PREFACE 



TO THE THIRD VOLUME. 



IN commencing the Third Volume of our NEW SERIES of the MONTHLY 

 MAGAZINE, we take leave perhaps at the hazard of being deemed obtru- 

 sive to offer a few words, on our own account, to the public. We have 

 no disposition, in general, to talk about ourselves ; for, besides that there 

 prevails (we understand) a considerable distaste in the world to read upon 

 such subjects, they are, of all others in the world as every author 

 knows who has tried the experiment the most difficult and unmanage- 

 able to write about. But there are "occasions when it becomes almost 

 the unavoidable duty of men conducting a literary speculation of some 

 magnitude, to remind their friends of what their pretensions great or 

 small to patronage, are ; as well as to return those friends thanks for 

 the favours which they have received. 



To begin, then, with the latter task, as the most grateful. We have 

 to return thanks for that patronage which has enabled us starting with 

 our NEW SERIES as we did, at a period of unexampled depression in the 

 Book-trade to congratulate ourselves, from the commencement of our 

 labours, upon a steadily, and, of late upon a rapidly, increasing circula- 

 tion. It would be ridiculous to publish any documents, as apparent evi- 

 dence of this fact. On such evidence the public can never have any 

 check; and that circumstance alone would be a sufficient reason for 

 our not proposing it ; even if it were not the case as we regret to say 

 it is that the gross fallacies daily set forth to the same purpose, 

 have long made such declarations worthless in the eyes -of persons of 

 experience and judgment. The evidence of our prosperity we wish to 

 be found that is, as far as the public is concerned in finding it at all - 

 not in statements got up as to the sale of our Magazine, but in the qua- 

 lity and character of our Magazine itself, in the increased talent 

 which that success enables us to employ in our original papers ; in the 

 information, foreign as well as domestic, which it enables us to provide 

 upon all general, interesting, and , particularly upon scientific subjects; 

 and in the general, typographical arrangements of the work a point 

 which, in these days, becomes of no mean importance ; all these advan- 

 tages having been afforded as far as, in the opinion of our friends, they 

 may have been attained with a very trifling alteration, indeed, it will 

 be recollected, to our price. 



We commenced our NEW SERIES, as we have already observed, under 

 circumstances of some difficulty. The Magazine had, up to that time, 

 M.M. Nevt Series VoL.III. B 



