An Appeal to Impartial Posterity (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: before was confined to a few intimates, but now 'when. (he was become the centre of a wider circle, the admiration of her friends, and the malevolence of her enemies, foon combined to give her a celebrity which ihe was ftill far from feeking. Imprisoned ealumninated on all fides, and having nothing but a fcaffold before her eyes, Madam Roland was naturally induced to feek the efteem of pofterity as a confolation for the injuftice of her contemporaries, and to aim at future glory, as a fort of compenfation for an untimely death. Then, and not till then, fhe appeared to feparate her reputation from that of her hufband: then, and not till then, fhe took up her .pen to make herfelf known individually, and to furnifh materials for hiftory in her own name. It will be feen, however, that fhe was not actuated folely by the defire of vindicating her reputation, and acquiring fame: every page Will fhow, that fhe was particularly anxious to repel the calumnious charges heaped upon her hufband, and to revenge the memory of Roland, in cafe he himfelf fhould not have it in his power to write or publifli his laft juftification. i The public, already prepoflefled in her favour, will judge, from a perufal of her writings, whether fhe really merited the praife of her friends, and whether fhe did not deferve the hatred of the villains, who fucceeded at laft in Bringing her to the block. Male- chapter{Section 4Malevolence, affuming the maflc of crlticifm, will endeavour, no doubt, to depreciate this monument erected by a woman to the glory of her fex; but the impartial reader will acknowledge her powers. I will only fay, as an excufe for fome fuperfluous relations, and fome negligences of compofition, that Madam Roland compofed the part entitled Hiftorical Memoirs (two thirds of ...