herself. They offered her one thousand pounds, even without perusing her MS. for her four volumes in twelves, containing her life brought down to the period of her establishment in town. She fluctuated much in her determination as to making this production public. Her intimate friends were aware of this indecision, and gave their advice, as may be supposed, with different degrees of sincerity. But she delayed the appearance of the book, from a reluctance to give pain, and finally destroyed the work, on conscientious principles, by the advice of Dr. Poynter, as I learn from the following memorandum in her firmest handwriting:

66

Query What I should wish done at the point of death?'

“Dr. P. Do it Now.'--4 volumes destroyed." I thus guard against any attempt hereafter to offer, as hers, a pretended autobiography, which cannot, the reader sees, really exist; and having already stated the perfect authenticity of the papers before me, prepare to supply at least a body of facts and opinions certainly written by herself, and the materials of that work which her tenderness suppressed; not, however, allowing any vestige of angry or contemptuous feeling to appear, unless sanctioned by the decision of time.

Mrs. Inchbald was born on the 15th of October, 1753, at Standingfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, in

Suffolk; one of the numerous offspring of John and Mary Simpson. The maiden name of her mother was Rushbrook; she was the daughter of William Rushbrook of Flimpton. The Simpsons held a moderate farm in Standingfield; were Catholics, and greatly esteemed by the gentry of the neighbourhood. To show this sufficiently, it may be proper to present a letter which was received by Mrs. Inchbald's mother from Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, the wife of Edward, the ninth duke. It relates to the death of Mrs. Simpson's daughter-in-law, and is highly honourable to the noble writer, as well as to the family whom she so benevolently addresses. The date of the letter, though omitted by her Grace, is ascertained, by the subject of it, to be the 28th of June, 1762:

"I am extremely concerned to be the conveyer of the most melancholy tidings to you that a tender parent can hear. Though a stranger to you, I undertake the hard task; as Mr. Simpson is, by his real concern, unable to perform the sad office himself. His care and constant attention and affection for his wife do not end with her life, which she finished this morning about two o'clock. She had decayed so gradually, that she left this world without a groan or sign of suffering. No care that could be had of a person in her condition had been wanting to her, from the time she came into this country; and I think it has been the means of her con

tinuing so many months alive, contrary to the expectations of all her physicians. I must add that, whenever I have conversed with her, she has always expressed the greatest respect and affectionate duty and tenderness towards you that a child could possibly do; and I am persuaded died in those sentiments, which Mr. Simpson has desired I would assure you of, as well as of his respect to you, and eternal regard to her memory.

"Your humble servant,

(Signed)

"M. NORFOLK."

Mrs. Inchbald's father died on the 15th April, 1761. Such a loss could not but be severely felt in a numerous family; but the widow seems to have struggled through all difficulties, and to have brought up her children in great respectability. The beauty of the girls was much celebrated in the circle of their acquaintance, and particularly that of Elizabeth; but the charms of her person, that might have been expected to lead her into society, were long counteracted by defect which drove her into solitude. She had an imperfection in her utterance, which for a long time rendered her speech indistinct, and intelligible only to those who had become skilful interpreters. In this melancholy state, letters stepped in to her aid, and that passion was conceived to which she owed her best recreation, her

constant resource, her affluence, and her fame. I learn from herself that her education was domestic ; and she remarks, as to her proficiency-"it is astonishing how much all girls are inclined to literature, to what boys are. My brother went to school seven years, and never could spell. I and two of my sisters, though we never were taught, could spell from our infancy."

It is a singular feature in her character that, though she shunned company, she longed to see the world. The Metropolis, in fact, became her passion; and she very early indeed determined that to London she would bend her course, or wing her flight, as facility or opposition should determine her. Nor did the fruition of her wishes ever extinguish the preference she felt for the Capital. To the last she could hardly bear to live out of it.

At Standingfield she felt the youthful desire of Arviragus; and, if the play was within her reach, most probably used his very language to her alarmed and cautious parent:

"What should we speak of,

When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December-How,

In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse

The freezing hours away?-We have seen nothing."

To the prudent representations of the danger of such a course, and a recital of the miseries which would lead her to know the value of her present

state, her keen and vigorous mind would reply with Rasselas-"You have given me now something to desire; I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of them is necessary to happiness." Indeed, so absorbed was she in this passion, that, in her thirteenth year, she frequently declared "she would rather die, than live any longer without seeing the world." In pursuit of the end, she did not altogether overlook the means; but here was the same singularity as before-her impediment, which drove her from company, seemed no bar to her becoming an actress. She might consider the beauty of her person as securing attention at least to her efforts; and she found out, by repeated trials, modes of palliating her defect. She wrote out all the words with which she had much difficulty; carried them constantly about her; and moreover discovered, that stage declamation, being a raised and artificial thing, afforded more time for enunciation; and that it is, for the most part, the eagerness and hurry of conversation that, in the stammerer, provoke the desire, and obstruct the performance. She appears to have determined not only to see the great world, but to be an actress, if she could by any influence procure an engagement.

We must not be surprised to find her best friends averse to both end and means; and earnest in their expostulations and entreaties that, for such wild notions, she would neither go upon