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vi et print that ever tared her in the face as he walked along the public treets.

May there not, however, be more thoughtlesnes than deliberate impiety in this offence? Popular tales are addreed to all ages and conditions. If an illutration is wanted, where can it be o uccesfully ought as in a book familiar to us all? Though Sandford and Merton, in ome few families, may have upplanted Lot’s daughters and Potiphar’s wife, Sampon and Dalilah, together with the royal Solomon, and all his proverbs and concubines, thanks to our good mothers and nures, we have all thee edifying tories well impreed upon our memories, ready to come forward at the hortet notice. I conceive, therefore, that thee alluions may have been choen as univerally intelligible.

We are more dipoed to cenure the execution than the deign of this performance. Tales handed down from generation to generation carry with them a trong intrinic recommendation. The wayward fancy of man is always apt to make an excurion beyond the bounds of this working-day world, and take its port in the millennium of poibilities. But this playful dipoition is mot indulged in the careles infancy of the race. At all ages, however, we are ready enough to quit ober hitory and dull truth for thee frolics of imagination. Frequent repetition upplies the place of writing and record. No country perhaps has uffered thee primitive fables to perih, and their preervation is alone a ufficient proof of their bewitching power. The Highland traditions themelves were probably capable of being worked up into agreeable romances,