Medici. Nay, she will go so far as to affirm, that the labours of the "New Philosophy" will be remembered by their effects, when the theories of all former schools shall be forgotten.

It must be very gratifying to a retired old woman, to confider that her productions may fail down this swelling stream of fame with those of her immortal contemporaries. She confefses that her ideas differ in fome respects from theirs; but as every one professes the same end, namely, the improvement of the universe, she rejoices that she is permitted, by the liberality of the times, to disseminate her own peculiar sentiments. If she be of opinion, that Morality appeared to better advantage when she was contented to be the handmaid of Piety, than fince she has set up for an independent character; if she be convinced, that the abilities and attainments of man are in this

B2

this life so limited, that he will never be able to "wield these elements," to endow a machine with intellectual powers, or to array himself with a felf-invested immortality; if she be perfuaded, that the filial and conjugal ties are no remnants of feudal barbarism, but happy institutions, calculated to promote domeftic peace; if she has been taught, that religion is more than sentiment, and female virtue something stronger than exterior decorum; if she shudders at the eloquence which extenuates impiety, terms seduction an amiable frailty, and gaming an elegant amusement condemned by the infane morality of the law: surely she may hope for that celebrity which a bold opposition to received opinions generally ensures. Nay, should she even prefer the Gothic ruff and pinner, as better adapted to British wives and mothers than the loose drapery of Grecian

Bacchanals,

Bacchanals, or the more offenfive appearance of uncivilized savages, though recommended by the sanction of Parifian enthusiasts, when, with more than Pagan infatuation or cannibal insensibility, they meet to commemorate in their feftive dances-not the triumphs of their Gods, nor the death of their enemiesbut the murder of their parents, their husbands, and their children; may she not plead a close attention to the costume of manners, and reproach the sensual copyists of a Cleopatra or an Aspasia with want of energy, who adopt all the characterists of the archetype, of which they exhibit a degrading model?

Her intention in resuming the pen is to enforce her opinions by argument, and to illustrate them by example; and she reveals those intentions thus early, that the lover of the wonderful, and the admirer of the horrific, may not complain

B 3

plain of having been cheated into the perusal of a performance that has not only a plan for its conduct, but also a moral tendency in its defign. Mrs. Prudentia intends to lead her readers through no other labyrinth than the wiles of fyftematic depravity, nor to present any object more foul-harrowing than a deceived and entangled, but ultimately penitent heart.

While she confesses that the ground. work of her story has a remote analogy to fome well-known facts, she strongly reprobates the idea of personality. The incidents are all her own, and it is only in one portrait that she has attempted to sketch a likeness from nature. She affures the cenforious, that, even in that portrait, she has so adjusted the drapery and varied the colours, that it will be impossible for the most curious eye to discover who fat for the outline.

Though