even mediocrity as an author. The diamond in the mine has to be cleaned and polished; so has every gem found in human intellect, before its beauty fully appears. Like the brilliant set in gold, so is good sense in appropriate phrase."

He paused. I was mute; but my countenance said, "Your words, Charles, are pregnant with truth and justness."

66

My advice is this," continued he; "attempt an amusing narrative-work, from the various eye and ear sketches, which our portfolios contain. Being in the fortieth year of our age, such a collection might be appositely entitled' Forty Years in the World;' for it will comprize many of our observations on men and things; but I leave you at liberty to give the bantling whatever name you please."

Thus, reader, you have the history of this book ; and in submitting it to your perusal, I sincerely and earnestly hope it will afford you delight and profit. I beg to remark, that those who have been pleased with Sketches of a Soldier's Life, in

"Fifteen Years in India," will find in this work a continuation of those papers: for it describes such incidents in the life of my friend as are not recorded in the former; completing an actual Sketch of the Life of a Soldier, a friendless adventurer, who had to struggle with many and great difficulties.

To public judgment it is now submitted, with fear and hope; and should it be pronounced worthy of Virtue and Christianity, the most sincere pleasure will be felt by its author. The wisdom, candour, forbearance, charity, obedience, and humility, which should dignify age, and ornament youth, I have recommended; for,

"It seems it is as proper to our age

To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion."

SHAKSPEARE.

1

FORTY YEARS IN THE WORLD;

OR,

Sketches and Tales,

&c. &c.

N. I.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.

Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

GOLDSMITH.

WHEN I was about five years old, I lost my mother. She was the only child of Captain Whitehead, an English officer serving in the army in Ireland, who died soon after her birth, leaving his widow and infant in Dublin, on the pension of his rank.

Mrs. Whitehead, who was a native of Dublin, educated her daughter carefully; and my father, a young attorney, fell in love with and married