taste, from which
they can never be loosened. It was particularly the design of the author,
in the present instance, to make her story subordinate to a great moral
purpose, that "of exhibiting the misery and oppression, peculiar to
women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of society.--This
view restrained her fancy[166-A]." It was necessary for her, to place in
a striking point of view, evils that are too frequently overlooked, and
to drag into light those details of oppression, of which the grosser and
more insensible part of mankind make little account.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[159-A] To understand these minutes, it is necessary the reader should
consider each of them as setting out from the same point in the story,
_viz._ the point to which it is brought down in the preceding chapter.

[166-A] See author's preface.

LESSONS.

ADVERTISEMENT,

BY THE EDITOR.

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.