ing less than the Creation, and who was a
woman of great religion. Her poem commences patronizingly thus:--

"Hail! mighty Maker of the Universe!
_My_ song shall still _thy_ glorious deeds rehearse.
_Thy_ praise, whatever subject others choose,
Shall be the lofty theme of _my_ aspiring Muse."

Elizabeth was a Somersetshire woman, a clothier's daughter; and if she
had thrown away her lyre and gone back to the distaff, I do not think
Parnassus would have broken its heart. Then there is our fair friend,
Mrs. Molesworth. Her father was a Right Honorable Irish peer of the
same name, who had some acquaintance, if not a friendlier connection,
with John Locke. Her Muse was rather high-skirted, as you may believe,
when you read this epitaph:--

"O'er this marble drop a tear!
Here lies fair Rosalinde;
All mankind was pleased with her,
And she with all mankind."

Let me introduce you to one more lady. This is Mrs. Wiseman, dear Don!
She was of "poor, but honest" parentage; and if she did wash the dishes
of Mr. Recorder Wright of Oxford, she did better than my Lady Hamilton
or my Lady Blessington of later times. Mrs. Wiseman read novels and
plays, and, of course, during the intervals of domestic drudgery, began
to write a drama, which she finished after she went to London. It was
of high-sounding title, for it was called, "Antiochus the Great; or,
the Fatal Relapse." Who relapsed so fatally--whether Antiochus with his
confidant, or his wife with her confidante, or Ptolemy Pater with his
confidant, or Epiphanes with his confidant--is more than I can tell.
Indeed, I am not sure that I know which Antiochus was honored by Mrs.
Wiseman's Muse. Whether it was Antiochus Soter, or Antiochus Theos, or
Antiochus the Great, or Antiochus the Epiphanous or Illustrious, or
Antiochus Eupator, or Antiochus Eutheus, or Antiochus Sidetes, or
Antiochus Grypus, or Antiochus Cyzenicus, or Antiochus Pius,--the
greatest rogue of the whole dynasty,--or Antiochus Asiaticus, who "used
up" the family entirely in Syria--is more than I can tell. Indeed,
Antiochus was such a favorite name with kings, that, without seeing the
play,--and I have not seen it,--I cannot inform you which Antiochus we
are talking about. Possibly it was the Antiochus who went into a fever
for the love of Stratonice; and if so, please to notice that this was
the wicked Antiochus Soter, the son of Selencus, and the scapegrace who
married his mother-in-law, by th