Libe Swann 3-21-44 49963 3V

ADVERTISEMENT.

CONSCIO

ONSCIOUS how much the judg ment of friends is liable to be influenced by partiality; and sensible, that where partiality cannot operate, prejudice against the known opinions, or even the ser, of a writer may unwittingly bias the reader's mind; the Author of the following Memoirs resolved to introduce the first edition under a signature evidently fictitious. The various authors to whom this work has been attributed, will probably thank

thank her for now acknowledging its real parentage; while the several persons who have been pointed out, by the sagacity of different readers, as the original Julias, and Vallatons, and Bridgetinas, will forgive the candid declaration that must for ever deprive them of the honour so kindly conferred upon them by their friends.

To divert the languor of sickness in the seclusion of a country retirement, FANCY first sketched the portraits in question; which were gradually formed, by tracing the probable operation of certain principles upon certain characters; necessarily divesting these principles of the adventitious splendour they had received, from the elegance and pathos that distinguish the lan

guage

guage and sentiments of the authors by whom they have been chiefly promulgated. For the other characters that appear in the work, the Author does not acknowledge the same obligation to Fancy. The happy effects of piety and benevolence, of prudence, good sense, and moderation, she has had too many opportunities of contemplating in the circle of her own aequaintances, to be obliged to have recourse to imagination for their delineation. Imagination, indeed, gave the colouring, but the qutlines were drawn by Truth.

To many of the author's friends it is well known, that above twelve months of severe indisposition occasioned a delay in the publication, which de

prived the plan of the advantage of appearing entirely original. On a perusal of the works which appeared in the interim, apparently written under similar impressions, she, however, did not find her own ideas so much anticipated by any of them, as to induce her to suppress the present work, or even to make the smallest alteration in its contents. Her chief design in the publication is so fully explained in the Introduction to the first editionthat she thinks it proper to present it to the reader in its original dress.

BATH,

NOV. 29, 1800.