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highest degree resemble the illustrious women described in them. You are not idle as beauties generally be, nor remifs in decorating your mind, with attributes fuperior to ordinary humanity. You have a paffion for that natural grace and pleafure that are annexed to truth and useful knowledge. You are diligent in obtaining understanding, that you may ever think and act to the glory of God, your own eternal happynefs, and the good of others.

When you loft your husband, an excellent man, (if fincerity and the fweetest temper, adorned with wit, tafte, and learning, are things that give excellence to men) and was not then, if I remember right, full one and twenty, you did not appear at the public places in the elegance of woe, but immediately with your infant daughter withdrew, and in the remoteft, filent retreat, determined to live an example of reafon and goodnefs, and steer right onwards in the ways of perfection. The misfortune of lofing your little charming companion, could not make a change in this refolution. You knew the world was a bauble, and its fpeculations and practices the products of intereft and plea fure; that under the common vizard of virtue and religion, falfhood and felf, made a fair appearance, and that few, very few, had any other fpring of action than temper or de

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fign, tho all pretended to act by principles; and therefore, in that fine, romantic vale, through which the bright Glenkroden harmoniously winds along, you were fixed in your purpose, to neglect the things which are bebind, and ftretch forward to thofe before, for the prize that is in Chrift Jefus, of God's bigh calling.

Ut cum carceribus miffos rapit ungula currus
Inftat equis auriga fuos vincentibus, illum
Præterritum temnens, extremos inter euntem.

Here, Madam, your fole ambition and aim is to be wife, and do good. In voluntary returns of the life and love your creator gave you, you daily pay your tribute to heaven; and by the beft outward evidence of good works, you fhew the inward regenerátion and renewal of your mind. The doctrine of falvation takes up the course of your life. To be in Chrift a new creature here, and hereafter in a glorified state with him and his God and Father, is your fole prayer.

In a word, while fuch numbers of your sex, of distinction and fortune, are swayed by natural temper, and the falfe opinions and cuftoms of the world; and fanfy themselves pious for fwallowing the preparation of the doctors; that tritheiftic apoftacy which Fathers and Councils forged, and Popes and Theologers have confpired to establish; you, Madam,

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continue to worship the Father of the univerfe only, through Chrift the glorious Mediator; and by your counsel, your favor, and your example, do all that is poffible for one mortal to do, to advance rectitude, and promote original chriftian religion, among the wild inhabitants of the mountains you live on. A trinity in unity is no part of your confeffion of faith. You want not fpectacle and pleasure to fave you from falling into the languid ftate of heavinefs and affliction. Your religion attaches you to truth, and the honor of God-to that venerable chriftianity which the facred authors of the Bible reveled: And your books and philofophy, your linnen-work and country business, leave no room for regretting the tumultuous fituation. They hinder you from ever fenfing the irksomeness of folitude and indolence. By the happyeft employments of time, you make the desart a paradice, and in the wildeft part of the universe, form a ftate of happynefs, that is as much fuperior, I believe, to what a multiplicity of amufements, and the excess of expenfive action can produce in the world, as the tranquil state of beatifyed beings is beyond the joys of mortals. To fay it, piety and goodness are the bright criterions of your life. You are a bleffing to the poor all round you. You enlighten their minds. You cloath and feed their bodies.

If this be the exact picture of Mrs. Monkboufe, and fure I am it is not over-painted, then to whom should I dedicat but to you, Madam, a work that contains a history of as valuable and extraordinary women as ever lived in privat life; women of a philofophical genius, a confiderable learning, and a rational benevolence; engaged in various perplexing scenes; fubject to many untoward incidents; but still appearing as formed of nobler materials than the duft of the ground, a meliore luto, and according to the measure of mortals, perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. In religion, like you, they were all strict Unitarians. Their faith was pure and fcriptural: And to it they added the affecting, transforming influences of the gofpel; thofe invaluable influences which give a fubftance to what is unfeen;-a prefence to the future things of the other world.

Such, Madam, were the ladies whofe Memoirs I lay before you, and therefore I imagine you will be pleafed with the faithful accounts I give of every interefting particular relating to them. It was my fortune to become acquainted with them in my perambulations over Great Britain, and by mere accidents, in the manner my good genius made me known to Mr. Monkhoufe and his lady, when it brought me firft to your hofpitable

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pitable, happy manfion, the night I lost my way in my journey from Wharton-ball to Amblefide, and was greatly diftreffed by a mischief I had received, and a thousand perils that furrounded me on the fells of Weftmorland. Many a time has my uncommon paffion for the extraordinary works of nature, and other curious things, brought me into fuch perplexed circumftances, and obliged me to pass a night in a cave, or lie on the fern of a mountain but I had always reafon to rejoyce in the end for the fortunat acquaintance my adverfity produced. I will tell you a fhort story..

As I travelled once in the month of September, over a wild part of Yorkshire, and fanfyed in the afternoon that I was near the place I intended to rest at, it appeared from a great water we came to, that we had for half a day been going wrong, and were many a mile from any village. This was vexatious; and to perplex it higher, the winds began to blow outrageoufly, the clouds gathered, and as the evening advanced, the rain came down like water-fpouts from the heavens. All the good that offered was the ruins of a nunnery within a few yards of the water, and among the walls once facred to devotion, a part of an arch that was enough to fhelter us and our beafts from the floods and tempeft. Into this we entered: the

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