With the unfortunate votaries of letters she sincerely sympathised, and not unfrequently has been known to divide the profits of her genius with the less successful or less favoured disciples of the muse. The productions of Mrs. Robinson, both in prose and verse, are numerous, and of various degrees of merit; but to poetry the native impulse of her genius appears to have been more peculiarly directed. Of the glitter and false taste exhibited in the Della Crusca correspondence[54] she became early sensible; several of her poems breathe a spirit of just sentiment and simple elegance. JANE, DUCHESS OF GORDON A PASTORAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON BY PETER PINDAR Farewell to the nymph of my heart! Farewell to the cottage and vine! From these, with a tear, I depart, Where pleasure so often was mine. Remembrance shall dwell on her smile, And dwell on her lute and her song; That sweetly my hours to beguile, Oft echoed the valleys along. Once more the fair scene let me view, The grotto, the brook, and the grove. Dear valleys, for ever adieu! Adieu to the daughter of Love! JANE, DUTCHESS OF GORDON "Few women," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, "have performed a more conspicuous part, or occupied a higher place on the public theatre of fashion, politics, and dissipation, than the Duchess of Gordon." Jane, afterward Duchess of Gordon, the rival in beauty and talent to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was born in Wigtonshire, in Scotland. Her father, Sir William Maxwell of Monreith (anciently Mureith), represented one of the numerous families who branched off from the original stock--Herbert of Caerlaverock, first Lord Maxwell, the ancestor of the famous Earl of Nithsdale, whose countess, Winifred, played so noble a part when her husband was in prison during the Jacobite insurrection. From this honourable house descended, in our time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour, and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In 1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch as by the Germans. Sir William, the father of the Duchess of Gordon, married Magdalene, the daughter of William Blair, of Blair, and had by her six children,--three sons and three daughters,--of whom the youngest but one was Jane, the subject of this memoir.