Among the shorter poems was one upon the death of Sir John Moore, written on February 7th, 1809, eight years before the appearance of Wolfe’s well-known poem. It does not equal that poem in merit; but the following lines, which close the dirge, seem to us to bear the true ring of poetry:— “No tawdry ‘scutcheons hang around thy tomb, No hired mourners wave the sabled plume, No statues rise to mark the sacred spot, No pealing organ swells the solemn note. A hurried grave thy soldiers’ hands prepare— Thy soldiers’ hands the mournful burthen bear; The vaulted sky to earth’s extremest verge Thy canopy; the cannon’s roar thy dirge.” Mary was only twenty-one years of age when she wrote these lines, and there is another poem belonging to the same period that is worthy of quotation entitled “Westminster Abbey.” When viewing the tombs in Poets’ Corner she writes:— “The brightest union Genius wrought Was Garrick’s voice and Shakespeare’s thought.” About this same time Miss Mitford wrote a narrative poem entitled “Christina” which had good success, especially in America, where it passed through several editions. Coleridge’s prophecy that the author of “Blanche” would write a tragedy was fulfilled eventually, but in the meantime her taste for the drama, stimulated when a school-girl by Molière’s inimitable plays, was now being further developed. “Every third year,” writes Mary, “a noble form of tragedy, one with which women are seldom brought in contact, fell in my way. Dr. Valpy, the master of Reading School ... had wisely substituted the representation of one of the stern Greek plays [given in the original language] for the speeches and recitations formerly delivered before the heads of certain colleges of Oxford at their triennial visitations.”[5] [Footnote 5: Dr. Valpy was thus the pioneer of an important movement to be adopted in later years by our great Universities.] “Many of the old pupils will remember the effect of these performances, complete in scenery, dresses and decorations, and remarkable for the effect produced, not only on the actors, but on an audience, of which a considerable portion was new alike to the language and the subject. It is no offence to impute such ignorance to the mayor and aldermen of that day who in their furred gowns formed part of the official visitors, or to the mammas and sisters of the performers, who might plead the privilege of sex for their want of learning.” [Illustration: DR. VALPY’S SCHOOL]