Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/43

 Rh "impudent clever" Frenchwoman would have been the least possible recommendation to Lamb. If he had known how hard had been Miss Benger's struggles, and how scanty her rewards, he might have forgiven her that sad perversity which kept her toiling in the field of letters. She had had the misfortune to be a precocious child, and had written at the age of thirteen a poem called "The Female Geniad," which was dedicated to Lady de Crespigny, and published under the patronage of that honoured dame. Youthful prodigies were then much in favour. Miss Mitford comments very sensibly upon them, being filled with pity for one Mary Anne Browne, "a fine tall girl of fourteen, and a full-fledged authoress," who was extravagantly courted and caressed one season, and cruelly ignored the next. The "Female Geniad" sealed Miss Benger's fate. When one has written a poem at thirteen, and that poem has been printed and praised, there is nothing for it but to keep on writing until Death mercifully removes the obligation.

It is needless to say that the drama—which