sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so
little subject to mortality, as the period of infancy. Yet, from the
mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of
childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any
other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this subject,
which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She has indeed
left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest daughter,
three years and a half old, who is a singular example of vigorous
constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon, of
Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised to
revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of
activity and usefulness, which her untimely death has fatally
terminated.

The rustic situation in which Mary spent her infancy, no doubt
contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in
the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of
nature, for which she always retained the most exquisite relish. Dolls
and the other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she
held in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the
active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to
those of her own sex.

About the time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father
removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm
near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the
Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his residence,
and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex,
eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest
neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively member of