Spence, in the preface to his Polymetis, says, “there is not any sort of writing which he sits down to with so much reluctance as that of prefaces:” as we are somewhat inclined to his opinion, and moreover believe that most people are not much more given to reading them, than we are fond of writing them, we shall, for the reader's sake as well as our own, get over this as fast as is consistent with our duty. For, notwithstanding ordinary readers may be apt to skip over these little compositions, and that some even consider them as so many pages lost, the case is different with us; we have what may be called a literary duty to perform, and the present is one of the stated periods for that performance. We have to justify principles, to acknowledge patronage, to vindicate conduct, or to record gratitude. In a work avowedly the produce of auxiliary literature, the Editor must wait for the returns of this period to appear personally before the tribunal to which he is amenable: and above all we are bound not to neglect the opportunities which the embodying our monthly numbers into half-yearly volumes affords, for placing our thanksgiving to contributing friends upon more permanent record than the wrappers of the Chronicles; much too fugitive a medium to satisfy our feelings, or even to tranquillize our conscience.