TO A YOUNG FRIEND ON HER TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SHE IS GOING SONNETS:-- HARMONY IN UNLIKENESS WRITTEN AT CAMBRIDGE TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN THE "BLIND BOY" WORK LEISURE TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. THE GYPSY'S MALISON COMMENDATORY VERSES, ETC.:-- TO J. S. KNOWLES, ESQ., ON HIS TRAGEDY OF VIRGINIUS TO THE AUTHOR OF POEMS PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ., ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE "O LIFT WITH REVERENT HAND" THE SELF-ENCHANTED TO LOUISA M----, WHOM I USED TO CALL "MONKEY" TRANSLATIONS FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE:-- THE BALLAD-SINGERS TO DAVID COOK, OF THE PARISH OF ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, WATCHMAN ON A SEPULCHRAL STATUE OF AN INFANT SLEEPING EPITAPH ON A DOG THE RIVAL BELLS NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA THE HOUSEKEEPER ON A DEAF AND DUMB ARTIST THE FEMALE ORATORS PINDARIC ODE TO THE TREAD-MILL GOING OR GONE FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS THE WIFE'S TRIAL; OR, THE INTRUDING WIDOW. A DRAMATIC POEM ROSAMUND GRAY, ESSAYS, ETC. TO MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ. Forgive me, BURNEY, if to thee these late And hasty products of a critic pen, Thyself no common judge of books and men, In feeling of thy worth I dedicate. My _verse_ was offered to an older friend; The humbler _prose_ has fallen to thy share: Nor could I miss the occasion to declare, What spoken in thy presence must offend-- That, set aside some few caprices wild, Those humorous clouds that flit o'er brightest days, In all my threadings of this worldly maze, (And I have watched thee almost from a child), Free from self-seeking, envy, low design, I have not found a whiter soul than thine. ROSAMUND GRAY. * * * * * CHAPTER I. It was noontide. The sun was very hot. An old gentlewoman sat spinning in a little arbor at the door of her cottage. She was blind; and her granddaughter was reading the Bible to her. The old lady had just left her work, to attend to the story of Ruth. "Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her." It was a passage she could not let pass without a _comment_. The moral she drew from it was not very _new_, to be sure. The girl had heard it a hundred times before--and a hundred times more she could have heard it, without suspecting it to be tedious. Rosamund loved her grandmother. The old lady loved Rosamund too; and she had reason for so doing. Rosamund was to her at once a child and a servant. She had only _her_ left in the world. They two lived together. They had once known better days. The story of Rosamund's parents, their failure, their folly, and distresses, may be told another time. Our tale hath grief enough in it.