test flame of latent poesy in the aspirations of the timid
or unknown. Affectionate and cheerful in her dispositions, she was a
loving and dutiful daughter, and shewed the tenderest attachment to a
numerous family of brothers and sisters. She was married to her cousin,
Gilbert Geddes Richardson, on the 29th of April 1799, at Fort George,
Madras; where she was then living with her uncle, General, afterwards
Lord Harris; and the connexion proved, in all respects, a suitable and
happy one. Her husband, at that time captain of an Indiaman, was one of
a number of brothers, natives of the south of Scotland, who all sought
their fortunes in India, and one of whom, Lieutenant-Colonel Richardson,
became known in literature as an able translator of Sanscrit poetry, and
contributor to the "Asiatic Researches." He was lost at sea, with his
wife and six children, on their homeward voyage; and this distressing
event, accompanied as it was by protracted suspense and anxiety, was
long and deeply deplored by his gifted sister-in-law.

Young, beautiful, and doubly attractive from the warmth of her heart,
and the fascination of her manners, Mrs Richardson was not only loved
and appreciated by her husband, and his family, but greatly admired in a
refined circle of Anglo-Indian society; and the few years of her married
life were marked by almost uninterrupted felicity. But death struck down
the husband and father in the very prime of manhood; and the widow
returned with her five children (all of whom survived her), to seek from
the scenes and friends of her early days such consolation as they might
minister to a grief which only those who have experienced it can
measure. She never brought her own peculiar sorrows before the public;
but there is a tone of gentle mournfulness pervading many of her poems,
that may be traced to this cause; and there are touching allusions to
"one of rare endowments," that no one who remembered her husband's
character could fail to recognise. Her intense love of nature happily
remained unchanged; and the green hills, the flowing river, and the
tangled wildwood, could still soothe a soul that, but for its
susceptibility to these beneficent charms, might have said in its
sadness of everything earthly, "miserable comforters are ye all."
Continuing to reside at Forge while her children were young, she devoted
herself to the direction of their education, the cultivation of her own
pure tastes, and the peaceful enjoyme