Text: N. P. Willis (?), Personal Notice of Elizabeth Barrett, Evening Mirror (New York), December 7, 1844, vol. 1, no. 54, p. 2, col. 4

[page 2, column 4, continued:]

MISS BARRETT. — We received a note yesterday, in a most prepossessing lady's hand-writing, begging a review of Miss Barrett's poems, for the purpose of showing “the disordered state of her intellect.” We gave, in a former number of the Mirror, somewhat a similar view of an extract or two that we made — so nearly incomprehensible that they would pass for most excellent madness with prosaic people. The most of Miss Barrett's poetry, however, is only an approach to disorder of mind, so far as it transcends the limits for which mental order has been arranged — and it is beyond the limits of this common municipality of brain that, (for better or for worse,) “madness lies.” We do not believe there is a poetical soul embodied in this world, that — as a centre of thought — sees further out, toward the periphery permitted to angels, than Miss Barrett. Yet you would get a verdict of insanity upon her from any jury in christendom — with her book and a tolerably lawyer.