time, we are moft faultily deficient. There are one or two, however, particularly the Deity, by Mr. Boyfe; a Poem, when it first came out, that lay for fome time neglected, till introduced to public notice by Mr. Hervey and Mr. Fielding. In it the reader will perceive many ftriking pictures, and perhaps glow with a part of that gratitude which. feems to have infpired the writer.

In the Moral part I am more copious, from the fame reason, because our language contains a large number of the kind. Voltaire, talking of our Poets, gives them the preference in moral pieces to thofe of any other nation; and indeed no Poets have better fettled the bounds of duty, or more precifely determined the rules for conduct in life than ours. this department the fair reader will find the Muse has been folicitous to guide her, not with the allurements of a fyren, but the integrity of a friend.

In

In the entertaining part my greateft difficulty was what to reject. The materials lay in fuch plenty, that I was bewildered in my choice; in this cafe then I was folely determined by the tendency of the Poem; and where I found one, however well executed, that feemed in the least tending to distort the judgement, or inflame the imagination, it was excluded without mercy. I have here and there indeed, when one of particular beauty offered with a few blemishes, lopt off the defects, and thus, like the tyrant, who fitted all ftrangers to the bed he had prepared for them, I have inferted fome, by first adapting them to my plan; we only differ in this, that he mutilated with a bad defign, I from motives of a contrary nature.

It will be easier to condemn a compilation of this kind, than to prove its inutility. While young Ladies are readers, and while their guardians are folicitous that they fhall only read the best books, there

can

can be no danger of a work of this kind being difagreeable. It offers, in a very fmall compafs, the very flowers of our Poetry, and that of a kind adapted to the fex fuppofed to be its readers. Poetry is an art, which no young Lady can, or ought to be wholly ignorant of. The pleafure which it gives, and indeed the neceffity of knowing enough of it to mix in modern converfation, will evince the usefulnefs of my defign, which is to fupply the highest and the most innocent entertainment at the smallest expence; as the Poems in this collection, if fold fingly, would amount to ten times the price of what I am able to afford the prefent.

THE

THE BEE,

A SELECT

COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

ON THE

MOST INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING SUBJECTS.

FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1759.

THE