The fond mistake she soon remov'd,
And chased the hopes I long had lov'd.

These thoughts renew'd create a sigh,
And I with nature will comply;
The tears which now fast fall can prove,
That I remember still thy love.

Oh, yes! perhaps to thee 'tis known,
How oft I've sat and wept alone;
When there the artless tear might be,
Unseen by all save Heaven and thee.

Each word by thy fond lips express'd,
Is still the treasure of my breast;
When thy remembrance, oft renew'd,
Is by affection's tear bedew'd.

Some singularity is likewise attached to Mary Colling on her father's side.* Her paternal

The family of Colling (formerly spelt Collyn) appears to have been an ancient one in the county of Devon. In a parochial document appertaining to the church of St. Eustace, and called "The account of Thomas Boles and John Collyn, wardens of the churche of Tavystock, in the yere of our Lorde Godd one thowsande ffyve hundred ffower schore and nyne," there is the following entry in the "Receipts for

grandfather was a highly respectable yeoman, occupying on his life only (in other days a common tenure in Devon) two farms. He had eight sons. Edmund, the youngest, tne father of our poet, was a helpless infant when his father died; and his property falling with him, the family, already suffering by sundry misfortunes, were reduced to such a state of distress, that the child, Edmund, was (to repeat the words of Mr. Hughes) "left as a godsend to the parish."

At seven years old, the boy, who had been taught nothing, was bound as an apprentice to a farmer. Misfortune still pursued him; for this farmer proved to be a hard-hearted wretch, who used the lad cruelly; he had no bed to lie upon, and was so starved, that, Mary assured me, want of necessary food had often obliged her father to take potatoes out of the ground, and roast them as well as he could where they were burning bate for manure in the fields, according to the peculiar

the buryalle and bell." "Receaved for all the bells upon the death of Ewestices (Eustace) Collyn viiid." — Vide Notices of Tavistock Abbey, by A. J. Kempe, F.S.A,

From the above entry it is evident that Eustace Collyn must have been a man of some note, as he had all the bells tolled at his funeral; a custom by no means common in those days, and confined, indeed, to persons of wealth or consequence.

custom of manuring this county. Her father, I have great pleasure in saying, is a very worthy honest man, and to this day is employed as a working assistant to the parochial surveyor of highways.

I have only a few particulars to add about Mary Colling, before I take my leave. Inoffen-sive, humble, and amiable as she really is, she has, notwithstanding, been assailed by envy and malice, on account of her living so much to herself, and avoiding that sort of idle society that could never be pleasing to a mind like hers. She told me, that at one time these attacks had made her very ill; that she used to lie crying in her bed at the thoughts of them; and whilst so ill she had made up her mind to die, and then felt perfectly calm and happy. Possibly these petty attacks of envy and malice might have given birth to the following poem, which has surprised us as much as any other of her productions. When I recol

lect that the writer of it is an uneducated servant girl in a country town, who has read few books, and very little poetry; that she has mingled in no society whatever at all capable of leading or improving her taste; and that, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, there may be traced in her "Birth of Envy" a spirit which resembles that of

Gray in his Norse poetry,—I confess I am truly astonished. But here is the poem to speak for itself.

THE BIRTH OF ENVY.

'Twas midnight - and the whirlwind's yell
Had started Horror from her cell;

The beasts, appall'd, mid nature moan'd,
The ocean rav'd, the forest groan'd.

The heavens put on their blackest frown;
Each star a direful ray shot down;
When Etna, with a thundering yell,
Foam'd out on earth the hag of hell.

As through the world she swiftly glided,
The winds her snaky locks divided ;
Ten thousand hisses rent the air;
Her eagle talons wrought despair.

Fair flowers were blasted by her breath,
And she was arm'd with more than death;
For youth and age, and virtue's self,
Fell victims to the green-eyed elf.

In sulph'rous glooms she rode along ;
Flames play'd around her forky tongue;

Her canker'd breast hove with despair -
Hell's blackest curse held empire there.

Envy the scourge of earth did prove,
For Hate usurp'd the place of Love;
Dissensions rose, and dead was fame,
And Friendship dwindled to a name.

I shall be anxious to hear your opinion of the poor girl's talent that could produce such a personification of Envy as the above. Mary tells me she recollects having seen, when a child, a picture of Envy in some little book, where the genius of this evil passion was represented with snakes about her hair, and that flames were seen coming from her mouth. It made a strong impression on her youthful fancy; she never forgot it.

It is very remarkable that she should have sent to us her weakest poems first; but I think I can account for it. She is so modest, and so wholly unconscious of what she does best, that she fancied such poems as resembled what she had now and then read in a book as it came in her way, would please most; and so she sent me verses that talked about little birds and blooming sprays, &c. But the original conceptions of her strong mind and