ADVERTISEMENT.

THE very favourable reception which "THE ELEMENTS OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE" have met with, has encouraged the Author to introduce another Work to public notice, defigned more particularly for the fervice of the Ladies.

In the course of the following narrative he has endeavoured to inftruct his Readers by the importance, and to amuse them by the variety of his fubjects; with this view he has united Converfations and Letters with Sketches of original Characters, curious Adventures, and Descriptions of interefting Places.

To point severe and indiscriminate cenfures against the times in which we live, is perhaps rather the

part

part of an ill-natured fatyrift than of a candid obferver of mankind; for every age, like every individual, is marked by characteristic virtues and defects. But we cannot, it is prefumed, take a view of the prefent ftate of fociety, without obferving that too many young perfons of both fexes are difpofed to look upon the reftraints of parental authority as an intolerable check to the freedom of their actions; to reft their claims to diftinction and praise too much upon trifling accomplishments; and to think that conftant appearance in public, and a continual round of amufements are effential to their wellbeing.

If fuch be, in any refpect, a true description of the fentiments and the manners of the young, that writer cannot be fairly cenfured as aiming at an unworthy, or a trivial object,-as mifemploying his time, or degrading his talents, who endeavours to correct fuch difpofitions by displaying the advantages, and defcribing the pleasures that result from the perfevering cultivation of filial love, from the acquire

ment of elegant and ufeful knowledge, and from the exercife of fuch virtues as are calculated to fhed luftre upon the walks of domeftic and private life.

The Author of this Work, during many years, has been attempting to find the road that leads to HAPPINESS, and he leaves the candid and the judicious to determine how far the methods he recommends are likely to affift his young Readers in making this most important, and most defirable of all difcoveries.