AND THE TWO-HUNDRED-AND-SECOND SINCE THE COMMENCEMENT. THE RESIDENCE OF CAVE, THE FOUNDER OF 1HR GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1713. LONDON: JOHN HENRY AND JAMES PARKER. 1857. PREFACE. THE completion of another Volume, which I hope my readers will not consider unworthy of its two hundred predecessors,—and this hope is already encouraged by an increase of circulation, -affords me an opportunity for thanking those gentlemen who have so ably assisted me in preparing it. The Volume now completed, while of interest to historical and antiquarian readers, will also be found to contain many articles in which the more general reader and lover of literature may find amusement and instruction. This Magazine is not intended only to amuse, but also to bring forward what may elucidate the past or record the present, and thus lay in a store for future use. In pursuance of this plan, the contents of the Chronicle of Ingulph have been analyzed, and the amount and nature of the dependence to be placed upon this record fairly laid before the reader. In the notices of Sir Francis Palgrave's and of M. Lappenberg's Histories, the history of the Norman and the Anglo-Norman Kings has been reviewed; while the articles upon Joan of Arc, Pliny's Description of India, the Textile Fabrics of the Ancients, the Spanish Conquests in America, Recently Repealed Statutes, the Diaries of Tom Hearne and Narcissus Luttrell, afford glimpses of other interesting periods. In the Batch of Old Poets, in the notices of Gower, Coleridge's Lectures, Boswell's Letters, Table-Talk, the Venetian Dialect, the Flemish Painters, the National Gallery, and in a variety of other papers, various paths of literature have been explored. In the able papers upon Lord Brougham, Kansas, and both Houses of Parliament, more recent times have been treated of, with that impartiality which has always been a characteristic of the Magazine. The proceedings of various Societies united for the praiseworthy purpose of promoting the study of Archæology have been recorded. Some more chapters of my Autobiography have been added, the continuation of which I hope shortly to lay before my readers. In the Obituary will be found memoirs or notices of all persons of eminence recently deceased: but in this department I must again remind my readers that I am to some extent dependent upon them for their assistance. |