| Notes |
["Cf. Josephine Grieder, Translations of French sentimental prose fiction [...] Durham, 1975, p. 92.\r\nsvdoct09.\r\n\r\nconcerning paratext:\r\n{Name of woman on title page}\r\n{Name of translator NOT on title page}\r\ni-iii Preface by the translator.\r\nTo exhibit true and faithful pictures of life and manners; to place Virtue in the most amiable, and Vice in the most odious light; to dduce rational precepts from natural examples; and to amend the heart in improving the mind: Such appears to be the truly moral design of the following letters; in which, the ingenious Author, by displaying a /\r\nii\r\ndelicacy of sentiment and ease of expression, almost peculiar to writers of her own sex and country, hath given the most convincing proofs of the powerful and pleasing efficacy of the united efforts of sense and sensibility.\r\nPreced by the writings of two such masters as _Richardson_ and _Rousseau_, these Letters of _Madam Elie de Beaumont_ will indeed lie under all the disadvantages of a partial comparison and imputed imitation. If they do not possess, however, all that spirit and vivacity we meet with in _Clarissa_, or equal the nerve and pathos we find in _Eloisa_, they are, on the other hand, neither so minute and trivial in their description, nor so prolix and tedious in their narration. With regard to construction of fable, probability of fact, and propriety of character, this work is also less exceptionable than either of the /\r\niii admired pieces abovementioned. Again, in point of style and composition, these Letters are held, by good Judges, to be equal, if not superior, to both.\r\nThe allowed merit of this performance, therefore, will be a sufficient apology for the Translator' s attempt to render it into English. As he does not flatter himself, however, that he hath always succeeded in transfusing the ease and elegance of the _original_ into the _translation_, he hath only to hope, that he hath done the fair Author as little injustice as the nature of the case would admit. He must beg leave, nevertheless, so except from this insinuation, several of the Letters in the first Volume; with the translation of which he was obligingly favoured, from the elegant and masterly pen of the Translator of Eloisa.\r\n[n.s.]\r\nsvdjun10chawton"]
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