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Mrs. MARY CHANDLER,
Was born at Malmsbury in Wiltshire, in the year 1687, of worthy and reputable parents; her father, Mr. Henry Chandler, being minister, many years, of the congregation of protestant dissenters in Bath, whose integrity, candour, and catholick spirit, gained him the esteem and friendship of all ranks and parties. She was his eldest daughter, and trained up carefully in the principles of religion and virtue. But as the circumstances of the family rendered it necessary that she should be brought up to business, she was very early employed in it, and incapable of receiving that polite and learned education which she often regretted the loss of, and which she afterwards endeavoured to repair by diligently reading, and carefully studying the best modern writers, and as many as she could of the antient ones, especially the poets, as far as the best translations could assist her.
Amongst these, Horace was her favourite; and how just her sentiments were of that elegant writer, will fully appear from her own words, in a letter to an intimate friend, relating to him, in which she thus expresses herself: "I have been reading Horace this month past, in the best translation I could procure of him. O could I read his fine sentiments cloathed in his own dress, what would I, what would I not give! He is more my favorite than Virgil or Homer. I like his subjects, his easy manner. It is nature within my view. He doth not lose me in fable, or in the clouds amidst gods and goddesses, who, more brutish than myself, demand my homage, nor hurry me into the noise and confusion of battles, nor carry me into inchanted circles, to conjure with witches in an unknown land, but places me with persons like myself, and in countries where every object is familiar to me. In short, his precepts are plain, and morals intelligible, though not always so perfect as one could have wished them. But as to this, I consider when and where he lived."
The hurries of life into which her circumstances at Bath threw her, sat frequently extremely heavy upon a mind so intirely devoted to books and contemplation as hers was; and as that city, especially in the seasons, but too often furnished her with characters in her own sex that were extremely displeasing to her, she often, in the most passionate manner, lamented her fate, that tied her down to so disagreeable a situation; for she was of so extremely delicate and generous a soul, that the imprudences and faults of others gave her a very sensible pain, though she had no other connexion with, or interest in them, but what arose from the common ties of human nature. This made her occasional retirements from that place to the country-seats of some of her peculiarly intimate and honoured friends, doubly delightful to her, as she there enjoyed the solitude she loved, and could converse, without interruption, with those objects of nature, that never failed to inspire her with the most exquisite satisfaction. One of her friends, whom she highly honoured and loved, and of whose hospitable house, and pleasant gardens, she was allowed the freest use, was the late excellent Mrs. Stephens, of Sodbury in Gloucestershire, whose feat she celebrated in a poem inscribed to her, inserted in the collection she published. A lady, that was worthy of the highest commendation her muse could bestow upon her. The fine use she made of solitude, the few following lines me wrote on it, will be an honourable testimony to her.
Sweet solitude, the Muses dear delight,
Serene thy day, and peaceful is thy night!
Thou nurse of innocence, fair virtue's friend,
Silent, tho' rapturous, pleasures thee attend.
Earth's verdant scenes, the all surrounding skies
Employ my wondring thoughts, and feast my eyes,
Nature in ev'ry object points the road,
Whence contemplation wings my soul to God.
He's all in all. His wisdom, goodness, pow'r,
Spring in each blade, and bloom in ev'ry flow'r,
Smile o'er the meads, and bend in ev'ry hill,
Glide in the stream, and murmur in the rill
All nature moves obedient to his will.
Heav'n shakes, earth trembles, and the forests nod,
When awful thunders speak the voice of God.
However, notwithstanding her love of retirement, and the happy improvement she knew how to make of it, yet her firm belief that her station was the appointment of providence, and her earnest desire of being useful to her relations, whom she regarded with the warmest affection, brought her to submit to the fatigues of her business, to which, during thirty-five years, she applied herself with, the utmost diligence and care.
Amidst such perpetual avocations, and constant attention to business, her improvements in knowledge, and her extensive acquaintance with the best writers, are truly surprising. But she well knew the worth of time, and eagerly laid hold of all her leisure hours, not to lavish them away in fashionable unmeaning amusements; but in the pursuit of what she valued infinitely more, those substantial acquisitions of true wisdom and goodness, which she knew were the noblest ornaments of the reasonable mind, and the only sources of real and permanent happiness: and she was the more desirous of this kind of accomplishments, as she had nothing in her shape to recommend her, being grown, by an accident in her childhood, very irregular in her body, which she had resolution enough often to make the subject of her own pleasantry, drawing this wise inference from it, "That as her person would not recommend her, she must endeavour to cultivate her mind, to make herself agreeable."
And indeed this she did with the greatest care; and she had so many excellent qualities in her, that though her first appearance could never create any prejudice in her favour, yet it was impossible to know her without valuing and esteeming her.
Wherever she professed friendship, it was sincere and cordial to the objects of it; and though she admired whatever was excellent in them, and gave it the commendations it deserved, yet she was not blind to their faults, especially if such as she apprehended to be inconsistent with the character of integrity and virtue. As she thought one of the noblest advantages of real friendship, was the rendering it serviceable mutually to correct, polish, and perfect the characters of those who professed it, and as she was not displeased to be kindly admonished herself for what her friends thought any little disadvantage to her character, so she took the same liberty with others; but used that liberty with such a remarkable propriety, tenderness, and politeness, as made those more sincerely esteem her, with whom she used the greatest freedom, and has lost her no intimacy but with one person, with whom, for particular reasons, she thought herself obliged to break off all correspondence.