A Monthly Miscellany OF INTERESTING & AMUSING LITERATURE EDITED BY EDMUND YATES. 'And Life, . . . Time's Fool!'-SHAKESPEARE. VOLUME I. LONDON: I YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1879. [All rights reserved.] PREFACE. I CANNOT permit this Magazine to reach its sixth number, and thus complete its first volume, without a few words of grateful a cknowledgment to the public who have lent me such warm support in my new enterprise. It was because I believed that there was not merely room, but an actual demand, for a magazine of the character of Time, that I was induced to start it just half a year ago. The result has completely realised my expectations; and the substantial encouragement which I have received is at once the best reward my venture could have, and the greatest stimulus to additional exertions. My readers having signalised my original programme with such hearty and indubitable approval, I do not propose for the future in any way to deviate from its lines. While there will be consistency, there will not be sameness. Time will be true to its name, and will continue to reflect the features of the age. It will, in the future as in the past, neither shrink from the serious, nor refuse to give a place to the amusing. The mind of the contemporary reader requires, I believe, the light and sportive sketch as well as the graver disquisition; and that opinion is certainly confirmed by the experience which I have had in the case of this Magazine. It was my impression, when I launched my new craft upon the literary waters, that a ship of not too ponderous bulk might find floating space and prosperous breezes. I discovered that I was not wrong; and I shall continue to consult the same compass, and steer the same course. |