(Letitia), a famous poetical genius, the daughter of Dr Van Lewin, a physician of Dublin, where she was born in 1712. She was married very young to the Rev. Matthew Pilkington, a poet also of no inconsiderable merit; and these two wits, as is often the case, lived very unhappily together. They were at length totally separated, on the husband accidentally discovering a gentleman in her bedchamber at two o'clock in the morning; a circumstance which he accounted for in a very unsatisfactory manner. The story is told at large in her Memoirs; where she says, "Lovers of learning, I am sure, will pardon me, as I solemnly declare it was the attractive charms of a new book, which the gentleman would not lend me, but consented to stay till I read it through, that was the sole motive of my detaining him." As there are not wanting some who form objections to marrying learned wives, the chance of such literary affections may perhaps be added to the list of them. After this unlucky adventure, Mrs Pilkington came to London; and having recourse to her pen for subsistence, through the means of Colley Cibber, she lived some time on the contributions of the great. She was however thrown into the Marshalsea for debt; and being set at liberty, opened a pamphlet shop. She raised at length a handsome subscription for her Memoirs; which are written with great sprightliness and wit, containing several entertaining anecdotes of dean Swift with whom she was intimate, as well as many pretty little

Cences were granted from the crown of England to captains of English ships, for carrying numbers of devout persons to the shrine of St James of Compostella in Spain; provided, however, that those pilgrims should first take an oath not to take any thing prejudicial to England, nor to reveal any of its secrets, nor to carry out with them any more gold or silver than what would be sufficient for their reasonable expenses. In this year there went out thither from England, on the said pilgrimage, the following number of persons. From London 280, Bristol 200, Weymouth 127, Dartmouth 90, Yarmouth 60, Jersey 60, Plymouth 40, Exeter 30, Poole 24, Ipswich 20, in all 926 persons. little pieces of her poetry. This ingenious but unhappy woman is said at last to have killed herself with drinking at Dublin, in 1750.