Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Printed for J. MAWMAN; LONGMAN, HURST,

REES, & ORME; H. D. SYMONDS; LACKINGTON, ALLEN, & Co.;.
B. CROSBY & Co; and DARTON & HARVEY:

and for WILSON & SPENCE, York,

Printed by

T. WILSON and R. SPENCE, High-Ousegate, York

TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS,

GRACIOUSLY to accept my first literary production; which was professedly written for the Instruction and Amusement of Young Minds. If it produces that effect, and gains your Royal Highness's Approbation, I shall obtain the ultimate end of my wishes. I disclaim the usual style of Dedication, as being incompatible with the sincerity I profess and practise. Flattery, like poison, is certain in its operations, and destructive in its consequences: various are the means of infusing this mental evil; but those never fail of obtaining success, which are ministered in the pleasing semblance of deserved applause. Deign to receive my ardent prayers, that your Royal

a 2

Royal Highness may attain every possible degree of perfection! and that you may be good as well as great; great by royal descent, but superior by exemplary virtue. Let me earnestly entreat your Royal Highness not to disappoint the hopes of an expecting nation, who seek in your Royal Highness a continuation of those amiable qualities which so eminently distinguish our most gracious Queen. Strive, like her, to gain universal Approbation; make her the model of your conduct and may God grant you grace, so closely to copy the bright original, that two such animating pictures may influence the manners of posterity, and enhance the merit of Female Virtue.

I am, with profound Respect,

Your Royal Highness's

Most obedient and faithful Servant,

Tottenham High Cross,

April 8, 1778.

ANN MURRY.

PREFACE.

THE Author of the following Dialogues, in conformity to custom, deems it necessary to allege some reason, and offer some excuse, for presenting them to the public. She is conscious of their defects, and therefore trusts that the plan, rather than the execution, will ensure their future success. In their behalf she begs leave to plead, that they were originally written for the use of her pupils: the advantages they derived from them, added to the repeated solicitations of her friends, were the chief motives of their publication.

She is aware that justice may urge the critics to pass a severe sentence on her performance; but as whatever faults may be in it, she sincerely wishes to amend,

« AnteriorContinuar »