THE BRITISH CRITIC having now ceased as a Monthly and commenced as a Quarterly Review, the Conductors think it their duty to annex to their New Series, a brief prefatory statement of the motives which have led to this alteration, and the advantages they hope to derive from it.

In the first place they are anxious distinctly to avow, that whatever changes or modifications this resolution may be supposed to bring with it, in the management or the materials of the work, there will be none whatever in those principles connected with the Church or State, which have always been associated with the name of the British Critic, and to which they are unquestionably indebted for much of the support they have received. To these principles they have unceasingly and conscientiously adhered through a long period of difficulty and struggle; and they can have no motive for shrinking from them now, when the difficulty has been surmounted, and the struggle has been crowned with success. On the contrary, the more they have seen and known of the effects of these principles, the more thoroughly are they convinced of their importance under every circumstance in which this country can be placed; and being satisfied, that times of tranquillity are most favourable to public instruction and improvement, they are anxious to profit by the present unexampled state of prosperity, to diffuse them more widely, and to fix them more deeply in the public mind. This is the great object they have in view, in the alteration now announced; and the following observations will explain the grounds upon which they have adopted it, yould adsl WK