TO
Mr. JAMES PAUL COBBETT.
LETTER I.INTRODUCTION.
My Dear Little James,
You have now arrived at the age of fourteen yearswithout ever bavins been bidden, or even advised,to look into a book ; and all you know of reading orof writing you owe to your own unbiassed taste aridchoice. But while you have lived unpersecuted by suchimportunities, you have had the very great advantageof being bred up under a roof, beneath which no cards,no dice, no gaming, no senseless pastime of any descript-ion, ever found a place. In the absence of these,books naturally became your companions during somepart of your time: you have read and have writtenbecause you saw your elders read and write, just asyou have learned to ride and hunt and shoot, to dig thebeds in the garden, to trim the flowers and'to prune thetrees. The healthful exercise, and the pleasures, un-mixed with fear, which you have derived from these-sources, have given you “ a sound mind in a soundhody,” and this, says an English writer, whose works