of character, or on a realistic rendering of the superficial aspects of society. When she wrote a novel, she wrote less for the purpose of amusing the public than, in a word, of liberating her own soul; and she discovered, as many others have done, that neither the vehicle employed, nor the audience addressed, easily lends itself to instruction. Her real genius and strength lay, I am persuaded, in poetical composition. Such, too, was her own conviction; and it is to be regretted that, whatever of her other moral qualities, she lacked toe solidity and continuity of purpose to devote herself wholly to the service of the Muses, irrespectively of that encouragement and applause with which only a few fortunate individuals, so employed, have ever been indulged in their lifetime. Still, like the fountain of Trevi, the sacred Hippocrene compels those who have once tasted of its refreshing waters to thirst for them evermore; and it must not be supposed that this little volume contains more than a selection from her poems. I can testify to her anxious desire that they should some day be given to the world in a collected and permanent form; nor do I doubt, had she lived, that she would have satisfactorily performed the task which is now necessarily executed with incompleteness. My office has been limited to selection, arrangement, and correction of proofs. I should not have felt justified in venturing upon any but indispensable alterations, even though I might have fancied that my friend would have concurred in my suggested emendations.
