of every benevolent feeling; and accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kindness and sympathy alone that prompted her conduct.  Sympathy, when it mounts to a certain height, inevitably begets affection in the person towards whom it is exercised; and I have heard her say, that she never was concerned in the education of one child, who was not personally attached to her, and earnestly concerned, not to incur her displeasure.  Another eminent advantage she possessed in the business of education, was that she was little troubled with scepticism and uncertainty.  She saw, as it were by intuition, the path which her mind determined to pursue, and had a firm confidence in her own power to effect what she desired.  Yet, with all this, she had scarcely a tincture of obstinacy.  She carefully watched symptoms as they rose, and the success of her experiments; and governed herself accordingly.  While I thus enumerate her more than maternal qualities, it is impossible not to feel a pang at the recollection of her orphan children!

Though her friends earnestly dissuaded her from the journey to Lisbon, she found among them a willingness facilitate the execution of her project, when it was once fixed.  Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her with money, which however she always conceived came from Dr. Price.  This loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.

It was during her residence at Newington Green, that she was introduced to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time considered as in some sort the father of English literature.  The doctor treated her with particular kindness and attention, had a long conversation with her, and desired her to repeat her visit often.  This she firmly purposed to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his death, intervened to prevent her making a second visit.

Her residence in Lisbon was not long.  She arrived but a short time before her friend was prematurely delivered, and the event was fatal to both mother and child.  Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of Mary’s attachment, died on the twenty-ninth of November 1785.

It is thus that she speaks of her in her Letters from Norway, written ten years after her decease.  “When a warm heart has received strong impressions, they are not to be effaced.  Emotions become sentiments; and the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly retracing them.  I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect views I have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which I shall never more meet.  The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath.”

CHAP.  IV.

1785-1787.

No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the understanding of Mary.  She was admitted into the best company the English factory afforded.  She made many profound observations on the character of the natives, and the baleful effects of superstition.  The obsequies of Fanny, which it was necessary to perform by stealth and in darkness, tended to invigorate these observations in her mind.