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l stated a main point, and opposed that learned cardinal for giving too much power even in temporals to the pope over kings and secular princes, which she seemed to think the main thing aimed at by the followers of that court; to pretend to claim only to govern directly in spirituals, but to intend chiefly, though indirectly, to hook in temporals, and in them to gain power, dominion, and tribute; money and rule being gods to which the Roman courtiers and their partisans chiefly sacrifice.

As she had been a most critical searcher into her own life, so she had been a diligent inquirer into the lives, fortunes, and characters of many of her ancestors for many years. Some of them she has left particularly described, and the exact annals of diverse passages, which were most remarkable in her own life ever since it was wholly at her own disposal, that is, since the death of her last lord and husband, Philip, Earl of Pembroke, which was for the space of twenty-six or twenty-seven years.

From this her great diligence, as her posterity may find in reading those abstracts of occurrences in her own life, being added to her heroic fathers' and pious mothers' lives, dictated by herself, so they may reap greater fruits of her diligence in finding the honours, descents, pedigrees, estates, and the titles and claims of their progenitors to them, comprised historically and methodically in three volumes of the larger size, and each of them three or four times fairly written over; which, although they were said to have been collected and digested in some parts by one or more learned heads, yet were they wholly directed by herself, and attested in the most parts by her own hand.

ESTHER INGLIS.

BALLARD.

Remarkable for her caligraphy, the chief thing I have to mention concerning her. All that see her writing are astonished at it, upon the account of its exactness, its fineness, and variety; and many are of opinion that nothing can be more exquisite. Gazius, Ascham, Davies, Gething, Lyte, and many others, have been celebrated for their extraordinary talents this way; but this lady has excelled them all, what she has done being almost incredible. One of the many delicate pieces she wrote was in the custody of Mr Samuel Kello, her great-grandson, in 1711. Others are remaining at the Castle of Edinburgh. Mr Hearne saw one in the hands of Philip Harcourt, Esq., entitled, "Historiae Memorabiles Genesis, per Estheram Inglis, Edinburgi. Anno 1600."

In the archives of Christ's Church, in Oxford, are the Psalms of David, written in French with her own hand, and presented to Queen Elizabeth by Mrs Inglis herself; and were by that princess given to this library. In the archives in Bodley's Library are two more of her manuscripts, preserved with great care. One of them is entitled "Les Six Vingts et Six Quartains de Guy de Faur Sieur de Pybrae, escrits Esther Inglis, pour sin dernier adieu ce 21 jour de June 1617." In the second leaf this in capital letters: "To the Right Worshipfull my very singular friende, Joseph Hall, Doctor of Divinity and Dean of Worchester, Esther Inglis wisheth all increase of true happiness, Junii 21, 1616." In third leaf, her head, painted on a card, and pasted upon the leaf.

The title of the other book is "Les Proverbes de Solomon, escrites in diverses sortes des Lettres, par Esther Anglois, Francoise. A Lislebourge en Escosse, 1599." This delicate performance gains the admiration of all who see it; every chapter is wrote in a different hand, as is the dedication, and some other things at the beginning of the book, which makes near forty several sorts of hands. The beginnings and endings of the chapters are adorned with most beautiful head and tail pieces, and the margins are elegantly decorated with the pen, in imitation, I suppose, of the elegant old manuscripts. The book is dedicated to the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's great favourite. At the beginning are his arms, neatly drawn, with all its quarterings, in number fifty-six. In the fifth leaf is her own picture, done with the pen, in the habit of that time. In her right hand a pen, the left resting upon a book opened, in one of the leaves of which is written, "Del eternal le bien. De moi le mal, ou rien." On the table before her there is likewise a music-book lying open, which perhaps intimates that she had some skill in that art. Under the picture is an epigram in Latin, written by Andrew Melvin, and, in the next page, another composed by the same author in Latin, of which the following is a translation:--

"One hand Dame Nature's mimic does express Her larger figures, to the life in less; In the rich border of her work do stand Afresh, created by her curious hand, The various signs and planets of the sky, Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye; Much we the work, much more the hand admire, Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher."

It appears that she lived unmarried till she was about forty; and then, I find by a memorandum made by my late friend Mr Hearne, in a spare leaf at the beginning of her manuscript of the Proverbs of Solomon, that she was married to Mr Bartholomew Kello , a Scotchman, by whom she had a son, named Samuel Kello, who was educated in Christ Church College, Oxon.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

BALLARD.

The youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and the wife of the Marquis of Newcastle, had, from her infancy, a natural inclination to learning, and spent so much of her time in study and writing, that it is much to be lamented she had not the advantage of an acquaintance with the learned languages, which would have extended her knowledge, refined her genius, and have been of infinite service to her in the many compositions and productions of her pen.

Her person was very graceful, her temper naturally reserved, and she seldom said much in company, especially among strangers. She was most indefatigable in her studies and contemplations; truly pious, charitable, and generous; an excellent economist; very kind to her servants, and a perfect pattern of conjugal love and duty.

LADY PAKINGTON.

BALLARD.

Daughter of Thomas, Lord Coventry, Keeper of the Great Seal, and wife of Sir John Pakington, was well known to, and celebrated by, the best and most learned divines of her time. Yet hardly my pen will be thought capable of adding to the reputation her own has procured to her, if it shall appear that she was the author of a work which is not more an honour to the writer than a universal benefit to mankind.

The work I mean is, "The Whole Duty of Man;" her title to which has been so well ascertained, that the general concealment it has lain under will only reflect a lustre upon all her other excellences by showing that she had no honour in view but that of her Creator, which, I suppose, she might think best promoted by this concealment. If I were a Roman Catholic, I would summon tradition as an evidence for me upon this occasion, which has constantly attributed this performance to a lady. And a late celebrated writer observes, that "there are many probable arguments in 'The Whole Duty of Man' to back a current report that it was written by a lady." And any one who reads "The Lady's Calling," may observe a great number of passages which clearly indicate a female hand.

That vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of the female sex, is what these memoirs in general may possibly remove. And as I have had frequent occasion to take notice of it, I should not now enter again upon that subject, had not this been made use of as an argument to invalidate Lady Pakington's title to those performances. It may not be amiss, therefore, to transcribe two or three passages from the treatise I have just now mentioned. "But waiving these reflections, I shall fix only on the personal accomplishments of the sex, and peculiarly that which is the most principal endowment of the rational nature--I mean the understanding--where it will be a little hard to pronounce that they are naturally inferior to men, when it is considered how much of intrinsic weight is put in the balance to turn it to the men's side. Men have their parts cultivated and improved by education, refined and subtilised by learning and arts; are like a piece of a common, which, by industry and husbandry, becomes a different thing from the rest, though the natural turf owned no such inequality. We may therefore conclude, that whatever vicious impotence women are under, it is acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill managery of His bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women He necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest He made them to better purpose, was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, 'abundance of spirit,' He equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest hero. Nay, give me leave to say farther, that, as to an eternal well-being, He seems to have placed them in more advantageous circumstances than He has done men. He has implanted in them some native propensions which do much facilitate the operations of grace upon them."

And having made good this assertion, she interrogates thus: "How many women do we read of in the gospel, who in all the duties of assiduous attendance on Christ, liberalities of love and respect, nay, even in zeal and courage, surpassed even the apostles themselves? We find His cross surrounded, His passion celebrated by the avowed tears and lamentations of devout women, when the most sanguine of His disciples had denied, yea, forswore, and all had forsaken Him. Nay, even death itself could not extinguish their love. We find the devout Maries designing a laborious, chargeable, and perhaps hazardous respect to His corpse, and, accordingly, it is a memorable attestation Christ gives to their piety by making them the first witnesses of His resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim those glad tidings, and, as a learned man speaks, apostles to the apostles."

There are many works of this lady, besides "The Whole Duty of Man," enumerated in her biographies.

NOOR MAHAL.

JAMES MILL.

One of the circumstances which had the greatest influence on the events and character of the reign of Jehangire, was his marriage with the wife of one of the omrahs of his empire, whose assassination, like that of Uriah, cleared the way for the gratification of the monarch. The history of this female is dressed in romantic colours by the writers of the East. Khaja Aiass, her father, was a Tartar, who left poverty and his native country to seek the gifts of fortune in Hindustan. The inadequate provision he could make for so great a journey failed him before its conclusion. To add to his trials, his wife, advanced in pregnancy, was seized with the pains of labour in the desert, and delivered of a daughter. All hope of conducting the child alive to any place of relief forsook the exhausted parents, and they agreed to leave her. So long as the tree, at the foot of which the infant had been deposited, remained in view, the mother supported her resolution; but when the tree vanished from sight, she sank upon the ground, and refused to proceed without her. The father returned, but what he beheld was a huge black snake convolved about the body of the infant, and extending his dreadful jaws to devour her. A shriek of anguish burst from the father's breast; and the snake, being alarmed, hastily unwound himself from the body of the infant, and glided away to his retreat. The miracle animated the parents to maintain the struggle; and before their strength entirely failed, they were joined by other travellers, who relieved their necessities.

POCAHONTAS.

DR HUGH MURRAY.

On a signal from their leader, they, the natives of Virginia, laid down their bows and arrows, and led Captain Smith under strict guard to their capital. He was there exhibited to the women and children, and a wild war-dance was performed round him in fantastic measures, and with frightful yells and contortions. He was then shut up in a long house, and supplied at every meal with as much bread and venison as would have dined twenty men; but receiving no other sign of kindness, he began to dread that they were fattening in order to eat him. At last he was led to Pamunkey, the residence of Powhatan, the king. It was here his doom was sealed. The chief received him in pomp, wrapped in a spacious robe of racoon skins, with all the tails hanging down. Behind appeared two long lines of men and women, with faces painted red, heads decked with white down, and necks quite encircled with chains of beads. A lady of rank presented water to wash his hands, another a bunch of feathers to dry them. A long deliberation was then held, and the result proved fatal. Two large stones were placed before Powhatan, and, by the united efforts of the attendants, Smith was dragged to the spot, his head laid on one of them, and the mighty club was raised, a few blows of which were to terminate his life. In this last extremity, when every hope seemed past, a very unexpected interposition took place. Pocahontas, the youthful and favourite daughter of this savage chief, was seized with those tender emotions which form the ornament of her sex. Advancing to her father, she in the most earnest terms supplicated mercy for the stranger; and though all her entreaties were lost on that savage heart, her zeal only redoubled. She ran to Smith, took his head in her arms, laid her own upon it, and declared that the first death-blow must fall upon her. The barbarian's breast was at length softened, and the life of the Englishman was spared.

Smith was afterwards liberated and sent to Jamestown, where he was installed as president. As Powhatan's favour was to be courted, there had been sent handsome presents, with materials to crown him with splendour, in the European style. With only four companions he courageously repaired to the residence of the monarch, inviting him to come and be crowned at Jamestown. The party were extremely well received, though once they heard in the adjoining wood outcries so hideous as made them flee to their arms; but Pocahontas assured them they had nothing to fear. Subsequently, Smith was repeatedly in danger; and again, on one occasion, was saved by a second interposition of Pocahontas, who, at the risk of her father's displeasure, ran through the woods on a dark night to give him warning. But the kindness of this princess was ill repaid by the English, to whom she was so much attached; for Argall, an enterprising naval commander, afterwards contrived, through an Indian who had become his sworn friend, to inveigle on board his vessel the fair Pocahontas. Regardless of her tears and entreaties he conveyed her to Jamestown, where she was well treated; but in a negotiation for her ransom, exorbitant terms were demanded, which her father indignantly rejected, and the breach seemed only widened. Happily, the chains of the princess's captivity were lightened by others of a more pleasing nature. Mr John Rolfe, a respectable young man, was smitten with her dignified demeanour, and found no difficulty in gaining her affections. They were afterwards married, and she was converted and baptised under the name of Rebecca, to which the English prefixed the title of Lady, and her subsequent conduct is said to have adorned her profession.

Soon after, in company with her husband, she visited England; and Captain Smith wrote a letter to his majesty, recounting her good deeds, declaring that she had a great spirit though a low stature, and beseeching for her a reception corresponding to her rank and merits. She was accordingly introduced at court, and into the circles of fashion, where, as a novelty, she was for some time the leading object, and is said to have deported herself with suitable grace and dignity. Purchas mentions his meeting with her at the table of his patron, Dr King, Bishop of London, where she was entertained with "festival and pomp." The king took an absurd apprehension that Rolfe, on the ground of his wife's birth, might advance a claim to the crown of Virginia. This idea being at length driven out of his mind, he appointed him secretary and recorder-general of the colony. The princess, early in 1617, went to embark at Gravesend, but Providence had not destined that she would revisit her native shore. She was there seized with an illness which carried her off in a few days, and her last hours are said to have extremely edified the spectators, being full of Christian resignation and hope. She had left a son in the colony, whose offspring, carefully traced, is now numerous; and this descent is the boast of many Virginian families.

LUCY HUTCHINSON.

JEFFREY.

The daughter of Sir Allan Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and wife of Colonel Hutchinson, so well known in the Civil War, was in all respects a remarkable woman. If it were allowable to take the portrait she has given of herself as a just representation of her fair contemporaries, we should form a most exalted notion of the Republican matrons of England. Making a slight deduction for a few traits of austerity borrowed from the bigotry of the age, we do not know where to look for a more noble and engaging character than that under which this lady presents herself to her readers; nor do we believe that any age of the world has produced so worthy a counterpart to the Valerias and Portias of antiquity. With a highminded feeling of patriotism and public honour, she seems to have been possessed by the most beautiful and devoted attachment to her husband, and to have combined a taste for learning and the arts with the most active kindness and munificent hospitality to all who came within the sphere of her bounty.

To a quick perception of character, she appears to have united a masculine force of understanding and a singular capacity for affairs, and to have possessed and exercised all those talents without affecting any superiority over the rest of her sex, or abandoning for a single instant the delicacy and reserve which were then its most indispensable ornaments. Education is certainly far more diffused in our days, and accomplishments infinitely more common; but the perusal of this lady's Memoirs has taught us to doubt whether the better sort of women were not fashioned of old by a better and more exalted standard, and whether the most eminent female of the present day would not appear to disadvantage by the side of Mrs Hutchinson. There is for the most part something intriguing, and profligate, and theatrical in the clever women of this generation; and if men are dazzled by their brilliancy and delighted with their talent, we can scarcely even guard against some distrust of their judgment, or some suspicion of their purity. There is something, in short, in the domestic virtue, and the calm and commanding mind of our English matron, that makes the Corinnas and Heloises appear small and insignificant.

The admirers of modern talent will not accuse us of choosing an ignoble competitor if we desire them to weigh the merits of Mrs Hutchinson against those of Madame Roland. The English revolutionist did not, indeed, compose weekly pamphlets and addresses to the municipalities, because it was not the fashion of her day to print every thing that entered into the heads of politicians. But she shut herself up with her husband in the garrison with which he was entrusted, and shared his counsels as well as his hazards. She encouraged the troops by her cheerfulness and heroism, ministered to the sick, and dressed with her own hands the wounds of the captives as well as of the victors. When her husband was imprisoned on groundless suspicions, she laboured without ceasing for his deliverance, confounded his oppressors by her eloquence and arguments, tended him with unshaken fortitude in sickness and in solitude, and after his decease dedicated herself to form his children to the example of his virtues, and drew up the memorial, which is now before us, of his worth and her own genius and affection. All this, too, she did without stepping beyond the province of a private woman, without hunting after compliments to her own genius or beauty, without sneering at the dulness or murmuring at the coldness of her husband, without hazarding the fate of her country on the dictates of her own enthusiasm, or fancying for a moment that she was born with talents to enchant and regenerate the world. With equal power of discriminating character, with equal candour, and eloquence, and zeal for the general good, she is elevated beyond her French competitor by superior prudence and modesty, and by a certain simplicity and purity of character, of which it appears to us that the other was unable to form a conception.

England, we should think, should be proud of having given birth to Mrs Hutchinson and her husband; and chiefly because their characters are truly and peculiarly English, according to the standard of their times, in which national characters were most distinguishable. Not exempt, certainly, from errors and defects, they yet seem to us to hold out a lofty example of substantial dignity and virtue, and to possess most of those talents and principles by which public life is made honourable, and privacy delightful. Bigotry must at all times debase, and civil dissension embitter our existence; but, in the ordinary course of events, we may safely venture to assert, that a nation which produces many such wives and mothers as Mrs Lucy Hutchinson, must be both great and happy.

LADY FANSHAWE.

JEFFREY.

Lady Fanshawe was, as is generally known, the wife of a distinguished cavalier, in the heroic age of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate, and survived till long after the Restoration. Her husband was a person of no mean figure in those great transactions; and she, who adhered to him with the most devoted attachment, and participated not unworthily in all his fortunes and designs, was consequently in continual contact with the movements that then agitated society. Since it may be said with some show of reason that Lady Hutchinson and her husband had too many elegant tastes and accomplishments to be taken as fair specimens of the austere and godly republicans, it certainly may be retorted, with at least equal justice, that the chaste and decorous Lady Fanshawe, and her sober, diplomatic lord, shadow out rather too favourably the general manners and morals of the cavaliers.

DOROTHY OSBORNE.

MACAULAY.

One who, for constancy in love against temptations to change, deserves commemoration. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome, and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Sir William Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament; the father of the heroine was commanding in Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had a more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osborne was in the meantime besieged by as many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the fame of Portia. The most distinguished on the list was Henry Cromwell. Destitute of the capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his illustrious father, destitute also of the meek and placid virtues of his elder brother, this young man was perhaps a more formidable rival than either of them would have been. Mrs Hutchinson, speaking the sentiments of the grave and aged, calls him an "insolent foole," and "a debauched ungodly cavalier." These expressions probably mean that he was one who, among young and dissipated people, would pass for a fine gentleman. Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more formidable breed than those which lie on modern hearthrugs, and Henry Cromwell promised that the highest functionaries in Dublin should be set to work to procure for her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only Lord General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over ambition, and the young lady appears never to have regretted her decision; though in a letter written just at the time when all England was ringing with the news of the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament, she could not refrain from reminding Temple, with pardonable vanity, "how great she might have been if she had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer of Henry Cromwell."

When at last the constancy of the lovers triumphed over all the obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mrs Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this most severe trial, the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers will probably remember what Mrs Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God," she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity, "recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her as well as before." Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and constancy which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage is not exactly known. But Mr Courtenay supposes it to have taken place about the year 1654. From this time we lose Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on which she and her husband were, from very slight indications, which may easily mislead us.

CATHERINE PHILIPS.

BALLARD.

The celebrated Orinda was the daughter of John Fowler of Bucklersbury. Her improvement was so early, that whoever reads the account given of her by M. Aubrey, will look upon all her succeeding progress in learning to be no more than what might justly be expected. He tells us that she was very apt to learn, and made verses when she was at school; that she devoted herself to religious duties when she was very young; that she would then pray by herself an hour together; that she had read the Bible through before she was full four years old; that she could say by heart many chapters and passages of Scripture, was a frequent hearer of sermons, which she would bring away entire in her memory, and would take sermons verbatim when she was but ten years old.

She became afterwards a perfect mistress of the French tongue, and learned the Italian under the tuition of her ingenious and worthy friend Sir Charles Cottrell. Born with a genius for poetry, she began to improve it early in life, and composed many poems, upon various occasions, for her own amusement, in her recess at Cardigan and retirement elsewhere. These being dispersed among her friends and acquaintances, were by an unknown hand collected together and published in 1663, without her knowledge and consent,--an ungenteel and ungenerous treatment, which proved so oppressive to her great modesty, that it gave her a severe fit of illness. She poured forth her complaints in a long letter to Sir Charles Cottrell, in which she laments, in a most affecting manner, the misfortune and injury which had been done to her by this surreptitious edition of her poems.

Her remarkable humility, good nature, and agreeable conversation, greatly endeared her to all her acquaintances, and her ingenious and elegant writings procured her the friendship and correspondence of many learned and eminent men, and of persons of the first rank in England. Upon her going to Ireland with the Viscountess of Dungannon, to transact her husband's affairs there, her great merit soon made her known to, and esteemed by, those illustrious persons,--Ormond, Orrery, Roscommon, and many other persons of distinction,--who paid a great deference to her worth and abilities, and showed her singular marks of their esteem.

While in Ireland, she was very happy in carrying on a former intimacy with the famous Dr Jeremy Taylor, the worthy Bishop of Down and Conner, who addressed to her "A Discourse of the Nature, Offices, and Measures of Friendship." It is possible that his acquaintance with Mrs Philips might contribute much towards the good opinion he entertained of the female sex. It is certain that he was a great admirer of them. "But, by the way, madam," he says, "you may see how much I differ from the morosity of those cynics who would not admit your sex into the communities of a noble friendship. I believe some wives have been the best friends in the world, and few stories can outdo the nobleness and piety of that lady that sucked the poisoned purulent matter from the wound of our brave prince in the holy land, when an assassin had pierced him with a venomed arrow. And if it be told that women cannot return counsel, and therefore can be no brave friends, I can best confute them by the story of Portia. I cannot say that women are capable of all those excellences by which men can oblige the world; and therefore a female friend, in some cases, is not so good a counsellor as a wise man, and cannot so well defend my honour, nor dispose of reliefs and assistances, if she be under the power of another; but a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministries, and she can die for her friend as well as the bravest Roman knight. A man is the best friend in trouble, but a woman may be equal to him in the days of joy; a woman can as well increase our comforts, but cannot so well lessen our sorrows, and therefore we do not carry women with us when we go to fight; but, in peaceful cities and times, virtuous women are the beauties of society and the prettinesses of friendship."

Mrs Philips went for a time into a sort of melancholy retirement, occasioned, perhaps, by the bad success of her husband's affairs; and, going to London in order to relieve her oppressed spirits with the conversation of her friends there, she was seized by the small-pox, and died in her thirty-third year. Mr Aubrey observes that her person was of a middle stature, pretty fat, and ruddy complexion.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.

ST SIMON.

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