PREFACE.
The flattering pictures of men and manners, which are drawn in most ofthe present publications for youth, can alone be well applied, whenthey are considered not as what mankind are, but what they ought tobe; and, indeed, we may search the world through before we find theirlikeness.
Such is the simplicity of unguarded youth, that even when disappointedin their expectation of happiness from one quarter, they seek it inanother equally fallacious; and, drawing all their ideas from fanciedexcellencies, fondly imagine, that while looking only for mentalsatisfaction, and the pleasures arising from friendship, rationalsociety, and the exercises of humanity, they cannot be mistaken in thepursuit; though too often the frequent inconsistencies observable inthose whom they have been led most to admire, excites a sigh of sadsurprise, till from a more enlarged judgment, matured and exercisedwith a feeling sense of what they view, they learn that continual andglaring absurdities are all the fruit produced in nature's soil.
It is to open this lesson to them that the following pages arewritten, and with the hope that if Folly does not blind their eyes,and Prejudice (who, whichever way she turns, chooses to see things_only_ through her own medium,) has not yet erected her throne in theirbreasts, they may receive even from the limited remarks of a Bee anda Butterfly a gentle hint or two of what they may expect to meet within their future walks through life; and thus warned of the strangecontrarieties, perceivable in human nature, escape the additional pangtheir being totally unexpected would produce.
THE
PERAMBULATIONS,
&c. &c.
The Perambulations of a Bee and a Butterfly, Page 2
