perfections, perfections, to the inspection of a generous public, who are more ready to appreciate the works of individuals from the rectitude of intention, than the beauty of composition. The attempt, she must acknowledge, has cost her many a painful emotion; for a first attempt, surrounded by all the disadvantages peculiar to the sex, seems, to her, to require no small share of courage, and which, indeed, nothing but the importance of the subject should have induced her to encounter.
The subject of the following pages is an attempt to delineate the situation of those poor, helpless, females whose sufferings, from a variety of causes, are too grievous to be borne; the sources and dire consequences of which the exalted in life cannot form the least conception, unless they condescend to examine for themselves, when, it is to be hoped, their griev-
