Halket, Lady Anne

, a learned English lady, the daughter of Mr. Robert Murray of the Tullibardin family, and allied by the mother’s side to the Perth family, was born in London, Jan. 4, 1622. Her father was preceptor to Charles I. and afterwards provost of Eton college, and her mother was subgoverness to the duke of Gloucester and the princess Elizabeth. Anne was instructed by her parents in every polite and liberal science; but theology and physic were her favourite studies. She became so particularly versed in the latter art, and in the practice of surgery, that she was consulted by the first personages in the kingdom: and the reputation of her skill was also diffused over Holland, whence many persons came for her advice. She was a faithful royalist, and a sufferer in the cause of Charles. On March 2, 1656, she was married to sir James Halket, a worthy and amiable man, to whom she bore four children, one of which, Robert, her eldest son, only survived. During her first pregnancy she wrote, mder the apprehension that she should not survive her |

delivery, a tract, containing excellent instructions, entitled “The Mother’s Will to the Unborn Child.” She was fourteen years a wife, and twenty-eight a widow. She was an acute theologian and a profound student. Her learning, simplicity, unaffected piety, exemplary conduct, and sweetness of manners, conciliated universal respect and esteem. She left twenty-one volumes, principally on religious subjects, some in folio, and others in quarto, from which a volume of “Meditations” was printed at Edinburgh in 1701. She died April 22, 1699. ¹