the charm of novelty is still sought with avidity.

If such be the hapless lot of authors; if, as a witty writer has observed, their best thoughts have been stolen from them by the ancients,' they are to be applauded for the dexterity with which they contrive to work up old materials; for the gloss, beauty, and variety with which they invest them.

It is certainly true that a picture of human nature, if faithful, must fundamentally be similar to that which has been exhibited a thousand and a thousand times; but may not the grouping be varied, the figures presented in new attitudes, the light and shade differently managed? Until error has laid aside its Proteus character; until it ceases to assume an infinite variety of forms, an attentive observer of morals and manners, will probably find something in both, to counteract, and to combat.

It has been suggested to the author of the following tale, that the gravity of her title-page may alarm the gay: she is quite

ready to allow that dulness must be fatal to a work of fiction, and she has been as anxious as the gayest of the gay could desire to recommend the truths which she has at heart, without being guilty of this unpardonable sin.

The pious reader, if any such should honour this trifling work with their attention, will not, she trusts, mistake the motives by 'which the writer has been influenced. If

she has touched upon those modes of faith or religious belief, which produce errors of practice, it has not been for the unhallowed purpose of depreciating religion itself. The narrow, intemperate, injudicious zeal, pourtrayed in one of her characters, is totally distinct from that holy and humble earnestness, without which religion is little more than a form.

Infidelity, indeed, has resumed its malignant activity; and our feelings have been outraged by hearing all that is sacred in the doctrines, all that is dear and venerable in the institutions, of our religion, pro

faned and polluted; it is not, however, less certain that the profession of earnest piety is no longer either discreditable or unfashionable. The dextrous secrecy,' with which Dean Swift contrived to perform his family devotions, would now be as needless as it was then cowardly.

But, though Religion forms so prominent a figure on the canvas, she is not always exhibited in her own fair and beautiful proportions; the three Christian graces, by whom she should be perpetually encircled are sometimes unwisely separated; and thus the sphere of her usefulness is contracted, and the brightness of her countenance obscured.

But if these mistakes have not been passed over in silence, the author hopes that the more fatal error of those who reject, despise, or neglect religion, has not been left in the shade; and that the young and gay who seek entertainment in the perusal of this little work, will close it with the impression that weighed

against pure, active, and enlightened religious principle; the splendour of rank, the magic of wit, and the fascinations of genius, are but dust in the balance.

JANUARY 13th, 1820.