hope or chance,
for that conquest of them which she thought not only religion requires,
but the care of our own happiness, renders necessary. And the effect of
the trial, in her own case, was answerable to her wishes; and what she
says of herself in her own humorous epitaph,

_That time and much thought had all passion extinguish'd_,

was well known to be true, by those who were most nearly acquainted with
her. Those admirable lines on _Temperance_, in her Bath poem, she penned
from a very feeling experience of what she found by her own regard to
it, and can never be read too often, as the sense is equal to the
goodness of the poetry.

Fatal effects of luxury and ease!
We drink our poison, and we eat disease,
Indulge our senses at our reason's cost,
Till sense is pain, and reason hurt, or lost.
Not so, O temperance bland! when rul'd by thee,
The brute's obedient, and the man is free.
Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest,
His veins not boiling from the midnight feast.
Touch'd by Aurora's rosy hand, he wakes
Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes
The joyful dawnings of returning day,
For which their grateful thanks the whole creation pay,
All but the human brute. 'Tis he alone,
Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun.
'Tis to thy rules, O temperance, that we owe
All pleasures, which from health and strength can flow,
Vigour of body, purity of mind,
Unclouded reason, sentiments refin'd,
Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse,
Th' intemperate sinner's never-failing curse.

She was observed, from her childhood, to have a fondness for poetry,
often entertaining her companions, in a winter's evening, with riddles
in verse, and was extremely fond, at that time of life, of Herbert's
poems. And this disposition grew up with her, and made her apply, in her
riper years, to the study of the best of our English poets; and before
she attempted any thing considerable, sent many small copies of verses,
on particular characters and occasions, to her peculiar friends. Her
poem on the Bath had the full approbation of the publick; and what sets
it above censure, had the commendation of Mr. Pope, and many others of
the first rank, for good sense and politeness. And indeed there are many
lines in it admirably penn'd, and that the finest genius need not to be
ashamed of. It hath ran through several editions; and, when first
published, procured her the personal acknowledgments