ABSTRACT
Julia discovered at a very early age a particular sensibility to poetry. When she was eight years old she composed a poem on the departure of one of her young companions, in which she displayed, with great diligence, her whole stock of classical knowledge; and obliged all the heathen gods and goddesses, whose names she had been taught, to pass in succession, like the shades of Banquo’s line. 12 Her father did not discourage this early fondness for the muse, because he believed that a propensity for any elegant art was a source of happiness.
