spend their long days in close ranks, around the steam engine.

My father's house was sufficiently spacious to afford apartments in which the children might be left to their amusements without restraint. A pleasant, and rather large garden adjoined the house: it was open towards the country, and a long and wide grass walk, reaching its whole length, was terminated at the upper end by an arbour, in the oldfashioned style, and at the other by a haw-haw; beyond which were pastures, a rugged common, and more distant corn-fields. this garden the sisters were very early companions in song: and they were wont, before the eldest was six years old, to pace up and down the green walks, hand in hand, lisping a simple couplet of their joint composition.

In

From the time of their removal to Lavenham, Jane and her sister were indulged with a small room, not used as a nursery, but given up to them as their exclusive domain, and furnished with all their little apparatus of amusement. And either abroad, or in this apartment, they learned to depend upon their own invention for their diversions; for it was always a part of their parents' plan of education to afford to their children both space and materials for furnishing entertainment to themselves. And so much were they all accustomed to exercise invention, for filling up agreeably the hours of liberty, that I doubt if ever their

father or mother was applied to with the listless inquiry-" What shall I play at ?"

Jane became, at this time, so much known among neighbors and friends, as a most diverting little thing," that her company was courted, and herself flattered in a degree that would have injured the disposition of most children; and it is not affirmed that she was wholly unhurt by it; but with all her spirit and vivacity, such was her timidity, that no feeling of vanity or obtrusiveness seemed to be produced by these attentions.-She received the plaudits of her audience at the baker's shop, or in the farmer's Christmas party, much in the same way that she afterwards heard the expression of public favor:-both might give a momentary stimulus to the exertion of her talent; but neither the one nor the other impaired or disturbed her native and habitual diffidence. This early celebrity did not fail to excite the watchful fears of her parents; and so far as it was possible to prevent it, Jane was restrained from thus furnishing amusement to the neighborhood, at so great a hazard to her simplicity. But a fast-increasing family unavoidably left her at times under the care of servants, who were gratified at having so much talent to exhibit.

At what age precisely, Jane began to write verses and tales, I have not been able to ascertain. But some pieces have been preserved which, there is reason to believe, were written in her

eighth year. Even a year or two earlier, it is remembered, that she had furnished her memory with histories, which she used to recite with such variations as the inspiration of the moment might suggest. And though, of course, no idea of the kind had ever been given her by her parents (and no other persons had access to her who would have thought of any such thing), yet it seems that, as soon as she began to write at all, she cherished the ambition of writing a book. Most of her childish scribblings have the form of something prepared for the public: I have before me, of this early date, prefaces, title-pages, introductions and dedications: among these the following is so characteristic that I shall venture to produce it. It appears to have been written in her tenth year.

PREFACE.

To be a poetess I don't aspire.

From such a title humbly I retire;

But now and then a line I try to write;

Though bad they are-not worthy human sight.

Sometimes into my hand I take a pen,
Without the hope of aught but mere chagrin

I scribble, then leave off in sad despair,
And make a blot in spite of all my care.

I laugh and talk, and preach a sermon well;
Go about begging, and your fortune tell:
As to my poetry, indeed 't is all

As good and worse by far than none at all.

Have patience yet I pray, peruse my book;
Although you smile when on it you do look:
I know that in 't there 's many a shocking failure;
But that forgive—the author is Jane Taylor.

It was perhaps a year later that she addressed to her father the following

PETITION.

Ah dear papa! did you but know
The trouble of your Jane,
I'm sure you would relieve me now
And ease me of my pain.

Although your garden is but small,
And more indeed you crave,
There's one small bit, not used at all,
And this I wish to have.

A pretty garden I would make,
That you would like, I know;
Then pray, papa, for pity's sake,
This bit of ground bestow.

For whether now I plant or sow,
The chickens eat it all;

I'd fain my sorrows let you know
But for the tears that fall.

My garden then should be your lot;
I've often heard you say,
There useful trees you wish to put,.
But mine were in the way.

But for the most part, Jane confided her productions to no one except her sister; and the extent to which she indulged the propensity to write, at this early age, was unknown to her parents. Indeed the habit of scribbling was purely spontaneous; and never cherished by encouragement from her father or mother. The whole intention of their plan of education was to fit their children for the discharge of the ordinary duties of life; and to elicit or to display talent was far from being their ambition. A home education having been early determined upon, was systematically pursued, through a course of years. Jane and her sister spent a part of every day with their father, receiving from him the rudiments of that education of the nature of which I shall have occasion hereafter to speak; and a considerable part with their mother, who, from the first, made her daughters her companions, treating them, and conversing with them as reasonable beings. They were accustomed to attend and to assist her in every domestic engagement, learning at once the reason and the practice of all that was done. In the afternoon and evening, while employed by their mother's side, subjects of all kinds, within the range of their comprehension, were discussed. These conversations were at intervals relieved by singing hymns-a practice which tends, insensibly, to blend all the best and happiest emotions of the infant heart with the language of piety.

It was especially the practice of their mother in