A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Bovey, (Catherine)
BOVEY, (CATHERINE) Daughter of John Riches, of London, Merchant,
Married, at the age of fifteen, William Bovey, Esq. of Flaxley, in Gloucestershire. This lady is not noted either as a linguist or a writer, yet such were her qualities and accomplishments, that she may justly claim a place in the first rank of Female Worthies.
The author of the New Atlantis, gives the following description of her. "She is one of those lofty, black, and lasting beauties, that strike with reverence, and yet delight; her mind and conduct, her judgment, her sense, her stedfastness, her wit and conversation, are admirable; so much above what is lovely in the sex, that shut but your eyes, and allow but for the music of her voice, your mind would be charmed, as thinking yourself conversing with the most knowing, the most refined of yours. She is so real an economist, that, in taking all the duties of life, she does not disdain to stoop to the most inferior; in short, she knows all that a man can know, without despising what, as a woman, she ought not to be ignorant of. Wisely declining all public assemblies, she is contented to possess her soul in tranquillity and freedom at home, among the happy few whom she has honoured with the name of friends."
At the age of twenty-two she was left a widow, without children, and very opulent; and being likewise an heiress to her father, these circumstances added to her illustrious and amiable qualities, gained her crowds of admirers; but she chose to remain in a state of widowhood, that she might have no interruption in the disposal of her great riches, which she employed to the best purposes. And, though she had not been instructed in the dead languages, yet, by conversing with some of the most learned men of the age, and by intense application to study, she attained a great share of learning, knowledge, and judgment. Of this we are assured by Sir Richard Steele, in an epistle dedicatory to Mrs. Bovey, prefixed to the second volume of the Ladies Library.
It were easy to enlarge on a character whose worth was so generally, and well attested; but her merit will appear in a more distinguished light, from her monumental inscriptions.
On a beautiful honorary marble monument, erected in Westminster-abbey, is the following:
"To the memory of Mrs. Catherine Bovey, whose person and understanding would have become the highest rank in female life, and whose vivacity would have recommended her to the best conversation; but by judgment as well as inclination, she chose such a retirement, as gave her great opportunities for reading and reflection, which she made use of to the wisest purposes of improvement in knowledge and religion: on other subjects, she ventured far out of the common way of thinking; but, in religious matters, she made the Holy Scriptures, in which she was well skilled, the rule and guide of her faith and actions, as esteeming it more safe to rely on the plain word of God, than to run into any freedoms of thought upon revealed truths. The great share of time allowed to her closet was not perceived in her economy; for, she had always a well-ordered, and well-instructed family, from the happy influence, as well of her temper and conduct, as of her uniform exemplary Christian life. It pleased God to bless her with a considerable estate, which with a liberal hand, guided by wisdom and piety, she employed to his glory, and the good of her neighbours. Her domestic expences were managed with a decency and dignity suitable to her fortune, but with a frugality that made her income abound to all proper objects of charity, to the relief of the necessitous, the encouragement of the industrious, and the instruction of the ignorant. She distributed, not only with cheerfulness, but with joy, which, upon some occasions of raising and refreshing the spirit of the afflicted, she could not refrain from breaking forth into tears, flowing from a heart thoroughly affected with compassion and benevolence. Thus did many of her good works, while she lived, go up as a memorial before God, and some she left to follow her.
She died January 21, 1726, in the fifty-seventh year of her age, at Flaxley, her seat, in Gloucestershire; and was buried there."