TO THE PUBLIC. 
Taz MONTHLY MAGAZINE, thirty years ago, gave birth to a new era 
in Periodical Literature; and its‘example has done good by the crowd of 
imitators it has engendered. The great change, however, in the spirit and 
demands of the present age, calls for increased exertion, and a higher display 
of intellectual acquirement. The Proprietors, therefore, have determined to 
commence the ensuing year with a NEW SERIES of the Monruty Maca- 
ZINE upon an improved and more extensive scale. 
They meditate however no change that will affect its real value, or interrupt 
the sources of its popularity, especially its zealous advocacy of the intellectual 
elevation of the great body of the people. Their sole wish is, to render the 
spirit and genius of the Magazine more completely in harmony with the feel- 
ings and taste of the age, by infusing a larger portion of the essence of 
General Literature into those pages, which constitute the first and most promi- 
nent division of the work, and by varying the graver subjects of Political 
Economy, Statistics, Chemistry, and Experimental Philosophy, after the mode 
of their more modern contemporaries, with Original Papers, either humorous, 
historical, or pathetic, interspersed with lively or acute disquisitions on 
Poetry, and the Belles-Lettres. ‘ 
Contributions by the most esteemed writers of the day will be regularly 
introduced, and the Literary Varieties will be enriched by larger extracts, 
without trenching on the claims of a large body of the earliest and most res- 
pectable patrons of the Magazine. In lieu of any diminution taking place in 
the department of Original Communications, it is the intention of the Pro= 
prietors to improve it, by presenting a better selection, and a greater quantity 
of original papers. 1 
They trust that the Magazine will thus become a Progressive Periodical 
Encyclopedia, and Universal Register of Science, Literature, Philosophy, and 
Bibliography ; since it will keep pace with the progress of human knowledge. 
In order to administer to the general thirst for every description of know- 
Tedge, and to leave nothing untouched, condensation will be one of the 
main features of the Philosophical, Bibliogtaphical, and Scientific departments. 
Every individual attached to the study of any branch of the sciences, must 
constantly aim at obtaining a collection of those interesting and inferential 
facts by which science extends her dominion, and aggrandizes the empire of 
_ man oyer nature; but to do this he should become thoroughly acquainted 
with all the works which relate to the object of his study. Yet how much 
more 
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