But lest we should be mistaken, the reader is entreated, on the very threshold, to be assured that our friend’s general opinion of this Lady, is very favourable. She possesses considerable talents; she has cultivated and improved them by severe study and rigorous discipline. Her knowledge of languages is very considerable, or once was so, for we must be understood as speaking of days that are past. She is, or was, familiarly conversant with German, French, Italian, and other modern languages, and far from ignorant either of Greek or Latin. Indeed, when we knew her, she was able to read, and did read, the most popular of the Latin classics, with considerable facility. With respect to her other qualities of mind, we know her to be kind-hearted, benevolent, and hospitable; always ready to listen to, and relieve distress; very anxious and zealous, without any tinge of fanaticism, on the subjects of religion and morals. Now, reader, with whatever reluctance it may be done, it is time to balance the account _per contra_. The first and great deficiency, we have to notice, is want of judgment. In all her original compositions, she seems to write down every thing which presents itself to her mind, without thinking it necessary to use subsequent revision and consideration. Hence it is that her sentences are sometimes expanded to an inordinate length, and her ideas, forcible and good perhaps in their first conception, are dilated and spun out to cobweb insubstantiality. In her compositions also, there is the grossest affectation of learning, and a perpetual use of crabbed, uncouth, pedantic expressions; so that of two words, where one was simple, explicit, and perspicuous, and the other of similar import has a Greek termination, in defiance of all good taste, the latter would be assuredly preferred. There seems also, or did seem, an irresistible propensity to take every gossip anecdote and tea-table chatter of Lady Tittle-tattle, Mrs. Go-about, and Sir Timothy Newsmonger, as authentic fact, and make them the occasion of some fine moralizing theorems, and philosophical discussion. There is, or was, but this perhaps may be sexual, a marvellous pertinacity in adhering to the opinions and assertions once made and avowed, in defiance of counter authorities, and the best substantiated facts. It is far more pleasant to contemplate the other side of the picture. It is therefore with no common satisfaction we relate, that this lady’s perseverance, determination, and consistent steadiness, in the earlier period of life, overcame the most formidable difficulties which were interposed between her and the cultivation of her mind; the fortitude with which she resisted the mean and cruel attempts which were made to keep her in a state of ignorance, and to withhold from her every opportunity of improvement, is in the highest degree honourable to her, and marks very superior intellectual endowments.