TO SUBSCRIBERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

At the request of the writer, the article on "The Oxford Circuit" is postponed, for the sake of adding a letter, which he thinks of importance.

66 Incognita" has our thanks.

Why should we hesitate to show Mr. B. our authority for what we have done? and why should we desire to profit by an unworthy artifice ?- -a comparison will decide the point.

We can assure Mr. W., whose letter we did not receive until it was too late for insertion, that we cannot entertain a personal feeling where there is no personal responsibility; and we know there are impediments to treating the party as an equal.

Mr. Goodwin's plan shall have every proper consideration, but we pledge ourselves to nothing which does not promise entertainment or instruction.

With the most profound respect, we thank our noble patron for the loan of the portrait of the Princess. We will endeavour to do credit to the sketch.

The Hon. Mrs. C. will observe that we have profited by her offerings, need we say we feel obliged.

"The Album of a Lady of rank"-we have suppressed the name—is most acceptable. It shall be carefully used.

To numerous anonymous offers of assistance on our own terms, we have only to answer, that we shall be glad to receive papers of real value. We have no set terms," excepting those in which we put down pretenders. Confident as we are in our own resources, we shall gladly avail ourselves of talent wherever we can find it.

One of our principals is in Paris: the arrangements he will make will place us as much in advance for fashions, as we are in every other department of our Magazine.

The letter, bearing a Right Honourable gentleman's signature, and put in the post-office in Cheapside, is a forgery, and the poem-an excellent one we admitmay be found in "Prior," under another title. These literary hoaxes are not fair.

One answer to M. M—, will suffice for many other questions of the kind; those who favour us with names may rest assured that no second person will ever know them, and that where it is important, MSS. will be copied and returned.

"Lines written in Kensington Gardens" are very pretty. So are the gardens But may not our readers expect something new upon so novel a subject? Perhaps the writer will try his hand upon the Green Park or Regent Street.

We have received a "Smile," a "Tear," and a "Sigh," by the Brighton coach. We suspect our old friend, the Author of "Broad Grins," has been playing us a trick; for the "Tear" and the "Sigh" smack of his vein. The "Smile" is no laughing matter. It must have cost many an anxious moment to produce such a

smile.

"The Two Whales," an Epigram, by Jugged-Eel, would fill three pages. What would be thought of an Impromptu in four volumes, quarto?

We thank "An Old Jacobin" for his "Recollections of the French Revolution in 1789," but we recollect reading all of it in the Annual Register for that year.

TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY

THE QUEEN.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

THE permission to bring out The Royal Lady's Magazine under Your Majesty's especial patronage, is an honour as unexpected as it is gratifying.

This honour has a twofold value. It carries with it an approval of the past and a pledge for the future.

We should derogate from Your Majesty's taste and discernment, could we permit ourselves to question, with affected humility, the nature of those claims which have obtained for us this proud distinction. Nor should we less derogate from our pretensions to deserve it, were we to forget that its best vindication must hereafter be found, in conferring upon our labours that character which is necessarily implied in whatever has the sanction of Your Majesty's illustrious name.

Our ambition is, to raise the female mind of England to its true level. It would be the language of unmeaning adulation, equally offensive to Your Majesty, and unworthy of ourselves, to say this object is beyond our grasp unaided by Your Majesty's patronage. But it is surely no flattery to affirm, the natural protector of such an object can alone be sought in the exalted personage who is, herself, the conspicuous possessor of all those qualities which most adorn the female mind and character.

The page of history teaches us what are the moral benefits which a nation derives from the example of a throne; and in the short period that

VOL. I.

B

has elapsed since Your Majesty invested the Throne of these realms with the mild dignity of your own illustrious example, our living experience confirms all that history has taught.

That it may be the will of Providence Your Majesty should long continue to be the guardian, by prerogative of station, as you are the model, by prerogative of nature, of the virtues which ennoble the females of Great Britain, is the ardent prayer of

ADDRESS.

LADIES! WE profess ourselves your CHAMPIONS. Deign to accept our services. It is the only reward to which we aspire.

It has hitherto been the opprobrium of our periodical literature, that in works professedly published for YOUR perusal, no attempt has been made to consult either the extent of your intellectual capacity, or to adapt them for the advancement of your knowledge. When a series of frivolous articles is prepared, alike destitute of mind in their conception, and of talent in their execution, the crude mass is sent forth as a fit offering to YOUR taste and discernment.

What has been the consequence? A species of writing, infinitely below the ordinary standard of nursery lucubrations, has been manufactured, lingered awhile in an obscure existence, and finally disappeared.

And what do these facts demonstrate? Not, surely, that you are INCAPABLE of relishing works of a superior character. Were those we have described equal to your wants, they would have enjoyed your patronage. They were not so, and they have perished or are perishing.

The only approach that has been attempted to such a work as could be worthy of your approbation, was in a publication of last year, which commenced with giant promises, but dwindled into pigmy performances; because the presiding genius, whose fiat was potential, as to the means by which alone these promises could be redeemed, had made the discovery that figs, and grapes, and olives might spring from rocks and brambles. Under such tillage what but a corresponding harvest was to be expected? Its success, however, in spite of all these obstacles, in spite, too, of the incubus of gratuitous mediocrity (which is only another name, sometimes, for the furor scribendi of very small writers with very large notions of selfexcellence), is a cheering prognostic of what may be looked for from the vigorous application of the same principles, unparalyzed by the same fatuity.

There are various kinds of blushes which may tinge the female cheek. Two of these shall never rebuke our labours. The blush of offended modesty shall never be summoned from its sanctuary-woman's purity of thought: nor the blush of shame, from her reason, at the reflection of having devoted even an idle hour to pages of so worthless a character, that idleness itself could not be an apology for reading them.

The Royal Lady's Magazine takes high ground. It has no fear of maintaining it. In the spirit of honourable enterprise, it solicits nothing

of which it shall not be found deserving. In the confidence that what is really deserved is never withheld, its expectations of success are frankly stated to be commensurate with its knowledge of the means employed to secure it. Incited by royal patronage-animated by the ambition to become the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of the females of Great Britain -proudly conscious of what they require-and determined to provide it, or abandon the office of preparing meaner intellectual food to the purveyors who already carry on the trade-no other issue can await it but a triumphant career, or a dignified retreat.

We disdain to deprecate criticism. Therefore we will not say to our judges, be lenient in your sentence upon our first appearance. But we are entitled to say, give due weight to circumstances. We have taken the field as the Duke of Wellington did when he beat back the cohorts of France. His Grace was taken a little by surprise. So have we been. The comparison is arrogant enough, we admit; but it came in our way- -we found it, as Falstaff says of rebellion; and so, having adopted it, we shall use it somewhat further. Well then. The Duke of Wellington was taken by surprise. But did the result prove that he was unprepared also-or that the resources of his great mind were enfeebled by the circumstance? And with becoming diffidence we ask, does this, the first number of The Royal Lady's Magazine, exhibit any symptoms of being unequal to the exigency in which we have been placed?

This is the only appeal ad misericordiam which we will condescend to make. We cannot demand to be tried by our peers, because we acknowledge none; but we invite comparison with our competitors: and, although we are reminded that the race is not always given to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, there is not a single feather of the goose-quill with which we are now writing, ruffled at the anticipation of the verdict that must be pronounced.

LADIES! You are not expected to be logicians, because you are never required to read Aristotle, Condillac, or Watts. Therefore, forgive us if we presume to draw a logical inference for you, from the premises we have submitted. It is this:-If we have done so well, in the face of manifold difficulties of every description, depend upon it you are bound to conclude that we shall do better and better every step we make, with no difficulties to overcome. Ask your fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers, who have studied at Cambridge or Oxford, whether you are in any danger from conceding this deduction; and when you are answered in the negative, as we know you must, then ask YOURSELVES, whether you ought to read any periodical work except The Royal Lady's Magazine? We are content to abide the issue of both inquiries.