PREFATORY ADDRESS. SINCE the publication of the much favoured "Letters" referred to in the title-page, the author has been repeatedly advised to make the character and duties of her own sex the subject of a separate work, similar, and in some respects supplementary, to the former; yet still preserving those peculiar features which would render it more interesting and beneficial to women. was urged on the one hand, that the late publication was in some parts adapted to female students. This was admitted; but it was further observed, that, though all rational creatures are circum VOL. I. B It circumscribed within one general pale of moral and religious obligation, the peculiar path of each sex is marked by those nice shades of appropriation, which only an all-wise Being, intent on the general benefit of the whole human race, could impose: and this remark was exemplified by shewing, that any violation of this prescribed decorum exposed the offender to a degree of opprobrium by no means commensurate with the offence. To the remark, that of late women had been peculiarly fortunate in having had a number of admirable advisers, it was answered, that they had also been misled by many false lights, and were more exposed than at any former period to the artifices of seducers; who, intent to poison the minds of the unwary, had contrived to introduce their dangerous notions on manners, morals, and religion, into every species species of composition, and all forms of society; the sentiments and regulations of which had lately, as far as concerns women, undergone an alarming change. And with regard to the many really valuable moralists who have attempted to stem this torrent, the observation which the author formerly made respecting young men was equally true of women. The extremes of society were chiefly attended to; and if we judged by the style generally used by the instructor of the fair sex, we should think that the whole female world was divided into high-lived company” and paupers *; that numerous and important body the middle classes of society, whose duties are most complicated, and consequently most difficult, being generally over *This observation must be taken with exceptions; among which, Dr. Gisborne's Tract on the Duties of Women holds a pre-eminent rank. looked. B 2 looked; and yet the change of manners and pursuits among these are so marked, that the most superficial observers must be alarmed at the prospect of what it portends. Something too was said of the advantage, as well as of the propriety, of intrusting female prac titioners with the preparation of nostrums for the moral diseases of their own sisterhood; and a hint was given, that it would be patriotic to endeavour to restore the reputation of the fair college of pharmacopolists, which has been grievously tarnished by the practice of those charlatans who had aggravated the diseases which they pretended to cure by stimulants or anodynes, till in many cases, they were become too obstinate for any remedy. It was urged too, that a popular author was in conscience bound to employ. the (perhaps). transient period of public approbation in. |