So it is with the scenes of common life a century or two ago.

They are being lost, because they were familiar.

Here are two of them, however, which have limned themselves with the distinctness of the camera obscura on the page of a chronicler of trifles.
TO THE REV.

JOHN NEWTON.
"_Nov.

17th_, 1783.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--The country around is much alarmed with apprehensions of fire.