ABSTRACT
It is not uncommon to see prefixed to the works both of dead and living authors, an engraving of their face and form; and as many persons are solicitous to know all that can be known of those whose hours have been devoted to the instruction or amusement of the world, such exhibitions of the external appearance of writers are probably surveyed with interest and attention, however insignificant the sketch, and however imperfect the resemblance. It is this conviction that has led me to undertake the difficult, though soothing task of endeavouring to delineate the character of the lamented and admirable woman whose manuscript work (Duty, a Novel, interspersed with poetry), I am about to give to the world; for, if the person of an author be interesting to the reader, the character and the conduct must be infinitely more so; especially as we gaze on the portrait prefixed to a work, chiefly perhaps, with a desire of tracing in it some clue to the mind and disposition of the being whom it represents.
