PREFACE.
Some years since I began to collect the materials, from which the following work is composed, not according to any predetermined plan of compilation, nor even with a serious design of presenting them to the public. But my collection was increased, as my reading was extended; and I was induced to believe, that a General Dictionary of Women, who had been distinguished by their actions or talents, in various nations, or at different periods of the world, digested under an alphabetical arrangement, which had never been done in our language, might meet with a favourable reception.
Under this impression, I put forth, in the year 1801, proposals for publishing my projected work, in four volumes, octavo. But this intention had not been long announced, before advertisements appeared of another work being in the press, under a similar title. Not meaning to run a race with any other author, I desisted for a while from my undertaking. But when, upon the publication of that work, I found it to be rather a selection of historical extracts, than a digested compilation of Female Biogra-
