Sabbath School and Benevolent Society at Watertown, and to say that I have endeavoured, under all circumstances, wherever my lot has fallen, to carry on the work of social love. **** At the age of sixteen I wrote “Jephthah’s Rash Vow.” I was gratified by the request of an introduction from Miss Hannah Adams, the erudite, the simple-minded, and gentle-mannered author of the History of Religions. After her warm expressions of praise for my verses, I said to her,
“Oh, Miss Adams, how strange to hear a lady, who knows so much, admire me!”
“My dear,” replied she, with her little lisp, “my writings are merely compilations, Jephthah is your own.”;
This incident is a specimen of her habitual humility.
To show the change from that period, I will remark, that when I learned that my verses had been surreptitiously printed in a newspaper, I wept bitterly, and was as alarmed as if I had been detected in man’s apparel.
The next effusion of mine was “Jairus’s Daughter,” which I inserted, by request, in the North American Review, then a miscellany.
A few years later I passed four winters at Savannah, and remember still vividly, the love and sympathy of that genial community.
In 1819 I married Samuel Gilman, and came to Charleston, S. C., where he was ordained pastor of the Unitarian Church
In 1832, I commenced editing the “Rose Bud,” a hebdomadal, the first juvenile newspaper, if I mistake not, in the Union. Mrs. Child had led the way in her monthly miscellany, to my apprehension the most perfect work that has ever appeared for youth. The “Rose Bud” gradually unfolded through seven volumes, taking the title of the “Southern Rose,” and being the vehicle of some rich literature and valuable criticism.
From this periodical I have reprinted, at various times, the following volumes:
“Recollections of a New England Housekeeper;” “Recollections
