Lucretia Maria Davidson was born at Plattsburg, in the State of New York, on the 27th of September, 1808. Her father, Dr. Oliver Davidson, is a lover of science, and a man of intellectual tastes. Her mother, Margaret Davidson (born Miller), is of a most respectable family, and received the best education her times afforded, at the school of the celebrated Scottish lady, Isabella Graham, an institution in the city of New York, that had no rival in its day, and which derived advantages from the distinguished individual that presided over it that can scarcely be counterbalanced by the multiplied masters and multiform studies of the present day. The family of Miss Davidson lived in seclusion. Their pleasures and excitements were intellectual. Her mother has suffered year after year from ill health and debility; and being a person of imaginative character, and most ardent and susceptible feelings, employed on domestic incidents, and concentrated in maternal tenderness, she naturally loved and cherished her daughter's marvelous gifts, and added to the intensity of the fire with which her genius and her affections, mingling in one holy flame, burned till they consumed their mortal investments. We should not
- ↑ Written by Miss Sedgwick, in the year 18.
