THE

LADIES' BOOK OF ANECDOTES

AND

SKETCHES OF CHARACTER.

COMPILED

BY REV. DANIEL SMITH.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY REV. R. S. FOSTER.

New-York:

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PHILLIPS,

200 MULBERRY-STREET.

1852.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

LANE & SCOTT,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

900 5646

ADDRESS TO THE READER.

THE compiler of the following pages makes no apology for offering this small volume of facts and incidents to the public. If worth publishing, it needs no apologies; if not, they would be useless. But perhaps a few words of explanation may not be deemed amiss. The compiler regards a good anecdote one that rivets attention, and "points its own moral" -as a gem; a small one if the reader please, but still a gem-a gem worth setting; and he has no objection to employ an occasional hour in the humble work of fixing it in an appropriate and permanent position. Facts illustrate principles -they both entertain and instruct. They are as much better than the great mass of works of fiction, as truth is better than falsehood-as decidedly preferable, as real lakes, fountains, and streams, are to the faithless, tantalizing mirage of the desert.

Our