In the year 1736, the importunity of some of Mrs. Rowe’s acquaintance who had seen the History of Joseph in Ms. prevailed on her to print it.  The publication of this piece did not long precede the time of her death, to prepare for which had been the great business of her life; and it stole upon her according to her earnest wishes, in her beloved recess.  She was favoured with a very uncommon strength of constitution, and had pass’d a long series of years with scarce any indisposition, severe enough to confine her to bed.——­But about half a year before her decease, she was attacked with a distemper, which seemed to herself as well as others, attended with danger.  Tho’ this disorder found her mind not quite so serene and prepared to meet death as usual; yet when by devout contemplation, she had fortified herself against that fear and diffidence, from which the most exalted piety does not always secure us in such an awful hour, she experienced such divine satisfaction and transport, that she said with tears of joy, she knew not that she ever felt the like in all her life, and she repeated on this occasion Pope’s beautiful soliloquy of the dying Christian to his soul.

  An elegy, &c. 
  The dying christian to his Soul.

  I.

    Vital spark of heav’nly flame! 
    Quit, oh quit this mortal frame;
    Trembling, hoping, lingr’ing, flying;
    Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! 
    Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
  And let me languish into life. 
  II.

    Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
    Sister spirit, come away! 
    What is this absorbs me quite,
    Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
    Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? 
  Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

  III.

  The world recedes; it disappears! 
  Heav’n opens on my eyes! my ears
    With sounds seraphic ring;
  Lend, lend your wings!  I mount!  I fly! 
    O grave! where is thy victory? 
    O death! where is thy sting?

She repeated the above, with an air of intense pleasure.  She felt all the elevated sentiments of pious extasy and triumph, which breath in that exquisite piece of sacred poetry.  After this threatening illness she recovered her usual good state of health; and though at the time of her decease she was pretty far advanced in years, yet her exact temperance, and the calmness of her mind, undisturbed with uneasy cares, and turbulent passions, encouraged her friends to hope a much longer enjoyment of so valuable a life, than it pleased heaven to allow them.  On the day when she was seized with that distemper, which in a few hours proved mortal, she seemed to those about her to be in perfect health and vigour.  In the evening about eight o’clock she converted with a friend, with her usual vivacity, mixed with an extraordinary chearfulness, and then retired to her chamber.  About 10 her servant hearing some noise in her mistress’s room, ran