have known many private memoirs, and particular circumstances in life, which has afforded me an opportunity of supplying both my characters and situations from the living drama, instead of borrowing them from the mimic scene. I felt, as I wrote, and lived along the line, from the sympathy of friendship, or the tenderness

of compassion. This is contagious—I hope my readers may catch the infection also.
For I shall think myself extremely happy, if I can, in any degree, contribute towards forming, or informing, the young and innocent; the task of reforming I leave to greater geniuses, and abler pens. The characters which present themselves in this work, are, as I have already hinted, mostly drawn from real life, they are therefore natural, and proper objects, either for imitation or avoidance,

" Virtuous, and vicious, every man must be;
" Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree."

But, when writers exceed the bounds of probability, and describe an angel, or a devil, in human form, our reason is shocked, and revolts at the idea of a character so much above, or below, our nature; the semblance of truth vanishes, the reader's attention becomes relaxed, and both the events, and the moral, if there should be any,
" Fade like the baseless fabric of a vision,
" Nor leave a wreck behind!"

With such productions our circulating libraries, those slop-shops

in literature, abound, and with them must they still be filled, till our legislature shall think proper to enable the booksellers to pay for better works, by passing an act to secure their property, in the copies they purchase: till that is done, no person in the trade can afford to pay a large sum for any manuscript, be the merit of it what it will; and of course no authors, except the very poor ones, indeed, both in the literal and metaphorical sense of the word, or the rich, who form but a small squadron in the host of writers,

will devote their time and labour to the public, without hope of some adequate reward.
Those who amongst our legions, neither want, nor abound, have therefore but one way of contributing their mite to the Parnassian treasury; that of publishing by subscription, which in my estimation is at once both flattering, and humiliating, as it proves the attachment of our friends, while it lays us under the painful necessity of taxing their regard.

Happy and honoured as I have been by the favour of the public in general