Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/389

Rh and was led, by her friendship for him, not to become a sectarian, but occasionally to attend the dissenters' meetings; yet, frequenting usually the established church until the last ten years of her life, in which she attended no public service, thinking the contemplation of the Deity the worship best adapted to his nature and to ours.

About the beginning of 1785, concern for her friend Miss Blood, who had married Mr Skegs, then resident in Portugal, and was dangerously ill, induced Miss Wollstonecraft to borrow a sufficient sum of money, and go to Lisbon to attend her. On her friend's death, she returned to England; but finding her school had suffered in her absence, she was recommended to pursue literature as a means of support. The father and mother of the late Miss Blood wanted pecuniary assistance. She wrote a small volume, entitled Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, for which Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, gave her ten guineas, which she bore away, with exultation, to the succour of infirmity and age. And, about this time, received an offer of being governess to the daughters of lord viscount Kingsborough. In this family, where she was much liked, she staid about a year, and then determined to enter on her literary plan, and returned to London, where she commenced author by profession; finding an asylum, at first, under the roof of Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, and afterward staking a house in George-street, on the Surry side of Black-friars. She wrote many things, which he published; The Answer to Mr. Burke, and The Vindication of the Rights of Women; and took a considerable share in the Analytical Review, which was instituted by him, in 1788. She likewise translated several works for Mr. Johnson; for she