University of Virginia Library

The remains and a biographical sketch of this remarkable girl were published last year by Mr. Samuel F. B. Morse. An interesting review of the volume appeared soon after in the London Quarterly: we are not aware that it has been noticed in any periodical in this country. Southey has rendered himself distinguished for his attention to youthful genius. Except the cases of Chatterton and Henre Kirke White, he thinks there is no instance on record of “so early, so ardent, and so fatal a pursuit of intellectual advancement,” as is exhibited in the history of this young lady. “In these poems, there is enough of originality, enough of aspiration, enough of conscious energy, enough of growing power, to warrant any expectations, however sanguine, which the patron, and the friends and parents of the deceased, could have formed; nor can any person rise from the perusal of such a volume without feeling the vanity of human hopes.”

“She was peculiarly sensitive to music. There was one song (it was Moore's Farewell to his Harp) to which she took a special fancy; she wished to hear it only at twilight; thus, with that same perilous love of excitement which made her place the windharp in the window when she was composing, seeking to increase the effect which the song produced upon a nervous system, already diseasedly susceptible; for it is said, that, whenever she heard this song, she became cold, pale, and almost fainting; yet it was her favorite of all songs, and gave occasion to these verses, addressed, in her fifteenth year, to her sister.

“To young readers it might be useful to observe, that these verses, in one place, approach the verge of meaning, but are on the wrong side of the line: to none can it be necessary to say, that they breathe the deep feeling of a mind essentially poetical.” The piece here referred to, is that extracted above.