The advantages of a correct judgment and refined taste in all matters connected with literature, are much greater than men in general imagine. The hateful passions have no greater enemies than a delicate taste and a discerning judgment, which give the possessor an interest in the virtues and perfections of others, and prompt him to admire, to cherish, and make them known to the world. Criticism, the parent of these qualities, therefore, mends the heart, while it improves the understanding. The influence of critical knowledge is felt in every department of social life, as it supplies elegant subjects for conversation, and enlarges the scope, and extends the duration of intellectual enjoyment. Without it, the pleasures we derive from the fine arts would be transient and imperfect; and poetry, painting, music, and that admirable epitome of life, the stage, would afford nothing more than a fugitive, useless, pastime, if not aided by the interposition of the judgment, and sent home, by the delightful process of criticism, to the memory, there to exercise the mind to the last of life, to be the amusement of our declining years, and, when all the other faculties for receiving pleasure are impaired by old age and infirmity, to cast the sunshine of delight over the last moments of our existence.
In no age or country has the improvement of the intellectual powers of man made a larger share of the business of life than in these in which we live. In the promotion of this spirit the stage has been an instrument of considerable efficacy, and, as such, lays claim to a full share of critical examination; yet, owing to some cause, which it seems impossible to discover, that very important subject has been little attended to in this great commonwealth; and in Philadelphia, the principal city of the union, has been almost totally neglected. No apology, therefore, can be thought necessary for offering the present work to the public.
The utility of miscellanies of this kind has been sometimes called in question; nor are those wanting who condemn the whole tribe of light periodical productions, as detrimental to the advancement of solid science and erudition: yet, in the most learned and enlightened nations of Europe, magazines and periodical compilations have, for more than a century, been circulated with vast success, and, within the last twenty years, increased in price as well as number, to an extent that shows how essentially the public opinion, in that quarter of the world differs from that of the persons who condemn them.
Taking that decision as a decree without appeal, in favour of such works, the editors think themselves authorized in offering the present without any formal apology. If the perusal of such productions had a tendency to prevent the youth of the country from aspiring to deep and solid erudition, or to divert men of talents from the prosecution of more important studies, the editors would be among the last to make any addition to the stock already in circulation; but, convinced that, on the contrary, works of that kind promote the advancement of general knowledge, they have no scruple whatever in offering this to the American people; and so firm do they feel in the conviction of its utility, that they let it go into the world, unaided by any of those arts, or specious professions which are sometimes employed, in similar cases, to excite the attention, enlist the partialities, and seduce the judgment of the public.
Of those who possess at once the talents, the leisure, and the inclination to hunt erudition into its deepest recesses, the number must ever be inconsiderable; and of that number the portion must be small indeed, who could be diverted from that pursuit by the casual perusal of light fugitive pieces. On the other hand, the great majority of mankind would be left without inducement to read, if they were not supplied, by publications of the kind proposed, with matter adapted to their circumstances, to their capacities, and their various turns of fancy; matter accessible to them by its conciseness and perspicuity, attractive by its variety and lightness, and useful by its easy adaptation to the familiar intercourse of life, and its fitness to enter into the conversation of rational society. Men whose time and labour are chiefly engrossed by the common occupations of life, have little leisure to read, none for what is called study. In books they do not search for deep learning, but for amusement accompanied with information on general topics, conveyed with brevity; happy if, in seeking relaxation from the drudgery of business, they can pick up some new particles of knowledge. For this most useful and numerous portion of society, some adequate intellectual provision ought to be made. Nor should it be imagined that, in supplying them, the general interests of literature are deserted. The frequent perusal of well collated miscellanies imparts to youth an appetite for diligent reading; by slow but certain gradation, stores the young mind with valuable ideas; accumulates in it a large stock of useful knowledge; and imperceptibly insinuates a correct and refined taste. Nor is this all. It may serve, as it often has, to rouse the indolent from the gratification of complexional sloth, and recall the unthinking and irregular from the haunts of dissipation and vice to the blessings of serious reflection.
Few things have more tended to inflame the general passion for literature in Great Britain than the practice of uniting the plan of the reviews with that of the magazines, and making them jointly vehicles of dramatic criticism. Multitudes at this day know the character of books, and form a general conception of their subjects, who, but for the light periodical publications, would never have known that such books existed: many who would not otherwise have extended their reading beyond the columns of a newspaper, are led by the pleasures of a represented play, to read the critic’s strictures upon it, and thence, by a natural transition, to peruse attentively the various other subjects which surround those strictures in the magazines. This is the reason why hundreds read the Monthly Mirror and similar productions of London, for one who reads the Rambler.
For the passionate love of books, and the rapid advancement of literature which distinguish her from all young countries, America is greatly indebted to her periodical publications. Those, though small in number, and, unfortunately, too often shortlived, have been read in their respective times and circles with great avidity, and produced a correspondent effect. The Port Folio alone raised, long ago, a spirit in the country which malicious Dulness itself will never be able to lay. Yet the disproportion in number of those miscellanies which have succeeded in America, to those which enrich the republic of letters in England, is astonishing, considering the comparative population of the two countries. London boasts of several periodical publications founded on the DRAMA alone; and though the other magazines occasionally contain short strictures on that subject, those have the greatest circulation which are most exclusively devoted to the stage.
In America there has not yet been one of that description.
To supply this defect, and raise the United States one step higher in laudable emulation with Great Britain, the editors have planned the present work, of which, (though not to the total exclusion of other matter) the basis will be