PREFACE. 



To point out the paths which lead to happiness, however 

 remote they may lie from common observation, and at the 

 same time to forewarn the- inexperienced stranger against 

 approaching those which terminate in vice and misery, is a 

 task worthy of the most enlightened understanding. The 

 learned in every age have laboured for these ends: they 

 have set up their works like beacons and guide-posts, to 

 direct their fellow-travellers in the. journey of life. These 

 are their marks, left behind them to witness their having 

 lived; and although, like other more vain human monu- 

 ments, they remain but for a while since in the great scale 

 of^time, every work of man, like an inscription on the sea- 

 sand, is washed away by the return of the ceaseless wave 

 yet let not this reflection, so mortifying to human vanity, 

 damp the ardour of doing good ; for however temporary the 

 efforts may be, they are not only valuable in themselves, 

 (being records of usefulness laid up for the benefit of man- 

 kind) but are incitements also to the emulation of good 



VOL. II. 



266193 



