thought is certainly wanted by those who are engaged in literature, art,
and science, and we only hope to persuade the best men in all, that we
offer them the best medium of communication with each other.

By this time, we hope, our readers are prepared to admit that our title
(always one of the most difficult points of a book to settle), has not
been imprudently or unwisely adopted. We wish to bring together the
ideas and the wants, not merely of men engaged in the same lines of
action or inquiry, but also (and very particularly) of those who are
going different ways, and only meet at the crossings, where a helping
hand is oftenest needed, and they would be happy to give one if they
knew it was wanted. In this way we desire that our little book should
take "NOTES," and be a medley of all that men are doing--that the Notes
of the writer and the reader, whatever be the subject-matter of his
studies, of the antiquary, and the artist, the man of science, the
historian, the herald, and the genealogist, in short, Notes relating to
all subjects but such as are, in popular discourse, termed either
political or polemical, should meet in our columns in such
juxta-position, as to give fair play to any natural attraction or
repulsion between them, and so that if there are any hooks and eyes
among them, they may catch each other.

Now, with all modesty, we submit, that for the title of such a work as
we have in view, and have endeavoured to describe, no word could be so
proper as "NOTES." Can any man, in his wildest dream of imagination,
conceive of any thing that may not be--nay, that has not been--treated
of in a _note?_ Thousands of things there are, no doubt, which cannot be
sublimed into poetry, or elevated into history, or treated of with
dignity, in a stilted text of any kind, and which are, as it is called,
"thrown" into notes; but, after all, they are much like children sent