To the ladies and gentlewomen of England.
Bright ornaments of the British nation,
I did oft conceive, during my pregnation, that this hard favoured offspring had been but a tympany or some false conception, till finding it to retain daily increase and degrees of growth, I was ascertained it was a real embryo, and that it would at last retain some shape, though never so homely.
This spring was the Lucina or midwife which brought it forth and handed it out of the soft womb of a green brain; it now implores each of you to be its Eupheme or nurse, in the absence of that true and affectionate honourer of your amiable sex, his unworthy genitor, who by that time, that it be in case to kiss your fair hands, will be traversing the world abroad.
The literature and divination of the Sybils, Cassandra and Euryclea, the chastity of Pero, Teuca and Lucretia, the singular constancy of Penelope, Pillacides and Iphis, the magnanimity of Penthesilea, Thelesis and Zenobia, the beauty of
If you please to bestow part of that time which you spend in other divertissements to converse with this poor brat of my brain, it will paint out unto you, though with a quavering pencil and in coarse and caliginous colours, the passions of your royal amorists, with inducements to commiserate them, the event whereof (which may make them operative in this kind) will perhaps make you repent no more of reading them than I of composing them. When you talk with your children you expect from them no congruence or quaint language, yet you are often pleased to hear them prattle, are delighted with their lisping idioms. This makes me hope that you will dispense with the lallation and low dialect of this babe, whose tone is rude, yet his meaning is plain dealing, which according to the proverb is a jewel and consequently most fit for ladies. Thus, wishing you all delights and happiness, endless like the rings you wear and that the period of my pains may be the beginning of your pleasure, I remain
Your Ladyships' in all observance,
Robert Baron.