LETTER I. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. &c. &c. MY DEAR SIR, Vicarage, Tavistock, Devon, FROM the kind interest you have taken in behalf of Mary Colling, I am induced to give you in this letter a more detailed account of her than I have yet been able to do in my former communications. After she sent her little poems to me, I heard a good deal about her from various quarters; but these accounts not always agreeing together, I determined to learn what I could from the poor girl herself. The first time I saw her, she was so agitated that I gained little intelligence; but the second, taking her into my own room, I did all I could to conciliate her feelings, and having in a great degree overcome her timidity, I obtained from her a regular account of herself, given in the most artless manner. I shall here repeat the B substance of it with every attention to fidelity. My information respecting her singular worth, her early talents, and the excellence of her character, I derived from a lady who has known her from childhood, and from the worthy gentleman in whose family she has lived for so many years. Before entering, however, on these particulars, may not be amiss to state that about four or five years since I first observed a young woman, of the humbler class, dressed exceedingly neat, and remarkable on account of the intellectual character of her countenance, who used to sit amongst several poor women immediately under the reading desk of Tavistock church. it I was induced to enquire who she was, and learned that her name was Mary Colling, that she was a servant in a gentleman's family in the place, a clever girl, and fond of poetry. Some time after, I observed she was removed from where I first saw her, and usually took her seat in the pew near our own (belonging to the family in which she lived), where her expressive features and her decorous behaviour, always made me look upon her with peculiar interest: it was not, however, till the 4th of March, 1831, that I became fully aware of her remarkable talents; since on that day I first received from her, through the hands of one of my own servants, a small parcel, containing a few of her poems, with a request, very modestly preferred, that I would be kind enough to look over them at my leisure, and say what I thought of them. Having stated these few circumstances, I now proceed to mention others of more, I think, than ordinary interest respecting her. Mary Maria Colling, the daughter of Edmund Colling, husbandman, by his wife Anne, was born at Tavistock, August the 20th, 1805. In her childhood, she was sent to school to an old woman; not so much to learn any thing, as to be kept out of the way. But little Mary was not to be so neglected, for hearing others taught to read, she had a wish to learn also; and her school-mistress finding she made no progress either in sewing or knitting, undertook the task, more congenial to her pupil, of initiating her into a knowledge of the alphabet and the first rudiments of learning. These she speedily acquired; and being possessed of Watts's Hymns, and a sixpenny book that had in it sundry little stories, with some few pieces in verse, she soon became so perfectly well acquainted with their contents, that she knew both books, from beginning to end, by heart; not, however, making the good old woman fully acquainted with the tenacity of her memory in thus storing itself with what then constituted her whole range of knowledge: so that when her mistress, on account of her negligence with the needle, would sometimes keep her in, after school hours, as a punishment, Mary often managed to soften her displeasure and to gain her own liberty, by repeating something, with the utmost exactness, out of the sixpenny book in which she was set her daily lessons. Before she was five years old, she could read well enough to entertain her grandmother, who was very fond of her. At ten years of age, she was entered at the free school as a pupil to learn needle-work: there however, some kind ladies Miss Mary Beauford and Miss Charlotte Bedford- became friends to her, and taught her to read perfectly well, which she could not do till then, though she could write a little before, but can scarcely tell how she learnt to do so. At this school, likewise, she received small praise for sewing, but she wrote from copies, and was considered the spelling wonder amongst the children. Her memory also was surprising; she could repeat any thing by heart with scarcely more trouble than that of reading it over. However her schooling amounted to very little, for her object there having been to learn needlework, she rarely went upon writing days, and her mother also, being repeatedly ill, and having a young family, Mary was obliged to stay at home and nurse her brothers and sisters for weeks together. When about thirteen years old, she entirely quitted the school; and at this period a beautiful incident occurred in her life. I wish, I wish, in repeat ing it, I could convey to you any idea of the feeling manner with which she related it to me. "It grieved her heart," she said, "to see that her father could neither write nor read, for his Bible could not speak to him; and so she taught him both, herself, before she went to place." On hearing this account of her teaching her father to write and read the latter that he might be enabled to read his Bible Mr. Bray remarked that she was not less deserving praise for her filial piety than the Roman daughter who fed her father from her breast; the latter sustained her parent by supplying food for the body, the former gave her father the means of finding it for the mind, and of sustaining his spirit with the bread of life-the word of God. And I may here remark that Miss Charlotte Bedford was first induced to notice her on account of finding |