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with the best writings in different modern languages. She was one of the female favourites of the celebrated Richardson, and through his means was introduced to Mr. Chapone, a young practitioner of the law, and a mutual attachment was the result. In the mean time she formed an acquaintance with Miss Carter, to whom she addressed a poem on her translation of Epictetus, which, with an ode to Peace, and the story of Fidelia in the Adventurer, were among her first public productions. She married Mr. Chapone in 1760, but the union was dissolved by his death ten months after, and she was left a mourning widow with a narrow income. Her good sense, powers of conversation, and respectable character, procured her many friends of both sexes, among whom were Mrs. Montague and Lord Lyttleton, and she passed her time chiefly in London, or in occasional visits. Her name became more generally known by the publication, in 1773, at the request of her literary friends, of "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, addressed to a Young Lady." Of this work the following character has been given by an eminent writer of her own sex: "It is distinguished by sound sense, a liberal, as well as a warm spirit of piety, and a philosophy applied to its best use, the

culture of the heart and affections.

It has no

On

shining eccentricities of thought, no peculiarities of system it follows experience as its guide, and is content to produce effects of acknowledged utility, by known and approved means. these accounts it is, perhaps, the most unexceptionable treatise that can be put into the hands of female youth. These Letters are particularly excellent in what relates to regulating the temper and feelings. Their style is pure and unaffected, and the manner grave and impressive." In 1775 Mrs. Chapone published a volume of "Miscellanies in Prose and Verse," some pieces in which she had formerly printed without her

name.

The loss of friends by death, especially that of an excellent and beloved brother in 1799, rendering London no longer a desirable abode, she had intended to remove to Winchester, which was the residence of the niece to whom she had addressed the Letters, and who was married to a clergyman; but the death of this lady in childbed disconcerted her plan, and at length she removed to Hadley, where she died in 1801, at the age of 74.

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