NTENTS. SEY JO HOPECTS OF THE HUMAN SPECIES CONSIDERED, JONG TE MOUNTAIN SCENERY OP CTWBER TO THE REVEREND JOHN ELY, MINISTER OF EAST-PARADE CHAPEL, LEEDS. MY DEAREST FRIEND, Accept the Dedication of this Volume. I wish its Inscription to testify my sense of Worth and Integrity which I have rarely known equalled, and have never found surpassed. We began life together. We chose our Profession with a distinct understanding of the disadvantages which we must endure. There were other paths that we might have followed,-those of lettered fame and scientific investigation, but our principles excluded us. The learned leisure which we should have coveted for its own sake, the opportunity of cultivating polite literature the charms of which were early felt by both, our present active requirements forbid. But we have not, for a moment, rued our Youthful Vow. Even these poor Flowers,— wildings,-plucked in haste,-I should loathe and trample, could I think that any duty of the Holy Office had been neglected while I gathered them. I have no confidence that to the most partial kindness they can present any bloom, or breathe any fragrance, save for a few short days: their chief value to me is that they enable me to bind a little Wreath,-though they wither in the offering,-in token and in memory of a Friendship, which has survived the course, and sustained the proof, of Thirty Years. Believe me, Dear Ely, Your ever attached and faithful Friend, Leeds, April 5th, 1841. THE AUTHOR. |
