she spent her first twenty years of conscious life. Here is the scene
of the childish reminiscences which are to be found among her earlier
poems, of 'Hector in the Garden,' 'The Lost Bower,' and 'The Deserted
Garden.' And here too her earliest verses were written, and the
foundations laid of that omnivorous reading of literature of all sorts
and kinds, which was so strong a characteristic of her tastes and
leanings.

On this subject she may be left to tell her own tale. In a letter
written on October 5, 1843, to Mr. R.H. Horne, she furnishes him with
the following biographical details for his study of her in 'The New
Spirit of the Age.' They supply us with nearly all that we know of her
early life and writings.

'And then as to stories, my story amounts to the knife-grinder's, with
nothing at all for a catastrophe. A bird in a cage would have as good
a story, Most of my events, and nearly all my intense pleasures, have
passed in my _thoughts_. I wrote verses--as I dare say many have done
who never wrote any poems--very early; at eight years old and earlier.
But, what is less common, the early fancy turned into a will, and
remained with me, and from that day to this, poetry has been a
distinct object with me--an object to read, think, and live for. And I
could make you laugh, although you could not make the public 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. And thus my great "epic" of eleven or twelve
years old, in four books, and called "The Battle of Marathon," and of
which fifty copies were printed because papa was bent upon spoiling
me--is Pope's Homer done over again, or rather undone; for, although a