1828.




PREFACE


The present sheet completes the TWELFTH VOLUME OF THE MIRROR. This
circumstance alone is _typical_ of the substantial patronage which has
attended our exertions from their commencement; and may be, we hope,
anticipatory of continued success.

Our career of six years has been subdivided into twelve volumes or
_sessions_; we have had no _recess_, but uniformly "_a house_;" and, as
members of the republic of letters, we hope to be re-elected by our
numerous constituents. To speak heroically, and as Puff says in the
Critic, to "keep it up," their approbation is


the air we breathe,
If we have it not, we die.


Although we do not presume to account for our own success, or to trace
its maintenance through all the fluctuations of six years--yet we are
prone to believe that the economy of the plan, coupled with the spirit of
curiosity which it is our aim to encourage,--have been the prime movers
of our fortunes, as they have been the pivots upon which we have
performed our half-yearly revolutions. In these we have allowed neither