But, alas! my muse is slow; Spite of all the world could do. For though banished from my flocks, Than the sweet-voiced Philomel; Though of all those pleasures past Nothing now remains at last, But remembrance, poor relief That more makes than mends my grief; She's my mind's companion still Whence she should be driven too, In my former days of bliss And raise Pleasure to her height In some other wiser man. Make this churlish place allow Some things, that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness: The dull loneness, the black shade That these hanging vaults have made, The strange music of the waves Beating on these hollow caves, This black den, which rocks emboss Overgrown with eldest moss; This my chamber of neglect She hath brought me by her might Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee; Though thou be to them a scorn That for nought but earth are born; Let my life no longer be Than I am in love with thee! Though our wise ones call it madness, And though some, too seeming holy, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes knaves and fools of them! "The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient and modern times; strange powers have been ascribed to it of influence over animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged but before Wither no one had celebrated its power at home; the wealth and strength which this divine gift confers upon its possessor." This fine criticism, worthy of the poetry which it celebrates, is by Charles Lamb. XIII. FEMALE POETS. JOANNA BAILLIE*-CATHERINE FANSHAWE. BELOVED, admired, appreciated by the best spirits of her time, it is with no little triumph that I, who plead guilty to some of that esprit de corps which may be translated into "pride of sex," write the name of our great female dramatist-of the first woman who won high and undisputed honours in the highest class of English poetry. The pleasure of rendering her a faint and imperfect justice is all the greater that I have the honour of claiming acquaintance with this most gifted person, and that she is in her domestic relations the very pattern of what a literary lady should be quiet, unpretending, generous, kind, admirable in her writings, excellent in her life. And yet of Mrs. Joanna Baillie, the praised of Scott Since writing this paper this gifted authoress and admirable woman has passed from this world to the higher and happier state which was ever in her thoughts. A letter from her to a mutual friend, written a very few days before her death, expresses her satisfaction in having received the sacrament with her sister the Sunday previous. In this letter, for the first time during a long correspondence, she breaks off somewhat suddenly, complaining of bodily fatigue, although no one then thought her ill. and of all whose praise is best worth having for half a century, what can I say, but that many an age to come will echo back their applause! Her tragedies have a boldness and grasp of mind, a firmness of hand, and resonance of cadence, that scarcely seem within the reach of a female writer; whilst the tenderness and sweetness of her heroines -the grace of the love-scenes-and the trembling outgushings of sensibility, as in Orra, for instance, in the fine tragedy on Fear-would seem exclusively feminine, if we did not know that a true dramatistas Shakespeare or Fletcher-has the wonderful power of throwing himself, mind and body, into the character that he portrays. That Mrs. Joanna is a true dramatist, as well as a great poet, I, for one, can never doubt, although it has been the fashion to say that her plays do not act. It must be above fifty years ago that I, then a girl of thirteen, in company with my old and dear friend, Mr. Harness, the bosom friend of Thomas Hope, the friend and correspondent of Lord Byron (and, be it observed, of all his correspondents, the one who seems to have impressed the daring poet with the most sincere respect), then a boy considerably younger than myself, witnessed the representation of "De Montfort," by John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Forty years after, we had the pleasure of talking over that representation with the authoress, in Lady Dacre's drawing-room, a place where poets "most do congregate," and we both agreed that the impression which the performance had made upon us remained indelible. Now, the qualities in an acted play that fixed themselves upon the minds of children so young, |