Page:Poetical Remains.pdf/11

Rh

whose acquirements were of a high order. Here also it was, that Mrs Hemans received those impressions of the sublime and lovely in the features of the external world, which ever afterwards lent a colouring to her feelings, and exercised so marked an influence on the tone of her mind and writings.

Under these fostering influences, the peculiar bias of her imagination and intellect began to develope itself at an early period of childhood. While yet only in her sixth year, she took to the reading of Shakspeare as her favourite recreation, and, such was the retentiveness of her memory, that she could repeat pages of his most striking scenes, as well as many passages from our best poets, after little more than a single perusal. The circumstance is certainly not a unique one, but, in her case, is a proof of the intense delight, which her mind enjoyed while imbibing the beautiful and grand in sentiment,—impressions so instantaneously stamped shewing their depth by their durability.