Showing the posts and a little bit of content

So I got the code to spit out the last 10 stories that I wanted, now all I want is to show about 80 words of content from each story, so I am using the <?php the_content_limit(80, “”); ?> which I can’t find any reference to, but it seems to work on some templates. I have tried enabling the plugin limit post options, but it doesnt work on this template… anyone can give me a quick fix?

code below..

<?php $recent = new WP_Query("showposts=10"); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>
				<div style="border-top:1px dashed #94B1DF;border-bottom:1px dashed #94B1DF;  margin-bottom:10px; padding:6px 6px 6px 6px; clear:both;">
				<b><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></b><br />
				<?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?><br /><br />
				<?php the_content_limit(80, ""); ?>

				</div>

				<?php endwhile; ?>