Being upbraided, by a severe censure, with a person’s proving base, whom she had frequently defended, and by whose baseness my beloved friend was a sufferer; ‘You, Madam,’ said she, ’had more penetration than such a young creature as I can pretend to have.  But although human depravity may, I doubt, oftener justify those who judge harshly, than human rectitude can those who judge favourably, yet will I not part with my charity.  Nevertheless, for the future, I will endeavour, in cases where the judgment of my elders is against me, to make mine consistent with caution and prudence.’

Indeed, when she was convinced of any error or mistake, (however seemingly derogatory to her judgment and sagacity,) no one was ever so acknowledging, so ingenuous, as she.  ‘It was a merit,’ she used to say, ’next in degree to that of having avoided error, frankly to own an error.  And that the offering at an excuse in a blameable manner, was the undoubted mark of a disingenuous, if not of a perverse mind.’

But I ought to add, on this head, [of her great charity where character was concerned, and where there was room for charity,] that she was always deservedly severe in her reprehensions of a wilful and studied vileness.  How could she then forgive the wretch by whose premeditated villany she was entangled?

You must every where insist upon it, that had it not been for the stupid persecutions of her relations, she never would have been in the power of that horrid Lovelace.  And yet, on several occasions, she acknowledged frankly, that were person, and address, and alliance, to be allowedly the principal attractives in the choice of a lover, it would not have been difficult for her eye to mislead her heart.

When she was last with me, (three happy weeks together!) in every visit the wretch made her, he left her more dissatisfied with him than in the former.  And yet his behaviour before her was too specious to have been very exceptionable to a woman who had a less share of that charming delicacy, and of that penetration, which so much distinguished her.

In obedience to the commands of her gloomy father, on his allowing her to be my guest, for that last time, [as it most unhappily proved!] she never would see him out of my company; and would often say, when he was gone, ’O my Nancy! this is not the man!’—­At other times, ’Gay, giddy creature! he has always something to be forgiven for!’—­At others, ’This man will much sooner excite one’s fears than attract one’s love.’  And then would she repeat, ’This is not the man.  All that the world says of him cannot be untrue.  But what title have I to call him to account, who intend not to have him?’

In short had she been left to a judgment and discretion, which nobody ever questioned who had either, she would soon have discovered enough of him to cause her to discard him for ever.

She was an admirable mistress of all the graces of elocution.  The hand she wrote, for the neat and free cut of her letters, (like her mind, solid, and above all flourish,) for its fairness, evenness, and swiftness, distinguished her as much as the correctness of her orthography, and even punctuation, from the generality of her own sex; and left her none, among the most accurate of the other, who excelled her.