Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph | ||
Editor's note
MRS. Catharine Sidney Bidulph was the daughter of Sir Robert Bidulph of Wiltshire. Her father died when she was very young; and of ten children none survived him but this lady, and his eldest son, afterwards Sir George Bidulph. The family estate was not very considerable, and Miss Bidulph's portion was but four thousand pounds, a fortune however at that time not quite contemptible; it was in the beginning of queen Anne's reign.
Lady Bidulph was a woman of plain sense, but exemplary piety; the strictness
She had educated her daughter, who was one of the greatest beauties of her time, in the strictest principles of virtue; from which she never deviated, through the course of an innocent, though unhappy life.
Sir George Bidulph was nine or ten years older than his sister. He was a man of good understanding, moral as to his general conduct, but void of any of those refined sentiments, which constitute what is called delicacy. Pride is sometimes accounted laudable; that which Sir George possessed (for he had pride) was not of this kind.
He was a weakly constitution, and had been ordered by the physicians to Spa for the recovery of a lingering disorder, which he had laboured under for some time. It was just on his return to England that the busy scene of his sister's life opened. An intimate friend of hers,
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph | ||