THIS ESSAY

OBTAINED THE HONORARY PREMIUM

AWARDED BY THE

DIRECTORS OF THE GRESHAM COMMEMORATION.

MDCCCXL.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE.

LOUISA, BARONESS ROLLE.

MADAM,

I CANNOT but feel a degree of pride and pleasure, in dedicating to your Ladyship a work, written with the hope of directing attention to the benefit, which has been effected in a long succession of ages through the influence and example of the Matrons of England.

It would be presumptuous in me to enumerate all the munificent acts which particularly connect your Ladyship's name with the subject of the following pages; but having dwelt within the scene of your benevolence, and been an eye-witness of that zeal in supporting the institutions of our ancestors, which influenced all around you, I may be allowed to point to

churches endowed and supported by the same bountiful hand, that provides for the spiritual welfare and temporal comfort of hundreds of the rising generation; thus strengthening that bond of union which in this favoured country, makes the orphan and friendless, children by adoption of the noble, the rich, and the powerful.

My gratification in being permitted to place this volume under your protection, rests therefore upon higher grounds than the indulgence of those personal feelings which prompt me to acknowledge with gratitude my deep sense of the kind interest which your Ladyship has ever taken in my literary pursuits.

I have the honour to remain,

Madam,

Your Ladyship's

Obliged and obedient Servant,

CAROLINE A. HALSTED.

Newlan House, Lymington,

12th March, 1840.