* * * * *


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