ne another with
extreme formality, but that proves nothing. A young woman, passionately
in love with a man whom she had just accepted as her future husband,
was expected, in 1705, to close her letter by describing herself as
"Sir, your very humble servant."

If George Burnet hinted of "parties" in Hanover, Catharine Trotter on
her side could boast of Mr. Fenn, "a young clergyman of excellent
character," who now laid an ardent siege to her heart. Embarrassed by
these attentions, she took the bold step of placing the matter before
Mr. Cockburn, a still younger clergyman, of even more excellent
character. The letter in which she makes this ingenuous declaration as
to a father confessor is one of the tenderest examples extant of the
"Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" form of correspondence. Mr.
Cockburn, one of the minor clergy of the Salisbury set, did speak for
himself, and George Burnet having at length announced his own projected
marriage with a lady of old acquaintance, Catharine Trotter hesitated no
longer but accepted the hand of Mr. Cockburn. They were married early in
1708. Thackeray could have created an amusing romance out of the
relations of these four people to one another, and in particular it
would have been very interesting to see what he would have made of the
character of George Burnet.

Catharine Cockburn was now, after so eventful a life of emotional and
intellectual experience, still a young woman, not far past her
twenty-eighth birthday. She was to survive for more than forty-three
years, during which time she was to correspond much, to write
persistently, and to publish whenever opportunity offered. But I do not
propose to accompany her much further on her blameless career. All
through her married life, which was spent at various places far from
London, she existed almost like a plant in a Leyden jar. Constant
genteel poverty, making it difficult for her to buy books and impossible
to travel was supported by her with dignity and patience, but it dwarfed
her powers. Her later writings, on philosophy, on morality, on the
principles of the Christian religion, are so dull that merely to think
of them brings tears into one's eyes. She who had sparkled as a girl
with Congreve and exchanged polite amenities with Locke lived on to see
modern criticism begin with Samuel Johnson and the modern novel start
with Samuel Richardson, but without observing that any change had come
into the world of letters.