A young lady, whose promising genius attracted the attention of the literary world, and whose career was singularly short, shone forth, as Katherine Philips had done, to be admired for a brief space, and deplored in lines from an immortal pen. Anne Killigrew, whom Dryden has so pathetically lamented, was the daughter of Dr. Henry Killigrew, master of the Savoy, and a prebend of Westminster. Besides sermons, he wrote a play called “The Conspiracy,” of which he afterwards altered the title to “Pallantus and Eudora;” and it was performed with great success in 1653. The family of Killigrew possessed considerable genius for dramatic compositions, and were remarkable in general for more wit than morality. All their virtues seemed centered in the daughter of Dr. Henry, whose charming qualities endeared her to all by whom she was known. She was born just before the Restoration of Charles II., and from very early years discovered a remarkable talent, which her father fostered with the utmost care. Both in poetry and painting she soon became distinguished, and gave promise of great eminence in each. The praise of Dryden is so enthusiastic, that it might appear overstrained, but that all contemporary writers speak of the interesting Anne Killigrew as all that deserved to be beloved and commended.

Dryden assures us that—