them with her pen, and binding them in the form of books. Some of these little productions were very ingenious, and would have done honour to maturer years.

From her mother and an excellent preceptress she received the first rudiments of her education, and at the age of eleven entered her father's school, alternately as student and assistant teacher. To the study and practice of astronomy her father was a devotee. Whenever the duties of life permitted, the whole man was engrossed with the pursuit. Without instruments at that period, or the means of procuring any, he contemplated the heavens as a shepherd, watching the motions of the firmament, and investigating its laws by his own resources. It is said that his love of the study originated in observing, in very early life, the phenomenon of the harvest moon, and in attempting to search out the cause before he knew that it had been done by others. Later in life he became possessed of instruments, and engaged in practical operations; and Miss Maria, who had already distinguished herself in mathematical learning, was employed as assistant in the observatory.

The onerous duties of a mere assistant in an establishment of this kind are scarcely calculated to attach one to the employment, yet Miss Mitchell was enamoured of the prospect of observing by herself, and commenced her career by obtaining altitudes of the heavenly bodies, for the determination of the local time. The instrument thus used was the sextant, one of the most difficult of the observatory. Mastering this, she engaged in the study of the science; and familiarizing herself with all the instruments, she became skilful in their use.

From this period she pursued with zeal the study of the firmament, devoting much time to the examination of nebulæ, and sweeping for comets, often exposing herself to the elements in the most inclement seasons. Nothing can exceed her diligence and industry-not in the departments of science merely, but in the domestic relations of life. Her good sense never suffers her to neglect the latter in the prosecution of the former. It is related of her, that while very young she was in the habit of carrying constantly in her pocket bits of linen cloth, to wrap up the fingers of her brothers when wounded, and to this day she is the doctress of the family.

On the 1st of October, 1847, she discovered a telescopic comet, for which she obtained the gold medal of the king of Denmark, an interesting account of which has been written by Hon. Edward Everett, late President of Harvard University.

Miss Mitchell calculated the elements of this comet, and communicated a memoir on the subject to the Smithsonian Institute. She has been for some time engaged with her father in making the necessary astronomical observations for the mensuration of an arc of the meridian between Nantucket and Portland, in the employment of Dr. Bache, for the coast survey. At the invitation of the superintendent, she also made some observations

at the northern extremity of this arc. She is also engaged in the computations of the new Nantucket Almanac, authorized by the government of the United States, and under the superintendence of Lieutenant Davis. Amidst all these employments, she finds time to read many of the French and German mathematical writers, and to keep up with the literature of the day. She has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the only lady having that honour, and subsequently, on the nomination of Professor Agassis, a member of the American Association for the Promotion of Science.

To know the distinguished honour reflected on our countrywoman, we must know her competitors. Miss Mitchell made her discovery of the planet on the 1st of October, 1847.

On the 3d of October, the same comet was seen at half-past seven, P. M., at Rome, by Father de Vico, and information of the fact was immediately communicated by him to Professor Schumacher, at Altona. On the 7th of October, at twenty minutes past nine, P. M., it was observed by Mr. W. R. Dawes, at Camden Lodge, Cranbrook, Kent, in England, and on the 11th it was seen by Madame Rümker, the wife of the Director of the Observatory at Hamburg. Mr. Schumacher, in announcing this last discovery, observes: — "Madame Rümker has for several years been on the look-out for comets, and her persevering industry seemed at last about to be rewarded, when a letter was received from Father de Vico, addressed to the editor of the Astronomische Nachrichten, from which it appeared that the same comet had been observed by him on the 3d instant, at Rome."

MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL,

WAS born on the 16th of December, 1786, at Abresford, in Hampshire, England. Her father was of an old Northumberland family, one of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle; her mother the only daughter of the Rev. Dr. Russell of Ash, in Hampshire, and she was their only child. When still a young girl, about the year 1806, Miss Mitford published a volume of miscellaneous poems, and two volumes of narrative poetry after the manner of Scott, "Christina the Maid of the South Seas," (founded upon the story of the mutineers of the Bounty, afterwards taken by Lord Byron;) and "Blanche, a Spanish Story." These books sold well and obtained a fair share of popularity, and some of them were reprinted in America. However, Miss Mitford herself was not satisfied with them, and for several of the following years devoted herself to reading instead of writing; indeed it is doubtful whether she would ever have written again had not she, with her parents, been reduced from the high affluence to which they were born to comparative poverty. Filial affection induced her to resume the pen she had so long thrown aside, and accordingly she wrote the series of papers which afterwards formed the first volume of "Our Village, Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery," about 1820. But so little was the peculiar and original excellence of her descriptions

understood at first, that, after being rejected by the more important publications, they at last saw the light in the English "Lady's Magazine." The public were not long in discovering the beauties of a style so fresh yet so finished, and in appreciating the delicate humour and the simple pathos of these tales; and the result was, that the popularity of these sketches outgrew that of the works of a loftier order from the same pen; and every nook and corner of the cluster of cottages around Three-Mile-Cross, near Reading, in Berkshire, (in one of which the authoress herself resides,) is as well known as the streets and lanes around the reader's own home. Four other volumes of sketches were afterwards added; the fifth, and last, in 1832. Extending her observation from the country village to the market-town, Miss Mitford published another interesting volume of descriptions, entitled "Belford Regis." She edited three volumes, called "Stories of American Life by American Writers." She also published a volume of "Country Stories;" a volume of "Dramatic Scenes;" an opera called "Sadak and Kalasrade," and four tragedies, the first entitled "Julian," which was represented at the great London Theatre in 1823, Mr. Macready playing Julian. Her next was "Foscari;" then "Rienzi" and "Charles the First;" all were successful. 66 Rienzi," in particular, long continued a favourite. She also edited four volumes of "Finden's Tableaux," and is now, after eight years' cessation of writing, engaged on a series of papers called "Readings of Poetry, Old and New," which will probably form two or three volumes, and will soon be published.

Although her tragedies show great intellectual powers, and a highly cultivated mind, yet it is by her sketches of English life that she has obtained the greatest share of her popularity, and it is on them that her fame will chiefly depend. In these descriptions Mary Mitford is unrivalled. She has a manner, natural to her, no doubt, but inimitable and indescribable, which sheds interest around the most homely subjects and coarsest characters. Who ever threw by a sketch of hers half read? No one who admired a spring daisy-or that most fragrant blossom, the wall-flower, which beautifies every object, however rough, rude or ruinous, around which it wreathes. And, though she does not trace the motives of conduct very deeply, or attempt to teach principles of moral duty, yet there is much in her sprightly and warm sketches of simple nature which draws the heart to love the Author of all this beauty; and much in her kind and contented philosophy to promote love and good feelings. She is a philanthropist, for she joys in the happiness of others-a patriot, for she draws the people to feel the beauties and blessings which surround the most lowly lot in that "land of proud names and high heroic deeds."

"As a proof that we love her, we love her dog," says an American writer. "Walter Scott's stately Maida is not more an historical character than her springing spaniel, or Italian greyhound. If she began by being prosaic in poetry, she has redeemed herself by being most poetic in pastoral prose

In 1833 Miss Mitford's name was added to the pension list, a well-earned tribute to one whose genius has been devoted to the honour and embellishment of her country.

From "Our Village."

WHITSUN-EVE-MY GARDEN.

The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might, with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf, or hung up in a tree, would be utterly unbearable in warm weather, were it not that we have a retreat out of doors,—and a very pleasant retreat it is. To make my readers fully comprehend it, I must describe our whole territories.

Fancy a small plot of ground, with a pretty low irregular cottage at one end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court running along one side; and a long thatched shed open towards the garden, and supported by wooden pillars on the other. The bottom is bounded, half by an old wall, and half by an old paling, over which we see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honeysuckles, and jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts, breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of rustic arcade which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds by a row of rich geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.

I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we may guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower, with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted so gloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the little birds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests-for there are always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry of cherrytrees, honeysuckles, and China-roses, which cover our walls-now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as they sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which the country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird; * that bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossoms of the geranium, whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast; that insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest; always, even when feeding, self

poised, and self-supported, and whose wings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture of the flower and the leaf, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily it resembles a picture in more qualities than one, it is fit for nothing but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framed canvass. There are walks, to be suretiny paths of smooth gravel, by courtesy called such-but they are so overhung by roses and lilies, and such gay encroachers so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease, and mignionette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edge through them occasionally, for the purposes of planting, or weeding, or watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footed denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go out for a walk towards sun-set, just as if we had not been sitting in the open air all day.

What a contrast from the quiet garden the lively street! Saturday night is always a time of stir and bustle in our Village, and this is WhitsunEve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and liveliest of any; for even the gambols and merrymakings of Christmas offer but a poor enjoyment, compared with the rural diversions, the Mayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide.

CHARACTERS.

This village of ours is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all the church-bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to call them together. I must try to give some notion of the various figures.

First there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their ball is mended by Master Keep himself, under the joint superintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing much verbal respect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way, after all; whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less-trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round the handles of the bats—the poor bats, which please nobody—which the taller youths are despising as too little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and too large. Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greater delight-even if to win it, they be doomed! Farther down the street is the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a holiday from B- escorted by

a tall footman in a dashing livery, whom she is trying to curtsey off before her deaf grandmother sees him. I wonder whether she will succeed.

MRS. LUCAS AND HER DAUGHTERS.

Mrs. Lucas, still lovely and elegant, though somewhat faded and care-worn, was walking pensively up and down the grass-path of the pretty flower-court: her eldest daughter, a rosy, bright brunette, with her dark hair floating in all directions, was darting about like a bird: now tying up the pinks, now watering the geraniums; now collecting the fallen rose-leaves into the straw bonnet, which dangled from her arm; and now feeding a brood of bantams from a little barley measure, which that sagacious and active colony seemed to recognise as if by instinct, coming, long before she called them, at their swiftest pace, between a run and a fly, to await, with their usual noisy and bustling patience, the showers of grain which she flung to them across the paling. It was a beautiful picture of youth, and health, and happiness; and her clear, gay voice, and brilliant smile, accorded well with her shape and motion, as light as a butterfly, and as wild as the wind. A beautiful picture was that rosy lass of fifteen,' in her unconscious loveliness, and I might have continued gazing upon her longer, had I not been attracted by an object no less charming, although in a very different way.

It was a slight elegant girl, apparently about a year younger than the pretty romp of the flowergarden, not unlike her in form and feature, but totally distinct in colouring and expression.

She sate in the old porch, wreathed with jessamine and honeysuckle, with the western sun floating round her like a glory, and displaying the singular beauty of her chestnut hair, brown, with a golden light, and the exceeding delicacy of her smooth and finely-grained complexion, so pale, and yet so healthful. Her whole face and form had a bending and statue-like grace, increased by the adjustment of her splendid hair, which was parted on her white forehead, and gathered up behind in a large knot, a natural coronet. Her eye-brows and long eye-lashes were a few shades darker than her hair, and singularly rich and beautiful. She was plaiting straw, rapidly and skilfully, and bent over her work with a mild and placid attention, a sedate pensiveness that did not belong to her age, and which contrasted strangely and sadly with the gaiety of her laughing and brilliant sister, who at this moment darted up to her with a handful of pinks and some groundsel. Jessy received them with a smile: such a smile! spoke a few words, in a sweet, sighing voice; put the flowers in her bosom, and the groundsel in the cage of a linnet that hung near her; and then resumed her seat and her work, imitating, better than I have ever heard them imitated, the various notes of the nightingale, who was singing in the opposite hedge, whilst I, ashamed of loitering longer, passed on.

The next time I saw her, my interest in this lovely creature was increased tenfold, for I then knew that Jessy was blind.

From "Rienzi."

HOME AND LOVE.

Rie. Claudia-nay, start not! Thou art sad to-day:

I found thee sitting idly, 'midst thy maids

A pretty, laughing, restless band, who plied
Quick tongue and nimble finger. Mute, and pale

As marble, those unseeing eyes were fixed

On vacant air; and that fair brow was bent
As sternly, as if the rude stranger, Thought,
Age-giving, mirth-destoying, pitiless Thought,
Had knocked at thy young giddy brain.

Cla. Nay, father,

Mock not thine own poor Claudia.

Rie. Claudia used

To bear a merry heart with that clear voice,
Prattling; and that light busy foot, astir
In her small housewifery, the blithest bee
That ever wrought in hive.

Cla. Oh! mine old home!

Rie. What ails thee, lady-bird?

Cla. Mine own dear home!

Father, I love not this new state; these halls,
Where comfort dies in vastness; these trim maids,
Whose service wearies me. Oh! mine old home!
My quiet, pleasant chamber, with the myrtle
Woven round the casement; and the cedar by,
Shading the sun; my garden overgrown
With flowers and herbs, thick-set as grass in fields;
My pretty snow-white doves; my kindest nurse;
And old Camillo. -Oh! mine own dear home!

Rie. Why, simple child, thou hast thine old fond nurse,
And good Camillo, and shalt have thy doves,
Thy myrtles, flowers, and cedars; a whole province
Laid in a garden an' thou wilt. My Claudia,
Hast thou not learnt thy power? Ask orient gems,
Diamonds, and sapphires, in rich caskets, wrought
By cunning goldsmiths; sigh for rarest birds,
Of farthest Ind, like winged flowers to flit
Around thy stately bower; and, at thy wish,
The precious toys shall wait thee. Old Camillo !
Thou shalt have nobler servants, - emperors, kings,
Electors, princes! Not a bachelor

In Christendom but would right proudly kneel
To my fair daughter.

Cla. Oh! mine own dear home!

Rie. Wilt have a list to choose from? Listen, sweet! If the tall cedar, and the branchy myrtle, And the white doves, were tell-tales, I would ask them Whose was the shadow on the sunny wall? And if, at eventide, they heard not oft A tuneful mandoline, and then a voice, Clear in its manly depth, whose tide of song O'erwhelmed the quivering instrument; and then A world of whispers, mixed with low response, Sweet, short, and broken as divided strains Of nightingales.

Cla. Oh, father! father! [Runs to him, and falls upon his neck.]

Rie. Well!

Dost thou love him, Claudia?

Cla. Father!

Rie. Dost thou love

Young Angelo? Yes? Saidst thou yes? That heart That throbbing heart of thine, keeps such a coil,

I cannot hear thy words. He is returned

To Rome; he left thee on mine errand, dear one!

And now - is there no casement myrtle-wreathed,
No cedar in our courts, to shade to-night

The lover's song?

Cla. Oh, father! father!

Rie. Now,

Back to thy maidens, with a lightened heart,
Mine own beloved child. Thou shalt be first
In Rome, as thou art fairest; never princess
Brought to the proud Colonna such a dower
As thou. Young Angelo hath chosen his mate
From out an eagle's nest.

Cla. Alas! alas!

I tremble at the height. Whene'er I think

Of the hot barons, of the fickle people, And the inconstancy of power, I tremble For thee, dear father.

MORGAN, SYDNEY,

WHOSE maiden name was Sydney Owenson, was born in Dublin, about 1783. Her father was a respectable actor at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and gave his daughter the best advantages of education he could command. He was a man of decided talents, a favourite in the society of the city, and author of some popular Irish songs. His daughter, Sydney, inherited his predilection for national music and song. Very early in life, when she was a mere child, she published a small volume of poetical effusions; and soon after, "The Lay of the Irish Harp," and a selection of twelve Irish melodies, set to music. One of these is the well-known song of "Kate Kearney;" probably this popular lyric will outlive all the other writings of this authoress. Her next work was a novel, "St. Clair, or the Heiress of Desmond," published when she was about sixteen. It was soon followed by "The Novice of St. Dominick;" and then her most successful work, "The Wild Irish Girl," which appeared in the winter of 1801.

The book had a prodigious sale. Within the first two years, seven editions were published in Great Britain, besides two or three in America. It gained for Miss Owenson a celebrity which very few writers, of either sex, have won at so early an age. It gained her the love and blessings of the Irish people, of course; and a far more difficult achievement, it won her a high reputation in England. Some of the best and brightest characters among the proud nobility became her friends and patrons.

What were the peculiar merits of the work which won this popularity? As a novel, it certainly cannot be rated very high. The plot shows little inventive talent, and was, moreover, liable to some objection on the score of moral tendency. We allude to the plan of making the Earl of Mand his son both in love with the same lady. The denouement is very awkwardly managed, and we

think most readers must have been disgusted, if not shocked, by the scene where the unconscious rivals, father and son, meet in the old chapel. There is very little development of character attempted, each person introduced being expressly designed, as is at once seen, to act a particular part, which is set down in the play.

Nor is the merit of the work in its style, which is both high-flown and puerile. The exaggerated sentiment, so often poured out by the fervid, but uncultivated writer, appears more nonsensical from the pompous phraseology in which it is so often expressed. We wonder how such great words could have been brought together to express such small meanings. This is particularly the case with the descriptive portions of the work. In short, the author, possessing naturally the wildest and warmest phase of Irish temperament, had her head filled and nearly turned by what she calls " the witching sorcery" of Rousseau; and as her taste had been very little cultivated by judicious reading, or her judgment improved by observation, it is not strange that she mistook hyperbole for elegance, and fancied that soft, mellifluous words would convey ideas of superhuman beauty. The following description of her heroine, Glorvina, is a fair specimen of this tawdry style. "Her form was so almost impalpably delicate, that as it floated on the gaze, it seemed like the incarnation of some pure ethereal spirit, which a sigh too roughly breathed, might dissolve into its kindred air; yet to this sylphide elegance of spheral beauty was united all that symmetrical contour which constitutes the luxury of human loveliness. This scarcely mortal mixture of earth's mould,' was vested in a robe of vestal white, which was enfolded beneath the bosom with a narrow girdle embossed with precious stones." Query, how did the lady look? Can the reader form any clear notion?

How

Such is the prevailing style of the book, though occasionally, when giving utterance to some strong deep feeling, which usually finds its appropriate language, the author is truly eloquent. could a novel so written, gain such popularity? Because it had a high aim, a holy purpose. It owed its success entirely to the simple earnest ness with which Miss Owenson defended her country. It is all Irish. She seemed to have no thought of self, nothing but patriotism was in her soul, and this feeling redeemed the faults of inflated style, French sentimentalism, false reasoning, and all the extravagances of her youthful fancy. Ireland was her inspiration and her theme. Its history, language, antiquities, traditions, and wrongs, these she had studied as a zealot does his creed, and with a fervour only inferior in sacredness to that of religion, she poured her whole heart and mind forth in the cause of her own native land.

The

was published in 1818. Previously to this Miss Owenson became Lady Morgan, by marrying Sir Charles Morgan, M. D., a gentleman of considerable talents, -as his own work, "Sketches of the Philosophy of Life and Morals," shows. marriage seemed to give new energy and a wider scope to the genius of Lady Morgan; the tastes of the husband and wife were, evidently, in sympathy. They went abroad, and "France" and Italy," two clever specimens of Lady Morgan's powers of observation and description, were the result. These works are lively and entertaining. Lord Byron has borne testimony to the fidelity and excellence of "Italy:" if the authoress had been less solicitous of making a sensation, her book would have been more perfect, yet now it is among the best of its kind.

"The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys," a novel intended to portray national manners, appeared in 1827; "The Book of the Boudoir" in 1829. Among her other works are, "The Princess," a story founded on the Revolution in Belgium, "Dramatic Scenes from Real Life," "The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa," and "Woman and her Master," published in London, 1840. Two volumes of this work were then issued: the authoress, suffering under that painful affliction, a weakness of eyesight, was unable to complete her plan, and it has never been finished. It is a philosophical history of woman down to the fall of the Roman Empire, a work on which Lady Morgan evidently laboured with great zeal. It should be carefully read by all who wish to gain a compendious knowledge of woman's history, and a graphic sketch of her influence in the early ages. Many new and valuable truths are promulgated; and though some of the opinions are unsound, because unscriptural, yet the earnest wish to benefit her sex, and improve society, has gifted the writer with great power in setting forth much that is true, and of the utmost importance. We hope she will have strength and energy, and a prolongation of life, to complete the work.

In estimating the merits of this indefatigable writer, we will give the opinions of British critics, only observing that, to us, the greatest blemish in her books in an under-current, more or less strong, running through many of them, bearing the philosophical opinions, or sayings rather, of the French sentimental school of infidels. We do not think Lady Morgan an unbeliever; but she gives occasion for censure by expressions, occasionally, that favour free-thinkers. If she had but served God, in her writings, with the same enthusiastic zeal she serves her country, what a glorious wo man she would have been!

Mr. Chambers, in his Cyclopædia of English Literature, says: