LITMIR.BIZ

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grasses put for locks,

       Which a little breeze at pleasure

      Set a waving round his eyes.

       Brazen helm of daffodillies,

      With a glitter toward the light;

      Purple violets for the mouth,

      Breathing perfumes west and south;

       And a sword of flashing lilies,

      Holden ready for the fight.

       And a breastplate made of daisies,

      Closely fitting, leaf on leaf;

      Periwinkles interlaced,

      Drawn for belt about the waist;

       While the brown bees, humming praises,

      Shot their arrows round the chief.

      Even at this tender age the little girl began to write verses, and dream of becoming a poet. "I wrote verses," she said, "as I daresay many have done who never wrote any poems, very early; at eight years old and earlier. … I could make you laugh by the narrative of nascent odes, epics, and didactics, crying aloud on obsolete Muses from childish lips. The Greeks were my demi-gods, and haunted me out of Pope's Homer, until I dreamt more of Agamemnon than of 'Moses,' the black pony."

      The result of this was an "epic" on The Battle of Marathon. The composition was completed before its author was eleven, and Mr. Barrett was so proud of the production that he had fifty copies of it printed and distributed. The little booklet, consisting of seventy-two pages, was dedicated to her ​father, from "Hope End, 1819." The Battle of Marathon is divided into four books, and is truly described by its author as "Pope's Homer done over again, or rather undone; for, although a curious production for a child, it gives evidence only of an imitative faculty and an ear, and a good deal of reading in a peculiar direction."

      "The love of Pope's Homer threw me into Pope on one side, and Greek on the other, and into Latin as a help to Greek," is her own record of this period of her life, contradicting the legend of her reading Homer in the original at eight years old. About the time of the grand epic, a cousin of Elizabeth was wont to pay visits to Hope End, where their grandmother, says Mrs. Ritchie, "would also come and stay. The old lady did not approve of these readings and writings, and used to say she would rather see Elizabeth's hemming more carefully finished off than hear of all this Greek."

      Mr. Barrett evidently differed from the old lady in this respect, and encouraged his daughter both in her studies and her writings. In some of her earliest known verses, inscribed to him, Elizabeth says:—

      'Neath thy gentleness of praise,

       My Father! rose my early lays!

       And when the lyre was scarce awake,

       I lov'd its strings for thy lov'd sake; Woo'd the kind Muses—but the while Thought only how to win thy smile— My proudest fame—my dearest pride— More dear than all the world beside!

      Mrs. Barrett, who was still living when these lines were written, doubtless divided her affections more equally among her many little sons and daughters ​than did her husband; what with continuous ill-health and a constant succession of children, she had something else to think of than The Battle of Marathon, or "Hector, son of Priam." In those days it was the father's praise that sounded sweet to the little author's ears; in after life, when too late, a lost mother's love were more often the first thought of her verse.

      The principal sharer of Elizabeth's childish amusements was her brother Edward. There was little more than a year's difference in age between them, and as he was, by all accounts, a suitable companion for her in both study and frolic, it was but natural that they should regard each other with intense affection. Alluding to the pet-name by which she was known in the family circle, she says:—

      My brother gave that name to me

      When we were children twain,

       When names acquired baptismally

       Were hard to utter, as to see

      That life had any pain.

      In her earliest volume of poems, published in 1826, Elizabeth included "Verses to my Brother," introduced by the quotation from Lycidas, "For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill." She addressed him as "Belov'd and best … my Brother! dearest, kindest as thou art!" adding:—

      Together have we past our infant hours,

       Together sported childhood's spring away,

       Together cull'd young Hope's fast budding flowers,

       To wreathe the forehead of each coming day!

       And when the laughing mood was nearly o'er,

       Together, many a minute did we wile

       On Horace' page, or Maro's sweeter lore;

       While one young critic, on the classic style,

       Would sagely try to frown, and make the other smile.

      ​Surrounded by happy children, companioned by a beloved brother, encouraged in her pursuits by a proud father, supplied by all that wealth could procure, it is easy to imagine that Elizabeth's early life was a happy one. Her greatest pleasure was, apparently, derived from reading. "I read," she said, "books bad and good," anything, in fact, in the shape of a book that could be got hold of.

      Neither her indiscriminate and extensive reading nor her close application to study prevented her joining in pursuits suitable to her age and position. Riding and driving were among her amusements; and Mrs. Ritchie relates:—"One day, when Elizabeth was about fifteen, the young girl, impatient for her ride, tried to saddle her pony alone, in a field, and fell with the saddle upon her, in some way injuring her spine so seriously that she was for years upon her back."

      That Elizabeth was an invalid for many years is certain, as it also is that to the end of her life she remained in delicate health; but, although she remarked that at fifteen she nearly died, she attributed the origin of her illness to a cough; "a common cough," she said, "striking on an insubstantial frame, began my bodily troubles." Be the cause of her delicacy what it may, confinement and ill-health only increased her passion for reading.

      About this epoch in her life came to pass an event that must be regarded as one that influenced Elizabeth's future as largely as anything in her career. Her father obtained an introduction for her to the well-known Greek scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd. Mr. Boyd, although blind, was a profound student of Hellenic literature and an accomplished author. Under his friendly tuition the eager girl drank deep draughts of Grecian ​lore, and acquired a knowledge of its less studied branches that stood her in good stead in after days. In her poem on "Wine of Cyprus," addressed by her to this dear friend, she proves, by the happiness of her allusions and the condensation of character, how thoroughly she had grasped the most salient features of Greek literature: her poem is at once a proof of her capacity to acquire, and her friend's to instruct. Some of the stanzas are charming reminiscences of these early days:—

      And I think of those long mornings

      Which my thought goes far to seek,

       When, betwixt the folio's turnings,

      Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek.

       Past the pane, the mountain spreading,

      Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,

       While a girlish voice was reading—

      Somewhat low for ai's and oi's! Then what golden hours wore for us!— While we sat together there; How the white vests of the chorus Seemed to wave us a live air! How the cothurns trod majestic Down the deep iambic lines; And the rolling anapæstic Curled like vapour over shrines! For we sometimes gently wrangled: Very gently, be it said— For our thoughts were disentangled By no breaking of the thread! And I charged you with extortions On the noble fames of old— Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons Stained the purple they would fold.

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