The Widow's Cottage--Blind Ellen one--Hers not the Sorrows or Adventures of Heroines--What these are, first described--Deserted Wives; rash Lovers; courageous Damsels: in desolated Mansions; in grievous Perplexity--These Evils, however severe, of short Duration- -Ellen's Story--Her Employment in Childhood--First Love; first Adventure; its miserable Termination--An Idiot Daughter--A Husband-- Care in Business without Success--The Man's Despondency and its Effect--Their Children: how disposed of--One particularly unfortunate--Fate of the Daughter - Ellen keeps a School and is happy--becomes Blind; loses her School--Her Consolations. OBSERVE yon tenement, apart and small, Where the wet pebbles shine upon the wall; Where the low benches lean beside the door, And the red paling bounds the space before; Where thrift and lavender, and lad's-love bloom, - That humble dwelling is the widow's home; There live a pair, for various fortunes known, But the blind EUen will relate her own; - Yet ere we hear the story she can tell, On prouder sorrows let us briefly dwell. I've often marvell'd, when, by night, by day, I've mark'd the manners moving in my way, And heard the language and beheld the lives Of lass and lover, goddesses and wives, That books, which promise much of life to give, Should show so little how we truly live. To me, it seems, their females and their men Are but the creatures of the author's pen; Nay, creatures borrow'd and again convey'd From book to book--the shadows of a shade: Life, if they'd search, would show them many a change; The ruin sudden, and the misery strange! With more of grievous, base, and dreadful things, Than novelists relate or poet sings: But they, who ought to look the world around, Spy out a single spot in fairy-ground; Where all, in turn, ideal forms behold, And plots are laid and histories are told. Time have I lent--I would their debt were less - To flow'ry pages of sublime distress; And to the heroine's soul-distracting fears I early gave my sixpences and tears: Oft have I travell'd in these tender tales, To Darnley-Cottages and Maple-Vales, And watch'd the fair-one from the first-born sigh, When Henry pass'd and gazed in passing by; Till I beheld them pacing in the park Close by a coppice where 'twas cold and dark; When such affection with such fate appear'd, Want and a father to be shunn'd and fear'd, Without employment, prospect, cot, or cash; That I have judged th' heroic souls were rash. Now shifts the scene,--the fair in tower confined, In all things suffers but in change of mind; Now woo'd by greatness to a bed of state, Now deeply threaten'd with a dungeon's grate; Till, suffering much, and being tried enough, She shines, triumphant maid!--temptation-proof. Then was I led to vengeful monks, who mix With nymphs and swains, and play unpriestly tricks; Then view'd banditti who in forest wide, And cavern vast, indignant virgins hide; Who, hemm'd with bands of sturdiest rogues about,