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_. Jerdan withdrew from the _Literary Gazette_ in 1850. The hopeless struggle with the _Athenæum_, involving a third reduction in price to threepence, lasted until 1862, when the _Gazette_ was incorporated with the _Parthenon_ and came to an end during the following year. Hervey edited the _Athenæum_ until 1853 when ill-health necessitated his resignation. The later editors include William Hepworth Dixon, Norman MacColl and at present Mr. Vernon Rendall. After the withdrawal of Dixon in 1869 a reformation in the staff and management of the _Athenæum_ took place. "Some old writers were parted with, and a great many fresh contributors were found. While special departments, such as science, art, music and the drama, were of necessity entrusted to regular hands, indeed, the reviewing of books, now more than ever the principal business of 'The Athenæum,' was distributed over a very large staff, the plan being to assign each work to a writer familiar with its subject and competent to deal with it intelligently, but rigidly to exclude personal favouritism or prejudice, and to secure as much impartiality as possible. The rule of anonymity has been more carefully observed in 'The Athenæum' than in most other papers. Its authority as a literary censor is not lessened, however, and is in some respects increased, by the fact that the paper itself, and not any particular critic of great or small account, is responsible for the verdicts passed in its columns." (Fox Bourne.)