sea, and amongst mountains, with Welsh harpers and Welsh traditions, and great store of books, and the little girl ranging at will through all. This, and the picture we have of the young student conning her Shakspeare, her choicest recreation, "in a secret haunt of her own--a seat amongst the branches of an old apple-tree--where she revelled in the treasures of the cherished volume"--are all we learn of her childhood, and all perhaps that remained to tell. Our poetess was very soon in print. Few have commenced their life of authorship so early. In 1808 some friends, "perhaps more partial than judicious," published a collection of her poems, written at and before the age of fourteen, in a quarto volume. "Its appearance" our fair biographer tells us, "drew down the animadversions of some _self-constituted_ arbiter of taste." We never heard of any critics being constituted by royal patent, or any mode of popular election--certainly not by a committee of authors. Self-constituted! why did not the lady call him a self-conceited knave, while she was about it? Just or unjust, there would have been some meaning in the phrase, at least. We suspect, for our part, that these friends, "more partial than judicious," who published the rhymes of a young girl of fourteen in a quarto volume, were themselves strangely constituted arbiters of taste. Not long after this first publication of her poems, the next great event of her life took place--her introduction to Captain Hemans. "The young poetess was then only fifteen, in the full glow of that radiant beauty which was destined to fade so early. The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets, of a rich golden brown; and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible for any painter to do justice to it." No wonder that so fair a being should excite the admiration of a gallant captain. And the love on both sides was ardent and sincere: it supported the absence of three years; for Captain Hemans, soon after their introduction, was called upon to embark with his regiment for Spain. On his return, in 1812, they were married. Of their domestic happiness, or unhappiness, nothing is said; but six years after, in 1818, we are simply told that the Captain went to Rome--and never returned. The separated pair never met again. "To dwell on this subject," says her biographer, "would be unnecessarily painful; yet it must be stated, that nothing like a permanent separation was contemplated at the time, nor did it ever amount to more than a tacit conventional arrangement, which offered no obstacle to the frequent interchange of correspondence, nor to a constant reference to their father in all things relating to the disposal of her boys. But years rolled on--seventeen years of absence, and consequently alienation; and from this time to the hour of her death, Mrs Hemans and her husband never met again."