Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/324

310 the overflowings of her soul, nearly in the following words:

"Arise from the dust, ye bones that rest in the land where I passed my infant years. Venerable sage, reanimate thy body; and ye lips that fed me with the honey of instruction, once (more) be eloquent.

"O, thou bright shade! look down upon me from the top of Olympus. Behold! I am no longer following the cattle in the fields. Observe the circle of refined mortals who surround me, they all speak of thy niece's poems. O listen to their conversation, thy praise!

"For ever flourish the broad lime, under whose shade I was wont to cling round thy neck, full of tenderness, like a child to the best of fathers, whilst thou wast reposing thyself on the mossy seat, tired as the reaper with the fatigues of a sultry day.

"Under yon green-arched roof I used to repeat to thee twenty passages in praise of God supreme, though they were much above my comprehension; and when I asked thee the meaning of many a dark sentence in the christian's sacred records.—Good man! thou didst explain them to me.

"Like a divine in sable vest, who, from the lofty pulpit, points out the way that leads to life, so didst thou inform me of the fall of man, and the covenant of grace; and I, all raptures, snatched the words from thy lips with eager kisses.

"Thou inhabitant of some celestial sphere! behold the silent tears of joy; may they often roll down my cheeks. If thou canst speak, dear shade, tell me, didst thou ever conceive any hopes of my present fortune and honour, at a time when my eyes were successively engaged in reading, every day improving? "When