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The influence of journals and monthly publications, in the republic of letters, has of late increased in an extraordinary degree over the whole of Europe. All departments of science have called in their aid for the more easy dispersion of knowledge: the curiosity of the public follows them with avidity the learned are enabled by their means to communicate at a remote distance with their compeers in science; the studious youth rereives through them ready and general instruction in the most convenient form; the indolent find in them the amusement of their leisure, and the means of gratifying their passion for novelty. In such a state of letters, it is hoped, that there is nothing to prevent those classes of the profession, to whom such information may be useful, from calling in also the assistance of a Journal, to extend professional knowledge, and keep alive that ardent spirit of inquiry which can alone be productive of solid ́improvement. To prevent, therefore, the ill effects which may follow from the misguided attempts which might be inade by the designing or the ignoraut, the Editors have endeavoured to establish the present work, which embraces many objects of real utility. With that assistance which the leisure of many friends will enable them to supply, they hope to merit the approbation of their fellows; but at all times it will be their earnest endeavour not to sacrifice for their own interest that of the public: Their carly habits have made them acquainted with the excellencies of the British Constitution, which they hold in lasting veneration; they feel too much the importance of high rank and office, to permit them to be insidiously defamed through their means, and they have too much respect for the profession to suffer themselves ever to be diverted from the real object which they have proposed in their undertaking. This object is, the collecting of legal antiquities, legal curiosities, and legal essays, as a matter of science merely.

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