HARCOURT, HARRIET EUSEBIA,
Was born, in 1705, at Richmond, Yorkshire. She travelled over Europe with her father, and at his death, in Constantinople, in 1733, she came back to England; and as she inherited a large property, she began to establish a convent on her Yorkshire estate, and another in the western isles of Scotland. These institutions were composed chiefly of foreign ladies. A system of perfect equality prevailed in these convents, over which each presided in turn. The members could withdraw from the society when they chose, on the forfeiture of the sum of one hundred pounds. They only devoted a portion of their time to religious exercises, and the rest was spent in amusements, the study of the fine arts and sciences, and embroidery.
Miss Harcourt was beautiful and graceful in her person, and had a taste for music, painting, and drawing, which had been highly cultivated. She died at her seat in Richmond, December 1st., 1745, in the thirty-ninth year of her age, bequeathing the greater part of her fortune to her institution, on condition that the society should be supported and continued according to its original design, and to the directions she left in writing. But she had been the soul of the society; after her decease, it was soon dissolved.
HASER, CHARLOTTE HENRIETTA,
A celebrated singer, born at Leipsic, in 1789, was the daughter of the director of music in the university there. In 1804 she was engaged at the Italian opera at Dresden. Her superior voice, her fine execution, and her attempt to combine the advantages of the German and Italian methods, gave her a brilliant success. Distinguished for the correctness of her morals and her great modesty, she was received with applause at all the most celebrated theatres in Italy and Germany. She married Vera, a lawyer at Rome, and retired from the stage.
HASTINGS, ELIZABETH,
Daughter of Theophilus, Earl of Huntington, deserves a place in this collection, from the number of her public and private charities, which were perhaps never equalled by any of her sex. Congreve speaks of her, in the forty-second number of the Tattler, as the "Divine Aspasia;" and in the forty-ninth number of the same work gives a farther account of her:—"Her cares," says her biographer, "extended even to the animal creation; while over her domestics she presided with the disposition of a parent, providing for the improvement of their minds, the decency of their behaviour, and the propriety of their manners. She would have the skill and contrivance of every artificer used in her house, employed for the ease of her servants, and that they might suffer no inconvenience or hardship. Besides providing for the order, harmony, and peace of her family, she kept great elegance in and about her house, that her poor neighbours might not fall into idleness and poverty for want of employment; and while she thus tenderly regarded the poor, she would visit those in the higher ranks, lest they should accuse her of pride or superciliousness." At her table her countenance was open and serene, her voice soft and melodious, her
