LIVING AGE. CONDUCTED BY E. LITTELL. E PLURIRUS UNUM. "These publications of the day should from time to time be winnowed, the wheat carefully preserved, and the chaff "Made up of every creature's best." "Various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, may be indulged." SECOND SERIES VOLUME VII. FROM THE BEGINNING, VOLUME XLIII. OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, 1854. With Thirteen Plates, LITTELL, SON AND COMPANY: BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND PHILADELPHIA. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN D. FLAGG, ANDOVER, MASS. HEREWITH We present to you the close of the last Volume of the year 1854. In every number of this year there has been an impression from a Steel Plate. Many of these are beautiful, both in subject and in style. Some have other merits, more appreciable by the artist or moralist than by the unlearned. Perhaps no general periodical has ever been so profusely illustrated from engravings of equal cost and beauty. It has been with very great difficulty that this has been accomplished. Sometimes a slight delay has been caused to the publication; sometimes the steel printing has been done too hastily. Having performed the promise made at the beginning of the year, we do not propose to continue the engravings until arrangements can be made on a larger scale. For next year it is intended to add sixteen pages to the reading matter. This will enable us to give a greater variety and value to the work. These sixteen will be equal to thirty-two ordinary pages, and will more than make up to the judicious and thought ful reader, for the absence of the embellishment. Perhaps we may hereafter be able to present both these advantages together. The editor needs more room, especially for two purposes: It is often desirable to give in the same number two leading articles from the Quarterlies, so as to suit different classes of readers: and in the excitement of the present times, we ought to treat the state of the Old World more at length. This Old World is reeling to some great change, which cannot be foreseen. It is in the rapids. Its fate will probably have a controlling influence upon ours. "O, had we but been wise, in our day!" |