A MONTHLY

MISCELLANY OF GENERAL LITERATURE,

ORIGINAL AND SELECT.

EDITED BY WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

"To gather from still living witnesses, and preserve for the future annalist, the important records of the
teeming and romantic PAST: to seize while yet warm and glowing, and inscribe upon the page which shall be
sought hereafter, the bright visions of song, and the fair images of story, which gild the gloom and lighten the
sorrows of the ever-fleeting PRESENT: to search all history with a steady eye, sound all philosophy with a
careful hand, question all experience with a fearless tongue, and thence draw lessons to fit us for, and light to
guide us through, the shadowed but unknown FUTURE."

VOLUME III.

CINCINNATI:

PUBLISHED BY JOHN Ꭰ . NICHOLS.

1839.

PREFACE.

WITH this, the first number of our third volume, commences the second year of the HESPERIAN; and it is with some pride and not a little pleasure we state, that the general condition of the work is flourishing, and betokens length of days and increased usefulness of labor. Though we can boast nothing in the way of moneymaking, the support already extended to the work is sufficient to defray the expenses of its publication; and as its circulation has increased steadily from the commencement, we think we can safely assure the public, that it is established upon a basis which nothing, but a want of punctuality on the part of our subscribers, can at present affect. Without this punctuality, we must suffer sundry embarrassments in our enterprise, and perhaps in the end be prostrated; but with it, we have nothing to fear, and shall exert all our energies to make the HESPERIAN just such a work as the literary and social interests of this section of the Union require. We aim to inform, more than to amuse; and to that portion of the community who prize intelligence above pleasure, more than to those who are in constant search after the gilded baubles of Fancy, do we look for countenance and support.

From this whole broad West, we expect occasionally to draw themes, arguments, and illustrations; but for the principal and especial field of our labors, we claim only the States of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. By these four noble young commonwealths, mainly, do we expect to be sustained; and, therefore, to the development of their natural resources, the collection of their early history, the depicting of their social condition, the recording of their physical progress, and the advocacy of what we conceive to be their true interests, shall our efforts be untiringly directed, In Ohio alone, as yet, with a very slight exception, have we sought a remuneration for our labors; and the readiness with which her citizens have come up to the support of our undertaking, is gratifying in the extreme to our feelings of State pride. In those of her sister commonwealths named above, we shall soon seek to extend the circulation of our work; and we hope to find the intelligent citizens of these several States, impressed with that sense of the usefulness and importance of a wholesome periodical literature, which will induce them warmly to co-operate with us in our efforts. The assistance of our editorial contemporaries to whom an exchange is now proffered, is earnestly solicited. They have some knowledge of us in times past: for times future, we refer them to our monthly doings, as these shall appear before them. For many kindnesses, we are already indebted to some of them; and, as the only remuneration in our power, we hope we shall long be able to contribute to their intellectual delight.

What the HESPERIAN has been heretofore, in all essential points, it will be hereafter industrious in its researches, deliberate in its judgments, candid in its opinions,

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