ABSTRACT
Mrs. Prudentia Homespun 7 again begs leave to return thanks to the world for its very favourable reception of her lucubrations. She is now firmly convinced, that the clamours which are circulated against the injustice and bad taste of the times, may be considered / either as the declamations of disappointed ambition, or the ebullitions of malevolent spleen, soured by the success of some happier rival. She conceives herself to be particularly fortunate in existing at a period more favourable to mental exertions than those which have been commonly deemed the golden ages of literature. Contemplating from her easy chair the vast extent of modern discoveries, not only in the sciences, but in morals and government, and extending her meditations from reflection on what her learned co-adjutors have done, to speculation on what they propose doing, she is compelled to acknowledge, that the close of the eighteenth century claims distinguished pre-eminence for those indubitable marks of genius, originality in enterprise, and boldness of invention, over the colder eras of Pericles, Augustus, and the / Medici. 8 Nay, she will go so far as to affirm, that the labours of the ‘New Philosophy’ 9 will be remembered by their effects, when the theories of all former schools shall be forgotten.
