INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND VOLUME.
BERNARD BLACKMANTLE TO THE PUBLIC.
"The Muse's office was by Heaven design'd
To please, improve, instruct, reform mankind."
—Churchill.
Readers!—friends, I may say, for your flattering support has enabled me to continue my Sketches of Society to a second volume with that prospect of advantage to all concerned which makes labour delightful—accept this fresh offering of an eccentric, but grateful mind, to that shrine where alone he feels he owes any submission—the tribunal of Public Opinion. In starting for the goal of my ambition, the prize of your approbation, I have purposely avoided the beaten track of other periodical writers, choosing for my subjects scenes and characters of real life, transactions of our own times, characteristic, satirical, and humorous, confined to no particular place, and carefully avoiding every thing like personal ill-nature or party feeling. My associates, the Artists and Publishers, are not less anxious than myself to acknowledge their gratitude; and we intend to prove, by our united endeavours, how highly we appreciate the extensive patronage we have already obtained.
BERNARD BLACKMANTLE,
