Toward the end of its prosperous first decade, however, the misfortunes of the _Literary Gazette_ began. Colburn's publications had been roughly handled in its pages and he accordingly aided James Silk Buckingham in founding the _Athenæum_. The first number appeared on January 2, 1828, as an evident rival of the older weekly. For a time the new venture was on the verge of failure and the proprietors actually offered to sell it to Jerdan. Within half a year Buckingham was succeeded by John Sterling as editor. Frederic Denison Maurice's friends purchased the _Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review_ (begun 1819) and merged it with the _Athenæum_ in July, 1828. For a year Sterling and Maurice contributed some of the most brilliant critical articles that have appeared in its pages. The working editor at that time was Henry Stebbing who had been associated with the _Athenæum_ since its inception and who was the only survivor[C] of the original staff when the semi-centennial number was published on January 5, 1878.
Even the high standards set by Maurice and Sterling failed to win public favor. The crisis came about the middle of 1830 when Charles Wentworth Dilke became "supreme editor," enlisted Lamb, George Darley, Barry Cornwall and others on his staff, and reduced the price of the _Athenæum_ from eightpence to fourpence. The apparent folly of reducing the price and increasing the expenses did not lead to the generally prophesied collapse; this first experiment in modern methods resulted in the rapid growth of the _Athenæum's_ circulation, to the serious detriment of the _Literary Gazette_. Jerdan tried to stem the tide by publishing lampoons on the dullness of Dilke's paper; but when the _Athenæum_ was enlarged in 1835 from sixteen to twenty-four pages Dilke's triumph was evident. The _Literary Gazette_ was compelled to reduce its price to fourpence in its effort to regain the lost subscriptions. Dilke labored earnestly to improve his paper and when, in 1846, he felt that it was established on a firm basis, he made Thomas Kibble Hervey editor and devoted his own time to furthering his journalistic enterprises. However, he continued to contribute to the weekly; his valuable articles on Junius and Pope together with several others were afterwards reprinted as _Papers of a Critic_.