62 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1782 



delivered of a daughter at his house in Gloucester to the great joy of 

 his family and friends. But the pleasing hopes arising from the liappy 

 event were soon changed to the deepest sorrow on perceiving an 

 alteration wliich indicated her approaching dissolution ; and, notwith- 

 standing that the best medical assistance was procured, she expired 

 about four o'clock the same afternoon. 



Her remains were deposited on Thursday, attended by a great 

 concourse of friends and acquaintances to pay the last melancholy 

 offices to a character so deservedly esteemed and beloved. 



Blessed by nature with a comprehensive understanding and most lively 

 fancy, she had improved the one by an excellent education, and refined 

 the other by a solidity of judgment uncommon to her sex. With the 

 former she ever promoted the cause of virtue, and with the latter made 

 folly ridiculous, and put vice out of countenance. Adorned with 

 every social virtue, she felt the most exalted sentiments of friendship; 

 and with a delicacy peculiar to herself, selected such to share her 

 confidence as were capable of the same refined ideas, while the tender- 

 ness of her heart melted at the tale of woe, and from the child of want 

 her face was never turned aside. When the voice of nature and of 

 reason dictated a change of condition, she did not place her affections 

 on pomp or wealth, but bestowed them on one whose propriety of 

 sentiment and purity of morals were consonant to her own. And 

 the happiness of both was such as might be expected from a union 

 where kindred merits and mutual esteem had ripened friendship into 

 love. Thus, though in possession, yet from a conviction of the 

 instability of human happiness, she had remembered her Creator in the 

 days of her youth, and devoted herself to the practice of those essential 

 duties of religion without the performance of which no true felicity can 

 be enjoyed here, or a happy immortality be hoped for hereafter. Thus 

 living and thus beloved, by a stroke unexpected to her friends, but not 

 sudden to herself, whose lamp was always burning, on the 25th of 

 February, 1782, and in the 25th year of her age, was this amiable 

 pattern of Christian virtues, to the unspeakable grief of her relations, and 

 the irreparable loss of her husband, removed from this transitory scene. 



Not to be affected with and lament a blow so severe, would discover 

 a want of those feelings which constitute the dignity of human nature. 



TO STELLA.«- 



trPON A LATE MELANCHOLY ]!EREAVEMENT. 



No more my fancy charms, ye dreams 

 Of earthly bliss: More awful themes 



Demand a serious strain. 

 Your grief sublimer thoughts inspire 

 Than trifling mirth or vain desires, 



Or pleasure's gayest scenes. 



* Miss Sarah Harrison, I suppose; sister to ]Mrs, Llackwell. — II. \V. S. 



