PREFACE.

FROM the remote period when we penned our Prologue even until the present hour, fondly have we looked forward to the time when it should be our delightful duty to preface a completed volume. Often, as we sat building castles in the Christmas fire, was our inward pleasure heightened by a thought of the proud things we then should say; the autumn winds, too, whistled prefaces to the London chimney-pots; and last summer, ah! then we were but young and simplehearted ;-no matter now: sweet as is the remembrance of a melody long hushed to silence, when once more it fills our soul, are the ghosts of those wet blankets that last summer our first appearance won. The summer flowers would fade and wither-so much each blockhead could foretel; and equally in the course of nature did it seem, that we should perish with them. Let the prophets speak:

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King's College Magazine!" cried a dense-headed descendant of King Log, as he took No. I. from the bookseller's hand, glanced a supercilious eye over the advertizing sheet, and cast the work from him with contempt-" Poh! I could write better things myself!"-" Perry's Tooth Powder," no doubt, seemed by far too personal, while " Beddome's Pills"

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formed an article that could suit only vitiated and sickly tastes. King's College Magazine!" said a long-headed publisher, innocent of speculation, "well! it may live three months before it drain your pocket." "Three months!" exclaimed a sanguinary, if not sanguine, friend; "the first number will murder the second; we shall never see No. II.”

O, as the moist ghosts of these damp opinions pass, one by one, in review before us, how do we chuckle and gloat over their forlorn appearance! Sweet ghosts! be not cast down! Wise saws, who stole like nightmares o'er our rest, whither have ye departed? Ye prophets of the private circle; ye with the long heads and lengthy faces; ye oracles small and sententious, how opened ye your eyes at No. IV., and your fate-speaking mouths at No. V., and eke your hearts at No. VI., as ye "always thought we should succeed, always said there was something clever about some of the papers, -indeed, we were really very fortunate in our contributors." Unhappy men of a prophetic race! as we behold ye now, in common parlance, devouring your own words, and mark the vast pile of such provision yet to be consumed, knowing as we do what indigestible food it is, we utter forth a fraction of a sigh, at thought of the nightmares it will be now your turn to suffer. But enough of this.

Kind public, and we are proud to feel authorized in using such a term,-kind public, we herewith place in your hands the first Volume of our Magazine; we thank you, most sincerely, for the favour which has enabled us to progress thus far, for the liberal applause that has made us bold as we advanced. Most gentle critics, to you also our gratitude is due; by your advice, we trust, we have profited; by your unfailing encouragement, by your cheering approbation, we have been placed on a firm footing in the world. Our future course is clear; we have our plans and our embryo improvements; but the first law in our code is

"Make no promises;" on the subject of intentions, therefore, we preserve strict silence.

But now we spoke of prophets; let us not omit to pay due honour to a rival power-the legion of advisers. Miniature plans of what our Magazine should be, have been urged upon us by almost every individual with whom we have the honour to be on speaking terms; each has been the "only correct," and no two have agreed together. One thinks that, while the College arms, under which we write, give sanction of authority to our labours, those arms express also something more: we should treat on all the multifarious branches of literature and science discussed within the College walls,classical, medical, and engineering;-Latin odes should learn to keep company with treatises on mortar and cement-cotton mills and cardialgia, hydrophobia and hydrostatics, be linked sociably together; youthful gallantry should respectfully give precedence to the galvanic battery,-songs and poetry scamper off before the arrayed host of sines, cosines, and tangents, with all the fierce artillery of mathematics. Other kind friends, less extensively benevolent, would confine our labours to their own peculiar field: one says we ought to be more scientific; another complains that we give no Latin and Greek in our monthly shillingsworth; and one decidedly monomaniac gentleman very gravely censured us, before a large assembly, for the absence of mathematical papers.

To satisfy each class in rotation, would be a greater labour than we think worthy of its end; we really do trust that our readers will give us credit for such knowledge as may appertain to the several branches of our education;-a medical man may be thought competent to practise, without demonstrating on the button-hole of every friend the treatment of pulmonary apoplexy; a mathematician, competent to solve a problem, without rehearsing the "Pons asinorum" in the mixed society of evening parties. Such exhibitions are at

once pedantic and absurd. We are told to be scientific: do our advisers mean that we should retail (at a reduction) the opinions of others?-what credit, we would ask, can be attached to such a task? Or shall we promulgate dogmas of our own?-would not our advisers be the very first to decry such presuming impudence? These men are like merchants standing near the source of a mighty river, a rivulet as yet, who grumble that, at that point, it should bear no ships and barges on its surface; but others there are who love to watch its ripples, and listen to the song of the streamlet as it dances through flowers in its course ;it is such as these that we strive to satisfy, and think it the proudest honour we can win, if these shall say we have not failed in our endeavour.

KING'S COLLEGE,

Feb. 21, 1842.