seat of Lord Manvers, distant between five and six miles from Welbeck, and where Lord George was to make a visit of two days. In consequence of this his valet drove over to Thoresby at the same time to meet his master. But the master never came. Hours passed on and the master never came. At length the anxious servant returned to Welbeck, and called up the groom who had driven him over to Thoresby, and who was in bed, and inquired whether he had seen anything of Lord George on the way back, as his lord had never reached Thoresby. The groom got up, and, along with the valet and two others, took lanthorns and followed the footpath which they had seen Lord George pursuing as they themselves went to Thoresby.

"About a mile from the abbey, on the path which they had observed him following, lying close to the gate which separates a water meadow from the deer park, they found the body of Lord George Bentinck. He was lying on his face; his arms were under his body, and in one hand he grasped his walking-stick. His hat was a yard or two before him, having evidently been thrown off in falling. The body was cold and stiff. He had been long dead.

"The terrible news reached Nottingham on the morning of the 22nd at half-past nine o'clock, and immediately telegraphed to London, was announced by a second edition of the Times to the country. Consternation and deep grief fell upon all men. One week later, the remains arrived from Welbeck at Harcourt House, to be entombed in the family vaults of the Bentincks, that is to be found in a small building in a dingy street, now a chapel of ease; but in old days the parish church among the fields of the pretty village of Marylebone.

"The day of the interment was dark, and cold, and drizzling. Although the last offices were performed in the most scrupulously private manner, the feelings of the community could not be repressed. From nine till eleven o'clock that day all the British shipping in the docks and the river, from London Bridge to Gravesend, hoisted their flags half-mast high, and minute guns were fired from appointed stations along the Thames. The same mournful ceremony was observed in all the ports of England and Ireland; and not only in these, for the flag was half-mast high on every British ship at Antwerp, at Rotterdam, at Havre.

"One who stood by his side in an arduous and unequal struggle; who often shared his councils, and sometimes perhaps soothed his cares; who knew well the greatness of his nature, and esteemed his friendship among the chief of worldly blessings; has stepped aside from the strife and passion of public life to draw up this record of his deeds and thoughts, that those who come after us may form some conception of his character and career, and trace in these faithful though imperfect pages the portraiture of an ENGLISH WORTHY."

Aye, despite the sneers of the Times, despite the lying gibes of the Daily News, and the other hacks of the Cobden and Bright faction, despite the well-arranged onslaught of all the

Free Trade press, this Biography is the "portraiture of an English worthy," of an English worthy to whom we may well apply the glorious manly eulogium, passed by Sydney Smith upon another statesman who died young, Francis Horner:

"The public looked upon him as a powerful and a safe man, who was labouring not for himself or his party, but for them. They were convinced of his talents, they confided in his moderation, and they were sure of his motives; he had improved so quickly, and so much, that his early death was looked on as the destruction of a great statesman, who had done but a small part of the good which might be expected from him, who would infallibly have risen to the highest offices, and as infallibly have filled them to the public good. Then, as he had never lost a friend, and made so few enemies, there was no friction, no drawback; public feeling had its free course; the image of a good and great man was broadly before the world, unsullied by any breath of hatred; there was nothing but pure sorrow. Youth destroyed before its time, great talents and wisdom hurried to the grave, a kind and good man, who might have lived for the glory of England, torn from us in the flower of life ;-but all this is gone and past; and, as Galileo said of his lost sight, "It has pleased God it should be so, and it must please me also."*

ART. III-MISS MITFORD'S LITERARY
RECOLLECTIONS.

Recollections of a Literary Life; or Books, Places, and
People. By MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, Author of "Our
Village," "Belford Regis," &c. London: Richard Bentley,
New Burlington-street. 1852.

A REVIEWER experiences a greater or less degree of difficulty, according as the author whose works may form the subject of notice, has originally fulfilled his primary duty to the public, or has failed therein. When an author has brought to the

execution of his self-imposed task sufficient information, intelligence and industry, and (above all things) truth and integrity, the reviewer's toil proves a labour of love. Far otherwise is it in the case where a writer is wanting in the requisite qualifications; and it is with much pain that we must affirm the fact, that our task on this occasion is sufficiently embarrassing even to the "tender mercies" of a critic who has been compelled to cite before his tribunal the helpless grace and modest assurance of a lady author. In the first place, the title of the book before us is utterly delusive. The words, Recollections of a Literary Life, would seem to convey but one meaning that of a work partly biographical, partly critical, in which the author details his personal "recollections" of other authors whom he has known in the course of his life, interspersed with appropriate notices of their "literary" labours. The reader's surprise will, we presume, equal our own, when we assure him that Miss Mitford's book does not fall within that meaning. Here and there we find introduced the most frivolous matters of an autobiographical nature—that is, referring to Miss Mitford herself-and it is fortunate that her allusions and statements in this regard are not as numerous as they are absurd. But this very paucity of biographical details only serves to make matters worse, by infelicitously reminding us of all that we expected from the title-page. We have told the reader, and truly told, what this book is notwe will now tell him what it is-at least we will hazard a conjecture, the probability of which will be sustained by reference to the pages of the work. We believe it to be a commonplace book of old standing looked up, with recent additions made expressly for this present publication, the whole furnished with a taking title. This very title, viewed of itself, (and without reference to the contents, in which latter light we have already considered it,) has a blue-bottle buzziness about it offensive to lettered ease. An enlightened and simple intelligence would have rested satisfied with the significant prefix, "Recollections of a Literary Life," and have left it so. But the dignity of simplicity is not looked for "in the middle of the nineteenth century;" and accordingly Miss Mitford adds explanatory words of the smartest sort, equally startling and unmeaning, to wit, "or Books, Places, and People."

But from all that we have hitherto said the reader must not suppose that the book before us is destitute of merit. The

contrary is the case, to no inconsiderable extent; and this it is, precisely, which constitutes our great difficulty, since the merits and demerits are so interlinked, that it is no easy matter to unravel the knot which binds them together. With much twaddle there is much sense, and though the authoress does not exercise her own powers with sufficient energy, a generous appreciation of the genius of others is ever manifest. The descriptions of scenery with which the volumes abound are vivid and graceful, in some instances altogether grand. She makes us see the sun, the leaves, the sky, the waters. There is the finest of genteel comedy in the character of her very dog, as delineated by her masterly pen. "Fanchon's" hair, as it turns golden in the slanting rays of the “ wintry sun," is visible to us, all but tangible. Strange and lamentable it is, that powers so great should be found in the questionable company of capricious levity and the conceit of clique. For so it is, that some portions of these three volumes seem written for the world at large, and some others for the author's set. Universal interest should attach to the former, and, for the latter, we heartily wish they had been "printed for private circulation." The absence of congruity and arrangement, the too flattering notice of personal friends, and the gossiping familiarity of tone in Miss Mitford's "Recollections," are such as we might expect to meet with in loose notes thrown together with a view to the future publication of a work which has not yet progressed further than an embryo sketch, and read, or rather lounged over, in company with a few friends, who have dropped in for tea and a little mutual flattery. Were this confined to Miss Mitford's immediate circle, we should have no objection. But the Public is a jealous god, and will not have household-gods (that is, friends and gossips) set up in its place. And yet Miss Mitford seems to ignore this fact, and even makes profession of her own pet system of idolatry in following wise at page 249 of volume 1. :-"It has always seemed to me," she says, "that one of the happiest positions, let me say the very happiest position, that a woman of great talent can occupy in our high civilization, is that of living a beloved and distinguished member of the best literary society, * * but abstaining from the wider field of authorship, even while she throws out here and there such choice and chosen bits as prove that nothing but disinclination to enter the arena debars her from winning the prize." It is true, that when the

lady makes this too candid avowal, she is speaking of " my friend, Miss Goldsmid," and of Miss Fanshawe; but we have no choice but to believe that she is thinking of herself likewise. The above quotation is indeed a key to the entire work we are now reviewing. In the spirit in which that quotation was per d, were penned also the three volumes of the "Recollections." Miss Mitford has precisely "thrown out here and there such choice and chosen bits as prove that nothing but disinclination to enter the arena debars her from winning the prize." Nor does it in any way militate against this conviction, that in the publication of her "Recollections of a Literary Life," as in her previous works, she has actually entered upon the "wider field of authorship." On the contrary, in the last product of her pen we have but too much proof that in that "field" of labour she is rather content to pass for an amateur than for a worker. In this respect she resembles a gentlewoman of mature age and quakerly likings, who goes a-haymaking on her lawn in the cooler hours of the day, and whilst she rakes a little math together here and there with a light implement, carefully avoids the toil and danger of the weighty scythe. Not after such a manner, nevertheless, will be accumulated the provender which is destined to feed ox and steed in their winter stalls, when the snow lies thick upon the earth. Nor after such a manner shall ever be garnered in the stores of thought which the reading future will gratefully appreciate. A thorough conviction, an earnest ambition, an unreserved vigour, are qualities essential to the success of literary as of all other pursuits.

The second chapter of the first volume of the "Recollections" is devoted to a brief notice of Davis* and Banim. The "Sack of Baltimore," and "Fontenoy," of course figure as extracts, and a brace of songs by Banim follow. Of the latter Miss Mitford says

"John Banim was the founder of that school of Irish novelists, which, always excepting its blameless purity, so much resembles the

* Miss Mitford informs us that Mr. T. Davis is "idolized in his native country." This we presume she learned from the Nation newspaper, or some congenial journal, not very careful in its facts or very sparing of its fictions. Mr. Davis was a clever man, very well adapted to support such a paper as the Nation was in its early, and more respectable days. One of his historical ballads, written to a popular old air, has no foundation in history, as there never was such a cavalry regiment on the Continent as "Lord Clare's Dragoons.'-ED.