eminent skill in music, which I know is a most delightful entertainment to both of us, and as he will be able, coming immediately from me, to give you certain information of my health, and all that relates to me. I had it indeed in my intention to have made you a visit, and to have paid my respects to you in person, but things have not fallen out to my mind. I now promise myself that in the winter, before long, we shall have an interview, than which nothing can be more acceptable and pleasant to me.

"As I have been informed that the finishing hand has been put by Dr. Mallet to Erasmus's 'Paraphrase on the New Testament,' so far as it regards its translation into English, and that nothing now remains but an accurate review, and care in its correction, I earnestly request you to transmit me this most elegant and useful work now revised by Dr. Mallet, or some other able person whom you have employed, in order that it may be printed in due time, and that you would also signify to me, whether it is your pleasure, which would indeed be. most auspicious to the work, to have it published with your name, or anonymously. Indeed, if I might give my opinion, you will considerably obstruct the work, if it does not go down to posterity under the sanction of your name, by which, in the most accurate translation, you have undertaken a most lasting service for the great benefit of the people, and are ready, as it is well known, to make further additions in the same kind, if your health will permit. For my part, I see no reason, as mankind will undoubtedly ascribe the work to yourself, why you should endeavor, by suppressing your name, to decline the honor which they will so deservedly confer upon you. But I leave the whole affair so entirely to your prudence, that I shall readily fall in with whatever method may seem most eligible to you.

"I give you abundant thanks for the present of the purse you was so kind as to send me. I beseech the all-gracious and almighty God to crown your days with true undisturbed felicity, and to give you a long life for its enjoyment!" From Hanworth, the 20th of Sep

tember.

Yours in the most attached and affectionate friendship,
CATHARINE Queen K. P.

King Henry dying upon the 28th of January, 1546-7, when she had been his wife three years, six months, and five days, she was, not long after, married to Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral of England, and uncle to King Edward the Sixth. This unhappy marriage put a stop to all her temporal enjoyments: for between the matchless pride and imperiousness of her sister-in-law the Dutchess of Somerset, and the boundless ambition and other bad qualities of the admiral, such furious animosities ensued, as proved the destruction of both families, and must have interrupted the studies and contemplations of this excellent lady, now embarked with them, so that after this marriage we find no more of the pious productions of her

pen, or any thing considerable, besides her procuring the publication of the above-mentioned work, the Translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase on the New Testament into English.

She lived but a short time with this gentleman; for after being delivered of a daughter she died in childbed in the month of September, 1548, not without snspicion of poison, as several of our writers observe. And, indeed, she herself was apprehensive of unfair dealings, and roundly reproached the admiral on her death-bed for his great unkindness to her.

Where she died, or in what place she lies buried, we know not nor can we meet with any information on the head among our historians, though many of them mention her death, and speak of her with such regard as makes the omission of such a circumstance appear somewhat extraordinary; but we have a Latin epitaph composed in memory of her by Dr. Parkhurst, one of her domestic chaplains, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich. It bears the following title and is as follows:

Incomparabilis fœminæ CATHARINE, nuper Angliæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ Reginæ, dominæ meæ clementissimæ, epitaphium. Anno 1548.

Hoc Regina novo dormit Catharina sepulchro,
Sexus fœminei flos, honor, atque decus.

Hæc fuit Henrico conjux fidissima Regi,

Quem postquam è vivis Parca tulisset atrox

Thomæ Seymero, (cui tu, Neptune, tridentuin
Porrigis) eximio nupserat illa viro.

Huic perperit natam: à partu cum septimus orbem
Sol illustrasset mors truculenta necat :
Defunctain madidis famuli deflemus ocellis;
Humectat tristes terra Britanna genas.
Nos infelices moror consumit acerbus:

Inter cœlestes gaudet at illa choros.

IN ENGLISH.

An Epitaph on the incomparable Lady CATHARINE, late Queen of England,

France, and Ireland, my most amiable mistress.

This new-erected tomb contains

The mortal, but rever'd remains

Of her, who shone through all her days
Her sex's ornament and praise.
To Henry, Albion's mighty King,
With whose renown all nations ring,
She prov'd a most accomplished wife,
The crown and comfort of his life.
Her lord no more, in Hymen's bands
With Seymour next she joins her hands;
Seymour, who o'er the wat'ry plains
Wielding th' imperial trident reigns:
To him a female babe she bore,
But, when the sun had travelled o'er
For sev'n successive days the skies,
A breathless corpse the mother lies.
Her family her loss bemoans,
Britannia echoes to their groans:
In night and griefs we pine away;
She triumphs in the blaze of day,
And with th' angelic choirs above,
Attunes the harp to joy and love.

THE RIGHT HONORABLE

MARY, COUNTESS OF WARWICK.

THIS lady was the daughter of Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, who was born a private gentleman, and the younger son of a younger brother, and to no other heritage than what is expressed in the words,

God's Providence is my Inheritance,

which as a motto he inscribed on the magnificent buildings he erected, and indeed ordered to be placed on his tomb.

By that Providence succeeding his unremitting and wise industry he raised himself to such honor and estate, and left behind him such a dignified family, as has very rarely if ever before been known; and all this with such an unspotted reputation for integrity, as that the most envious scrutiny could discover no blemish in it, and that only shone the brighter by the malignant attempts made to obscure and debase it.

The mother of our lady was Catharine, only daughter of Sir Geoffry Fenton, principal secretary of state in Ireland. She was married to Mr. Boyle, July 25, 1603, and obtained this most honorable testimony from her husband: "I never," says he, “demanded any marriage portion, neither promise of any, it not being in my consideration; yet her father, after her marriage, gave me one thousand pounds in gold with her. But that gift of his daughter unto me I must ever thankfully acknowledge, as the crown of all my blessings, for she was a most religious, virtuous, loving and obedient wife unto me all the days of her life, and the happy mother of all my hopeful children, whom with their posterity I beseech God to bless."

*

By that excellent lady the Earl of Cork had fifteen children. The Hon. Robert Boyle, famous as a philosopher, more famous as a Christian, was one of them. Mary, the seventh daughter, and who was married to Charles Rich, Earl of Warwick, is the subject of our Memoirs. In opening her character to the public view, we shall begin with that which had the first place in her regard, piety towards God. We shall make some observations on her entrance upon it - on her progress in it-on the various exercises of it—and her holy zeal and industry to promote and encourage religion in

others.

Birch's Life of the Hou. Robert Boyle, p. 10.

As to her entrance upon religion, or making it her business in good earnest, though she had received a good education, and had been instructed in the grounds of religion in her youth, yet she would confess that she understood nothing of the life and power of godliness upon her heart, and indeed had no spiritual sense of it till some years after she was married. Nay, she declared that she came into the family in which she lived and died with so much honor, with prejudices and strange apprehensions as to matters of religion, and was almost affrighted with the disadvantageous accounts she had received concerning it; but when she came to see the regular performance of divine worship, and hear the useful, edifying preaching of the most necessary, practical and substantial truths, and observe the order and good government maintained in it, and met with the favor of her right honorable father in-law, who had always an extraordinary esteem and affection for her, her groundless prepossessions dispersed like mists before the sun, and were succeeded by the most cordial approbation.

The providence of God made us of two more remote means of her conversion,-afflictions and retirement. Divine wisdom and grace may be very adorable in adapting suitable means to accomplish the good purposes of God towards men; and afflictions and retirement, in this lady's circumstances, appeared to be admirably chosen out by Providence for her. Her great impediment and difficulty lay in her love of the pleasures and vanities of the world, which she neither knew how to reconcile with the strictness of religion, nor yet could be content to part for that, whose nobler delights she at that time had never experienced. The Lord therefore gradually drew off her mind from the pleasures and vanities of the world, by rendering insipid, through her afflictions, what had too much attached her regards; and by granting her an happy retirement, to acquaint herself more thoroughly with the things of God; by which she was enabled to set her seal to that testimony which God gives to spiritual wisdom, that "her ways are ways of pleasantnesss, and that all her paths are peace;" Prov. ii. 17; which, indeed, she would frequently and freely do to her friends, by assuring them that she had no cause to repent the exchange of the shadowy and unsubstantial pleasures of this world, for the solid and satisfactory joys she found in religion, thereby inciting and encouraging them to make the experiment, not doubting but that upon the trial they would be of the same sentiments with herself.

Two more immediate helps which God blessed to the good of her soul, were the preaching of the word, and Christian conference. The pressing the necessity of speedy and true repentance, and shewing the danger of procrastination, the putting off, and stifling convictions, seemed to turn the wavering trembling balance, and to fix the scale of her resolution.

This happy change took place about thirty years before her death; and from this time, (for though her conversation before was by no means vicious, but sweet and inoffensive, yet she would confess that her mind was vain,) she walked most closely, circumspectly, and accurately with God; and very few, if any, from what was seen in her, ever chose the better part with more resolution, or more unreservedly devoted themselves to the love, fear, and service of God, learning to be religious in good earnest, and to increase and grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To promote and strengthen religion in her soul, she, like the wise man, Matt. vii. 24, dug deep to lay her foundations upon a rock. She made a strict scrutiny into the state of her soul, and weighed the reasons of her choice in the balance of the sanctuary; and with the other builder in the gospel, Luke, xiv. 28, sat down and considered with herself what it might cost to finish her spiritual edifice, and whether she were furnished to bear the charge. She examined whether the grounds of her hope were firm, and such as would not delude and shame her, and whether her evidences for heaven were such as would abide the test, and be approved by Scripture. On this most important and interesting concern she drew up a paper with her own hand, which a good judge, to whom she privately communicated it, declared to be judiciously, modestly, and humbly written. Having put her hand to the plough, she looked not back, but minded religion as her business indeed, and never gave so much as the suspicion of her trifling in so solemn and momentous a work.

As to the various exercises of religion, or the practice of it, it appeared to be her great design to walk worthy of God in all well-pleasing, to adorn her professed subjection to the gospel by a conversation becoming it, and to shew forth his virtues and praises who had called her into his marvellous light.

According she was very careful and circumspect in abstaining from all appearance of evil. In all doubtful cases her rule was to take the safest side, for she would say that she was sure it would do her no hurt to let what was any way dubious as to its lawfulness, alone. While, therefore, none were further from censuring others, or usurping judgment over their liberties, yet for herself she would never allow herself the addition of an artificial beauty, using neither paint nor patches; neither would she play at any games, because, besides many other inconveniences, she thought them great wasters of precious time, of which she was nobly avaricious. There were three things, she said, that were too hard for her, and which she confessed she could not comprehend.

"How those who professed to believe an eternal state, and its dependence upon this inch of time, could complain of time's lying as a dead commodity on their hands, which they were at a difficulty to dispose of.