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tered. She seemed surprised at the request, but complied, writing it down, however, as if it had been prose, without arranging it in a stanza, or commencing the lines with capitals; not seeming aware that she had rhymed.'-p. 17.

we must look further for the proof of those | fore struck by little rhyming ejaculations of the powers which Mr. Irving seems to consider kind, now handed her writing implements, and as almost preternatural. This must be sought desired her to write down what she had just utin the literæ scripte which she has left behind, and which must be admitted as incontrovertible evidence of whatever genius they may show, for there can be no suspicion that they have been touched by any hand with a view to improving them -the character of the verses themselves, and, still more, the character of all the parties, negative the possibility of any such practices.

Now it seems to us nearly incredible—not that the child should have composed these very childish rhymes-but that she, having read the blank verse of Milton, Thomson, But though we appeal to the child's poet- Cowper, and the rhyme of Scott, Campbell, ical remains as the only tangible and entirely Byron, should not have known that she had trustworthy evidence of her poetical genius, rhymed, nor should have been able to divide we do not mean to say that her genius may her effusions into couplets, or even into lines, not have been vastly superior to the intrinsic is incomprehensible. It will be recollected merit of the verses. Verses very moderate in that something of the same kind was told of themselves may be, according to the circum- Lucretia-that as early as four years old, and stances under which they are produced, strong before she could write, she contrived to cover, indications of genius, as witness the early po- with a kind of hieroglyphics, a quantity of etry of Milton, and all we have of Chatterton writing paper, so large that its disappearance and Kirk White. We, in our former article, surprised her parents, from whom she careendeavoured to establish this distinction, and fully concealed the use she made of it. while we confessed that Lucretia's produc- These stores of paper were at length accitions were but immature buds and blossoms dentally discovered by her mother's searchshaken from the tree, and green fruit,' we ac- ing for something in a dark and unfrequented knowledged them as a fair promise of future closet, where she found a number of little excellence; and we may say pretty nearly books filled with rude drawings and apparthe same for those of Margaret-they are in ently illegible characters, which, on closer inthemselves of little abstract merit-the curi- spection, were found to consist of the printed osity is the early age at which they were alphabet; some of the letters formed backwritten, and the tone of mind that inspired wards, some sideways, and there being no them. If a young person were to compose a spaces between the words. These writings piece of merely manual mechanism-a watch being with difficulty deciphered, were found for instance-which, however rudely finish- to consist of regular verses. She was much ed and worthless in itself, had got the appear-distressed at this discovery of her treasures; ance and performed in any degree the functions of the perfect instrument-we should wonder at the imitative genius without any reference to the intrinsic value of the imitation: so it is with this youthful poetry-it is worth little-perhaps we might say nothing, except as an example of the mechanical precocity of the human mind. It is rather a fact in physiology than a contribution to literature. But in this view it is peculiarly important that we should be assured of the minute exactitude of the facts-of the precise age of the very words.

and as soon as she got them into her possession she took the first opportunity of secretly burning them. (Quarterly Review, vol. xli., p. 290.) We then observed that reports of this kind are to be received with some distrust; and certainly the story is in all its parts sufficiently wonderful. That the family residence of people in 'straitened circumstances'-(very straitened, as we shall see presently)-should be so large that paper could be abstracted in quantities to excite curiosity, and yet so secretly as to baffle discovery, and then in some secluded place covered secretly with writing by a child of four or five years old,-and then again concealed in a dark closet, a different retreat, therefore, from that in which the child wrote them ;that they were then accidentally discovered by a mother who had all this while been blind to all the occurrences which must have been for months in progress in different parts of the house; and, finally, that all these curious papers, so precious to a parent's pride, should 'Her mother, who had several times been be- I have been secretly burned--not one preserv

The first verses we have of Margaret's were made 'about this time;' that is, we presume, when she had read all those poets. Standing by her mother at a window which looked on a lovely landscape, she exclaimed,

'See those lofty, those grand trees,
Their high tops waving in the breeze;
They cast their shadows on the ground,
And spread their fragrance all around.'

'Forgiven by my Saviour dear,

For all the wrongs I've done;
What other wish could I have here ?—
Alas, there yet is one !

I know my God has pardoned me
I know he loves me still;
I wish forgiven I may be
By her I've used so ill.

Good resolutions I have made,
And thought I loved my Lord;
But ah, I trusted in myself,

And broke my foolish word.

But give me strength, O Lord, to trust
For help alone in Thee;

Thou knowest my inmost feelings best ;
O teach me to obey !'

ed-all these circumstances, we say, would have justified more distrust than we ventured to express. But the story told of Margaret, though not so complicated, appears to us still less credible; and with all our respect for Mrs. Davidson, we cannot but repeat our former opinion that recollections of this kind are to be received with some allowance. Mr. Irving does not tell us that he had seen this remarkable autograph, which, after what had befallen Lucretia's early manuscripts, we might expect to have been-as Mr. Irving tells us all her subsequent scraps were-carefully treasured up with delight by the mother; and if it had been preserved, we should equally have expected that he would have published it in its original state rather than This, though far from being poetry, is as in the amended form in which he has given good as the general run of Dr. Watts's songs, it. In short, the whole anecdote has thrown and certainly, under all the circumstances, a a painful doubt over our minds, and shaken remarkable production. Her self-examinathe confidence and consequent interest with tion was, however, not a mere poetical exerwhich we entered on the perusal of this bio-cise. On her death her mother found a segraphy. It is, indeed, a slight and in itself ries of memoranda of self-examination, from trivial circumstance; but we need not say a very early period of her life until within a that such slight and trivial circumstances are few days of its close. They are,' says Mr. the best test of truth. We earnestly entreat Irving, some of the most interesting relics Mr. Irving, if this scrap has been preserved, she has left; but they are of too sacred a nato give a fac-simile of it in another edition. ture to meet the public eye' (p. 151). It will be the most curious, and, we think, important passage in his work.

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We are not surprised at hearing that she took little pleasure or share in the common On another occasion, during a thunder- amusements of children. Hers were all instorm towards sunset, Margaret threw herself tellectual. If she chanced to play with a into her mother's arms in great agitation-doll or a kitten, it was only to create them not from fear, but from poetic excitement and she extemporised with extended arm,

The lightning plays along the sky;
The thunder rolls and bursts on high;
Jehovah's voice amid the storm
I heard. Methinks I see his form,
As, riding on the clouds of even,
He spreads his glory o'er the heaven.'

into historic or dramatic personages, and to carry on with them imaginary dialogues, always ingenious, and sometimes even brilliant.' The fondness which all children have for story-telling she also indulged, but her extemporaneous stories were of a very superior class,

and in nothing was the precocity of her mental powers more apparent than in the discrimination and individuality of her fictitious characters

the consistency with which they were susthe elevation of her sentiments, and the poetic tained-the graphic force of her descriptionsbeauty of her imagery.'-p. 21.

'This likewise,' says Mr. Irving, her mother made her write down on the instant;' but he does not say whether it was written like the other, as prose, and whether the original was among the papers delivered to him. From the way in which he has printed it, we suppose he has copied it from Mrs. David- So writes, in his own character, Mr. Irving; son's Memoranda. Another production-of but as it does not appear that he himself heard the same date, we presume, for all this part any of those recitations-indeed he never of the work refers to the period between the saw the child till four or five years after the sixth and seventh years of her age-is more period now referred to-we cannot but think valuable, as Mr. Irving observes, not merely his eulogy somewhat pleonastic, and expressas a proof of early facility at numbers, but as involving a case of conscience creditable to her early powers of self-examination. She had been naughty and sullen to her mother, but after an hour or two of penance in her own bedroom, she returned, craving forgiveness in these stanzas :—

ed with more confidence than the circumstances seem to warrant; and we make this observation the rather because we find in a subsequent part of the volume a fragment of a story written in poor Margaret's immature maturity of fifteen, and which has as little literary merit as any flimsy, sentimental rhap

sody of the Minerva press. One interest it remembrances, the sight of them only indoes possess. The scene is laid in her native creased the affliction of this romantic child village, on the banks of the Saranac, a river for the departure of her friend. She locked which falls into Lake Champlain; and it them up as relics, and used to visit them with opens with a description of a cottage and its tears. inhabitants, clearly designed for her own fa- Our readers will recollect that something mily residence' and its inmates-the cottage of a similar kind happened to Lucretia-invery lowly and humble'-the 'grey-headed deed there is, all along, a very extraordinary physician' who inhabited it very poor, and twinness in the two histories. She also had far in the decline of life'—with a beautiful excited the admiration and the active benefibut sickly family-lovely plants, fading cence of a stranger, and we expressed our reaway one by one from the eyes of their idol- gret that the name of that gentleman was not izing parents' (p. 155). A love-story is of given ;* we now equally regret that we are course superinduced on these materials; but not told that of Margaret's English friendit happily breaks off at the end of about thirty for, besides the pleasure of giving, as we bepages. The style is so over-flowery, and all fore said, 'a local habitation and a name' to the rest so commonplace, that we think it such instances of taste and benevolence, we positively inferior to what might be expected are glad to have as inany witnesses as possifrom almost any girl of fifteen who could ble to the truth of a story which, though inwrite at all, and by no means corroborating dubitable in its main facts, is liable, from the the lofty panegyric bestowed by Mr. Irving most amiable causes, to exaggeration in its on stories composed eight years earlier. details.

'Between the age of six and seven she entered on a general course of education, English grammar, geography, history, and rhetoric (?), under the direction and superintendence of her mother;' but her constitution had already begun to show symptoms of delicacy, which rendered it expedient to check her application.

In her seventh summer her health became visibly delicate, and it was thought advisable to take her to Saratoga Springs, the waters of which seemed to have a beneficial effect. Thence she, for the first time, accompanied her parents to New York, with which she was excited and delighted in a very high degree; and on her return home her strength seemed so much increased that she resumed her studies with great assiduity, and enjoyed, with intense enthusiasm, the beauties of nature along the banks of her native Saranac and the shores of her own beautiful Champlain.'

Her mother, in her Memoranda, gives a striking picture of her in one of those enthusiastic moods ;

• After an evening's stroll along the river bank we seated ourselves by a window to observe the effects of the full moon on the waters. A holy calm seemed to pervade all nature. With her head resting on my bosom, and her eyes fixed on the firmament, she pointed to a particularly bright star, and said-

In 1830, an English gentleman,' who had been strongly interested and affected by the accounts he had read of Lucretia Davidson, visited Plattsburg for the purpose of seeing the place in which she had been born and was buried. Finding her family still residing there, he waited on Mrs. Davidson, and of course was surprised and delighted to find in Margaret a living image, a duplicate as it were, of her whose celebrity had led him to Plattsburg. This gentleman would naturally be kindly received by all Lucretia's family; but the sensitive little Margaret formed for him an enthusiastic friendship, remarkable in such a child. His visit to Plattsburg was short; but he saw her again in her first visit to New York, where he took great pleasure in accompanying her to all the exhibitions and places of intellectual amusement of the city, and in marking their effect on her unhackneyed feelings and intelligent mind. Once he took her to the theatre, which she afterwards remembered as 'a brilliant dream,' and thenceforward her writings frequently took a dramatic turn. This gentleman intended to have visited her again at Platts-scruples about accepting. She, on the contrary, whose favours therefore she might have had some burg; but being called away to England, he says that he was an old acquaintance, and she diwas obliged to lay that design aside. This minish a somewhat the extent of the obligation conwas a great disappointment to Margaret; and ferred, though this excellent man continued,' she adds, a pure and disinterested friend to the day of though he accompanied his farewell letter his death.' Margaret used to call him Uncle with a present of books and various tastefull Kent.'—». 48.

* We gather from a note in this volume, and more clearly from Miss Sedgwick's recent Life of Lucretia, that this benefactor was Moss Kent, Esq; but Mrs. Davidson seems rather offended by the statement in Morse's Biography of Lucretia,' that he was a stranger, whose benevolence was at. tracted by mere admiration of her daughter, and

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'Behold that bright and sparkling star
Which setteth [sitteth ?] as a Queen afar;
Over the blue and spangled heaven
It sheds its glory in the even:

Our Jesus made that sparkling star
Which shines and twinkles from afar;
Oh! 'twas that bright and glorious gem
That shone o'er ancient Bethlehem.'-p. 25.

If by chance any of our readers recollect the verses of Lucretia quoted in our former article,

Thou bright glittering star of even,

Thou gem upon the brow of heaven,'

advisable, for the sake of both mother and child, to remove them to New York. There she met relatives and young companions, with whose amusements she mingled, but generally to give them an intellectual direction. Amongst other sports she proposed to get up a play, which she was to writein which she was to act, and for which she was to make all the arrangements-although she had never been in a playhouse but the one evening before mentioned; the lightest part of her task she thought, was the composition of the tragedy, which, she said, would be ready long before the dresses-and it was, in fact, written in two days.

"This little drama,' says Mr. Irving, 'lies before us [we know not why Mr. Irving thus assumes the style of monarchs and reviewers], a most ingenious child, and by no means more curious specimen of the prompt talents of this incongruous in its incidents than many current dramas by veteran and experienced playwrights.'

they will see that Margaret's first stanza is
but a feeble reminiscence of her sister. In
truth, except as the extemporaneous burst of
a child of seven years old, the lines are noth-
ing; but the sudden turn and pious applica-
tion of the last couplet redeem the whole,
and give it, we think, a superiority to Lucre-
tia's more matured and polished composi--p. 32.
tion. And what a picture the whole anec-
dote is!-the glowing landscape-the mother
-the child-the uplifted eye and finger-
and above all, the face of the little angelic
being, inspired by the star with the sudden
recollection of Bethlehem!

In the autumn of 1830 the health of the child began to fail again, as did also that of the mother-who seems indeed never to have been well; and it was thought prudent to spend the winter with a married daughter, Mrs. Townshend, who was settled in Canada.

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We are startled at hearing of invalids, already living in a more southern latitude than Turin or Venice, removing for the sake of a milder climate, to a Canadian winter. The reason given is, that the winds of Lake Champlain were too chilly for weak lungs, and that Mrs. Townshend's residence, though in the same latitude as Plattsburg, was an inland situation! (p. 25.) The Canadian climate, however, did Mrs. Davidson no good, who continued a helpless invalid, confined to her bed, for eighteen months, during which time little Margaret was her constant companion and attendant. But Canada seemed to agree with the child, till in January, 1833,-the ninth year of her age not yet expired,—she had a severe attack of scarlet fever, and on her slow recovery it was thought

This lady Mr. Irving always designates as Mrs. T. But what possible reason can there be for puzzling distant readers with initials, when the name must be as well known in New York as Broadway-and when the mention of the person is not merely inoffensive, but complimentary ?

We however must say that, from the summary of the plot which he gives us, it seems to have been silly enough, and very little above the years of the young authoress. Her visit to New York, however, produced something better. Their sojourn there was protracted till the heat became oppressive, and she expressed her yearnings for the banks of the Saranac in the following pretty lines :

'I would fly from the city, would fly from its care, To my own native plants and my flow'rets so fair!

To the cool grassy shade and the rivulet bright, Which reflects the pale moon on its bosom of light.

Again would I view the old mansion so dear, would leave this great city, so brilliant and Where I sported a babe without sorrow or fear.

I

gay,

For a peep at my home on this pure summerday.

I have friends whom I love, and would leave
with regret,

But the love of my home, Oh 'tis tenderer yet!
There a sister reposes, unconscious, in death-
'I was there she first drew, and there yielded
her breath;
A father I love is away from me now-
Oh could I but print a sweet kiss on his brow,
Or smoothe the grey locks to my fond heart so
dear,

How quickly would vanish each trace of a
tear!

Attentive I listen to pleasure's gay call,
But my own darling Home, it is dearer than
all'-p. 32.

But the neighbourhood of Champlain being thought unfavourable for a family of such

delicate health, they found a new home in
the village of Ballston, where she regretted
the wilder scenery of her 'Native Lake:'-
"Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream,
Lit by the sun's resplendent beam,
Reflect each bending tree so light
Upon thy bounding bosom bright-
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain !

The little isles that deck thy breast,
And calmly on thy bosom rest,
How often in my childish glee
I've sported round them bright and free!
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain!

How oft I've watched the fresh'ning shower
Bending the summer tree and flower,
And felt my little heart beat high
As the bright rainbow graced the sky!
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain !

And shall I never see thee more,
My native lake, my much-loved shore?
And must I bid a long adieu,
My dear, my infant home, to you?
Shall I not see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain?'

·

No-she was never again to see her ' beautiful Champlain ;' and the melancholy trials, with which heaven so frequently balances its highest intellectual gifts, were about to thicken upon this interesting family.

spring and the faint return of health it broke forth with a brilliancy and a restless excitability which astonished and alarmed her friends; and at this time she poured out in rapid succession many of her best pieces :

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'We,' says Mr. Irving, cannot help thinking that these moments of intense poetical exultation sometimes approached to delirium, for we are told by her mother that the image of her departed sister Lucretia mingled in all her aspirations; the holy elevation of Lucretia's character had taken deep hold of her imagination, and in her moments of enthusiasm she felt that she held close and intimate communion with her beatified spirit.'-p. 42.

No doubt the extreme and precocious sensibility of both these young creatures was out of the ordinary course of nature, and might be almost called a mental disease, which to a common observer would seem delirious; but we are surprised that a man of Mr. Irving's taste and talents-if he knows no more than he has told us-should have seen anything like insanity in either of the girls, and particularly in the very intelligible and natural process by which the enthusiastic recollections of a sister, in all points so like herself, should have blended themselves with Margaret's very existence.

In the autumn of 1835 Dr. Davidson re

moved his family to a large, commodious, oldSound, or East River as it is called, about fashioned house situate at Ruremont, on the

four miles from New York :

:

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The mother a constant sufferer--for ever on the verge of the grave; the child herself alternating between a state of health never better than fragile, and frequent fits of positive disease; and now her eldest and only surviving sister, Mrs. Townshend-to whom she had looked forward to supply the place of the, as it seemed, dying mother-was herself carried off, still young and beautiful, leaving one orphan 'bud of promise.' This smugglers, &c. She roamed over the place in was a severe shock to Margaret, whose own of her own imagination, and fancying it the scene perfect ecstacy, peopling every part with images state of health had lately assumed a very of foregone events of dark and thrilling interest.' alarming aspect, but she seemed to rally her-p. 50. energies to alleviate the grief of her mother;

The wild position and curious structure of this old-fashioned house,' says her mother, with a long gallery, winding staircase, dark and narrow passages, a trap-door, large rooms with massive doors and heavy iron bolts and bars, set her mind teeming with recollections of all she had heard or imagined of old castles, banditti,

and two or three copies of verses, addressed But, strange enough, we do not find in her

to Mrs. Davidson on this sad occasion, are

remarkable, not so much for their poetry as for a strain of sober piety and Christian consolation, much above what we should have expected from the writer's years.

Soon after this affliction, and perhaps in consequence of it, in December, 1834, Margaret was again seized with a liver complaint, which by sympathy affected her lungs, and confined her to her bed for two months, and to her room for two more. During this fit of illness her mind had remained in an unusual state of inactivity, but with the opening of

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verses any marked traces of this new and, we should have supposed, enticing train of thought, except, perhaps, in some Stanzas' given without any note or explanation in an earlier page, but which are evidently the longings of a romantic mind for a visit to the old country, excited probably by the old house We shall extract a few of the at Ruremont.

best:

'Oh for the pinions of a bird,
To bear me far away,

Where songs of other lands are heard,
And other waters play!

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