Kind and gentle people who make up what is called the Public--permit a stranger to tell you a brief story. I am about trying my hand at a Magazine; and this is my first number. I present it to you with all due humility--asking, however, one favor. Take this little pamphlet to your home, and when nothing better claims your attention, pray look over its pages. If you like it, allow me the privilege of coming to you once a month, with a basket of such fruits and flowers as an old fellow may gather while limping up and down the highways and by-ways of life. I will not claim a place for my numbers upon the marble table of the parlor, by the side of songs and souvenirs, gaudy with steel engravings and gilt edges. These bring to you the rich and rare fruitage of the hot-house, while my pages will serve out only the simple, but I trust wholesome productions of the meadow, field, and common of Nature and Truth. The fact is, I am more particular about my company than my accommodations. I like the society of the young--the girls and the boys; and whether in the parlor, the library, or the school-room, I care not, if so be they will favor me with their society. I do not, indeed, eschew the favor of those who are of mature age--I shall always have a few pages for them, if they will deign to look at my book. It is my plan to insert something in every number that will bear perusal through spectacles. But it is useless to multiply words: therefore, without further parley, I offer this as a specimen of my work, promising to improve as I gain practice. I have a variety of matters and things on hand, anecdotes, adventures, tales, travels, rhymes, riddles, songs, &c.--some glad and some sad, some to make you laugh and some to make you weep. My only trouble is to select among such variety. But grant me your favor, kind Public! and these shall be arranged and served out in due season. May I specially call upon two classes of persons to give me their countenance and support--I mean all those young people who have black eyes, and all those who have not black eyes! If these, with their parents, will aid me, they shall have the thanks and best services of ROBERT MERRY. [Illustration: _A Tree with Nests of Sociable Weavers upon it._] The Sociable Weavers. Men find it convenient to devote themselves to different trades. One spends his time in one trade, and another in another. So we find the various kinds of birds brought up and occupied in different trades. The woodpecker is a carpenter, the hawk a sportsman, the heron a fisherman, &c. But in these cases we remark, that the birds do not have to serve an apprenticeship. It takes a boy seven years to learn to be a carpenter; but a young woodpecker, as soon as he can fly, goes to his work without a single lesson, and yet understanding it perfectly.