ABSTRACT
It has been somewhere said by Johnson, that, merely to invent a new story, is no small effort of the human understanding. 1 How much more difficult is it, to construct stories suited to the early years of youth, and, at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of modern society – fictions, that shall display examples of virtue, without initiating the young reader into the ways of vice – and narratives, written in a style level to his capacity, without tedious detail, or vulgar idiom! The author, sensible of these difficulties, solicits indulgence for such errors as have escaped her vigilance.
