PREFACE.

AGAIN the curtain is raised, and we make our bow to the Public on the completion of the FIFTH VOLUME, NEW SERIES, of the FAMILY FRIEND. It is our pleasing duty to acknowledge the increasing favour awarded to the Work. Our object has been to amuse, instruct, and refine, and to secure by a vigilant attention to every department of the FAMILY FRIEND, all that its readers could possibly desire. Our efforts have been crowned with success;

"It is sure,

Stamped by the seal of nature, that the well

Of mind, where all its waters gather pure,
Shall, with unquestion'd spell, all hearts allure."

To the Young we have especially recommended ourselves, as a "Friend" and a "Mentor." In our own youth we can remember with what pleasure we anticipated the periodical arrival of the Magazine, to which we dignified ourselves " a Subscriber." What a change has crossed the popular mind since then! The transparent veil of Fiction, which once constituted itself the chief attraction, has been withdrawn, and a healthy, improving literature, adapted to the rapid progress of intelligence, now stands forth to reprove the past. We have endeavoured to keep pace with the times, to develop the resources which modern invention has added to the storehouse of social knowledge, and to record in our pages many a useful hint which might otherwise, from the transitory state of all things,-literature itself not excepted,—have passed into oblivion. And now, on the threshold of another Volume, with thousands of expectant faces around us, we will declare our intention of raising the character of the FAMILY FRIEND to a still higher point than it has hitherto attained, and to make it, in a familiar sense, adapted to every class of readers, remembering, with Gay, that

"Variety 's the source of joy below,

From which, still fresh revolving pleasures flow!
In books and love the mind one end pursues,
And only change th' expiring flame renews."