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LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS.

ETRUSCAN Antiquities; from a drawing by F. Herbert.
Vase, Flowers, &c.: from a drawing by the same.

A Scene on the Hudson; from a drawing by J. L. Morton. Autographs of Eminent Foreigners, viz. Buonaparte, when First Consul, Elizabeth Fry, Carnot, Maria Edgeworth, Talleyrand, Felicia Hemans, Francis Jeffrey, Thomas Chalmers; from originals in the possession of F. Herbert.

Autographs of Eminent Americans, viz. Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, James Madison, Washington Allston, John Quincy Adams, Washington Irving, Andrew Jackson, James Kent from originals in the possession of F. Herbert.

Serenade; from a design by S. T. B. Morse.

Infant Saviour; from a drawing made by F. Herbert of a picture by Albano.

William Tell; from a picture by Inman.

The Devil's Pulpit; from a drawing by J. Neilson, jun.

PREFACE TO AN ALBUM.

THIS book is destined to preserve the memorials of acquaintance, of esteem, of friendship, of affection-to contain the thoughts of many minds-to bear the impress of many characters. Who can anticipate its future contents? How various will be its tone-its temper-its talentits moral expression-influence and feeling!

Such a volume is an apt emblem of the history of our own minds.

In the mysterious order of Providence, we are all made subject to each other's influence. We assume the shape, colour, fashion of the little world about us. We become the very abstracts and brief chronicles of the opinions, feelings, tastes, and principles of those amongst whom we live. We are as mirrors, giving back the reflections of the society in which we are placed; sometimes, it may be, brighter and purer than the original forms themselves; how much oftener imparting to them our own dimness and distortions.

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Our power over the materials of which our daily thoughts are woven, is but that of the owner of this book over the thoughts which fill its pages; a power too rarely exercised in real lifethat of shutting out the intrusion of gross evil, and opening our sympathies and affections to the kindly welcome of all that is beautiful and good.

Happy they, who, taught by the sure instinct of their own purity, have ever shrunk back from the near approach of vice. Happy they, upon whose hearts, and memory, and imagination, the vain and bad ones of the earth-the worldly, the licentious, the grovelling, have never written any lasting transcript of their own thoughts. Into such the spirit of this world does not enter-its seductions, follies, and vices soil not them-the delusions of life find no resting-place in their minds, and glide off like rain-drops from the pure and smooth plumage of the dove.

This theme is fruitful in still deeper and higher morals.

That influence, so powerful in its sway over us, we must, in turn, exert upon others. Other minds must become in part the transcripts of ours, and perpetuate the evil or the excellence of our short being here. It is not given alone to the great, the eloquent, or the learned, to those who speak trumpet-tongued to millions of their

fellow-creatures, from the proud elevations of power or talent, thus to extend themselves in the production of good or ill into after-times. We are each and all of us, as waves in the vast ocean of human existence; our own little agitation soon subsides, but it communicates itself far onward and onward, and it may often swell as it advances into a majesty and power with which it would scarcely seem possible, that our littleness could have had any participation.

Happy, then, reader-happy thou, if thou hast confined the bad tendencies of thy nature to thine own breast,-if thou hast never proved the cause of offence-not even to any "little one"if thou hast led none into dangerous error, lulled none into careless or contemptuous negligence of duty, nor ever sullied the whiteness of an innocent mind.

Yet Remember-that it is the mysterious and awful law of thy nature, that no one of us can pass through life insulated and solitary, leaving no trace behind him. Thy influence will be— must be, for good or for evil after thee. Then, although haply thou mayest have but a single talent committed to thy charge, whether thou writest thy thoughts in these pages, or engravest them in living characters upon the hearts of those

who trust, or love, or honour thee, strive always, that they may be such as will tend to "give ardour to virtue and confidence to truth," so that others may be holier and happier because Thou hast lived.

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