"Death the righteous love to see, But from it doth the wicked flee." Then suddenly breaks off [as if with laughter],-- "I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them!" "There is a thing I love to see, That is our monkey catch a flee." "I love in Isa's bed to lie, Oh, such a joy and luxury! The bottom of the bed I sleep, And with great care within I creep; Oft I embrace her feet of lillys, But she has goton all the pillys. Her neck I never can embrace, But I do hug her feet in place." How childish and yet how strong and free is her use of words!--"I lay at the foot of the bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by continial fighting and kicking, but I was very dull, and continially at work reading the Arabian Nights, which I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate of poor, poor Emily." Here is one of her swains:-- "Very soft and white his cheeks, His hair is red, and gray his breeks; His tooth is like the daisy fair, His only fault is in his hair." This is a higher flight:-- DEDICATED TO MRS. H. CRAWFORD BY THE AUTHOR, M. F. "Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, And now this world forever leaved; Their father, and their mother too, They sigh and weep as well as you; Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched, Into eternity theire laanched. A direful death indeed they had, As wad put any parent mad; But she was more than usual calm: She did not give a single dam." This last word is saved from all sin by its tender age, not to speak of the want of the _n_. We fear "she" is the abandoned mother, in spite of her previous sighs and tears. "Isabella says when we pray we should pray fervently, and not rattel over a prayer--for that we are kneeling at the foot-stool of our Lord and Creator, who saves us from eternal damnation, and from unquestionable fire and brimston." She has a long poem on Mary Queen of Scots:-- "Queen Mary was much loved by all, Both by the great and by the small, But hark! her soul to heaven doth rise? And I suppose she has gained a prize; For I do think she would not go Into the _awful_ place below. There is a thing that I must tell-- Elizabeth went to fire and hell! He who would teach her to be civil, It must be her great friend, the divil!" She hits off Darnley well:-- "A noble's son,--a handsome lad,-- By some queer way or other, had Got quite the better of her heart; With him she always talked apart: Silly he was, but very fair; A greater buck was not found there." "By some queer way or other": is not this the general case and the mystery, young ladies and gentlemen? Goethe's doctrine of "elective affinities" discovered by our Pet Maidie! SONNET TO A MONKEY