Mary made many friends in Ireland, among the persons who visited lord Kingsborough’s house, for she always appeared there with the air of an equal, and not of a dependent.  I have heard her mention the ludicrous distress of a woman of quality, whose name I have forgotten, that, in a large company, singled out Mary, and entered into a long conversation with her.  After the conversation was over, she enquired whom she had been talking with, and found, to her utter mortification and dismay, that it was Miss King’s governess.

One of the persons among her Irish acquaintance, whom Mary was accustomed to speak of with the highest respect, was Mr. George Ogle, member of parliament for the county of Wexford.  She held his talents in very high estimation; she was strongly prepossessed in favour of the goodness of his heart; and she always spoke of him as the most perfect gentleman she had ever known.  She felt the regret of a disappointed friend, at the part he has lately taken in the politics of Ireland.

Lord Kingsborough’s family passed the summer of the year 1787 at Bristol Hot-Wells, and had formed the project of proceeding from thence to the continent, a tour in which Mary purposed to accompany them.  The plan however was ultimately given up, and Mary in consequence closed her connection with them, earlier than she otherwise had purposed to do.

At Bristol Hot-Wells she composed the little book which bears the title of Mary, a Fiction.  A considerable part of this story consists, with certain modifications, of the incidents of her own friendship with Fanny.  All the events that do not relate to that subject are fictitious.

This little work, if Mary had never produced any thing else, would serve, with persons of true taste and sensibility, to establish the eminence of her genius.  The story is nothing.  He that looks into the book only for incident, will probably lay it down with disgust.  But the feelings are of the truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance is adorned with that species of imagination, which enlists itself under the banners of delicacy and sentiment.  A work of sentiment, as it is called, is too often another name for a work of affectation.  He that should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would indeed be entitled to our profoundest commiseration.

CHAP.  V.

1787-1790.

Being now determined to enter upon her literary plan, Mary came immediately from Bristol to the metropolis.  Her conduct under this circumstance was such as to do credit both to her own heart, and that of Mr. Johnson, her publisher, between whom and herself there now commenced an intimate friendship.  She had seen him upon occasion of publishing her Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she addressed two or three letters to him during her residence in Ireland.  Upon her arrival in London in August 1787, she went immediately