Timothy Fuller, was a lawyer, and from 1817 to 1825 he represented
the Middlesex district in Congress. At the close of his last term as
a legislator he purchased a farm near Cambridge, and determined to
abandon his profession for the more congenial one of agriculture; but
he died soon after, leaving a widow and six children, of whom Margaret
was the eldest.

At a very early age she exhibited unusual abilities, and was
particularly distinguished for an extraordinary facility in acquiring
languages. Her father, proud of the displays of her intelligence,
prematurely stimulated it to a degree that was ultimately injurious to
her physical constitution. At eight years of age he was accustomed to
require of her the composition of a number of Latin verses every day,
while her studies in philosophy, history, general science and current
literature were pressed to the limit of her capacities. When he first
went to Washington he was accustomed to speak of her as one "better
skilled in Greek and Latin than half of the professors;" and alluding
in one of her essays, to her attachment to foreign literature, she
herself observes that in childhood she had well-nigh forgotten her
English while constantly reading in other tongues.

Soon after the death of her father, she applied herself to teaching
as a vocation, first in Boston, then in Providence, and afterward
in Boston again, while her "Conversations" were for several seasons
attended by classes of women, some of them married, and many of them
of the most eminent positions in society. These conversations are
described by Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, as "in the highest degree
brilliant, instructive, and inspiring," and our own recollections of
them confirm to us the justice of the applause with which they are
now referred to. She made her first appearance as an author, in a