SIGOURNEY, Lydia Huntley, author, born in Norwich, Connecticut, 1 September, 1791; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 10 June, 1865. She was the daughter of Ezekiel Huntley, a soldier of the Revolution. She read at the age of three, and at seven wrote simple verses. After receiving a superior education at Norwich and Hartford, she taught for five years a select class of young ladies in the latter city. In 1815, at the suggestion and under the patronage of Daniel Wadsworth, she published her first volume, " Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." In 1819 she became the wife of Charles Sigourney, a Hartford merchant of literary and artistic tastes. Without neglecting her domestic duties, she thenceforth devoted her leisure to literature, at first to gratify her own inclinations and subsequently, after her husband had lost the greater part of his fortune, to add to her income. She soon attained a reputation that secured for her books a ready sale. In her posthumous "Letters of Life " (1866) she enumerates forty-six distinct works, wholly or partially from her pen, besides more than 2,0@ articles in prose and verse that she had contributed to nearly 300 periodicals. Several of her books also attained a wide circulation in England, and they were also much read on the continent. She received from the queen of the French a handsome diamond bracelet as a token of that sovereign's esteem. Her poetry is not of the highest order. It portrays in graceful and often felicitous language the emotions and sympathies of the heart, rather than the higher conceptions of the intellect. Her prose is graceful and elegant, and is modelled to a great extent on that of Addison and the Aikins, who, in her youth, were regarded as the standards of polite literature. All her writings were penned in the interest of a pure morality, and many of them were decidedly religious. Perhaps no American writer has been more frequently called upon for gratuitous occasional To these requests she generally acceded, and often greatly to her own inconvenience. But it was not only through her literary labors that Mrs. Sigourney became known. Her whole life was one of active and earnest philanthropy. The poor, the sick, the deaf-mute, the blind, the idiot, the slave, and the convict were the objects of her constant care and benefaction. Her pensioners were numerous, and not one of them was ever forgotten. During her early married life, she economized in her own wardrobe and personal luxuries that she might be able to relieve the needy, while later in her career she saved all that was not absolutely needed for home comforts and expenses for the same purpose. Her character and worth were highly appreciated in the city that for more than fifty years was her home. She never left it after her marriage, except when in 1840 she visited Europe. a record of which journey she published in " Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands "' (Boston, 1842). During her residence abroad two volumes of her poems were issued in London. Besides the foregoing and an edition of poetical selections from her writings, illustrated by Felix O. C. Darley (Philadelphia, 1848), her books include "Traits of the Aborigines of America," a poem (Hartford, 1822) ; " Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since " (1824) ; " Letters to Young Ladies " (New York, 1833 ; 20th ed., 1853 ; at least five London eds.) ; " Letters to Mothers " (1838 ; several London eds.); "Pocahontas, and other Poems" .(1841); "Scenes in My Native Land" (Boston, 1844) ; "Voice of Flowers" (Hartford, 1845) ; "Weeping Willow "(1846) ; "Water-Drops," a plea for temperance (New York, 1847) ; " Whisper to a Bride " (Hartford, 1849); "Letters to My Pupils" (New York, 1850) ; " Olive Leaves" (1851 ; London, 1853); "The Faded Hope," a memorial of her only son, who died at the age of nineteen (1852); "Past Meridian " (1854) ; "Lucy Howard's Journal" (1857) ; " The Daily Counsellor," a volume of poetry (Hartford, 1858); "Gleanings," from her poetical writings (1860) ; and "The Man of Uz, and other Poems" (1862).