During the 81 years of her busy and useful life, Mrs. Hall wrote no less than 250 books, counting those she edited and her numerous temperance tracts. Lady Morgan once said, "Why should I not be vain? Have I not written forty books?" But her forty sink into insignificance compared to Mrs. S. C. Hall's record. Writing to her husband, Carlyle, the sage of Chelsea, said, "her little pieces seem to me particularly excellent, and have a kind of gem-like brightness."
Such praise from such a critic was something to be proud of.
Anna Maria Fielding was born on the 6th January, 1800, in Anne Street, Dublin. When but a few weeks old, her mother brought her down to Graige, in the County Wexford, a place which belonged to her mother's stepfather, George Carr, Esq., and here she remained until her fifteenth year. Many descendants of a brother of George Carr may still be found in the neighbourhood of New Ross, Mrs. Fielding is described by her sonin-law, as "one of the best women God ever made," and he ought to know, for she lived under his roof for more than thirty years. She was very proud of her French descent, her grandfather having been one of the refugees from France, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He established a silk manufactory at Spitalfields, and was killed in the Lord George Gordon riots. Mrs. Fielding used to
