“I assure you, my dear sir, that I hesitate about sending these sheets to you under the denomination of a letter. But I began to write without knowing how far the subject might carry me on. No doubt had I time to write it over again, I might avoid repetition and greatly abridge it. But I pray you to take it with a fair allowance for all imperfections of manner; for the opinions and argument I confess my responsibility.
Most truly and respectfully your obedient servant,
—— ——.”
CRITICAL NOTICES.
LETTERS ON PENNSYLVANIA.
A Pleasant Peregrination through the Prettiest Parts of Pennsylvania. Performed by Peregrine Prolix. Philadelphia: Grigg and Elliot.
We know nothing farther about Peregrine Prolix than that he is the very clever author of a book entitled “Letters descriptive of the Virginia Springs,” and that he is a gentleman upon the wrong side of forty. The first fact we are enabled easily to perceive from the peculiarity of an exceedingly witty-pedantic style characterizing, in a manner not to be mistaken, both the Virginia and the Pennsylvania Letters—the second appears from the first stanza of a rhyming dedication (much better than eulogistic) to John Guillemard, Esquire, Fellow of the Royal Society, London—
| I send my friend a little token Three thousand miles across the sea, Of kindness, forty years unbroken And cherished still for him by me. |