ABSTRACT
Reader, if you have had patience and curiosity sufficient to accompany the persecuted Martha through her varying scenes of unmerited suffering, you will be able to form some idea of the perplexities, pains, and humiliations which the children of Genius are destined to encounter: you will perceive, that of all the occupations which industry can pursue, those of literary toil are the most fatiguing. That which seems to the vacant eye a mere playful amusement, is in reality an Herculean labour;46 and to compose a tolerable work is so difficult a task, that the fastidiously severe should make the trial before they presume to condemn even the humblest effort of imagination.
