over at the Bath, and how brought by the just
alarm of his fit of sickness to abandon her; the just caution given
there against even the lawful intimacies of the dearest friends, and
how unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of virtue
without divine assistance; these are parts which, to a just
discernment, will appear to have more real beauty in them all the
amorous chain of story which introduces it.

In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity
and looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmost
care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty
of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in
publishing it.

The advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the great
argument to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that they
ought to be allowed in the most civilised and in the most religious
government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, and
that by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommend
virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts
of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true that they did so,
and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their
acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.

Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most
strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it,
but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a
superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to
an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing
mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous,
just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What can more
exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even those
representations of things which have so many other just objections
leaving against them? namely, of example, of bad company, obscene
language, and the like.

Upon this foundation this book is recommended to the reader as a work
from every part of which something may be learned, and some just and
religious inference is drawn, by which the reader will have something
of instruction, if he pleases to make use of it.

All the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations upon
mankind, stand as so many warnings to honest people to beware of them,
intimating to them by