n which they
are expressed is chaste and strong. In a country like ours, where the vast
population move by common impulse; think promptly, are enlightened with
ease, and turn to the best account that knowledge which is received with
the greatest facility; are inspired with sacred and patriotic feelings
from the bar, the senate, the pulpit, and the press; it is important and
just that the readiest methods and means of instructive moral amusement
should be the most esteemed and the best supported. I confess I never look
into a Magazine, that I do not liken it to a large and pure reservoir of
refreshing waters; derived from many streams, and prankt around its
borders with the flowers and garniture of poesy; possessing qualities
agreeable to every taste--the grave, the solid, the scientific, the light,
the gay. It is a map of the higher moods of life. It conveys a sustenance
with the relish of pleasure. All who favor it with their productions have
different tastes and faculties of mind. Each one endeavors to do the best
with his theme. He ornaments it in diction, or tasks his fancy, or
explores the secrets of science, or illustrates the events and scenes of
his country: he excites broad-mouthed laughter, by salutary jest and pun;
he expatiates in pathetic sentences, or murmurs in the mellow cadence of
song; or arouses interest by the embellishments wherewith history is
refined, and which shed a light over the dim annals of the past, making
them to smile,

----'even as the radiant glow,
Kindling rich woods, whereon the etherial bow
Sleeps lovingly awhile.'

'Now what I thought beside, while looking over my proof, was this: that a
'circulating medium,' through which so many minds communicated their
thoughts, produced and clothed with befitting language in solitary labor;
smoothed, strengthened, or harmonized by revision, and rendered impressive
by those helps and researches of which every _readable_ writer must avail
himself; such a medium, I say, merits the esteem and respect of all. It
deserves not to be taken up for judgment, at a momentary glance, by the
undiscerning eye of careless inquiry. It should be read impartially, and
spoken of, in all worthy points, with praise; in faulty ones, with
tenderness. Our literature, I take it, is not yet a sufficiently flowery
pursuit, to enable any of its votaries to sow its walks with brambles. By
its influence, _the country_ is to be mentally illustrated; the clanking
shackl