ways received with the most flattering distinction, few amongst the gifted throng had so learned to estimate their own pretensions, as to be critically inclined towards so fine a woman, who was the daughter of an earl. Unfortunately, however, though Lady Anne received the most flattering attention and the most eloquent compliments which ever met her ear, she could not consider herself as being in her vocation. To her a peer was more than a poet, and, had Gibbon the historian been present, she would have considered his friend, Lord Sheffield, infinitely the greater man; and, after being present at three of these reunions in the house of an honourable, she declared that she would go to no more, for one of the men, in consequence of something which she had said, pronounced her "a woman of genius," in the very same tone and style he had used when speaking of some American woman who wrote verses.
"Now," added Lady Anne, "I have no objection to be called a talented lady or so, because, without talents, no book can possibly go down, but to be termed a 'genius,' I cannot think of. At least, ninety-nine out of a hundred men of genius have been persons in what is called the middle ranks of society, and many from its dregs. I don't believe more than half a dozen aristocrats were positively 'men of genius,' from Chaucer to Byron. There was Sir Philip Sydney and Lord Surrey, Locke, and Boyle, and Bacon;
