
IF a private suffrage could add fame to a public character, I shoud be the foremost to express my opinion of your Grace's merits;
"for they who speak thy praise secure their own."
But as a compliment is always intended, in an address of this nature, I shall assume the sole honour of it to myself, by declaring

to the world, that I am one of the many, who have reason to subscribe myself,

With respect and gratitude, Your Grace's, very much obliged, and most obedient servant, FRANCES.

THE following work is submitted to the perusal of the public, with infinite timidity, and apprehension, as it is a species of writing, which I had never attempted before, from a consciousness of my dificiency, in the principal article of such compositions, namely invention.
THE generality of NOVEL → -READERS may, therefore, probably, be disappointed in not meeting with any extraordinary adventure, or uncommon situation, in the following pages; while persons of a more natural taste, will, I flatter myself, be rather pleased at finding the stories and incidents, here ralated, such as might, for I affirm they did, and most of them to my own knowledge, certainly happen, in the various contingencies of real life.
BUT though I have not attempted to feign any fable, I acknowledge that I have endeavoured to conceal some truth, by changing scenes, and altering circumstances, in order to avoid too marked an application, of the several stories and characters, to the real persons, from whom I have taken my drama. We have no right over other persons secrets, come they to our knowledge through whatsoever medium of intelligence, they may.—Accident confers none, and confidence forbids it.
AS there is no fictitious memoir here ralated, neither is there any factitious moral displayed, to the incredulous reader, amongst all the various sentiments of this recital. I write not of puppets, but of men. I have endeavoured to describe the feelings, nay the foibles, of the human heart, such as we are naturally conscious of, in ourselves; but meddle not with the wires

of the floicks, which only render us machines, by helping us to perform a part, of which we have no sensation.
I KNOW not whether novel → , like the epopee, has any rules peculiar to itself—If it has I may have innocently erred against them all, and drawn upon myself the envenomed rage of that tremendous body, the minor critics.—But if I have spread a table for them, they shall be welcome to
