Jenks' Portland Gazette. Maine Advertiser

To the Editor of the Portland Gazette.

SIR,

You have been pleased to request from me more frequent communications for your paper: and as I have no reason to doubt your sincerity, I am willing to oblige you whenever it is in my power. Since my leisure for such employments is small, allow me to fill, with some detached reflections, the space which unavoidably occurs between productions of a more systematic kind. They are such as familiarly arise in the mind; and rather than they should be lost, or left to the precarious impressions of memory, I occasionally amuse myself committing them to writing. You will at once recollect some illustrious examples of this kind of composition. The Proverbs of Solomon have, for ages, been read and admired; while the Aphorisms of Lavater, and the Maxims of Rochefoucauld, have not been lost amidst the profuse publications of later times. There can be no doubt but all these works, with others of a similar nature, have urged intimations of truth to numerous minds, which have greatly assisted the growth of wisdom and happiness. Could I assure myself that this object might be promoted, in the smallest degree, by the present attempt, no other compensation would be necessary for the hazard which attends it.

I am Sir, yours, &c.

P.