The flattering pictures of men and manners, which are drawn in most of the present publications for youth, can alone be well applied, when they are considered not as what mankind are, but what they ought to be; and, indeed, we may search the world through before we find their likeness.

Such is the simplicity of unguarded youth, that even when disappointed in their expectation of happiness from one quarter, they seek it in another equally fallacious; and, drawing all their ideas from fancied excellencies, fondly imagine, that while looking only for mental satisfaction, and the pleasures arising from friendship, rational society, and the exercises of humanity, they cannot be mistaken in the pursuit; though too often the frequent inconsistencies observable in those whom they have been led most to admire, excites a sigh of sad surprise, till from a more enlarged judgment, matured and exercised with a feeling sense of what they view, they learn that continual and glaring absurdities are all the fruit produced in nature's soil.

It is to open this lesson to them that the following pages are written, 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 their breasts, they may receive even from the limited remarks of a Bee and a Butterfly a gentle hint or two of what they may expect to meet with in their future walks through life; and thus warned of the strange contrarieties, perceivable in human nature, escape the additional pang their being totally unexpected would produce.

THE

PERAMBULATIONS

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