This is not the occasion for weighing the value of her evidence on whatever topic she touches; but when all the new material is brought forward it will be clear that her memory was much more accurate than has been supposed, and that she does not make a lax use of definite terms, as has been sometimes supposed. Browning's few words (in the 1887 notes) concerning his wife's father were probably based on information got from her. Alluding to a silly description of Mr. Barrett as a gentleman of "semi-tropical taste," the poet records that he came from Jamaica, and that "after purchasing the estate in Herefordshire, he gave himself up assiduously to the usual duties and occupations of a country gentleman, farmed largely, was an active magistrate, became for a year High Sheriff, . . . and busied himself as a Liberal. He had a fine taste for landscape gardening, planted considerably, loved trees . . . and for their sake discontinued keeping deer in the park." That this Virgilian preference of the trees to the deer probably asserted itself actively after 1815 may be judged from the presence of the fawns in the pretty little scene of the "Aurora" lines and again in the second "Summer," for it was the spacious domain of Hope End that was the background of all its little Laureate's nature poetry. The landscape gardening, farming, and so on, are duly recorded by a poem in the "copy-book" series

addressed to Mr. Barrett. The continuous transcript of compositions of little Ba aged eight and nine ends with two tender heroic quatrains to the mother to whom she owed so much and of whom so little has up to now been known. There was a lull in the child's poetic productiveness after this point in the Spring of 1815; but that similar transcripts of subsequent poems were added on paper of identical manufacture water-marked "1814" is certain, although we do not know positively their extent the book to which all alike in all probability belonged, having lost its cover and come to pieces. Among these there are an address to her father on his birthday, in which she takes occasion to congratulate him on extensive improvements at Hope End, and another set of quatrains about some magnificent clock newly erected there. Here follows the poem

ON PAPA'S BIRTHDAY: MAY 28TH, 1815
Hail dear Papa! I hail thy natal day –
The Muses speak my hidden thoughts of love;
That love is more than e'en the Muse can say
That love shall reign, until we rise above.

Sweet Philomel enchants the listening grove[s]
While Music's warblings twitter in her throat -
By murmuring streams, mute silence roves,
Echo scarce dares repeat the Heavenly note.

'Tis thus these hills declare their bounteous Sire
As on thy birth, to thee, His gifts they pay,
Sweet Philomella leads the tuneful choir
And all is joy to see this happy day.

On thy fair birth the meadows smile

How brightly on this day the prospects rise!
May they all painful care beguile

And humble Sorrow as it flies!

The smile of hope illumes thy soul

Amid these Vales, where Philomel doth sing,
Where beauty reigns without control
Throughout His Works, God's praises ring!

These polished walls, raised by your tasteful hand,
These smiling shrubs, these tangled walks and hills,
These rising rocks, hewn by your active band,
And drooping flow'rets washed by murmuring rills:

These waters by your hand are taught to glide,
And wild ducks strain their soaring wing
Far on the limpid wave they ride
While sweets the gathering zephyrs fling:

An useful farm now owns thy generous sway
And oxen fatten fast at thy command-
A pleasure comes with each untasted day
Thou reap'st the fruit, and nurstles all thy land.

Long may'st thou live, as on this happy day
Amidst thy smiling little Family

And may we, grateful, e'er thy cares repay
And play about, the shilling gallery!

And here is the other piece, of the same month, in which the subject of changes at Hope End is further enlarged upon.

ON THE CLOCK PUT UP AT HOPE ENDMAY, 1815

Hark what deep tone proceeds from yonder
Tower,

For tell-tale Echo's voice betrays the sound;
A Clock the Minstrel of the passing hour,
While breathing Zephyrs gently sport around. —

New is the note amidst these varied shades,
Sweet Nature's Songsters startle at the tone.
Cynthia appears and day's gay habit fades,
But still the Clock maintains its drowsy moan. -

Oh! may its Warning never cease to bring
An useful lesson to our listening ear,
Whilst hoary Time is swiftly on the wing
To teach the value of each passing year. -

Probably the children's garden, in their own parlance.

To him who raised in Albion's rugged clime,
Constantinople's Minarets and dome

May rich rewards borne on the Wings of Time
For ever chain him to his lovely home!

The well-known conversion of the commonplace modern residence at Hope End into a house somewhat in the taste of the historic Pavilion at Brighton is what the local Poet Laureate celebrates in the quatrains about the clock; and the two poems, showing careful study of Gray's poetry, especially the "Elegy," are pièces justificatives, if such were needed, for the statement that a little later, "at ten," her "poetry was entirely formed by the style of written authors."

At eleven, according to the "Glimpses," she "wished to be considered an authoress;" and so earnestly did she go to work on the necessary reading and self-training, so closely did she profit by Mr. McSwiney's classical help, that before she was fourteen she was dedicating to her father an epic poem in four books with an elaborate Preface printed by his orders because, as she told Horne, Mr. Barrett was bent on spoiling her!

At twelve, says the young lady of the "Glimpses," she "enjoyed a literary life with all its pleasures;" and among those were the joys of studying the language, History, and Poetry of Greece, with a special view to authorship, of writing and revising