ret from her, which she hoped might be entrusted to her. If
there were no more things to be said for your satisfaction, I could
have made it disputable, which have been more illustrious in their
friendship, men or women. I cannot say that women are capable of all
those excellencies by which men can oblige the world, and therefore a
female friend, in some cases, is not so good a counsellor as a wise
man, and cannot so well defend my honour, nor dispose of relief and
assistances, if she be under the power of another; but a woman can
love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret
as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministries, and she can die
for her friend, as well as the bravest Roman knight; a man is the best
friend in trouble, but a woman may be equal to him in the days of joy:
a woman can as well increase our comforts, but cannot so well lessen
our sorrows, and therefore we do not carry women with us when we go to
fight; but in peaceful cities and times, women are the beauties of
society, and the prettinesses of friendship, and when we consider that
few persons in the world have all those excellences by which
friendship can be useful, and illustrious, we may as well allow women
as men to be friends; since they have all that can be necessary and
essential to friendships, and those cannot have all by which
friendships can be accidentally improved.'

Thus far this learned prelate, whose testimony in favour of women is
the more considerable, as he cannot be supposed to have been
influenced by any particular passion, at least for Mrs. Philips, who
was ordinary in her person and was besides a married lady. In the year
1663 Mrs. Philips quitted Ireland, and went to Cardigan, where she
spent the remaining part of that, and the beginning of the next year,
in a sort of melancholy retirement; as appears by her letters,
occasioned, perhaps, by the bad success of her husband's affairs.
Going to London, in order to relieve her oppressed spirits with the
conversation of her friends there, she was seized by the smallpox, and
died of it (in Fleet street,) to the great grief of her acquaintance,
in the 32d year of her age, and was buried June 22, 1664, in the
church of St. Bennet Sherehog[1], under a large monumental stone,
where several of her ancestors were before buried. Mr. Aubrey in his
manuscript abovementioned, observes, that her person was of a middle
stature, pretty fat, and ruddy complexioned.