‘Discourse sweet music,’ with thy tiny tongue,
And unto Pan, who habits in the shades,
And roves the mountains and the fields among.
Then, freed from love, my noontide sleep I’ll take,
Beneath the shadow which the plane-trees make.
And now, dear reader, thou hast gathered with me a few of the many wild-flowers, which bloom in the Anthology, but are known only to the student, and appreciated only by the scholar. If thou art not interested in them, it is either because thou art not gifted with a love for the simple and the beautiful, or else because that simplicity and beauty have perished in the medium through which thou hast seen them. I am no man-worshipper, and, I hope, no nation-worshipper. Yet I love, admire, and venerate the Greeks; and though I might in liberality allow that there have been minds more mighty than any of the Grecian race, yet it might be shown by the strongest of moral proof—the sentiments of nations, and the evidence of facts—that they were the brightest, simplest, and most classic nation on the earth. I say, it might be shown, and should occasion serve, I will show it. Meanwhile I will content myself with the hope that you may be blessed with an Attic reduplication of wit, a temporal augment in the riches and honors of this world, and a spiritual aspiration after all that is beautiful in knowledge, and all that is generous in deed.
Hermeneutes.
“OUR MAGAZINE,”
Is doing very well—but might do better. It has hitherto had subscribers enough to support it—it has never lacked communications—it has never been so unfortunate as at one and the same time to displease every body—it has been constantly sustained by the countenance of able friends, and the attacks of weak enemies—its general character has been approved by the ‘leading prints’—many articles have been copied from it, not without the most gratifying compliments—even the editors have not lost their meed of praise.
So much for the first part of our remark, that the Magazine is ‘doing well’—now for the less pleasing adjunct, ‘that it might do better.’ We might have more subscribers—and all our subscribers might pay as they engage to—our articles might be more varied and more excellent—and by an increase of patronage, we should be enabled to enlarge the size, and improve the mechanical appearance of the work—and, in a word, make it more worthy of the institution from which it takes its name, and which it is our especial delight to honor.