proclaiming that she outshone Theresa of Spain, and was sufficient in herself to extinguish the malignant ridicule with which men sometimes assail the capacities of women.[[692]]
Human nature, however, is a ravelled hasp of rather mixed yarn, and it will be heard with pity that this amiable missionary of piety and charity was one of those anomalous beings who, without necessity or temptation, are unable to restrain themselves from picking up and carrying away articles belonging to their neighbours. The propensity, though as veritable a disease as any ever treated within the walls of her brother’s infirmary, threw a shade, deepening that of poverty, over the latter years of May Drummond. Only the enlightened and generous few could rightly apprehend such a case. Amongst some memoranda on old-world local matters, kindly communicated to me many years ago by Sir Walter Scott, I find one touching gently on the memory of this unfortunate lady, and directing my attention to ‘a copy of tolerably good elegiac verses,’ written on a picture in which she was represented in the character of Winter. Of these he quoted |1729.| from memory, with some slight inaccuracies, the first and third of the following three:
‘Full justly hath the artist planned
In Winter’s guise thy furrowed brow,
And rightly raised thy feeble hand
Above the elemental glow.
I gaze upon that well-known face;
But ah, beneath December’s frost,
Lies buried all its vernal grace,
And every trait of May is lost.