I could enrich their Archaeologia with sketches of many a fair neglected ruin, which have hitherto escaped their researches.
With some of these sketches I have, in|deed, attempted to adorn my own little vo|lumes; but others I shall still retain in my private cabinet, till I have happily awa|kened in our country a more lively and af|fectionate relish for the singular branch of virtù, which I am now introducing, for the first time, to the notice, and, I hope, the cultivation, of the enlightened public.
In the many years of profound specula|tion, which I devoted to the study of Old Maids, before I began this elaborate, and, I trust, this immortal essay, I observed that the better part of the sisterhood are distin|guished by three amiable characteristics— ingenuity, patience, and charity. To each of these I shall give a separate chapter, and, as the sagacious Aristotle says, in dividing a subject of less importance,
first for the first.
Ingenuity may, indeed, be considered as