utterly forgotten. In the meantime, as I have just spent a plea sant half-hour over her little volume, let me show my gratitude to her gentle spirit, by such praises as I can conscientiously award her, and refresh the memory of my readers with a few favourable extracts. The following little poem, on seeing some children at play, has been quoted both by Bowles and Leigh Hunt, (poets of very different tastes and habits,) with considerable praise : "Sighing I see yon little troop at play, By sorrow yet untouched, unhurt by care; Lights their green path, and prompts their simple mirth, Oppress my heart and fill mine eyes with tears." Mrs. Smith's knowledge of Botany, to which science, by the way, she has addressed a sonnet, is displayed in a very pleasing manner in several of her poems; and she rarely speaks of flowers without a minute fidelity of description, and the use of very graphic epithets. The following couplet is a specimen of the curious felicity of her botanical allusions. "From the mapped lichen to the plumed weed; This is a sad sacrifice of grammar to rhyme. Byron has made a similar one in his fourth Canto of Childe Harold : "And dashest him again to earth; there let him lay." The "Sonnet written at the close of Spring" offers further illustrations of this peculiar character of her verse. "The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, Each simple flower, which she had nurs'd in dew, The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. No more shall violets linger in the dell, Or purple orchis variegate the plain, Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. Are the fond visions of thy early day, Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Mrs. Smith's study of flowers led her much into the open fields, and she has shown herself to be a very minute and delicate observer of external nature. The following brief passage taken from one of her sonnets is picturesque. "And sometimes when the sun with parting rays A tear shall tremble in my Charlotte's eyes." It reminds me of a beautiful touch of Coleridge's pencil in the annexed lines. "But the dell, Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax, When through its half-transparent stalks at even, The level sunshine glimmers with green light." There is an expression in the following line, which has been borrowed by a living poet. "The night-flood rakes upon the stony shore." Bowles, in describing a night-scene (in his Grave of the last Saxon), says: -"All is silent, save the tide that rakes At times the beach." Or perhaps it was taken from Hurdis: 66 'Raking with harsh recoil the pebbly steep." The following from an address to the North Star has rather more vigour than Mrs. Smith usually displays : "Now nightly wandering 'mid the tempests drear Through the swift clouds-driven by the wind along; O'er whose wild stream the gust of Winter raves, The following verse is tender and melodious : "Oh! my lost love! no tomb is placed for thee And no memorial but this breaking heart!" I quote a part of the Sonnet to Fancy, for the sake of the neat turn of its concluding couplet : It may perhaps appear from these extracts, that though not to be placed in the first class of British Female Poets, Mrs. Smith deserves more attention from the public than she is now likely to obtain. She is not to be compared to the Lady Minstrels of the present day, (to the powerful Joanna Baillie, the fanciful L. E. L., the tender and pathetic Caroline Bowles*, or the refined and spirited Hemans,) but her poems may, nevertheless, be occasionally referred to with pleasure as the effusions of a chaste and cultivated mind. EVENING CLOUDS. [A FRAGMENT.] A GLORIOUS sight! The sun is in the sea, So like a gorgeous vision! Every tint Now Mrs. Southey. RETROSPECTIONS. [WRITTEN IN INDIA.] I. 'Tis sweet on this far strand, When memory charms the fond reverted To view that hallowed land eye, Where early dreams like sun-touched shadows lie! II. The dear familiar forms, That caught the fairest hues of happier hours, Flash forth through after storms, As bursts of light between autumnal showers. III. The green-wood's loveliest spot The summer walk-the cheerful winter fire The calm domestic cot The village church with ivy-covered spire IV. Each scene we loved so well With faithful force the mind's true mirror shows; As Painting's mighty spell Recals the past, and lengthened life bestows. V. But though so brightly beam, These distant views, they make the present drear ; By Youth's departed dream, Life's onward paths but desolate appear. |