In Lucy Sheldon’s Commonplace Book, where we find but one date, September 12, 1811, there are selections from “Christian Morals,” Hannah More, Montgomery, Milton, Pope, Young, Miss Porter, Scott, Sir John Suckling, Sheridan, Thomas Moore, Burns, Stewart, Swift, Burke, Doctor Johnson, Goldsmith, Shakespeare, Cowper, Thompson, Chesterfield, Shenstone, Dryden, Ossian, Bolingbroke, Grattan, Anthony Pasquin, Savage, Curran, The Spectator, Dean Kirwan, Blair, Doctor Cotton, John Howard Payne, Mrs. Opie. [_Acrostic written to Miss Sheldon, by John Pierpont._] A CHARACTER. Like the valley’s soft lily sweet modesty’s flow’r, Under virtues mild care L—— days happy flow, Cupids bow shines resplendent & graces her bow’r, Youth, Science and Beauty rejoice on her brow. · · · · · Lucy, how emmulous is each To swell your treasury by a mite! Here poets sing, here sages teach, And wits here sparkle, in your sight. Each hand assiduous, culls a flow’r, To blush in your Pierian wreath, And o’er your brow in musing hour, The sweets of Poesy to breath. And why with emulative zeal, This garland, do we thus entwine? ’Tis for the fair whose soul can feel, Whose taste can relish, lays divine ’Tis for the fair, whose modest eye, Approves when beams of Genius shine, The poets sing, that lovers sigh, And we this garland thus entwine. JOHN PIERPONT. Judge Tapping Reeve writes: When my Lucy calls to mind the unnumbered blessings which God her Maker & Redeemer bestows upon her midst the comforts of this life, born & educated in a land where the pure precepts of the blessed gospel are constantly inculcated, will she not adopt with gratitude the language of the poet “My days unclouded as they pass “And every gentle rolling hour “Are monuments of wondrous grace “And witness to thy love & power. If the opportunities afforded to her for the acquisition of whatever is valuable & ornamental are improved for the purposes of elevatedness of heart to God, they will indeed be blessings, the language of her heart will be “_thy will be done_,” the poets language will accord with her feelings “Seal my forgiveness, in the blood “Of Jesus his dear name alone “I plead for pardon gracious God “And kind acceptance at thy throne. Judge James Gould quotes a passage from Pope’s Iliad; Mrs. Elizabeth (Burr) Reeve quotes verses; Miss C. A. Austin quotes from Fessenden: