PREFACE.

IN presenting to my young friends a "BASKET OF FRAGMENTS," at the close of which has witnessed some

year,

another days and hours spent in their service; I cannot plead that my motive for doing so has arisen from the idea, that there is any scarcity of children's bread, for the mental appetite; for in this age which is

characterized as the march of Intellect, there is greater danger perhaps of satiety than of want. However one cannot

but be pleased that the nursery shelves are disburdened of their old inhabitants, and that instead of "Jack the giant killer"-" This is the house that Jack built" "This is the maid that milked the Cow with a crumpled horn.” — and the Horn book with these steps to the first branch of Infant learning, "Great A, Bouncing B, the Cat's in the cupboard, and can't see me."-&c. &c. The nursery

Library is now supplied with the beautiful Rhymes of the Misses Taylor — “ Sir Hornbook, or Childe Launcelot's expedition." A Gramatico Allegorical Ballad, and the elegant Wild-flower Alphabet, which was originally presented as a Birthday offering by a personal friend, to one of my little Girls; and has since appeared in print in a Work entitled the "Meadow Queen." Though I cannot plead the necessity for adding even this small volume to the present stock prepared for the young; yet I will own the very pleasur

able occupation I have found it, to collect the scattered pieces that lay in my pathway some from my own plot of ground, and others from the far more cultivated and richer soil, of the friends of Science and of Literature. Our Lord when he had fed the multitude to the full, desired His disciples to gather up the fragments; they exceeded the original supply. Accept then my Juvenile readers this fresh offering of my Pen, and though my "Basket," may not be filled with Summer fruits, to tempt you to taste and taste again; I