it would be worse than an affectation of humility--it would be a mean
hypocrisy--if we did not express heartily and unreservedly the gratitude
we owe and feel to those who have encouraged us by their friendly advice
and able pens. We have opened a Literary Exchange, and we have had the
gratification to see that men whose learning and talents the public
recognise--leaders in their several branches of inquiry--have at once
taken advantage of it. They have proved the necessity for some such
medium of communication, as well as their good-will to the one now
offered to them, by a gathering in its behalf which the public will
respect, and of which we may well feel proud.

Some whose good opinion we most value, and who have spoken most warmly
in favour of our plan, have proved the sincerity of their praise by
suggestions of improvement in its detail, and hints for its further
extension. They may feel assured that such hints and such suggestions
shall not be lost sight of. For instance, one respected correspondent
hints that as we have very properly adopted Dr. Maitland's suggestion
with regard to Herbert's edition of Ame's _Typographical Antiquities_,
namely, that of "offering a receptacle for illustrations, additions, and
corrections," and invited "our readers to take advantage of our columns
to carry out Dr. Maitland's suggestions," we should open our columns
with equal readiness to the correction and illustration of more modern
and more popular works. We entirely concur with him; but in reference to
this subject there is a distinction which must be borne in mind. Our own
literature, like that of every other country, consists of two classes of
books. We have the books of pretenders to knowledge, the hasty, crude,
imperfect, but often for the time attractive and popular volumes of the
Ned Purdons of the day. These books have a use--such as it is--and thus
answer their purpose; but it would be for the credit of our literature,
and save a world of trouble, if they were forgotten as soon as they had