her suspicion to Lucretia; she felt her rectitude impeached, and this, and not the wounded pride of the young author, made her weep till she was actually ill. As soon as she recovered her tranquillity, she offered a poetic and playful remonstrance, which set the matter at rest, and put an end to all future question of the authenticity of her productions. Before she was twelve years old, she had read the English poets. "The English poets," says Southey, in his review of Miss Davidson's poems, "though a vague term, was a wholesome course, for such a mind." She had read, beside, much history, sacred and profane, novels, and other works of imagination. Dramatic works were particularly attractive to her; her devotion to Shakspeare is expressed in an address to him written about this time, from which we extract the following stanzas:—
Gave thee of virtue, then of vice a part,
Lest we, in wonder, here should bow before thee,
Break God's commandment, worship and adore thee."
Ordinary romances, and even those highly wrought fictions that without any type in Nature have such a mischievous charm for most imaginative young persons, she instinctively rejected; her healthy appetite, keen as it was, was under the government of a pure and sound nature. Her mother, always aware of the worth of the gem committed to her keeping, amidst her sufferings from ill health kept a watchful eye on her child, directed her pursuits, and sympathized in all her little school labors and trials; she perceived that Lucretia was growing
