-the popish maxim of by-gone times, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion." The apophthegm of Lord Bacon that "knowledge is power" has become a truism as trite as the axiom. that "two and two make four." Every one knows, feels, and acknowledges the utility, necessity, and duty of cultivating his mind to an extent commensurate with his abilities and opportunities; and few are they who do not intuitively perceive the superiority of mental excellence over the adventitious accidents of rank and riches. In such a state of public opinion-with the fruits of literary culture before our eyes-with the triumphs of art and science on every side administering to our wants, our luxuries and our pleasures, we cannot be insensible to the advantages arising from this extensively diffused spirit of enquiry, and the rapidly increasing thirst for intellectual pursuits. Knowledge is a mine of inexhaustible treasure. New ore perpetually repays the indefatigable labourer, and enriches both the discoverer and posterity. Doubtless they who dig deepest will obtain the most precious ore. But the aid of the smelting fire, the furnace, and the forge will be required to refine, modify, and reduce the metal to the various uses of life. The noble conceptions of a Milton have been illumined by the elegant criticism of an Addison, and beauties unnoticed by common minds have by his graver been placed in relief strong enough to strike the attention of the most careless. The giant mind of a Bacon originated a path, by pursuing which subsequent adventurers in the fields of science have realized wonders approaching the magic mysteries of legendary tales. The literature of the learned, and the science of the philosopher were for ages buried in cumbrous and expensive tomes accessible only to the wealthy. To the periodical literature of the present day, mankind owe the scattering and dispersing of the beams of intellectual light. The world is but little benefitted, when a few are more learned than their fellows. It is when knowledge is multiplied, divided, and dispersed through society, that it becomes a blessing to a people.

The influence of learning and philosophy in classic Greece and Rome was contracted and confined to the few and the opulent. The mass of the population were the slaves of ignorance The slow and expensive process of transcription was totally inadequate to supply the cravings of a nation for mental food. The deficiency was indeed in Greece partially supplied by

and vice.

the tragic stage: and the sublime conceptions of an Æschylus, the pathos of a Sophocles, and the melting tenderness mingled with the moral sentiment of an Euripides, elevated, informed, and humanized the popular mind. But these effects were evanescent, and passed away with the representation, leaving only here and there in tenacious minds a tithe of the bright thoughts, and glowing sentiments of those master spirits. In Rome still less was intellectual light diffused. True, her porches resounded with the recitations of the learned, "et assiduo ruptæ lectore columna"-and the very columns were shaken by the unwearied declaimer—but the bulk of the populace, sunk in ignorance and brutality, found pleasure only in the gratifications of sense, or the cruel spectacles of the arena. Greece and Rome had no perio

dical literature.

The human mind is a stranger to rest. The activity of thought is ever on the wing. Both ordinary and extraordinary minds are constantly the subjects either of passive impression, or of energetic action. Novel combinations of old ideas frequently arise even in common minds; but vivid and original conceptions sometimes blaze for a moment and expire, or covertly burn in the imaginations of nature's favourites, the children of genius. To catch such thoughts as they fly, and arrest them in their progress to oblivion—to give to these "airy nothings, a local habitation and a name”—is oft the province of periodicals. Hence the value and utility of this species of literature:-the evanescent spirit of the moment-the ebullitions of intellect, which, like the air-blown bubbles of soap and water would otherwise burst and vanish into their kindred element, are thus perpetuated and preserved. The pages of the Spectator have embalmed the flitting elegances of an Addison; and the stately language and moral sentiment of a Johnson still live in the Rambler. Perchance some of those ebullitions may not deserve preservation—may, like the soap bubbles, have nothing to distinguish them from the surrounding atmosphere of mind, except the rainbow film which envelops them. Be it so;-many will float in the circumambient air, the delight only of the full grown children that have blown them. Yet "philosophy in sport" may sometimes "become science in earnest." In a soap bubble Newton saw the laws of light and colour. The apparently slight and valueless thoughts that chequer the pages of a periodical, may sometimes contain a

spark which time will fan into a vigorous flame. Even passing thoughts, common place though they be, are not without utility, and make impression, by repetition, on the public mind, like the successive dropping of water on a rock-oft may check a foible or reprove a vice. "To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities, which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances, which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation," was the aim of the Tatler, Spectator, and Rambler; and that this end was answered will be doubted by none, who has read the keen satire levelled in these admirable papers against the motley groups of vice and folly.

But the periodical literature of the times of Addison and Steele was confined to a more limited sphere than that of the present. Every department of letters and science now finds an appropriate place in periodicals. Publications of every colour and hue issue quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily from the press. The playful flights of the imaginative mind, the accurate investigations of the philosopher, the dreams of the poet, and the theories of the politican make them the vehicles of communication. Readers of every class can select subjects suited to their peculiar tastes in this repeatedly recurring "feast of reason and flow of soul." The influence on society of such a mass of various matter, who shall say? The "important budget," which

contains

"Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages,"

with a kingdom's politics, losses, crimes, and accidents, has certainly the most extensive, perhaps the most powerful influence on the popular mind, because it contains something to interest and arrest the attention of all. But of a higher order is the influence exercised by the various magazines and reviews which monthly strew the library table. We there catch the fermentation of mind, unchecked by the vulgar cares and prejudices of life. There the imagination soars unfettered; and the philosopher freely and unreservedly unfolds his secrets. The opportunity thus afforded to thousands of reciprocating their ideas, smooths the asperities of mind, which characterize peculiar tenets and opinions. There society is formed into a large debating class, where subjects of importance, interest, and amusement are discussed and

The

investigated. Prejudices and misconceptions are there combated —oft annihilated; and the current of social feeling consequently flows in a more equable and placid stream. No other species of literature equally influences public manners and morals; because none is so generally, so easily, and, as it were without effort, perused. The animal and brutish elements of our nature are by it modified, softened and diverted into a gentler channel. intellectual principle is encouraged to rise superior to the animal; and mind universally assumes the supremacy which nature gives it. It is true that these effects are the results of general literature, and not solely of one particular branch; and these benefits flow from deeper fountains. The lucubrations of the midnight student, and the labours of voluminous authors form the reservoirs, from which lesser streams are derived. Time and leisure not at the command of the multitude are requisite successfully and efficiently to profit by learned treatises and scientific discussions encumbered with technicalities. Something that men, "who run may read" is needed, which, the people through the loop-holes of their leisure can hastily glance at, and yet uninterruptedly pursue their necessary duties and engagements. Such a desideratum periodical literature offers. Food for all palates is there provided; and the busy scenes of professional and commercial life may be thus varied, enlivened, and enlightened, by these casual gleams of intellectual sunshine, by this pleasing and not slanderous gossip of the literary world. The periodicals of the metropolis supported by the rich and varied talent of the three kingdoms possess absorbing interest for all classes of readers; and might seem to supersede the necessity of any other. But provincial publications of the same nature are devoid of neither interest, nor utility. A peculiar charm indeed invests a publication born and nurtured in our own locality; and its pages present an arena for themes and questions inadmissible in others of a more general character. May this offspring of hope just ushered on the stage of adventure, and offered to the notice of the intelligent of our native city, falsify neither the expectations of its readers, nor of its originators. But cherished by liberal patronage, and supported by talent, may its progress be marked by successive improvement, until it becomes worthy of being classed on an equality with contemporary provincials.

Δελτα.

TO THE YEAR 1835.

WELCOME youngest child of time,
Welcome new-born year!

The tuneful bells with merry chime
Ring thee a welcome here;

And the minstrel's harp, unheard so long,
Wakes for thee into music and song.

I know thou wear'st a double face,
Like many a child of earth,
And breakest oft in after days
The promise of thy birth;
But mauger all thy treasured ill,

New year! I bid thee welcome still.

There's a "life" that finds (our Shakspeare sings)

"Good in every thing,"

And o'er the darkest future flings

Hope's rainbow colouring;

E'en so thy poet's eye would see
Fair visions, infant year! in thee.

Before the snows of wintry age
Shall silver o'er thine head,
Many will leave life's little stage
And slumber with the dead;
But what of that? their souls may be
In a bright and blest eternity.

Some that have basked for many a day

In fortune's sunny smile

Will find that pleasures fade away

And bless but to beguile;

What then? when earthly joys depart

Sweet heaven may win the desolate heart.

And some that long have pined beneath
The withering frown of fate,

And sighed for the dreamless sleep of death
As if 'twould come too late,

D