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xii

Such a prevailing love of poetry soon naturally turned to a cultivation of the art in her own person; and a volume of verses, written by her, when she was not yet eleven years old, attracted from that circumstance, as well as from their intrinsic merit, no inconsiderable share of public attention. This little volume was, in the course of the four succeeding years, followed by two others, which evinced powers gradually but steadily expanding, and which were received with increasing favour by the admirers of poetry. Her studies, up to this time, had been the world to her; with nature and her books she had lived in devoted seclusion, dreaming bright dreams; storing up knowledge; and, no doubt, enjoying by occasional anticipation, glimpses of that reputation, which was eventually to encircle her name. But a change soon passed over the spirit of that Elysian picture; and, in her nineteenth year, she was married to Captain Hemans, of the Fourth Regiment, a gentleman of highly respectable