The dear old lady speaks in this letter of “evening creeping upon her,” but she lingered to an extreme old age, dying on September 29, 1723, in her 87th year.  She lived to see the Protestant rule firmly secured by the Hanoverian succession.  In public affairs she continued to take interest, but always in subservience to the higher cause of moral and spiritual advancement.  In one of her last letters she says of the son of the king, “I have inquired from Doctor Sloane how the Prince is to-day.  He says, ‘In a way to do well.’  I trust, in the mercy of God, all our divisions shall be so with time.”

One of her latest letters is dated September 4, 1716, addressed to her second daughter, the Duchess of Devonshire:  “It is to no use to murmur that you could not be satisfied with taking the journey; the rather also because I believe I should have done the same.  It is so fine a season I trust your return to Derbyshire will be easy; your mind would not have been such had you not done as you did.  I shall be easy with a line or two from Lady Mary [her eldest daughter, who died unmarried in 1719] how you got to Chatsworth.  At your first coming you will have a great deal to do, and so for the short time you can stay.  I see no cause to fear, but that all will be, as we are, quiet; it is the temper of most to fear, or seem to do so.” (She referred to the public tranquillity, of which the rebellion of the year before had left doubts.) “The season is exceedingly fine, not much burnt up; but the farmers, for talk’s sake, ever wishing for what they have not; but it is good walking, and that is my best diversion.  I cannot easily add any words to make this more a diversion to you, than that I thank God I have as much health as my years can have; and memory as yet enough to take a pleasure when I hear of what I love most, and desire all good may be their portion; which will afford content, while any thought whatever of good or ill remains in the head or heart of

“Your ever-affectionate mother, R. RUSSELL.”

The spirit in which she bore the first overwhelming passion of grief may be best seen in the letters written by her to Doctor Fitzwilliam, who had been chaplain at Woburn, and who afterwards returned them to Mr. Solwood, the librarian there, by whom they were published.  In 1819 another volume of letters was published, from the originals in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire.  These range from her early married life down to her extreme old age; and contained greater variety of reference to the passing events of her time than are found in the Woburn letters, which are chiefly occupied with personal feelings and experiences.  From them may be obtained as perfect a portraiture of Lady Russell as can be desired.