A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters
T. Stothard delin. R. Cromek sculp. pupil of F. Bartolozzi R.A.
Religion.
Published March 1st. 1797, by Cadell and Davies Strand.
A
FATHER’s LEGACY
TO
HIS DAUGHTERS.
By the late DR. GREGORY, of Edinburgh.
A NEW EDITION.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PLATES.
LONDON:
Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, Strand; J.Walker, and Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme,Paternoster Row; Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe,Poultry; Scatcherd and Letterman, AvemariaLane; Lackington, Allen, and Co., FinsburySquare; B. Crosby, Stationer’s Court; J. Booker,New Bond Street; and J. Asperne, Cornhill.
1808.
Wood & Innes,
Printers, Poppin’s Court, Fleet Street.
PREFACE.
That the subsequent Letters were written by a tender father, in adeclining state of health, for the instruction of his daughters, andnot intended for the Public, is a circumstance which will recommendthem to every one who considers them in the light of admonition andadvice. In such domestic intercourse, no sacrifices are made toprejudices, to customs, to fashionable opinions. Paternal love,paternal care, speak their genuine sentiments, undisguised andunrestrained. A father’s zeal for his daughter’s improvement inwhatever can make a woman amiable, with a father’s quick apprehensionof the dangers that too often arise, even from the attainment ofthat very point, suggest his admonitions, and render him attentiveto a thousand little graces and little decorums, which would escapethe nicest moralist who should undertake the subject on uninterestedspeculation. Every faculty is on the alarm, when the objects of suchtender affection are concerned.
In the writer of these Letters, paternal tenderness and vigilancewere doubled, as he was at that time sole parent; death having beforedeprived the young ladies of their excellent mother. His own precariousstate of health inspired him with the most tender solicitude for theirfuture welfare; and though he might have concluded, that the impressionmade by his instruction and uniform example could never be effacedfrom the memory of his children, yet his anxiety for their orphancondition suggested to him this method of continuing to them thoseadvantages.
The Editor is encouraged to offer this Treatise to the Public, bythe very favourable reception which the rest of his father’s workshave met with. The Comparative View of the State of Man and otherAnimals, and the Essay on the Office and Duties of a Physician, havebeen very generally read; and if he is not deceived by the partialityof his friends, he has reason to believe they have met with generalapprobation.
In so