these things he refolved to put together, and call them a Supplement to his large work. They must be, he concluded; as 'ufeful and agreeable now as they could be half a century hence, and they may perhaps be grateful enough; as the things are curious and new, relating to art and nature, and books and converse and occurrence; and as the ladies are a glory to Great Britain, and an hopor to womankind; for their fine understandings, their valuable learning, their strong judgments, and their good lives. We are generally pleased with accounts of such people and things.. Beauties efpecially, with the heads of philofophers, the knowledge of divines, and the hearts of primitive christians, are characters in our days, that cannot be enough admired.

Nor is this all. In the hiftory of these ladies the reader will find fome extraordinary adventures, and scenes very tender and uncommon. The ftorys of Mrs. Biffel, Mrs. Chadfley, Mrs. Mort, the beautiful Ifyphenia, and Judith the charming Hebrew, are very furprising accounts. They are not only true historys of amour, diftrefs, and relief, but fuch famples of virtue and good fenfe, in the hard parts they had to play, as must please the wife and honeft. Mrs. Cheflyne's life is an aftonishing relation. The account of the

excellent Mrs. Fanshaw, the generous reader will not be able to read without tears.

Among the things, the reader may not only expect feveral accounts of antiquities, and of natural and artificial works; but various literary remarks thrown here and there, and fundry obfervations on religion, and the most famous writers for and against what is true, and what is false. The author reviews the divines and the deifts, and with fairness, plainnefs and freedom, delivers his own thoughts, and the thoughts of other people who came in his way, concerning our greatest writing doctors, and the men they write against.

Such are the things and entertainment the reader will find in the following heap of minutes and notes, which are called Memoirs of feveral ladies of Great Britain, because the illuftrious women therein mentioned are the choiceft things in the collection, and every other account, with all the literary reflexions, fpring from their storys, and are recited occafionally, as they relate to particulars in their hiftorys. This is the reafon of the title. Exclufive of this, the work might have been named Pandecta, as it contains a great variety of matter, and that the narrations relative to the ladies are the leaft Part of the performance.

ly,

This is all the author has to premife before the reader begins; and the only favor he has to afk is, in the first place, that in reading him, you will not wink hard, if truth of any kind should shine; and especially if it be rendered plain from reason, and the reveled will of the fupreme Being, that it is mpiety to be an Athanafian religionist, or a Lukewarm chriftian: That it is your glory and your intereft to adhere to the doctrine of the primitive church, which teaches that there is but one God fupreme over all, even the Father; and that the Son is an inferior minifterial agent, produced by the power, will, and free pleasure of the original caufe of all bis God and our God, his Father and our Father and that in order to be faved, you must reach forth, even as a race-horse stretcheth himself, and prefs with the utmost labor and diligence, to make every rule of the gofpel the law of your life and practice.

In the next place, as you ponder through these Memoirs, that you will not ftrive to unravel and confound, where there is no fault to find; nor endeavor to produce a finister conftruction, where the meaning of the writer is visibly good, tho his idea of the thing should happen to be wrong, or his notion badly expreft. Faultlefs the author does not pretend to be. He is a man. But where

is wrong, he would, if he might chufe,

be

be corrected by the rules of civil righteouf nefs, and not in that bitter zeal which hath no alliance with the wisdom that comes from above. 'Tis the glory of the facred book, that it breathes the kindeft, gentleft fpirit; eternal love. It allows no method or compulfion, but what resembles that friendly importunity which the difciples used to engage Chrift to fpend the evening with them at Emaus. This is the meffage that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Farewel.

N. B. In an Appendix to the Second Volume of this work, the reader will find an account of two very extraordinary perfons, Dean Swift, and Mrs. Conftantia Grierfon of Dublin.

As to the Dean, we have four historys of him lately published, to wit, by Lord Orre ry, the Obferver on Lord Orrery, Dean Swift Efq; and Mrs. Pilkington; but after all, the man is not described. The ingenious female writer comes nearest to his character, fo far as fhe relates; but her relation is an imperfect piece. My Lord, and the Remarker on his Lordship, have given us mere critiques on his writings, and not fo fatisfactory as one could with. They are not painters. And as to Mr. Swift, the Dean's coufin, his Effay is an odd kind of history of the doctor's fami

ly,

ly, and vindication of the Dean's high birth, pride, and proceedings. His true character is not attempted by this writer. He fays it never can be drawn up with any degree of accuracy, so exceedingly ftrange, various, and perplexed it was; and yet the materials are to be gathered from his writings. All this I deny. I think I can draw his character; not from his writings, but from my own near obfervations of the man. I knew him well, tho I never was within fide of his house, because I could not flatter, cringe, or meanly humour the extravagances of any man. I am fure I knew him better than any of those friends he entertained twice a-week at the Deanery; Stella excepted. I had him often to myself in his rides, and walks, and have ftudied his foul when he little thought what I was about. As I lodged for a year within a few doors of him, I knew his times of going out to a minute, and generally nicked the opportunity. He was fond of company upon these occafions, and glad to have any rational to talk to: for, whatever was the meaning of it, he rarely had any of his friends attending him at his exercises. One fervant only, and no companion, he had with him, as often as I have met him, or came up with him. What gave me the eafier access to him, was my being tolerably well acquainted with our politics and hifto

ry,