Throughout the silliness run veins of feeling, respect for her husband, gratitude for the smallest acts of kindness, and cheerfulness under want. In some lines to a cat, apparently written during her husband's sickness, she says:
"Now Grimalkin each day on her throne takes a seat,
With a smile on her face when her master can eat;
But, alas! he eats little."—P. 309.
Truly Mary Mackey must have been a good wife and friend, and I hope I may claim some credit for extracting evidence thereof from perhaps the weakest verses ever written. Her own opinion was different, and is thus expressed in her
"Preface or no Preface.—No preface can be to the Scraps of Nature, for God gave none when He formed creation, nor was there ever a book sent into the world like the volume of Nature, since the creation of the world, nor ever so bold an undertaking. It has never been seen by any eye, nor corrected by any hand, but the eye and hand of the writer. No volume has more humour," &c.
G. C.'s copy is defective. Mine has a portrait of Mrs. Mary Mackey, which indicates considerable beauty, despite of very poor drawing and engraving, and the execrable thin curls and short waist of 1809. The "falling tear is visible;" but, had not the authoress told us what it was, it might be taken for a mole or a wart. As the face is perfectly cheerful, and the "scrap" is headed "Compliment to the Engraver," I hazard the conjecture that he was instructed to add the tear to a miniature painted before she had been compelled to shed tears on her own account.
H. B. C.
U. U. Club.