There were friends, as they are called, who remonstrated with her parents on the course they were pursuing in her education, and advised that she should be deprived of books, pen, ink, and paper, and rigorously confined to domestic concerns. Her parents loved her both too wisely and too well to be guided by such counsellors, and they anxiously kept the advice secret from Lucretia, lest it should wound her feelings—perhaps, also, lest it should give her, as it properly might, a rooted dislike to these misjudging and unfeeling persons. But she discovered it by accident, and without declaring any such intention, she gave up her pen and her books, and applied herself exclusively to household business, for several months, till her body as well as her spirits failed. She became emaciated, her countenance bore marks of deep dejection, and often, while actively employed in domestic duties, she could neither restrain nor conceal her tears. The mother seems to have been slower in perceiving this than she would have been had it not been for her own state of confinement; she noticed it at length, and said, "Lucretia, it is a long time since you have written any thing." The girl then burst into tears, and replied, "O mother, I have given that up long ago." "But why?" said her mother. After much emotion, she answered, "I am convinced from what my friends have said, and from what I see, that I have done wrong in pursuing the course I have. I well know the circumstances of the family are such, that it requires the united efforts of every member to sustain it; and since my eldest sister is now gone, it becomes my duty to do every thing in my power to lighten the cares of my parents." On this occasion, Mrs. Davidson acted with equal discretion and tenderness; she advised her to take a middle course, neither to forsake her favourite pursuits, nor devote herself to them, but use them in that wholesome alternation with the every day business of the world, which is alike salutary for the body and the mind. She therefore occasionally resumed her pen, and seemed comparatively happy.

How the encouragement which she received operated may be seen in some lines, not otherwise worthy of preservation than for the purpose of showing how the promises of reward affect a mind like hers. They were written in her thirteenth year.

Whene'er the muse pleases to grace my dull page, At the sight of reward, she flies off in a rage; Prayers, threats, and intreaties I frequently try, But she leaves me to scribble, to fret, and to sigh She torments me each moment, and bids me go write, And when I obey her she laughs at the sight; The rhyme will not jingle, the verse has no sense, And against all her insults I have no defence. I advise all my friends who wish me to write, To keep their rewards and their gifts from my sight, So that jealous Miss Muse won't be wounded in pride, Nor Pegasus rear till I've taken my ride.

Let not the hasty reader conclude from these rhymes that Lucretia was only what any child of early cleverness might be made by forcing and injudicious admiration. In our own language, except in the cases of Chatterton and Kirke White, we can call to mind no instance of so early, so ardent, and so fatal a pursuit of intellectual advancement.

"She composed with great rapidity; as fast as most persons usually copy. There are several instances of four or five pieces on different subjects, and containing three or four stanzas each, written on the same day. Her thoughts flowed so rapidly, that she often expressed the wish that she had two pair of hands, that she might employ them to transcribe. When 'in the vein,' she would write standing, and be wholly abstracted from the company present and their conversation. But if composing a piece of some length, she wished to be entirely alone; she shut herself into her room, darkened the windows, and in summer placed her Aeolian harp in the window:" (thus by artificial excitement, feeding the fire that consumed her.) "In those pieces on which she bestowed more than ordinary pains, she was very secret; and if they were, by any accident, discovered in their unfinished state, she seldom completed them, and often destroyed them. She cared little for any of her works after they were completed: some, indeed, she preserved with care for future correction, but a great proportion she destroyed: very many that are preserved, were rescued from the flames by her mother. Of a complete poem, in five cantos, called 'Rodri,' and composed when she was thirteen years of age, a single canto, and part of another, are all that are saved from a destruction which she supposed had obliterated every vestige of it."

She was often in danger, when walking, from carriages, &c., in consequence of her absence of mind. When engaged in a poem of some length, she has often forgotten her meals. A single incident, illustrating this trait in her character, is worth relating:—She went out early one morning to visit a neighbour, promising to be at home to dinner. The neighbour being absent, she requested to be shown into the library. There she became so absorbed in her book, standing, with her bonnet unremoved, that the darkness of the coming night first reminded her she had forgotten her meals, and expended the entire day in reading.

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 favourite of all songs, and gave occasion to these verses, addressed, in her fifteenth year, to her sister.

When evening spreads her shades around, And darkness fills the arch of heaven; When not a murmur, not a sound To Fancy's sportive ear is given; When the broad orb of heaven is bright, And looks around with golden eye; When Nature, softened by her light. Seems calmly, solemnly to lie; Then, when our thoughts are raised above This world, and all this world can give, Oh, Sister! sing the song I love, And tears of gratitude receive. The song which thrills my bosom's core, And, hovering, trembles half afraid, Oh, Sister! sing the song once more, Which ne'er for mortal ear was made. 'Twere almost sacrilege to sing Those notes amid the glare of day; Notes borne by angels' purest wing, And wafted by their breath away. When, sleeping in my grass-grown bed, Shouldst thou still linger here above, Wilt thou not kneel beside my head, And, Sister! sing the song I love?

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 400, November 21, 1829

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