Great Variety of Modern Adventures, and Surprising Accidents: being the Truest and Best REMARKS Extant on that Court and Country....

Madam , I Humbly beg Leave these Letters may appear in an English Dress, under the Protection of your Name; whose Accuracy in the Original, justly Intitles you to this Dedication; and whose Advantagious Birth, Greatness of Mind, and Uncommon Improvements, exact a Veneration from the most Invidious; and render you an Illustrious Ornament of your Sex. Madam, For me to attempt here the Publishing your Vertues and Accomplishments, so universally acknowledg’d by all that have the Honour of your Acqua

IT is not sufficient to write things true, but they must likewise seem probable, to gain belief. This has sometime so prevail’d with me, as to make me think of retrenching from my Relation the strange Stories you will find therein. But I have been withheld from doing this, by Persons of such great Sence and Merit, as has made me conclude, that I cannot do amiss in following their Judgments. I do not doubt but there will be some, who will accuse me of hyperbolizing, and composing Romances; but su

AT the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth there were several women in France who had gained no small reputation for the writing of amusing if somewhat extravagant Contes des Fées . Of these Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness of Aulnoy, has best survived her contemporaries as the author of La Chatte Blanche , La Grenouïlle Bien-complaisante , Le Prince Lutin , L’Oiseau Bleue , and of other tales which, as M. La Harpe has thought, place her supreme in

SEEING you are so earnest with me to let you know all my Adventures, and whatever I have observ’d during my Travels, you must therefore be contented (my dear Cousin) to bear with a great many trifling Occurrences, before you can meet with what will please you: I know your Fancy is so nice and delicate, that none but extraordinary Accidents can entertain you; and I wish I had no others to relate: but recounting things faithfully, as they have hapned, you must be contented therewith. I gave you an

I Re-assume, Dear Cousin, without any Compliments, the Sequel of my Travels: In leaving St. Sebastian, we entred into a very rough Way, which brings you to such terrible steep Mountains, that you cannot ascend them without climbing; they are call’d Sierra de St. Adrian. They shew only Precipices and Rocks, on which a puling Lover may meet with certain Death, if he has a mind to it. Pine Trees of an extraordinary heighth crown the top of these Mountains. As far as the Sight will reach you see not

MY Letters are so long, that it is hard to believe when I finish them, that I have any thing else more to tell you; yet, my dear Cousin, I never close any, but there remains still sufficient for another: When I were onely to speak to you of my Friendship, this would be an inexhaustible Subject; you may make some Judgment of it from the Pleasure I find in obeying your Commands. You are desirous to know all the Particulars of my Voyage, I will therefore go on to relate them: Town of Central Spain

WE could sensibly perceive in arriving at Burgos, that this Town is colder than any of those we past; and ’tis likewise said, you have none of those excessive Heats which are intolerable in other Parts of Spain: The Town stands where you descend the Mountain, and reaches to the Plain as far as the River, which washes the foot of the Wall: the Streets are very strait and even: the Castle is not great, but very strong, and is seen on the top of the Mountain: A little lower is the Triumphant Arch o