To Mrs. Montagu
MADAM,
If you were only one of the finest writers of your time, you would probably have escaped the trouble of this address, which is drawn on you, less by the lustre of your understanding, than by the amiable qualities of your heart.
As the following pages are written with an humble but earnest wish, to promote the interests of virtue, as far as the very limited abilities of the author allow; there is, I flatter myself, a peculiar propriety in inscribing them to you, Madam, who, while your works convey instruction and delight to the best-informed of the other sex, furnish, by your conduct, an admirable pattern of life and manners to your own. And I can with truth remark, that those graces of conversation, which would be the first praise of almost any other character, constitute but an inferior part of yours.
I am, Madam,
With the highest esteem,
Your most obedient
Humble Servant,
Bristol, Hannah More.
May 20, 1777.