will clasp you to a bosom warmed with nature's virtues, and the pillow that supports her head at night shall be your guardian till the morning. Reader! and book! I recommend to you mutual concordance. Be "the friends of virtue and you will be mine." DEDICATION. TO MIMOSA SENSITIVA. PLANT of my heart! I have a beloved, a wife of my bosom. Second only to her in my esteem and gratitude is one to whom I would have dedicated all that may be rational and good in the succeeding pages; a tribute poor and worthless, if compared with virtues rarely found. Mimosa! thou droopest under the touch of mortals; My friend shrinks from the note of praise; without which, in justice she cannot be addressed. I dare not, therefore, further plead to her for the acceptance of my feelings: to you, then, as her emblem, for delicacy is thy vital spark, I dedicate this work. But, Mimosa, though shrinking from the human hand thou permittest the airs of nature to breathe upon thee, without wounding thy sensibility; for her strength and her wisdom are in thy structure. No rude finger shall approach thee; my breath only shall gently kiss thy leaves:-a breath not perfumed by Arabian odours, to incite organic sense; but sweetened by the gratitude of soul,-which feeling may unblamably inhale. But while the soul's imprisoned on this earth, we breathe in darkness as in light; should then, the damp, the cold, the gloomy dew of sorrow's night oppress thy delicate essential tenderness, the restorative sun shall hail the pearly moisture, as the chaste tribute to his felt absence; smiling in morning beams shall kiss it from thy tremulous leaves, and waft it to the zenith of creation; where, transplanted, like the immortal amaranth, may'st thou remain forever blest. And thou, whose name I am forbid to mention; on earth, or in heaven, may'st thou enjoy what thou so completely meritest, eternal happiness. Let the feelings of the moment bid farewell! AN APOLOGY FOR THE LIFE OF JAMES FENNELL. WELL-now to begin. "Dimidium facti qui cœpit, habet; sapere aude- So says Horace-And shall I again, my old convivial companion, follow a portion of your heterogeneous advice? and begin what I fear will only prove a history of beginnings, without one advantageous end? Horace! to you I shall ever acknowledge myself indebted; first, for teaching me how to welcome a friend, "Lignum super foco Large reponens," and next for the frequent flagellations, corporeal and mental, which I have experienced for so doing. You have pleased, and punished me for being pleased; and you are now, by telling me to commence my task, leading me, I fear, into as foolish a scrape as that in which you were yourself engaged, when you attempted to fight without courage, and threw away your arms to effect escape. Demosthenes has set the same example. However, with the world, at least enough of it, as I hope, before me to finish this work, I now begin-what? A tissue of repeated follies; and |