One of her earliest tastes was a passion for Shakspeare, which she read, as her choicest recreation, at six years old; and in later days she would often refer to the hours of romance she had passed in a secret haunt of her own—a seat amongst the branches of an old apple-tree—where, revelling in the treasures of the cherished volume, she would become completely absorbed in the imaginative world it revealed to her. The following lines, written at eleven years old, may be adduced as a proof of her juvenile enthusiasm.

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