Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/839

Rh certainly possessed courage, address, and magnanimity in misfortune. .

her very birth, in 1675, she was of so delicate and tender a constitution, that had she not been of a gay disposition, and possessed of a vigorous mind, she must have been more unhappy than she actually was. Her father dying when she was scarce two years old, and her mother not knowing his real circumstances, some inconveniences were incurred, in bestowing upon him a pompous funeral. When her mother married him, on the supposition of his being wealthy, he was upwards of sixty, and herself eighteen, but she was miserably deceived. She disposed of two houses her husband kept, one in town, the other in Essex, and retired into a private lodging. Here it was her misfortune to become acquainted with a certain philosophical doctor, who pretended he had made a discovery of the philosopher's stone, and so far insinuated himself into her good opinion, that she was prevailed upon to advance £. 300 upon the credit of his invention, in order to prepare works for the grand operation. But coming to the last trial, when the success was every moment expected, all his works were blown up at once, and her eyes were opened to see how grossly she had been imposed upon. But I should have observed, that during the process, the doctor acted the part of a tutor to Corinna, in arithmetic, Latin, and mathematics, to which she discovered a very strong propensity.

Mrs. Thomas, on this occasion, suffered a good deal of secret anguish; she was ashamed of having reduced her