High spirits, uninterrupted health, a lively fancy, and poetic talent, were hers; and she fully enjoyed and exercised these natural advantages.
One of her earliest tastes was a love of the drama, and Mr. Capel Lofft, writing to her in 1808, observes, “Your uncle, the barrister, was saying yesterday evening, how struck he was, almost in your childhood, with your power of dramatic diction and recitation, and that he had never thought it equalled by any one.” This taste she cultivated; and, when not more than eighteen years of age, wrote a tragedy, entitled “Adelaide,” which is still extant. It was acted for the amusement of her friends; she herself performing the heroine’s part, while Mr. Robert Harvey played the rôle of “the old father.”
It should seem from an expression in one of her letters, that this was not a solitary effort in theatrical composition, and that she even aspired to see some of her plays performed in public. It was probably this taste which early introduced her to an acquaintance with the Kemble family; as she says, in a very early letter to her father, signing herself ‘Euridice,’ “My claim to this name was revived in my mind the other day, by Mr. Kemble coming up to me, saying, ‘Euridice, the woods, Euridice, the floods,’ &c.” She ever entertained an ardent admiration for the illustrious Mrs. Siddons; an admiration mingled with a warm sentiment of personal regard. This was manifested in a touching and natural manner after the death of that lady, when, as she was one day visiting the Soanian museum, (in company with the friend who now records the fact,) happening unexpectedly to see a cast of Mrs. Siddons’ face, taken after death, and unable to control her emotion, she burst into a passionate flood of tears!
Mrs. Taylor was probably right in her judgment when she said to Mrs. Opie, “You ought to rest your fame upon song writing.” Many of the most popular songs she published after her marriage had been early productions of her pen; and were, perhaps, not excelled by any efforts of that kind in her later years. Some of them first appeared separately in newspapers and magazines, and a few in a periodical miscellany called “The Cabinet.”
The Lay to the memory of her mother was written (as we have said) at Cromer, in the year 1791; and is the first in an old manuscript book containing her earlier poems, many of which she afterwards published. They were produced in this and the following year, and are inscribed “Verses written at Cromer.” This place seems to have been, throughout life, very dear to her; owing no doubt, in part, to the fact that she had frequently spent the summer season there with her mother in her childhood; hence it became associated in her mind with these earliest recollections.
There she indulged in fond memories and fancies, spending the long summer days roving along the shore, and weaving her thoughts into verse, grave or gay. She deplores her fate when compelled to leave
These scenes belov’d upon whose tranquil shores,
Thoughtless of ill, I breathed my earliest songs,
While childish sports and hopes—a joyous throng—
In soft enchantment bound the guiltless hours.