which I have recommended to you, must be likewise subservient to the same views; the pursuit of knowledge, when it is guided and controlled by the principles I have established, will conduce to many valuable ends; the habit of industry, it will give you, the nobler kind of friendships, for which it will qualify you, and its tendency to promote a candid and liberal way of thinking, are obvious advantages. I might add, that a mind well informed in the various pursuits which interest mankind, and the influence of such pursuits on their happiness, will embrace, with a clearer choice, and will more steadily adhere to, those principles of Virtue and Religion which the judgment must ever approve, in proportion as it becomes enlightened. May those delightful hopes be answered which have animated my heart, while with diligent attention I have endeavoured to apply to your advantage all that my own experience and best observation could furnish! With what joy should I see my dearcst. girl shine forth a bright example of every thing that is amiable and praiseworthy!-and how sweet would be the reflection that I had, in any degree, contributed to make her so! My heart expands with the affecting thought, and pours forth in this adicu the most ardent wishes for your perfection! If the tender solicitude expressed for your welfare by this "labour of love" can engage your gratitude, you will always remember how deeply your conduct interests the happiness of Your most affectionate End of Mrs. Chapone's Letters. AUNT. PREFACE. THA HAT the subsequent Letters were written by a tender Father, in a declining state of health, for the instruction of his Daughters, and not intended for the Public, is a circumstance which will recommend them to every one who considers them in the light of admonition and advice. In such domestic intercourse, no sacrifices are made to prejudices, to customs, or to fashionable opinions. Paternal love, paternal care, speak their genuine sentiments, undisguised and unrestrained. A father's zeal for his daughters' improvement, in whatever can make a woman amiable, with a father's quick apprehension of the dangers that too often arise, even from the attainment of that very point, suggest his admonitions, and render him attentive to a thousand little graces and little decorums, which would escape the nicest moralist who should undertake the subject on uninterested speculation. Every faculty is on the alarm, when the objects of such tend affection are concerned. in the writer of these Letters paternal tenderness and vigilance were doubled, as he was at the time sole parcnt; death having before deprived the young ladies of their excellent mother. His own precarious state of health inspired him with the inst tender solicitude for their future welfare; and though he might have concluded, that the impression made by his instruction and uniform example could never be effaced from the memory of his children, yet his anxiety for their orphan condition suggested to him this method of continuing to them those advantages. The Editor is encouraged to offer this Treatise to the Public, by the very favourable reception |