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gravel to make it as good as new. This addition, however, was not essential towards rendering it passable for the car, which was conveyed over it in safety; but Mr Stewart, foreseeing the consequences of its remaining in this unfinished state, urged the farmer to complete the job on the present evening, and at the same time promised to reimburse him for the expense. The only answer he could obtain was, 'Ay, ay, we'll do't in time; but I'se warrant it'll do weel eneugh.'

Our party then drove off, and at every turning of the road expressed fresh admiration at the increasing beauty of the scene. Towards the top of the glen the hills seemed to meet, the rocks became more frequent and more prominent, sometimes standing naked and exposed, and sometimes peeping over the tops of the rowan-tree and weeping birch, which grew in great abundance on all the steepy banks. At length the village appeared in view. It consisted of about twenty or thirty thatched cottages, which, but for their chimneys, and the smoke that issued from them, might have passed for so many stables or hogsties, so little had they to distinguish them as the abodes of man. That one horse, at least, was the inhabitant of every dwelling, there was no room to doubt, as every door could not only boast its dunghill, but had a small cart stuck up on end directly before it; which cart, though often broken, and always dirty, seemed ostentatiously displayed as a proof of wealth.

In the middle of the village stood the kirk, a humble edifice, which meekly raised its head but a few degrees above the neighbouring houses. It was, however, graced by an ornament of peculiar beauty. Two fine old ash-trees, which grew at the east end, spread their protecting arms over its lowly roof, and served all the uses of a steeple and a belfry; for on one of the loftiest of these branches was the bell suspended which, on each returning Sabbath,

'Rang the blest summons to the house of God.' On the other side of the churchyard stood the manse, distinguished from the other houses in the village by a sash window on each side of the door, and garret windows above; which showed that two floors were, or might be, inhabited; for in truth the house had such a sombre air that Mrs Mason, in passing, concluded it to be deserted.

As the houses stood separate from each other at the distance of many yards, she had time to contemplate the scene, and was particularly struck with the number of children which, as the car advanced, poured forth from every little cot to look at the strangers and their uncommon vehicle. On asking for John Macclarty's, three or four of them started forward to offer themselves as guides; and running before the car, turned down a lane towards the river, on a road so deep with ruts, that, though they had not twenty yards to go, it was attended with some danger. Mrs Mason, who was shaken to pieces by the jolting, was very glad to alight; but her limbs were in such a tremor, that Mr Stewart's arm was scarcely sufficient to support her to the door.

in it a plentiful supply of water, in which they could swim without danger. Happily Mr Stewart was provided with boots, so that he could take a firm step in it, while he lifted Mrs Mason, and set her down in safety within the threshold. But there an unforeseen danger awaited her, for there the great whey pot had stood since morning, when the cheese had been made, and was at the present moment filled with chickens, which were busily picking at the bits of curd which had hardened on the sides, and cruelly mocked their wishes. Over this Mr Stewart and Mrs Mason unfortunately tumbled. The pot was overturned, and the chickens, cackling with hideous din, flew about in all directions, some over their heads, and others making their way by the hallan (or inner door) into the house. The accident was attended with no further bad consequences than a little hurt upon the shins: and all our party were now assembled in the kitchen; but, though they found the doors of the house open, they saw no appearance of any inhabitants. At length Mrs Macclarty came in, all out of breath, followed by her daughters, two big girls of eleven and thirteen years of age. She welcomed Mrs Mason and her friends with great kindness, and made many apologies for being in no better order to receive them; but said that both her gudeman and herself thought that her cousin would have stayed at Gowan-brae till after the fair, as they were too far off at Glenburnie to think of going to it; though it would, to be sure, be only natural for Mrs Mason to like to see all the grand sights that were to be seen there; for, to be sure, she would gang mony places before she saw the like. Mrs Mason smiled, and assured her she would have more pleasure in looking at the fine view from her door than in all the sights at the fair.

Ay, it's a bonny piece of corn, to be sure,' returned Mrs Macelarty with great simplicity; but then, what with the trees, and rocks, and wimplings o' the burn, we have nae room to make parks o' ony size.'

'But were your trees, and rocks, and wimplings of the burn all removed,' said Mr Stewart, then your prospect would be worth the looking at, Mrs Macclarty; would it not?'

Though Mr Stewart's irony was lost upon the good woman, it produced a laugh among the young folks, which she, however, did not resent, but immediately fell to busying herself in sweeping the hearth, and adding turf to the fire, in order to make the kettle boil for tea.

'I think,' said Miss Mary, you might make your daughters save you that trouble,' looking at the two girls, who stood all this time leaning against the wall.

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'O, poor things,' said their mother, they have not been used to it; they have eneugh of time for wark yet.' 'Depend upon it,' said Mrs Mason, young people can never begin too soon; your eldest daughter there will soon be as tall as yourself.'

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'And does she not always like to do all she can!' said Mrs Mason.

'Indeed she's of a stately growth,' said Mrs Macclarty, pleased with the observation; and Jenny there is little ahint her; but what are they but bairns yet for a' that! In time, I warrant, they'll do weel It must be confessed that the aspect of the dwell-eneugh. Meg can milk a cow as weel as I can do, ing where she was to fix her residence was by no means inviting. The walls were substantial, built, like the houses in the village, of stone and lime; but they were blackened by the mud which the cart-wheels had spattered from the ruts in winter; and on one side of the door completely covered from view by the contents of a great dunghill. On the other, and directly under the window, was a squashy pool, formed by the dirty water thrown from the house, and in it about twenty young ducks were at this time dabbling.

At the threshold of the door, room had been left for a paving-stone, but it had never been laid; and consequently the place became hollow, to the great advantage of the younger ducklings, who always found

'O, we mauna complain,' returned the mother; she does well eneugh.'

The gawky girl now began to rub the wall up and down with her dirty fingers; but happily the wall was of too dusky a hue to be easily stained. And here let us remark the advantage which our cottages in general possess over those of our southern neighbours; theirs being so whitened up, that no one can have the comfort of laying a dirty hand upon them without leaving the impression; an inconvenience which reduces people to the necessity of learning to

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stand upon their legs, without the assistance of their hands; whereas, in our country, custom has rendered the hands in standing at a door, or in going up or down a stair, no less necessary than the feet, as may be plainly seen in the finger-marks which meet one's eye in all directions.

Some learned authors have indeed adduced this propensity in support of the theory which teaches that mankind originally walked upon all fours, and that standing erect is an outrage on the laws of nature; while others, willing to trace it to a more honourable source, contend that, as the propensity evidently prevails chiefly among those who are conscious of being able to transmit the colour of their hands to the objects on which they place them, it is decidedly an impulse of genius, and, in all probability, derived from our Pictish ancestors, whose passion for painting is well known to have been great and universal.

The interior arrangements and accommodation of this unpromising cottage are neglected and uncomfortable. The farmer is a good easy man, but his wife is obstinate and prejudiced, and the children self-willed and rebellious. Mrs Mason finds the family quite incorrigible, but she effects a wonderful change among their neighbours. She gets a school established on her own plan, and boys and girls exert themselves to effect a reformation in the cottages of their parents. The most sturdy sticklers for the gude auld gaits are at length convinced of the superiority of the new system, and the village undergoes a complete transformation. In the management of these humble scenes, and the gradual display of character among the people, Mrs Hamilton evinces her knowledge of human nature, and her fine tact and discrimination as a novelist.

HANNAH MORE.

MRS HANNAH MORE adopted fiction merely as a means of conveying religious instruction. She can scarcely be said to have been ever free of the cor

Hannah More

poration' of novelists; nor would she perhaps have cured much to owe her distinction solely to her con

nexion with so motley and various a band. Hannah withdrew from the fascinations of London society, the theatres and opera, in obedience to what she considered the call of duty, and we suspect Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle would have been as unworthy in her eyes. This excellent woman was one of five daughters, children of Jacob More, who taught a school in the village of Stapleton, in Gloucestershire, where Hannah was born in the year 1745. The family afterwards removed to Bristol, and there Hannah attracted the attention and patronage of Sir James Stonehouse, who had been many years a physician of eminence, but afterwards took orders and settled at Bristol. In her seventeenth year she published a pastoral drama, The Search after Happiness, which in a short time went through three editions. Next year she brought out a tragedy, The Inflexible Captive. In 1773 or 1774 she made! her entrance into the society of London, and was domesticated with Garrick, who proved one of her She was received kindest and steadiest friends. with favour by Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, &c. Her sister has thus described her first interview with the great English moralist of the eighteenth century:

'We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr Percy (Percy's Collection, now you know him), quite a sprightly modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected: he was no sooner gone than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the coach to take us to Dr Johnson's very own house: yes, Abyssinian Johnson! Dietionary Johnson! Ramblers, Idlers, and Irene Johnson! Can you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached his mansion! The conversation turned upon a new work of his just going to the press (the Tour to the Hebrides), and his old friend Richardson. Mrs Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all

our rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said "she was a silly thing!" When our visit was ended, he called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more en cavalier. We are engaged with him at Sir Joshua's on Wednesday eveningwhat do you think of us? I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard it, he laughed heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopt a night, as they imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country.'

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In a subsequent letter (1776), after the publication of Hannah's poem, Sir Eldred of the Bower, the same lively writer says- If a wedding should take place before our return, don't be surprisedbetween the mother of Sir Eldred and the father of my much-loved Irene; nay, Mrs Montagu says if tender words are the precursors of connubial engage ments, we may expect great things, for it is nothing but "child," "little fool," "love," and "dearest." After much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most amiable looks, which must be seen to form the least idea of it he says, "I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honour. able employment of teaching young ladies." Upon which, with all the same ease, familiarity, and confi

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dence we should have done had only our own dear Dr Stonehouse been present, we entered upon the history of our birth, parentage, and education; showing how we were born with more desires than guineas, and how, as years increased our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow too small to gratify them; and how, with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house with nothing in it; and how it was like to remain so, till, looking into our knowledgeboxes, we happened to find a little larning, a good thing when land is gone, or rather none; and so at last, by giving a little of this little larning to those who had less, we got a good store of gold in return; but how, alas! we wanted the wit to keep it. "I love you both," cried the inamorato-" I love you all five. I never was at Bristol-I will come on purpose to see you. What! five women live happily together! I will come and see you-I have spent a happy evening-I am glad I came-God for ever bless you! you live lives to shame duchesses." He took his leave with so much warmth and tenderness, we were quite affected at his manner. If Hannah's head stands proof against all the adulation and kindness of the great folks here, why, then, I will venture to say nothing of this kind will hurt her hereafter. A literary anecdote: Mrs Medalle (Sterne's daughter) sent to all the correspondents of her deceased father, begging the letters which he had written to them; among other wits, she sent to Wilkes with the same request. He sent for answer, that as there happened to be nothing extraordinary in those he had received, he had burnt or lost them. On which the faithful editor of her father's works sent back to say, that if Mr Wilkes would be so good as to write a few letters in imitation of her father's style, it would do just as well, and she would insert them.'

In 1777 Garrick brought out Miss More's tragedy of Percy at Drury Lane, where it was acted seventeen nights successively. Her theatrical profits amounted to £600, and for the copyright of the play she got £150 more. Two legendary poems, Sir Eldred of the Bower, and The Bleeding Rock, formed her next publication. In 1779 the third and last tragedy of Hannah More was produced; it was entitled The Fatal Falsehood, but was acted only three nights. At this time she had the misfortune to lose her friend Mr Garrick by death, an event of which she has given some interesting particulars in her letters.

'From Dr Cadogan's I intended to have gone to the Adelphi, but found that Mrs Garrick was at that moment quitting her house, while preparations were making for the last sad ceremony: she very wisely fixed on a private friend's house for this purpose, where she could be at her ease. I got there just before her; she was prepared for meeting me; she ran into my arms, and we both remained silent for some minutes; at last she whispered, "I have this moment embraced his coffin, and you come next." She soon recovered herself, and said with great composure, "The goodness of God to me is inexpressible; I desired to die, but it is his will that I should live, and he has convinced me he will not let my life be quite miserable, for he gives astonishing strength to my body, and grace to my heart; neither do I deserve, but I am thankful for both." She thanked me a thousand times for such a real act of friendship, and bade me be comforted, for it was God's will. She told me they had just returned from Althorp, Lord Spencer's, where he had been reluctantly dragged, for he had felt unwell for some time; but during his visit he was often in such fine spirits, that they could not believe he was ill. On his return home, he appointed Cadogan to meet him, who ordered him an emetic, the warm bath, and the usual remedies, but with very

little effect. On the Sunday he was in good spirits and free from pain; but as the suppression still continued, Dr Cadogan became extremely alarmed, and sent for Pott, Heberden, and Schomberg, who gave him up the moment they saw him. Poor Garrick stared to see his room full of doctors, not being conscious of his real state. No change happened till the Tuesday evening, when the surgeon who was sent for to blister and bleed him made light of his illness, assuring Mrs Garrick that he would be well in a day or two, and insisted on her going to lie down. Towards morning she desired to be called if there was the least change. Every time that she administered the draughts to him in the night, he always squeezed her hand in a particular manner, and spoke to her with the greatest tenderness and affection. Immediately after he had taken his last medicine, he softly said, "Oh dear!" and yielded up his spirit with a groan, and in his perfect senses. His behaviour during the night was all gentleness and patience, and he frequently made apologies to those about him for the trouble he gave them. On opening him, a stone was found that measured five inches and a-half round one way, and four and a-half the other; yet this was not the immediate cause of his death; his kidneys were quite gone. I paid a melancholy visit to the coffin yesterday, where I found room for meditation till the mind "burst with thinking." His new house is not so pleasant as Hampton, nor so splendid as the Adelphi, but it is commodious enough for all the wants of its inhabitant; and besides, it is so quiet that he never will be disturbed till the eternal morning, and never till then will a sweeter voice than his own be heard. May he then find mercy! They are preparing to hang the house with black, for he is to lie in state till Monday. I dislike this pageantry, and cannot help thinking that the disembodied spirit must look with contempt upon the farce that is played could not be avoided, as he is to be laid in the abbey over its miserable relics. But a splendid funeral with such illustrious dust, and so many are desirous of testifying their respect by attending. I can never cease to remember with affection and gratitude so warm, steady, and disinterested a friend; and I can most truly bear this testimony to his memory, that I priety, and regularity, than in his; where I never never witnessed in any family more decorum, prosaw a card, nor even met (except in one instance) a person of his own profession at his table, of which Mrs Garrick, by her elegance of taste, her correctness of manners, and very original turn of humour, was the brightest ornament. All his pursuits and tastes were so decidedly intellectual, that it made the society, and the conversation which was always to be found in his circle, interesting and delightful.'

In 1782 Miss More presented to the world a volume of Sacred Dramas, with a poem annexed, entitled Sensibility. All her works were successful, and Johnson said he thought her the best of the female versifiers. The poetry of Hannah More is now forgotten, but 'Percy' is a good play, and it is clear that the authoress might have excelled as difficult species of composition. In 1786 she puba dramatic writer, had she devoted herself to that lished another volume of verse, Florio, a Tale for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies; and The Bas Bleu, or Conversation. The latter (which Johnson complimented as 'a great performance') was an elaborate eulogy on the Bas Bleu Club, a literary assembly that met at Mrs Montagu's.* The following couplets

* These meetings were called the Blue Stocking Club, in consequence of one of the most admired of the members, Mr Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wearing blue stockings. The appellation soon became general as a name for pedantic or ridiculous literary ladies. Hannah More's poem proceeds on tho

have been quoted and remembered as terse and tual cultivation, from the palace to the cottage, it pointed:is impossible not to rank her among the best benefactors of mankind.

'In men this blunder still you find,
All think their little set mankind.'
'Small habits well pursued betimes,
May reach the dignity of crimes.'

and religious institutions amounting to £10,000.

In 1834, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, by William Roberts, Esq., were published in four volumes. In these we have a full account by Hannah herself of her London life, and many interesting anecdotes.

The great success of the different works of our authoress enabled her to live in ease, and to dispense charities around her. Her sisters also secured a competency, and they all lived together at Barley Such lines mark the good sense and keen observa- chased and improved. From the day that the Grove, a property of some extent which they purtion of the writer, and these qualities Hannah now resolved to devote exclusively to high objects. The terhood appears to have flowed on in one uniform school was given up, the existence of the whole sisgay life of the fashionable world had lost its charms, current of peace and contentment, diversified only by and, having published her Bas Bleu,' she retired to new appearances of Hannah as an authoress, and the a small cottage and garden near Bristol, where her ups and downs which she and the others met with sisters kept a flourishing boarding-school. Her first in the prosecution of a most brave and humane exprose publication was Thoughts on the Importance of periment-namely, their zealous effort to extend the Manners of the Great to General Society, produced the blessings of education and religion among the in 1788. This was followed in 1791 by an Estimate inhabitants of certain villages situated in a wild of the Religion of the Fashionable World. As a means of counteracting the political tracts and exer- who, from a concurrence of unhappy local and tem country some eight or ten miles from their abode, tions of the Jacobins and levellers, Hannah More, porary circumstances, had been left in a state of in 1794, wrote a number of tales, published monthly ignorance hardly conceivable at the present day." under the title of The Cheap Repository, which at- These exertions were ultimately so successful, that tained to a sale of about a million each number. the sisterhood had the gratification of witnessing a Some of the little stories (as the Shepherd of yearly festival celebrated on the hills of Cheddar, Salisbury Plain') are well told, and contain striking where above a thousand children, with the members moral and religious lessons. With the same object, of female clubs of industry (also established by our authoress published a volume called Village them), after attending church service, were regaled Politics. Her other principal works are-Strictures at the expense of their benefactors. Hannah More on the Modern System of Female Education, 1799; died on the 7th of September 1833, aged eightyHints towards Forming the Character of a Young Prin- eight. She had made about £30,000 by her writcess, 1805; Calebs in Search of a Wife, comprehend-ings, and she left, by her will, legacies to charitable ing Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals, two volumes, 1809; Practical Piety, or the Influence of the Religion of the Heart on the Conduct of Life, two volumes, 1811; Christian Morals, two volumes, 1812; Essay on the Character and Writings of St Paul, two volumes, 1815; and Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, with Reflections on Prayer, 1819. The collection of her works is comprised in eleven volumes octavo. The work entitled Hints towards LADY MORGAN (Sidney Owenson) has, during the Forming the Character of a Young Princess,' was last thirty or forty years, written in various depart written with a view to the education of the Princessments of literature-in poetry, the drama, novels, Charlotte, on which subject the advice and assist- biography, ethics, politics, and books of travels. ance of Hannah More had been requested by Queen Whether she has written any one book that will Charlotte. Of Calebs,' we are told that ten edi- become a standard portion of our literature, is doubttions were sold in one year-a remarkable proof of ful, but we are indebted to her pen for a number of the popularity of the work. The tale is admirably clever lively national sketches and anecdotes. She written, with a fine vein of delicate irony and sar- has fought her way to distinction, self-educated, in casm, and some of the characters are well depicted, the midst of raillery, sarcasm, and vituperation, pro but, from the nature of the story, it presents few voked on the one hand by her careless and bold incidents or embellishments to attract ordinary avowal of liberal opinions on questions of politics novel readers. It has not inaptly been styled a and the minor morals' of life, and on the other by dramatic sermon.' Of the other publications of the her ill-concealed worship of the fashions and follies authoress, we may say, with one of her critics, 'it of the great, which has led her democratic friends would be idle in us to dwell on works so well known to pronounce the pretty severe opinion, that there as the "Thoughts on the Manners of the Great," is not a pernicious vanity or affectation belonging the "Essay on the Religion of the Fashionable to tuft-hunting or modishness, which she does not World," and so on, which finally established Miss labour to confirm and strengthen by precept, sentiMore's name as a great moral writer, possessing a ment, and her own goodly example.' If Lady Mormasterly command over the resources of our lan-gan has not always taste, she has talent; if she has guage, and devoting a keen wit and a lively fancy to the best and noblest of purposes.' In her latter days there was perhaps a tincture of unnecessary gloom or severity in her religious views; yet, when we recollect her unfeigned sincerity and practical benevolence her exertions to instruct the poor miners and cottagers-and the untiring zeal with which she laboured, even amidst severe bodily infirmities, to inculcate sound principles and intellec

mistake of a foreigner, who, hearing of the Blue Stocking Club, translated it literally 'Bas Bleu.' Byron wrote a light satirical sketch of the Blues of his day-the frequenters of the London saloons-but it is unworthy of his genius.

LADY MORGAN.

not always delicacy, she speaks boldly and freely:
if she has got into the society of the great (the repu
tation of her writings, like those of Swift, doing
the office of a blue ribbon or of a coach-and-six),
she has told us all she knows about them. She has
been as liberal of satire and sarcasm as of adulation.
She has a masculine disregard of common opinion
or censure, and a temperament, as she herself states,
'as cheery and genial as ever went to that strange
medley of pathos and humour-the Irish character."
Mr Owenson, the father of our authoress, was a

* Quarterly Review, 1834.
Westminster Review, Oct. 1829.

respectable actor, a favourite in the society of Dub-niscences); Woman and her Master (a philosophical lin, and author of some popular Irish songs. His history of woman down to the fall of the Roman daughter inherited his predilection for national empire); and various other shorter publications. In music and song. Very early in life she published 1841 Lady Morgan published, in conjunction with a small volume of poetical effusions, and afterwards her husband, Sir T. C. Morgan, M.D. (author of The Lay of the Irish Harp, and a selection of twelve Sketches of the Philosophy of Life and Morals, &c.), Irish melodies, with music. One of these is the two volumes, collected from the portfolios of the popular song of Kate Kearney, and we question writers, and stray sketches which had previously whether this lyric will not outlive all Lady Morgan's appeared in periodicals, entitling the collection The other lucubrations. While still in her teens, Miss Book Without a Name. In reviewing the literary Owenson became a novelist. She published succes-progress of Lady Morgan, one of her friendly admisively St Clair, The Novice of St Dominick, and rers (Mr Henry F. Chorley) has the following obserThe Wild Irish Girl. These works evinced a fer- vations:vid imagination, though little acquaintance with either art or nature. The Wild Irish Girl' was exceedingly popular, and went through seven editions in two years.

Miss Owenson continued her labours as a novelist. Patriotic Sketches, Ida, and The Missionary, were her next works. O'Donnel soon followed, and was succeeded by Florence Macarthy, an Irish Tale (1818), and The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys (1827). In these works our authoress departed from the beaten track of sentimental novels, and ventured, like Miss Edgeworth, to portray national manners. We have the high authority of Sir Walter Scott for the opinion, that 'O'Donnel,' though deficient as a story, has some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description, and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining.' Lady Morgan's sketches of Irish manners are not always pleasing. Her high-toned society is disfigured with grossness and profligacy, and her subordinate characters are often caricatured. The vivacity and variety of these delineations constitute one of their attractions: if not always true, they are lively; for it was justly said, that whether it is a review of volunteers in the Phoenix Park, or a party at the Castle, or a masquerade, a meeting of United Irishmen, a riot in Dublin, or a jug-day at Bog-Moy-in every change of scene and situation our authoress wields the pen of a ready writer.' One complaint against these Irish sketches was their personality, the authoress indicating that some of her portraits at the vice-regal court, and those moving in the best society of Dublin, were intended for well-known characters. Their conversation is often a sad jargon of prurient allusion, comments on dress, and quotations in French and Italian, with which almost every page is patched and disfigured. The unfashionable characters and descriptions-even the rapparees, and the lowest of the old Irish natives, are infinitely more entertaining than these offshoots of the aristocracy, as painted by Lady Morgan. Her strength evidently lies in describing the broad characteristics of her nation, their boundless mirth, their old customs, their love of frolic, and their wild grief at scenes of death and calamity. The other works of our authoress are France and Italy, containing dissertations on the state of society, manners, literature, government, &c. of those nations: these are written in a bold sketchy style, and with many gross faults, they are spirited, acute, and entertaining. Lord Byron has borne testimony to the fidelity and excellence of Italy;' and if the authoress had been 'less ambitious of being always fine and striking,' and less solicitous to display her reading and high company, she might have been one of the most agreeable of tourists and observers. Besides these works, Lady Morgan has given to the world The Princess (a tale founded on the revolution in Belgium); Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (very poor in matter, and affected in style); The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa, two volumes; The Book of the Boudoir (autobiographical sketches and remi

*

The strong national enthusiasm of childhood, at once somewhat indiscriminate in its warmth and limited in its scope, will be seen to have ended in fearless and decided political partisanship, in the espousing of ultra-liberal doctrines, abroad as well as at home. But let us quote Lady Morgan's own words from the preface to the last edition of O'Donnel. "After all, however," says she, "if I became that reviled but now very fashionable personage, a female politician, it was much in the same way as the Bourgeois Gentilhomme spoke prose without knowing it, a circumstance perhaps not uncommon with Irish writers. For myself at least, born and dwelling in Ireland amidst my countrymen and their sufferings, I saw and I described, I felt and I pleaded: and if a political bias was ultimately taken, it originated in the natural condition of things, and not in malice aforethought' of the writer." In each successive novel, too, the characters will be found more and more boldly contrasted, the scenes prepared and arranged with finer artifice. If we cannot but note the strong family likeness which exists between all their plots, through every one of which a brilliant and devoted woman flits in masquerade, now to win a lover, now to save a friend, now to make a proselyte, we must also insist upon the living nature of many of their dramatis persona, especially the broadly comic ones, instancing the Crawleys ("Florence Macarthy"), and Lieutenant O'Mealy (“The O'Briens"), and Lawrence Fegan and Sir Ignatius Dogherty ("The Princess"), and upon the thousand indications scattered here and there with apparent artlessness, but real design, which prove that though their writer loves to float upon the surface of life and society, she can at will dive into their depths, and bring up truths new and valuable.'

MRS SHELLEY

In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron and Mr and Mrs Shelley were residing on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. They were in habits of daily intercourse, and when the weather did not allow of their boating excursions on the lake, the Shelleys often passed their evenings with Byron at his house at Diodati. During a week of rain at this time,' says Mr Moore, Laving amused themselves with reading German ghost-stories, they agreed at last to write something in imitation of them. "You and I," said Lord Byron to Mrs Shelley, “will publish ours together." He then began his tale of the Vampire; and having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story one evening, but from the narrative being in prose, made but little progress in filling up his outline. The most memorable result, indeed, of their story-telling compact, was Mrs Shelley's wild and powerful romance of Frankenstein-one of those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once and for ever.' 'Frankenstein' was published in 1817, and was instantly recognised as worthy of Godwin's daughter and Shelley's wife, and as, in fact,

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