# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Sigourney, Lydia Huntley

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SIGOURNEY, LYDIA HUNTLEY,
Was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in the year 1791. She was the only child of her parents, and consequently was brought up with great tenderness. Her parentage was in that happy mediocrity which requires industry, yet encourages hope; and the habits of order and diligence in which she was carefully trained by her judicious mother, have no doubt been of inestimable advantage to the intellectual character of the daughter.
She early exhibited indications of genius. Perhaps the loneliness of her lot, without brother or sister to share in the usual sports of childhood, had an influence on her pursuits and pleasures. We an by no means in favour of establishing precocity of intellect as the ​standard of real genius. Still, it is true that many distinguished persons have been marked in childhood as extraordinary; the opening 'blossom has given forth the sweet odour which the rich fruit, like that of the Mangostan, embodies in its delicious perfection. At eight years of age the little Lydia was a scribbler of rhymes; like Pope, "lisping in numbers." Her first work was published in 1815. It was a small volume, entitled "Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose and Verse." Before this, however,' she had fortunately met with a judicious and most generous patron. To Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., of Hartford, belongs the tribute of praise which is due for drawing such a mind from the obscurity where it had remained "afar from the untasted sunbeam."
In 1819 Miss Huntley was united in marriage with Charles Sigourney, a respectable merchant of Hartford, Connecticut; a gentleman of cultivated taste and good literary attainments. From that period Mrs. Sigourney devoted her leisure to literary pursuits; she has produced a variety of works, each and all having one general design—that of doing good.
In 1822 she published "Traits of the Aborigines of America;" a descriptive and historical poem in five cantos. It depicts with truth, and often with much vigour, the condition of the red man before the arrival of his European conqueror, and has passages of deep tenderness and wild beauty. Yet, written as it is in blank verse, and rather discursively, the impression it leaves on the mind is not powerful.
Mrs. Sigourney's next work was in prose—"A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since," published in 1824. During the ensuing fourteen years she sent forth "Poetry for Children," "Sketches; a Collection of Prose Tales, etc.," "Poems," "Zinzendorf," "Letters to Young Ladies," and "Letters to Mothers." All these were favourably received by the American public, and gave the author a warm place in the heart of the people.
In 1840 Mrs. Sigourney came to Europe, visiting England and Scotland in the summer, and passing the winter in Paris, where she received much kindness. She returned to her home in Hartford during the spring of 1841. Whilst on her visit, a volume of her selected poems, superbly illustrated, was published in London, and soon after her return. "Pocahontas," the most carefully finished of her long poems, came out in New York. In 1842 her "Pleasant Memories in Pleasant Lands," a record in prose and verse of her wanderings abroad, was issued; and in 1846 "Myrtis, with other Etchings and Sketchings," was published. Since then she has sent out several works, among which are "Water-drops;" an excellent contribution to the temperance cause. A volume of her "Poems," beautifully illustrated, was published in 1848.
The talents and industry of Mrs. Sigourney have won for her a good reputation.
Her hopeful and devotional spirit has inclined her to elegiac poetry, in which she excels. Her muse has often proved a comforter to the mourner. No one has written such a number of these songs, nor are they of necessity melancholy. Many of hers sound the notes of holy triumph, and awaken the brightest anticipations of felicity—ay,
"Teach us of the melody of heaven."
We must not omit to record that Mrs. Sigourney is, in private life, an example to her sex, as well as their admiration in her literary career. She is a good wife and devoted mother; and in all domestic knowledge and the scrupulous performance of her household duties, she shows as ready acquaintance and as much skill as though these alone formed her pursuits. Her literary studies are her recreations—surely as rational a mode of occupying the leisure of a lady as the morning call or the evening party.