In "Fraser's Magazine" for January, 1840, appeared the following comments on her genius, her character, and her fate:—
"'Where my father's bones are lying,
There my bones will never lie;
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Mine shall be a lonelier ending,
Mine shall be a wilder grave,
Where the shout and shriek are blending,
Where the tempest meets the wave;
Or perhaps a fate more lonely,
In some drear and distant ward,
Where my weary eyes meet only
Hired nurse and sullen guard.'
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"In her poems there are unquestioned indications of genius, and sometimes the indication is fulfilled by her execution. She had a deep and sweet feeling of affection, and a fine eye for the more ornamental and picturesque beauties of the external world, which she frequently expressed in harmonious verse, suggested by copious reading of various literature, and regulated by a musical and practised ear. With the young she was always a favourite: other ladies—for by ladies it must be done if at all—may, but hardly soon, supplant her in that favour. May their career be less burthened by wearisome exertion, their close less sorrowful than hers! At the period of her death she was rapidly rising in all that could gratify a lady and an authoress—in general estimation, in public honour, in increasing respect—as well as in the more matured development of her genius, made evident in her prose compositions. "Ethel Churchill" is, indeed, a work of beauty and talent, for which it would be hard to find a parallel in the history of female authorship. And then, when the prospect of her taking a place in her land's language was within her sight—then she died. The promise of her life was unfulfilled:—
"'Life is made up of miserable hours;
And all of which we craved a brief possessing,
For which we wasted wishes, hopes, and powers,
Comes with some fatal drawback on the blessing —
We might have been.
The future never renders to the past
The young beliefs entrusted to its keeping.
