EXPLANATION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.

The DUCHESS of YORK delivering the Colours of the Effex Light Dragoons, at Bath, to their Colonel, Montague Burgoyne, Efq.

To our CORRESPONDENTS.

The Continuation of De Courville Castle in our next.

P. Q's Effay fhall appear.

Hilario's Moral Tale is not fufficiently moral, and not very interesting.

C. L.'s Complaints feem to relate entirely to a private tranfaction, of no importance to the public.

Received, Clariffa D.'s Letter.-J. B.'s Eflay.-T. W.'s Enigma.Lines to Mifs CI. The Coy Milkmaid; a Song.-Various Enig. matical Lifts, &c.

TH

HE season of the year is now arrived when it becomes us to express our gratitude, fo juftly due, to that Public from which we continue to receive such candid and generous encouragement. On fuch an occafion we would wish our profeffions to be manifeftly exceeded by our exertions; nor can we doubt but our future efforts to obtain the fame approbation will be attended with the fame fuccefs.

The original defign of our Mifcellany, we truft, has been, and will continue to be, adhered to with unremiting care. It was intended to be the Repofitory of ofiginal productions of Female Genius, and the "Abftract a brief Chronicle" of the manners, literature, and events of the times; to combine entertainment with inftruction fuitable to the elegance and delicacy of the Female Mind; to cherish the dawning understanding of early youth; and, carefully avoiding whatever may tend to indecorum or licenticufnefs, to inftil the precepts of virtue, the only folid foundation of true enjoyment.

To our Correfpondents every grateful acknowledgment is undoubtedly due; their contributions have been numerous and valuable. To fome of them, however, we must beg leave to hint the impropriety of a practice, of which they have B 2 occafion

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occafionally been guilty, and which, when it happens, places us in a very disagreeable fituation. Pieces, principally Tales or Novels, have been transmitted to us unfinished, and continued for feveral months, after which the authors, tired of what was at firft their amusement, have thrown up their pen, and neglected to gratify the curiofity they had excited in their readers, by concluding their work. We hope this will happen no more, but that all who begin any History, or other compofition to be continued from time to time, will think their honour engaged to fifh it, as it was only on that implied condition that it was inferted. At the fame time it gives us great pleasure to recollect, that the number of fuch imperfect pieces to be found in our Miscellany is very fmall indeed, compared with that of those which have been carefully and judiciously completed.

We now enter, on the Twenty-feventh Volume of the LADY'S MAGAZINE. The feries of years it has continued to be published may, certainly, be confidered as a fufficient proof of the approbation with which it has been received by the Publie. For that approbation it is incumbent on us, once more, to exprefs our fincerest gratitude; and we hope, it is scarcely neceffare to add, that this gratitude will excite the most unremitting attention still to continue to merit the fame favour.

THE