MABEL LYNDWOOD INTERCEDING FOR WYAT WITH HENRY. THE SEARCH FOR HERNE THE HUNTER. HERNE THE HUNTER APPEARING TO HENRY ON THE TERRACE. THE QUARREL IN THE KITCHEN OF THE CASTLE. VII THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HERNE IN THE CURFEW TOWER. VILL THE DISMISSAL OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. X.HERNE FLYING INTO THE BURNING WOODS WITH MABEL. X, ANNE BOLEYN RECEIVING PROOF OF HENRY'S PASSION FOR JANE With numerous Illustrations on Wood, by W. Alfred Delamotte, TO OUR READERS. THE opening of a new volume brings with it that prefatory page, which, besides offering, as in the present instance, a medium for wishing, in the most cordial spirit, a "happy new year" to all Gentle Readers, affords the ground for a brief conference on subjects of mutual interest to them and to ourselves. And the first point, which is indeed of deep interest to us, is also one of congratulation to them;-that they are, at this the commencement of our third volume, a more numerous race of readers than at any former period of our short but animated career. This fact, which at once recognises and rewards every exertion of the past, renders simple and easy the slight reference we shall here make to the changes which have taken place in the execution of our original plan. Entering upon them with great confidence, yet not without some anxiety, we can refer to them now as enlargements of our design, which have found, in the entire success of the Magazine and the expressed approval of the Public, their fullest justification. The sense of this success, gradually growing month by month, has been the inspirer and the lightener of all our labours. Nor has its kindling influence been less felt by the many distinguished writers whom we have had the honour to associate with us in this periodical enterprise. To that animating spirit which a friendly sympathy ever infuses into a literary alliance, we unquestionably owe an obligation; yet there has been something, also, in the general impression that the new Magazine was rapidly becoming influential and prosperous, that has tended to give health and life to their endeavours. Success is the great invigorator of talent. The orator rarely addresses the few with the best effect. The actor, to be in earnest, demands that the passion he paints shall be witnessed by a large audience. Even the poet, while pretending to be satisfied with sees in imagination three or four millions beside, peeping at him over the shoulder of Posterity. That our friends and fellow-labourers in the happy fields of romance, essay-writing, and song, have felt, in the spirit which they have flung into their compositions, that they had attached themselves to no failing or doubtful adventure, renders its prosperity doubly gratifying. We may be permitted to remind our old readers, and to inform such new ones as the new year may bring, of the exertions already made to fulfil our first promises. These exertions may best be estimated by a glance at the list of contributors to the volumes already published. we enumerate MISS L. S. COSTELLO, COUNTESS HARRIETTE D'ORSAY, MRS. GORE, HON. JULIA AUGUSTA MAYNARD, HON. MRS. NORTON, Among the ladies, MISS PARDOE, MISS SKELTON, MRS. STONE, MRS. WARD, in addition to others, who, like the gifted C. S., retire under the transparent shade of their initials. To this list we have yet three names to add; the names of artists, who, in a different way, have zealously worked out the purposes of this periodical, and with unequalled power illustrated its pages. We simply append the names of GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, TONY JOHANNot, and W. ALFRED DELAMOTTE. To the high talent associated with these names; to the popularity which so many of them have obtained; above all, as an element of success, to the variety of powers thus united, much consideration is due;-but we feel that we should have done. little in merely securing great and various talent, had it not been so exercised as generally to serve some moral end, as well as to gratify a desire for amusement; to administer, in many ways, to the higher as to the less ambitious objects of periodical writing; and to advance the solid and permanent, no less than the light and temporary purposes of literature. Such, at least, was our design-its partial fulfilment is before the reader. We say its partial fulfilment, because, in what has been done, we still see but a portion of what was projected. Much of novelty remains to be brought forward, but we now need scarcely say, that it will never be in the shape of covert slander, personal attack, or indecent frivolity. Neither in our sketches of life and manners shall we treat the world worse than we should treat an individual-rating it as a Pandemonium, because it happens not to be a Paradise. In pursuing the laughable, we shall not seek out the mere passing humours and idle events of the day, because these are so happily caught by publications more fitted to chronicle them. rary notices we shall go on as we began. war on books or authors, but seek rather to find out what is good and honest and pleasant in rivals and contemporaries, giving our readers the benefit of the discovery. In a word, we would render our work, in the best moral and literary sense, a FAMILY MAGAZINE. Again, in our liteWe make no fierce If, on these terms, and with these promises, the said readers are inclined to go forward with us—as we have had little quarrel with anybody hitherto, we hope to have still less hereafter, and as we have enjoyed much favour, we hope to win more. LONDON, 28th December, 1842. |