ly means of instruction. Mrs. Browne was a woman of high
acquirements, both intellectual and moral, eminently adapted for the
training of so sensitive a mind. For a time the child was taught French,
English grammar, and the rudiments of Latin by a gentleman who used to
regret that she was not a man, to have borne away the highest honours at
college! A remarkable memory was of great benefit to her. Her sister
states that she could repeat pages of poetry from her favourite authors
after having read them over but once. On one occasion, to satisfy the
incredulity of one of her brothers, she learned by heart the whole of
Heber's poem of "Europe," containing four hundred and twenty-four
lines, in an hour and twenty minutes. She repeated it without a single
mistake or a moment's hesitation. Long pieces of both prose and poetry
she would often recite after having twice glanced over them. This power
of memory stood her in good stead in her later life, when physical
weakness prevented her from writing down what she had composed. Her
thoughts had to be retained in her mind, and then dictated.

When Felicia Browne was about eleven years old she spent the winter in
London with her father and mother. But this visit had not the charm for
her that it has for most young people. She saw nothing in the metropolis
to compensate for the loss of the country. The sights and scenes of the
busy throng were not so congenial as the sights and scenes of the quiet
little Welsh home. "She longed to rejoin her younger brother and sister
in their favourite rural haunts and amusements--the nutting wood, the
beloved apple-tree, the old arbour, with its swing, the post-office
tree, in whose trunk a daily interchange of letters was established, the
pool where fairy-ships were launched (generally painted and decorated by
herself), and, dearer still, the fresh, free ramble on the seashore, or
the mountain 'expedition' to the Signal Station, or the Roman
Encampment." Town parties and town conventionalities had little in them
to gain favour in the eyes of this bonnie free country lass. Not that
she did not sometimes derive pleasure from the sights she was taken to.
Especially was she impressed by her visits to some of the great works of
art. On entering a gallery of sculpture, she involuntarily exclaimed,
"Oh, hush:--don't speak!"

II.

FIRST POEMS.

The first appearance in print! What an event in life is this! What a new
world it seems to open out