The “stately names of her maternal ancestors” seem to have made an early and strong impression upon the poetess, tinging her mind at once with the spirit of romance. To this fact she would often allude half playfully, half proudly. She was accustomed to say that although the years of childhood are usually happy, her own were too visionary not to form an exception. At the epoch of her death she was meditating a work to be called “Recollections of a Poet's Childhood.”—When a child she was exceedingly beautiful: so much so as to attract universal attention. Her complexion was brilliant, her hair long and curling, and of a bright golden color. In her latter years it deepened into brown, but remained silken, profuse, and wavy to the last.—A lady once remarked in her hearing, “That child is not made for happiness I know; her color comes and goes too fast.” This remark our poetess never forgot, and she spoke of it as causing her much pain at the moment.—She took great delight, when young, in reciting aloud poems and fragments of plays. “Douglas” was an especial favorite. The scene of her rehearsals was generally an old, large, and dimly-lighted room, an old nursery, looking upon the sea. Her memory is said to have been almost supernatural.—When she was little more than five years old, her father removed his family from Liverpool to North Wales. This circumstance had great influence upon her imagination. The mansion removed to was old, solitary, and spacious, lying close to the sea shore, and shut in, in front, by a chain of rocky hills. In her last illness she frequently alluded to the atmosphere of romance which invested her here. The house bore the reputation of being haunted. On one occasion, having heard a rumor concerning a “fiery grey hound which kept watch at the end of an avenue,” she sallied forth at midnight anxious to encounter the goblin. Speaking of this period, she observed, that could she have been then able to foresee the height of reputation to which she subsequently attained, she would have experienced a far higher happiness than the reality ever occasioned. Few in similar circumstances but have thought thus without expressing it.—She was early a reader of Shakspeare, and was soon possessed with a desire of personifying his creations. Imogen and Beatrice were her favorites, neither of which characters, Mr. Chorley remarks, is “without strong points of resemblance to herself.”—A freak usual with her was to arise at night, when the whole family were asleep, and making her way to the sea shore, to indulge in a stolen bath.—She was _never at school_. “Had she been sent to one,” observes Mr. Chorley, “she would more probably have run away.” The only things she was ever regularly taught were English Grammar, French, and the rudiments of Latin. Her Latin teacher used to deplore “that she was not a man to have borne away the highest honors at college.”—Her attention was