ABSTRACT

I am now led, by the course of my narrative, to the last fatal scene of her life. She was taken in labour on Wednesday> the thirtieth of August. She had been somewhat indisposed on the preceding Friday, the consequence, I believe, of a sudden alarm. But from that time she was in perfect health. She was so far from being under any apprehension as to the difficulties of child-birth, as frequently to ridicule / the fashion of ladies in England, who keep their chamber for one full month after delivery. For herself, she proposed coming down to dinner on the day immediately following. She had already some experience on the subject in the case of Fanny; and I cheerfully submitted in every point to her judgment and her wisdom. She hired no nurse. Influenced by ideas of decorum, which certainly ought to have no place, at least in cases of danger, she determined to have a woman to attend to her in the capacity of midwife. She was sensible that the proper business of a midwife, in the instance of a natural labour, is to fit by and wait for the operations of nature, which seldom, in these affairs, demand the interposition of art.