le-like, she eyes the fount of day:
She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voice
May please each ear and bid the grove rejoice.

It would be superfluous, and indeed only going over the same ground
already beat at Bath, to describe Miss Brunton's reception on her first
appearance in London. Suffice it to say that plaudits and even
exclamations of delight were, if possible, more rapturous and more
incessant at Covent Garden than at Bath. Of the reputation thus quickly
acquired, she never, to the day of her death, lost an atom; but
continued to perform, in different parts of England, with accumulating
fame, till her marriage deprived the people of England of her talents.

Mr. Robert Merry, a gentleman well known in the literary world, and
rendered conspicuous by some pretty poetry published under the name of
_Della Crusca_, had the honour of rendering himself so agreeable to Miss
Brunton that she suffered him to lead her to the altar. He was of a
gentleman's family, and received his education under that mass of
learning, doctor Parr, was a man of brilliant genius, amiable
disposition, elegant manners, with a fine face and person. Being a _bon
vivant_ and a little addicted to play, as well as to other fashionable
and wasteful frivolities of high life, his affairs were in a very
unpleasant state, but for this there was an abundant remedy in his
wife's talents; and perhaps (with her aid) a little in his own too.
Family pride, however, forbid it. He was much swayed by his relatives,
particularly by two old maiden aunts, who were, or affected to be
wounded at his marrying an actress. Nothing but his withdrawing his wife
from the stage could assuage their wrath or heal the wound, and Mrs.
Merry, in a spirit of obedience to her husband, and of amiable feeling
for his situation, which will ever do honour to her memory, complied;
and as soon as her engagement at Covent Garden expired (in 1792) left
the stage, to the great regret, and a little to the indignant contempt
for the old ladies, of the whole British nation.

Mr. and Mrs. Merry soon after paid a visit to the continent, where they
lived for a little more than a year, when they returned to England, and
settled in retired life in the country and there remained till the year
1796, when they removed to America. Mr. Brunton, the father of Mrs.
Merry, was, no less than the old ladies alluded to, and on much more
substantial grounds, averse to her marriage with Mr. Merry, a