HAVING Completed our first volume of this serial work, we now send it forth to the public with a few prefatory remarks.
As it was our intention, when we commenced it, to give it, if possible, an enduring permanency, we have admitted, of course, no news or gossip of the day into its pages, possessing merely a temporary interest; and it will, therefore, constitute a miscellaneous volume of lasting value, suitable to be bound up and preserved in the library of the family, as interesting in one age as in another, and just as desirable to be perused, by those who have not read it, the second year of its existence, as the first.
We know not but our anticipations may be regarded as altogether too enthusiastic and visionary, with regard to the ultimate success of our enterprise; but we will, nevertheless, give them utterance. We hope, eventually, to induce every Western Family, which have the means, to add to their library the "Western Literary Magazine," from the first volume; and, for this purpose, and with this expectation, we have the whole work stereotyped as it progresses.