How readily she received impressions at an early age, and how indelibly they were stamped on her memory, she has herself recorded. “One of the strongest pictures in my mind,” she wrote to Lord Lyttelton, in 1759, “is the funeral of a Dean of York, which I saw performed with great solemnity in the cathedral, when I was about four years old. Whether the memory of it, added to the present objects, may not have made the place appear the more awful to me, I do not know; but I was never so affected by any edifice.” She loved York, and in her early Yorkshire home the plan of education went far in advance of the views, and perhaps of the powers, of family governesses. Masters, as well as mistresses, were there for the instruction of both sons and daughters; but Elizabeth’s father sharpened and stimulated her intellect by encouraging her to make smart repartees to his own witty or severe judgments. In this cudgelling of brains Matthew had great delight till he found that his daughter was too much for him at his most favourite weapons. Matthew then bit his lips, and ceased to offer challenge or give provocation. Matthew Robinson’s wife seems to have been educated according to the traditions of a school founded in 1673 for the purpose of raising women to the dignity and usefulness which distinguished their ancestresses. The lady, Mrs. Makin, who originated this school for English maidens, stated her object in an essay, of which a few words may be said, as illustrative of a system of female education in England which, founded nearly half a century before Elizabeth Robinson was born, had not lost all its influence till after she herself was to be reckoned among learned young ladies. The work in question was called “An Essay to revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues: With an Answer to the Objections against this way of Education.” In the dedication to the Lady Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York, the author says: “The barbarous custom to breed women low is grown general amongst us, and hath prevailed so far, that it is verily believed that women are not endowed with such reason as man.” Of old, Mrs. Makin says, women were highly educated; but now, “not only learning, but virtue itself, is scorned and neglected as pedantic things, fit only for the vulgar.” The remedy enjoined for this matter is thus stated: “Were a competent number of schools erected to educate Ladies ingeniously, methinks I see how ashamed men would be of their ignorance, and how industrious the next generation would be to wipe off the reproach!” The author adds: “Let not your Ladyship be offended that I do not, as some have wittily done, plead for female preëminence. To ask too much, is the way to be denied all.” To prove that women were formerly educated in arts and tongues, the author names a score and more of Greek, Roman, and other ladies celebrated for their proficiency in those respects.