above is a just
representation, did poor Corinna labour; and it is difficult to
produce a life crouded with greater evils. The small fortune which her
father left her, by the imprudence of her mother, was soon squandered:
She no sooner began to taste of life, than an attempt was made upon
her innocence. When she was about being happy in the arms of her
amiable lover Mr. Gwynnet, he was snatched from her by an immature
fate. Amongst her other misfortunes, she laboured under the
displeasure of Mr. Pope, whose poetical majesty she had innocently
offended, and who has taken care to place her in his Dunciad. Mr. Pope
had once vouchsafed to visit her, in company with Henry Cromwel,
Esq; whose letters by some accident fell into her hands, with some of
Pope's answers. As soon as that gentleman died, Mr. Curl found means
to wheedle them from her, and immediately committed them to the press.
This so enraged Pope, that tho' the lady was very little to blame, yet
he never forgave her.

Not many months after our poetess had been released from her gloomy
habitation, she took a small lodging in Fleet street, where she died
on the 3d of February 1730, in the 56th year of her age, and was two
days after decently interred in the church of St. Bride's.

Corinna, considered as an authoress, is of the second rate, she had
not so much wit as Mrs. Behn, or Mrs. Manley, nor had so happy a power
of intellectual painting; but her poetry is soft and delicate, her
letters sprightly and entertaining. Her Poems were published after her
death, by Curl; and two volumes of Letters which pass'd between her
and Mr. Gwynnet. We shall select as a specimen of her poetry, an Ode
addressed to the duchess of Somerset, on her birth-day.

An ODE, &c.

I.

Great, good, and fair, permit an humble muse,
To lay her duteous homage at your feet:
Such homage heav'n itself does not refuse,
But praise, and pray'rs admits, as odours sweet.

II.

Blest be forever this auspicious day,
Which gave to such transcendent virtue birth:
May each revolving year new joys display,
Joys great as can supported be on earth.

III.

True heiress of the Finch and Hatton line,
Formed by your matchless parents equal care
(The greatest statesman he, yet best divine,
She bright example of all goodness here).

IV.

And now incircled in the dearest tye,
To godlike Seymour, of connubial love;
Seymour illustrious prince,