MENELLA. BUTE SMEDLEY.
PTO TH1 EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Surely it is a great and unintentional omission that the name of the above lady does not appear in the new volume of the "Dictionary of National Biography." She was the author of some remarkable poems,—remarkable for originality, grace, and music. Many of them appeared in Good Words. She wrote some dramatic pieces of great power,—notably one ; Lady Grace is its title, if I remember right. Mr. Buxton Forman in his volume on "English Poets" devotes a lengthy section to her. Miss Smedley also took a very active interest in various phases of social reform, —notably the "boarding-out system," and her writings on that subject are even now well worth reading, since " boarding-out " has not been very widely adopted as yet. It was my good fortune to know her, and to have had some share in putting before the world her part of the exquisite "Poems Written for a Child," she and her sister, Mrs. Hart, having worked together in that production, and very happily. I cannot help thinking some twenty lines of those given to Edward, Frank, and Jonathan Smedley might well have been given to her, and that on the grounds of merit and interest in literature, if not of place aux dames.—I am,
Previous page
