her own
exquisite expressions, she was 'a spirit of heaven fettered by the
strong affections of earth,' and the whole of her brief sojourn here
seems to have been a struggle to regain her native skies."

MRS. ADAMS.

The materials for preparing the memoirs of those American ladies whose
virtues were conspicuous, and whose position in society imposed upon
them great duties, and gave them an extensive influence in their day,
are, in general, exceedingly scanty. Happily, the piety of a
descendant has, in the present case, supplied the deficiency; and in a
mode the most satisfactory. We are here not only made acquainted with
the everyday life and actions as they were exhibited to the world
around, but are admitted to the inmost recesses of the heart, and all
its hopes and feelings are laid open to us. There are few who could
bear such an exposure; but in respect to the subject of our present
sketch, a nearer acquaintance and more rigid scrutiny serve only to
increase our veneration, and to confirm the verdict which her
contemporaries had passed upon her.

Abigail Smith, afterwards Mrs. Adams, was born on the 11th of
November, 1744. She was the daughter of the Rev. William Smith, the
minister of a small Congregational church in Weymouth, Massachusetts,
and was descended on both sides from the genuine stock of the
Pilgrims.

The cultivation of the female mind was neglected in the last century,
not merely as a matter of indifference, but of positive principle;
female learning was a subject of ridicule, and "female education," as
Mrs. Adams tells us, "in the best families, went no further than
writing and arithmetic; in some, and rare instances, music and
dancing." But Mrs. Adams did not have an opportunity of receiving even
the ordinary instruction. She was never sent to school, the delicate
state of her health forbidding it. But this is hardly to be considered
matter of regret, for constant intercourse with her pious and talented
relations had an influence upon her character of even greater value
than the learning of the schools. The lessons which made the deepest
impression upon her mind were imbibed from her maternal grandmother,
the wife of Colonel John Quincy. "I have not forgotten," says Mrs.
Adams, to her daughter, in 1795, "the excellent lessons which I
received from my grandmother, at a very early period of life. I
frequently think they made a more durable impression upon my mind than
those which I recei