Memoirs of an American Lady

not seventeen years of age. In that case the fathers and mothers held a council; and the parents who had most house-room, or raised the largest crop, took the young couple to live with them.

I also conversed with Mrs. Grant especially on the subject of her work the "American Lady;" and she assured me that there is not any romance in the history; but that it is a plain and faithful narrative of her Aunt Schuyler, and of the persons and manners of that period as they existed in the then province of New York. Mrs. Grant is the author also of the "Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland"-" The Cottagers of Glenburnie" and "Letters from the Mountains ;" but neither of those works has attained the popularity of the "American Lady."

GRANT THORBURN.

The preceding notice, by Mr. Thorburn, of Mrs. Grant's chief work, not only affirms the authenticity of the facts, but it exhibits the amiable historian so attractively, that it will render her volume additionally acceptable to all who are desirous to behold a genuine picture of our ancestors, prior to the changes made in our country by the Revolution, and our subsequent independence. Therefore, to the women of our republic especially, the "American Lady" is confidently recommended.

New York, November 19, 1845.

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE

SIR WILLIAM GRANT, KNT.,

MASTER OF THE ROLLS.

SIR :

It is very probable that the friends, by whose solicitations I was induced to arrange, in the following pages, my early recollections, studied more the amusement I should derive from executing this task, than any pleasure they could expect from its completion.

The principal object of this work is to record the few incidents, and the many virtues, which diversified and distinguished the life of a most valued friend. Though no manners could be more simple, no notions more primitive, than those which prevailed among her associates, the stamp of originality with which they were marked, and the peculiar circumstances in which they stood, both with regard to my friend, and the infant society to which they belonged, will, I flatter myself, give an interest, with reflecting minds, even to this desultory narrative, and the miscellany of description, observation, and detail which it involves.

If truth, both of feeling and narration, which are its only merits, prove a sufficient counterbalance to carelessness, laxity, and incoherence of style, its prominent faults, I may venture to invite you, when you unbend from the useful and honorable labors to which your valuable time is devoted, to trace this feeble delineation of an excellent though unembellished character; and of the rapid pace with which an infant society has urged on its progress from virtuous simplicity to the dangerous "knowledge of good and evil;" from tremulous imbecility to self-sufficient independence.

To be faithful, a delineation must necessarily be minute. Yet if this sketch, with all its imperfections, be honored by your indulgent perusal, such condescension of time and talent must certainly be admired, and may perhaps be imitated, by others.

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