, being, however, continued under the editorship of Malden, and in the hands of another publisher for a quarter longer, but the panic that ruined Scott and Constable, and shook so many publishing houses, made small work of the transplanted _Quarterly_.
This period of Knight’s life may be regarded as the time when he sowed his publishing wild oats; henceforth sterner work awaited him. Among, however, the earliest of his distinct publications may be mentioned Milton’s “Treatises on Christian Doctrine,” then first discovered among the documents at the State Paper Office.
Knight had fortunately no bills afloat at the time of the panic which, in connection with his endeavour to assist the Windsor bank, he so graphically describes--“In the Albany we found the partners of one firm deliberating by candle light--a few words showed how unavailing was the hope of help from them: ‘We shall ourselves stop at nine o’clock.’ The dark December morning gradually grew lighter; the gas lamps died out; but long before it was perfect day we found Lombard Street blocked up by eager crowds, each man struggling to be foremost at the bank where he kept his accounts, if its doors should be opened.” Still, Mr. Knight, though not directly involved, found, like many other publishers, that the schemes of 1825 would not sell in 1826, and that the booksellers must, spite of themselves, “hold on” as best they could. Colburn, indeed, was the only one who still continued his ventures, and from the light and soothing nature of his publications, chiefly fictions calculated to allay the torture of reality, he was able to reap a reward for his temerity.