Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/157

 Rh he is" (the bitterness of that!), "had several parts of Milton by heart." These "she understood so well as to apply to her Mother the speech of the Elder Brother in 'Comus,' when she saw her uneasy for want of a letter from the Dean; and began of her own accord with

advice which would have exasperated a normal parent to the boxing point.

There were few normal parents left, however, at this period, to stem the tide of infantile precocity. Child study was dawning as a new and fascinating pursuit upon the English world; and the babes of Britain responded nobly to the demands made upon their incapacity. Miss Anna Seward lisped Milton at three, "recited poetical passages, with eyes brimming with delight," at five, and versified her favourite psalms at nine. Her father, who viewed these alarming symptoms with delight, was so ill-advised as to offer her, when she was ten, a whole half-crown, if she would write a poem on Spring; whereupon she "swiftly penned" twenty-five lines, which have been preserved to an ungrateful world,