PREFACE. 



The completion of a Volume of the Madras Journal of 

 Literature and Science in its enlarged form, and the com- 

 mencement of another, seem to require a few words from 

 its new Editor. It is a source of unmingled satisfaction to 

 him that the anticipations he indulged in at the outset of 

 his Editorship, expressed in the circular letter addressed to 

 all parts of India, have been fully realized. Ample evidence 

 has been adduced, in the pages of the two last and present 

 numbers of the Journal, of its augmented dimensions hav- 

 ing been required by the talent and intelligence existing 

 within the Madras Presidency ; and most gratifying testimony 

 of public approbation is borne by the fact of a greatly en- 

 larged subscription list. 



It is with unfeigned humility that the Editor disavows any; 

 assumption of title or ability to lead public opinion, or to 

 dictate to the world on matters of literature and science. 

 He pleads only an ardent love of knowledge, and a desire for 

 its increase and dissemination, as his qualifications for the 

 office of a journalist : —looking to the master reapers in the 

 wide regions of nature and of art, to bring their full ears 

 of grain, while he performs the humble task of the labourer, 

 who binds them together into the sheaf for the storehouse. 

 If, in the performance of this lowly division of the intellec- 

 tual process, he gives satisfaction to his contributors, and 

 to the Society under whose auspices he labours, and is consi- 

 dered to have done any service to the cause of literature and 

 science, he will rejoice at the appropriation of his leisure 

 hours to the conduct of the Journal. He thinks it right 

 further to deprecate austere criticism, by reminding readers 

 that he undertakes the duties of Editor merely as an amateur. 

 They are the pastime, only, of a life whose serious thoughts 

 and studies are devoted to the public service and a laborious 

 profession ; and their performance is, necessarily, accomplished 



