BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY. AMERICAN EDITION. VOL. I. NEW YORK: WILLIAM LEWER, PUBLISHER, CORNER OF BROADWAY AND PINE-STREET. 1838. INTRODUCTION. IN offering the present work to the public, the publisher entirely disclaims the notion of opposition to any periodicals of American origin. Some of these have great excellence, according to the peculiar plans upon which they are constructed, and so far from prejudicing their interests, it will always give him sincere pleasure to perceive the prosperity of their career. His sole object is to render his own plan as complete as possible; that, namely, of presenting a series of standard reprints, which should embrace the profound and the light, the grave and the gay, so that each might relieve the others, and thus the whole be made easy and pleasant in perusal, rendering their contents at once "useful and entertaining." It is obvious that the general tone of the British Reviews must be of the grave, serious, and deliberative cast, with no further relief than what may arise from casual sprightly or interesting passages quoted from the works under examination, or from the complexion of the political and religious principles which distinguish the features of each, and which find sympathy in the minds of their several admirers. The Magazines are of lighter character it is true; in them there is a melange of pathetic, lively, didactic, critical, and argumentative papers; they are likewise tinged with their peculiar tenets on public questions, and contain approved specimens of poetry. Yet excellent as these generally are, they have too much affinity with the Reviews to be altogether in contrast with them, or to make that entire recreation which the publisher's plan would carry out. But Bentley's Miscellany is unique. It is full of humor, good natured yet caustic; it is pure in moral, though exposing the peculiarities of mankind; it is consistent with religion and good |