BAILLIE. TO A CHILD. WHOSE imp art thou, with dimpled cheek, And curly pate, and merry eye, And arm and shoulders round and sleek, And soft and fair, thou urchin sly? What boots it, who, with sweet caresses, First called thee his, or squire or hind? For thou in every wight that passes, i gente euuies, of stains it tough antivia onvo WAVAM sess d'eaux, to display the rainbow hues of fancy, or drains it to overflow the neighbouring plains and fertilize the fields of reflection. This is but natural. Women in their writings are beset with doubts, and hampered with difficulties, and dare not take a decisive step, any more than in real life. Neither are women taught to give way to, or express, their passions, but to do all they can to suppress and conceal them. A tragic author must speak out;-a woman is sworn to secresy and silence. Action and passion (both of them forbidden ground) being then the chief ingredients of tragedy, a female author in attempting it must be hard beset. Nay, farther, women are generally taught not only not to harbour or give utterance to the fiercer passions in their own breasts, but not to witness the outward signs of them, or sympathise with their inward workings in others. They turn from the subject with shrinking sensitiveness, and consider whatever shocks their delicacy as a crime. This reserve and caution is an excellent discipline of manners and virtue,-but a bad school for imagination and passion. Is it to be wondered at that we find in these plays, by one inured from her childhood to the severest lessons of prudence and propriety, instances of refinement verging on imbecility, and of casuistry substituted for the unvarnished WHOSE imp art thou, with dimpled cheek, And curly pate, and merry eye, And arm and shoulders round and sleek, And soft and fair, thou urchin sly? What boots it, who, with sweet caresses, First called thee his, or squire or hind? For thou in every wight that passes, Thy downcast glances,-grave, but cunning, Thy shyness swiftly from me running,— But far a-field thou hast not flown, With mocks and threats, half lisped, half spoken ; I feel thee pulling at my gown, Of right good will thy simple token. And thou must laugh, and wrestle too, Thy after kindness more engaging! To taste again thy youthful pleasure. Thy frisks and wiles, the time is coming, When thou shalt sit in cheerless nook, The weary spell or hornbook thumbing. Well, let it be! Through weal and woe, Thou know'st not now thy future range; Life is a motley shifting show, And thou a thing of hope and change. THE KITTEN. WANTON drole, whose harmless play And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose, As bright the blazing faggot glows, Who, bending to the friendly light, Plies her task with busy sleight: Come, shew thy tricks and sportive graces The housewife's spindle whirling round, Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill, Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still, As oft beyond thy curving side Like Madam in her tantrums high; Ah no! the start, the jet, the bound, These mock the deftliest rhymester's skill, The nimblest tumbler, stage-bedight, To thee is but a clumsy wight, For then, beneath some urchin's hand, |