ADVERTISEMENT.
From the first intimation of the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte, the general sensation heightened daily, till the climax was completed on the melancholy day of interment. Within this interim it was scarcely possible, without a surreptitious effort, either to speak or think on any other topic.
The prevalence of this acute sensibility—the daily intelligence of consecutive evils—and the relief obtained by fixing the attention on some specific object, gave origin to this pamphlet.
Whatever belongs to moral agency, as well as to the preceptive and practical portions, is the result of previous observation; and for them the Author solicits no other concession than is due to the circumscription of his plan. The style and arrangement he is aware are exceptionable. He pleads in extenuation that the address is extemporaneous:—suggested by a high degree of social feeling with his interesting countrywomen, and under circumstances that forbade the delay which much emendation would have occasioned.
Should it be imagined that the specification of certain incongruities is too severe, the Author solicits credence for an assurance that he has exclusively referred to the excrescence and not the character. There is not an individual in the world whom he has intended to deride.
The vindication he has offered in the sequel is totally disinterested; the persons referred to are entirely unknown to him.
The term Moral prefixed to this Address, may appear disingenuous.—Much difficulty arose in fixing on a single appellation which should embrace a distinguished feature in the address, and yet contra-distinguish it from one purely medical.
Should any hint he has dropt prove useful in quieting unwarrantable fear, or in establishing more safe and happy arrangements in child-birth, or in conducing to a more generous and comprehensive treatment of female diseases or diseases in general, the Author will be most amply recompensed.
Great Prescot-Street,
Nov. 24, 1817.