the Nature and Obligations of Virtue, in Vindication of the contrary
Principles and Reasons inforced in the Writings of the late Dr. Samuel
Clark.

The extensive reputation which this and her former writings had gained
her, induced her friends to propose to her, the collecting and
publishing them in a body. And upon her consenting to the scheme, which
was to be executed by subscription, in order to secure to her the full
benefit of the edition, it met with a ready encouragement from all
persons of true taste; but though Mrs. Cockburn did not live to
discharge the office of editor, yet the public has received the
acquisition by her death, of a valuable series of letters, which her own
modesty would have restrained her from permitting to see the light. And
it were to be wished that these two volumes, conditioned for by the
terms of subscription, could have contained all her dramatic writings,
of which only one is here published. But as that was impossible, the
preference was, upon the maturest deliberation, given to those in prose,
as superior in their kind to the most perfect of her poetical, and of
more general and lasting use to the world.

The loss of her husband on the 4th of January 1748, in the 71st year of
his age, was a severe shock to her; and she did not long survive him,
dying on the 11th of May, 1749, in her 71st year, after having long
supported a painful disorder, with a resignation to the divine will,
which had been the governing principle of her whole life, and her
support under the various trials of it. Her memory and understanding
continued unimpaired, 'till within a few days of her death. She was
interred near her husband and youngest daughter at Long-Horsley, with
this short sentence on their tomb:

Let their works praise them in the gates.
Prov. xxxi. 31.

They left only one son, who is clerk of the cheque at Chatham, and two
daughters.

Mrs. Cockburn was no less celebrated for her beauty, in her younger
days, than for her genius and accomplishments. She was indeed small of
stature, but had a remarkable liveliness in her eye, and delicacy of
complexion, which continued to her death. Her private character rendered
her extremely amiable to those who intimately knew her. Her conversation
was always innocent, useful and agreeable, without the least affectation
of being thought a wit, and attended with a remarkable modesty and
diffidence of herself, and a constant endeavour to adapt her discou