noble
elegiac ode, which Dr. Johnson thought the finest in the language.
With the dignity and melody that distinguished Dryden at his best, he
apostrophises the lady as one who had herself courted the muses of
poetry and painting--

"Hear then a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse
In no ignoble verse,
But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first fruits of poesy were given,
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer
And candidate of heaven."

The ode was addressed to Anne, daughter of Dr. Henry Killigrew, born
in 1660, who died of smallpox in 1685; she was a Maid-of-Honour to
the Duchess of York. A volume of her poems appeared in the following
year, with Dryden's ode as an introduction. In painting she seems to
have done portraits of James II. and his queen. She was buried at St.
John the Baptist, Savoy. It is Dryden's verse, and not her own, that
has immortalised her.

There is no need to follow in detail the somewhat unexciting tale of
Falmouth's growth. Its one event of national moment was the selection
of the port, in 1688, for the sailings of the Mail Packet service,
which proved to be of immediate consequence both to Falmouth and
Flushing, as the families of captains and crews soon chose one or
other of those places for residence, thereby bringing prosperity and a
keen rivalry. The story of the packets is very notable, and has been
worthily told by Mr. A. H. Norway. We may assume that it was one of
Mr. Norway's ancestors who lost his life while gallantly defending his
packet, the _Montague_, from the attack of an American privateer. At
first only three packets sailed, between Falmouth and Lisbon; but the
service soon extended to the West Indies, America, Barbadoes, and
elsewhere. They were not only a fine training-school for seamen, but
were in some sense an auxiliary to the British navy, frequently coming
in close contact with the King's enemies or with privateers, in which
conflicts they generally rendered a good account of themselves. They
seem at first to have been supplied for the use of the General Post
Office by contract, and sometimes belonged to their captains or to
companies of private shareholders; but about the year 1820 they were
taken over by the Admiralty, with the idea that a stricter discipline
was needed. The greatest days of the packets were before this
transference, and their diminishing splendour terminated enti