TO READERS AND SUBSCRIBERS.

THE first number of the SEVENTEENTH VOLUME of the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE will appear on the first of January, 1841, upon new type, and with such other external improvements as may be suggested. At no period, in the entire progress of the work, have we had on hand, and engaged, such a variety of attractive literary matter, from the highest and most popular native sources - to say nothing of articles from eminent writers abroad - as we may boast at the present moment. In this respect, no exertion nor expense has been spared; insomuch, that we have deemed it a duty we owe ourselves, to secure for each number of this Magazine, as it appears, the advantages which its reputation, and an annual outlay of thousands, should assuredly entitle us. We shall hereafter, therefore, secure for the Crayon Papers' of WASHINGTON IRVING, and such other articles and series of articles, of kindred attraction, as may be obtained from popular writers, at great expense, the protection of copy-right; so that those who desire their perusal and preservation, may obtain them alone from their original source, and in a beautiful form for binding up with the great amount of literary matériel, of the first order of excellence, by which they will be accompanied in these pages. Beyond this general announcement of 'good things in store,' we do not deem it necessary to speak. Our readers well know how far our promises to them have been sustained, through sixteen volumes of our work; and we are content that the past shall be a guarantee for the future; adding only, that as we begin the new volume, we shall continue it; and should our subscribers do us that justice which we feel we have a right to demand at their hands, we shall aim to improve even upon our highest standard.

Delinquent Knickerbocker Readers!

You who have found various enjoyment in the pages of this work; who have laughed with the humorous, wept with the sorrowing, reasoned with the argumentative; you who have journeyed with the traveller, and been held captive by the novelist; who have joyed with the lover of nature, and rejoiced, grieved, felt, with the true poet; who have imbibed new views of men and things, perhaps new principles of moral good, and new incentives to virtue, from the diversified minds who have here, from time to time, displayed their intellectual treasures; did it ever occur to you, that you were guilty of GREAT INJUSTICE in withholding the small sum due from you, as some compensation for the anxiety, the ceaseless labor, and the large and immediate expense, which could alone have contributed, to so great a degree, to your gratification, from one month to another? To each individual of you, the amount withheld is comparatively but a trifle ; but the sums due from you as a class, make an aggregate of thousands, the want of which has often embittered moments of anxious toil in your behalf, and rendered even a literary labor of love' uncongenial and irksome; the more, that your injustice prevented our doing our duty to others. DELINQUENT READER, 'think on these things ;' and let not a week elapse, before you do justice to your conscience and to us, by forwarding the amount for which you are indebted to the KNICKERBOCKER. Let not the laxity in regard to literary indebtedness, which has been charged upon us by the press of other countries as a national sin, be longer laid to your charge.

L