Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/82

 Ixxviii INTRODUCTION ���worthy of the writer, though not quite so happily expressed as other parts of the poem. See pp. 234, 250, ' Whilst in the Muses' path I stray; 'p. 183 [The Shepherd and the CaZra],'The Cautious Lovers,' p. 147, has little poetic merit, but is worth reading as characteristic of the author. P. 80, ' Deep lines of honour,' etc., to ' maturer age.' P. 84 [The Change], if shortened, would be striking; p. 67 [Enquiry after Peace], characteristic; p. 57, from 'Meanwhile ye living parent,' to the close, omitting 'Nor could we hope,' and the five following verses; p. Ill, last paragraph [Oh, might I live, etc.]; p. 136 [Life's Progress], that you have; pp. 136 [Hope], 134 [Moral Song]; p. 13, was Lady W. a R. Catholic? p. 267, 'And to the clouds proclaim thy fall;' p. 269, omit 'When scatter'd glow-worms,' and the next couplet. I have no more room. Pray, excuse this vile scrawl. �In Mr. Grosart's edition Wordsworth's letter of May 10, 1830, is put before the one just quoted. That letter has, to be sure, no specific date beside the postmark, 1830, but internal evidence seems to demand that it precede the one of May 10, for Wordsworth here, as will be seen, takes up the subject just where he left it in the undated letter. He writes : �My last was, for want of room, concluded so abruptly, that I avail myself of an opportunity of sending you a few additional words, free of postage, upon the same subject. �I observed that Lady Winchelsea was unfortunate in her models Pindarics and Fables; nor does it appear from her Aristomenes that she would have been more successful than her contemporaries, if she had cultivated tragedy. She had sensibility sufficient for the tender parts of dramatic writing, but in the stormy and tumult- uous she would probably have failed altogether. She seems to have made it a moral and religious duty to control her feelings lest they should mislead her. I have often applied two lines of �her drama (p. 355) to her affections: �Love's soft bands, �His gentle cords of hyacinths and roses, Wove in the dewy Spring when storms are silent. �By the by, in the next page [11. 64-5] are two impassioned lines spoken to a person fainting: �Then let me hug and press thee into life, And lend thee motion from my beating heart. ��� �