The following pages will, I believe, be judged by every reader of taste to have been worth preserving, among the other testimonies the author left behind her, of her genius and the soundness of her understanding. To such readers I leave the task of comparing these lessons, with other works of the same nature previously published. It is obvious that the author has struck out a path of her own, and by no means intrenched upon the plans of her predecessors.
It may however excite surprise in some persons to find these papers annexed to the conclusion of a novel. All I have to offer on this subject, consists in the following considerations:
First, something is to be allowed for the difficulty of arranging the miscellaneous papers upon very different subjects, which will frequently constitute an author's posthumous works.
Secondly, the small portion they occupy in the present volume, will perhaps be accepted as an apology, by such good-natured readers (if any such there are), to whom the perusal of them shall be a matter of perfect indifference.
Thirdly, the circumstance which determined me in annexing them to the present work, was the slight association (in default of a strong one) between the affectionate and pathetic manner in which Maria Venables addresses her infant, in the Wrongs of Woman; and the agonising and painful sentiment with which the author originally bequeathed these papers, as a legacy for the benefit of her child.
