12th of April; on which day she rose in tolerable strength, and after sitting up some time, being laid upon her bed, she discoursed cheerfully and piously. One of the last sentences she spoke, having turned back the curtain with her hand, was this most friendly and divine one; Well, ladies, if I were one hour " in heaven, I would not be again with you, as much as I love you."

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Having then received a kind visit from a neighbouring lady, at her departure she rose from her bed to her chair; in which being set, she said she would go into her bed, but first would desire one of the ministers then in the house to pray with her; and asking the company which they would have, sently resolved herself to have him who was going away, because the other would stay and pray with her daily. He was immediately sent to, and came. Her ladyship, sitting in her chair on account of her weakness, (for otherwise she always kneeled,) and holding an orange in her hand, to which she smelt, almost in the beginning of the prayer was heard to fetch a sigh, or groan, which was esteemed devotional; but a gentlewoman who kneeled by her, looking up, saw her look pale, and her hand hang down; at which she started up affrighted, and all applied themselves to assist her ladyship, the minister catching hold of her right hand, which had then lost its pulse, nor ever recovered it more.

Thus died, in the fifty-fourth year of her age, this right honourable lady, this most eminent pattern of zeal for the glory of God and charity for the good of men! She died in the actual exercise of prayer, according to her own desire; for there were many that could witness that they had often heard her say, "That if she might choose the manner and circum"stances of her death, she would die praying."

We shall annex to the Memoirs of this worthy lady, specimens of her own numerous compositions. Among her meditations on various subjects we find the following.

MEDITATION,

On considering the different manner of the working of a Bee and a Spider.

While I am attending to this despicable spider, which, despicable as it is, yet, has some of its kind that have the honour to inhabit the courts of the most glorious potentates, (for the inspired volumes tell us, that they are in kings' palaces*,) I am led to consider, that the work he is so busily employed in, while he spins his webs entirely out of his own bowels, without having any help from any thing without him, is, when it is finished, good for nothing, but is soon brushed down and flung away; while the industrious Bee, who is busily employed in making his useful combs, daily flies abroad to enable him to do so, and, flying from one flower to another, gathers from each of them that which both renews his own strength, and yields sweetness to others.

By the Spider's work, I am minded of a formalist or proud professor, who works all from himself, and his own strength, and never goes out of himself to get strength for his performances, or to work by, and therefore his thin-spun righteousness is good for nothing, and will be thrown away.

The Bee's going abroad is an emblem of the real Christian, who is renewed in the spirit of his mind, and, that he may be enabled to work the great work for which he came into the world, he goes out to an ordinance, and to Christ in a promise for strength by which to work, and thus obtains it; and this makes his work yield honey, and turn to advantage.

O Lord, I most humbly beseech thee, let me not dare to work for myself, but let me go out daily to thee for ability, with which to work my great and indispensable work, that I may deny my own righte

* Prov. xxx. 28.

ousness, and make mention of thine only, and may find such sweetness from every ordinance and promise, that my soul may be like a garden which the Lord hath blessed, and may exceedingly thrive and prosper !

We shall now give one of her pious reflections on several passages of Scripture.

REFLECTION

ON

PSALM CXIX. 136.

Rivers of waters run down my eyes, because men keep not thy law.

Lord, when I read in thy word, of the man after thine own heart thus speaking, and yet consider that I am so far from imitating him, that I can many times suffer sin to be upon my brother, without so much as giving him a reproof for it, or advising him so much as to consider whom he offends by it; nay, that I am ready to smile at that which is a grief to thine Holy Spirit; I beseech thee, O Lord! to humble me under this consideration, and to make me, for time to come, to imitate holy David in my charity towards my offending brother, and with thy servant Lot, let my soul be vexed in hearing and seeing the filthy conversation of the wicked*. O let me be so charitable as to weep over the soul of my offending brother; and let me, as much as in me lies, deliver him out of the snare of sin, and by my prayers and holy example, help him towards heaven!

* 2 Pet. ii. 8.

LADY ELIZABETH BROOKE.

THIS lady was born at Wigsale in Sussex, January, 1601. Her father was Thomas Culpepper, of Wigsale, esquire, a branch of an ancient, genteel family of that name, which was afterwards in her brother advanced to the rank of the nobility. He was created a baron by King Charles the First, with the title of John Lord Culpepper, of Thores way. Her mother was the daughter of Sir Stephen Slaney. Thus she had the honour of an honourable extraction and a noble alliance; and as her family conferred an honour upon her, so, she reflected an additional glory upon her family by her great virtues, having been one of the most accomplished persons of the age, whether considered as a lady or a Christian.

While she was in her infancy, she lost her mother, and in her childhood, her father; so that she came early under the more peculiar care and patronage of God, who is in an especial manner the Father of the fatherless.

Her first education was under her grandmother on the mother's side, the Lady Slaney. She had rare endowments of nature, an excellent mind, lodged in a fine form and under a beautiful aspect, the traces of which were discernible even in her old age. She had an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, a rich fancy, great solidity of judgment, and a retentive memory.

She was married very young, about nineteen, to Sir Robert Brooke, knt. descended from a younger brother of the ancient and noble family of the Brookes, formerly Lord Cobham. Sir Robert was a person of good estate and of virtuous character. He lived with her six-and-twenty years, and died July 10, 1646. Their children were three sons and four daughters.

Sir Robert Brooke and his lady continued the two first years of their marriage in London, as boarders in the house of the Lady Weld, her aunt. Thence they removed to Langley in Hertfordshire; a seat which Sir Robert purchased purposely for his lady's accommodation, that she might be near her friends in London. After some years' residence there, they came to Cockfield in Suffolk, his paternal seat, where she passed the residue of her life, excepting the two first years of her widowhood. In all these places she lived an eminent example of goodness, and left a good name behind her, and especially in the last, where she passed the most and best of her time, and whence her soul was translated to heaven.

She had many accomplishments, which recommended her to all who had the happiness of knowing her. But the greatest glory that shone in her, was that of religion, in which she was not only sincere, but excelled. To which general head the following particulars may be referred, as the distinct jewels in her crown of righteousness.

She devoted herself to God and religion very early in life, remembering her Creator in the days of her youth, and making haste, and delaying not to keep his commandments. And as she began, so she continued with great steadiness, her walk with God through the course of a long life; so that she was not only an aged person, but, which is a great honour in the church of God," an old disciple."

As she thus early applied herself to religion in the power and strictness of it, so, her good parts, industry, length of time, and the use of excellent books, and converse with learned men uniting together, rendered her one of the most intelligent persons her sex, especially in divinity and the holy Scriptures, which made her wise unto salvation.

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This knowledge of the sacred writings was not confined to the practical, but extended also to the doctrinal and critical part of the book of God, even