ivered of three kittens; but the world was
soon bereaved of them by death, and I had not the pleasure of passing
my infancy with such amiable companions; this was my first misfortune,
and no subsequent one ever touched me more nearly; delightful innocents!
methinks, I still see them playing with their tails, and galloping after
corks; with what a becoming gravity did they wash their faces! how
melodious was their purring! From them I derived any little taste I have
for music; I composed an Ode upon their death; as it was my first
attempt in poetry, I write it for your perusal; you will perceive the
marks of genius in the first production of MY TENDER IMAGINATION; and
you will shed a tear of applause and sorrow, on the remains of those
animals, so dear to the premature years of your mourning and lamenting
friend.

ODE

ON THE DEATH OF THREE KITTENS.

STROPHE.

Attend, ye watchful cats,
Attend the ever lamentable strain;
For cruel death, most kind to rats,
Has kill'd the sweetest of the kitten-train.

ANTISTROPHE.

How pleas'd did I survey,
Your beauteous whiskers as they daily grew,
I mark'd your eyes that beam'd so grey,
But little thought that nine lives were too few.

EPODE.

It was delight to see
My lovely kittens three,
When after corks through all the room they flew,
When oft in gamesome guise they did their tails pursue.
When thro' the house,
You hardly, hardly, heard a mouse;
And every rat lay snug and still,
And quiet as a thief in mill;
But cursed death has with a blow,
Laid all my hopes low, low, low, low:
Had that foul fiend the least compassion known;
I should not now lament my beauteous kittens gone.

You have often wondered what made me such a miserable spectacle; grief
for the death of my kittens, has wrought the most wonderful effects upon
me; grief has drawn my teeth, pulled out my hair, hollowed my eyes, bent
my back, crooked my legs, and marked my face with the small-pox; but I
give over this subject, seeing it will have too great a hold of your
tender imagination: I find myself too much agitated with melancholy to
proceed any longer in my life to-day; the weather also is extremely bad,
and a thousand mournful ideas rush into my mind; I am totally
overpowered with them; I will now disburden