THE MOON. Lo, yonder rides the empress of the night! But it was not till she was about twelve years of age, that her poems exhibited that simplicity and beauty, that morning freshness, which is their chief characteristic. She was at this time conversant with all the English poets; she had studied sacred and profane history, and some of the novels of the day were familiar to her; yet it was only those which in any way depicted life that she enjoyed. Romances, in spite of her imaginative mind, she rejected, as being too unreal. Sometimes, even in the midst of her family, she had the power of absorbing herself in her own thoughts, and would occasionally even commit them to paper, standing at the table whilst thus engaged, and altogether heedless of the merry converse carried on around her; but when she composed her longer and more complicated poems, she retired to her chamber; and from her mother we have a graphic description of her whilst thus engaged:-"I entered her room," she Says; "she was sitting with scarcely light enough to discern the characters she was tracing; her Æolian harp was in the window, touched by a breeze just sufficient to rouse the spirit of harmony; her comb had fallen on the floor, and her long, dark ringlets hung in rich profusion over her neck and shoulders; her cheeks glowed with animation; her lips were half unclosed; her full, dark eye was radiant with the light of genius, and beaming with sensibility; her head rested on her left hand, while she held her pen in her right. She looked like the inhabitant of another sphere. She was so wholly absorbed, that she did not observe my entrance; I looked over her shoulder, and read some spirited lines to her Æolian harp." The retiring modesty which had been peculiar to her from infancy, now deepened into a painfully nervous reserve; a word from a stranger would send the rosy flood of excitement into her cheeks, and the admiration won, against her will, by her very lovely face, was distressing to her. Yet she greatly enjoyed a dance, and as she was only fourteen when she went to her first ball, she took the buoyant spirit of the child into the etiquette of the large assembly, and bounded with the gladsome smile, in which there was no heaviness, through the mazes of the quadrille. Then she returned to her studies; and though she had been the brilliant star of the evening, she was ignorant of it; or if at the time she had been conscious of winning any admiration, she was soon occupied with other feelings, as appears from some lines she wrote shortly after this festal party, to another star than her own sweet face, even the star of liberty: And as he swept the fields of air, Upon its breast the star he placed- Bright and more bright the meteor blazed; The star shines brightly to this day And this was written by a mere school-girla child! If an absence of art is observable in her effusions at this time, it is more than compensated for by the genuine inspiration which pervades them. At a time when other girls are in the nursery, conning Goldsmith's history, or pouring over Magnall's questions, she had made acquaintance with the spirit of liberty, and was praising independence and valor. There is a lack of care with regard to metre, a childish impetuosity of feeling in her productions, but the stream of thought rolls on in beautiful simplicity; and if, in diction and style, it sometimes overflows the boundaries of correct writing, in spite of these irregularities we are compelled to own that the name of the river is Genius. The birth of an infant sister was at this time a great source of delight to Lucretia. The influence of this love was soon evident in her lays. It infused into them a gentle tenderness, a quiet sort of enthusiasm, earnest, and truthful, and sincere. Never was Lucretia happier, than when the baby MARGARET was intrusted to her care; and with her slumbering on her knee, as she sat by her mother's bedside, she thus wrote: May Hope her anchor lend amidst the storm, To each rude whirlwind softly whisper cease! When she was about fifteen, she was sent to the Troy Seminary, where she studied so diligently to prepare herself for examination, that her health was impaired by the exertion. To her easily excited mind the dread of failure at such a time was most harassing. Her cheek grew pale and her smile languid, but she persevered to the last. "I shall rise between two and four now, every morning," she says, in a letter to her mother, "till the dreaded day is past;" and in the midst of all this anxiety she thus playfully writes: sons. During the spring vacation she returned home, and was the same affectionate creature as ever, full of sweet fancies and gentle thoughts, but delicate as the frailest flower of spring. She was more reserved than ever, and of the admiration which forced itself on her notice, in presents of bouquets from some gentlemen, and honeyed words of softest tone from others, she spoke gratefully but carelessly. Once, after some very marked attention, she observed to her mother, with a mingled look of gravity and mirth, that she must never be married, having devoted herself to the Muses; and then, with that sort of innate perception which is the gift of genius, she wrote a short Woman's Love." A few lines poem called will reveal its nature: 66 But her anxious father, who was a physi- | the theatre, and expressed her feelings about cian, could no longer be deceived. The hec- the drama with all the impetuosity of youthtic flush deepened on her cheeks, the poetic ful delight. But disease was making sure fire gleamed more brightly in her eyes, and though silent progress. She lost all appebeautiful as a poet's imagining was his fair tite; debility increased, and with it an intense young daughter. Dr. Davidson knew that yearning for home. To her mother she at consumption often wore a robe so beautiful, length returned, and the atmosphere of love that it is difficult to believe it infolds a vic- seemed, for a time, to reanimate her sinking tim marked for death. frame. Whilst at school, she composed "Amir Khan," the longest of her poems. There is a healthful energy pervading the whole of this production, which proves that its author was but at the commencement of her course; there is irregularity, but not monotony; and we feel as we read that in the very melancholy there is not the shadow of evening, but the twilight of the morning. A placid beauty is discoverable in some passages, which makes us forget that their author had only seen some fourteen summers :— An insensible melancholy now mingled with the spirit of her song, which was more felt than heard, like the summer rain which has fallen so noiselessly, that we only perceive where it has been by the moistened grass. Notwithstanding this sadness, there was the same freshness in her writings. How sparkling are the following lines: I have seen the fair spring, I have heard her sweet song, As she passed in her lightness and freshness along; The blue main rolled deeper, the moss-crest looked bright, As she breathed o'er the regions of darkness and night! And yet, it was undoubtedly in a great measure youth, and youth invested with an extraordinary loveliness, which, in its relationship to her writings, caused many to read them with delight. Whilst we own that there is poetry in the hastily-written sonnet, and fully appreciate the tenderness of feeling, that genuine sunlight which ever irradiates all on which it falls, we must confess, that if a plain-looking woman, with the maturity of thirty years on her brow, had been the author of some of Lucretia's compositions, we should have felt but little interest in them. It is the bud thus unexpectedly unfolding which causes us to stop and say, how beautiful! We remember a rose-tree at our childhood's home; it was early spring-time, when the playful breezes had not yet received their gifts of balm; it was the time of the new leaf, and crisply-rolled bud; all at once, a rose unfolded; it was alone, and we prized it; its appearance was unexpected, and we gave it a cordial welcome; summer was not there to breathe on it her warm caress, and we pitied the blossom, that by premature expansion had, as it were, unconsciously wooed danger, and whilst we pitied, we loved it more. If the zephyrs playing around that flower could have moulded themselves into language, they would have breathed Lucretia's name. For the benefit of her health, she was sent to another school at Albany. She went to Her love of the beautiful increased, and then, whilst trembling at its own excess, breathed itself forth in varied numbers of touching and melancholy song. There was a tenderness in her manner, as she embraced her infant sister, strangely contrasting with the playful glee in which, a few months before, she had gambolled with her little plaything, and her sorrowful mother could interpret its meaning "we must soon part." Personifying death in one of her poems at this time, she thus expresses herself:- I stay not to gather the lone one to earth, I spare not the young in their gay dance of mirth; Her mind, as if conscious of its own short destiny on earth, rapidly developed. That sylph-like and beautiful girl, in all the trusting innocence of childhood, seemed mysteriously to obtain a knowledge of human nature; and we wonder to find her Muse fraught with the experience of a worldbeaten man. For he was sin's own son, and all that e'er There was a calm, contemptuous, biting sneer She was loath to leave this glad world, but her faith was steadfast to the end, and she faded as the star that "hides itself in heaven's own light." In her own language we may say:— She was a being formed to love and bless, MARGARET'S short life can be but a simple and brief record of love, and genius, and death. She was only two years old when her sister Lucretia died, but she mourned her loss; for though death was not altogether intelligible to her infant mind, she perceived "the seat left void, the missing smile," and for a short time there was an expression of sadness on her baby lips which attracted the attention of strangers. But this soon passed away, and Margaret became noted for the elasticity and buoyancy of her step; indeed, she was the very embodiment of glee in her father's house. That she still kept as precious thoughts, deep in her little heart, tender memories of Lucretia, is evident from the following circumstance:-One evening, when scarcely five years of age, Margaret bounded into the drawing-room, where her mother was conversing with a lady. "Whither are you flying now, Margaret ?" said the visitor. "To heaven," replied the child, pointing upwards, "to meet my sister Lucretia, when I get my new wings." "Your new wings," said the lady; "when will you get them?" "Oh, very soon," exclaimed the child, "and then I shall fly." For a moment a starlight radiance of holy thought, far beyond her infant years, beamed in her dark eyes; she seemed as if in communion with more perfected natures than ours, and then again she became the playful child. Only her most trivial recreations were ever pursued with an earnestness seldom attaching itself to those thoughtsome lines to her sister's memory. less years. Before she was eleven, she wrote Her education was carried on under a tender mother's care, for Margaret was so delicate that her parents feared to send her to school. During those happy mornings, she generally reclined on the sofa in her mother's boudoir, or sat by her side at the fire, imbibing knowledge with an eagerness which would not be repressed; and during the afternoons, she would wander on the banks of her own dear river, sometimes playing with wild flowers, and unconsciously, as she did so, expressing herself in metre. Once, during a sudden thunderstorm, she ran in extreme terror to her mother, and throwing herself on that dear parent's bosom, gained courage from that sanctuary to turn round and look on the tempest. In sudden inspiration she exclaimed:: The lightning plays along the sky, I hear methinks I see His form; There was no doubt that Margaret was following in Lucretia's steps. She had the same vivid fancy and poetical imagination. She revelled in fictitious narrative, often ingeniously wrought from passing events, and her childish tales, composed extemporaneously for the amusement of her young friends, called forth the admiration of those qualified to judge of their merit. With the development of her mind her delicacy of health became proportionably apparent. As the brightness of intellect increasingly irradiated her face, there was blended with it that indefinable expression which carried conviction to every discerning mind, that a spirit like hers could not long remain on earth. Her parents had their dark forebodings of her fate, but they did not reveal their fears to each other, each dreading that, in utterance, they might attain a greater degree of certainty. She, too, by increasing | While the emerald turf on the gracefull hill weakness, was reminded of her sister's early summons to the grave, and felt that she, perhaps, held life by as frail a tenure; and though, in accordance with the sanguine nature of youth, she hoped even against hope, her laughter mellowed into sadness, and her smile was so characterized by melancholy that it was sometimes as expressive of sorrow as her tears. Her affection for her mother was of that earnest nature which is woven of genius as well as love. Sometimes, when at this dear parent's side, Margaret forgot the graver thoughts with which she communed; and then her merry laughter, thrilling joy-breathed the fragrance of poetic thought; ously through the room, would seem to re buke her mother's fears. Margaret was fond of history; yet she prized it more as affording food for poetry than as amusement. Of Addison she spoke with love, of Shakspeare, with enthusiasm. She studied Blair, Paley, and other writers of equal note, and she made no inconsiderable progress in Greek and Latin. At a very early age she was influenced by religious thoughts, and felt that, though she might hide her faults from man, every secret motive lay open to her God. As she approached the fairy barrier which separates the child from the assumed a poems deeper character, and displayed that insight into human nature which, by a spirit like hers, is received as the gift, not of experience but inspiration. woman, her Over her short prose tale of "Melanie" is and though the style is gorgeous, and betrays a lack of literary discipline, there is something pleasing in its very freedom. Many sweet pieces she addressed to her mother, too sacredly connected with home to be published; but now anxiety began to mingle with her melancholy. There was a tremulousness in her manner which seemed to say that hope had grown weary in her youthful heart; after her Muse had been more than usually silent, she thus addressed herself to the one so tenderly loved :— But mother, now a shade hath passed The sparkling fount has died within! About this time a little change was recomAnd then, days of weariness and nights of mended as beneficial for Margaret, and she accompanied her mother to New York, where pain were appointed to Margaret, for death was struggling with life and love, Childlike she spent some months. She was all anima- and obedient to the last, the beautiful young tion, the delight of young friends, composing sufferer lay on the couch of languishing, dramas which were acted in the drawing-shedding those parting looks of tenderness room, and pursuing poetry with that fervor of excitement which became dangerous to one so delicately constituted. Gradually, the melancholy expression of her face became more visible than ever; yet her Muse was perhaps at this time in the plenitude of its power. In one of her longer poems, Erstein is the encouraging lover, and thus addresses him self to Leonore : "Leonore," said Erstein, "Leonore, behold, How the storm of the midnight has glided away, on her mother which the heart may conceive, but which the pen cannot describe. She died in her mother's embrace, on that dear bosom which had so often been her pillow, giving token, almost to the last, by looks of unutterable love, of that earnest affection which had so strongly characterized her through life. The small grave-yard at the little village of Saatagu is the resting-place of this lovely and gifted girl. But her memory has not passed away, for-if not Fame Love keeps its vigil over her slumbers, and there are homes in America where the tear This lovely bud, so young, so fair, |