WORKS of this kind are in general of so captivating a nature to young readers, that let them run through but a few pages of almost any Novel → , and they will feel their affections or curiosity so interested, either in the characters or the events, that it is with difficulty they can be diverted to any other study or

amusement, till they have got to the end of the story.
From the experience then of this species of attraction, such sort of writings may be rendered, by good and ingenious authors, extremely serviceable to morals, and other useful purposes of life—Place the magnet low, and it will degrade our sentiments; hold it high, and it elevates them. Imitation is natural to the human mind; and as we copy those patterns best, which we are most conversant with, it depends upon the choice that

parents and preceptors make of such compositions, to produce the best effect from this general sympathy.—Tell me your company, is a just adage; but tell me your studies is as true a maxim.
In the selection of proper pieces to assist toward so pleasing a method of instruction, no inconsiderable part of the attention ought to be paid to the stile and language of the writers; for it is certain that those who can best express their sentiments, are those who conceive them best; and the same idea delivered by a gentleman,

will have double the effect to what it would have if uttered by his valet de chamber.
All authors, therefore, of mean or illiberal education, or stationed below the familiar converse of polite life, should be wholly excluded from the sort of library I am here recommending. Nor should any translations be admitted there, though done from the originals by the best hands, according to the phrase of their title pages—For there is a stiffness in the stile of all the publications of this kind I have

ever met with, that constrains the ease and freedom of our language, and impures it with a number of Gallicisms, Italianisms, &c. which even those who are allowed to be the best hands, that have ever condescended to so servile an office, find it impossible to avoid. A work, framed from one's own ideas, is like learning to write from a copy, a translation is like tracing the letters after the master has penciled them for us.
If I have had any success in this, or my former work of the same

kind*, it is owing more to accident than genius, and may therefore be deemed rather fortunate than meritorious. I have had a good deal of acquaintance with the world, and