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name as one of our local literary celebrities has been frequently 

 before the public for many years. Her poems, long known and 

 admired by her friends, gained a wider circulation when about 

 eight years ago she committed a selection of them to the press, 

 under the name of Echoes of Old Cumberland, a name singularly 

 appropriate, for her object in life seemed to be to preserve every 

 record that she could remember or collect from friends, of old 

 Cumberland life. • • • Who would have thought that the 

 subjects were written by one who for many years could scarcely 

 grasp the pen when it was carefully placed between her fingers. 

 Brought downstairs each morning when the weather was sufficiently 

 fine, motionless all day and carried up again at night, her brain 

 was ever swift to conceive, though the hand was slow to execute. 

 And so she passed the time for many years, patiently waiting for 

 the end. And it came suddenly; for whilst inspecting the Christmas 

 cards which had been sent by troops of friends, she exclaimed 

 that she felt a peculiar sensation in her throat, and in half-an-hour 

 she passed away." 



To this sketch we may add that her best pieces probably are, a 

 description of Brough Hill, a noted fair in Westmorland, which 

 may be compared with Stagg's " Rosley Hill," a fair which at one 

 time had a similar renown in Cumberland. Her poem upon Relph 

 is an excellent pourtrayal of the quiet, retiring, and student-like 

 character of the first Cumbrian poet. "A Tale of late October," 

 describes a Border raid ; while her "Brokken Statesman," in the 

 dialect, describes well the fallen fortunes of one of the Cumberland 

 yeomen — a race of independent landowners who used to be more 

 characteristic of the county than perhaps any other class. 



She read Danish well ; attracted to it, doubtless, by its very 

 close affinity with our own Cumbrian dialect. And anything 

 connected with the county— its history, literature, local place- 

 names, or archseology, found her at all times ready to enter heart 

 and hand into its work. 



I may be asked, What is the advantage of thus trying to elucidate 

 the writings and the dialect of the poets of Cumberland and Lake- 

 land ? and this question in conclusion I shall endeavour to meet. 



