which was fully reciprocated, and made the joy and the support of their future lives. The feeling was externally quiet, like everything about her; but in all cases which called forth peculiar sympathy it found strong and devoted expression.
Here, too, Louisa's poetical powers began fully to unfold. Her work hitherto had had the crudeness and imperfections of early youth; but when she had attained her twentieth year it had a character and a finish of its own, and though she never, as yet, thought of publication, she now worked in earnest with an artist's aspirations. It was here too, in her twenty-first year, that she took seriously to what became her leading taste through life—dramatic composition. The earliest suggestion of this was probably given by Sir Henry Taylor's "Philip van Artavelde," the first reading of which was an era in her life; but the subject chosen for her first play was classical. Its hero was Hannibal, for whom she had imbibed a passionate, one might say a personal,enthusiasm,as depicted in Arnold's "History of Rome," and studied by her afterwards with great care in the original authorities. The eye
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