Ixii INTRODUCTION.
clothes, to the valeiu of 50 or 60 lb at leaft ; The Lord gaue, and the Lord hath taken, bleffed bee the Name of the Lord. Tho : my own loffe of books (and papers efpec.) was great and my fathers far more being about 800, yet y^ Lord was pleafed gratioufly many wayes to make up y*" fame to us. It is there- fore good to trufl in the Lord."
There could have been little of variety to call Mrs. Brad- street aside from the daily routine of her quiet country life. Attendance on the frequent and long-protracted religious meetings, and the duties of her household, must have occu- pied her time when she was well. She had evidently exposed herself to the criticism of her neighbors by study- ing and writing so much. The fact of a woman's being able to compose any thing possessing any literary merit was regarded with the greatest surprise by her contempo- raries, and was particularly dwelt upon by her admirers.* In the " Prologue " she says : —
"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who fays my hand a needle better fits, A Poets pen all fcorn I fhould thus wrong, For fuch defpite they caft on Female wits : If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'l fay it's ftoln, or elfe it was by chance." f
- See pages S3-92. There is a paragraph in Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's
sketch of Miss Hannah More (probably written by Mrs. Hall) which shows that public opinion changed quite slowly on tliis point.
"In this age, when female talent is so rife, — when, indeed, it is not too much to say women have fully sustained their right to equality with men in reference to all the productions of the mind, — it is difficult to comprehend the popularity, almost amounting to adoration, with which a woman writer was regarded little more than half a century ago. Aledi- ocrity was magnified into genius, and to have printed a book, or to have written even a tolerable poem, was a passport into the very highest society." " Art Journal." London: 1S66. p. 1S7. t Seepage loi.
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