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PFEFACE.

AN ample account of the nature of this work will be

found in the Introduction; but to give a brief and more general idea of the entertainment which it is proposed to set before the purchaser, it may be as well to state in this place, that the book, for the most part, is a collection of passages from such authors as retain, if not the highest, yet the most friendly and as it were domestic hold upon us during life, and sympathize with us through all portions of it. Hence the first extract is a Letter addressed to an Infant, the last the Elegy in the Churchyard,* and the intermediate ones have something

of an

analogous reference to the successive stages of existence. It is therefore intended to be read by intelligent persons of all times of life, the youthful associa tions in it being such as the oldest readers love to call to mind, and the oldest such as all would gladly meet

*The last article of the Second Series.

with in their decline. It has no politics in it, no polemics, nothing to offend the delicatest mind. The innocentest boy and the most cautious of his seniors might alike be glad to look over the other's shoulder, and find him in his corner perusing it.

This may be speaking in a boastful manner; but an Editor has a right to boast of his originals, especially when they are such as have comforted and delighted him throughout his own life, and are for that reason recommended by him to others.

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