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