PREFACE 



TO 



THE EIGHTH VOLUME. 



At the commencement of the Eighth Volume of The Monthly 

 Magazine, we willingly avail ourselves of an old and grateful custom^ 

 and thank our Readers for their continued indulgence. 



This publication devolved into our hands at a period which deeply 

 tried the public mind. Having no purposes to answer but those of truth 

 and honour, we spoke our convictions freely, yet without violence ; of 

 public men we gave our sentiments without fear or favour ; yet we strictly 

 respected the barrier of private life ; mere personality found no refuge in 

 our pages ; we tore the veil from none of those foibles whose detection 

 is so much oftener the work of private mahce than of public justice. No 

 private individual has been offended, nor shall be offended, in The 

 Monthly Magazine. 



Our political principles are known. They are unchanged, and 

 unchangeable. Taking the British Constitution for the model of political 

 excellence, and studying it by the light of those illustrious minds who 

 still, from the tomb, are the teachers of mankind, we have sternly resisted 

 poUtical innovation. Honouring, with solemn and reverent homage, the 

 religion of our fathers, we have laboured to sustain the purity and power 

 of its cause in England. But if the hour of its trial have come ; if it 

 have been compelled to humiliations which may yet utterly depress and 

 fetter its high nature ; it shall find in us no dishonour, no eagerness to 

 abandon a cause that, to the last, wiU be the noblest that can awake the 

 heart of man. 



The lighter portions of our publication have been received with more 

 than sufficient popularity. Within the last year, a long succession of 

 ingenious papers, tales of every country and nharacteristic kind, and 

 poetry, chiefly the lighter and occasional styles, ii^ve been supplied by 

 a large circle of contributors. This Country and the Contment have 

 equally furnished the writers ; and though it is customary to suppress 

 names, there are those among them of whom we may justly say, that any 

 publication would be proud. 



