URR SARAH STEVENS. 6. READING ROOM 7. READERS NAME (block letters) 66 97F24022 TICKET NUMBER 8. READER'S 9. READER'S SIGNATURE 1. LOCATION (OLIS only) 270 e. 370 (1) SHELFMARK (one work only) John Milton. 2. AUTHOR or CATALOGUE HEADING Second defence at the English people. 5. DATE(S) OF PUBLICATION MEMOIR OF CAROLINE SYMMONS. CAROLINE, daughter of the Rev. CHARLES SYMMONS, D. D. and Elizabeth his wife,* was born April 12, 1789. From her infancy she discovered indications of very extraordinary powers of intellect. Of these, as they existed in her seventh year, I had first an opportunity of forming an estimate; and, ere a second seven were well numbered, they were no more! Le crespe chiome d'or puro lucente, (Petr. II. xxiv.) At a period of life, in which grace and beauty are seldom so much disclosed as to interest any eyes, except those of the relative * Sister of Rear Admiral Foley, who so highly distinguished himself under Lord Nelson, in the battle of the Nile, and in that before Copenhagen. He has since married Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, sister to the late Duke of Leinster. [Only 50 copies printed separately.] or of the friend, she was strikingly endowed with both; and if I had the pencil of a Reynolds or a Hoppner, I would endeavour to do justice to her personal charms. But those, at their "best state, are altogether vanity." Ut vultus hominum, ita simulacra vultus imbecilla ac mortalia sunt; forma mentis æterna.* (Tac. Agric. 46.) From a subject therefore, to which I feel myself unequal, I turn to the display of her mind; a labour indeed still more hopeless, if specimens of it's energies were not fortunately in existence, which will in a great measure supersede the necessity of other description. 'Zelida,' the first of her poems, with which I was favoured by her father soon after it's composition, is dated November 24, 1800; and, as the production of a child (if she could ever, pro * Yet with these perishable tokens of our regard we are delighted to honour, and for a while to preserve, the memory of the dear departed; and he must be a stern philosopher, who can deride or dissuade their adoption. A bust by Nollekens was executed from a model taken from her face after her decease. It represents her features with accuracy, and is one of that excellent artist's best works: but to animate the marble with the full character and illumination of her countenance, would have exceeded the powers of the chissel in the hand of a Phidias or a Praxiteles. + These Poems have all been lately printed by her Father in an octavo volume, accompanied and enriched with his own, particularly a most admirable version of the fourth Æneid. perly, have been called a child) of eleven years of age, is surely most wonderful. What may perhaps excite at least equal surprise with the beauty of the stanzas themselves, is the selec tion of the subject-" A faded rose-bush!" What a theme, to be chosen by a youthful poetess, in the full tide of health and animation! How sweetly characteristic of her own blossoming, the third verse! This rose-tree once flourish'd, and sweeten'd the air; The scent of her breath, as it's fragrance, was rare ; The fourth, how mournfully ominous of her decay!* She planted, she loved it, she dew'd it's gay head; And it's bloom every rival defied. But, alas! what was beauty, or virtue, soon fled : * What admirer of elegant modern Latinity will not here be forcibly reminded of Vincent Bourne's distich! Stella, rosæ miserere, et dum miserere, memento The breves ros indeed, and the ῥόδον ακμαζον βαιον χρόνον, are but too accurately applicable, in many melancholy instances, to the choicest human flowers; as the sad stories of Thomas Williams Malkin, Joshua Rowley Gilpin, Henry Kirke White, and Elizabeth Smith, abundantly attest: but too often, -hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose ! (Shaksp. Mids. Night's Dream, ii. 2.) |