1

OR THE

Ancient Costume,

A TALE,

IN ONE VOLUME,

ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR OF GLENARVON.

BY

AN OLD WIFE OF TWENTY YEARS.

From nature painted, if your book be true,

A very devil in the heart we view,

Prone to be tempted, nay I must believe
Wanting no serpent, like our mother Eve.

Is woman such? O ye of Britain's land,

Fair, chaste, and lovely, shall the slander stand?

If painted from the life, fair lady, own,

That you have painted self, and self alone';

Sketch'd, drawn the image, from one wanton breast,

And fancied it a semblance of the rest.-

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL,
Stationers-Court, Ludgate-Street.

GODLEIAN

25 SEP 1962

Plummer and Brewis, Printers, Love-Lane, Eastcheap.

PREFACE.

THE haste in which this work has been written, will, the Author trusts, excuse any failure in literary correctness; as, if it were intended for publication, it was necessary that it should appear immediately. It has been finished amid the various occupations of domestic