r
is married to Mr. Henry Baker, a gentleman well known in the
philosophical world.

[Footnote A: Jacob, vol. ii. p. 309.]

[Footnote B: See Preface to the True Born Englishman.]

[Footnote C: See Preface to vol. ii.]

* * * * *

Mrs. ELIZABETH ROWE,

This lady was born at Ilchester in Somersetshire September 11, 1674,
being the eldest of three daughters of Mr. Walter Singer, a gentleman
of good family, and Mrs. Elizabeth Portnel, both persons of great
worth and piety. Her father was not a native of Ilchester, nor an
inhabitant, before his imprisonment there for non-conformity in
the reign of King Charles II. Mrs. Portnel, from a principle of
tenderness, visited those who suffered on that account, and by this
accident an acquaintance Commenced, which terminated in the nuptial
union. They who were acquainted with the lady, who is the subject
of this article, in her early, years, perhaps observed an uncommon
display of genius as prophetic of that bright day which afterwards
ensued.

There is so great a similitude between painting and poetry, that it is
no ways surprising, a person, who possessed the latter of these graces
in so high a degree, should very easily discover an inclination to the
former, which has often the same admirers. Accordingly we find Mrs.
Rowe discover a taste for painting; she attempted to carry her taste
into execution, when she had hardly steadiness of hand sufficient to
guide the pencil. Her father perceiving her fondness for this art, was
at the expence of a matter to instruct her in it; and she never failed
to make it an amusement 'till her death. Every one acquainted with her
writings, and capable of relishing the melifluent flow of her numbers,
will naturally suppose, that she had a genius for music, particularly
that of a grave and solemn kind, as it was best suited to the grandeur
of her sentiments, and the sublimity of her devotion. But her most
prevailing propension was to poetry. This superior grace was indeed
the most favourite employment of her youth, and in her the most
distinguished excellence. So powerful was her genius in this way, that
her prose hath all the charms of verse without the fetters; the same
fire and elevation; the same richness of imagery, bold figures, and
flowing diction.

It appears by a life of Mrs. Rowe, prefixed to the first volume of
her miscellaneous works, that in the year 1696, the 22d of her age,
a Collecti