Sheridan says most justly:
"Wit being generally founded upon the manners and characters of its own day, is crowned in that day, beyond all other exertions of the mind, with splendid and immediate success. But there is always something that equalises. In return, more than any other production, it suffers suddenly and irretrievably from the hand of Time."
Still some publications, from their wit and brilliancy, are sufficiently buoyant to float down to posterity. The publication in question, the Rolliad, is one; the Anti-Jacobin another. You may not be unwilling, in your useful pages, to give a list of some of the writers in the latter publication. My own copy of it is marked from that belonging to one of the writers, and is as follows:—
Nos. 1. 4. 9. 19. 26, 27—33., by Mr George Ellis.
Nos. 6. and 7., by Messrs. Ellis and Frere.
Nos. 20, 21, 22. 30—36., by Mr. Canning.
No. 10. by M.; No. 13. by C. B.; No. 39. by N.
To the remaining numbers, neither names nor initials are affixed. Can any of your readers explain the initials, M., C. B., and N., and give us the authors of the remaining numbers?
In replying to Mr. Turner's Queries, I shall attend to the wish expressed by so old and so valued a friend, and substitute for initials, of which he disapproves, the name of
J. H. Markland.