The preface to a book may in some measure be compared to the prologue to a play, which, though it presume not to bespeak the unqualified approbation of the audience, yet tends to deprecate the mortification of severe censure.

In like manner, the editors of the following pages, though far from expecting unanimous applause, are yet willing to hope that the productions of a pen so unsullied, and the genuine display of a character so respectable as that of Mrs. Chapone, will maintain their ground on the present stage of English literature.

The custom at present prevails of publishing every relique of persons who have been in any degree eminent.— Private letters, never intended by their writers for the inspection of any, but those to whom they were addressed, form collections for the public eye.— It is hoped this will plead the editor's apology for following the taste, and falling in with the feelings of the times.

But there are circumstances that, in their opinion, are necessary to be stated, because they fixed the determination to publish these volumes.

All thoughts of printing Mrs. Chapone's correspondence with Mr. Richardson, on the subject of filial obedience, had been given up by her family, on account of its having been suggested that the sentiments contained in these letters were not adapted to an age in which parental authority and filial obedience are so much relaxed as in the present.