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A WORD TO MY READERS.

WHILE venturing this step in the universal march of periodicals, let it be understood that I am not playing with Fortune at "pitch and toss" in a desperate or calculating mood of literary gambling, nor am I anxious to declare myself a mental Joan of Arc, bearing special mission to save the people in their noble war against Ignorance and Wrong. I simply prepare a plain feast, where the viands will be all of my own choosing, and some of my own dressing, hoping that if what I provide be wholesome and relishing, I shall have a host of friends at my board, whose kind words and cheerful encouragement will keep me in a proud and honourable position at the head of the table.

I have been too long known by those whom I address,

to feel strange in addressing them. My earliest rhymes, written from intuitive impulse, before hackneyed experience or politic judgment could dictate their tendency, were accepted and responded to by those whose good word is a "tower of strength." The first active breath of nature that swept over my heart strings, awoke wild but earnest melodies, which I dotted down in simple notes; and when I found that others thought the tune worth learning—when I heard my strains hummed about the sacred altars of domestic firesides, and saw old men, bright women, and young children scanning my ballad strains, then was I made to think that my burning desire to pour out my soul's measure of music was given for a purpose. My young bosom throbbed with rapture, for my feelings had met with responsive echoes from honest and genuine Humanity, and the glory of heaven seemed partially revealed, when I discovered that I held power

over the affections of earth.

The same spirit which prompted my first attempts will mark my present one. What I have done has found generous support,-let me trust that what I may do will still meet the kind hand of help. I have full confidence in my friends, and believe if I offer them the combination of utility and amusement, which I hope to be enabled to

[PRICE 14d.

do, they will freely take the wares I bring, and not think worse of me for mixing with them in the market-place of Activity and Labour.

Let it not be imagined I am appointing myself any particular right to lead or teach "the people." Let it not be said that I am striving to become a moral "Mrs. Trimmer" to the million; rather let me confess that I have a distaste for the fashion so violently adopted of talking to "the people," as though they needed an army of self-sacrificing champions to do battle for them, and rescue them from the "Slough of Despond." I am only anxious to give my feeble aid to the gigantic struggle for intellectual elevation now going on, and fling my energies and will into a cause where my heart will zealously animate my duty.

It is too true that there are dense clouds of Ignorance

yet to be dissipated-huge mountains of Error yet to be removed; but, there is a stirring development of progressive mind in "the mass," which only requires steady and free communion with Truth to expand itself into that enlightened and practical wisdom on which ever rests the

perfection of social and political civilization; and I believe that all who work in the field of Literature with sincere desire to serve the many by arousing generous sympathies and educational tastes, need make little profession of their service, for few instances can be adduced where "the people" have not had sufficient perception to

thoroughly estimate those who were truly "with" and

"for" them.

I only ask a trial at the hands of those who have

hitherto honoured me by their adoption. I will give them the best my judgment can offer from the co-operation of healthy and vigorous talent, and my own continued efforts. I have strong faith in being received by my "auld acquaintance" with gracious and familiar welcome; but, should I fail in my attempt to gain the patronage I so covet, I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I have endeavoured to deserve success.

ELIZA COOK.

CHEAP READING.

WHEN the world was in its leading strings, it was usual to invoke some supernatural agent to fructify an author's brains; hence arose, no doubt, prayers to Apollo and the Muses. We, anxious in our endeavour to do justice at once to the progress of education, and the estimation of our readers, prefer for our literary Lucina that unromantic neglected genius-Common Sense.

The present era may be regarded as one of intellectual congestion and physical distress; the fever of the mind absorbs almost the pangs of hunger; the craving desire for knowledge keeps pace with the ravenous demand for bodily sustenance; the press is taxed for supply, and no pens need lie fallow if they possess but skill enough to conduct their hero to the end of a story, to be murdered or married at pleasure;

"Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode,

And tales of terror jostle on the road."

of the intellect by perusal of newspapers alone, silently and rapidly extends to an inconceivable amount in every individual who reads them. By them we are brought within the radius of reality; men's acts here speak, the world is stereotyped, and facts constitute the food given by these gigantic granaries of intelligence to nourish reflection, as they concentrate to the focus of a glance, the virtues which sustain, the crimes which shock whole empires. Allow their opinions to be partial, judgment thrives upon attrition, and the contrast between rival champions and opposing causes, exercises the elements of each individual mind, to adjudicate the issue. Even in what is termed light reading, we desire to approximate to an accurate estimate of life, to distinguish the superficial from the solid, truth from theory, whereby weakness may not obliterate inherent good; but experience, speaking its resistless conviction, exhibit things just as they are.

The lightest works of fiction, if written with a moral aim, tend to universal exaltation; and let us not ungrateA man's thoughts find their way to the publisher's fully forget what vast amount of benefit these attractive before he is aware that he has uttered them; and amidst productions induce, by fostering a love of purer recreaall this plenty, it is absurd to suppose there is not tions than the young would otherwise cultivate, and by abundance of real nourishment attainable; yet the mind withdrawing the mind from habits of questionable or may be crammed, not nourished, and the reckless abuse decidedly pernicious influence, to the sacred precincts of of literary profusion develope the superficial smatterer, domestic affection. Every one creates for himself a home, instead of the nerved giant of deep thought. It is the if reality denies one, he seeks it in the ideal; and as province of Self-Discipline, to regulate the traffic of ideas the last sign of utter depravity is the incapacity to on the mind's highway, not to suffer this last to degene-imagine good, so a strong hand to lead back the wanderer rate into a common thoroughfare for all passengers, but to is to apply representations founded upon probabilities, to act as an honest collector by taking toll of the travellers beguile from vice by picturing virtue more attractive. upon this beaten track to ascertain their real character, The labour, therefore, employed by the writers of fiction, that there may be fewer mischievous and disorderly derives no unworthy meed in the augmented tenacity vagrants about it. with which they lead us to cling to the hearth of earlyLike all other super-eminent influences, the literature loved associations; so that in the lulls of our after being of a people is capable of the most tremendous opposites the intervals of the tempests of life--enthusiasm of of good and ill, at one time becoming the prolific origin feeling is cherished, and the pathway of the affections of social discord, at another the nurse of the affections, kept open by the myriad reminiscences connected with and the parent of domestic union. Montaigne complained some favourite tale perused in that circle-" home”— that, "we only toil and labour to stuff the memory, and before the young heart had become touched by woridly in the mean time, leave the conscience and the under- selfishness. Who among us shall outgrow the memory standing unfurnished and void." At present our literature of the fresh hopes, glad impulses, and eager interests that seems chiefly framed for amusement, and even upon sub-kindled within us when we first read "Robinson Crusoe," jects of vital influence to the State, the partisan is armed and the disputant provided with every weapon, except acquaintance with the first principles of his subject. But though the character peculiarly injurious to the public good is the merely superficial reader, yet the remedy to It is upon the true, whether in morals or science, the his mischief is not in reading less, but in reading more; works of modern literature should be based; nor will and, therefore, let the fervour of intellectual pursuits be either amusement or pathos be wanting. So long as man encouraged; but it should be after knowledge, not ex- continues what he is, Democritus will not need a subject citement, exercised not upon the fortunes of a fictitious for a smile, nor Heraclitus for a sigh. In fiction, congefair one, or subjunctive hero, who might, could, would, niality with fact-in humorous composition, some fair or should, yet never has been, but upon the stern reali-ground whereon wit may shape its weapon, should be ties of actual life, breaking up the mist of prejudiced opinion.

and who shall glance back on those precious emotions without a mother's image, a father's voice, and the “old familiar faces" coming thick upon us with their refining and sacred influences.

preserved-whilst in the perusal of political or moral science, opinion must not be handed over utterly to the thraldom of pedantic empirics, who, tottering from the altitude of their own pretence, threaten to involve the public also in the ruin of their fall. The vague apprehension entertained by some that an aristocracy of intellect would unsettle the fabric of society, is but the nightmare of a narrow mind and a willing ignorance; for no question can exist as to the increase of moral gain resulting from the pre-eminence of subordinate reason over rebellious brutality.

"Wolverton! Wolverton! stop here five minutes, gentlemen!" There is a general rush; the living load issues from those ponderous vehicles, and scarcely one returns without some cheap publication. "The Times, -Morning Papers!" salute the ear; that long stand crowded with its particoloured volumes attracts the eye. Here is a difference to the wearisome journeys of old times, when the traveller between London and its sister metropolis of the north had an affair of days before him, during which his body, cramped in a cumbrous coach, was The province of the literary philanthropist is clear-to a type of his intellectual inertness, stagnating in somno- circulate widely, under every shape, elements of truth; lent stupor, or feverish fatigue; anon, alternating between to strengthen the bands of society by instruction, and to the calculated approximation to his next stage, or the cement national union by social and domestic recreation. remembered accommodation of his last inn! Contrast The love of families engendered by this potent, but quiet the dreary drowsiness in the one, with the ceaseless pro- influence, extends and evolves itself into patriotism, and cess of thought and its material, in the other case, and a correct sense of social and political freedom, grounded recollecting that by the interchange of ideas, personally on the only safe basis-discipline of mind. It circulates or in pages, the disposition of society is formed, estimate the healthy current of the affections, and elevates and the immense responsibility attached to the increased strengthens at the same time. Men, notwithstanding facilities of this mental communication. The education | their vaunted independence, love to get others to think

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