PREFACE. IN concluding the SECOND VOLUME of our Miscellany, it is with no ordinary satisfaction that we look back upon our Work, and, in measuring our performance with our promise, consider ourselves entitled rather to the thanks and acknowledgments of our Readers, than compelled, according to ordinary practice, to sue for grace and favour, to extenuate omissions, and demand pardon for breach of faith. If this be the language of pride, we trust, nevertheless, that it is the language of truth. And it is surely better to have placed ourselves in a situation of just, though lofty pretensions, by exertions beyond our promises, and the warranted expectations of our Subscribers, than to have been condemned, at the winding up of a Volume, to slur over all recollection of our pledges, and to have commenced another course of boast and ostentation, with a long arrear of broken faith. A slight review of what we have done in the last Volume of our Magazine, will sufficiently impress upon our Readers' minds the truth of our assertion. And first, as far as regards the decorative part of our Work: In our last Numbers we have constantly given the Figures in one of our two Plates of Fashion, COLOURED. This may be considered by some as a material improvement, others will estimate it more cheaply, but all must concur in pronouncing it a very heavy and additional expence to the Proprietors,-an expence, moreover, for which they did not stand engaged, and which must, of consequence, be more praiseworthy in the Reader's estimation. Some of the Portraits likewise, in the latter Numbers, have been executed with a degree of skill and taste which, they confess, had not been obtained in their former Numbers, and rarely been equalled in any other Work. The Proprietors may here refer to the Portrait of the EMPRESS OF RUSSIA, in No. 16. which for spirit and delicacy of execution, taste and acuracy of likeness, has never been excelled by any engraving of a similar sort. The MUSICAL department of their Work has been improved in the same manner; and they may confidently affirm, that a more choice collection of original English Songs, each expressive and characteristic of the skill and taste of its peculiar Composer, has never appeared in any similar publication. The names of the most eminent Masters, and those only, will be found in the list of the contributors; and the present Work on this account, if no other, would be well worthy of public encourage ment. a 2 In respect to the LITERARY department of this Miscellany, the Proprietors have Having taken this just and necessary retrospect, the Proprietors have not much to Animated by past favours, and happy in the prospect of opening new resources, the OR, Bell's COURT AND FASHIONABLE MAGAZINE, FOR JANUARY, 1807. EMBELLISHMENTS. 1. The Portrait of HER ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCESS SOPHIA, finely engraven, by special 4. The authentic ROXBOROUGH EVENING DRESS, as worn by the Duchess of ROXBOROUGH. 6. A NEW SONG, set to Music for the Piano-Forte, by Dr. CALCOTT, expressly and exclu- 7. Two new and elegant PATTERNS FOR NEEDLE-WORK. London: Printed by and for J. BELL, Proprietor of the WEEKLY MESSENGER, Southampton-Street, |