An annual English publication, entitled "Spirit of the Public Journals," suggested the idea of the following work; and the compiler has no fears that it will suffer on a comparison with its archetype. Whether the miscellanies here collected are the best which might have been drawn from the same sources, is a point for the public to decide. For most of the materials which form the volume. I have, indeed, been indebted to others; for the errors in judgement, or the absurdities of taste, which it may be supposed to exhibit, I alone am responsible. Should the volume be received with kindness, it is my intention that it shall be annually succeeded by one, similar in its nature, but superior in mechanical execution, and displaying, it is to be hoped, an improved taste. in the composition, and more method in the arrangement of its parts. If, however, its ill fortune should forbid all future attempts of the kind, some indemnification for pecuniary loss will have been realised in the pleasure derived from the collection and preservation of these proofs of the genius and talent of my countrymen. J. T. BUCKINGHAM. The reader will observe that the articles in the following collection, (with the exception of two, whose origin was not discovered till it was too late to expunge them) are original pro-` ductions of the American Press. |