[169] Mrs Thomas, “Curll’s Corinna,” well known as a hack authoress some years after this period, was now commencing her career. She was daughter of Emanuel Thomas, of the Inner Temple, barrister. Her person, as well as her writings, seems to have been dedicated to the service of the public. The story of her having obtained a parcel of Pope’s letters, written in youth, from Henry Cromwell, to whom they were addressed, and selling them to Curll the bookseller, is well known. In that celebrated collection, 2d Vol. 8vo. 1735, the following letters from Dryden also appear. It would seem Corinna had contrived to hook an acquaintance upon the good-natured poet, by the old pretext of sending him two poems for his opinion. She afterwards kept up some communication with his family, which she made the ground of two marvellous stories, one concerning the astrological predictions of the poet, the other respecting the mode of his funeral. [170] “A Pastoral Elegy to the Memory of the Hon. Cecilia Bew,” published afterwards in the Poems of Mrs Thomas, 8vo. 1727. [171] Mrs Catharine Philips, a poetess of the last age. See Vol. XI, p. 111. [172] She lived with her mother, Mrs Elizabeth Thomas, (as we learn from Curll,) in Dyot-street, St Giles’s; but in the first edition of the letter, for the greater honour, she represents it as addressed to herself at Great Russell-street, Bloomsbury. [173] In this lively romance, written to ridicule the doctrines of Rosicrucian philosophy, we are informed, that the Nymphs of water, air, earth, and fire, are anxious to connect themselves with the sages of the human race. I remember nothing about their wish to be baptized; but that desire was extremely strong among the fays, or female genii, of the North, who were anxious to demand it for the children they had by human fathers, as the means of securing to them that immortality which they themselves wanted. Einar Godmund, an ancient priest, informed the learned Torfæus, that they often solicited this favour, (usually in vain,) and were exceedingly incensed at the refusal. He gave an instance of Siward Fostre, who had promised to one of these fays, that if she bore him a child, he would cause it to be christened. In due time she appeared, and laid the child on the wall of the church-yard, with a chalice of gold and a rich cope, as an offering at the ceremony. But Siward, ashamed of his extraordinary intrigue, refused to acknowledge the child, which, therefore, remained unbaptized. The incensed mother re-appeared and carried off the infant and the chalice, leaving behind the cope, fragments of which were still preserved. But she failed not to inflict upon Siward and his descendants, to the ninth generation, a peculiar disorder, with which they were long afflicted. Other stories to the same purpose are told by Torfæus in his preface to the “History of Hrolf Kraka,” 12mo. 1715. I suppose, however, that Dryden only recollected the practice of magicians, who, on invoking