Thomas, the eldest of Mr. Mulso's sons, was bred to the law; and, for some years, he went the Oxford circuit. He declined legal practice on coming to the possession of his paternal inheritance; but was afterwards made Registrar of Peterborough, and a Commissioner of Bankrupts. He published, in 1768, 'Calistus, or the Man of Fashion;' and 'Sophronius, or the Country Gentleman.' Thomas was the elect brother of Mrs. Chapone. He died early in February, 1799; and, as his death was not thought near, she lost, in him, the tie that bound her to life. John, the second of Mr. Mulso's sons, became Prebendary of the cathedrals of Winchester and Salisbury, and held two valuable benefices in Hampshire. It was at the houses of this brother that Mrs. Chapone spent much of her time; and to one of his children, her beloved niece, the world owes her best work. He died at the prebendal residence at Winchester, in 1791, having survived his wife one year. Edward, the youngest son, was in the Excise Office. He was skilled in music, and for many years President of the Anacreonic Society. Of this brother, the life of her youth, Mrs. Chapone was also fond; and, as his death was sudden and quick, his loss seriously affected her. He died during the April of 1782. Hester Mulso, the main subject of this sketch, was born on the 27th of October, 1727; and was the only daughter whom her father had the pleasure of seeing arrive to mature years. How soon Miss Mulso accustomed herself to investigate what she read, and how well, may be inferred from a passage in her published 'Miscellanies;' where, she says, that when fifteen years old, being charmed with many of the doctrines of the mystics, she then began to canvass them deeply; and that, as reason grew, she was able to detect and to reject the fanciful theology with which they were fraught. Even at nine years of age she was an author. Accustomed to read the old romance, which suited her then childish taste, she wrote 'The Loves of Amorat and Melissa,' which, however defective, gave promise of the genius that distinguished her maturer compositions. Her mind could not, however, long dwell on such works. 'I make no scruple,' declares Miss Mulso, writing to Miss Carter, from Peterborough, July, 1750, 'to call romances the worst of all the species of writing: unnatural representations of the passions, false sentiments, false precepts, false wit, false honour, and false modesty, with a strange heap of improbable unnatural incidents, mixed up with true history, and fastened upon some of the great names of antiquity, make up the composition of a romance--at least of such as I have read, which have been mostly French ones. Then the prolixity and poverty of the style is unsupportable. I have (and yet I am still alive) drudged through Le Grand Cyrus in twelve large volumes, Cleopatra in eight or ten, Polexander, Ibrahim, Clelie, and some others, whose names, as well