2 PREFACE. 



been produced at a very cheap rate ; but then it was certainly pretty 

 stupid. In fact, there does seem to be a spell upon the gratis contri- 

 butors : they would be invaluable, if they could write ; but, unhappily, 

 it generally happens that they cannot. It was obvious that, in the 

 improved state of literary periodical publications generally weekly 

 newspapers invading the once high occupation of reviews and three- 

 penny brochures digging out, wholesale, all those mines of various infor- 

 mation, which, in a more golden day for Magazine writing, used to make 

 up the celebrity of our own publication, and " The Gentleman's " it was 

 clear that, under such an altered state of things, the Magazine must alter 

 too, or it must die. The voyages to Brighton and Margate of " Philo- 

 Aquaticus;" the historical and interminable queries of "An Investigator ;" 

 the inventions of " Humanitas " for catching mice, not by their necks, but 

 their tails ; or the poetic effusions united- of all the initials, from 

 A to Z, in the alphabet, could not stand against such writers as were 

 dashing and skirmishing, in " Blackwood's Magazine," or the " New 

 Monthly," or even in the " London." 



Under such circumstances, and having, both from our capital and our 

 connexions, the means of commanding the best writers of the day, we 

 determined to change the system of the MONTHLY MAGAZINE : and 

 we are gratified in being able to say that our experiment has been suc- 

 cessful. Of the names of our contributors, custom forbids us to speak ; 

 we trust, however, that their writings will speak for them ; and thus 

 much we will venture to say the truth of which will be sufficiently ascer- 

 tainable by those, who will not be backward in proving it an exag- 

 geration, if it be so that they consist not only of the most esteemed 

 writers, who have distinguished and are distinguishing themselves in the 

 first periodicals of the day but from a list, which, taken in its collective 

 strength, no similar publication will be found able to excel. 



Of course, a system like this as it was not commenced without risk 

 so it will not be maintained without exertion. But the risk has succeeded ; 

 and the exertion in success will not fall off. Nor can we safely state 

 that our new course has not given offence to some. We speak not of our 

 rivals in public attention but to some who were our constant and 

 esteemed subscribers. There are persons to whom the tone of our 

 politics has been displeasing. Others have regretted the substitution of 

 our present more humorous, poetical, or literary dissertations, for those 

 " matter-of-fact" discussions, which as a late correspondent reproaches 

 us used to be the staple commodity of the Magazine. 



" Who builds" (as the proverb says) " in the way where all go by, 

 Shall make his house too low or too high." 



To the first class of these objectors, we scarcely hope to answer quite satis- 

 factorily ; for we cannot hold out any prospect of our departure from opi- 

 nions, which have been be they correct or erroneous founded upon 

 our best view of public advantage. We pin our political faith, not upon 



