IN ORDER TO CULTIVATE THE PRINCIPLES OF VIRTUE AND RELIGION IN A NARRATIVE WHICH HAS IT'S FOUNDATION IN TRUTH; AND AT THE SAME TIME THAT IT TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED, EXTRACTS FROM SEVERAL CURIOUS LETTERS, BY MR. SAMUEL RICHARDSON. IN FOUR VOLUMES. LONDON: Printed for HARRISON and Co. No. 18, Paternofter Row. M DCC LXXXV. C. Preface by the Editor. F to divert and entertain, and at the fame time, to inftruct, and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both fexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in fo eafy and agreeable a manner, as fhall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to fet forth, in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the focial duties: If to paint VICE in it's proper colours, to make it defervedly odious and to fet VIRTUE in it's own amiable light, to make it lovely: If to draw characters with juftness, and to fupport them diffinatly: If to raise a diftrefs from natural caufes, and excite compaffion from just ones: If to teach the man of fortune how to ufe it; the man of paffion, how to fubdue it; and the man of intrigue, how gracefully, and with honour to himself, to reclaim: If to give practical examples, worthy to be followed in the most critical and affecting cafes, by the virgin, the bride, and the wife: If to effect all these good ends, without raifing a fingle idea throughout the whole that shall shock the exacteft purity, even in the warmest of those instances where purity would be most apprehenfive: If these be laudable recommendations, the Editor of the following Letters, which have their foundation in truth, ventures to affert that all these ends are obtained here; and writes with the more affurance of fuccefs, as an Editor may be allowed to judge with more impartiality than is often to be found in an Author, To |