Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/740

726 The elegancies of her house, and the charms of her conversation, were for many years the magnet that drew around her a continual resort of those persons who were most distinguished in art, or brilliant in genius, in the times in which she flourished.

For the last twelve or thirteen years, she was the martyr of a severe and incurable rheumatism, in consequence of which she became a cripple. Almost all her prose literary compositions were the offspring of this period.

The latter years of her life were darkened by the embarrassment, of her circumstances; much of this was occasioned by her inconsiderate involving herself for the convenience of others. In 1778 she commenced her literary career by a musical farce, called the Lucky Escape, which was followed by Captivity, a poem; Ainsi va la Monde, a poem; Monodies to the Memory of the Queen of France, and Sir Joshua Reynolds; Sappho and Phaon, in a series of Legitimate Sonnets; Modern Manners; Poems, in two volumes; The Sicilian Lover, a tragedy; Vancenza, a romance; The Widow, and Angelina, novels; Herbert de Sevrac, a romance of the present century; Walsingham; The Natural Daughter; and The False Friends, novels. Several popular Pamphlets and Poems, under the signatures of Louisa, Maria, Julia, Laura, Oberon, &c. Mrs. Robinson was undoubtedly a woman of great abilities, and mistress of a most splendid poetical imagination; but some of her novels betray signs of haste and undigested thought, and her judgement seems to have preferred feelings to justice in her morality; yet there are many noble sentiments to be found there, as well as in her muse, which was melancholy, tender, and harmonious. Her life has lately been published, begun by herself, and concluded by her