Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/385

Rh work, which, soon after her death, was methodized, and published with the following title, Reliquiæ Gethinianæ; or some Remains of the most ingenious and excellent Lady Grace, Lady Gethin, lately deceased; ''being a collection of choice Discourses, pleasant Apothegms, and witty Sentences. Written by her, for the most part, by way of essay, and at spare hours. London, 1700, 4to''. with her picture before it. This work consists of ingenious discourses on Friendship, Love, Gratitude, Death, Speech, Lying, Idleness, the World, Secresy, Prosperity and Adversity, of Children, Cowards, Bad Poets, Indifferency, Censoriousness, Revenge, Boldness, of Youth and Age, Custom, Charity, Reading, Beauty, Flattery, Riches, of Honour and high Places, of Pleasure, Suspicion, Excuses, and, lastly, Miscellanies.

Among Mr. Congreve's poems are to be found verses to the Memory of Grace, Lady Gethin, occasioned by reading her book, entitled, Reliquiæ Gethinianæ; in which that agreeable poet, after speaking of the shortness of life, and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, proceeds thus:

Whoe'er on this reflects, and then beholds With strict attention what this book unfolds, With admiration struck, shall question, who So very long could live so much to know? For so complete the finish'd piece appears, That learning seems combin'd with length of years, And both improv'd by purest wit to reach At all that study, or that time can teach. But to what height must his amazement rise, When having read the work, he turns his eyes Again