Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/101

Rh Jacobite, whether a clergyman or a layman; but by a very moderate person and dutiful subject of the Queen, 1704. The Christian Religion, as practised by a Daughter of the Church of England, 1705. Six familiar Essays upon Marriage, Crosses in Love, and Friendship, 1706. Bart'lemy Fair, or an Inquiry after Wit, 1700, occasioned by Colonel Hunter's celebrated Letter on Enthusiasm. It was republished in 1729, without the words 'Bart'lemy Fair.' Living and conversing with the fashionable world, she led a holy life: but though she practised the severest virtue, her mind was generally calm and serene, and her deportment and conversation highly entertaining and facetious. She would say, The good Christian only has reason, and he always ought to be cheerful; and that dejected looks and melancholy airs were very unseemly in a Christian.

But though she was easy and affable to others, she was severe towards herself. She was abstemious in a very great degree; frequently living many days together on bread and water: and at other times, when at home, rarely eat any dinner till night, and then sparingly. She would frequently say, abstinence was her best physic. And observe, that those who indulge themselves in eating and drinking, could not be so well disposed or prepared, either for study, or the regular and devout service of their Creator.

She enjoyed an uninterrupted state of health, till a few years before her death, when a cancer in her breast, which she concealed from every body, except a few of her most intimate acquaintance, impaired her constitution very much. She managed it herself, till it was absolutely necessary to submit to amputation, which she