And thou require a soothing friend,
Forgot me not! forget me not!
Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter written to Mr. Sharpe, from India, refers to these lines in the following manner: “Tell the fair Opie that if she would address such pretty verses to me as she did to Ashburner, I think she might almost bring me back from Bombay, though she could not prevent his going thither. I beg that she will have the goodness to convey Lady M.’s kindest compliments and mine, to her friend Madame Roland, of Norwich.” (By this playful epithet Mrs. Taylor was designated, in consequence of a fancied resemblance to her portrait.) It was probably, the delivery of this message which produced the impromptu by Mrs. Opie, on being asked if she had written verses on the absence of Sir James Mackintosh, in India:—
No! think not in verse
I his absence deplore:
Who a sorrow can sing
Till that sorrow is o’er?
And when shall his loss
With such sorrow be classed?
Oh! when shall his absence