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muscles were capable. It was the elixir of immortality, exactly made up according to the prescription of the stranger.

Whether from the potency of the medicine or the effect of imagination, I felt revived the moment I had swallowed it. I placed myself deliberately in Mordecai's bed, and drew over me the bedclothes. I fell asleep almost instantly.

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My sleep was not long: in a few hours I awaked. With difficulty I recognised the objects about me, and recollected where I had been. It seemed to me that my heart had never beat so vigorously, nor my spirits flowed so gay. I was all elasticity and life; I could scarcely hold myself quiet; I felt impelled to bound and leap like a kid upon the mountains. I perceived that my little Jewess was still asleep; she had been unusually fatigued the night before. I know not whether Mordecai's hour of rising were come; if it were, he was careful not to disturb his guest. I put on the garments he had prepared; I gazed upon the mirror he had left in my apartment. I can recollect no sensation in the course of my life so unexpected and surprising as what I felt at that moment. evening before I had seen my hair white, and my face ploughed with furrows; I looked fourscore. What I beheld now was totally different, yet altogether familiar; it was myself-myself as I had appeared on the day of my marriage with Marguerite de Damville; the eyes, the mouth, the hair, the complexion, every circumstance, point by point, the same. I leaped a gulf of thirty-two years. I waked from a dream, troublesome and distressful beyond all description; but it vanished like the shades of night upon the burst of a glorious morning in July, and left not a trace behind. I knew not how to take away my eyes from the mirror before me.

The

I soon began to consider that, if it were astonishing to me that, through all the regions of my countenance, I could discover no trace of what I had been the night before, it would be still more astonishing to my

host. This sort of sensation I had not the smallest

Sir Walter Scott, when a student at college, was intimate with the family, and, we are told, was very fond of either teazing the little female student when very gravely engaged with her book, or more often fondling her on his knees, and telling her stories of witches and warlocks, till both forgot their former playful merriment in the marvellous interest of the tale.' Mrs Porter removed to Ireland, and subsequently to London, chiefly with a view to the education of her children. Anna Maria became an authoress at the age of twelve. Her first work bore the appropriate title of Artless Tales, the first volume being published in 1793, and a second in 1795. In 1797 she came forward again with a tale entitled Walsh Colville; and in the following year a novel in three volumes, Octavia, was produced. A numerous series of works of fiction now proceeded from Miss Porter-The Lake of Killarney, 1804; A Sailor's Friendship and a Soldier's Love, 1805; The Hunga rian Brothers, 1807; Don Sebastian, or the House of Braganza, 1809: Ballad Romances, and other Poems, 1811; The Recluse of Norway, 1814; The Village of Mariendorpt; The Fast of St Magdalen; Tales of Pity for Youth; The Knight of St John; Roche Blanche; and Honor O'Hara. Altogether, the works of this lady amount to about fifty volumes. In private life Miss Porter was much beloved for her unostentatious piety and active benevolence. She died at Bristol while on a visit to her brother, Dr Porter of that city, on the 21st of June 1832, aged fifty-two. The most popular, and perhaps the best of Miss Porter's novels, is her Don Sebastian.' In all of them she portrays the domestic affections and the charms of benevolence and virtue with warmth and earnestness, but in Don Sebastian' we have an interesting though melancholy plot, and characters finely dis

criminated and drawn.

thoress of two romances, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 1803, MISS JANE PORTER, who still survives, is auand The Scottish Chiefs, 1810; both were highly ambition to produce: one of the advantages of the popular. The first is the best, and contains a good metamorphosis I had sustained, consisted in its ten-plot and some impassioned scenes. The second fails dency, in the eyes of all that saw me, to cut off every tish patriot Wallace, for example, being represented entirely as a picture of national manners (the Scotspecies of connexion between my present and my former self. It fortunately happened that the room in as a sort of drawing-room hero), but is written with which I slept, being constructed upon the model of great animation and picturesque effect. In appeals many others in Spain, had a stair at the further end, to the tender and heroic passions, and in vivid scenewith a trap-door in the ceiling, for the purpose of en- painting, both these ladies have evinced genius, but abling the inhabitant to ascend on the roof in the cool their works want the permanent interest of real life, of the day. The roofs were flat, and so constructed variety of character, and dialogue. A third work that there was little difficulty in passing along them by Miss Porter has been published, entitled The from house to house, from one end of the street to the Pastor's Fireside. other. I availed myself of the opportunity, and took leave of the residence of my kind host in a way perfectly unceremonious, determined, however, speedily to transmit to him the reward I had promised. It may easily be believed that Mordecai was not less rejoiced at the absence of a guest whom the vigilance of the Inquisition rendered an uncommonly dangerous one, than I was to quit his habitation. I closed the trap after me, and clambered from roof to roof to a considerable distance. At length I encountered the occasion of an open window, and fortunately descended, unseen by any human being, into the street.

ANNA MARIA PORTER.

MISS EDGEWORTH.

MARIA EDGEWORTH, one of our best painters of national manners, whose works stimulated the genius of Scott, and have delighted and instructed generations of readers, commenced her career as an authoress about the year 1800. She was of a respectable Irish family, long settled at Edgeworthtown, county of Longford, and it was on their property that Goldsmith was born. Her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), was himself a man attached to literary pursuits, and took great pleasure in exciting and directing the talents of his daughter.* When

*Mr Edgeworth wrote a work on Professional Education, one volume, quarto, 1808; also some papers in the Philosophical

This lady was a daughter of an Irish officer, who died shortly after her birth, leaving a widow and several children, with but a small patrimony for Transactions, including an essay on Spring and Wheel Car their support. Mrs Porter took her family into Scot-riages, and an account of a telegraph which he invented. This land, while ANNA MARIA was still in her nursemaid's arms, and there, with her only and elder sister Jane, and their brother, Sir Robert Ker Porter, she received the rudiments of her education.

gentleman was educated at Trinity college, Dublin, and was afterwards sent to Oxford. Before he was twenty, he ran off with Miss Elers, a young lady of Oxford, to whom he was married at Gretna Green. He then embarked on a life of fashionable gaiety and dissipation, and in 1770 succeeded, by

ever the latter thought of writing any essay or story, she always submitted to him the first rough plans; and his ready invention and infinite resource, when she had run into difficulties or absurdities, never failed to extricate her at her utmost need. It was the happy experience of this,' says Miss Edgeworth, ' and my consequent reliance on his ability, decision, and perfect truth, that relieved me from the vacillation and anxiety to which I was so much subject. that I am sure I should not have written or finished anything without his support. He inspired in my mind a degree of hope and confidence, essential, in the first instance, to the full exertion of the mental powers, and necessary to insure perseverance in any occupation.' An able work, the joint production of Mr and Miss Edgeworth, appeared in 1801 under

the title of an Essay on Irish Bulls. Besides some critical and humorous illustration, the authors did justice to the better traits of the Irish character, and illustrated them by some interesting and pathetic stories. The same object was pursued in the tale, Castle Rackrent, and in Belinda, a novel of real life and ordinary characters. In 1804 Miss Edgeworth came forward with three volumes of Popular Tales, characterised by the features of her genius-a genuine display of nature, and a certain tone of rationality and good sense, which was the more pleasing, because in a novel it was then new.' The practical cast of her father's mind probably assisted in directing Miss Edgeworth's talents into this useful and unromantic channel. It appeared strange at first, and the best of the authoress's critics, Mr Jeffrey, said at the time that it required almost the same courage to get rid of the jargon of fashionable life, and the swarms of peers, foundlings, and seducers, as it did to sweep away the mythological persons of antiquity, and to introduce characters who spoke and acted like those who were to peruse their adventures.' In 1806 appeared Leonora, a novel, in two volumes. A moral purpose is here aimed at, and the same skill is displayed in working up ordinary incidents into the materials of powerful fiction; but the plot is painful and disagreeable. The seduction of an exemplary husband by an aban doned female, and his subsequent return to his in

the death of his father, to his Irish property. During a visit to Lichfield, he became enamoured of Miss Honora Sneyd, a cousin of Anna Seward's, and married her shortly after the death of his wife. In six years this lady died of consumption, and he married her sister, a circumstance which exposed him to a good deal of observation and censure. After a matrimonial union of seventeen years, his third wife died of the same malady as her sister; and, although past fifty, Mr Edgeworth scarce lost a year till he was united to an Irish lady, Miss Beaufort. His latter years were spent in active exertions to benefit Ireland, by reclaiming bog land, introducing agricultural and mechanical improvements, and promoting education. He was fond of mechanical pursuits and new projects of all kinds.jured but forgiving wife, is the groundwork of the Among his numerous schemes, was an attempt to educate his eldest son on the plan delineated in Rousseau's Emile. He dressed him in jacket and trousers, with arms and legs bare, and allowed him to run about wherever he pleased, and to do nothing but what was agreeable to himself. In a few years he found that the scheme had succeeded completely, so far as related to the body; the youth's health, strength, and agility were conspicuous; but the state of his mind induced some perplexity. He had all the virtues that are found in the hut of the savage; he was quick, fearless, generous; but he knew not what it was to obey. It was impossible to induce him to do anything that he did not please, or prevent him from doing anything that he did please. Under the former head, learning, even of the lowest description, was never included. In fine,

story. Irish characters figure off in Leonora' as in the Popular Tales.' In 1809 Miss Edgeworth issued three volumes of Tales of Fashionable Life, more powerful and various than any of her previous productions. The history of Lord Glenthorn affords a striking picture of ennui, and contains some excellent delineation of character; while the story of Almeria represents the misery and heartlessness of a life of mere fashion. Three other volumes of Fashionable Tales were issued in 1812, and fully supported the authoress's reputation. The number of tales in this series was three- Vivian,' illustrating the evils and perplexities arising from vacillation and infirmity of purpose; Emilie de Coulanges,' depicting the life and manners of a fashionable French lady; and 'The Absentee' (by far the best of the three stories), written to expose the evils and mortifications of the system which the authoress saw too many instances of in Ireland, of persons of fortune forsaking their country seats and native vales for the frivolity, scorn, and expense of fashionable London society. In 1814 Miss Edgeworth entered still more extensively and sarcastically into the manners and characters in high-life, by her novel of Patronage, in four volumes. The miseries

this child of nature grew up perfectly ungovernable, and never could or would apply to anything; so that there remained no alternative but to allow him to follow his own inclination of going to sea! Maria Edgeworth was by her father's first marriage: she was born in Oxfordshire, and was twelve years old before she was taken to Ireland. The family were involved in the troubles of the Irish rebellion (1793), and were obliged to make a precipitate retreat from their house, and leave it in the hands of the rebels; but it was spared from being pillaged by one of the invaders, to whom Mr Edgeworth had previously done some kindness. Their return home, when the troubles were over, is thus described by Miss Edgeworth in her father's memoirs. It serves to show the affection which subsisted between the landlord and his dependents. When we came near Edgeworthtown, we saw many well-resulting from a dependence on the patronage of the

known faces at the cabin doors looking out to welcome us. One man, who was digging in his field by the road-side, when he looked up as our horses passed, and saw my father, let fall his spade and clasped his hands; his face, as the morning sun shone upon it, was the strongest picture of joy I ever saw. The village was a melancholy spectacle; windows shattered and doors broken. But though the mischief done was great, there had been little pillage. Within our gates we found all property safe; literally "not a twig touched, nor a leaf harmed." Within the house everything was as we had left it. A map that we had been consulting was still open on the library table, with pencils, and slips of paper containing the first lessons in arithmetic, in which some of the young people (Mr Edgeworth's children by his second and third wife) had been engaged the morning we had been driven from home; a pansy, in a glass of water, which one of the children had been copying, was still on the chimney-piece. These trivial circumstances, marking repose and tranquillity, struck us at this moment with an unreasonable sort of surprise, and all that had passed seemed

like an incoherent dream."

great-a system which she says is twice accursed -once in giving, and once in receiving'-are drawn in vivid colours, and contrasted with the cheerfulness, the buoyancy of spirits, and the manly virtues arising from honest and independent exertion. In 1817 our authoress supplied the public with two other tales, Harrington and Ormond. The first was written to counteract the illiberal prejudice entertained by many against the Jews; the second is an Irish tale, equal to any of the former. The death of Mr Edgeworth in 1817 made a break in the literary exertion of his accomplished daughter, but she completed a memoir which that gentleman had begun of himself, and which was published in two volumes in 1820. In 1822 she returned to her course of moral instruction, and published in that year Rosamond, a Sequel to Early Lessons, a work for juvenile readers, of which an earlier specimen had been published. A further continuation appeared in 1825, under the

title of Harriet and Lucy, four volumes. These tales had been begun fifty years before by Mr Edgeworth, at a time when no one of any literary character, excepting Dr Watts and Mrs Barbauld, condescended to write for children.'

particular passion, would have been a hazardous experiment in common hands. Miss Edgeworth overcame it by the ease, spirit, and variety of her delineations, and the truly masculine freedom with which she exposes the crimes and follies of mankind. Her sentiments are so just and true, and her style so clear and forcible, that they compel an instant assent to her moral views and deductions, though sometimes, in winding up her tale, and distributing justice among her characters, she is not always very consistent or probable. Her delineations of her countrymen have obtained just praise. The highest compliment paid to them is the statement of Scott, that the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact' of these Irish portraits led him first to think that something might be attempted for his own country of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland. He excelled his model, because, with equal knowledge and practical sagacity, he possessed that higher order of imagination, and more extensive sympathy with man and nature, which is more

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It is worthy of mention, that, in the autumn of 1823, Miss Edgeworth, accompanied by two of her sisters, made a visit to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. She not only, he said, completely answered, but exceeded the expectations which he had formed, and he was particularly pleased with the naïveté and good-humoured ardour of mind which she united with such formidable powers of acute observation. 'Never,' says Mr Lockhart, did I see a brighter day at Abbotsford than that on which Miss Edgeworth first arrived there; never can I forget her look and accent when she was received by him at his archway, and exclaimed, "everything about you is exactly what one ought to have had wit enough to dream." The weather was beautiful, and the edifice and its appurtenances were all but complete; and day after day, so long as she could remain, her host had always some new plan of gaiety.' Miss Edge-powerful, even for moral uses and effects, than the worth remained a fortnight at Abbotsford. Two years afterwards she had an opportunity of repaying the hospitalities of her entertainer, by receiving him at Edgeworthtown, where Sir Walter met with as cordial a welcome, and where he found neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but snug cottages and smiling faces all about.' Literary fame had spoiled neither of these eminent persons, nor unfitted them for the common business and enjoyment of life. We shall never,' said Scott, 'learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine compared with the education of the heart.' Maria did not listen to this without some water in her eyes; her tears are always ready when any generous string is touched-(for, as Pope says, "the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest"); but she brushed them gaily aside, and said, "You see how it is; Dean Swift said he had written his books in order that people might learn to treat him like a great lord. Sir Walter writes his in order that he may be able to treat his people as a great lord ought to do.""*

most clear and irresistible reasoning. The object of Miss Edgeworth, to inculcate instruction, and the style of the preceptress, occasionally interfere with the cordial sympathies of the reader, even in her Irish descriptions; whereas in Scott this is never apparent. He deals more with passions and feelings than with mere manners and peculiarities, and by the aid of his poetical imagination, and careless yet happy eloquence of expression, imparts the air of romance to ordinary incidents and characters. It must be admitted, however, that in originality and in fertility of invention Miss Edgeworth is inferior to none of her contemporary novelists. She never repeats her incidents, her characters, dialogues, or plots, and few novelists have written more. Her brief and rapid tales fill above twenty closely-printed volumes, and may be read one after the other without any feeling of satiety or sense of repetition.

In a work lately published, Ireland,' by Mr and Mrs Hall, there is a very interesting account of the residence and present situation of Miss Edgeworth:

The library at Edgeworthtown,' say the writers, 'is by no means the reserved and solitary room that In 1834 Miss Edgeworth reappeared as a novelist: libraries are in general. It is large, and spacious, her Helen, in three volumes, is fully equal to her and lofty; well stored with books, and embellished 'Fashionable Tales,' and possesses more of ardour with those most valuable of all classes of printsand pathos. The gradations of vice and folly, and the suggestive; it is also picturesque, having been the unhappiness attending falsehood and artifice, are added to so as to increase its breadth; the addition strikingly depicted in this novel, in connexion with is supported by square pillars, and the beautiful characters (that of Lady Davenant, for example) lawn seen through the windows, embellished and drawn with great force, truth, and nature. This is varied by clumps of trees judiciously planted, imthe latest work of fiction we have had from the pen parts much cheerfulness to the exterior. An oblong of the gifted authoress; nor is it likely, from her table in the centre is a sort of rallying-point for the advanced age, that she will make further incursions family, who group around it—reading, writing, or into that domain of fancy and observation she has working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious upon enriched with so many admirable performances. one point-that all in the house should do exactly as Long, however, may she be able to dispense com- they like without reference to her-sits quietly and mon sense to her readers, and to bring them within abstractedly in her own peculiar corner on the sofa; the precincts of real life and natural feeling! The her desk, upon which lies Sir Walter Scott's pen, good and evil of this world have supplied Miss Edge-given to her by him when in Ireland, placed before worth with materials sufficient for her purposes as a novelist. Of poetical or romantic feeling she has exhibited scarcely a single instance. She is a strict utilitarian. Her knowledge of the world is extensive and correct, though in some of her representations of fashionable folly and dissipation she borders upon caricature. The plan of confining a tale to the exposure and correction of one particular vice, or one erroneous line of conduct, as Joanna Baillie confined her dramas each to the elucidation of one

*Life of Scott, vol. vi. p. 61.

her upon a little quaint table, as unassuming as possible. Miss Edgeworth's abstractedness would puzzle the philosophers; in that same corner, and upon that table, she has written nearly all that has enlightened and delighted the world. There she writes as eloquently as ever, wrapt up to all appearance in her subject, yet knowing, by a sort of instinct, when she is really wanted in dialogue; and, without laying down her pen, hardly looking up from her page, she will, by a judicious sentence, wisely and kindly spoken, explain and elucidate in a few words so as to clear up any difficulty, or turn the conversation into

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these little people right if they are wrong; to rise from her table to fetch them a toy, or even to save a servant a journey; to mount the steps and find a volume that escapes all eyes but her own, and having done so, to find exactly the passage wanted, are hourly employments of this most unspoiled and admirable woman. She will then resume her pen, and, what is more extraordinary, hardly seem to have even frayed the thread of her ideas; her mind is so rightly balanced, everything is so honestly weighed, that she suffers no inconvenience from what would disturb and distract an ordinary writer.'

MISS AUSTEN.

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decay or consumption which carried off Miss Austen seemed only to increase the powers of her mind. She wrote while she could hold a pen or pencil, and the day preceding her death composed some stanzas replete with fancy and vigour. Shortly after her death, her friends gave to the world two novels, entitled Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, the first being her earliest composition, and the least valuable of her productions, while the latter is a highly finished work, especially in the tender and pathetic passages. The great charm of Miss Austen's fictions lies in their truth and simplicity. She gives us plain representations of English society in the middle and higher classes-sets us down, as it were, in the country-house, the villa, and cottage, and introduces us to various classes of persons, whose characlife-like dialogues and conversation. There is no attempt to express fine things, nor any scenes of surprising daring or distress, to make us forget that we Such materials would seem to promise little for the are among commonplace mortals and real existence. novel reader, yet Miss Austen's minute circumstances and common details are far from tiresome. They all aid in developing and discriminating her characters, in which her chief strength lies, and we become so intimately acquainted with each, that they appear as old friends or neighbours. She is quite at home in describing the mistakes in the education of young ladies-in delicate ridicule of female foibles and vanity-in family differences, obstinacy, and pride-in the distinctions between the different classes of society, and the nicer shades of feeling and conduct as they ripen into love or friendship, or subside into indifference or dislike. Her love is not who cannot or will not learn anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a good, when it interferes with no greater, especially as it may occupy the place of some other that may not be innocent. The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us.'

JANE AUSTEN, a truly English novelist, was born on the 16th December 1775, at Steventon, in Hamp-ters are displayed in ordinary intercourse and most shire, of which parish her father was rector. Mr Austen is represented as a man of refined taste and acquirements, who guided, though he did not live to witness the fruits of his daughter's talents. After the death of the rector, his widow and two daughters retired to Southampton, and subsequently to the village of Chawton, in the same county, where the novels of Jane Austen were written. Of these, four were published anonymously in her lifetime, namely, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. In May 1817 the health of the authoress rendered it necessary that she should remove to some place where constant medical aid could be procured. She went to Winchester, and in that city she expired on the 24th of July 1817, aged fortytwo. Her personal worth, beauty, and genius, made her early death deeply lamented; while the public had to regret the failure not only of a source of innocent amusement, but also of that supply of practical good sense and instructive example which she would probably have continued to furnish better than any of her contemporaries.'* The insidious * Dr Whateley, archbishop of Dublin (Quarterly Review, 1821). The same critic thus sums up his estimate of Miss Austen's works: They may be safely recommended, not only as among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct effort at the former, of which we have complained as sometimes defeating its object. For those

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a blind passion, the offspring of romance; nor has she any of that morbid colouring of the darker passions in which other novelists excel. The clear daylight of nature, as reflected in domestic life, in scenes of variety and sorrowful truth, as well as of vivacity and humour, is her genial and inexhaustible element. Instruction is always blended with amusement. A finer moral lesson cannot anywhere be found than the distress of the Bertram family in Mansfield | Park,' arising from the vanity and callousness of the two daughters, who had been taught nothing but 'accomplishments,' without any regard to their dispositions and temper. These instructive examples are brought before us in action, not by lecture or preachment, and they tell with double force, because they are not inculcated in a didactic style. The genuine but unobtrusive merits of Miss Austen have been but poorly rewarded by the public as respects fame and popularity, though her works are now rising in public esteem. She has never been so popular,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, as she deserved to be. Intent on fidelity of delineation, and averse to the commonplace tricks of her art, she has not, in this age of literary quackery, received her reward. Ordinary readers have been apt to judge of her as Partridge, in Fielding's novel, judged of Garrick's acting. He could not see the merit of a man who merely behaved on the stage as anybody might be expected to behave under similar circumstances in real life. He infinitely preferred the "robustious periwig-pated fellow," who flourished his arms like a windmill, and ranted with the voice of three. It was even so with many of the readers of Miss Austen. She was too natural for them. It seemed to them as if there could be very little merit in making characters act and talk so exactly like the people whom they saw around them every day. They did not consider that the highest triumph of art consists in its concealment; and here the art was so little perceptible, that they believed there was none. Her works, like well-proportioned rooms, are rendered less apparently grand and imposing by the very excellence of their adjustment.' Sir Walter Scott, after reading Pride and Prejudice' for the third time, thus mentions the merits of Miss Austen in his private diary:-That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so

early!'

MRS BRUNTON.

MRS MARY BRUNTON, authoress of Self-Control and Discipline, two novels of superior merit and moral tendency, was born on the 1st of November 1778. She was a native of Burrey, in Orkney, a small island of about 500 inhabitants, no part of which is more than 300 feet above the level of the sea, and which is destitute of tree or shrub. In this remote and sea-surrounded region the parents of Mary Brunton occupied a leading station. Her father was Colonel Balfour of Elwick, and her mother, an accomplished woman, niece of fieldmarshal Lord Ligonier, in whose house she had resided previous to her marriage. Mary was carefully educated, and instructed by her mother in the French and Italian languages. She was also sent some time to Edinburgh; but while she was only sixteen, her mother died, and the whole cares and

duties of the household devolved on her. With these she was incessantly occupied for four years, and at the expiration of that time she was married to the Rev. Mr Brunton, minister of Bolton, in Haddingtonshire. In 1803 Mr Brunton was called to one of the churches in Edinburgh, and his lady had thus an opportunity of meeting with persons of literary talent, and of cultivating her own mind. Till I began Self-Control,' she says in one of her letters, I had never in my life written anything but a letter or a recipe, excepting a few hundreds of vile rhymes, from which I desisted by the time I had gained the wisdom of fifteen years; therefore I was so ignorant of the art on which I was entering, that I formed scarcely any plan for my tale. I merely intended to show the power of the religious principle in bestowing self command, and to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral as indelicate, that a reformed rake makes the best husband.' 'SelfControl' was published without the author's name in 1811. The first edition was sold in a month, and a second and third were called for. In 1814 her second work, 'Discipline,' was given to the world, and was also well received. She began a third, Emmeline, but did not live to finish it. She died on the 7th of December 1818. The unfinished tale, and a memoir of its lamented authoress, were pub lished in one volume by her husband, Dr Brunton.

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Self-Control' bids fair to retain a permanent place among British novels, as a sort of Scottish Colebs, recommended by its moral and religious tendency, no less than by the talent it displays. The acute observation of the authoress is seen in the development of little traits of character and conduct, which give individuality to her portraits, and a semblance of truth to the story. Thus the gradual decay, mental and bodily, of Montreville, the account of the De Courcys, and the courtship of Montague, are true to nature, and completely removed out of the beaten track of novels. The plot is very unskilfully managed. The heroine, Laura, is involved in a perpetual cloud of difficulties and dangers, some of which (as the futile abduction by Warren, and the arrest at Lady Pelham's) are unnecessary and improbable. The character of Hargrave seems to have been taken from that of Lovelace, and Laura is the Clarissa of the tale. Her high principle and purity, her devotion to her father, and the force and energy of her mind (without overstepping feminine softness), impart a strong interest to the narrative of her trials and adventures. She surrounds the whole, as it were, with an atmosphere of moral light and beauty, and melts into something like consistency and unity the discordant materials of the tale. The style of the work is also calculated to impress the reader: it is always appropriate, and rises frequently into passages of striking sentiment and eloquence.

[Final Escape of Laura.]

[The heroine is carried off by the stratagems of Hargrave, put on board a vessel, and taken to the shores of Canads. There, in a remote secluded cabin, prepared for her reception, she is confined till Hargrave can arrive. Even her wonted firmness and religious faith seem to forsake her in this last and greatest of her calamities, and her health sinks under the continued influence of grief and fear.]

The whole of the night preceding Hargrave's arrival was passed by Laura in acts of devotion. In her life, blameless as it had appeared to others, she saw so much ground for condemnation, that, had her hopes rested upon her own merit, they would have vanished like the sunshine of a winter storm. Their support was more mighty, and they remained unshaken. The raptures of faith beamed on her soul. By degrees they

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