A WEEKLY LITERARY JOURNAL: CONTAINING I. ESSAYS, ON SUBJECTS OF LITERATURE, THE FINE ARTS AND MANNERS. II. BIBLIOGRAPHIANA. ACCOUNT OF RARE AND CURIOUS BOOKS, AND OF THE BOOK SALES IN THIS COUNTRY, FROM THE CLOSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. III. ROYAL INSTITUTION. ANALYSES OF THE LECTURES DELIVERED WEEKLY. IV. BRITISH GALLERY. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL PICTURES EXHIBITED FOR SALE, WITH THE NAMES OF THE PURCHASERS. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM SAVAGE, BEDFORD BURY: SOLD BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW; J. HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO HER MAJESTY, 190, PICCADILLY; AND W. MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1807. LIBRARY UNIVERSIT CALIFORNIA DAVIS THE DIRECTOR. No. I. SATURDAY, JAN. 24, 1807. Sortiti ingenium, divinorumque capaces, Juv. Sat. 15. Gifted with superior powers, And capable of things divine, 'tis ours, And from high Heaven deduce that better part, Gifford's Juvenal. THE boundary between savage and civilized man, between the most abject and the most elevated of our species, is marked and defined by the progress of the ARTS and SCIENCES. Their influence in cultivating and civilizing the human mind, the inventions and improvements to which they have given birth, and the domestic habits and affections which insensibly entwine themselves with their growth and cultivation, and acquire strength and power by their increase and prevalence, have produced, and for ever will produce, the most beneficial and important effects on the happiness and well being, the character and capacity, of man. But it is not merely in the civilization of savage man, and in the supply of the advantages of social life, that the arts and sciences are of important benefit. It is not merely in the infancy of society, but in its maturity and progress of existence, that they are eminently useful. Against the prevalence of that sensuality, which has corrupted and destroyed a succession of great empires where the arts and sciences have not been duly cultivated, they offer a delightful and efficacious remedy; protracting the period of decay and dissolution, and supplying from intellectual sources the rich gift of immortality. |