duty, and expressing her duty in the greatest eminency of a virtuous, prudent, and rare affection; which I note in her as that which I would have exemplar to all ladies and to all women: and although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her soul, yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the virtue of her Lord; for she would often discourse it to them that conversed with her, that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God and of religion; and she would delight to say, that he called her to her devotions, he encouraged her good inclinations, he directed her piety, he invited her with good books; and then she loved religion, which she saw was not only pleasing to God, and an act or state of duty, but pleasing to her lord, and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience.

"As she was a rare wife, so she was an excellent mother; for in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was, and in so great a kindness towards her children, there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons, their deportment, their nature, their disposition, their learning, and their customs; and if ever kindness and care did contest, and make parties in her, yet her care and her severity were ever victorious; and she knew not how to do an ill turn to their severer part, by her more tender and forward kindness.

"But if we examine how she demeaned herself towards God, there also you will find her not of a common, but of an exemplary piety. She was a great reader of scripture, confining herself to great portions every day; which she read, not to the purposes of vanity and impertinent curiosity, not to seem knowing or to become talking, not to expound and rule, but to teach her all her duty, to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her neighbours, to make her more humble, and to teach her to despise the world and all its gilded vanities; and that she might entertain passions wholly in design and order to heaven. I have seen a female religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue; that like a wanton and undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches, in leaves and gum; and after all such goodly outsides, you shall never eat

of the fruit, or be delighted with the beauties or the perfumes of a hopeful blossom. But the religion of this excellent lady was of another constitution; it took root downward in humility, and brought forth fruit upward in the substantial graces of a christian, in charity and justice, in chastity and modesty, in fair friendships and sweetness of society. She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godliness; but she was singularly careful for the power of it, for the moral, essential, and useful parts; such as would make her be, not seem to be, religious.

"She was a very constant person at her prayers, and spent all her time, which nature did permit to her choice, in her devotions, and reading and meditating, and the necessary offices of houshold government, every one of which is an action of religion, some by nature, some by adoption. To these also God gave her a very great love to hear the word of God preached; in which, because I had sometimes the honour to minister to her, I can give this certain testimony, that she was a diligent, watchful, and attentive hearer; and to this had so excellent a judgment, that if ever I saw a woman whose judgment was to be revered it was hers alone. But her appetite was not soon satisfied with what was useful to her soul; she was also a constant reader of sermons, and seldom missed to read one every day; and that she might be full of instruction and holy principles, she had lately designed to have a large book in which she purposed to have a stock of religion transcribed in such assistances as she would chuse, that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work. But God prevented that, and hath filled her desires not out of cisterns and little aqueducts, but hath carried her to the fountain, where she drinks of the pleasures of the river,' and is full of God.

"She always lived a life of much innocence, free from the violences of great sins; her person, her breeding, her modesty, her honour, her religion, her early marriage, the guide of her soul, and the guide of her youth, were so many fountains of restraining grace to her, to keep her from the dishonours of a crime. It is good to bear the yoke of the Lord from our youth; and though she did so, being

guarded by a mighty providence, and a great favour and grace of God, from staining her fair soul with the spots of hell, yet she had strange fears and early cares upon her; but these were not only for herself but in order to others, to her nearest relatives. And because she knew that the sins of parents descend upon children, she endeavoured by justice and religion, by charity and honour, to secure that her channel should convey nothing but health and a fair example and a blessing.

And though her accounts to God were made up of nothing but small parcels, little passions, and angry words, and trifling discontents, which are the allays of the piety of the most holy persons, yet she was early at her repentance; and toward the latter end of her days, grew so fast in religion as if she had had a revelation of her approaching end, and therefore that she must go a great way in a little time: her discourses were more full of religion, her prayers more frequent, her charity increasing, her forgiveness more forward, her friendships more communicative, her pas sions more under discipline; and so she trimmed her lamp, not thinking her night was so near, but that it might shine also in the day time, in the temple, and before the altar of incense.

"But in this course of hers there were some circumstances, and some appendages of substance, which were highly remarkable.

1. In all her religion, and in all her actions of relation towards God, she had a singular evenness and untroubled passage, sliding towards her ocean of God and of infinity with a certain and silent motion. So have I seen a river deep and smooth passing with a still foot and a sober face, and paying to the great exchequer of the sea, the prince of all the watery bodies, a tribute large and full; and hard by it a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbour bottom; and after all its talking and bragged motion, it paid to its common audit no more than the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel; so have I sometimes compared the issues of her religion to the solemnities and famed outsides of another's piety. It dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated with the

periodical work of every day: she did not believe that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation, but to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls.

"2. The other appendage of her religion, which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life, was a rare modesty and humility of spirit, a confident [resolute] despising and undervalueing of herself; for though she had the greatest judgment, and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a' person of her youth, and sex, and circumstances; yet, as if she knew nothing of it, she had the meanest opinion of herself, and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room, yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud, and she shined to every body but herself." But the perfection of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid, and all her humility and arts of con cealment made the virtues more amiable and illustrious.

"I know not by what instrument it happened, but when death drew near, before it made any show upon' her body, or revealed itself by a natural signification, it was conveyed to her spirit: she had a strange secret persuasion that the bringing this child into the world should be her last scene of life; and so it was that the thought of death dwelt long with her, and grew from the first steps of fancy and fear to a consent, from thence to a strange credulity and expectation of it, and without the violence of sick-' ness she died: and in this I cannot but adore the providence, and admire the wisdom and infinite mercies of God; for having a tender and soft, a delicate and fine constitution, she was tender to pain, and apprehensive of it, as a child's shoulder is of a load and burden, and in her often discourses of death, which she would renew willingly and frequently, she would tell that she feared not death but she feared the sharp pains of death. The being dead and being freed from the troubles and dangers of this world, she hoped would be for her advantage, and therefore that was no part of her fear; but she believing the pangs of death were great, and the use and aids of reason little, feared lest they should do violence to her spirit and the decency of her. re

solution. But God that knew her fears and her jealousy concerning herself, fitted her with a death so easy, so harmless, so painless, that it did not put her patience to a severe trial. It was not (in all appearance) of so much trouble as two fits of a common ague; so careful was God to demonstrate to all that stood in that sad attendance, that this soul was dear to him; and that since she had done so much of her duty to him, he that began would also finish her redemption by an act of a rare providence and singular

mercy.

"Blessed be that goodness of God, who does such careful actions of mercy for the ease and security of his servants. But this one instance was a great demonstration that the apprehension of death is worse than the pains of death; and that God loves to reprove the unreasonableness of our fears, by the mightiness and by the arts of his mercy.

"She had in her sickness, if I may so call it, or rather in the solemnities and graver preparations towards death, some remarkable and well-becoming fears concerning the final estate of her soul. But from thence she passed into a deliquium, or a kind of trance, and as soon as she came forth of it, as if it had been a vision, or that she had conversed with an angel, and from his hand had received a label or scroll of the book of life, and there seen her name enrolled, she cried out aloud, Glory be to God on high: now I am sure I shall be saved.' Concerning which manner of discoursing we are wholly ignorant what judgment can be made; but certainly there are strange things in the other world, and so there are in all the immediate preparation to it; and a little glimpse of heaven, a minute's conversing with an angel, any ray of God, any communication extraordinary from the spirit of comfort which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown manners, are infinitely far from illusions; and they shall then be understood by us when we feel them, and when our new and strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusual visitations.

"But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature in the enumerating those things in which this rare personage was dear to God, and to all her relatives. If we consi

der her person, she was in the flower of her age, of a temperate, plain, and natural diet, without curiosity or an intemperate palate; she spent less time in dressing than many servants; her recreations were little and seldom, her prayers often, her reading much; she was of a most noble and charitable soul; a great lover of honourable actions, and as great a despiser of base things; especially loving to oblige others, and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality; so free in all acts of favour that she would not stay to hear herself thanked, as being unwil ling that what good went from her to a needful or an obliged person should ever return to her again; she was an excellent friend, and singularly dear to very many, especially to the best and most discerning persons, to all that conversed with her and could understand her great worth and sweetness; she was of an honourable, a nice, and tender reputation, and of the pleasures of this world which were laid before her in heaps, she took a very small and inconsiderable share, as not loving to glut herself with vanity, or to take her portion of good things here below. If we look on her as a wife, she was chaste and loving, discreet and humble. If we remember her as a mother, she was kind and severe, careful and prudent, very tender, and not at all fond, a greater lover of her children's souls than of their bodies, and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth than by their relation to herself. Her servants found her prudent and fit to govern, and yet open-handed and apt to reward: a just exactor of their duty, and a great rewarder of their diligence,

"She was in her house a comfort to her dearest lord, a guide to her children, a rule to her servants, an example to all.

"But as she was related to God in the offices of religion, she was even and constant, silent and devout, prudent and material [solid]; she loved what she now enjoys, and she feared what she never felt, and God did for her what she never did expect. Her fears went beyond all her evil; and yet the good which she hath received was, and is, and ever shall be, beyond all her hopes.

"She lived as we all should live, and she died as I fain would die "Et cum supremos Lachesis pervenerit

annos,

Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos."

The preceding character is drawn in so striking and comprehensive a manner, and its peculiar beauty and excellence are pointed out with so correct and discriminating a judgment, by the pious and eloquent author, that but little need be added, to recommend it to the notice and imitation of your readers. I trust, however, that the following brief observations will not be thought wholly superfluous.

The elevated rank of the subject of the foregoing eulogium is, first, deserving of attention. Lady Carbery moved in that sphere of life which is exposed to peculiar dangers and temptations from the allurements of the world; and in which "greatness," (as it is admirably observed in the preceding pages,) is, in consequence, "too often expressed in great follies and great vices." Hence, the example of her piety and virtue shines with a lustre proportioned to the eminence on which she was placed, and to the difficulties with which she was surrounded. She had, indeed, the singular advantage of "a strict and severe education;" by which we are evidently to understand, an education conducted upon the genuine principles of christianity, which, under the divine blessing, tended to correct the false views and expectations which her situation would naturally produce, and to set before her the good and perfect will of God, as the rule of her sentiments and conduct, and conformity to it as the source of all true greatness and happiness. Thus wisely brought up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," she came forth into the world well qualified to adorn her exalted station. It is, however, greatly to the honour of the age in which she lived, that Lady Carbery was by no means a singular example of piety united to high rank and fortune. Many others, of equal condition and of either sex, grace the annals of that period by a similar display of religious excellence; and this is a circumstance which deserves to be particularly noticed. I fear, Mr. Editor, that if in the present day we look to the cha

racters of the higher orders of society, we shall find but very few who re semble that which I have now laid before your readers. Doubtless, "We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways;

And one who wears a coronet, and prays!”

Nay, more perhaps, than one; for I would not be uncharitable. But still, as the same truly christian poet adds,

show

"Like gleanings of an olive-tree, they Here and there one upon the topmost bough,” And that only yet why should this be so? True religion is so far from being an enemy to human greatness or prosperity, that wherever it is found in conjunction with them, it is seen to add grace and dignity to the one, and to lessen the dangers, and increase the happiness of the other. Should this paper, therefore, chance to fall into the hands of any who are thus highly favoured by this world's good, let them learn from the example of Lady Carbery, that to be truly noble, they must be " born of God;" that to possess real wealth, they must be "rich towards him, rich in faith, and heirs of a kingdom which cannot be moved.”

But there are two or three features in the religious character of this lady to which I beg leave particularly to direct the attention of your readers of every description. What I have principally in view may be denominated the solidity of her piety. The religion of Lady Carbery was founded in humility before God, and was richly productive of the substantial graces and virtues of a christian; the love of God and of her neighbour; subdued and well-regulated affections and desires respecting the things of this world; and a daily preparation for the employments and pleasures of a better. Her chief care and anxiety seem to have been directed towards the attainment and exercise of the power of godliness. For this she read the word of God, prayed in public and in private, and listened to the instructions of the pulpit. Religion, in short, appears to have been considered by her, not so much as intended to procure her any particular character amongst men, as" to teach her all her duty," to make her perfect and complete in all the will of God,