“On July 1, 1803, Darton and Harvey wrote requesting some specimens of easy poetry for young children. The letter proceeds: ‘If something in the way of moral songs (though not songs) or short tales turned into verse, or――but I need not dictate. What would be most likely to please little minds must be well known to every one of those who have written such pieces as we have already seen from thy family,’ &c. Their father (Isaac Taylor, afterwards of Ongar) did not quite approve of the proceeding, remarking, ‘I do not want my girls to become authors.’ “The commission was undertaken by the two sisters, and, at the end of 1803, a small volume appeared, with the title, _Original Poems for Infant Minds_, by several Young Persons. The work did not consist exclusively of the Taylor contributions. Ann remarks, ‘Having written to order, we had no control over the getting out of the volumes, and should have been better pleased if contributions from other hands had been omitted.’ The sisters received five pounds for the first volume, which succeeded so well that a commission was given in November, 1804, for a second volume, for which they were paid another five pounds. It is in the first volume that ‘My Mother,’ entirely written by Ann, appears. “Jane Taylor continued to devote herself to literature until her decease, in April, 1824, at the age of forty-one. Ann married the Rev. Joseph Gilbert, in December, 1813, and withdrew from literary work for the rest of her life, except very occasionally. This is much to be regretted, as she possessed rare talents; many of the most popular poems usually ascribed to Jane having been really written by Ann. Mrs. Gilbert survived to a happy and honoured old age, and died Dec. 20, 1866, within a month of the completion of her eighty-fifth year. “Only a fortnight before her death she wrote, ‘You remember that in May last there was a discussion in the _Athenæum_ on my poem, ‘My Mother,’ which surprised everybody as an announcement and advertisement of my continued existence, so that the Post Office has gained all but a revenue from letters addressed to me, which, kindly complimentary as they are, I have, of course, had to answer.’ “The above brief notices of an estimable member of a talented family may not be without interest in connexion with the poem to which allusion has been made. “Sandyknowe, Wavertree. J. A. PICTON.”