Our poetess, says she, had not been long married, e'er Mr. Pilkington became jealous, not of her person, but her understanding. She was applauded by dean Swift, and many other persons of taste; every compliment that was paid her, gave a mortal stab to his peace. Behold the difference between the lover and the husband! When Mr. Pilkington courted her, he was not more enamoured of her person, than her poetry, he shewed her verses to every body in the enthusiasm of admiration: but now he was become a husband, it was a kind of treason for a wife to pretend to literary accomplishments. It is certainly true, that when a woman happens to have more understanding than her husband, she should be very industrious to conceal it; but it is like wise true, that the natural vanity of the sex is difficult to check, and the vanity of a poet still more difficult: wit in a female mind can no more cease to sparkle, than she who possesses it, can cease to speak. Mr. Pilkington began to view her with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, and in this situation, nothing but misery was likely to be their lot. While these jealousies subsisted, Mr. Pilkington, contrary to the advice of his friends, went into England, in order to serve as chaplain to alderman Barber during his mayoralty of the city of London. While he remained in London, and having the strange humour of loving his wife best at a distance, he wrote her a very kind letter, in which he informed her, that her verses were like herself, full of elegance and beauty[1]; that Mr. Pope and others, to whom he had shewn them, longed to see the writer, and that he heartily wished her in London. This letter set her heart on flame. London has very attractive charms to most young people, and it cannot be much wondered at if Mrs. Pilkington should take the only opportunity she was ever likely to have, of gratifying her curiosity: which however proved fatal to her; for though we cannot find, that during this visit to London, her conduct was the least reproachable, yet, upon her return to Ireland, she underwent a violent persecution of tongues. They who envied her abilities, fastened now upon her morals; they were industrious to trace the motives of her going to London; her behaviour while she was there; and insinuated suspicions against her chastity. These detracters were chiefly of her own sex, who supplied by the bitterest malice what they wanted in power.