his society, reads to me, walks with me, leads my pony when I ride, and I begin to talk with him as with a paternal friend. The whole of this morning he kindly passed in reading to me from Spenser, and afterwards his own Laodamia and many of his noble sonnets. His reading is very peculiar-slow, solemn, earnest. When he reads or recites in the open air his deep, rich tones seem to proceed from a spirit voice and belong to the religion of the place. Yesterday evening he walked beside me as I rode on a long and lovely mountain-path, high above Grasmere Lodge. I was much interested by his showing me, carved deep in the rock, the initials of his wife's name, cut there many years ago by himself, and the dear old man, like Old Mortality, renews them from time to time. No wounded affections, no embittered feelings have ever been his lot; the current of his domestic life has flowed on bright, pure, and unbroken. He has treated me with so much consideration and gentleness and care. They have been like balm to my spirit after all the false flatteries with which I am blasée. His daily life in the bosom of his family is delightful, so affectionate and confiding. I cannot but mournfully feel in the midst of their happiness, still-still I am a stranger there. But where am I not a stranger now?"

Wordsworth lamented Mrs. Hemans' ignorance of housewifery, and said she could as easily have managed the spear of Minerva as her needle. He purposely drew her attention to household affairs, and told her he had bought a pair of scales as a wedding present for a young lady! After spending a fortnight at Rydal Mount, Mrs. Hemans took a "sweet little retired cottage called Dove's Nest," on Lake Windermere. Her three boys joined her, and she says, "Harry is out with his fishing-rod, Charles sketching, and Claude climbing the hill above the Nest. I cannot follow, for I have not strength yet, but I think in feeling I am more a child than any of them." The summer passed pleasantly,

DECLINING HEALTH.

21

and, after a second visit to Scotland, she made up her mind to leave Wavertree and to settle in Dublin, in order to be near her brother, Major Browne, who had been appointed Commissioner of Police. Here she made many new friends, especially with the Whately family and the Archbishop himself. Never a lover of towns, her greatest pleasure was in making excursions to the County Wicklow, to the Devil's Glen, and to Glendalough, where the guide told her she was "the most courageousest and lightest-footedest lady" he had ever conducted there. She also spent a day at Woodstock, and saw the grave of Mrs. Tighe, the authoress of Psyche, with its monument by Flaxman. She had made it the subject of her poem, The Grave of a Poetess, and now, after her visit to the spot, she wrote the lines beginning :

"I stood where the lip of song lay low,

Where the dust had gathered on Beauty's brow,
Where stillness hung on the heart of Love,
And a marble weeper kept watch above."

Mrs. Hemans' health was rapidly failing, and she had three moves-from Pembroke Street to Stephen's Green, and from Stephen's Green to Dawson Street-all in one year. She was soon obliged to keep to her sofa, but still she went on writing. In 1834 the Hymns for Childhood came out, and were soon followed by National Lyrics, and Scenes and Hymns of Life, which was dedicated to Wordsworth.

In the summer of 1834 she was attacked by scarlet fever, and then caught cold from reading too late in the gardens of the Dublin Society. The end approached gradually but surely. Even a stay in the country, at the Archbishop's place, Redesdale, could not bring back her strength. Her two sons, Charles and Henry, were her constant companions. She used to say that she lived in a fair and happy world of her own, among gentle thoughts and pleasant images. "No poetry could express, no imagination could conceive, the visions of blessedness that flitted across her fancy." She often said to

her faithful attendant, Anne Creer, "I feel like a tired child, wearied and longing to mingle with the pure in heart."

On Saturday, the 16th of May, 1835, she sank into a gentle slumber which continued almost unbroken during the day, and at nine o'clock in the evening she passed away, without pain or struggle, at the age of forty-one. Her remains were laid in a vault under St. Anne's Church, Dublin, close to the house where she died. A small tablet was placed in the church, with her name and age, and the following lines from a dirge of her own in The Siege of Valencia :"Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair Spirit, rest thee now !

E'en while with us thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust, to its narrow house beneath!

Soul, to its place on high !

They that have seen thy look in death
No more may fear to die."

Mrs. Hemans led a dreamy, contemplative life, and her poetry bears the impress of this life. She is ideal, picturesque, melodious, and devout. A mother's love, the fidelity of a child, the beauty of spring, the sadness of early death, and the hope of heaven, are her most congenial themes. She varies her metre with ease, for music of sound came naturally to her; she brings in romance and legendary surroundings; but the subjects are frequently the same. As Mrs. Jameson truly says, her poems could not have been written by a man; their love is without selfishness, their heroism without ambition. During her later years, when she was an invalid, she relapsed more than ever into that passive state when the mind seems rather a spectator than an actor. One of her last sonnets, The Sabbath Sonnet, is an example of this passive reflectiveness :

"How many blessed groups this hour are wending

Thro' England's primrose meadow-paths their way
Tow'rds spire and tow'r, midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day.

WORDSWORTH AND ELIZABETH BARRETT. 23

I may not tread

Like them those pathways; to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound, yet, oh, my God! I bless
Thy mercy that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart and all its throbbings stilled
In one deep calm of holiest thankfulness."

Here is the true spirit of resignation; the heart, after life's fitful fever, was lulling itself to rest. Some time before her death, a stranger called on Mrs. Hemans and told her that her poem of The Sceptic had been the means of converting him to Christianity. Nothing could have given her so much satisfaction, for her aim in life had been to consecrate her talents to God. A higher testimony could hardly have been paid her than that given in Wordsworth's lines, in which he laments her as "a holy spirit" :

"Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep,

Who ere her summer faded

Has sunk into a breathless sleep."

It was well said by L. E. L. that: "Mrs. Hemans was spared some of the keenest mortifications of a literary career. She knew nothing of it as a profession, which has to make its way through poverty, neglect, and obstacles. The high road of life, with its crowds and contention, its heat, its noise, and its dust that rests on all, was for her happily at a distance; yet even in such green nest the bird could not fold its wings and sleep to its own music." In answer to such laments as these from the "bay-crowned" L. E. L., Elizabeth Barrett, then a young woman of twenty-six, eagerly replies in her Stanzas on the Death of Mrs. Hemans:

"Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning?

And finally concludes with the lines :

"Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing,

The footfall of her parting soul, is softer than her singing."

Thus wept, honoured, and sung, the favourite poetess of that day passed away.

II.

MRS. JAMESON.

1794-1860.

Four little girls-Hiding in a clock-case-Superstitious fears-Running away-Girlhood-Engagement with Mr. Jameson-Governessing in Italy-Marriage with Mr. Jameson-Diary of an Ennuyée-Characteristics of Women-Visit to Weimar-Goes to Canada-Return— Sacred and legendary art-At Rome-Legends of the Madonna-Death.

TH

HERE are many classes of writers. First, we have those who create, those whose imaginations are strong enough to give "to airy nothings a local habitation and a name." After these comes another class of writers: those who can pleasantly and graphically convey their own impressions to others; those who can appreciate and explain the great works of genius and thus teach the public what and how to admire. To this latter class of writers Mrs. Jameson belonged. Hers was emphatically a busy and a useful career. Without being a genius, she had a vast amount of talent and energy, she was always an entertaining and often an instructive writer, she had a great deal of reading and culture, and had educated her powers up to the very highest point. During her life she enjoyed much popularity, and since her death no one has been found exactly to fill her place. Though she died in 1860, no account of her life appeared for many years. Her niece, Mrs. MacPherson, struck by some remark in Miss