This lady, who is known in the world by the poetial name of Corinna, seems to have been born for misfortunes; her very bitterest enemies could never brand her with any real crime, and yet her whole life has been one continued scene of misery[A]. The family from which she sprung was of a rank in life beneath envy, and above contempt. She was the child of an ancient, and infirm parent, who gave her life when he was dying himself, and to whose unhappy constitution she was sole heiress. From her very birth, which happened 1675, she was afflicted with fevers and defluxions, and being over-nursed, her constitution was so delicate and tender, that had she not been of a gay disposition, and possessed a vigorous mind, she must have been more unhappy than she actually was. Her father dying when she was scarce two years old, and her mother not knowing his real circumstances, as he was supposed from the splendour of his manner of life to be very rich, some inconveniencies were incurred, in bestowing upon him a pompous funeral, which in those times was fashionable. The mother of our poetess, in the bloom of eighteen, was condemned to the arms of this man, upwards of 60, upon the supposition of his being wealthy, but in which she was soon miserably deceived. When the grief, which so young a wife may be supposed to feel for an aged husband, had subsided, she began to enquire into the state of his affairs, and found to her unspeakable mortification, that he died not worth one thousand pounds in the world. As Mrs. Thomas was a woman of good sense, and a high spirit, she disposed of two houses her husband kept, one in town, the other in the county of Essex, and retired into a private, but decent country lodging. The chambers in the Temple her husband possessed, she sold to her brother for 450 l. which, with her husband's books of accounts, she lodged in her trustee's hands, who being soon after burnt out by the fire in the paper buildings in the temple (which broke out with such violence in the dead of night, that he saved nothing but his life) she lost considerably. Not being able to make out any bill, she could form no regular demand, and was obliged to be determined by the honour of her husband's clients, who though persons of the first fashion, behaved with very little honour to her. The deceased had the reputation of a judicious lawyer, and an accomplished gentleman, but who was too honest to thrive in his profession, and had too much humanity ever to become rich. Of all his clients, but one lady behaved with any appearance of honesty. The countess dowager of Wentworth having then lost her only daughter the lady Harriot (who was reputed the mistress of the duke of Monmouth) told Mrs. Thomas, 'that she knew she had a large reckoning with the deceased, but, says she, as you know not what to demand, so I know not what to pay; come, madam, I will do better for you than a random reckoning, I have now no child, and have taken a fancy to your