Unpublished Manuscript Poem Signed.

Of Norwich, labouring-class poetess (1767-1839). Some of her work reprinted in "Women Romantic Poets, 1785-1832. An Anthology", ed. Breen. Piece of paper, c.7 x 6", discoloured and marke, chipped and small tears on fold marks, text clear and complete, 18 lines, rhyming couplets, some as follows: "To Miss Drake and Miss E. Drake. / Dear honour'd ladies, this address excuse, / The grateful tribute of my humble muse; / Ye in whose minds each Grace her charm displays, / And infant Virtue sheds her early rays. . . . So live in friendship's bands, her loveliest pair, / Grac'd with your Parents Virtues, good as fair, / A bright example to the rising age, / Whose future praise may fill some nobler page. / [Signed] Elizabeth Bentley." The hand is the same as that of her letter to the Royal Literary Fund in BL. The addressees, the Drake sisters, were daughters of William Drake, M.P. (d.1795), her patron. Her " Genuine Poetical Compositions" were published in 1791(Norwich: Crouse and Stevenson, for the Authoress) and the two Miss Drakes and their parents were among the 1935 subscribers to that book. Other Drakes appear in the subscribers' list for her later "Poems" (1821). This poem appears in neither volume. She also published 'Miscellaneous poems : being the genuine compositions of Elizabeth Bentley', ... Third volume (1835). She published in the "Norfolk Chronicle also.