which have been already presented.  But, in reality, these hints,
simple as they are, are pregnant with passion and distress.  It is
the refuge of barren authors only, to crowd their fictions with so
great a number of events, as to suffer no one of them to sink into
the reader's mind.  It is the province of true genius to develop
events, to discover their capabilities, to ascertain the different
passions and sentiments with which they are fraught, and to diversify
them with incidents, that give reality to the picture, and take a
hold upon the mind of a reader of taste, from which they can never
be loosened.  It was particularly the design of the author, in the
present instance, to make her story subordinate to a great moral
purpose, that "of exhibiting the misery and oppression, peculiar
to women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of
society.--This view restrained her fancy."* It was necessary for
her, to place in a striking point of view, evils that are too
frequently overlooked, and to drag into light those details of
oppression, of which the grosser and more insensible part of mankind
make little account.

     * See author's preface. [Godwin's note]

                           THE END.

[End.]
.