Mr. Knight attributed the falling off in the sale of the _Penny Magazine_ to the extended sale of newspapers and the application of wood-engravings to their illustration; and in his _Passages of a Working Life_ he relates how he first heard of the journal that was destined to succeed the _Penny Magazine_ in the field of popular art:--'In 1842, having occasion to be in attendance at the Central Criminal Court, my curiosity was excited by an unusual spectacle--that of an artist, seated amongst the civic dignitaries on the bench, diligently employed in sketching two Lascars, on their trial for a capital offence. What was there so remarkable in the case, in the persons, or even in the costume of the accused, that they should be made the subject of a picture? The mystery was soon explained to me. The _Illustrated London News_ had been announced for publication on the Saturday of the week in which I saw the wretched foreigners standing at the bar. I knew something about hurrying on wood-engravers for the _Penny Magazine_, but a newspaper was an essentially different affair. How, I thought, could artists and journalists so work concurrently that the news and the appropriate illustrations should both be fresh? How could such things be managed with any approach to fidelity of representation unless all the essential characteristics of a newspaper were sacrificed in the attempt to render it pictorial? I fancied that this rash experiment would be a failure. It proved to be such a success as could only be ensured by resolute and persevering struggles against natural difficulties.' Charles Knight was born at Windsor in 1791. The son of a bookseller, he very early became connected with the press. At the age of twenty-one he conducted the _Windsor and Eton Express_, and a few years later he became the editor of the _Guardian_, a London weekly paper. He afterwards started a monthly magazine called the _Etonian_, and amongst his contributors were Macaulay, Praed, and other clever young men who had been educated at Eton, some of whom supported him in a later venture, _Knight's Quarterly Magazine_. In the midst of his varied duties as author and publisher he never lost sight of the great question of popular education, and heartily joined in the movement for repealing the taxes on knowledge. He gave expression to his views in _The Struggles of a Book against Excessive Taxation_ and _The Case of the Authors as regards the Paper Duty_. He paid the enormous sum of 16,500_l._ for paper duty on the _Penny Cyclopedia_ alone, and on the same work he expended 40,000_l._ for literature and engravings. When this great and useful work was completed Mr. Knight was entertained at a public dinner presided over by Lord Brougham, when the leading men in literature and art united to do him honour. The _Penny Cyclopedia_ was not a commercial success, solely because of the paper duty.