sengage herself from the hurries of life, and wrap
herself up in that retirement she was so fond of, after having gained
what she thought a sufficient competency for one of her moderate
desires, and in that station that was allotted her, and settled her
affairs to her own mind, she finally quitted the world, and in a manner
agreeable to her own wishes, without being suffered to lie long in
weakness and pain, a burthen to herself, or those who attended her:
dying after about two days illness, in the 58th year of her age, Sept.
11, 1745.

She thought the disadvantages of her shape were such, as gave her no
reasonable prospect of being happy in a married state, and therefore
chose to continue single. She had, however, an honourable offer from a
country gentleman of worth and large fortune, who, attracted merely by
the goodness of her character, took a journey of an hundred miles to
visit her at Bath, where he made his addresses to her. But she convinced
him that such a match could neither be for his happiness, or her own.
She had, however, something extremely agreeable and pleasing in her
face, and no one could enter into any intimacy of conversation with her,
but he immediately lost every disgust towards her, that the first
appearance of her person tended to excite in him.

She had the misfortune of a very valetudinary constitution, owing, in
some measure, probably to the irregularity of her form. At last, after
many years illness, she entered, by the late ingenious Dr. Cheney's
advice, into the vegetable diet, and indeed the utmost extremes of it,
living frequently on bread and water; in which she continued so long, as
rendered her incapable of taking any more substantial food when she
afterwards needed it; for want of which she was so weak as not to be
able to support the attack of her last disorder, and which, I doubt not,
hastened on her death. But it must be added, in justice to her
character, that the ill state of her health was not the only or
principal reason that brought her to, and kept her fixed in her
resolution, of attempting, and persevering in this mortifying diet. The
conquest of herself, and subjecting her own heart more intirely to the
command of her reason and principles, was the object she had in especial
view in this change of her manner of living; as being firmly persuaded,
that the perpetual free use of animal food, and rich wines, tends so to
excite and inflame the passions, as scarce to leave any