PREFACE. HE following History is given in a Series of Letters, written principally in a double yet feparate correspondence; TH Between two young ladies of virtue and honour, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other, and writing not merely for amufement, but upon the most interefting fubjects; in which every private family, more or lefs, may find itself concerned: And, Between two gentlemen of free lives; one of them glorying in his talents for ftratagem and invention, and communicating to the other, in confidence, all the fecret purposes of an intriguing head and refolute heart. But here it will be proper to obferve, for the fake of fuch as may ap prehend hurt to the morals of youth, from the more freely-written letters, that the gentlemen, though profeffed libertines as to the female fex, and making it one of their wicked maxims to keep no faith with any of the individuals of it who are thrown into their power, are not, however, either infidels or fcoffers; nor yet fuch as think themfelves freed from the obfervance of thofe other moral duties which bind man to man. On the contrary, it will be found, in the progrefs of the work, that they very often make fuch reflections upon each other, and each upon himself and his own actions, as reasonable beings must make, who difbelieve not a future ftate of rewards and punishments, and who one day propose to reform-One of them actually reforming, and by that means giving an opportunity to cenfure the freedoms which fall from the gayer pen and lighter heart of the other. And yet that other, although in unbofoming himself to a felect friend, he discover wickedness enough to entitle him to general deteftation, preferves a decency, as well in his images as in his language, which is not always to be found in the works of fome of the most celebrated modern writers, whofe fubjects and characters have lefs warranted the liberties they have taken. In the letters of the two young ladies, it is prefumed, will be found not only the highest exercife of a reasonable and practicable friendship, between minds endowed with the nobleft principles of virtue and religion, but, occafionally interfperfed, fuch delicacy of fentiments, particularly with regard to the other fex; fuch inftances of impartiality, each freely, as a fundamental principle of their friendship, blaming. praifing, and fetting right, the other, as are ftrongly to be recommended to the obfervation of the younger part (more especially) of female readers. The principal of thefe two young ladies is propofed as an exemplar to her fex: nor is it any objection to her being fo, that she is not in all refpects a perfect character. It was not only natural, but it was neceffary, that the fhould have fome faults, were it only to fhew the reader how laudably fhe could miftruft and blame herfelf, and carry to her own heart, divefted of felf-partiality, the cenfure which arose from her own convictions, and that even to the acquittal of thofe, because revered characters, whom no one elfe would acquit, and to whofe much greater faults her errors were owing, and not to a weak or reproachable heart. As far as is confiftent with human frailty, and as far as the could be perfect, confidering the people the had to deal with, and those |