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NT.

STREET.

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OR THE

MAN OF REFINEMENT.

SECOND EDITION.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

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PRINTED BY COX AND BAYLIS, GREAT QUEEN STREET.

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WILLIAM STURGES BOURNE, М.Р.
&c. &c. &c.

Of Testwood Park, Hampshire.

IF it should be asked why I have recorded the series of retired scenes, and sometimes abstruse conversations, which compose the following narrative, my answer is a very simple one: in the present state of the world, they may possibly do good, and cannot do harm. Not that I think the world worse now than it has been for perhaps the last hundred years. The upper and lower classes I should say are certainly not so; I am not so sure of the middle. The wide spread of that luxury which is consequent on wealth, by extinguishing the modest style of living which once belonged to us, has undermined our independence, and left our virtue defenceless. All would be Statesmen, Philosophers, or people of fashion. All, too, run to London. The woods and fields are unpeopled; the plain mansions and plain

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