The avoiding these defects gave rise to the Heroical Romances of the French; in which some celebrated Story of antiquity was so stained and polluted by modern fable and invention, as was just enough to shew, that the contrivers of them neither knew how to lye, nor speak truth.  In these voluminous extravagances, Love and Honour supplied the place of Life and Manners.  But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion.  For in attempting a more natural representation of it, in the little amatory Novels, which succeeded these heavier Volumes, tho’ the Writers avoided the dryness of the Spanish Intrigue, and the extravagance of the French Heroism, yet, by too natural a representation of their Subject, they opened the door to a worse evil than a corruption of Taste; and that was, A corruption of Heart.

At length, this great People (to whom, it must be owned, all Science has been infinitely indebted) hit upon the true Secret, by which alone a deviation from strict fact, in the commerce of Man, could be really entertaining to an improved mind, or useful to promote that Improvement.  And this was by a faithful and chaste copy of real Life and Manners:  In which some of their late Writers have greatly excelled.

It was on this sensible Plan, that the Author of the following Sheets attempted to please, in an Essay, which had the good fortune to meet with success:  That encouragement engaged him in the present Design:  In which his sole object being Human Nature; he thought himself at liberty to draw a Picture of it in that light which would shew it with most strength of Expression; tho’ at the expense of what such as read merely for Amusement, may fancy can be ill-spared, the more artificial composition of a story in one continued Narrative.

He has therefore told his Tale in a Series of Letters, supposed to be written by the Parties concerned, as the circumstances related, passed.  For this juncture afforded him the only natural opportunity that could be had, of representing with any grace those lively and delicate impressions which Things present are known to make upon the minds of those affected by them.  And he apprehends, that, in the study of Human Nature, the knowlege of those apprehensions leads us farther into the recesses of the Human Mind, than the colder and more general reflections suited to a continued and more contracted Narrative.

This is the nature and purport of his Attempt.  Which, perhaps, may not be so well or generally understood.  For if the Reader seeks here for Strange Tales, Love Stories, Heroical Adventures, or, in short, for anything but a Faithful Picture of Nature in Private Life, he had better be told beforehand the likelihood of his being disappointed.  But if he can find Use or Entertainment; either Directions for his Conduct, or Employment for his Pity, in a HISTORY of LIFE and MANNERS, where, as in the World itself, we find Vice, for a time, triumphant, and Virtue in distress, an idle hour or two, we hope, may not be unprofitably lost.