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As to her Themes, and miscellaneous Prose producductions, which I mean to publish some time or other, Mrs. Day, or more properly speaking, Miss Milnes, wrote with such fluency and perspicuity, that they re quired scarce any correcting. The clearness and fertility of her understanding, her chaste judgment, and volubility of language, made her almost infallible in Prose.

Like Cowley, the Muse inspired Miss Milnes at a very early period, but she did not, like that much admired Bard, continue through life to cultivate her genius for making verses. Though she was to her death passionately fond of the poetic Muse, I cannot find a single piece of her Poetry written after sixteen.

Probably Miss Milnes's poetical flowering shrub, never having the oak like vigour of Cowley's, was exhausted by blossoming so early, and from its premature growth, united to its extreme delicacy, the frequent result of shrubs or plants growing too fast, at the first rude touch of envious criticism, shrunk up, withered, and died.

Or

Or, Apollo thinking the poor puny shrub not worth shining upon, might withdraw, in a fit of contemptuous passion, his all fostering rays, and by that, occasion Miss Milnes's poetical blossoms, like the flower of the convolvolus, to close their petals, as if for grief at the sun's departure. And her poetical shrub might not re-blossom, because Apollo seemed, in her mind, to have set, never again to irradiate her Muse.

Indeed, it is most probable Miss Milnes, being naturally very diffident, had such a humble opinion of her poetical talents, as induced her to imagine she should never arrive at that perfection she wished to attain to, in every thing where the mind was concerned, and therefore bid an eternal adieu to poetising.

From whatever cause it has proceeded, I must own I have been equally astonished and sorry that so early a poetical impulse, and of so promising a nature, should: have been so soon blighted; and I was the more surprised, as Master Apollo has not deigned to illume my poetry for some years, if ever he darted a single ray of light upon it, which I much doubt myself, when I read it;

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yet I have endeavoured occasionally to supply the want of his cherishing beams, by working up my poetical fer vor to an unusual glow; from thinking, whatever other people may imagine, that I have by fits and starts, a tolerable good knack at versifying, and possess some small share of poetic fire.

I shall incorporate Mrs. Day's poetry with her Husband's, by numbering the pages as if it were a continuation of his, (though all Mr. Day's detached pieces of poetry worth publishing I have now printed,) because, as in life their whole souls were wrapped up in each other, I think it congenial with their mutual ardent affection, that their minds embodied, as it were, by printing their poetry, should appear united upon paper; and I am sure, if their departed spirits could see what was doing here below, and had no objection to my printing a few of their poetical blossoms, they would approve of such an union.

It was from the extraordinary similarity in their taste, disposition, and understanding, from their hearts and minds being so exactly in unison, that I have not written

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an epitaph or memento of Mrs. Day's death, and not from want of poetic inspiration, or zealous affection ; I considered an epitaph on her, would be only an enumeration of similar virtuous qualities with those of her deceased Husband, and therefore, though her death was as heartfelt, irreparable a loss to her friends as her Husband's to his, I did not give way to the impulse of grief by writing one, supposing what I had said of Mr. Day's mind and disposition in my epitaph upon him, would apply as much to his surviving wife, as to himself, touching all those excellent and great mental qualifications, which may be alike possessed by either sex. I have therefore always considered my verses on Mr. Day's death, in some measure as applicable to both.

The pleasing simplicity which prevails through Mrs. Day's poetry, whatever its poetical merits may be, is an exact and faithful representation of the genuine goodness of her heart, and the unaffected simplicity of her manners, as all who had the pleasure of knowing her will acknowledge; which characteristic occasioned her an unusual number of sincere female friends, ardent in their friendship to her, as the sun at noon-day. Her

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piety

piety too, which forms so distinguishing a feature in almost all her juvenile productions, appears as ardent as their friendship:

That her friendship kept pace with that of her friends, and throbbed with as strong and quick pulses, I am thoroughly convinced of from my own experience.

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