It is our desire to give to this Memoir as much as possible of the character of an autobiography. We have few facts except those found in the letters, with the advantage of an intimate intercourse for more than twenty years. In the several hundred letters and notes that have been put into our hands, there is nothing that might not appear, so far as any one else is concerned. This fact is well worthy of note, as belonging to the character, and revealing a remarkable elevation and purity of thought,--that in such a mass of free epistolary writing, from different countries and to persons of every age, not a single severe stricture, not one unkind allusion or offensive personality, much less any approach to petty gossip, can be found. We feel the greater freedom in making copious extracts; and shall attempt little more than so to arrange and connect them as to give a fair view of the whole life, or rather of the mind and character that appear in every part of the life. That a life so private contained such a variety of incident, and a measure of unavoidable publicity, was the ordering of Providence; and may serve to show that the sphere of woman, even the most domestic and silent, is broad enough for the most active intellect and the largest benevolence. II. CHILDHOOD. Mary Lovell Pickard was an only child, her parents having but one other, who died an infant before the birth of Mary. She was born in Atkinson Street, Boston, on the 2d of October, 1798. Mark Pickard, her father, was an English merchant, who came to this country on business, and remained here. Her mother was Mary Lovell, daughter of James Lovell, and granddaughter of "Master Lovell," so long known as a classical teacher in Boston. James Lovell, the grandfather of the subject of this Memoir, was a man of mind and influence. He had been active in the Revolutionary war, and was once made prisoner at Halifax, sharing there, it is said, the prison of Ethan Allen. Subsequently he was a prominent member of the Continental Congress, and at the adoption of the Constitution received the appointment of Naval Officer in the Boston custom-house, a place which he retained until his death. A man of free and bold thought, associating much at one time with French officers, Mr. Lovell adopted some infidel principles, became familiar and fond of Paine's arguments, and, as we are led to infer, treated religion with little respect in his family; the family in which Mary Pickard, as well as her mother, passed her childhood and youth. James Lovell had nine children, but only one daughter, Mary, who grew up the idol of the family. At the age of twenty-five she married Mark Pickard, who was seventeen years her senior, but not her equal in intellect or energy, we infer, yet always kind and most tenderly attached to her. She was a woman of rare excellence, in whose character, as drawn by those still living who knew her well, we can see, as usual, much that accounts for the character of the daughter.