"They are now at their music, and I have retired to add a few lines. This
day has been more gloomy than we have been for some days past;--it is the
first day of our getting into mourning. All the servants in deep mourning
made a melancholy appearance, and I found it very difficult to sit out
the dinner. But as I have dined below since there has been only Mrs.
Sheridan and Miss Linley here, I would not suffer a circumstance, to
which I must accustom myself, to break in on their comfort."

These children, to whom Mrs. Sheridan thus wholly devoted herself, and
continued to do so for the remainder of her life, had lost their mother,
Mrs. Tickell, in the year 1787, by the same complaint that afterwards
proved fatal to their aunt. The passionate attachment of Mrs. Sheridan to
this sister, and the deep grief with which she mourned her loss, are
expressed in a poem of her own so touchingly, that, to those who love the
language of real feeling, I need not apologize for their introduction
here. Poetry, in general, is but a cold interpreter of sorrow; and the
more it displays its skill, as an art, the less is it likely to do
justice to nature. In writing these verses, however, the workmanship was
forgotten in the subject; and the critic, to feel them as he ought,
should forget his own craft in reading them.

"_Written in the Spring of the Year 1788._

"The hours and days pass on;--sweet Spring returns,
And whispers comfort to the heart that mourns:
But not to mine, whose dear and cherish'd grief
Asks for indulgence, but ne'er hopes relief.
For, ah, can changing seasons e'er restore
The lov'd companion I must still deplore?