Mr. Editor,—The riddling lines which I send you, were written
upon a young lady who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood,
was named by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written,
L. M. had outgrown the title—but not the memory of it—being in
her teens, and consequently past child-tricks. They are an endeavour
to express that perplexity which one feels at any alteration,
even supposed for the better, in a beloved object; with a little
oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new graces without
taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can ill miss.
