Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/128

 112 . Her "Louisa; a Poetical Novel in four Epistles," was favourably noticed; Dr. Johnson praised her ode on the death of Captain Cook; and no contributor to the Bath Easton vase received more myrtle wreaths than she did. "Warble" was the word commonly used by partial critics in extolling her verse. "Long may she continue to warble as heretofore, in such numbers as few even of our favourite bards would be shy to own." Scott sorrowfully admitted to Miss Baillie that he found these warblings—of which he was the reluctant editor—"execrable"; and that the despair which filled his soul on receiving Miss Seward's letters gave him a lifelong horror of sentiment; but for once it is impossible to sympathize with Sir Walter's sufferings. If he had never praised the verses, he would never have been called upon to edit them; and James Ballantyne would have been saved the printing of an unsalable book. There is no lie so little worth the telling as that which is spoken in pure kindness to spare a wholesome pang.

It was, however, the pleasant custom of the time to commend and encourage female poets, as