er he knew." The life of the duke is written "by the hand
of his incomparable duchess." It was published in his lifetime. This
curious piece of biography is a folio of 197 pages, and is entitled "The
Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish."
His titles then follow:--"Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and
Excellent Princess, Margaret Duchess of Newcastle, his wife. London,
1667." This Life is dedicated to Charles the Second; and there is also
prefixed a copious epistle to her husband the duke.

In this epistle the character of our Literary Wife is described with all
its peculiarities.

"Certainly, my lord, you have had as many enemies and as many friends as
ever any one particular person had; nor do I so much wonder at it,
since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the malice and aspersions of
spiteful tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some denying me
to be the true authoress of them; for your grace remembers well, that
those books I put out first to the judgment of this censorious age were
accounted not to be written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ
and published them in my name; by which your lordship was moved to
prefix an epistle before one of them in my vindication, wherein you
assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written and printed in
my name was my own; and I have also made known that your lordship was my
only tutor, in declaring to me what you had found and observed by your
own experience; for I being young when your lordship married me, could
not have much knowledge of the world; but it pleased God to command his
servant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius,
even from my birth; for I did write some books in that kind before I was
twelve years of age, which for want of good method and order I would
never divulge. But though the world would not believe that those
conceptions and fancies which I writ were my own, but transcended my
capacity, yet they found fault, that they were defective for want of
learning, and on the other side, they said I had pluckt feathers out of
the universities; which was a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my
lord, I confess that for want of scholarship, I could not express myself
so well as otherwise I might have done in those philosophical writings I
published first; but after I was returned with your lordship into my
native country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the