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ties, and the increasing prosperity of its moral economy, to the influence of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh, may in this instance be allowed to resort to local circumstances for her apology.

I might be condemned as assuming undue consequence, by using for a novel the formality of a dedicatory address; and a novel of confessed mediocrity, appearing under the distinguished auspices of your Grace's name, might furnish the severer critic with the well-known allusion to the injudicious painter, who places his unfinished pictures in too powerful a light. But, if my motives are rightly understood, Adonia will be considered as a sort of natural production of the domains that are fostered by your Grace's protection, seeking a share in the shelter of that benevolent patronage.

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I have the honor to subscribe myself, with every sentiment of respect and veneration of your Grace's character,

MADAM,

Your Grace's most devoted,

Most obliged humble servant,

THE AUTHORESS.

London, 19 Jan. 1801.

ADONI A.

CHAP. I.

As guileful goldsmith, that by secret skill:
With golden foil doth finely overspread
Some baser metal, which commend he will.
Unto the vulgar, for good gold insted,
He much more goodly gloss thereon doth shed
To hide his falsehood, than if it were true.

SPENCER.

AMONG the many causes of human error or misery, the mistakes of the imagination have ever been found most ruinous to the native energies of mind; and the false refinements of feeling and sentiment, of which they are commonly productive, prove equally fatal to happiness.

VOL. I.

B

But

But an ardent imagination and glowing sensibilities are qualities so peculiarly graceful in youth, and so congenial with the season of opening prospects and expanding affections; they are so frequently the growth of genius and virtue, and so often mistaken for genius and virtue themselves, that they are seldom restrained by the preceptor, and almost always cherished by the pupil with pleasure and pride.

The entrance into active life determines whether or not they are the genuine offspring of virtue, and sometimes repels their evil, and fixes their better influence over the heart, by exposing the fallacies of an overstrained imagination, and discovering the real uses of a well-regulated sensibility.

The vicious, who have nourished these alluring qualities, and been applauded for them in early youth, employ their energy of fancy and warmth of feeling only to render