DEDICATION. To the community which possesses taste for the Arts, zeal for letters and liberality of feeling, devoted to commerce, and yet finding leisure to patronize merit, engaged in honorable schemes of wealth, but opposed to the sordid love of money, which graduates its hospitality by desert, and bestows its favor with discrimination, which holds the first rank in this nation for its enlightened and honorable attachment to native Literature, TO THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, This work, the solace of my hours of leisure is most respectfully inscribed by THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. Some of the pieces in this collection,/written at an early age, have already appeared in popular journals, but were so badly printed as to make a correct version of them necessary. Some others are added which were published in a pamphlet form, and others are entirely new to the public. It may not be amiss to say that the notice heretofore taken of those parts which have been before the public, was sufficiently flattering to induce their republication in the present shape. The fifth article received a long and very friendly approval in the New York Critic, and was rapidly sold by the publishers. 'Nemo fuit repentissime.'-Auctor. It is only by dint of practice, and by the indulgence of a liberal public that one can make any progress in the delightful, yet tantalizing profession of letters. The writer is however only an amateur, and is so tied down by the engagements of active life, as to have but few moments that he can call his own. In the hope that he may contribute something to the stock of American Literature, he offers the present collection as an earnest of his future intentions. Some errors of inadvertance have occurred in the printing of this work, which, owing to the distance between the author and publishers, could not be well corrected without delay. Some of the most obvious will not be noticed in the table of errata, but the reader will please overlook them, and pass on. Boston, Nov. 1830. ERRATA. In p. 110, formanniere,' road' manière,'-p. 112, for 'distingueè' read distingue-p. 114, for Epecurean 'read' Epicurean '-p. 155, for usually 'read' usual'-p. 164, for movements 'read movement -p. 171, for 'anticipations 'read' reflections -p. 172, for 'proper' read improper '-p. 175, for principles' read' principle." |