Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/388

 industry, and to give increased value to the hard-earned acquisitions of her mind.

In 1782, Miss Ewing was married to Mr. John Hall, the son of a wealthy planter in Maryland, to which state they removed. Here she spent about eight years; but her taste was not for retirement; she loved books, society, and her friends too well to be satisfied with a country life in a secluded neighbourhood, and they removed to Philadelphia, where Mr. Hall filled successively the offices of Secretary of the Land Office, and Marshal of the United States for the district of Pennsylvania. Here they remained till 1801; then they resided in Lamberton, New Jersey, till 1805; thence they removed to Mr. Hall's paternal estate, in Maryland, where they lived until 1811; they then returned to Philadelphia, where Mr. Hall died, in 1826. Mrs. Hall survived her husband only four years, dying on the 8th. of April, 1830, aged sixty-nine.

During all these removals and the vicissitudes which occasioned them, Mrs. Hall never neglected, in the least particular, her duties as the head of a family; and in order to find time for reading without infringing on them, she, for the last forty years of her life, devoted to this exercise the hours usually appropriated to repose.

The only book Mrs. Hall ever published, "Conversations on the Bible," a duodecimo of three hundred and sixty-five pages, affords ample testimony that her memory is entitled to much praise. This work, which was very well received, both in America and in this country, contains a fund of information which could only have been collected by diligent research and profound thought. While engaged in this undertaking she began the study of Hebrew, to enable herself to make the necessary researches, and attained a considerable proficiency in this difficult language. When it is stated that she commenced this work after she had passed the age of fifty, when she had been the mother of eleven children, and that during her whole life she was distinguished for her industry, economy, and attention to all the duties of her station, it must be allowed that she was no ordinary woman. Her other writings were confined to contributions to the leading literary periodicals of the day.

HAMILTON, ELIZABETH, born in Belfast, in the year 1768. Her father was a merchant, of a Scottish family, and died early, leaving a widow and three children. The latter were educated and brought up by relatives in better circumstances;—Elizabeth, the youngest, being sent to Mr. Marshall, a farmer in Stirlingshire, married to her father's sister. Her brother obtained a cadetship in the East India Company's service, and an eider sister was retained in Ireland. A feeling of strong affection seems to have existed among these scattered members of the unfortunate family. Elizabeth found in Mr. and Mrs. Marshall all that could have been desired. She was adopted and educated with a care and tenderness that has seldom been equalled.

A taste for literature soon appeared in Elizabeth Hamilton. Wallace was the first hero of her studies; but meeting with Ogilvie's translation of the Iliad, she idolized Achilles, and dreamed of Hector. She had opportunities of visiting Edinburgh and Glasgow, after which she carried on a learned correspondence with Doctor Moyse,