ABSTRACT
The evening was passed by me more agreeably than the preceding part of the day; for Miss Brandon, after a short conversation during tea with Moncrief, looked at me, as if to express that it was for me she was going to play, and sitting down to the piano-forte, rattled over the keys a variety of airs – all delightful, though not equally so; after which she paused for a few moments, and then, with a true spirit of coquetry, played, in softer tones, a Scottish ballad. The sounds went, as they were intended, to my heart. / I could have wept, as the children of Sion,24 at hearing one of my own country songs in a strange land. The impression had not ceased, when the young lady abruptly quitted the instrument, and approaching me, said, ‘I know you are a poet – we heard of you from my brother – he told us, “when you were a boy, you were considered quite a prodigy.” I should so much like to have some of your poetry in my album. – Will you write something for me or to me? for most of the verses in this book, thick as it is, are addressed to me; and there is not one MS.25 that any other person on earth can have, except indeed it be Lady Orville.’/
