With a view to removing an extreme timidity which affected her, her mother was willing that she should enter a little into the gaieties suitable to her age. That important event, her first ball, was approaching; but how un-young-lady-like was her conduct on the occasion! When the day arrived, Lucretia was found reading, as usual, without one thought about the ball, and it was only when asked what she was to wear, that she remembered she had to attend it. Manifesting a girlish pleasure for a few minutes, she was quickly reabsorbed in her book. In the evening, when an elder sister went to seek her, in order to dress her hair, the young poetess was found engaged in the composition of a poem, moralising on what the world calls pleasure.

Shortly after, two events occurred in the quiet cottage household of the Davidsons: Lucretia's elder sister became a wife, and a younger sister was born, as if the loss of one loved companion was to be compensated by the appearance of another. On the 26th of March 1823, Margaret Miller Davidson, the other subject of these memoirs, came into the world. New emotions were called forth in Lucretia's mind by the event. The following lines from her published poems were written about this time:

'Sweet babe! I cannot hope that thou'lt be freed
From woes, to all since earliest time decreed;
But mayst thou be with resignation blessed
To bear each evil, howsoe'er distressed!

May Hope her anchor lend amid the storm,
And o'er the tempest rear her angel form;
May sweet Benevolence, whose words are peace,
To the rude whirlwind softly whisper-cease!
And may Religion, Heaven's own darling child,
Teach thee at human cares and griefs to smile;
Teach thee to look beyond that world of wo,
To Heaven's high fount whence mercies ever flow.
And when this vale of tears is safely passed,
When death's dark curtain shuts the scene at last,
May thy freed spirit leave this earthly sod,
And fly to seek the bosom of thy God!'

Strong as her passion for poetry was, there was a stronger feeling which predominated in Lucretia's mind

and this was filial love. After the birth of the infant, Mrs Davidson was very ill,' and to add,' says Miss Sedgwick, 'to the calamity, her monthly nurse was taken sick, and left her; the infant, too, was ill. Lucretia sustained her multiplied cares with firmness and efficiency; the conviction that she was doing her duty gave her strength almost preternatural. I shall again quote her mother's words, for I fear to enfeeble by any version of my own the beautiful example of this conscientious little being: "Lucretia astonished us all: she took her station in my sick-room, and devoted herself wholly to the mother and the child; and when my recovery became doubtful, instead of resigning herself to grief, her exertions were redoubled, not only for the comfort of the sick, but she was an angel of consolation to her afflicted father. We were amazed at the exertions she made, and the fatigues she endured; for, with nerves so weak, a constitution so delicate, and a sensibility so exquisite, we trembled lest she should sink with anxiety and fatigue. Until it ceased to be necessary, she performed not only the duty of a nurse, but acted as superintendent of the household." When her mother became convalescent, Lucretia continued her attentions to domestic affairs. "She did not so much yield to her ruling passion, as to look into a book, or take up a pen," says her mother, "lest she should again become so absorbed in them as to neglect to perform those little offices which a feeble, affectionate mother had a right to claim at her hands." But this self-denial was not accomplished without a great sacrifice. 'Her mother detected tears occasionally on her cheeks, was alarmed by her excessive paleness, and expressed her apprehensions that she was ill. "No, mamma," she replied; "not ill -only out of spirits." Mrs Davidson then remarked, that of late she never read or wrote. She burst into tears-a full explanation followed, and Lucretia was allowed again to take up her pen, though recommended to give it only a part of her time. Lucretia became once more cheerful, read and wrote, and practised drawing. She had a decided taste for drawing, and excelled in it. She sung

over her work, and in every way manifested the healthy condition that results from a wise obedience to the laws of nature.'

During Lucretia's fifteenth summer, she visited her married sister, Mrs Townsend, in Canada; and on returning to Plattsburg, she resumed her poetic fancies. 'It was about this time that she finished Amir Khan, and began a tale of some length, which she entitled the Recluse of the Saranac. Amir Khan has long been before the public, but we think it has suffered from a general and very natural distrust of precocious genius. The versification is graceful, the story well developed, and the Orientalism aptly sustained. We think it would not have done discredit to our best popular poets in the meridian of their fame; as the production of a girl of fifteen, it seems prodigious. On her mother discovering and reading a part of her romance, Lucretia manifested her usual shrinkings, and with many tears exacted a promise that she would not again look at it till it was finished. She never again saw it till after her daughter's death. Lucretia had a most whimsical fancy for cutting sheets of paper into narrow strips, sewing them together, and writing on both sides; and once playfully boasting to her mother of having written some yards, she produced a roll, and forbidding her mother's approach, she measured off twenty yards! She often expressed a wish to spend one fortnight alone, even to the exclusion of her little petsister; and Mrs Davidson, eager to afford her every gratification in her power, had a room prepared for her use. Her dinner was sent up to her; she declined coming down to tea; and her mother, on going to her apartment, would find her writing, her plate untouched.'

We now approach the darker shades of this touching history. A gentleman, who was an intimate and early friend of the Davidsons, to whom some of Lucretia's effusions were shewn, saw in them a genius which he thought only required cultivation to become transcendent. He proposed to take upon himself the expense of her future education. The parents, already proud of so gifted

a daughter, did not withstand the temptation which this offer held out; and on the 24th November 1824, Lucretia left her home to become an inmate of a ladies' seminary, which bears a high character in the state of New York. At first, the novelty of the change filled her letters with expressions of delight; but a home-sickness soon crept over her, and a deep tinge of melancholy pervades some of her succeeding communications. An arrangement of these boarding-schools, that bore very hard upon Miss Davidson, was the public examination-an ordeal trying enough to most young ladies, and not always unattended with injurious effects on health. The following playful verses of our heroine describe the troubles of the week preceding this grand exhibition :

'One has a headache, one a cold,
One has her neck in flannel rolled;
Ask the complaint, and you are told,
"Next week's examination."

One frets and scolds, and laughs and cries,
Another hopes, despairs, and sighs;
Ask but the cause, and each replies,
"Next week's examination."

One bans her books, then grasps them tight,
And studies morning, noon, and night,
As though she took some strange delight
"In these examinations."

The books are marked, defaced, and thumbed,
The brains with midnight tasks benumbed,
Still, all in that account is summed,
"Next week's examination."'

The examination, however, passed off creditably to Lucretia, though, it is to be feared, not without accelerating the fatal issue. It was now becoming too plain that this child of promise was to be one of those who fall in 'the morn and liquid dew of youth. After a considerable interval in her correspondence, which excited the alarm of her friends, she wrote a letter which was scarcely legible, and which realised the worst fears. Mrs Davidson instantly set off to see her daughter. Lucretia's first words were: 'Oh, mamma, I thought I should never have

seen you again! But now I have you here, and can lay my aching head upon your bosom, I shall soon be better.' It was resolved that she should be removed to Plattsburg in spite of her debility, and the journey was accomplished without any apparently ill consequences. ""Her joy upon finding herself at home," says her mother, "operated for a time like magic." The sweet, healthgiving influence of domestic love, the home-atmosphere, seemed to suspend the progress of her disease, and again her father, brothers, and friends were deluded; all but the mother and the sufferer. She looked, with prophetic eye, calmly to the end. There was nothing to disturb her. That kingdom that cometh "without observation" was within her, and she was only about to change its external circumstances, about to put off the harness of life in which she had been so patient and obedient. To the last she manifested her love of books. A trunk filled with them had not been unpacked. She requested her mother to open it at her bedside, and as each book was given to her, she turned over the leaves, kissed it, and desired to have it placed on a table at the foot of her bed. There they remained to the last, her eye often fondly resting on them.' This was the ruling passion strong in death,' for that was fast approaching.

6

Though it is not expressly stated in the memoir, we gather from the context that the gifted young poetess ended her brief career in July 1825. What must have deepened the grief of her friends was, the extreme personal beauty which, besides genius, Lucretia possessed. Latterly, her loveliness was much enhanced by the roselike glow-deep, yet delicate-imparted to her cheeks by the fatal malady-consumption.

Of Miss Davidson's poetical talents there cannot be two opinions. Though the short pieces we have quoted exhibit no striking passages, or ideas which deserve to be called brilliant, yet they possess a more valuable quality -they are natural; they are girl-like. In Lucretia Davidson's poems 'there is,' says Dr Southey in the Quarterly Review, enough of originality, enough of

VOL. IV.

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