HARVARD 31*127 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, By HILLIARD, GRAY, AND Co. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION. A CAREFUL revision of this work, aided by the suggestions of kind and discriminating friends, has brought to light a number of defects, which have been corrected in the present edition. Passing by some minor emendations, which are not worth noticing, it may be proper in this place to call the attention of the critical reader to a few words on page 210, which the author has inserted, thinking them sufficient to remove the objections, so far as she deems them just, which have been made to her recommending to married persons the practice of opening each other's letters. It will be seen that the clause which has been added, does not imply a compromise, or modification of the principle of perfect mutual unreserve between husband and wife, but simply recognizes a just regard to the rights of others, which the rule, as it was originally laid down, did not exclude. But the fact that the omission of such an explanatory clause has led to a partial misapprehension of the principle itself, seemed a sufficient reason for its insertion. As for the wart on Aunt Hetty's nose,' and some inexcusable mistakes imputed to nature, in the mixture of tints and adjustment of features, which appear in the face and figure of the housekeeper,' the author could not, in justice to the object she had in view, accede to the alterations suggested by the classical refinement of some friends of the work. We would remind them of the well-known story of the South American parrot being deprived of the sunny freedom of his tropic home, to become the well-fed pensioner of an English cage, where he was languishing and pining a long time without uttering a sound, till, suddenly addressed by a stranger in the sonorous Spanish tongue, he woke from his torpor, and, as in an ecstasy, spreading all his plumage, died in the effort to imitate the never-forgotten accents of his native land. In the chilly atmosphere of poverty and degrading dependence, how many souls are there languishing and pining, robbed of their innate glory and strength, numbering their days in cheerless captivity of spirit, without ever hearing the home voices of freedom and friendship, till the heavenly messenger with the inverted torch bids the hapless exile return to his native land! And how many men, benevolent in their way, but in whom benevolence has not done her perfect work, having quickened the hand |