In 1832, in connection with the late A. D. Patterson, he started _The American Monthly Magazine_, nearly one half the matter of which was composed by him. After the first year Mr. Patterson retired from it, and during twelve months it was conducted by Mr. Herbert alone. On the conclusion of the second year it was sold to Charles F. Hoffman, Mr. Herbert continuing to act as a joint editor. At the commencement of the fourth year Park Benjamin being associated in the editorship, it was contemplated to introduce party politics into the work, and Mr. Herbert in consequence declined further connection with it.
By this time Mr. Herbert had made a brilliant reputation as a scholar and as an author. In the _American Monthly_ he had printed the first chapters of _The Brothers, a Tale of the Fronde_, and the entire novel was published by the Harpers in 1834, and so well received that the whole edition was sold in a few weeks. In 1836 and 1837 he edited _The Magnolia_, the first annual ever printed in America on the system of entire originality both of the literary matter, and of the embellishments, which were all executed by American engravers from American designs. A considerable portion of the matter for both years was furnished by Mr. Herbert. In 1837 the Harpers published his second novel, _Cromwell_, which did not sell so rapidly as _The Brothers_, though generally praised by the reviewers. It 1840 it was reprinted by Colburn in London, and was eminently successful. In 1843 he published in New-York and London his third novel, _Marmaduke Wyvil, or the Maid's Revenge_, a story of the English civil wars, and in 1848 the most splendid of his romances, _The Roman Traitor_, founded on the history of Cataline, a work which must be classed with the most remarkable of those specimens of literary art in which it has been attempted to illustrate classical scenes, characters, and manners.
In romantic fiction, besides the above works, Mr. Herbert has written for the magazines of this country and Great Britain tales and sketches sufficient to make twenty to thirty stout volumes. The subjects of his best performances have been drawn from the middle ages and from southern Europe, and they display besides very eminent capacities for the historical novel, and a familiarity with the institutions of chivalry and with contemporary manners hardly equaled in any writer of the English language.