THE Mirror OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION: CONTAINING ORIGINAL ESSAYS; HISTORICAL NARRATIVES; BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS; MANNERS AND AND TALES; ANECDOTES; SELECT EXTRACTS FROM NEW AND EXPENSIVE WORKS; The Spirit of the Public Journals; DISCOVERIES IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES; PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. LIMBIRD, 143, STRAND. (Near Somerset House.) 1839. A PREFACE. How delightful the task of gleaning the flowers of literature-of tracing the motives of actions to their original source of portraying characters-of exploring the beauties of Nature, and investigating the ingenuity of Man! and thus to form a Treasury of the Mind, from whence such sweets may be extracted as tend to enlarge the intellectual powers, and render life useful and happy. Such has been the humble but zealous aim of the Editor in compiling these, the pages of THE MIRROR. In the Antiquarian and Topographical departments, we trust, our pages have been illustrated with notices and views of objects of much interest; embracing, also, the manners and customs of Society, not only in England, but in all parts of the civilized world; and we need not remind our readers what a mass of materials are yet to be found, in the chronicles, local annals, sports, and amusements of society-developing traits of national character as numerous as they are interesting and important, but which have hitherto been uncollected, owing to their being almost solely in private libraries of rare and curious literary treasures. Having the advantage of availing ourselves of many such precious depositories, we fondly hope to enrich our future columns with numerous valuable, rare, and curious notices. Among the Engravings, we call the attention of our readers to the following, nearly_the whole of them from Original Drawings, taken expressly for THE MIRROR, and which are not to be found in any other work: Interior and Exterior of the New Synagogue, Great St. Helen'sGrey Street, Newcastle-Albert Durer's Residence-Interior and Exterior of Linton Church-Linton Free-School-The Eastern Institution-Two Views of Old Chelsea Bun-House-Entrance to St. Olave's Grammar-School-Southwark Tradesmen's Tokensand the New East End of the Guildhall, London. Fully impressed with the truth, that "the noblest employment of Man is to study the works of his Creator," we have been rather prodigal of our original papers and copious extracts, relative to Natural History; feeling assured they would be acceptable to our readers, and also enable us to keep pace with the present thirst for Botanical knowledge, which, to the advantage of society, now forms a prominent study in our seminaries, particularly in those for the |