They were
written in her thirteenth year.
Whene'er the muse pleases to grace my dull page,
At the sight of _reward_, she flies off in a rage;
Prayers, threats, and intreaties I frequently try,
But she leaves me to scribble, to fret, and to sigh
She torments me each moment, and bids me go write,
And when I obey her she laughs at the sight;
The rhyme will not jingle, the verse has no sense,
And against all her insults I have no defence.
I advise all my friends who wish me to write,
To keep their rewards and their gifts from my sight,
So that jealous Miss Muse won't be wounded in pride,
Nor Pegasus rear till I've taken my ride.
Let not the hasty reader conclude from these rhymes that Lucretia was
only what any child of early cleverness might be made by forcing and
injudicious admiration. In our own language, except in the cases of
Chatterton and Kirke White, we can call to mind no instance of so early,
so ardent, and so fatal a pursuit of intellectual advancement.
"She composed with great rapidity; as fast as most persons usually copy.
There are several instances of four or five pieces on different
subjects, and containing three or four stanzas each, written on the
same day. Her thoughts flowed so rapidly, that she often expressed the
wish that she had two pair of hands, that she might employ them to
transcribe.
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