t recesses, the number must
ever be inconsiderable; and of that number the portion must be small
indeed, who could be diverted from that pursuit by the casual perusal of
light fugitive pieces. On the other hand, the great majority of mankind
would be left without inducement to read, if they were not supplied, by
publications of the kind proposed, with matter adapted to their
circumstances, to their capacities, and their various turns of fancy;
matter accessible to them by its conciseness and perspicuity, attractive
by its variety and lightness, and useful by its easy adaptation to the
familiar intercourse of life, and its fitness to enter into the
conversation of rational society. Men whose time and labour are chiefly
engrossed by the common occupations of life, have little leisure to
read, none for what is called study. In books they do not search for
deep learning, but for amusement accompanied with information on general
topics, conveyed with brevity; happy if, in seeking relaxation from the
drudgery of business, they can pick up some new particles of knowledge.
For this most useful and numerous portion of society, some adequate
intellectual provision ought to be made. Nor should it be imagined that,
in supplying them, the general interests of literature are deserted. The
frequent perusal of well collated miscellanies imparts to youth an
appetite for diligent reading; by slow but certain gradation, stores the
young mind with valuable ideas; accumulates in it a large stock of
useful knowledge; and imperceptibly insinuates a correct and refined
taste. Nor is this all. It may serve, as it often has, to rouse the
indolent from the gratification of complexional sloth, and recall the
unthinking and irregular from the haunts of dissipation and vice to the
blessings of serious reflection.

Few things have more tended to inflame the general passion for
literature in Great Britain than the practice of uniting the plan of the
reviews with that of the magazines, and making them jointly vehicles of
dramatic criticism. Multitudes at this day know the character of books,
and form a general conception of their subjects, who, but for the light
periodical publications, would never have known that such books existed:
many who would not otherwise have extended their reading beyond the
columns of a newspaper, are led by the pleasures of a represented play,
to read the critic's strictures upon it, and thence, by a natural
transition, to p