which neither affect nor offend any creed, but
which are claimed and valued by all. In this way, by making amusement
the handmaiden of instruction, the author believes it possible to let
into the cabin, the farm-house, and even the landlord's drawing-room,
a light by which each and all of them may read many beneficial
lessons--lessons that will, it is hoped, abide with them, settle down
in their hearts, and by giving them a, clearer sense of their respective
duties, aid in improving and regenerating their condition.

To send to the poor man's fireside, through the medium of Tales that
will teach his heart and purify his affections, those simple lessons
which may enable him to understand his own value--that will generate
self-respect, independence, industry, love of truth, hatred of deceit
and falsehood, habits of cleanliness, order, and punctuality--together
with all those lesser virtues which help to create a proper sense of
personal and domestic comfort--to assist in working out these healthful
purposes is the Author's anxious wish--a task in which any man may feel
proud to engage.

Self-reliance, manly confidence in the effect of their own virtues,
respect for the virtues that ought to adorn rank, rather than for
rank itself, and a spurning of that vile servility which is only the
hereditary remnant of bygone oppression, will be taught the people
in such a way as to make them feel how far up in society a high moral
condition can and ought to place them. Nor is this all;--the darker
page of Irish life shall be laid open before them--in which they will be
taught, by examples that they can easily understand, the fearful details
of misery, destitution, banishment, and death, which the commission of a
single crime may draw down, not only upon the criminal himself, but upon
those innocent and beloved connections whom he actually punishes by his
guilt.

It is, indeed, with fear and trembling that the Author undertakes such a
great and important task as this. If he fail, however, he may well say--

"_Quem si non tenuifc, tamon magnis excidit ausis_."

Still he is willing to hope that, through the aid of truthful fiction,
operating upon the feelings of his countrymen, and on their knowledge of
peasant life, he may furnish them with such a pleasing Encyclopedia of
social duty--now lit up with their mirth, and again made tender with
their sorrow--as will force them to look upon him as a benefactor--to
forget his former err