Mistress Anne Killigrew, as the virgin poetess and paintress was called, after the fashion of the time, was, like so many others of her family, attached to the Court. She was Maid of Honour to the Duchess of York; and, even in those loose days, was unspotted by the contaminating influences amongst which she found herself. One other taint, however, she did not escape--the contagion of small-pox, of which horrible malady this 'cynosure' died at her father's prebendal house in the Cloister of Westminster Abbey, on the 16th June, 1685, in the twenty-fifth year of her age.[93] To her 'Poems,' now a rare book--a thin quarto, which appeared shortly after her death--are prefixed Dryden's ode, and the mezzotint by Becket, after her portrait of herself. Sir Peter Lely also painted her likeness. It has already been said that none of her paintings remain; but of her poetical powers we may still judge from the following extracts. They will, of course, fall somewhat flat after the lofty lines which have just been cited; yet I venture to think that they will be found worthy of perusal. At any rate, Dryden writes, 'Thy father was transfused into thy blood, So wert thou born into a tuneful strain;' and they were at least considered at the time sufficiently good for the insinuation that they were not her own--a calumny to which the gentle Anne replied: 'UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER. * * * * * * 'Th' envious Age, only to Me alone, Will not allow, what I do write, my Own, But let 'em rage, and 'gainst a Maide Conspire, So Deathless Numbers from my Tuneful Lyre Do ever flow; so Phebus I by thee Divinely Inspired and possest may be; I willingly accept Cassandra's Fate, To speak the Truth, although believ'd too late.' The following lines also are, I venture to think, far from commonplace: 'AN ODE. 'Arise, my Dove, from midst of Pots arise, Thy sully'd Habitation leave, To Dust no longer cleave; Unworthy they of Heaven that will not view the Skies. Thy native Beauty reassume, Prune each neglected Plume Till, more than Silver white, Than burnisht Gold more bright, Thus ever ready stand to take thy Eternal Flight.' Notwithstanding her modesty, she was not without some confidence that her poetry would survive her, as it has, in fact, already done for two centuries; for thus she wrote her own epitaph: 'When I am Dead, few friends attend my Hearse; And for a Monument I leave my _Verse_;' a monument, perhaps, _ære perennium_, and which certainly remains longer than the marble cenotaph which was destroyed by the fire in the Savoy.[94] Epitaphs, indeed, seem to have had a charm for her, as if she had a foreboding of her early death; and the following lines in praise of Mrs. Phillips may serve for a fair description of herself, and as a finish to these extracts from her compositions: