ato and Bacon, did not
find favor with the critics. It was dedicated to her father, who was
proud of a daughter who preferred Latin and Greek to the novels of the
day.

Her teacher was the blind Hugh Stuart Boyd, whom she praises in her
_Wine of Cyprus_.

"Then, what golden hours were for us!--
While we sate together there;

* * * * *

"Oh, our Aeschylus, the thunderous!
How he drove the bolted breath
Through the cloud to wedge it ponderous
In the gnarled oak beneath.
Oh, our Sophocles, the royal,
Who was born to monarch's place,
And who made the whole world loyal,
Less by kingly power than grace.

"Our Euripides, the human,
With his droppings of warm tears,
And his touches of things common
Till they rose to touch the spheres!
Our Theocritus, our Bion,
And our Pindar's shining goals!--
These were cup-bearers undying,
Of the wine that's meant for souls."

More fond of books than of social life, she was laying the necessary
foundation for a noble fame. The lives of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
George Eliot, and Margaret Fuller, emphasize the necessity of almost
unlimited knowledge, if woman would reach lasting fame. A great man
or woman of letters, without great scholarship, is well-nigh an
impossible thing.

Nine years after her first book, _Prometheus Bound and Miscellaneous
Poems_ was published in 1835. She was now twenty-six. A translation
from the Greek of Aeschylus by a woman caused much comment, but like
the first book it received severe criticism. Several years afterward,
when she brought her collected poems before the world, she wrote: "One
early failure, a translation of the _Prometheus of Aeschylus_, which,
though happily free of the current of publication, may be remembered
against me by a few of my personal friends, I have replaced here by an
entirely new version, made for them and my conscience, in expiation of
a sin of my youth, with the sincerest application of my mature mind."
"This latter version," says Mr. Stedman, "of a most sublime tragedy
is more poetical than any other of equal correctness, and has the
fire and vigor of a master-hand. No one has succeeded better than its
author in capturing with rhymed measures the wilful rushing melody of
the tragic chorus."

In 1835 Miss Barrett made the acquaintance of Mary Russell Mitford,
and a life-long friendship resulted. Miss Mitford says: "Sh