THE ST. JAMES'S MEDLEY; OR FICTION, FACTS, AND FANCIES, FROM THE ROADSIDE OF LIFE. One word, reader, and then God speed thee. Do not open it at adventures, and Clericus es? legito hæc. Laicus legito ista libenter; VOL. I. LONDON: JOHN MITCHELL, PUBLISHER TO HER MAJESTY, 33, OLD BOND STREET. MDCCCLVI. PREFACE. "EVERY work of art," says the learned Johnson, "should have a beginning, a middle, and an end;" and we believe that these three essentials should follow each other in their natural sequence. Nevertheless, with the fear of the mighty Samuel before our eyes, we, having brought the First Volume of the MEDLEY to an End, with these few lines, now auspicate its Beginning. "Every book "worth the reading," says another great authority, "should com mence with a preface or greeting to the reader; giving him a "foretaste of the delights in store for him; or, at the least, if "such a foretaste be impossible, to state why no preface is "needed." We avail ourselves of this last clause, convinced that its learned and grave author had us in his mind's prospective eye when he wrote it, he clearly being that precocious individual who By strange fortuity o'ertook the age; And panting Time toiled after him in vain. Our preface, then, is written simply because none is needed. Our MEDLEY is so various as to demand at least a score of prefaces rightly to introduce its contents. Our witty Contributors should celebrate its Attic salt; our men of travel, its foreign research; our especial bard, its bright Flowers from Parnassus' Hill. How, in this dull Bounderby age of facts and reality, can we venture to be, like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once? One word more, and we have done. For our Contributors, we implore them to write carefully,remembering the importance of their task; and that, as a pint goblet will but contain a pint, so but a fiftieth part of their offerings can possibly find room in our quarterly pages. For our Readers, we implore them to increase and multiply; especially in the parish of our patron, St. James. For our Critics, we would have them as they are-inexorably just, unutterably sage, and incomparably polite. For ourselves, as we have hitherto done, so will we continue to strive, to the utmost, to please all our friends, and still avoid the dangerous and fatal policy of the Miller and his Sons, who, in the vain attempt to please all parties, at last carried the ass they should have ridden. Given at our Hall of St. James, October 28th, 1256. |