enius (I use
the term in no merely conventional sense, as will hereafter appear) and
accomplishments, as well as for her genial spirit and tender and
endearing qualities. Her maternal ancestor, Thomas Stanley, was an
original owner and settler in Hartford, Connecticut, and removed to, and
died in, Hadley, Massachusetts, January 30, 1662-3.

Thus nobly descended and connected, so singularly unfortunate, and her
fate so afflicting and disastrous, it is no wonder that the novelist
pointed her pen to record, with historical accuracy, a destiny so
fearful, a career so terrible. By her exceeding personal beauty and
accomplishments, added to the wealth of her mind, she attracted to her
sphere the grave and the gay, the learned and the witty, the worshippers
of the beautiful, with those who reverently bend before all inner
graces.

Prominent among these was the Rev. Joseph Howe, then pastor at the New
South Church, on Church Green, in this city, a young man of rare talents
and eminent piety. Unfortunately, the fear and excitement consequent on
the hostile relation of the colonies at that time towards the mother
country forced him from his position here; and he left, with the family
whose house had been his home, for a more quiet, temporary retreat in
Norwich, Connecticut. Soon after this he repaired to the residence of
Rev. Mr. Whitman, in Hartford, for a short visit, high in the
anticipation of soon becoming the happy husband of the gifted daughter
Elizabeth. But Providence, in wisdom, had ordered it otherwise; and,
while on this visit, he suddenly sickened and died.

However much or little of soul or of sorrow she had in this event we are
not to know; but another stood ready to-worship in his place, what we
will endeavor to believe was in some degree worthy of homage. This was
"J. Boyer," known as the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, a graduate of Yale
College, and at that time tutor in the same institution, who afterwards
settled as minister over the religions society in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, and whose Biography was but a few years ago published.

We have no reason to believe, however, that either of these persons was
her earliest choice, especially the latter, or that, in this case most
certainly, there could have been at all that sacred congeniality of
spirit so deeply necessary to woman's nature, bearing out from her bosom
that deathless affection which nor pride, nor affluence, nor folly, nor
love of conquest, with the