ceed-and fresh subjects occurring to my mind as fast as I needed them, the whole grew at last to its present bulk. Till after the publication, in that paper, of a large part of the numbers, I had no view of ever republishing them; nor, till lately, did I come to any settled determination to do it; which final determination resulted from certain indications of public favour which I deemed clear and unequivocal, but with which I may perhaps have flattered myself too much. And so it is, seemingly by a sort of chance, I find myself, at a very advanced period of life, fumbling at making a book : a book, too, quite outof the beaten track, and requiring much more vigour and nice discrimination of mind than had been possessed by me in even the best of my days. But there is no help for it now:-" the die is cast," Go then, thou child of decrepit old age; get thee gone, and now take thy luck in the world. Though often impertinent, I fear, and sometimes bordering upon the saucy,-thy whole lingo so perpetually about men and women and their little ones; yet I do perfectly know thee for a good-meaning thing, and that thou bearest no malice in thy heart. Into the den of the morose and snarling critic enter thou not, lest he tear thee in his anger, or trample thee in his scorn. But shun never, no never, the book-lumbered study of him, who casting upon thee an eye of regard, will kindly improve thy features, and mend thy manners. Upstart, and chance-born, though thou art, much hast thou to say, and very many to bespeak. To old men and matrons-to young men and maidens--to wedded and unwedded -to householders of every description-to wives—to husbands-to parents-to children; to all these, and to every one almost that thou meetest, in the house or by the way, thou hast sayings of thine to deliver.-So marvellously pert and forward for one of thy inches-an ominous sign, alas, that thou hast not long to live! HUDSON, (N. Y.) October 15, 1818. ADVERTISEMENT. THE series of the Brief Remarker in the Connecticut Courant, was begun in the April of 1815, and was ended in the September of 1818. The generality of the papers of that series, carefully revised, and in some instances considerably enlarged, have been collected in this volume without regard to the order in which they originally stood. To these are added a number of papers never before published, and a few that had been published, though not under the same signature. As several of the papers of the Brief Remarker have a near affinity to each other as to the subject matter, and were written at periods of time far distant apart; in some instances (though only a very few I hope) the same thoughts have been repeated in nearly the same expressions; an unpleasant circumstance which I was not aware of till it was too late. 66 Shortly after the 19th number in this work was reprinted for it, I received an anonymous letter, postmarked, "Oneida Castle," and signed, "A Catholic," notifying me of a mistake in that particular paper in point of fact. Had the writer addressed me with even the smallest degree of decency, I should now return him my hearty thanks. But that is a sort of tribute, which, as the letter was scurillously abusive in the very last extreme, I must withhold for the present; though, with the temper and feeling of a protestan‡ christian, I can freely tender to him my real good wishes for his welfare. At the same time, feeling myself sacredly bound to retract any real error, whether pointed out to me fairly or never so foully, I do now readily acknowledge that Dominic (or Saint Dominic, if any are pleased so to call him) was not the author of the Inquisition, as I, too inadvertently, had stated: he died before the establishment of that horrible tribunal, of which the disciples of his School, the Dominican Friars, had the bloody charge. ERRATA. Of the following errata, some go through the whole impression, and others through only a part of it, P. 34, so for to p. 71, near the bottom, species for sex-p. 101, well-finished, for well-furnished—p. 112, moral for mortal-p. 129, wordly for worldly-p. 131, sounds, words, for sound words-p. 153, the word" Came" is wanting and should precede the words, "all his brethren,"-p. 176, to is wanting between as and communi ty-p. 181, so many colours, should be, many colours-p. 198, et stands for yet-p. 212, the title of the sixty-first number is wanting-p. 238, is stands for it, and nor for not-p. 261, a, stands for at-p. 263, in so far as they appear, should be, in so far as they appear so-p. 284, decency, should be deficiency-p. 286, word stands for world-p. 320, your stands for you-p. 354, Learning, conjoined, &c. should be Literature-p. 357, near the bottom, at least, should be at last, Besides the above, I have discovered several instances of words misspelt-some having a letter wanting, and others, a letter, or letters, misplaced-which it is not so necessary to particularize, as every intelligent reader will easily perceive the true words intended. |