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HANNAH COWLEY,

Born 1743, died 1809.

This successful dramatist was the daughter of a Mr. Parkhouse of Tiverton, and wife of a gentleman in the service of the East India Company. It is remarkable that she had very little pleasure in theatrical representations.

Besides her plays, of which the The Belle's Stratagem still

continues deservedly popular, she wrote 66 a gazette in

rhyme," called The Siege of Acre, poems under the name of Anna Matilda, &c.

Marriage.

(From Edwina, the Huntress, a Poem.)

O MARRIAGE! Powerful charm, gift all divine,
Sent from the skies, o'er life's drear waste to shine;
What splendours from thy bright tiara spring,
What graces round thy chasten'd footsteps cling!
Vengeance will surely crush the idiot land,*
That drags the sceptre from thy hallow'd hand,

* France, during the Revolution.

That dares to trample on thy holy rites,
And nuptial perfidy, unaw'd, invites.
The weeping world to thee its solace owes,
From thee derives its truest, best repose;
Not the cold compact subtle Interest twines,
Not that which pale Submission trembling signs,
Is Marriage! no! 'tis when its polish'd chain
Binds those who in each other's bosom reign;
'Tis when two minds form one ecstatic whole,
One sweetly blended wish, one sense, one soul!
This was the gift the exil'd seraph curst,
When from hell's blazing continent he burst;
Eden's full charms he saw, without a groan,
Tho' Nature there had fix'd her gorgeous throne;
Its rich ananas, and its aloes high,

Whose forms pyramidal approach'd the sky,
Its towering palms with luscious clusters crown'd,
Its shrubs, whose perfumes fill'd the region round;
Its streams pellucid, and its bowers of shade,
Its flowers, that knew to bloom, but not to fade;
Its orb, that gave the new-created day,
Night's lunar bow, that sooth'd with tender ray;
Its fields of wavy gold, its slopes of green,
By the fell fiend without a pang were seen
'Twas then fierce rancour seiz'd the demon's breast,
When, in the married pair, he felt mankind were

blest!

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ANNA SEWARD,

Born 1747, died 1809,

With whose Elegy on Cook-Monody on Andrè― Louisa -and Sonnets-the readers of poetry during the last generation were familiarly acquainted,-was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Seward, Rector of Eyam in Derbyshire, Prebendary of Salisbury, and Canon Residentiary of Litchfield. Her passion for poetry, which shewed itself in childhood, her father at first encouraged; but her mother being greatly alarmed lest their daughter should turn out a literary lady, he afterwards ceased to countenance it. When Miss Seward was of an age to choose her own studies, she became a professed votary of the Muses. During almost her whole life, she resided at Litchfield.

That the poems of Anna Seward, which are now forgotten,

should have excited much contemporary admiration, need not surprize us, if we consider that they were published at a period when Hayley's Triumphs of Temper was esteemed a work of first-rate ability. By this remark, however, I do not mean to insinuate that her writings scarcely rise above mediocrity. She was endowed with considerable genius, and with an ample portion of that fine enthusiasm, which sometimes may be mistaken for it; but her taste was far from good, and her numerous productions (a few excepted) are disfigured by florid ornament and elaborate magni

ficence. The pieces which she has addressed to her beloved Honora, and her allusions to that interesting creature, scattered through various poems, are full of sensibility and amiable feelings.

The Anniversary.

Written June 1769.

An, lovely Litchfield! that so long hast shone
In blended charms, peculiarly thine own;
Stately, yet rural; thro' thy choral day,
Tho' shady, cheerful, and tho' quiet, gay;
How interesting, how lov'd, from year to year,
How more than beauteous did thy scenes appear!
Still, as the mild Spring chas'd the wintry gloom,
Devolv'd her leaves, and wak'd her rich perfume,
Thou, with thy fields and groves around thee
spread,

Lift'st, in unlessen'd grace, thy spiry head;

But many a lov'd inhabitant of thine

Sleeps where no vernal sun will ever shine.

Why fled ye all so fast, ye happy hours, That saw Honora's* eyes adorn these bowers?

* Honora Sneyd, the object of Major Andrè's attachment, afterwards Mrs. Edgeworth.-EDITOR.

These darling bowers, that much she lov❜d to hail, The spires, she called "the Ladies of the Vale!"

Fairest, and best!-Oh! can I e'er forget To thy dear kindness my eternal debt? Life's opening paths how tenderly it smooth'd, The joys it heighten'd, and the pains it sooth'd? No, no! my heart its sacred memory bears, Bright mid the shadows of o'erwhelming years; When mists of deprivation round me roll, 'Tis the soft sunbeam of my clouded soul.

Ah, dear Honora! that remember'd day, First on these eyes when shone thy early ray! Scarce o'er my head twice seven gay springs had

gone,

Scarce five o'er thy unconscious childhood flown,
When, fair as their young flowers, thy infant frame
To our glad walls an happy inmate came.
O summer morning of unrivall'd light!
Fate wrapt thy rising in prophetic white!
June, the bright month, when Nature joys to wear
The livery of the gay, consummate year,
Gave that envermeil'd day-spring all her powers,
Gemm'd the light leaves, and glow'd upon the

flowers;

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