[in prefatory essay by A. L. Barbauld] From Samuel Richardson's account of his childhood, up to about age 13: 'As a bashful and not forward boy, I was an early favourite with all the young women of taste and reading in the neighbourhood. Half a dozen of them, when met to work with their needles, used, when they got a book they liked, and thought I should, to borrow me to read to them; and both mothers and daughters used to be pleased with the observations they put me upon making.'