ve
sought to acquire good for ourselves, and to do good to others during
the present year, reflections upon its approaching close need not be
painful; it should be to us a source of high gratification, that,
enjoying as we have enjoyed, and mourning as we have mourned, we are
nearer the union of the good who have gone before us, and further from
the ills that follow upon our footsteps; and as we close our year, or
close our life, may we throw back from joyous, grateful hearts, a
smile of virtuous pleasure, which shall enrich the stern clouds that
have passed us with the bow of promise of pleasures that are to come.
C.

* * * * *

GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE FOR 1849.--The new volume of Graham's Magazine, to
be commenced with the January number, will, beyond all doubt, be the
most elegant volume that has ever been issued of this most popular of
all the American monthlies. The ample experience and liberal
expenditure of money by the publishers, the ability of its host of
contributors, the editorial tact which will be brought into service,
and the genius and skill of the artists engaged to embellish it, must
more than sustain the high position it has heretofore held in public
estimation. The magazine literature of this country is destined to a
warmer appreciation in the public regard, as it becomes purged from
the sickly sentimentality which degrades public taste, and when the
first minds in the nation are found devoting solid thought to adorn
and elevate it. A few years since, the highest aim of contemporary
competition seemed to be to fill a given number of pages with the
silly effusions of a class of writers whose feeble powers and false
taste were gradually undermining public regard, and bringing this
branch of national literature into contempt and disgrace, but the
higher aims of the publishers of the now leading periodicals, evinced
in the engagement of the brightest intellect of the country, have
raised American periodicals to a scale second to none in the world.

Blackwood and Frazer, in England, and The Knickerbocker and "Graham's
Magazine," in America, now stand side by side, and by paying liberally
for talent, command the very highest. It may be doubted, however,
whether in this country the _force_ of periodical writing has not been
in some degree impaired, by a diversion of the public eye and taste in
the smaller class of magazines with feeble aims, to engravings and
pictures, many of which are but th