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The Lay of Marie by Matilda Betham
page 4 of 194 (02%)

The union of European and Eastern beauty, in the person of Marie, I have
attempted to describe as lovely as possible. The consciousness of noble
birth, of injurious depression, and the result of that education which
absorbed the whole glowing mind of a highly gifted parent, a mind rich
with adventures, with enthusiasm and tenderness, ought to be pourtrayed
in her deportment; while the elegance and delicacy which more
particularly distinguish the gentlewoman, would naturally be imbibed
from a constant early association with a model of what the chivalrous
spirit of the age could form, with all its perfections and its faults;
in a situation, too, calculated still more to refine such a character;
especially with one who was the centre of his affections and regrets,
and whom he was so soon to leave unprotected. That, possessing all these
advantages, notwithstanding her low station, she should be beloved by,
and, on the discovery of her birth, married to a young nobleman, whose
high favour with his sovereign would lead him to hope such an offence
against the then royal prerogative of directing choice would be deemed a
venial one, is, I should think, an admissible supposition.

* * * * *

That a woman would not be able to sing under such afflicting
circumstances might be objected; but history shews us, scarcely any
exertion of fortitude or despair is too great to be looked for in that
total deprivation of all worldly interest consequent to such
misfortunes. Whether that train of melancholy ideas which her own fate
suggests is sufficiently removed from narration to be natural, or not
near it enough to be clear, the judgment of others must determine. No
wish or determination to have it one way or another, in sentiment,
stile, or story, influenced its composition; though, occasionally, lines
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