SECTION I.—HANNAH MORE.

“Great as her fame has been, I never considered it equal to her merit. Such a fine and complete combination of talent and goodness, and of zeal and discretion, I never witnessed. All her resources, influences, and opportunities, were simply and invariably made to subserve one purpose, in which she aimed to live, not to herself, but to Him who died for us and rose again.”—

Every piece of composition takes up, and must take up, as its basis, some element or assumption of fact,—states, affirms, or denies something; but unless it be animated by imagination, it is not literature. The power of seeing and expressing the Æsthetic element in nature and life is that which entitles a composition to be regarded as a literary product. It is this element which inspires, vitalises, and gives immortality to a production, whether it be an address to a mountain daisy, or a history of the world. Science may become obsolete through the progress of discovery, polemics may become irrelevant through the progress of society, but literature is ever new, and never old; it is enduring as the great features of nature which are imaged in it, and the manifold aspects of human life from which it derives its chief value and fascination. The dominion of popular writing is being increased at a most marvellous rate. Literature is now crowned as the very chiefest monarch of these times. On many topics we differ, but editors, authors, critics, and all the disseminators of literature, are unanimous as to the necessity of the diffusion of knowledge. What a mine of intellectual wealth has that admirable art, the art of printing, now laid open to all! A lifetime would not exhaust those treasures of delight supplied by English genius alone. Not only have we men gifted with the highest attributes of mind, writing entertaining, instructive, suggestive, Christian, and progressive books; but women in every department of literature have taken up, not by courtesy, but by right, a full and conspicuous place. Not a few of these authoresses heard “that Divine and nightly-whispering voice, which speaks to mighty minds of predestinated garlands, starry and unwithering,” and have already received their reward.

Hannah More has been long conspicuous among the lights of the world. She was the youngest but one of five sisters, and was born on the 2nd of February, 1745, at Stapleton, near Bristol. Jacob More and Mary Grace educated all their daughters with a view to their future occupation as schoolmistresses. They had all strong minds, sagacious intellects, and superior capabilities for the acquisition of knowledge; but Hannah seems to have combined in herself the chief excellencies of all their characters. Her mental precocity was extraordinary. When about three years old, her mother found that in listening to the lessons taught her elder sisters, she had learned them for herself. She wrote rhymes at the age of four, and before that period repeated her catechism in the church in a manner which excited the admiration of the clergyman, who had so recently received her at the font. Her nurse had formerly lived in the family of Dryden, and little Hannah took great delight in hearing stories about the great poet. Before she had completed her eighth year, her thirst for knowledge became so conspicuous, that her father, despite his horror at female pedantry, had begun to instruct her in Grecian and Roman history, classics and mathematics. Under the tuition of her elder sister Mary, she commenced the study of French. We are not aware that she ever visited Paris, but some French officers were frequently guests at her father’s table, and these gentlemen always fixed upon Hannah as their interpreter. Hence that free and elegant use of the language for which she was afterwards distinguished.

The superior talents, sound principles, and excellent conduct of the Misses More attracted notice and found patrons; and whilst still in their youth, they found themselves established at the head of a school, which long continued to be more flourishing than any other in the west of England. Miss Hannah sedulously availed herself of the instructions of masters in the Italian and Spanish languages. For her knowledge of the physical sciences, she was largely indebted to the self-taught philosopher, James Ferguson; and it is probable that her admirable elocutionary powers were the result of lessons received from Mr. Sheridan. In 1764, Sir James Stonehouse, who had been many years a physician in large practice at Northampton, took holy orders, and came to reside at Bristol, in the same street with the Miss Mores. Sir James discerned Miss Hannah’s gifts, fostered her genius, directed her theological studies, and remained through life her firm friend.

In 1767, she accepted the addresses of Edward Turner, Esq., of Belmont, a man of large fortune, good character, and liberal education, but of a gloomy and capricious temper, and almost double her own age. She resigned her partnership in the school, and spared no expense in fitting herself out to be his wife. Three times in the course of six years the wedding-day was fixed, and as often postponed by her affianced husband. Miss Hannah More’s health and spirits failed; she could see no rational prospect of happiness with a man who could so trifle with her feelings, and at last found resolution to terminate the anxious and painful treaty. His mind, however, was ill at ease till he was allowed to settle upon her an annuity of £200, having offered three times that sum. At his death he also bequeathed her £1000. Her hand was again solicited, but refused. Possibly her experience prompted her sisters to spend their days in single blessedness.

One of the most important events in the life of Miss Hannah More, was her first visit to London, in 1773. At that time, neither the habits of people deemed religious, nor the scruples of her own mind, interdicted her from visiting the theatre, and listening to Shakespeare speaking in the person of that consummate actor, David Garrick. The character in which she first saw him was Lear, and having written her opinion of that wonderful impersonation to a mutual friend, who showed it to him, the scenic hero called upon her at her lodgings in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. He was delighted with his new acquaintance, and took a pride and pleasure in introducing her to the splendid circle in which he moved. In six weeks she became intimate with the rank and talent of the time. One of the two sprightly sisters who accompanied her to London, graphically describes her first interview with the great moralist of the eighteenth century. Miss Reynolds telling the doctor of the rapturous exclamations of the sisters on the road, and Johnson shaking his scientific head at Miss Hannah, and calling her “a silly thing!” she seating herself in the lexicographer’s great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius, and he laughing heartily, and assuring her that it was a chair in which he never sat. Miss Hannah More’s quickness of repartee, aptness of quotation, and kindliness of heart, won the favour of the leaders of society. But in the glittering saloons of fashion, when senators and peers paid her homage, she stood quiet and self-possessed. In 1775, while the first rich bloom still rested on the fruits of her London experience, she remarks: “The more I see of the honoured, famed, and great, the more I see of the bitterness, the unsatisfactoriness, of all created good, and that no earthly pleasure can fill up the wants of the immortal principle within.” None could more thoroughly weigh popular acclaim, and more firmly pronounce it the hosannas of a drivelling generation than this young school-mistress.

Her religious views, which had always been decided, acquired, as years rolled on, greater force and consistency. She never went to the theatre after the death of her friend Garrick, in January, 1779—not even to see her own tragedies performed. Step by step she was led to doubt whether the life she was then living, although blameless, was in full harmony with her own ideas of Christian truth. Whilst these questions were agitating her mind, she produced, as a kind of index to her spiritual state, a series of “sacred dramas,” which were even more favourably received than any of her former publications. In 1786, she withdrew from what she called “the world,” into the pleasant villages of Gloucester and Somerset. In the parish of Wrington, she built a cottage, which was called Cowslip Green. Here she laboured diligently, and lived a life of active benevolence. When in her forty-third year, she assumed the matronly style of Mrs. More, a fashion more prevalent then than now. Among her most meritorious services, was the establishment of Sunday and day schools, clothing associations, and female benefit societies, throughout the mining district of the Mendip Hills, where the people were almost in a state of semi-barbarism. It is sad to have to record that these efforts, instead of receiving clerical countenance and aid, were vigorously opposed by them. It is not necessary to enter into the particulars of the commotion raised about 1799, by malevolent persons, against her schools, nor to do more than allude to the unprovoked slanders and ridicule of literary rivals, resolved at all hazards to rob her of her fame. For more than three years, to use her own heart-felt words, she was “battered, hacked, scalped, tomahawked.”

Many things determined Mrs. More to quit Cowslip Green. Perhaps the most powerful was the purchase of a piece of ground in the vicinity. Having selected a spot which commanded a view of the fine scenery of the vale of Wrington, she built a comfortable mansion. With this residence, her sisters were so pleased, that they disposed of their property at Bath, and made Barley Wood their home, in 1802. The clouds of obloquy had now broken up, and in the clear brightness which succeeded, Mrs. More had thrown herself into fresh local charities, and was engaged with new literary undertakings, when she received a severe blow, in consequence of the death of Bishop Porteus, in 1809. A few months before, he had paid a visit to Barley Wood. The bishop bequeathed to Mrs. More a legacy of £100, and she consecrated to his memory, in the plantation near her house, an urn, with an inscription as unpretending as her sorrow was sincere.

The family circle which had remained unbroken for fifty-six years, now approached inevitable dissolution. Mary, the eldest sister, died in 1813. Elizabeth, the second, sank to rest in 1816. Sarah, the third, fell asleep in 1817. Martha, the fifth, departed this life in 1819. The sisters had lived most happily together, and these bereavements were felt by Mrs. More with all the keenness of her sensitive nature. The poor people had been accustomed to look to Barley Wood as their chief resource, and scarcely a day passed without the arrival of some petitioner from the neighbourhood. For some weeks their visits had ceased, and when Mrs. More asked the schoolmaster of Shipham the reason, he answered, “Why, madam, they be so cut up, that they have not the heart to come!”

Years rolled on, and Barley Wood once more became a place of general resort. But its mistress was not destined to end her days in the home where she had lived so long. The duties of housekeeping, when devolved upon her in weakness and old age, proved too great a burden. When the waste and misconduct of her servants became manifest, she tried to correct the evil by mild remonstrance; but when at length discoveries were made, calculated to represent her as the patroness of vice, or at least as indifferent to its progress, she discharged her eight pampered minions, and broke up her establishment at sweet Barley Wood. As she was assisted into the carriage, she cast one pensive parting glance upon the spot she loved best on earth, and gently exclaimed, “I am driven like Eve out of paradise; but not like Eve, by angels.” On the 18th of April, 1828, she established herself at No. 4, Windsor Terrace, Clifton.

In September, 1832, she had a serious illness, and from that period, a decay of mental vigour was perceptible. At length, nature seemed to shrink from further conflict, and the time of her deliverance drew nigh. On the 7th of September, 1833, within five months of the completion of her eighty-ninth year, she passed the barrier of time, and joined that “multitude whom no man can number, who sing the praises of God and of the Lamb for ever and ever.”

The shops in the city of Bristol were shut, and the church bells rang muffled peals as the funeral procession of that child of a charity schoolmaster moved along the streets to the grave in Wrington churchyard. The mortal remains of the five sisters rest together under a large slab stone, inclosed by an iron railing and overshadowed by a yew-tree. A mural tablet in the parish church records their memory. Mrs. Hannah More’s record is on high, and her virtues are inscribed on an enduring monument: of her most truly it might be said—

Mrs. More as a woman of letters now demands our attention. Probably no woman ever read more books, or to better purpose; had more extensive opportunities of exercising the faculty of observation, or so sagaciously improved it. Her command of language, erudite, rhetorical, conversational, and colloquial, is commensurate with the noble literature and tongue of Britain. In the days of her infancy, when she could possess herself of a scrap of paper, her delight was to scribble upon it some essay or poem, with some well-directed moral. One couplet of an infantine satire on Bristol has been preserved:—

At this period, she was wont to make a carriage of a chair, and then to call her sisters to ride with her to London, to see bishops and booksellers. In 1762, before she had completed her seventeenth year, she wrote a pastoral drama, “The Search after Happiness,” which was published in 1773, and in a short time ran through three editions. In 1774, she brought out a tragedy, “The Inflexible Captive.” The following year it was acted at Exeter and Bath, with the greatest applause, in the presence of a host of distinguished persons. In 1776, she offered Cadell, the publisher, her legendary tale of “Sir Eldred of the Bower,” and the little poem of the “Bleeding Rock,” which she had written some years previously. She received forty guineas for them. In 1777, her tragedy of “Percy” was produced at Covent Garden theatre. The success of the play was complete. An edition of nearly four thousand copies was sold in a fortnight. The theatrical profits amounted to £600, and for the copyright of the play she got £150 more. In 1779, “The Fatal Falsehood” was published, and notwithstanding several disadvantages, was well received. In 1782, she presented to the world a volume of “Sacred Dramas,” with a poem annexed, entitled “Sensibility.” They were extremely popular with the arbiters of taste, and sold with extraordinary rapidity. In 1786, she published another volume of poetry, “Florio: a Tale for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies,” and “The Bas Bleu; or, Conversation.” These received a welcome as enthusiastic as if England had been one vast drawing-room, and she the petted heiress, sure of social applause for all her sayings and doings. In 1788, appeared “Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society.” It was published anonymously, but the writer was soon recognised, and the book obtained an enormous sale. In 1791, she issued a sequel to this work, under the title of “An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World.” It was bought up and read with the same avidity as its predecessor. In 1792, she produced a dialogue, called “Village Politics.” Thousands of copies were purchased by the Government for gratuitous distribution, and it was translated into several languages. In 1793, she published her “Remarks on the Speech of M. Duport,” which brought her in more than £240. In 1795, she commenced “The Cheap Repository,” consisting of tales, both in prose and verse. The undertaking was continued for about three years, and each number attained to a very large sale. In 1799, appeared her “Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education.” Seven large editions were sold in twelve months. In 1805, was produced, “Hints towards forming the Character of a young Princess,” for which she received the thanks of the queen and royal family. In 1809, she published “Coelebs in search of a Wife,” two volumes. The first edition was sold in a fortnight, and eleven editions more were demanded in less than twelve months. In 1811, “Practical Piety” made its appearance, in two volumes. It was worthy of its large sale and great celebrity. In 1812, her “Christian Morals” was brought out, in two volumes, and met with good reception, although not equal to that of her two last works. In 1815, she published her “Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul,” two volumes; a work which, in the estimation of competent judges, more than sustained her previous reputation. In 1818, at the request of Sir Alexander Johnston, she wrote a dramatic piece, “The Feast of Freedom,” for translation into the Cingalese language, to be performed by a native choir, at anniversary celebrations of the 12th of August, 1816. In 1819, she published her “Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, with Reflections on Prayer.” The first edition was sold in one day, and realized £3000. The collection of her writings is comprised in eleven volumes octavo.

Her books bear testimony to her many talents, good sense, and real piety. There occur, every now and then, in her works, very original and very profound observations, conveyed in the most brilliant and inviting style. Her characters are often well drawn, her scenes well painted, and she could be amusing in no ordinary degree when she liked. Although we have no hesitation in admitting her into the long list of canonized bards, yet it must be confessed that her literary renown is chiefly derived from her prose works. She has been censured for the frequent repetition of the same thought in different words. Superficial readers, as well as hearers, require such a mode of composition. Iteration is not tautology.

The great success of the different works of our authoress enabled her to live at ease, and to dispense charities around her. She realized by her pen alone, more than £30,000. Upwards of 50,000 copies of her larger works were sold, while her tracts and ballads were circulated over the country by millions. We venture to affirm that her books were more numerous, that they passed through more editions, that they were printed in more languages, and that they were read by more people, than those of any other authoress upon record.

Genius is not often combined with a strong physical constitution. Mrs. More was no exception to this rule; for although her general health was about the average, she often composed under aches and pains which would have entirely deterred others from the use of the pen. Her figure was graceful, and her manners captivating. The eye, which her sisters called “diamond,” and which the painters complained they could not put upon canvas, coruscated, and her countenance sparkled, when engaged in conversation. She knew that in all companies, she was a principal object of attention, yet she never wore a jewel or trinket, or anything of the merely ornamental kind, during her whole life, though much of that life was spent in the society of the great and high-born.

In glancing at her intellectual character, the first thing that strikes us is its versatility—a fact proved by this, that she frequently appears in different compartments. Thus she was at once a poetess, a dramatist, a fictionist, a moralist, a religious writer, and a conversationalist. No wonder that she often received messages from His Majesty King George the Third, from the Queen, and other members of the royal family; and that her friendship was eagerly sought by coronets and mitres. Mr. Roberts, one of her biographers, says:—“All the powers of her mind were devoted to the solid improvement of society. Her aims were all practical; and it would be difficult to name another who has laid before the public so copious a variety of original thoughts and reasonings, without any admixture of speculation or hypothesis.”

The moral capacity is the imperial crown of humanity. Veneration, benevolence, conscientiousness, hope, faith, are the brightest jewels of this crown. In Mrs. More, the moral sentiments were superior even to the intellectual faculties. She exactly discerned the signs of the times, and adroitly adapted her writings to the necessities of her generation. All of them are more or less calculated to benefit society, and never did personal example more strongly enforce preceptive exhortation, than in the instance of this eminent and excellent woman.

SECTION II.—ANNE GRANT.

“We have no hesitation in attesting our belief that Mrs. Grant’s writings have produced a strong and salutary effect upon her countrymen, who not only found recorded in them much of national history and antiquities, which would otherwise have been forgotten, but found them combined with the soundest and best lessons of virtue and morality.”

A good deal of literary fame has been won by letter-writing. It were easy to name authors whose letters are generally considered as their best works, and who owe their position in British literature, to those pictures of society and manners, compounded of wit and gaiety, shrewd observations, sarcasm, censoriousness, high life, and sparkling language, for which their correspondence is remarkable. We might refer, in proof of our position, to a celebrated peer, who was the most accomplished man of his age. In point of morality his letters are not defensible. Johnson said that they taught the morals of a courtesan with the manners of a dancing-master. But they are also characterised by good sense and refined taste, and are models of literary art. The copyright was sold for £1500, and five editions were called for within twelve months. Authoresses have also been distinguished for the excellence and extent of their epistolary correspondence. We might adduce as an example a noble lady, who to her myrtle-crown of beauty, and her laurel-crown of wit, added the oaken-leaved crown,—the corona civica,—due to those who have saved fellow-creatures’ lives. For graphic power, clearness, and idiomatic grace of style, no less than as pictures of foreign scenery, and manners, and decisiveness about life, her letters have very few equals, and scarcely any superiors. There can be no doubt as to the utility and importance of letter-writing, yet few seem to cultivate with care this department. But let us rejoice, that though the excuses and apologies of the majority prove that they are not what we conventionally term good correspondents, yet there are some splendid exceptions, who are aware of the importance of this art as a means of promoting social affection, and moral pleasure and profit, and whose style scarcely yields in simplicity, playfulness, and ease, to the eminent examples already cited.

Anne Macvicar, was born at Glasgow, on the 21st of February, 1755. She was an only child. Her father, Duncan Macvicar, she describes as having been “a plain, brave, pious man.” He appears to have been brought up to an agricultural life, but having caught the military spirit, which in that day was almost universal among the Scottish Highlanders, he became an officer in the British army. Her mother was a descendant of the ancient family of Stewart of Invernahyle in Argyleshire. She was a Lowlander only by the mere accident of her birthplace. Nursed at Inverness, the home of her grandmother, the earliest sights and sounds with which she was familiar, were those of Highland scenery and Highland tongues.

In a paper containing a rapid view of her childhood, she says, “I began to live to the purposes of feeling, observation, and recollection, much earlier than children usually do. I was not acute, I was not sagacious, but I had an active imagination and uncommon powers of memory. I had no companion; no one fondled or caressed me, far less did any one take the trouble of amusing me. I did not till the sixth year of my age possess a single toy. A child with less activity of mind, would have become torpid under the same circumstances. Yet whatever of purity of thought, originality of character, and premature thirst for knowledge distinguished me from other children of my age, was, I am persuaded, very much owing to these privations. Never was a human being less improved, in the sense in which that expression is generally understood; but never was one less spoiled by indulgence, or more carefully preserved from every species of mental contagion. The result of the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed had the effect of making me a kind of anomaly very different from other people, and very little influenced by the motives, as well as very ignorant of the modes of thinking and acting, prevalent in the world at large.” These singular influences directed her to authorship in the first instance, and gave much of its interest to what she wrote.

When eighteen months old, she was brought back to Glasgow, that her father might have a parting look of her before leaving his native country for America, in the 77th regiment of foot. His wife and daughter remained in Glasgow, in the eastern extremity of the town. Probably from hearing her mother describing the New World as westward, Anne Macvicar set out one Sunday evening, when only two years and eight months old, and walked a mile to the west of the Trongate. A lady saw, with some surprise, a child neatly dressed in white, with bare head and bare arms, walking alone in the middle of the street. She asked her where she came from; but the only answer was, “from mamma’s house.” Then she inquired where she was going, and was told in a very imperfect manner “to America, to seek papa.” However, while the lady was lost in wonder, a bell was heard in the street, and the public crier had the pleasure of restoring the young traveller to her mother.

In 1758, she arrived with her mother at Charleston, and soon after they were settled at Claverock, where Mr. Macvicar was stationed with a party of Highlanders. Here she not only learned to read, but to love truth and simplicity. Her father meanwhile being engaged in active service.

In 1760, he returned from the campaign, and they went to Albany, on the Hudson River, where she saw the Highland soldiers dragging through the streets the cannon destined for the attack on the Havannah. She thus describes an excursion about this time up the Hudson in boats. “We had a most romantic journey; sleeping sometimes in the woods, sometimes in forts, which formed a chain of posts in the then trackless wilderness. We had no books but the Bible and some military treatises; but I grew familiar with the Old Testament; and a Scotch sergeant brought me ‘Blind Harry’s Wallace;’ which by the aid of such sergeant, I conned so diligently, that I not only understood the broad Scotch, but caught an admiration for heroism, and an enthusiasm for Scotland, that ever since has been like a principle of life.”

She returned from Oswego to Albany in 1766; and, on her way back, a Captain Campbell gave her a handsome copy of Milton; concerning which she says, “I studied, to very little purpose no doubt, all the way down in the boat; but which proved a treasure to me afterwards, as I never rested till I found out the literal meaning of the words; and, in progress of time, at an age I am ashamed to mention, entered into the full spirit of it. If I had ever any elevation of thought, expansion of mind, or genuine taste for the sublime or beautiful, I owe it to my diligent study of this volume.” Facts prove that the growth of mind is best promoted by that which at first it is capable of understanding only partially. This is clear from what came out of Anne Macvicar’s study of Paradise Lost. The most eminent woman in Albany at that time was the widow of Colonel Schuyler. Her house was the resort of all strangers, whose manners or conduct entitled them to her regard. Her ancestors, understanding, and education, gave her great influence in society, which was increased by the liberal use she made of her large fortune. “Some time after our arrival at Albany,” writes our authoress, “I accompanied my parents one evening to visit Madame Schuyler, whom I regarded as the Minerva of my imagination, and treasured all her discourses as the veritable words of wisdom. The conversation fell upon dreams and forewarnings. I rarely spoke till spoken to at any time; but of a sudden the spirit moved me to say that bad angels sometimes whispered dreams into the soul. When asked for my authority, I surprised every one, but myself most of all, by a long quotation from Eve’s fatal dream infusing into her mind the ambition that led to guilt. After this happy quotation I became a great favourite, and Madame Schuyler never failed to tell any one who had read Milton of the origin of her partiality.” At this time Anne Macvicar was hardly seven years old.

Mr. Macvicar, like most Scotchmen, had the faculty of making money, and with the view of settling in America had obtained a large grant of land, and had purchased several valuable properties, the market value of which was every day rising. Miss Macvicar was looked upon as an heiress; but her father, falling into bad health, was obliged to return to Scotland in 1768, bringing his wife and daughter along with him. He had left America without being able to dispose of his property, and on the breaking out of the revolutionary war, the whole was confiscated by the republican government.

In 1773, her father was appointed barrack master of Fort Augustus, in Inverness-shire. Here she first met the Rev. James Grant, a young clergyman of refined mind, sound principle, and correct judgment. At that time he was chaplain to the garrison, but in 1776, he became the minister of Laggan, a neighbouring parish, and in 1779, was united in marriage to Miss Macvicar. In that Highland parish, fifty miles from Perth, and the same distance from Inverness, they lived contentedly in the chosen lot of Agur.

Time flowed on characterised by the usual amount of shadow and sunshine. In 1801, her husband was carried off by consumption; and she found herself burdened with the care of eight children, to which was added the pressure of some pecuniary obligations incurred by a too liberal hospitality. The children inherited the same insidious disease. Three sank under their mother’s eyes in infancy, and the eldest, who held a commission in the army, died a few months before his father. Of twelve sons and daughters only one survived her.

All her certain income was a small pension from the War Office, to which she was entitled in consequence of her husband having obtained a military chaplaincy a few years before his death. In these circumstances, her first step was to take charge of a small farm in the neighbourhood of Laggan; but this expedient soon failed.

In 1803, she unwillingly removed from Laggan to Woodend, now called Gartur, two miles south-west of Stirling, a place of unrivalled beauty. In 1806, we find Mrs. Grant residing in Stirling, so renowned in Scottish history, and supporting herself and family by literature.

In 1810, Mrs. Grant removed from Stirling to Edinburgh, where she spent the remainder of her life, distinguished in society for her great talents, and esteemed for her many virtues. Her object in making the capital her home, and the circle in which she mingled, are fully described in her correspondence.

In 1820, she fell down a stair, which caused serious injury, followed by long and severe suffering, and by lameness for the rest of her days. In 1825, a pension, which at first amounted to only £50, but was afterwards increased to £100 per annum, was granted her by government, in consequence of an application in her behalf, which was drawn out by Sir Walter Scott, and subscribed by the most distinguished literati in Edinburgh; who therein declared their belief that Mrs. Grant had rendered eminent services to the cause of religion, morality, knowledge, and taste.

Notwithstanding many and heavy family trials, this strong-hearted woman continued to correspond with her friends, and receive those who visited her, until the end of October, 1838, when she was seized with a severe attack of influenza. Her son was with her during her last illness, and she was sedulously attended by a lady and servants. She died at her house 9, Manor Place, on the 7th November, 1838, at the advanced age of eighty-four years.

A few days afterwards, a mournful multitude followed her remains to the cemetery of St. Cuthbert’s, then nearly new. She was buried near the graves of four of her daughters. Her son erected a monument to her memory.

We receive a vast amount of education from the localities in which we live. From the sketch of her own life it is evident that Mrs. Grant was well aware of the educative influence of scenery. Who can tell how much she learned, during the ten years she lived beside the vast lakes, the magnificent rivers, and the primÆval forests of America; and the thirty years spent amid the beauties and glories of the Highlands, apart from all set teaching, away from all formal schools. It is good to see the horizon one red line, pointing like a finger to the unrisen sun—to hear the earliest notes of the birds—to trample on the emerald grass and the blooming heather—to notice the “morning spread upon the mountains,” peak telegraphing to peak that the king of day has just entered the sky—to listen to such stories as lonely hills and misty moors alone can inspire. In this sublime natural system of education, Mrs. Grant had a large share. It stirred her warm imagination, and nourished her poetic faculty.

After the death of her excellent husband, Mrs. Grant had mainly to depend for bread to herself and children, upon her own exertions. In these circumstances she was led to try whether she could not better her fortunes by the exercise of her literary talents, hitherto employed only for her own amusement and the gratification of a few intimate friends. Her first essay at poetry was scrawled in a kind of Miltonic verse, when little more than nine years old. She wrote no more till she wandered on the banks of the Cart, and afterwards at Fort Augustus, and again upon her way home to Laggan, after spending some months at Glasgow. All these scraps she gave away, without preserving a single copy. But the friends among whom Mrs. Grant scattered her verses carefully treasured them, and in 1803, her first publication—“The Highlanders, and other Poems”—was announced to be published by subscription; and so well did her friends exert themselves, that three thousand subscribers were soon procured. This volume, though not reviewed in the most flattering terms, was well received by the public; and its profits enabled Mrs. Grant to discharge her debts. The following description of the Highland poor, is from the principal poem in the collection:—

“The Highlanders,” which gives the title to the book, is a poetical regret at the hard fate that forced so many to emigrate. The other poems are on a variety of topics, chiefly in illustration of the manners of the people among whom she lived. Take the following stanza on a sprig of heather:—

One of her songs, commencing, “Oh, where, tell me where?” written on the occasion of the Marquis of Huntly’s departure for Holland with his regiment, the 92nd, or Gordon Highlanders, in 1799, has become generally known. We select the following verse as a specimen:—

The merit, however, of Mrs. Grant’s poems was really slight; but success prompted another attempt at authorship. The result was her best and most popular work, the “Letters from the Mountains,” which was published in 1806, went through several editions, and was highly appreciated among the talented and influential men of the day. No person was so much astonished as herself on hearing that “Letters from the Mountains,” divided with some other publications the attention of readers. In October, 1807, she writes:—“Longman, who is doubtless the prince of booksellers, has written me a letter, expressed with such delicacy and liberality as is enough to do honour to all Paternoster Row: he tells me that the profits of the second edition of the Letters amount to £400, of which they keep £100 to answer for bad debts and uncalculated expenses, and against the beginning of next year I get the other £300.” Publishers, as a rule, deal liberally with popular writers. “Memoirs of an American Lady, with Sketches, Manners, and Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Revolution,” were published in 1808. She received £200 as profits from the New World. “Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, with Traditions from the Gaelic,” appeared in 1811; and in no degree detracted from her well-earned literary reputation. A poem, entitled “Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen,” was published in 1814. Afterwards her pen was occasionally employed in magazine contributions. In 1821, the Highland Society of London awarded her their gold medal for the best essay on the “Past and Present State of the Highlands of Scotland.”

In the words of a competent critic, “The writings of this lady display a lively and observant fancy, and considerable powers of landscape painting. They first drew attention to the more striking and romantic features of the Scottish highlands, afterwards so fertile a theme for the genius of Scott.”

Mrs. Grant was tall, and, in her youth, slender, but after her accident she became rather corpulent. In her later years she was described as a venerable ruin; so lame as to be obliged to walk with crutches, and even with that assistance her motions were slow and languid. Her broad and noble forehead, relieved by the parted grey hair, excelled even youthful beauty. There was a dignity and a sedateness in her carriage which rendered her highly interesting, and her excellent constitution bore her through a great deal.

Her conversation was original and characteristic; frank, yet far from rude; replete at once with amusement and instruction. For nearly thirty years she was a principal figure in the best and most intellectual society of the Scottish metropolis; and to the last her literary celebrity made her an object of curiosity and attraction to strangers from all parts of the world. The native simplicity of her mind, and an entire freedom from all attempt at display, made the youngest person feel in the presence of a friend. Her extensive correspondence, she believed, had a tendency to prolong her life. She was fond of having flowers and birds in her sitting room. Nature in all her phases, aspects, and transitions, had charms for her. Notwithstanding her increasing infirmities, and even with the accumulated sorrows of her peculiar lot, she did not find old age so dark and unlovely as the Celtic bard.

The cheerfulness of Mrs. Grant, and the lively appreciation she had of everything done to promote her comfort, rendered her, to the latest period of her prolonged existence, a delightful companion; while the warm interest she felt in whatever contributed to the happiness of others, kept her own affections alive. She was left a widow, without fortune, and with a large family dependent upon her for their subsistence. Surely if any one had a clear title of immunity from the obligation to carry her cares beyond her own threshold, it was this woman. Yet she devoted much of her time to benevolent efforts. If there was any quality of her well-balanced mind which stood out more prominently than another, it was that benevolence which made her study the comfort of every person who came in contact with her. Many and hard were her struggles for life, but she never lost confidence in Divine goodness.

SECTION III.—ANNE LOUISA STAËL.

“What woman indeed, (and we may add) how many men, could have preserved all the grace and brilliancy of Parisian society in analyzing its nature—explained the most abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably—and combined the eloquence which inspires exalted sentiments of virtue, with the enviable talent of gently indicating the defects of men or of nations, by the skilfully softened touches of a polite and merciful pleasantry.”

It has been maintained that all human minds are originally constituted alike, and that the diversity of gifts which afterwards appears results from education. But it is plain enough that God hath made marvellous differences, original and constitutional, which no education can wholly reduce. All children are not alike precocious; and all adults are not alike capable of learning or of teaching. Education will do much, but it cannot convert talent into genius, or efface the distinction which subsists between them. No education can give what nature has denied—for education can only work on that which is given. Some receive at birth minds so obtuse, that although sent to school, furnished with accomplished teachers, and surrounded with all the appliances of learning, they emerge dunces; while others, by the sheer force of their genius, push their way upwards to eminence, amid every form of hardship, difficulty, and privation. The character of mental products is as much determined by the natural condition and constitution of mind as are the natural products of the earth determined by its physical conditions. It would be just as irrational to expect glowing pictures, grand conceptions, and lofty harmonies to spring in the universal mind, as to expect to clothe the whole globe with the cocoa, the palm-tree, and the banian. Original genius must be inherited. The thoughts which rise in the gifted mind—the flash of wit and the play of fancy—are as independent of the will as is the weed at the bottom of the sea, or the moss on the summit of the hill independent of the farmer. In glancing over the catalogue of our mental aristocracy, we are struck with the versatility of genius. It is no hard unbending thing, confined to a few topics, and hemmed in by a few principles; but a free mountain flame, not unfrequently as broad in its range as burning in its radiance. Many of both sexes are equally happy in science, art, philosophy, and literature.

Anne Louisa Germaine Necker, was born at Paris, April 22nd, 1766. Her father was the celebrated M. Necker, finance minister of Louis XVI., in the times immediately preceding the revolution. Her mother was the daughter of a Protestant clergyman, and would have been the wife of Gibbon, had not the father of the future historian threatened his son with disinheritance if he persisted in wooing a bride whose dowry consisted only of her own many excellencies. Few children have come into the world under more favourable auspices. She had wise parents, liberal culture, intellectual friends, ample fortune, splendid talents, and good health. Her favourite amusement during childhood consisted in cutting out paper kings and queens, and making them act their part in mimic life. Her mother did not approve of this, but found it as difficult to stop her daughter from such play, as it was to prevent men and women, some years after, from playing with kings and queens not made of paper.

The training of their only child was to both parents a matter of immense importance. Her talents were precociously developed, and whilst yet the merest girl, she would listen with eager and intelligent interest to the conversation of the eminent savans who constantly visited her father’s house. Without opening her mouth she seemed to speak in her turn, so much expression had her mobile features. When only ten years old she conceived the idea of marrying her mother’s early lover, that he might be retained near her parents, both of whom delighted in his company. At the age of twelve she amused herself in writing comedies.

Perhaps Mademoiselle Necker lost nothing by having no regular tutor. The germs of knowledge once fairly implanted, an intellect like hers may, like the forest sapling, be left to its own powers of growth. Roaming through the rural scenes of St. Ouen, her mind was enriching itself by observation and reflection. Circumstances which would have depressed multitudes only quickened her. She turned all things to account. Her power of mental assimilation was extraordinary.

In 1786, Mademoiselle Necker was married to the Baron de StaËl-Holstein, Swedish ambassador at the court of Paris. The young Swede was a Protestant, amiable, handsome, courtly, and a great favourite with royalty. What more could the most fastidious require? It was not fashionable to put intellectual features in the bond. Perhaps had she been thirty instead of twenty years old, even in France, where the filial virtues to a large extent nullify the conjugal, no motherly persuasion nor fatherly approval would have induced her to marry a dull, unimaginative man like Baron de StaËl, for whom she felt no kind of affection. After a few years a separation took place between them, two sons and a daughter having been meantime the fruit of their union. In France a wife may withdraw from her husband on the plea of saving her fortune for her children, and if unprincipled enough, console herself with another whose society she prefers. Madame de StaËl was incapable of becoming galante.

On her marriage she opened her saloons, and her position, wealth, and wit attracted to them the most brilliant inhabitants of Paris. At first she does not seem to have attained any remarkable degree of celebrity. She was too much of a genius. Paris was full of anecdotes about her foibles and infringements of etiquette. About this time too she began to produce those wonderful books which form an era in the history of modern literature, and which demonstrate that in intellectual endowment she had no compeer among her sex. As might be expected in a disciple of Rousseau, she cherished great expectations in reference to the French revolution of 1789; but soon ceased to admire a movement which discarded her beloved father, and began its march towards a reign of terror.

Madame de StaËl suffered dreadfully during the period that Maximilien Robespierre headed the populace in the Champ de Mars. All the brilliant society to which she had been accustomed from the cradle were proscribed, or hiding in holes or corners of the city they had made so glorious. Liberty, the theme of her childish pen, had been metamorphosed into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Before midnight on the 9th of August, 1792, the forty-eight tocsins of the sections began to sound. Madame de StaËl might have secured her own safety by a flight into Switzerland, but she could not leave Paris while her friends were in danger, and she might be of use to them. The words “Swedish Embassy,” on her door, gave her some security. By her passionate eloquence and consummate diplomacy she saved M. de Narbonne, and several other distinguished persons. On the morning of the 2nd of September, she set out from Paris in all the state of an ambassadress. In a few minutes her carriage was stopped, her servants overpowered, and she herself compelled to drive to the Hotel de Ville. When she alighted, one fiend in human shape made a thrust at her, and she was saved from death only by the policeman who accompanied her. She was taken before Robespierre, and her carriage might have been torn to pieces and herself murdered, but for the interference of a republican named Manuel, who on a former occasion had felt the power of her eloquence. Next day Manuel sent her a policeman to escort her to the frontier, and thus Madame de StaËl escaped to Coppet.

Early in 1793, she went to England, and took up her residence at Juniper Hall, near Richmond, Surrey. No one has been able to assign a very distinct reason for this journey. Perhaps she came simply to breathe the air of liberty, and to become better acquainted with a country she had always loved. At all events, she became the centre of a little colony of French emigrants. Among the refugees were many illustrious people. Their funds were not in a flourishing condition, but they managed to purchase one small carriage, and ex-ministers took their turn to act as footmen, when they rode out to see the country. The little party was soon scattered. In the summer of 1793, Madame de StaËl rejoined her father in Switzerland. At Coppet she devoted her great energy to the succour of exiles, and the reconciliation of France and England.

The earliest intercourse between Madame de StaËl and Napoleon Bonaparte occurred between his return from Italy and his departure for Egypt, towards the end of 1797. At first she submitted as willingly as France—as indeed the whole world, to the fascination of his genius; but she was one of the earliest to discover that he was merely a skilful chess-player, who had chosen the human race as his adversary, and expected to checkmate it. She expressed her opinions openly and with all the force for which she was celebrated, and they left upon the first man of the day many unpleasant impressions. The future emperor gathered something from his brother Joseph concerning the principles of the most popular saloon in Paris, and watched for an opportunity to get rid of such an influential foe. Her father wrote a book which gave great umbrage. It was not deemed safe to touch him; but he who was reckoned the greatest hero of the modern world, was cowardly enough to visit the sin of the father upon the daughter; and so Madame de StaËl was informed that her presence would be tolerated in Paris no longer. In 1802, she was exiled from France itself. Rejoining her sick husband, she closed his eyes in death at Poligny, and became an eligible widow.

The death of her father in 1804, recalled her to Coppet. Subsequently, she was permitted to return to Paris. But fresh difficulties occurred with Napoleon, and she was banished anew to Coppet. In 1808, the Baron de StaËl, secured an interview with the master of the world, and pleaded eloquently on behalf of his mother. The inexorable deliverance of the emperor is too characteristic and amusing to be omitted. “Let her go to Rome, Naples, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Lyons; if she wants to publish libels, let her go to London. I should think of her with pleasure in any of those cities; but Paris, you see, is where I live myself, and I want none but those who love me there.” The Baron de StaËl renewed his entreaties. “You are very young; if you were as old as I, you would judge more accurately; but I like to see a son pleading for his mother. If I had put her in prison, I would liberate her, but I will not recall her from exile. Every one knows that imprisonment is misery; but your mother need not be miserable when all Europe is left to her.” The man of destiny acted on the dictate of a sound prudential policy. A woman so uncompromising and fearless—of such weight of genius and reputation—was not to be tolerated in Paris by the head of a government more or less the sport of the hour.

During this stay at Coppet she made the acquaintance (1810) of a young Italian of good family named Rocca, who had fought in the French army in Spain, and had gone to Geneva to recover from his wounds. The young officer of hussars, aged twenty-five, worshipped Madame de StaËl; and she, a mature matron of forty-six, married him, but the marriage was kept secret, in order, it is said, that she should not be obliged to change her celebrated name.

Napoleon having banished Schlegel, the eminent German poet and critic (who had accompanied her in her travels and been tutor to her son), and subjected herself to a petty surveillance, she rushed restlessly over Europe to Vienna, Moscow, St. Petersburgh, thence through Finland to Stockholm. In 1813, she arrived in England, and was the lion, or lioness, of at least one London season, the whig aristocracy fÊting her, and Sir James Mackintosh trumpeting her praises in the Edinburgh Review. She was celebrated for the persecutions she had endured, and as the only person of note who had stood firm against Napoleon to the last.

At the Restoration, she returned to her beloved Paris. From Louis XVIII. she met with the most gracious reception; and restitution was made to her of two million livres long due to her father from the royal treasury. But her old foe was only caged. He broke the bars of his prison, cleared the inconstant court in a few hours, was hailed by the army and the people, and spared none who had taken part in the restoration. “I felt,” she says, “when I heard of his coming, as if the ground yawned beneath my feet.” In the spring of 1816, she was at Coppet, the centre of a brilliant circle, with Lord Byron near her at the Villa Diodati. To Madame de StaËl, Paris was the centre of the world, and accordingly in the autumn of this year we find her there again, the lady-leader of the Constitutionalists. In her saloon might have been seen Wellington and Blucher, Humboldt and ChÂteaubriand, Sismondi and Constant, the two Schlegels, Canova the sculptor, and Madame Recamier, whom the defeat of Napoleon had once more restored to liberty.

But she did not long enjoy the society of the metropolis which she loved so well. In February, 1817, she was seized with a violent fever. On her deathbed she said to ChÂteaubriand, “I have loved God, my father, and liberty.” The royal family were constant inquirers after her health, and the Duke of Wellington called daily at her door to ask if hope might yet remain. At two o’clock on Monday, the 14th July, she died in perfect peace, at the age of fifty-one. The day of her death was the anniversary of the Revolution which had exerted so great an influence on her life.

She died at Paris, but her dust was laid beside the dust of her father at Coppet. Perhaps no one ever felt more strongly the stirrings of the soul within than Madame de StaËl. So long as genius and patriotism and piety can excite the admiration of the world, so long will her tomb be one of the holiest shrines of the imagination.

Madame de StaËl may be safely pronounced the greatest writer who has yet appeared among women. At an early age, she applied herself to literary composition, and produced several plays and tales. To the elements of genius, intellect, intelligence, and imagination, God added the vehemence of passion, and she became the highest representative of female authorship. We humbly submit that it is impossible to read her incomparable works without feeling the soul elate, and seeing a glory not of earth shed over this mortal scene. A philosophy profounder than the philosophy of the schools is the imperishable legacy she has left to posterity. She wrote neither to please nor to surprise, but to profit others; and whatever may be the faults or defects of her writings, they have this greatest of all merit,—intense, life-pervading, and life-breathing truth.

In 1788, on the eve of the Revolution, she issued her first work of note, the eloquent and enthusiastic “Lettres sur les Ecrits et le CaractÈre de J. J. Rousseau.” These letters are, however, rather a girlish eulogy than a just and discriminating criticism. The news of the king’s execution on the 21st of January, 1793, inexpressibly shocked her; and in the month of August she sought to save the life of the queen, by publishing “RÉflexions sur le ProcÈs de la Reine, par une Femme.” In this appeal, which deserves to rank among the classics of the human race, her first word is to her own sex. She then refers to her illustrious client’s devotion to her husband and children; labours to show that the death of the queen would be prejudicial to the republic; then draws a picture of what she must have suffered during her imprisonment, and argues that, if guilty, she has been sufficiently punished. Her pleadings for the fallen queen were too late to be effective. In 1794, she issued a pamphlet, entitled “RÉflexions sur la Paix, adressÉes À M. Pitt et aux FranÇais.” The stand-point of this spirited brochure is that of a friend of Lafayette, the Constitutionalists of France, and a British Foxite. The next pamphlet she published, was in 1795: “RÉflexions sur la Paix IntÉrieure.” It is a valuable contribution to the political history of the times; but as it was never sold to the public, we shall not dwell upon it. This year also, she published at Lausanne, under the title “Recueil de Morceaux DÉtachÉs,” a collection of her juvenile writings. This work manifests an intimate knowledge of the principal romances, not only of France, but of Europe. In the summer of 1796, her work—“De l’Influence des Passions sur le Bonheur des Individus et des Nations,” a work full of originality and genius. She treated first of the passions; then of the sentiments which are intermediate between the passions and the resources which we find in ourselves; and finally, of the resources which we find in ourselves. Here she first revealed her almost unequalled power as a delineator of the human passions. In 1800, she published, “De la LittÉrature ConsidÉrÉe dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions sociales.” This work must take an abiding place in the history of the female mind. Few, if any, of her contemporaries of the male sex could have executed it; and none of her own sex could have planned it. “Delphine” was published in 1802. This romance greatly increased her reputation; although subjected to much adverse criticism. But far superior to it in every respect was “Corinne,” which appeared in 1807, and which breathes in every page the glowing and brilliant Italy which it partly paints. Its success was instant and immense, and won for her a really European reputation. “De l’Allemagne,” was printed at Paris in 1810, but not published. The whole edition was seized by the police; the plea afterwards given for its suppression being that it was an anti-national work. Several years afterwards, it was published in London. This celebrated work consists of four parts: Germany, and the German manners; literature and the arts; philosophy and morals; religion and enthusiasm. Sir James Mackintosh considered it the most elaborate and masculine production of the faculties of woman. It exhibits throughout an almost unparalleled union of graceful vivacity and philosophical ingenuity, and, according to Goethe, broke down the Chinese wall of prejudice which separated the rest of Europe from the fruitful and flowery empire of German thought and imagination. Her unfinished and posthumous book—“Dix AnnÉes d’Exil,” was an impassioned denunciation of Napoleon and his arbitrary rule. The whole was evidently written under a galling sense of oppression and wrong. The famous work, “ConsidÉrations sur la Revolution FranÇaise,” was also posthumous.

From this necessarily imperfect analysis of Madame de StaËl’s writings, it will be seen that she was endowed in the very “prodigality of heaven” with genius of a creative order, with boundless fertility of fancy, with an intellect of intense electric light, with a tendency to search out the very quintessence of feeling, and with an eloquence of the most impassioned kind. “She could mount up with wings as an eagle, she could run and not be weary, she could walk and not be faint.”

We enjoy the immense advantage of studying Madame de StaËl from a distance that is neither too great nor too little; but she presents so many sides, that it would be presumption on our part to expect to render anything like a full and true portrait. She had a good physical constitution, which is of far more importance than many clever people seem to imagine. Her personal appearance was plain; she had no good feature but her eyes. Yet by her astonishing powers of speech she made herself even more than agreeable. Years increased her charms. Her beauty—if we may so call it—was of the kind which improves with time.

Madame de StaËl had a vast intellect and a burning nature—the sensibility of a woman and the strength of a giant. She has been said to resemble Mrs. Thrale in the ardour and warmth of her partialities. M. L. ChÉnier, Benjamin Constant, M. de Bonald, M. Villemain, M. Sainte-Beuve, have each in his turn testified admiration of her brilliant capacity, almost always oratorical, and especially distinguished by an unrivalled superabundance and movement and ardour of thought. Napoleon Bonaparte feared her more than any of his talking and writing opponents. “Why do you take any notice of her? surely you need not mind a woman!” “That woman has shafts which would reach a man if he were mounted on a rainbow!”

There is little to be said against her. There is no doubt of her vanity—but she had something to be vain of. The concealment of her second marriage was foolish; but she confessed it upon her deathbed to her children, and recommended to their protection the young child that had been its fruit. Yet blame her for these faults as we may, we must still admire her, as an affectionate daughter, a devoted wife, and a loving mother; as a leader of society, and yet free from its vices. She was noted for candour, integrity, and kindness. French by birth, Swiss by lineage, Swedish by marriage, English, German, Italian, and Spanish by the adoptive power of sympathy and knowledge, she belonged rather to Europe than to France, and after French writers have done their best, there will still remain points of view which only a non-Frenchman can seize and occupy.

“For winning simplicity, graceful expression, and exquisite pathos, her compositions are specially remarkable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the laugh is sprightly and overpowering.”

It is much easier to give a negative than a positive answer to this question. All that we seem to have arrived at is, Poeta nascitur non fit; and that no amount or kind of culture can bestow the divine afflatus. Hesiod, in his “Theogony,” exhibits the Muses in the performance of their highest functions, singing choral hymns to their Heavenly Father, but gives no proper definition of poetry. Aristotle, in his treatise on “The Poetic,” does not explain its essence, but merely its principal forms. Dr. Johnson has attempted to define poetry in these words: “Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the aid of reason.” But it is well known that poetry often unites pleasure to what is not truth. According to Dr. Blair, “Poetry is the language of passion or enlivened imagination, formed most commonly into regular numbers.” This seems a pretty near approach to a true definition. Still it is defective, for there are parts of poetry which are not included either under “passion or enlivened imagination.” Competent critics will admit that a true definition seizes and exhibits the distinctive element and speciality of the thing defined; and tried by this test every definition we are acquainted with fails in doing the very thing required—determining what may be called the “differential mark” of poetry. Perhaps this question, which has so long puzzled the literary world, may be incapable of a categorical answer, but it seems to us essentially to consist of fine thoughts, deeply felt, and expressed in vivid and melodious language. Poets and poetesses see farther than other people, feel more deeply, and utter what they see and feel better. All history testifies that the poetry which has come down to us most deeply stamped with approbation, and which appears most likely to see and glorify the ages of the future, has been penetrated and inspired by moral purpose, and warmed by religious feeling. Our great kings and queens of song, are alike free from morbid weakness, moral pollution, and doubtful speculation. Such only may hope to send their names down, in thunder and in music, through the echoing aisles of the future. All lasting fame must rest on a good foundation.

The maiden name of the subject of this sketch was Carolina Oliphant. She was the third daughter and fifth child of Laurence Oliphant, Esq., of Gask, Perthshire, who had espoused his cousin Margaret Robertson, a daughter of Duncan Robertson, of Strowan, and his wife a daughter of the second Lord Nairne. The Oliphants of Gask were cadets of the formerly noble house of Oliphant; whose ancestor, Sir William Oliphant, of Aberdalgie, a powerful knight, acquired distinction in the beginning of the fourteenth century by defending the castle of Stirling, against a formidable siege by the first Edward. Carolina was born in the mansion house of Gask, on the 16th of July, 1766. Her father was so keen a Jacobite, that she, along with other two of his children, were named after Prince Charles Edward. Even the Prayer-Books which he put into his children’s hands had the names of the exiled family pasted over those of the reigning one. He could not bear the name of the “German lairdie and his leddy,” to be mentioned in his presence, and when any of the family read the newspapers to him, the reader was sharply reproved if their majesties were designated anything else than the “K—— and Q——.” The antecedents of the family naturally produced this strong feeling. Carolina’s father and grandfather had borne arms under Prince Charles in the fatal campaign of 1745-6, which crushed for ever the hopes of the Stuarts; and her grandmother had a lock from the hair of the young Chevalier, which was given to her the day it was cut.

The childhood of Carolina Oliphant was thus passed amidst family traditions eminently fitted to stir her warm imagination. Not only so, the natural surroundings of her home were of the kind to nourish the poetic faculty. It was the

where green vales bedeck the landscape with verdure and beauty; farmhouses stand half-way up the braes, shadowed with birches; and old castles frown in feudal dignity. Amid such magic scenes, Miss Oliphant grew into that loving familiarity with nature in all its various moods, which imparts to her verses one of their many charms. She entered eagerly into all the pleasures which the world can afford its votaries. So energetic was she in her gaiety, that “finding at a ball, in a watering-place, that the ladies were too few for the dance, she drove home, and awoke a young friend at midnight, and stood in waiting till she was equipped to follow her to the dance.”

But although no mere selfish, frivolous, fine lady, bent solely upon her own enjoyments, yet it might be said of her, “one thing thou lackest.” That best gift, however, was soon to be hers. The kingdom of heaven was brought near to her, and through grace, unlike the young man in the gospel, she did not turn away because of her possessions. “She was on a visit to the old castle of Murthly, where an English clergyman had also arrived. He was a winner of souls. At morning worship she was in her place with the household, and listened to what God’s ambassador said on the promise, ‘Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.’ That forenoon she was seen no more. When she appeared again her beautiful face was spoiled with weeping. Beneath the eye of faith, how does the aspect of all things change! She had caught a glimpse of the glory of the Son of God, and burned with love to Him of whom she could henceforth say, ‘Whose I am and whom I serve.’ Her pen, her pencil, her harp, as afterwards her coronet, were laid at His feet, to be henceforth used, used up by and for the King.”

Many lovers had sought in vain the hand of Miss Carolina Oliphant, but on June the 6th, 1806, she married her maternal cousin William Murray Nairne, who was Inspector-General of Barracks in Scotland, and held the rank of major in the army. His hereditary title was Baron Nairne, but it was one of the titles attainted by the rebellion.

Her wedded life was one of great happiness. Blest in the husband of her fondest affection, and encircled with all the endearing delights of domestic enjoyment, the union was a delightful one; the husband and wife lived as joint-heirs of the grace of life; one in the family, in the social circle, and in the house of God; singing the same song, joining in the same prayer, and feasting on the same comforts. The sun seldom rose on a happier habitation. An only child, William, was born in 1808.

Mrs. Nairne seems to have judged correctly as to her true vocation. Shocked with the grossness of the songs in popular use, she determined to purify the lyrics of her country; and while doing this she contrived carefully to conceal the worker. First she sent some verses to the president of an agricultural dinner held in the neighbourhood. They were received with great approbation, and set to music. Thus encouraged, song followed song,—some humorous, some pathetic, but all vastly superior in simple poetic power, as well as moral tone, to those she was anxious to supplant. Soon her lyrics were scattered broadcast over the land, carrying pure and elevated sentiments, and even religious truth, into many a neglected home. Through the influence of a lady, who knew her claims as a poetess, she was induced in 1821 to contribute to a collection of national songs, which was being published by Mr. Robert Purdie, an enterprising music-seller in Edinburgh. Her contributions were signed “B. B.” and Mr. Purdie and his editor, Mr. R. A. Smith, were under the impression that the popular authoress was Mrs. Bogan, of Bogan. The songs of “B. B.” were sung in all the chief towns by professed vocalists, and were everywhere hailed with applause. Public curiosity was aroused as to the authorship, and the question was debated in the newspapers, to the great alarm of the real authoress.

In 1822, George the Fourth, who had considerable intellectual ability, and some virtues as well as frailties, although no man of Mr. Thackeray’s abilities has set himself to look for the former, visited Scotland, and heard Mrs. Nairne’s song, “The Attainted Scottish Nobles” sung: this circumstance is generally supposed to have led to the restoration of the peerage to her husband. At all events, in 1824, the attainder was removed by Act of Parliament, and the title of his fathers bestowed on Major Nairne.

On July the 9th, 1830, Lady Nairne became a widow. The trial was ill to bear. But she had one availing consolation, she knew his star had set on this world, to rise and shine in brighter skies: vital Christianity was as visible in her departed husband, as the broad black seal that death had stamped upon his brow. He had gone before to the presence of that Saviour whom they had loved and served together.

Her son, now in his twenty-second year, succeeded to the title of his father. With that wondrous solicitude which fills a mother’s heart towards her only child, Lady Nairne had watched the training of her boy; and she had a rich reward. He grew up no mere devotee of mammon, or fashion, or fame, but a youth of good intellectual powers, high moral qualities, and sound religious principles—all that a Christian mother could desire. But alas! this gourd was doomed to perish also. In the spring of 1837, the young baron suffered much from influenza, and for the benefit of his health he went to Brussels, accompanied by his mother. There he caught a severe cold, and after an illness of six weeks, died on the 7th of December, 1837. Her heart bled for her son, but no murmur escaped her lips. She was content that Christ should come into her garden and pluck the sweetest flower. Yet she deeply felt her loss. “I sometimes say to myself,” she wrote to a friend, “this is ‘no me,’ so greatly have my feelings and trains of thought changed since ‘auld lang syne,’ and though I am made to know assuredly that all is well, I scarcely dare to allow my mind to settle on the past.”

After this sad event Lady Nairne might have been seen taking her walk in a cool anteroom, “passing and repassing the bust of her darling son, and stopping as often to gaze on it, then replacing the white handkerchief that covered it to keep it pure.”

In her old age Lady Nairne resided chiefly on the Continent, and frequently at Paris; but the last two years of her life were spent at Gask. Feeble in body and worn in spirit, on the verge of another world, where praise or censure is nothing, her interest in the salvation of souls was as fresh as ever. To the teacher of a school where children were daily taught, she thus delivered her sentiments on the great subject of education. “You say they like ‘The Happy Land’ best: is the gospel in it? Repeat it.” Her eager eye watched each line till she should hear what satisfied her. She then said, “It’s pretty, very sweet; but it might be clearer. Remember, unless the work of Christ for them as sinners comes in,—the ransom, the substitution,—what you teach is worthless for their souls.” On Sunday, the 26th of October, 1845, in the mansion house of Gask, she quietly sank to the rest she had so long looked for, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years.

Not in the crowded cemetery of the city, where many of the wise, mighty, and noble have been laid down to repose; but in the lovely churchyard among the mountains of her own picturesque county, where the “rude forefathers of the hamlet lie,” did a weeping crowd commit the remains of Lady Nairne to the cold ground. The burial service was read by the Rev. Sir William Dunbar, Bart.

One good song is sufficient to secure immortality. Sappho lives in virtue of a single song. What then shall we say of Lady Nairne who has bequeathed more of these imperishable breathings to her country and to the world than any Caledonian bard, Burns alone excepted. The lyrics of Scotland were characterized by a loose ribaldry, she resolved to supply songs of a higher type. Take the following verses as a specimen of the good common sense, the cheerful practical philosophy, which, joined to poetic imagery, made its way to the hearts of the people.

In 1824, “The Scottish Minstrel” was completed in six volumes, royal octavo, and Mr. Purdie and his editor, Mr. Smith, still believing “B. B.” to stand for Mrs. Bogan of Bogan, said, “In particular the editors would have felt happy in being permitted to enumerate the many original and beautiful verses that adorn their pages, for which they are indebted to the author of the much admired song, ‘The Land o’ the Leal;’ but they fear to wound a delicacy which shrinks from all observation.” “The Land o’ the Leal” well deserved the praise bestowed upon it. The name alone is a triumph of word-painting. Who that has heard it sung in a Scotch gloaming to a group of eager listeners will not confirm our words, that there is no song, not even of Burns, nor of Moore, nor of BÉranger, nor of Heine, which approaches on its own ground “The Land o’ the Leal”? It was written for relatives of Lady Nairne’s, who had lost a child; its pathos is most exquisite.

The humorous and highly popular song entitled “The Laird o’ Cockpen,” was composed by Lady Nairne, in room of the older words connected with the air, “When she cam’ ben, she bobbit.” This is a song which every member of every Scotch audience has heard crooned or chirped in glee and waggery. It is matchless alike as respects scene and dramatis personÆ, its fine suggestive touches, and its Scotch wut. The present Laird of Cockpen is the Earl of Dalhousie, an elder of the Free Church of Scotland, and grand-master of the Masonic Lodge of Scotland. We shall give this song also entire. The different style illustrates the genius of the authoress.

Her song, “Caller Herrin,” has acquired extensive popularity. The late John Wilson, the eminent vocalist, sung it in every principal town in the kingdom. In the touching lines “Rest is not here,” she embodied her own experience. The beautiful piece entitled “Would you be young again?” was composed in her seventy-sixth year.

Dr. Rogers has recently done justice to her memory by the publication of her life and songs. In this elegant book, a new edition of which has already been called for, there is an excellent portrait of the Baroness. The songs in the present volume may be confidently accepted as being certainly composed by the gifted authoress.

In youth, Lady Nairne was distinguished for her personal charms and her devotion to the pursuits of the world. So remarkable was the beauty of her face and the elegance of her shape, that she was called “The Flower of Strathearn.” In her mature years her countenance wore a somewhat pensive cast.

She was endowed with gifts many and various. Possessed of a strong intellect, as well as a beautiful fancy, all learning was easily acquired. Her delights lay in the cultivation of an elegant imagination, and in the enjoyment of those pleasures which can only be tasted by a mind of a refined order. Capable of describing the play of human passions in a manner which awoke the deepest emotions of the heart, her songs became the theme of every tongue.

To promote both the spiritual and temporal welfare of her fellow-creatures, she gave largely of her means. Dr. Chalmers, in an address delivered at Edinburgh, on the 29th December, 1845, said,—“she wanted me to enumerate a list of charitable objects, in proportion to the estimate I had of their value. Accordingly, I furnished her with a scale of about five or six charitable objects. The highest in the scale were those institutions which have for their design the Christianizing of the people at home; and I also mentioned to her what we were doing in the West Port; and there came to me from her in the course of a day or two no less a sum than £300. She is now dead; she is now in her grave, and her works do follow her. When she gave me this noble benefaction, she laid me under strict injunctions of secrecy, and, accordingly, I did not mention her name to any person; but after she was dead, I begged of her nearest heir that I might be allowed to proclaim it, because I thought that her example, so worthy to be followed, might influence others in imitating her, and I am happy to say that I am now at liberty to state that it was Lady Nairne, of Perthshire.”

SECTION V.—FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.

“As a female writer, influencing the female mind, she has undoubtedly stood, for some by-past years, the very first in the first rank; and this pre-eminence has been acknowledged, not only in her own land, but wherever the English tongue is spoken, whether on the banks of the eastern Ganges or the western Mississippi.”

This species of poetry sets forth the inward occurrences of the writer’s or speaker’s own mind—concerns itself with the thoughts and emotions. It is called lyric, because it was originally accompanied by the music of that instrument. Purely lyrical pieces are from their nature short, and fall into several divisions, which are again subdivided into psalms and songs. Passion, genius, a teeming brain, a palpitating heart, and a soul on fire, are necessary to lyrical composition. The poetry that lives among the people, must indeed be simple—but the simplest feelings are the deepest, and when adequately expressed, are immortal. The song-writer and the psalmist are equally divine; and the rich and noble melodies which they send abroad from their resounding lyres, the world claims as an inheritance. True lyrics themselves may be weak and wandering, but the children of their brains are strong and immortal. Empires may pass away, but the ecstatic ether which they breathe on the world, shall remain. That sweet psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” was drawn by David from the strings of a well-tuned instrument, and it expresses the feelings of Christians in the nineteenth century, just as well as it did those of the devout in the long ages before Christ. The child commits it to memory, and the dying believer sings it with a heart empty of care and full of gladness. In “Auld Robin Gray,” Lady Anne Barnard spoke from her inmost heart. It instantly became popular, and has come down to us entire, as if all things had conspired that such a perfect, tender, and affecting song of humble life should never perish; but must be sung and wept over while the earth endureth. The lyric poetry of a country is characteristic of its manners.

In the year 1786, George Browne, Esq., an eminent Liverpool merchant, married Miss Wagner, daughter of the Imperial and Tuscan consul. All the offspring of this marriage were distinguished by superior gifts, cultivated talents, and refined taste. Felicia Dorothea, the fifth child, was born in Duke Street, on the 25th of September, 1793, and was early found to be endowed with the two most coveted of earthly gifts—beauty and genius.

The first six years of her life, were passed in wealth and ease, but at the close of the century, in consequence of commercial difficulties, her father broke up his establishment at Liverpool, and removed to the sea-coast of Denbighshire, in North Wales, near the little town of Abergele, and shortly afterwards emigrated to America, where he died. The education of Felicia Browne thus devolved exclusively on her mother; and under her judicious instruction, she learned with facility the elements of general knowledge—evinced peculiar aptness for the acquisition of languages, drawing, and music—and derived information with extraordinary ease, quickness, and clearness, from all things visible, audible, and tangible. The air at Gwrych is salubrious, and the scenery around beautiful; and often in after-years did the gifted poetess recall those happy hours spent by the sea-shore, listening to the cadence of the waves; or passed in the old house, gazing across the intervening meadows on a range of magnificent mountains; or consumed in the vale of Clwyd, searching for primroses.

Mountains, the sea, and London, have been pronounced important points in education. Felicia Browne had long enjoyed the first and the second, and at the age of eleven completed the mind-enlarging triad, by paying a visit to the great metropolis. But despite the attractions of music, the drama, and works of art, the contrast between the hard pavement, crowded streets, and social constraint of London, and the glory, freshness, and freedom of her mountain home, made her more anxious to get away than ever she had been to come. Soon after she appeared in print, and the harsh animadversions of reviewers probably ignorant of the years of the authoress, so distressed the sensitive aspirant as to bring on an illness. In 1809, the family left Gwrych, and went to reside at Bronwylfa, near St. Asaph, in Flintshire. Here the work of intellectual development progressed steadily; and Miss Browne, already mistress of French and Italian, acquired the Spanish and Portuguese, with the rudiments of German.

In 1812, she was married to Captain Hemans, of the 4th foot, lately returned from Spanish service; and removed to Daventry with her husband, who was appointed adjutant to the Northamptonshire militia. The union was not a happy one. Mrs. Hemans had a splendid imagination, generous and active feelings, and a fine frank nature, which made her popular wherever she went. Captain Hemans was a handsome well-bred soldier, but of a cold methodical constitution, as destitute of the romantic element as the branches of trees in winter of all the green, soft luxury of foliage. There never has been a true marriage in this world without sympathy between the husband and the wife. A man of Captain Hemans’ temper was incapable of making a woman constituted like Mrs. Hemans permanently happy. In 1818, after the birth of five children, all sons, a separation took place, ostensibly because the captain, whose health was failing, was advised to try the effect of a warmer climate. He went to Italy, and she remained in England. They never saw each other afterwards.

Subsequently to a step which virtually amounted to a divorce, Mrs. Hemans and her children remained under her mother’s roof at Bronwylfa till the spring of 1825, when Mrs. Browne, with her daughter and grand-children, removed to Rhyllon, a comfortable house about a quarter of a mile distant, on the opposite side of the river Clwyd, with Bronwylfa in full sight. While domiciled at Rhyllon, Miss Jewsbury, with whom she had previously been in correspondence, frequently visited her and soothed her perturbed feelings. Mrs. Hemans took great delight in the company of Miss Jewsbury, and always expressed her sense of obligation to her for leading her more fully into the spirit of Wordsworth’s poetry, and for making her acquainted with many of his compositions. One autumn, on his return from exploring Snowdon, James Montgomery, like a true poet, came to Rhyllon, to offer honest homage to Mrs. Hemans.

Her pious and excellent mother died on the 11th of January, 1827, and soon after Mrs. Hemans removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool. Writing to a friend concerning the sorrows and conflicts of this period, she exclaims: “Oh, that I could lift up my heart, and sustain it at that height where alone the calm sunshine is!” Yet there were many alleviating circumstances connected with this migration. She was returning to the great seaport in which she was born, whose streets she had occasionally trodden, whose spires she had often seen, and which the inhabitants of Denbighshire and Flintshire had taught her to regard as a North Welsh metropolis. But the leaving of Wales was a great trial, and greatly augmented by the affectionate regrets and enthusiastic blessings of the Welsh peasants, who kissed the very gate-hinges through which she had passed. In her first letter from Wavertree to St. Asaph, she writes: “Oh, that Tuesday morning! I literally covered my face all the way from Bronwylfa, until the boys told me we had passed the Clwyd range of hills. Then something of the bitterness was over.” For the first time in her life she now took upon herself the sole responsibility of household management, became liable to the harassing cares of practical life, and subject to the formal restraints belonging to a great commercial town and its suburbs. In exchanging the ranges of the great hills, for long rows of houses—the blue seas and fresh breezes, for dirty wharves and dingy warehouses—familiar and loving faces, for the rude stare of strangers, and the simper of affected courtesy—her feelings experienced a series of shocks; and she held back from the gay world, and sought social pleasure in the company of a few chosen friends.

In 1829, having accepted an invitation to visit Scotland, where her writings had raised up for her a host of admirers, accompanied by her two elder sons and her maid, she embarked for the Firth of Forth. On their arrival in Edinburgh, her name won general homage, and all kinds of attention were lavished upon her, by the flower of its literature. Remaining a few days, with a keen but mournful interest, she wandered through the antique streets, wynds, and closes of the romantic capital; examined the castle, whose huge battlements command a panorama to which there are few, if any, parallels on earth; visited the Calton Hill, broken with cliffs, enamelled with golden furze, feathered with trees, and studded with monuments for the mighty dead; spent some time at Holyrood Palace, where the young, brilliant, and beautiful Mary reigned in queenly splendour; and having become acquainted with the principal objects of local interest, proceeded to Roxburghshire. At Abbotsford—that “romance of stone and mortar,” as it has been termed—Sir Walter Scott received her and her boys, and treated them with princely hospitality. On leaving Abbotsford, she remarks, “I shall not forget the kindness of Sir Walter’s farewell, so frank, and simple, and heartfelt, as he said to me, ‘There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are one of those.’” During this sojourn, she became acquainted with many eminent persons, and when on the point of leaving, was persuaded to sit for a bust. The necessary process having been gone through, she returned to England.

In 1830, longing again for rural quiet, she visited the lakes and Mr. Wordsworth. In walking and riding, in boating on Windermere, in sketching woody mountains, in conversing with the meditative poet, and in writing poetry to absent friends, time glided rapidly away.

At the earnest and repeated solicitations of her northern friends, she revisited Scotland, and had the severity of the climate not threatened to be fatal to her, she would have gladly fixed her future home in Dunedin. She made a voyage to Dublin, to ascertain its suitablility as a place of residence. From Dublin she crossed the channel to Holyhead, and travelled through the Island of Anglesea, to her old home Bronwylfa. Her old Welsh neighbours flocked around her, entreating her to come back and live among them again. She returned to Wavertree with agitated spirits, and an exhausted frame.

In 1831, Mrs. Hemans finally quitted Liverpool for Dublin. After spending several weeks among kind friends, she passed on to the residence of her second brother and his wife, and then visited all the remarkable places around Kilkenny. In the spring and summer of 1832, when cholera was devastating the city, her letters express the solemn composure of her soul, her childlike dependence upon the care of God, and her unreserved submission to His will. In the autumn of 1833, the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, the brother-in-law and sister of Mrs. Hemans, whom she had not seen for five years, came to Dublin. Her sister saw with pain the worn and altered looks which time, care, and sickness had wrought. In 1834, referring to the brightening of heart and soul into the perfect day of Christian excellence, she remarks; “When the weary struggle with wrong and injustice leads to such results, I then feel that the fearful mystery of life is solved for me.” Reading one evening in the gardens of the Dublin Society, a chill fog imperceptibly came on, and she was seized with a violent fit of shivering. For many weeks she had periodic attacks of ague. Aware that her time was short, she sedulously employed her genius and talents for the glory of God.

On Sunday the 10th of May, 1835, she was able, for the last time, to read to herself the appointed Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. During that week a heavy languor oppressed her, and sometimes her mind wandered, but always in sunny scenes. On the evening of Saturday the 16th, at nine o’clock, while asleep, her happy spirit passed away. Life, and this admirable woman, had not been long together; she was only in her forty-second year.

Her remains were interred in St. Anne’s church, Dawson Street, Dublin; and over her grave were inscribed eight lines from one of her own dirges:—

The memorial erected by her nearest relations in the cathedral of St. Asaph, is very expressive, and records that—

An eminent living critic has said that Mrs. Hemans’ poetry is silent to all effective utterance of original truth. We do not adopt that sentiment, but we believe had her mind been directed in youth to the works of Lord Bacon and Bishop Butler, or even the elementary propositions of Euclid, it would probably have gained both as to intellectual and moral strength. Her poetical life divides itself into four periods. The juvenile, the classic, the romantic, and the mature. Her mind precociously expanded to a keen sense of the beautiful, and a warm appreciation of nature and poetry. Some pieces found in her works date their composition as far back as 1803 and 1804; but it was not till 1808 that her first volume was ushered into the world. In 1812, she gave to the press “The Domestic Affections.” In 1819, appeared “Tales and Historic Scenes.” In 1823, a tragedy entitled “The Vespers of Palermo.” In 1826, she published “The Forest Sanctuary.” In 1828, “Records of Woman.” In 1830, she brought out “Songs of the Affections.” In 1834, appeared her little volume of “Hymns for Childhood,” “National Lyrics and Songs for Music,” “Scenes and Hymns of Life,” and sonnets, under the title of “Thoughts during Sickness.”

These are her principal works. She obtained a prize from a patriotic Scotsman for the best poem on Sir William Wallace, and a prize was also awarded her by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on Dartmoor. Like all authors who have written much, her poetry is of various excellence; but for pathos, sentiment, and gorgeous richness of language, we know no lyrics superior to her little pieces. She was, as Lord Jeffrey well remarked, an admirable writer of occasional verses. Mrs. Hemans never left the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but her imagination visited and realized every place of which she read, or heard, or saw a picture. How minute, eloquent and exciting, are her descriptions of “The Better Land.”

Mrs. Hemans has the most perfect skill in her science; nothing can be more polished, glowing, and harmonious, than her versification. We give an illustration, “The Voice of Spring.”

There is diffused over all her poetry a yearning desire to associate the name of England with every sentiment and feeling of freedom and patriotism. “The Homes of England” shows that she knew wherein consisted the glory and strength of kingdoms.

Her “Graves of a Household” illustrates how well the graphic and pathetic may be made to set off each other.

With what exquisite tenderness and beautiful imagery does she express in “The Hour of Death” the emotions of every heart.

Mrs. Hemans’ poetry has four characteristics, viz., the ideal, the picturesque, the harmonious, and the moral. There may be “too many flowers for the fruit;” yet a large portion of it possesses perennial vitality.

The best edition extant of the works of Mrs. Hemans has been published recently by Messrs. Blackwood. The poems are chronologically arranged, with illustrative notes and a selection of contemporary criticisms. Besides an ample table of contents, there is a general index, and an index of first lines.

Her personal appearance was highly attractive. The writer of her memoir describes her in early womanhood as radiant with beauty. The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets of a rich golden brown; and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which would have made it impossible for any painter to do justice to it. She was of middle stature and slight of figure. Her air was graceful, and her manner fascinating in its artlessness. From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot she was touched with elegance.

In dramatic conception, depth of thought, and variety of fancy, we could name several women who excelled her; but in the use of language, in the employment of rich, chaste, and glowing imagery, and in the perfect music of her versification, she stands alone and superior. In the words of Miss Jewsbury, “The genius with which she was gifted, combined to inspire a passion for the ethereal, the tender, the imaginative, the heroic,—in one word, the beautiful. It was in her a faculty Divine, and yet of daily life, it touched all things; but like a sunbeam, touched them with a golden finger.”

She was a genuine woman, and therefore imbued with a Christian spirit. To borrow again from Miss Jewsbury: “Her strength and her weakness alike lay in her affections: these would sometimes make her weep at a word, at others imbue her with courage, so that she was alternately a falcon-hearted dove, and a reed shaken with the wind. Her voice was a sad melody; her spirits reminded me of an old poet’s description of the orange-tree with its

or of those Spanish gardens, where the pomegranate grows beside the cypress. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if in her depression she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars.”

SECTION VI.—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

“It is characteristic of this century, that women play a more important part in literature than previously. Not only have women of genius commanded universal homage, but the distinctive characteristics of the female nature have been exhibited with more exquisite analysis and more powerful truth than heretofore.”

The principal of poetical compositions is the epic, otherwise called the heroic. It gives an imaginative narrative of some signal action or series of actions and events, usually the achievements of some distinguished character, and intended to form the morals and affect the mind with the love of virtue. The longer poems of the epic genus embrace an extensive series of events, and the actions of numerous personages. The “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” are the principal Grecian epics. The “Æneid” is the most distinguished Roman epic. “Jerusalem Delivered” and the “Divina Comedia” are the most celebrated Italian epics. “Paradise Lost” is the greatest English epic. These are epic poems by way of eminence, but there are several species of minor poems which from their nature most also be ranked as epics. One of these is the “idyl,” a term applied to what is called pastoral poetry. The ballad is another species of minor epic. Critics agree that this sort of poetry is the greatest work human nature is capable of. But attempts at epic poetry are now rare, the spirit of the age being against this kind of composition. It is believed that several of our immortal epics could not have been written in the nineteenth century; because the mind would never produce that of the truth of which it could not persuade itself by any illusion of the imagination. In the room of epic poems, we have now novels, which may be considered as the epics of modern civil and domestic life. We have, however, minds of both sexes, in our midst, capable of furnishing us with epics, so far as genius is concerned.

Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, about the year 1809. Her father was an opulent country gentleman, and not a West India merchant as several biographies represent him to have been. She passed her girlhood at his country-seat in Herefordshire, among the lovely scenery of the Malvern Hills. At least she says:—

She seems to have been a very precocious child, and the culture which she received in her youth was fair, liberal, and sound. Classics, philosophy, and science were studied with enthusiasm and success. We welcome gladly the evidence that society is beginning to recognise woman’s right to be as highly educated as her capacity will allow. She is to be man’s companion, and what can better enable her to be a fit companion for him, than a due comprehension of what he comprehends; an appreciation founded upon knowledge of the difficulties he has mastered, and power to stand beside him and help him in his intellectual labours. Without disregarding the fact that all women do not follow in the footsteps of men, and therefore do not require the same course of learning, Elizabeth Barrett participated largely in the education given to her brothers by a very able tutor, Mr. Hugh Stuart Boyd, the Grecian.

From a very early age her ear was ever attuned to catch the deep and mysterious and hope-inspiring whisperings of nature. At the age of ten she began writing in prose and in verse, and at fifteen her talent for literary composition became known to her friends. She was a most diligent student, and soon became a contributor to periodical literature, and a series of articles on the Greek Christian poets not only indicated how deeply she had entered into the spirit of these old authors, but proved that she was possessed both of recondite learning and true poetic genius. If, as some critics aver, her earlier style resembles that of Tennyson; this arises, not from imitation, but from similarity of genius and classical taste. Proofs of rare reading and deep reflection abound in Miss Barrett’s first attempt at authorship, published in 1826: “An Essay on Mind, and other Poems.” Her next literary enterprise was a version of one of the greatest and most difficult masterpieces of classical antiquity; “Prometheus Bound,” which appeared in 1833; and of which she has since given an improved translation. In 1838 appeared another volume of original poetry, “The Seraphim, and other Poems;” the external peculiarity of which was its endeavour to embody the ideas and sentiments of a Christian mystery in the artistic form of a Greek tragedy. This was followed in 1839, by a third work, “The Romaunt of the Page.”

Life’s joys are as inconstant as life itself. Temporal disappointments often distress us, and God’s providential visitations often cause us to change our plans.

About this time, a melancholy accident occurred which for years clouded the life of the poetess, and all but irretrievably shattered her naturally delicate constitution. She burst a blood-vessel in the lungs. Happily, no symptoms of consumption supervened; but after a twelvemonth’s confinement at home, she was ordered by her physician to the mild climate of Devonshire. A house was taken for her at Torquay, near the foot of the cliffs, close by the sea. She was rapidly recovering, when one bright summer morning her brother and two young men, his friends, went out in a small boat for a trip of a few hours. Just as they crossed the bar, the vessel swamped, and all on board perished. Even their lifeless bodies were never recovered. They were sepulchred in the great ocean, which has wrapped its garment of green round many of the fairest and noblest of the sons of men, and which rolls its continued requiem of sublimity and sadness over the millions whom it hath entombed. This sudden and dreadful calamity almost killed Miss Barrett. During a whole year, she lay in the house incapable of removal, whilst the sound of the waves rang in her ears as the moans of the dying. Literature was her only solace. Her physician pleaded with her to abandon her studies; and to quiet his importunities she had an edition of Plato bound so as to resemble a novel.

When eventually removed to London and her father’s house in Wimpole Street, it was in an invalid carriage, and at the slow rate of twenty miles a day. In a commodious and darkened room, to which only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted, she nursed her remnant of life; reading meanwhile the best books in almost every language, and giving herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess. The following beautiful and graphic verses were written to commemorate the faithful companionship of a young spaniel (“Flush, my dog”), presented to her by a friend, in those years of imprisonment and inaction.

It was during those six or seven years of seclusion and study that she composed or completed the most striking of those poems, published in two volumes in 1844, which first brought her into notice as a poetess of genius. “Poetry,” said the authoress in her preface, “has been as serious a thing to me as life itself, and life has been a very serious thing. I never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work, not as mere hand and head work apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which I could attain; and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured from the height of my aspiration, but feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some protection with the reverent and sincere.”

In 1846, she became the wife of a kindred spirit, Robert Browning, the poet. Never were man and woman more clearly ordained for each other than Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. They were imperfect apart; together they were rounded into one. With marriage came Mrs. Browning’s welcome restoration to health and strength. The poet-pair started for Italy, staying first at Pisa, and then settling at Florence. In that metropolis of one of the most wealthy and powerful of the Italian States, she witnessed, in 1848-49, the struggle made by the Tuscans for freedom. Mrs. Browning published her collected works in 1850. In 1851, she issued her important work, “Casa Guidi Windows,” a semi-political narrative of actual events and genuine feelings.

Inspirited by what she saw around her, and by a new tie, an only child, a boy of great intellectual and musical precocity, the genius of Mrs. Browning had become practical and energetic. “The future of Italy,” says our authoress, “shall not be disinherited.” Then came, in 1856, “Aurora Leigh,” a long and elaborate poem or novel in blank verse, which our poetess considered the most mature of her works, into which her highest convictions upon life and art were entered. “Poems before Congress” followed in 1860.

After a brief illness, Mrs. Browning died at Florence on the 29th of June, 1861. When the sad news reached England, universal regret was expressed for the loss of the talented lady; the press confessing with singular unanimity that the world had lost in her the greatest poetess that had ever appeared.

She was borne to the tomb amidst the lamentations of Tuscany no less than of her own dear England. Above the door of a decent little house in Florence is a small square slab, with an inscription in Italian, which may be thus translated:—“Here wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who to the heart of a woman joined the science of a scholar and the spirit of a teacher, and who made with her golden verse a nuptial ring between Italy and England. Grateful Florence places this memorial.”

In no languages, save Greek and English, so far as we remember at present, have poetesses achieved special fame; and we think all competent judges will unhesitatingly rank Mrs. Browning as the Queen of song. But we do not wish to judge her by a less elevated standard or less rigid rules than those we apply to the poets generally. “Good for a woman,” is the sort of praise she would have rejected with scorn. She entered fairly into the lists against all the world, and she claims a place among literary worthies as such. Genius is of no sex. What place shall we assign her?

It is not necessary for the purposes of criticism that a scale of genius should be formed, that a list of the orbs of song should be made out. Shakespeare is the greatest author of mankind; for generations he has been hailed as the mightiest of mere men. Mrs. Browning is not Shakespeare; but we do not talk amusingly when we claim her as his counterpart. Milton was endowed with gifts of the soul which have been imparted to few of our race. His name is almost identified with sublimity. He is in fact the sublimest of men. In fitness of conception, terseness of diction, and loftiness of thought, the following lines have all that Miltonic genius could impart:—

In seeking to ascertain the precise position which Mrs. Browning occupies in relation to other writers, critics of general common sense will select a class of favourites who have exerted a mighty sway over the strongly pulsing heart of common humanity. Some will place in this list Burns, Moore, and Scott. With others, Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson will figure as chiefs. Now, in this selection, we venture to affirm Mrs. Browning has been often enrolled by men as well as by women; by some high upon the list, by others, of course, upon a lower level. There are not many good sonnets in English literature, but in this most difficult and elaborate form of composition Mrs. Browning was eminently successful. We could select half a dozen excellent sonnets from Mrs. Browning with more ease than from Shakespeare, or Milton, or any other writer save Wordsworth.

Of her mere literary style we care to say but little, and still less of her faults. She was essentially a self-taught and self-sustained artist. Her correspondence with Mr. John Kenyon, the poet, did not commence till she was thirty years of age, and consequently she owed less to his influences than some of her critics suppose. Her style is strong and clear, but uneven and abrupt. A sentence or paragraph often limps a little after the hastening thought, and a degree of stiffness is sometimes given by a pet word, coined, or obsolete, or picked up in an old book. It would be absurd to deny that certain characteristics of her poetry withhold it from the many and confine it to the few. The true and eternally grateful notes are struck without show of art or self-conscious ambition. Still, following the rule that she ought to be judged by her best, it must be admitted that she is the rose, the consummate crown, the rarer and stronger and more passionate Sappho of our time.

It must have been about 1835 that Miss Mitford first saw Miss Barrett, and to this period the following portrait in the “Recollections of a Literary Life” doubtless referred:—“My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, the authoress of the “Essay on Mind,” was old enough to be introduced into company; in technical language—was out.” But although not strikingly fair to look upon, her nature was so gentle, and her manners so interesting, that they stood her in the stead of health and beauty.

Mrs. Browning was endowed with the highest imaginative and intellectual qualities. In her poems are passages which admit of being compared with those of the few sovereigns of literature; touches which only the mightiest give. We admire and reverence the breadth and versatility of her genius; no sameness; no one idea; no type character; a woman of great acuteness and originality—one of the prime spirits of this century.

Our poetess laid her splendid powers on the altar of God. Deep chastened affection, and nobleness of faith glow and sparkle in her life as well as in her verse, with a rare brilliancy. “She is a Christian,” to quote the words of a popular writer, “not in the sense of appreciating, like Carlyle, the loftiness of the Christian type of character; not in the sense of adopting, like Goethe, a Christian machinery for artistic self-worship; nor even in the sense of approaching, like Wordsworth, an august but abstract morality; but in the sense of finding, like Cowper, the whole hope of humanity bound up in Christ, and taking all the children of her mind to Him, that He may lay His hand on them and bless them. It is well that Mrs. Browning is a Christian. It is difficult, but possible, to bear the reflection that many great female writers have rejected that gospel which has done more for woman than any other civilizing agency; but it is well that the greatest woman of all looks up in faith and love to that eye which fell on Mary from the cross.”

SECTION VII.—CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS.

[CURRER BELL.]

“I turn from the critical unsympathetic, public,—inclined to judge harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts, all noble virtue.”

There are few things more worthy of notice than those strange mutations of opinion, and returning circuits of belief, to which the human mind is subject. The same tastes and habits, the same fashions and follies, the same delusions and the same doubts, seem to have their periodical cycles of recurrence. Theories which have been solemnly buried, suddenly rear their unexpected heads, and are received with all the more favour because of the contempt and derision which followed them to the grave. How many things are taken for granted which want thinking about! The wholesale condemnation of works of fiction is consummate absurdity. When all are condemned, people are apt to suppose that any may be read with impunity. Some novelists have sought for their heroes and heroines among thieves and desperadoes; flagitiously indifferent alike to fact and morality, they have laboured with pernicious success to invest these wretched characters with a halo of romantic interest and dignity: but if on this account we give up the principle, then we must give up poetry, fable, allegory, and all kinds of imaginative literature. The society of our highest intellects must be renounced. Fictitious literature has been condemned on the ground that those novels which are taken up with a description of the world in its most vain and frivolous aspects, are the most popular. This is not true. The works of our modern fictionists are exceedingly popular; and no one acquainted with them will dare to say they are open to such a charge. Not a few object to works of fiction because they make them discontented with real life. It is true the Bible teaches us that it is wrong to murmur at the allotments of Providence; and the Episcopal Church beautifully prays every day, “Give us always minds contented with our present condition.” But it is equally true that the Scriptures teach us to aim at a higher standard than we have yet attained, and clergymen inculcate the necessity for progress. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves, and with many things that we see in others. Let us seek to rise to the lofty ideal presented in good novels, and if we do not find that our ascending steps lead us into a purer atmosphere, and into regions where grow perennial fruit—then complain.

Charlotte BrontË was born at Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, on the 21st of April, 1816. Her father, the Rev. Patrick BrontË, was a native of the County Down, in Ireland; and her mother, Maria, was the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, Penzance, Cornwall. In 1820, Mr. BrontË removed to Haworth, a chapelry in the West Riding, and Mrs. BrontË died the following year. Charlotte in after-years could but dimly recall the remembrance of her mother. The servants were impressed with the cleverness of the little BrontËs, and often said they had never seen such a clever child as Charlotte. Mr. BrontË’s account of his children is exceedingly interesting:—

“As soon as they could read and write, Charlotte and her brother and sisters used to invent and act little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington, my daughter Charlotte’s hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a dispute would not unfrequently arise amongst them regarding the comparative merits of him, Buonaparte, Hannibal, and CÆsar. When the argument got warm, and rose to its height, as their mother was then dead, I had sometimes to come in as arbitrator, and settle the dispute according to the best of my judgment. Generally, in the management of these concerns, I frequently thought that I discovered signs of rising talent, which I had seldom or never before seen in any of their age.... A circumstance now occurs to my mind which I may as well mention. When my children were very young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking that they knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask. I began with the youngest (Anne, afterwards Acton Bell), and asked what a child like her most wanted; she answered, ‘Age and experience.’ I asked the next (Emily, afterwards Ellis Bell), what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered, ‘Reason with him, and when he won’t listen to reason, whip him.’ I asked Branwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between the intellects of man and woman; he answered, ‘By considering the difference between them as to their bodies.’ I then asked Charlotte what was the best book in the world; she answered, ‘The Bible.’ What was the next best; she answered, ‘The Book of Nature.’ I then asked the next what was the best mode of education for a woman; she answered, ‘By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.’ I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so, as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.”

Soon after Mrs. BrontË’s death, an elder sister came from Penzance to superintend her brother-in-law’s household, and look after his six children. Miss Branwell taught her nieces sewing and the household arts, in which Charlotte became an adept. In 1823, a school was established for the daughters of clergymen, at a place called Cowan Bridge. Mr. BrontË took Maria and Elizabeth to Cowan Bridge, in July, 1824; and in September, he brought Charlotte and Emily to be admitted as pupils. Maria was untidy, but gentle, and intellectual. Elizabeth won much upon the esteem of the superintendent of the school by her exemplary patience. Emily was distinguished for fortitude. Charlotte was a “bright, clever, little child.” Maria died in May, and Elizabeth in June, 1825. Charlotte was thus early called upon to bear the responsibilities of an elder sister in a motherless family; both Charlotte and Emily returned to the school at the close of the midsummer holidays in this fatal year. But before the next winter they left that establishment.

In 1831, she was sent to Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, where her remarkable talents were duly appreciated by her kind instructress, and friendships were formed with some of her fellow-pupils that lasted throughout life. One of these early friends thus graphically describes the impression she made upon her.

“I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very old-fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable. She was coming to school at Miss Wooler’s. When she appeared in the schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old. She looked a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it; and when she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still closer to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing.”

Towards the end of the year and half that she remained as a pupil at Roe Head, she received her first bad mark for an imperfect lesson. Charlotte wept bitterly, and her school-fellows were indignant. Miss Wooler withdrew the bad mark.

In 1835, she returned to Miss Wooler’s school as a teacher, and Emily accompanied her as a scholar. Charlotte’s life here was very happy. The girls were hardly strangers to her, some of them being younger sisters of those who had been her own playmates; and however trying the duties were she had to perform, there was always a thoughtful friend watching over her in the person of good Miss Wooler. But her life was too sedentary, and she was advised to return to the parsonage. She did so, and the change at once proved beneficial.

At Haworth she met the person who made the first proposal of marriage to her. Miss BrontË respected the young man very deeply, but as she did not really love him, she refused to marry him. Soon after, an Irish clergyman, fresh from Dublin University, whom she had only met once, sent her a letter, which proved to be a declaration of love and a proposal of matrimony. But although she had no hope of another offer, the witty, lively, and ardent Irishman was summarily rejected. Restored to health and strength, instead of remaining at Haworth to be a burden to her father, and to live on there in idleness perhaps for years, she determined, if everything else failed, to turn housemaid. Soon after, she became engaged as a governess in a family where she was destined to find an ungenial residence. The children all loved her, more or less, according to their different characters. But the mother was proud and pompous, and Miss BrontË as proud, though not so pompous, as she. In 1839, she left the family of the wealthy Yorkshire manufacturer; and in 1841, found her second and last situation as a governess. This time she became a member of a kind-hearted and friendly household. But her salary, after deducting the expense of washing, amounted to only £16; moreover, the career of a governess was to Miss BrontË a perpetual attempt to force her faculties into a direction for which her previous life had unfitted them. So at Christmas she left this situation.

Several attempts to open a school at the parsonage having proved futile, with the view of better qualifying themselves for the task of teaching, Miss BrontË and her sister Emily went to Brussels in 1842, and took up their abode in Madame HÉger’s pensionnat. Towards the close of the year, word came from England that her aunt, Miss Branwell, was very ill. Before they got home, the funeral was over, and Mr. BrontË and Anne were sitting together in quiet grief for one who had done her part well in the household for nearly twenty years. About the end of January, 1843, Miss BrontË returned to Brussels alone for another six months.

In returning to England, in 1844, Miss BrontË determined to commence a school, and to facilitate her success in this plan, M. HÉger, gave her a kind of diploma, sealed with the AthenÉe Royal, of which he was a professor. But no pupils made their appearance, and consequently the sisters abandoned the idea of school-keeping, and turned their thoughts to literature. Their volume of poems was published in 1846; their names being veiled under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, but it met with little or no attention. It is possible that the names of Emily and Anne may not survive the present generation; but certainly Charlotte’s writings have placed her in the highest rank of lady novelists.

The winter of 1848 was a dark one at Haworth. Her only brother, and the sister she so intensely loved, and whose genius she ever delighted to exalt above her own, died within a few weeks of each other. Miss BrontË was prostrate with fever; and Anne, always delicate, grew rapidly worse. The two went together to Scarborough the following spring. There the younger sister died, and the elder was left alone with her aged father in that dreary deserted home among the graves. In June, 1850, she visited London, saw her old hero the Duke of Wellington, at the Chapel Royal, had an interview with Lewes, and dined with Thackeray. The same summer she went on to Edinburgh to join the friends with whom she had been staying in town. In a letter to a correspondent, she says: “Do not think that I blaspheme, when I tell you that your great London, as compared to Dunedin, ‘mine own romantic town,’ is as prose compared to poetry; or as a great rumbling, rambling, heavy epic compared to a lyric, brief, bright, clear, and vital as a flash of lightning. You have nothing like Scott’s monument; or, if you had that, and all the glories of architecture assembled together, you have nothing like Arthur’s seat, and above all, you have not the Scottish national character; and it is that grand character after all which gives the land its true charm, its true greatness.”

The three following years pass over. One of the deepest interests of her life centres round the 29th of June, 1854. On that day many old and humble friends saw her come out of Haworth church, leaning on the arm of “one of the best gentlemen in the county,” and looking “like a snowdrop.” We almost smile as we think of the merciless derider of weak and insipid suitors finding a lord and a master—of the hand which drew the three solemn ecclesiastics, Malone, Donne, and Sweeting, locked at the altar in that of her father’s curate, and learning from experience,—

Mr. Nicholls loved Miss BrontË as his own soul, and she loved him, and every day her love grew stronger. In the last letter she ever wrote, we find the following sentence: “No kinder, better husband than mine, it seems to me, there can be in the world.” Home joys are only dependent, in a small degree, on external circumstances.

Nine months followed of calm happiness—months of respite and rest. During the next winter she was confined to a sick bed, from which she never rose. The doctor assured her that all would soon be right. Martha tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time had tried to cheer her with the thoughts of the baby that was coming. But she died on the 31st March, 1855, in the thirty-ninth year of her age, after a long and weary illness, bravely as she had lived, and left her widowed husband and childless father sitting desolate and alone in the old grey parsonage.

One member out of most of the families of the parish was bidden to the funeral, and those who were excluded from the formal train of mourners thronged the church and churchyard. Two mourners deserve special notice. The one was a village girl that had been betrayed, seduced, and cast away. In Mrs. Nicholls she had found a holy sister, who ministered to her needs in her time of trial. Bitter was the grief of this young woman, and sincere her mourning. The other was a blind girl living some four miles from Haworth, who loved the deceased so dearly that she implored those about her to lead her along the roads, and over the moors, that she might listen to the solemn words, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In the real distinguished from the ideal school of fiction, Mrs. Nicholls, known to the literary world as Currer Bell, attained immediate and lasting popularity. We purpose to notice a few of her leading characteristics, and to define briefly but articulately, the worth of her teaching. An eminent and genial critic justly remarks: “Currer Bell professed to be no idle entertainer. She did not, indeed, tag on a moral to the end of her book—else it had been little worth; or even blazon it on its surface. But she professed to write truly, to show living men and women meeting the exigencies, grappling with the problems, of real existence; to point out how the battle goes, in the circles of English middle life, between pretension and reality, between falsehood and truth. If we were content to listen to her as a historian, she relinquished with a smile the laurel of the romancer.” Her plots possess the merit of rare interest; her characters, however eccentric, stand out as unmistakable realities. True, the plot in the “Professor,” her first prose work, which met with so many refusals, and was not published till after her death, is of no great interest. Although she has never surpassed two or three portraits there sketched, it will not bear comparison with her other works.

The style of Currer Bell is one which will reward study for its own sake. Its tone may be somewhat too uniform, its balance and cadence too unvaried. Perhaps, also, there is too much of the abruptness of passion. It is certainly inferior to many styles, so far as the crimson and gold of literature are concerned. But there is no writer with whom we are acquainted, more deserving of praise for clearness, pointedness, and force. Would that any word of ours could recall the numerous admirers of morbid magnificence and barbarous dissonance, affected jargon and fantastic verbiage, laboured antithesis and false brilliance, and induce them to read night and day the novels of Currer Bell, for the sake of their style. In “Jane Eyre,” her most powerful work, published in October, 1847, it must be admitted that female delicacy is somewhat outraged; but its specimens of picturesque, resolute, straightforward writing, enable this tale to take a high place in the field of romantic literature.

Currer Bell’s love of nature was remarkable. A Yorkshire moor is for the most part wild and grotesque, but her eye brims with a “purple light,” intense enough to perpetuate the brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the rare sunset smile of June. We might quote in illustration of these remarks, pictures of nature, so detailed, definite, and fresh, that they give us an assurance as of eyesight. Take the following bit of woodland painting from “Shirley,” published in October, 1849: “I know all the pleasantest spots: I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some sober grey, some gem green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated, and superannuated wood giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy.” Many similar, and even superior passages might be cited from this brilliant novel.

Works of fiction belong to the province of imagination; and this faculty was largely developed in Currer Bell, and has spread the unmistakable splendour of its embellishment over her pages. There are passages in her works, not only distinct from their general texture, but from anything we know in English literature. The personification of nature in “Shirley” is perhaps the finest. “I saw—I now see—a woman Titan; her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing, a veil, white as an avalanche, sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like the horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. The steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes, they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers; she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stillbro’ Moor, her mighty hands are joined beneath it, so kneeling, face to face she speaks with God.” Apostrophic bursts are common enough in all our more imaginative prose writers; but the chiselling of the entire figure from the flameless marble, and the leaving it for ever in the loveliness of its beauty, is peculiar to the prose of Currer Bell.

In the delineation of one absorbing and tyrannizing passion, Currer Bell, is altogether sui generis. With a bold and steady hand she depicts passion in all its stages; we may weep and tremble, but her nerves do not quiver, neither do her eyes film. “Villette,” commenced in the autumn of 1850, and brought to a conclusion in November, 1851, is a tale of the affections. A burning heart glows throughout its pages, and so true to nature is the delineation, that it is impossible to doubt that living hearts have actually throbbed with like passion. The eloquence and graphic description which mark the closing scenes of this tale, the authoress has not equalled elsewhere.

There is much that is stirring and healthful in the works of Currer Bell. The idea of Johnson was that marriages might well enough be arranged by the chancellor! But although the Christian world very generally seems to be of the same opinion, she taught the sacredness of the natural affections in the formation of the marriage relationship—the absolute necessity of love. Poltroonery, pretentious feebleness, and cowardly falsehood, are crowned with the diadem of scorn; and all the stalwart virtues are signally honoured.

The following personal description is from her Life by Mrs. Gaskell. “In 1831, she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure—‘stunted’ was the word she applied to herself; but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description as they appeared to me in later life. They were large and well shaped; their colour a reddish brown; but if the iris were closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other human creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware of the fact; for the eyes and power of the countenance overbalanced every physical defect; the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind—writing, sewing, knitting—was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves.”

There are different classes of great minds. Some are great in collecting, others in creating. The former is talent, the latter is genius. Some have the power of absorbing what they see and hear in the external world: they “gather honey all the day from every opening flower;” but they add no new thoughts. Others are characterized by originality of thought; they investigate new subjects, form new worlds, and spin new creations out of their own minds. Currer Bell belonged to this class. Some are capable of receiving much knowledge, but are unable to turn it to any purpose; they have read the standard authors, and have plenty of facts, but they know not how to use them. Currer Bell could form a system, she knew how to write a book.

Through the whole of her life she had a sacred regard for the rules of morality. One of her school-fellows informs us that she could get on with those who had bumps at the top of their heads. An intelligent old man living at Haworth, said to her biographer:—“Charlotte would sit and inquire about our circumstances so kindly and feelingly!... Though I am a poor working man (which I never felt to be any degradation), I could talk with her with the utmost freedom. I always felt quite at home with her. Though I never had any school education, I never felt the want of it in her company.”