EPISTLE DEDICATORY

FROM

MADAME DE GENLIS,

то

HER DAUGHTER S.

MOST

OST of the theatrical pieces: I have compofed have been for you; for the amusement and inftruction of your childhood. Should it be thought I have given a happy picture of tender mothers, and of children worthy to be beloved, to you I owe the truth of thofe traits I have drawn, and thofe fenfations I have expreffed. You were the objects of my labors, and you are become the reward. I have not talents fufficient to

infpire, or to juftify, the love of fame, and to you only am I indebted for the degree of fuccefs I have experienced.

THE

TRANSLATOR's PREFACE.

ERTAIN liberties have been taken,

CER

in the tranflation of these dramas, of which I, in fome measure, feel myself bound to render an account; as well to the public as to the author, both of whom I hold in great respect.

The tales and incidents on which they are founded are all fcriptural. In England, the reading of the scriptures is fo univerfal that there is no perfon to whom the style or diction peculiar to the Bible is not familiar, through which ftyle the happy genius of the English tranflators has infufed a noble fimplicity.

In France, on the contrary, the fcriptures are fo little known that the most popular ftories they contain, when related to the bulk of the people, have all the force of novelty. I was prefent when a French lady, of tolerable education and confiderable wit, and who had been near thirty years the companion of a

1

man of letters, being accidentally queftioned concerning Cain, did not know the name: and, when written, and shewn to her, and the ftory of his murdering Abel brought to recollection, could but just remember she had heard fomething concerning fuch a story. This is not related as an anecdote, but a fact : and, though it will by no means prove French people of education univerfally ignorant of the fcriptures, it implies a great majority thus ignorant; which cannot astonifh any perfon, who calls to mind. that the use of the Bible, in the mother tongue, is prohibited by the catholic religion.

Madame de Genlis, therefore, very properly, inftead of affecting that ancient and peculiar ftyle which we revere, and which we expect, in whatever relates to fcriptural hiftory, has rather endeavored to exprefs the feelings of her characters in language congenial to the taste of her country: not, however, without occafionally and happily falling into the idiom of the original.

There