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ed her with the earnest desire to improve the favorable impression she had made, for promoting the best interests of her readers; and whether she was grave or gay, she never lost sight of this object. Her friends have generally concurred in the opinion that many of these pieces are among the happiest efforts of her pen; and that a republication of them was due to their merit. In compliance with this opinion she had revised and prepared for the press the greater part of the papers, not long before her last illness; and she left with me instructions for the publication of the whole.

It is with pleasure that I avail myself of this opportunity to express publicly, to the conductors of the Youth's Magazine, the sense which I know my late sister always entertained of the kindness and liberality of their conduct towards herself, during the years in which she was a stated contributor to that useful and widely circulated publication.

Ongar, September 23, 1824.

I. T.

JUN.

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I FLATTER myself that your youthful readers will not be unwilling to attend to the admonitions of one who, only seven years ago, was even as they are, that is, one of your youthful readers. I am this day one and twenty: and although my coming of age was an event to which I had long looked forward with no ordinary degree of satisfaction, I must confess that certain reflections with which I am about to acquaint you, have tended very greatly to damp my spirits; and to imbitter the many warm congratulations of my kind friends on the occasion.

Upon retiring to my room after the festivities of the day are over, I feel much disposed to communicate to you the cause of my dissatisfaction; with a view, not only of relieving my own

mind, but particularly with the hope that the relation may prove of some advantage to those of your readers who may still have such a precious seven years in anticipation.

You must know, sir, that as soon as I opened my eyes this morning, the beautiful frost-work on my window brought to my recollection, as vividly as though it had been but yesterday, the fine, bright January morning, seven years ago, when I awoke in this very chamber in the highest spirits imaginable, with the joyful consciousness of being fourteen. My imagination being then somewhat more sportive than it is at present, formed a sort of indistinct association between the fantastic coruscations of the frosty panes, and my future fortunes. I could imagine groves, spires, cascades, and wide spreading landscapes, representing the bright scenes of life through which I was about to pass. But not to detain you with these chimeras; I arose, as I observed, with a fine flow of spirits; proceeding, not only from a sense of present happiness, but from a sanguine contemplation of the fair series of youthful days that lay, as it were, out-stretched before my view. In seven years I should come of age; which would happen, I found, in the year 1816; and the interval between the present time and that distant date, appeared abundantly sufficient to accomplish all to which my ambition could possibly aspire. I reflected, with exultation, on the vast proficiency I should

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