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gratified , ii by some of the more rare and astonishing productions of genius , moral and religious feeling may at least be awakened arid confirmed , and the dear domestic charities of
life illustrated and enforced , by the sentiment arid example of the writer . The chilling blasts of poverty arid afflictron often prove as fatal to the cultivation of the heart as to the improvement of the understanding ; but the virtues of this weft-principled mind were purified and strengthened by the trials to which it was exposed . Sensibility is the common themfc , and *
if we may thus express ourselves , the very language of poetry : conscious of this , many have laboured its description , while their lives have proved them defective in those self-denying qualities by which its genuine worth is shewn ; but in the case before us ^ we have not only the evidence of the poems themselves , wfaieh strongly indicate a good and affectionate heart , but the
highly satisfactory testimony of the amiable and judicious editor of the work , whose personal knowledge of the author enabled her to ascertain the exemplariness of her conduct as a daughter , sister , wife , and mother . For the particulars of her affecting story , we must refer to the excellent Preface to the poems written by this lady .
It is further pleasing to observe , that the poetic talents of the writer were not obtruded on her attention , but fell accidentally under her notice . Mrs . Cappe ' s words , by which her opinion of the productions themselves , as well as of their author , is evinced , are these :
€ C The little piece * He Sleepswas put into my h ^ nds . Stru th the piety of the sentiments , affected by the pathos with which the / are expressed , and utterly astonished at the neatness , not to say elegance of the composition , it excited in ray mind a new interest for the
writer : I made further inquiry , and found , to my no small surprise ,, that she had long been in the habit of putting down in measure the genuine effusions of a very feeling heart : and she afterwards brought me a whole book of manuscript poems , from which the following " selection is taken /*
The Editor likewise remarks , that she endeavoured to select from the manuscripts of the author those pieces principally connected with her own peculiar circumstances , not because they displayed greater powers of mind in the simple artificer , but because their subject was more likelv to be interesting-to the reader *
Sketches from nature , indeed , whether by the pencil or the pen , seldom fail to please , and the unstudied but forcible eloquence of the heart employed in the cause of virtue and religion possesses the superior advantage of exciting emotion , while it regulates the affections . Such is the tendency of the worlc before us . The character of the author , though highly i } istrr ; - »
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Richardson ' s Poems . 38 i
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1806, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1726/page/45/
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