The web of our life is of a mingled yarn; good and ill together: PREFACE. TO amuse without injuring, and to instruct without offending, is the highest aim of the following pages. They were written in a retirement almost amounting to solitude, at the request of a beloved and lamented friend, whose hours of languor, during a lingering illness, were occasionally relieved by the perusal of them; whose partiality encouraged, and whose judgement approved them. The |