Page:The works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld volume 1.djvu/68

 of your respect and affection; nor indeed yours only, but of all who knew her. A prominent part of those feelings, however, must be, that the dear object of them is released from suffering, has finished her task, and entered upon her reward Never will she be forgotten by those who knew her ! Her strong sense, her feeling, her energy, her principle, her patriot feelings, her piety rational yet ardent, all these mark a character of no common sort. When to these high claims upon general regard are added those of relation or friend, the feeling must be such as no course of years can efface."

A gentle and scarcely perceptible decline was now sloping for herself the passage to the tomb: she felt and hailed its progress as a release from languor and infirmity, a passport to another and a higher state of being. Her friends, however, flattered themselves that they might