I have not presum’d to approach your Highness out of any Confidence in the merits of this Essay, but of the Cause which it pleads, wherein the Honour of the whole Sex seem’d to exact of me no less a Patronage than that of the Best, as well as Greatest among ’em, whom they are all ambitious to see at their head. I have only endeavour’d to reduce the Sexes to a Level, and by Arguments to raise Ours to an Equallity at most with the Men: But your Highness by Illustrious Example daily convinces the World of our Superiority, and we see with wonder, Vertues in you, Madam, greater than your Birth. In this I am peculiarly happy, that I am exempted from the common Task of other Dedicators, who lie under an Obligation of publishing to the World those Excellencies of their Patrons, which perhaps appear no where but in their Epistles. In me it were as great folly, to pretend to make known the Illustrious Quallities of your Highness, as it wou’d be to go about to demonstrate by Argument, that the Sun shin’d, to a Crowd that are warm’d by the Influence of it. I had attempted the Character of a consummate Woman, could I, tho’ but faintly have shaddow’d the inimitable Graces of you Highness; but the impossibillity of that Task forc’d me to desist. It were easy here to lanch into those glorious particulars, which affirmed of any other than your Royal Highness, would have been extravagance of Flattery; but to you Injustice, and in me the highest presumption, to attempt with my feeble Hand those Perfections, which the ablest must fall infinitely short of. The lustre of your Royal Vertues, Madam, like the Sun, gives us warmth and light, and while at a modest distance we admire it, improves our sight, which too bold a view confounds, yet the meanest and most ignorant see those Glories, which the most exquisite Artist can never express. The World therefore will rather justify than comdemn my conduct, if I do not wrong so bright an Original with a dark obscure Copy.