BY F. W. SHELTON, AUTHOR OF RECTOR OF ST. BARDOLPH'S, AND SALANDER THE DRAGON. With Illustrations from Original Designs. New-York: CHARLES SCRIBNER, NASSAU-STREET, 1853. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1853, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the PREFATORY LETTER ΤΟ LOUIS GAYLORD CLARK. IXTEEN years ago, while living near the sea-coast, I was sitting in a parlour on a pleasant summer morning, sauntering with a lazy eye over a volume of Latin poems, a portion of the delicate opuscula, the dexterous handi work of VINNIUS BOURNE. I remember turning over the snowy pages of that book only because the fact is connected with one of more importance, such is the mysterious principle of association which makes each petty memory the co-link in a lengthened chain. While engaged in the scansion and interpretation of a Sapphic Ode, compacted by Vinnius with an unimpeachable accuracy and adjustment of its several parts, a person bearing precisely the same name as yours, was announced-when without formality, and with a vigorous start, a friendship commenced, which up to this day, has been frank, open, genial, and above disguise-interrupted, it is hoped, by no unpardonable faults, and embittered never by any unkindly suspicions. According to the melancholy records of social intercourse, it is a cause of gratulation, as well as a mutual compliment to both, that this fearful lapse of time has not become an impassable chasm, and that we hold the same friendship in good preservation still. Such it may be predicted will be the amiable fact, until if life remains, the dark hair on these worthy crowns shall have become as white as the driven snow, and the almond tree shall flourish. It is not often that a tolerable contact or juxta-posi tion can continue even for a decade of years. Business |