Sir James Smith, the botanist; Crabb Robinson; the Gurneys; Mrs. Barbauld; Dr. Alderson and his charming daughter, Amelia Opie; and many other well-known people.  Her letters are extremely sensible and thoughtful.  ‘Nothing at present,’ she says in one of them, ’suits my taste so well as Susan’s Latin lessons, and her philosophical old master . . .  When we get to Cicero’s discussions on the nature of the soul, or Virgil’s fine descriptions, my mind is filled up.  Life is either a dull round of eating, drinking, and sleeping, or a spark of ethereal fire just kindled. . . .  The character of girls must depend upon their reading as much as upon the company they keep.  Besides the intrinsic pleasure to be derived from solid knowledge, a woman ought to consider it as her best resource against poverty.’  This is a somewhat caustic aphorism:  ’A romantic woman is a troublesome friend, as she expects you to be as imprudent as herself, and is mortified at what she calls coldness and insensibility.’  And this is admirable:  ’The art of life is not to estrange oneself from society, and yet not to pay too dear for it.’  This, too, is good:  ’Vanity, like curiosity, is wanted as a stimulus to exertion; indolence would certainly get the better of us if it were not for these two powerful principles’; and there is a keen touch of humour in the following:  ’Nothing is so gratifying as the idea that virtue and philanthropy are becoming fashionable.’  Dr. James Martineau, in a letter to Mrs. Ross, gives us a pleasant picture of the old lady returning from market ’weighted by her huge basket, with the shank of a leg of mutton thrust out to betray its contents,’ and talking divinely about philosophy, poets, politics, and every intellectual topic of the day.  She was a woman of admirable good sense, a type of Roman matron, and quite as careful as were the Roman matrons to keep up the purity of her native tongue.

Mrs. Taylor, however, was more or less limited to Norwich.  Mrs. Austin was for the world.  In London, Paris, and Germany, she ruled and dominated society, loved by every one who knew her.  ’She is “My best and brightest” to Lord Jeffrey; “Dear, fair and wise” to Sydney Smith; “My great ally” to Sir James Stephen; “Sunlight through waste weltering chaos” to Thomas Carlyle (while he needed her aid); “La petite mere du genre humain” to Michael Chevalier; “Liebes Mutterlein” to John Stuart Mill; and “My own Professorin” to Charles Buller, to whom she taught German, as well as to the sons of Mr. James Mill.’  Jeremy Bentham, when on his deathbed, gave her a ring with his portrait and some of his hair let in behind.  ‘There, my dear,’ he said, ’it is the only ring I ever gave a woman.’  She corresponded with Guizot, Barthelemy de St. Hilaire, the Grotes, Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity, Nassau Senior, the Duchesse d’Orleans, Victor Cousin, and many other distinguished people.  Her translation of Ranke’s History of the Popes is admirable; indeed,