PREFACE. WE are again called on by the recurring season to thank our readers for their continued support, and our contributors and correspondents for their valuable and obliging assistance. Since we last had occasion to address them, nothing of remarkable importance in literature claims a particular notice; but the current has still flowed onward in its useful though silent course; and though some of the deposits which it has left, separately considered, may be thought trifling, yet a wise man will think nothing a trifle which makes an addition to our previous stock of knowledge. The great pyramid itself was built of single and separate stones, laboriously collected, and accurately combined; and he who aspires to raise a work of literary renown, must be content to imitate the builder of antiquity. If the naturalist tells us that he can, from the smallest tooth or even nail of a fossil animal,. tell you the order it belonged to, its size, nature, habits, and the period in which it lived, so that its entire form should present itself before the mental eye, so the antiquary can inform us, that the recovery of a single letter in an inscription will at once throw a clear effulgence on the whole; so little are we to judge of the value of things by their apparent worth as seen in a casual and superficial view! Doctor Johnson says it is the privilege of real greatness not to be afraid of diminution by stooping to the notice of little things, and he who is able to remove the smallest obstacle in the path of literature becomes its benefactor. We have now only to add that, in the spirit of these observations, it is our intention to give two more papers to the subject of Shakespeare, in which our attention will be chiefly employed in the consideration of particular passages in the text. It is in many cases a humble office, but one which men of the greatest talents have not been unwilling to undertake; we shall be satisfied if we can add any GENERAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA |
