Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/131

 Rh gentle and affectionate nature, the narrowness of her sympathies, and the limitations of her art were all equally acceptable to critics like Gifford and Jeffrey, who held strict views as to the rounding of a woman's circle. Even Byron heartily approved of a pious and pretty woman writing pious and pretty poems. Even Wordsworth flung her lordly words of praise. Even Shelley wrote her letters so eager and ardent that her very sensible mamma, Mrs. Browne, requested him to cease. And as for Scott, though he confessed she was too poetical for his taste, he gave her always the honest friendship she deserved. It was to her he said, when some tourists left them hurriedly at Newark Tower: "Ah, Mrs. Hemans, they little know what two lions they are running away from." It was to her he said, when she was leaving Abbotsford: "There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are of this number."

Who would not gladly have written "The Siege of Valencia" and "The Vespers of Palermo," to have heard Sir Walter say these words?