MRS. TRIMMER.
This ingenious woman was the daughter of Joshua and Sarah Kirby, and was born at Ipswich, January 6, 1741. Kirby taught George the Third, when Prince of Wales, perspective and architecture. He was also President of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, out of which grew the Royal Academy. It was the last desire of Gainsborough to be buried beside his old friend Kirby, and their tombs adjoin each other in the churchyard at Kew.
Mrs. Trimmer, when a girl, was constantly reading Milton’s Paradise Lost; and this circumstance so pleased Dr. Johnson, that he invited her to see him, and presented her with a copy of his Rambler. She also repeatedly met Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Gregory, Sharp, Hogarth, and Gainsborough, with all of whom her father was on terms of intimacy. Mrs. Trimmer advocated religious education against the latitudinarian views of Joseph Lancaster. It was at her persuasion that Dr. Bell entered the field, and paved the way for the establishment of the National Society. Mrs. Trimmer died, in her seventieth year, in 1810. She was seated at her table reading a letter, when her head sunk upon her bosom, and she “fell asleep;” and so gentle was the wafting, that she seemed for some time in a refreshing slumber, which her family were unwilling to interrupt.