g years, and, when all the other faculties for receiving
pleasure are impaired by old age and infirmity, to cast the sunshine of
delight over the last moments of our existence.

In no age or country has the improvement of the intellectual powers of
man made a larger share of the business of life than in these in which
we live. In the promotion of this spirit the stage has been an
instrument of considerable efficacy, and, as such, lays claim to a full
share of critical examination; yet, owing to some cause, which it seems
impossible to discover, that very important subject has been little
attended to in this great commonwealth; and in Philadelphia, the
principal city of the union, has been almost totally neglected. No
apology, therefore, can be thought necessary for offering the present
work to the public.

The utility of miscellanies of this kind has been sometimes called in
question; nor are those wanting who condemn the whole tribe of light
periodical productions, as detrimental to the advancement of solid
science and erudition: yet, in the most learned and enlightened nations
of Europe, magazines and periodical compilations have, for more than a
century, been circulated with vast success, and, within the last twenty
years, increased in price as well as number, to an extent that shows how
essentially the public opinion, in that quarter of the world differs
from that of the persons who condemn them.

Taking that decision as a decree without appeal, in favour of such
works, the editors think themselves authorized in offering the present
without any formal apology. If the perusal of such productions had a
tendency to prevent the youth of the country from aspiring to deep and
solid erudition, or to divert men of talents from the prosecution of
more important studies, the editors would be among the last to make any
addition to the stock already in circulation; but, convinced that, on
the contrary, works of that kind promote the advancement of general
knowledge, they have no scruple whatever in offering this to the
American people; and so firm do they feel in the conviction of its
utility, that they let it go into the world, unaided by any of those
arts, or specious professions which are sometimes employed, in similar
cases, to excite the attention, enlist the partialities, and seduce the
judgment of the public.

Of those who possess at once the talents, the leisure, and the
inclination to hunt erudition into its deepes