THE SPHYNX. 



To appear in the First Week of July. 



In this new Weekly Paper, it is intended, by the union of colossal dimensions with minute 

 variety of detail, to comprise, within the compass of a Double-Royal Sheet, the united advantages 

 of an independent Political Journal, an impartial Literary Review, and a faithful Chronicle of 

 General Intelligence, on all the diversified subjects that interest the public mind. 



The following accurate and characteristic description of the original Sphynx of antiquity will, 

 at once, account for the adoption of its name, as most appropriately expressive of the present 

 design ; and explain, distinctly', that peculiar charm, which it will be the object of especial care to 

 preserve, in a Work like this, intended to embrace so wide a range of popularity, and to offer to 

 the public eye such varied attractions of information, utility, and pleasure. 



" A sensible man," (says a learned and intelligent traveller,) "inquiring of me, what, of all I 

 " had seen in Egypt, had most excited my admiration, I answered, the nicety of proportion in 

 " the Sphynx, The wonder is, that, in a work of such colossal size, the sculptor should have 

 " been able to preserve the exact proportion of every part."* 



It is hoped that, by a happy union of all the varied traits and features of the times, in the 

 exact proportion of their power to instruct and delight, the same perfection of S3'mmetry may 

 be here re-produced, and that the Sphynx of modern days wiU be found to deserve the high 

 eulogium so justly bestowed on its archetype in earlier ages. The following are the facts, the rea- 

 sons, and the intentions, on which that hope is grounded. 



Of the numerous Weekly Papers now published in the Metropolis, though each is intended 

 for its own peculiar class of readers, yet the object of all is to suit their contents to those who see 

 no other Journals during the intervab between their respective days of publication. In conse- 

 quence of this general characteristic of the Weekly Press, the readers of the Daily Papers pub- 

 lished in London, and even of the Provincial Journals circulated in the counties, find a large 

 portion of every Metropolitan Weekly Paper occupied with abridged and imperfect Reports of 

 what they had seen at greater length in the Daily Prints ; leaving, therefore, nothing new to 

 reward their search, except the observations of the Editor and his Contributors, which, in any 

 Weekly Paper that can be named, form, of necessity, but a very small proportion of the whole of 

 its contents. 



Without trenching on ground already so fully occupied, and yielding to each its due tribute 

 of reputation and reward, it is intended, by the Proprietors of The Sphy^nx, to furnish that 

 large and intellectual class of readers, to whom the Daily Papers are accessible, — including all 

 persons and famiKes of wealth and consideration in the kingdom, — with an Original PolilicalJournal, 

 in which imperfect abridgments of what they have already seen at length will be avoided, and its 

 place supplied by bold and spirited Essays on all the great Political questions that agitate the 

 public mind, after the manner of the leading articles in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, — 

 at greater length, in greater variety, and with more deliberation, than is compatible with the ex- 

 isting mode of conducting either the Daily or the Weekly Press, where time is wanting for re- 

 flection in the one, and space is too limited for its expression in the other. 



With this exclusion of all useless repetition, not to mention the worthless and revolting 

 details with which so many of the Papers of the day abound, abundant space will be left, in a 

 second department of the same sheet, to engratl on this Political Journal all the most powerful 

 attractions of an impartial Literary Gazette and really Critical Review ; in which, besides original 



• From the Works of Abd-el- A-teef, an Arabian Physician and Traveller, native of Bagdad. 

 A.H. 6U0-A.D. 1203. 



