THE COUNTRY CURATE. CHAPS. VI. VII. VIII. and IX. THE SMUGGLERS, 529

TWENTY-ONE MAXIMS TO MARRY BY. ADDRESSED TO THE SINGLE GEN-

TLEMEN,

568

THE BARLEY-FEVER-AND REBUKE, FROM MANSIE WAUCH'S AUTOBIO-

GRAPHY,

574

PRODIGALITY OF Words,

578

PRIVATE POETRY. VISIONS OF IRISH STORY. BY ERINIUS,

587

COUNT BISMARK AND HIS WORKS,

590

THE LETTERS OF E. B. WAVERLEY, Esq. TO M. MALAGROWTHER, ESQ.

596

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, No. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH ;
AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON;

To whom Communications (post-paid) may be addressed.

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:

FRIENDLY EPISTLE TO JOHN BULL, ESQUIRE, FROM ONE OF THE OLD

GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA.-DENHAM AND CLAPPERTON'S JOUR-

CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL, BY LIVY, TRANSLATED INTO GREEK. COM-

721

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, No. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH ;
AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON;

To whom Communications (post-paid) may be addressed.

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PREFACE.

THE Commencement of a new Volume of our Magazine appears to us a proper opportunity for taking a general review of our labours, their effects, and their tendency. We may truly say, and without fear of contradiction, that our Magazine has excited more attention, whether for praise or blame, that any periodical which ever existed in this country; and it may be worth while to say something about the cause which produced that notoriety; to state the principles which entitled us, as we think, justly, to the enco-* miums, and exposed us, as we think, unjustly, to the abuse, which it has been our lot to meet.

When we started, in 1817, the party to which we have always been attached was sadly in want of literary defenders. While the excitement of the war lasted, the paper pellets wherewith ministers were pelted, were of little moment; for the nation was too deeply engaged to think seriously of such things. The ardent spirits were abroad; and the stake played for was too deep to allow those who remained at home to be diverted from the game by anything less serious. When peace came on, the reaction which men of sense anticipated the change which Lord Castlereagh's phrase so admirably expressed-"the transition from a state of war to a state of peace,"was productive of more domestic misery than was remembered for a long time in England. Thousands thrown out of employment-the usual channels closed-no others as yet adequately opened—were of themselves sufficiently dreadful; but when to them were added the dreadful seasons of 1816 and 1817, when the crops failed all through Europe, it is no wonder that an