._

_'There is something pleasing in the belief that our
separation from those whom we love is only corporeal...._

_'Here is one expedient by which you may, in some degree,
continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you
remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it
with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of
soothing recollections, when time shall remove her yet
further from you, and your grief shall be matured to
veneration.'_

DR. JOHNSON.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,--In sorrow and grief I have prepared a sketch of the
life and character of your dearly loved mother, whom it has pleased
God to call to Himself. Slight and imperfect as it is, it may
hereafter help to preserve some tender recollections, which you would
not willingly let die.

I shall begin with her childhood. Her mother having died in her
infancy, for some years your dear mother lived, a solitary child, at
her grandfather's house at Clapham. Here she acquired that love of the
country, the farm, and the garden which she retained so keenly to the
last. Here she learned to ride; and here, with little guidance from
teachers, she had access to a large library, and picked up in a
desultory way an extensive knowledge of the best English, French,
German, and Italian literature.

After a few years' residence at Clapham, your grandfather moved to
Chapel Street, Grosvenor Place, and later to the house which you
remember in Charles Street. At this period your mother's education was
conducted by her attached and faithful governess, Miss Newton, whom
you all know. She attended classes, but otherwise her life must have
been even more solitary in London than at Clapham. Her evenings were
much devoted to Botany, and by assiduous application she acquired that
thorough knowledge of the science which she found so useful later, in
describing the profuse and varied vegetation of the tropics.

And now I come to my engagement to your mother. How sweet it is to
remember her as she was in those young days; in manners so frank and
unaffected, and full of that buoyant spirit which to the end of her
life never flagged. She enjoyed with a glad heart every pleasure. She
was happy at a ball, happy on her horse, happy on the grouse-moor,
devoted to her father, a favourite with all her relatives, and very,
very sweet to me. Gladness of heart, thankfulness for every pleasure,
a happy disposition to ma