THE LIFE OF MRS. ELIZABETH ROWE. MRS. ELIZABETH Rows, not more admired for her fine writings by the ingenious that did not know her, than esteemed and loved by all her acquaintance, for the many amiable qualities of her heart, was born at Ilchester, in Somer setshire, September 11th 1674, being the eldest of three daughters of Mr Walter Singer, a gentleman of a good family, and Mrs Elizabeth Portnell, both of them persons of very great worth and piety. Mr Singer was distinguished for his good sense, primitive integrity, simplicity of manners, uncommon prudence, activity and faithfulness in discharging the duties of his station. And he died, as he had lived, April 18th 1719, full of that blessed calm and peace of mind, and humble confidence in the mercy of God, through a Redeemer, which a long course of active virtue, and constant lively devotion, joined with the most generous and exalted ideas of the divine goodness, free from all mixtures of a gloomy, sullen superstition, may be expected to produce. ish Those who were acquainted with Mrs Rowe in her childyears, could not but have observed a great many things not common in that age of life, which promised the bright day that afterwards ensued; and it must have been with pe-culiar satisfaction that Mr Singer, in whom parental affection conspired with a penetrating discernment, to heighten the pleasure, beheld the early dawnings of a great and good mind in his charming daughter. When she received the first serious impressions of religion, does not appear; nor unlikely it might be as soon as she was capable of it, at once perceiving her obligations to the Author of her being; and in the same measure as her open ing reason discovered these to her feeling the force of them. A Lady of character for good sense and piety, who began her life with her, thinks so; and in one of her pious addresses she herself thus speaks to God;* My infant hands were early lifted up unto thee, and I soon learned to know and acknowledge the God of my fathers.' To this, with a prudent and pious education, the felicity of her natural disposition under the heavenly influence, conspired; for though she had an unusual sprightliness in her temper, which held out to the last, yet she was at the same time blest with a turn of mind to noble and elevated subjects, that gave her a high relish for the pleasures of devotion. There is so great a similitude between painting and poetry, as being each of them a pleasing and judicious imitation of nature, and depending upon the beauty and strength of the imagination, that it is no way surprising, one who possessed this faculty in so high a degree of perfection, did very early discover an inclination to these two sister arts; which have often the same followers, perhaps always the same admirers: it having been, I believe, seldom known that those who have excelled in one of these arts, have not, at least, had a taste for the charms of the other, and been qualified to judge of its beauties, whether they have made any attempts in it or no. She loved the pencil when she had hardly strength and steadiness of hand sufficient to guide it; and in her infancy, one may almost venture to say so, would squeeze out the juices of herbs to serve her instead of colours. Mr Singer perceiving her fondness for this art, was at the expence of a master to instruct her in it; and it never ceased to be her amusement at times, and a very innocent one it was, till her death. Perhaps, saith an ingenious gentleman, who knew her perfectly well, she liked it the better for the opportunities it yielded her of pleasing her friends with presents of the best of her drawings, and therein gratifying her beneficent disposition; for she kept very few of them herself, and those only such as she judged unworthy the acceptance of any one else. She was also, what every one acquainted with her writings will suppose of such a well tuned soul, very much delighted with music; chiefly of the grave and solemn kind, as best * Devout Exercises. suited to the grandeur of her sentiments, and the sublimity of her devotion. But her strongest bent was to poetry and writing. Poetry indeed was her favourite employment, in youth her most distinguishing excellence. So prevalent was her genius this way, that her very prose hath all the charms of verse, without the fetters; the same fire and elevation, the same bright images, bold figures, rich and flowing diction. She could hardly write a familiar letter but it bore the stamp of the poet. One of her acquaintance remembers to have heard her say, She began to write verses at twelve years old, which was almost as soon as she could write at all. In the year 1696, the 22d of her age, a collection of her Poems, on various occasions, was published, at the desire of two of her friends, which we may suppose did not contain all that she had by her, since the ingenious prefacer gives the reader to: hope, that the author might, in a little while, be prevailed with to oblige the world with a second part, no way inferior to the former. The occasion of her poetical name, PHILOMELA, which from this time she was known by to the world, whether she assumed it herself, or was complimented with it by her friends, I have not been able to learn: The latter is most probable; and that it was given her at the publication of her poems, before which, her modesty not consenting that her own name should appear, this was substituted in the roomy of it, as bearing a very easy allusion to it, and happily expressing the softness and harmony of her verses, not less soothing and melodious than the strains of the nightingale, when from some leafy shade she fills the woods with her melancholy plaints. Though many of these poems are of the religious kind, and all of them consistent with the strictest regard to the rules of virtue; yet some things in them gave her no little uneasiness in advanced life. To a mind that had so entirely subdued its passions, or devoted them to the honour of its Maker, and endued with the tenderest moral sense, what she could not absolutely approve, appeared unpardonable; and, not satisfied to have done nothing that injured the sacred cause of virtue, she was displeased with herself for having writ any thing that did not directly promote it. How were it to be wished, that none of our celebrated poets had any thing worse to answer for, than the harmless gaieties of a youthful |