matter, but which in fact tickled him mightily, especially when we informed him that it was in consequence of a request officially preferred by the Burgomasters of the ancient city of Albany, the Historian pursued his remarks in a sly vein of banter, that showed his joking propensities had survived even in the grave. The subdued tone of quiet humor in which they were uttered, however, is lost entirely, when we attempt to transfer what he said to paper.
"It is well, Mr. Editor, as I suppose it now becometh me to call thee; it is well for this inexperienced country that there are sober ones, who, like thyself, come forward, and taking the young and frisky public under their wing, thereby prevent its getting into those manifold scrapes to which the prevailing incontinence of scribbling would otherwise expose it. For in our reasoning land, so madly do people go together by the ears, upon questions of whatever concernment, that were it not for publications such as thine, which operate as safety-valves to that grand boiler, society, the ways of literature, like those of politics, would become as dangerous as the deck of a high-pressure steamboat, and wild theories and conflicting opinions would be constantly generating and exploding in quartos and octavos, instead of, as now, oozing away harmlessly through the medium of periodicals. Again, there is something right valiant in thy thus taking the bull of opinion by the horns, something exceeding magnanimous in thus assuming the direction of public taste, in thus"—
"You overrate—you mistake, venerable sir," interrupted we in a subdued voice of respect, "the nature of our undertaking, and the responsibility of the task we are about to assume. We purpose but to act as the usher of others into the presence of the public, and to form one of the crowd only when we appear ourselves. The object of our Magazine is to represent life and letters as existing here, not to assume their regulation; to call out talent, not to supply it ourselves. The chief burthen of the undertaking must indeed, in any event, rest upon these shoulders, and they will of course sink under it, should any large portion of the aid expected be not realized. But the cordial alacrity with which it has been proffered, would render a doubt of receiving it as inexcusable, as if, after the liberal and spontaneous patronage of the public at the very outset of our undertaking, we should have misgivings of the continuance of their favour."
