University of Virginia Library

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

of her notions (highly commendable in themselves) now-and-then gave a tincture of severity to her actions, though she was every esteemed a truly good woman.

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,

of her own sex, to whom she revealed all the secrets of her heart, happened at this juncture to go abroad, and it was for her perusal only the following journal was intended. That friend has carefully preserved it, as she thinks it may serve for an example, to prove that neither prudence, foresight, nor even the best disposition that the human heart is capable of, are of themselves sufficient to defend us against the inevitable ills that sometimes are allotted, even to the best. 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.'