To the Right Honourable the COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON. MADAM, Humbly defire Your Ladyfhip would forgive the Prefumption I am now guilty of in presenting You with this Book. I do it from VOL. I. A 3 the the high Honour and Veneration I have for Your great Merit and Virtue. It cannot, I know, furnifh Your Ladyfhip with new Reflexions; and the Ladies, of whom You are the happy Mother, have an Example before them, more prevalent to form them to every thing Praise-worthy, than any Precepts they can find in the Works of the best Writers. But as there is much Curiofity in thefe Papers, and great Strength and Force in the Reasonings of them, give me leave to offer this Collection for the Ufe of Female Life, as a Teftimony of the Refpect, which I, with all who are honoured with the leaft Acquaintance with You, must pay to Your Ladyfhip for the eminent Example You have given the World World in the important Characters of a Wife and a Mother. To Command with the Mien of making a Requeft, to Oblige with the Afpect of receiving Favours, and to win Affection without other Design than making all People happy who converse with Her, or depend upon Her, are Excellencies peculiar to my Lady BURLINGTON. But as there is a Complaifance, which, like fincere Friendship, speaks our good Opinion in our ordinary Looks and Actions, more than any Language can do it, I here fhall go no farther than just to declare myself, with great Deference, among the Admirers of Your great Goodness and Virtue, and beg of Your Ladyfhip to |