We think that, with our list of contents before us, we may reasonably say that there has never been in this country a paper with the scope of the LONDON MERCURY. We have had periodicals which have exercised a great critical influence, such as the _Edinburgh Review_ of Jeffrey's and Macaulay's day. We have had periodicals which have published an unusual amount of fine "creative work," such as Thackeray's _Cornhill_. We have at this day the _Times Literary Supplement_, which reviews, with the utmost possible approximation to completeness, the literary "output" of the time; we have weekly papers which review the principal books and publish original verse and prose, and monthly papers which diversify their tables of contents with articles on Molière or Chateaubriand, Byron or Mr. Alfred Noyes. But we have had no paper which has combined as the LONDON MERCURY will do all those various kinds of matter which are required by the lover of books and the practising writer. In our pages will be found original verse and prose in a volume not possible to the weekly paper; full-length literary essays such as have been found only in the politico-literary monthlies; a critical survey of books of all kinds recently published; and other "features," analogues to some of which may be found, one by one, here and there, but which have never before been brought together within a single cover. The LONDON MERCURY--save in so far as it will publish reasoned criticisms of political (as of other) books--will avoid politics. It will concern itself with none of those issues which are the field of political controversy, save only such--the teaching of English, the fostering of the arts, the preservation of ancient monuments are examples--as impinge directly upon the main sphere of its interests. But within the field that it has chosen it will endeavour to be as exhaustive as is humanly possible. The present number is an earnest of its intentions; in early future numbers other sections will be added which will steadily bring it nearer to the ideal that it has set out to reach. * * * * * That ideal comprehends the satisfaction of the current needs of all those who are intelligently interested in literature, in the drama, in the arts, and in music. We shall attempt to make known the best that is being done and, so far as literature is concerned, to assist the process by the publication of original work. But thus far we have mentioned no more than the LONDON MERCURY'S functions as what may be called a "news" paper, an organ for the recording and dissemination of things that have already happened or been done. Its functions, as its conductors conceive them, will include--and this will be the chief of them--the examination of those conditions which in the past have favoured, and in the future are likely to favour, the production of artistic work of the first order, and the formulation and application of sound critical standards.