Dr. Burnet had been assimilated with the Duchess in political, and in what was then considered almost as the same thing, religious, opinions. A close intimacy existed between the Duchess and the exemplary and third wife of the excellent prelate, the last of his three consorts, all of whom had been distinguished either in rank, in piety, or attainments. Mrs. Burnet took an active part in the concerns of the Duchess, who frequently communicated with her, and received letters in return, discussing the topics which then agitated the world, within the precincts of the court. At this time a staid matron of nine-and-forty, Mrs. Burnet could well remember the agitated times of James the Second, during whose reign she had retired with her first husband, Mr. Berkley of Spetchley Castle, Worcestershire, to Holland, to avoid the calamitous scenes which she expected to witness, and had remained at the Hague until the Revolution. Distinguished for piety, benevolence, and virtue, it was the lot of Mrs. Berkley, after a happy union with her first husband, to be left an opulent widow, in the prime of life. It was her choice to devote herself, for the seven years of that isolated, but possibly not dreary state, to works of charity, and to studies which would have adorned the leisure of the learned lords of creation. By her exertions, schools for the poorer classes, then little regarded in general, were established in the neighbourhood of Worcester and Salisbury. By her superior, although not classical attainments, she obtained the friendship of Dr. Stillingfleet, who declared that he knew not in England a more considerable woman than Mrs. Berkley. In his union with this amiable woman Bishop Burnet was eminently happy. Her influence in society tended, as that of every woman should, to make virtue throw its beams “far in a naughty world;” to elevate domestic, sober qualities in the eyes of men, by proving them to be compatible with the highest attainments; to be the counsellors as well as the solace of those whose vocation leads them to dive into the troubled waters of life.