Pardon me the seeming rudeness of this Proposal, which goes upon a supposition that there’s something amiss in you, which it is intended to amend. My design is not to expose, but to rectifie your Failures. To be exempt from mistake, is a privilege few can pretend to, the greatest is to be past Conviction and too obstinate to reform. Even the _Men_, as exact as they wou’d seem, and as much as they divert themselves with our Miscarriages, are very often guilty of greater faults, and such, as considering the advantages they enjoy, are much more inexcusable. But I will not pretend to correct their Errors, who either are, or at least _think_ themselves too wise to receive Instruction from a Womans Pen. My earnest desire is, That you Ladies, would be as perfect and happy as ’tis possible to be in this imperfect state; for I love you too well to endure a spot upon your Beauties, if I can by any means remove and wipe it off. I would have you live up to the dignity of your Nature, and express your thankfulness to GOD for the benefits you enjoy by a due improvement of them: As I know very many of you do, who countenance that Piety which the men decry, and are the brightest Patterns of Religion that the Age affords; ’tis my grief that all the rest of our Sex do not imitate such Illustrious Examples, and therefore I would have them encreas’d and render’d more conspicuous, that Vice being put out of countenance, (because Vertue is the only thing in fashion) may sneak out of the World, and its darkness be dispell’d by the confluence of so many shining Graces. The Men perhaps will cry out that I teach you false Doctrine, for because by their seductions some amongst us are become very mean and contemptible, they would fain persuade the rest to be as despicable and forlorn as they. We’re indeed oblig’d to them for their management, in endeavouring to make us so, who use all the artifice they can to spoil, and deny us the means of improvement. So that instead of inquiring why all Women are not wise and good, we have reason to wonder that there are any so. Were the Men as much neglected, and as little care taken to cultivate and improve them, perhaps they wou’d be so far from surpassing those whom they now despise, that they themselves wou’d sink into the greatest stupidity and brutality. The preposterous returns that the most of them make, to all the care and pains that is bestow’d on them, renders this no uncharitable, nor improbable Conjecture. One wou’d therefore almost think, that the wise disposer of all things, foreseeing how unjustly Women are denied opportunities of improvement from _without_ has therefore by way of compensation endow’d them with greater propensions to Vertue and a natural goodness of Temper _within_, which if duly manag’d, would raise them to the most eminent pitch of heroick Vertue. Hither, Ladies, I desire you wou’d aspire, ’tis a noble and becoming Ambition, and to remove such Obstacles as