A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Gethin, (Lady Grace)
Her mother, a lady of piety, gave her all the advantages of a liberal education; and the quick advances she made in knowledge, were an ample recompence for all the care and pains taken with her. Her reading and observations were extraordinary; for she had considered the human passions, with unusual penetration and accuracy of judgment; and laid such a substantial foundation for her conduct in life, as would have made her a shining example of every Christian virtue; but she died early, though not unprepared, and was buried in Westminster abbey; on the south side of which, is erected to her memory a beautiful monument of black and white marble.
She wrote, and left behind her, in loose papers, a work, which, soon after her death, was methodized, and published with the following title, Reliquiæ Gethinianæ; or some Remains of the most ingenious and excellent Lady Grace, Lady Gethin, lately deceased; being a collection of choice Discourses, pleasant Apothegms, and witty Sentences. Written by her, for the most part, by way of essay, and at spare hours. London, 1700, 4to. with her picture before it. This work consists of ingenious discourses on Friendship, Love, Gratitude, Death, Speech, Lying, Idleness, the World, Secresy, Prosperity and Adversity, of Children, Cowards, Bad Poets, Indifferency, Censoriousness, Revenge, Boldness, of Youth and Age, Custom, Charity, Reading, Beauty, Flattery, Riches, of Honour and high Places, of Pleasure, Suspicion, Excuses, and, lastly, Miscellanies.
Among Mr. Congreve's poems are to be found verses to the Memory of Grace, Lady Gethin, occasioned by reading her book, entitled, Reliquiæ Gethinianæ; in which that agreeable poet, after speaking of the shortness of life, and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, proceeds thus:
Whoe'er on this reflects, and then beholds
With strict attention what this book unfolds,
With admiration struck, shall question, who
So very long could live so much to know?
For so complete the finish'd piece appears,
That learning seems combin'd with length of years,
And both improv'd by purest wit to reach
At all that study, or that time can teach.
But to what height must his amazement rise,
When having read the work, he turns his eyes
Again to view the foremost opening page,
And there the beauty, sex, and tender age
Of her beholds, in whose pure mind arose
Th' ethereal source from whence this current flows?
For perpetuating her memory, provision was made for a sermon to be preached in Westminster abbey, on Ash Wednesday for ever.