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MARY HOWITT was born at Coleford, in Gloucestershire, where her parents were making a temporary residence; but shortly after her birth they returned to their accustomed abode at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, where she spent her youth. The beautiful arcadian scenery of this part of Staffordshire was of a character to foster a deep love of the country; and is described with great accuracy in her recent prose work, "Wood Leighton." By her mother she is descended from an ancient Irish family, and also from Wood, the ill-used Irish patentee, who was ruined by the selfish malignity of Dean Swift, from whose aspersions his character was vindicated by Sir Isaac Newton. A true statement of the whole affair may be seen in Ruding's " Annals of Coinage." Charles Wood, her grandfather, was the first who introduced platina into England from Jamaica, where he was assay-master. Her parents being strict members of the society of Friends, and her father being, indeed, of an old line who suffered persecution in the early days of Quakerism, her education was of an exclusive character; and her knowledge of books confined to those approved of by the most strict of her own people, till a later period than most young persons become acquainted with them. Their effect upon her mind was, consequently, so much the more vivid. Indeed, she describes her overwhelming astonishment and delight in the treasures of general and modern literature, to be like what Keats says his feelings were when a new world of poetry opened upon him, through Chapman's " Homer",-as to the astronomer,

"When a new planet swims into his ken."

Among poetry there was none which made a stronger impression than our simple old ballad, which she and a sister near her own age, and of similar taste and tempera ment, used to revel in, making at the same time many young attempts in epic, dramatic, and ballad poetry. In her twenty-first year she was married to William Howitt, a gentleman well calculated to encourage and promote her poetical and intellectual taste,-himself a Poet of considerable genius, and the author of various well-known works. We have reason to believe that her domestic life has been a singularly happy one. Mr. and Mrs. Howitt spent the year after their marriage in Staffordshire. They then removed to Nottingham, where they continued to reside till about twelve months ago; and are now living at Esher, in Surrey.

Mary Howitt published jointly with her husband two volumes of poems, "The Forest Minstrel," in 1823; and "The Desolation of Eyam, and Other Poems," in 1827. In 1834, she published "The Seven Temptations," a series of dramatic poems; a work which, in other times, would have been alone sufficient to have made and secured a very high reputation: her dramas are full of keen perceptions, strong and accurate delineations, and powerful displays of character. She is now preparing for the press a collection of her most popular ballads, a class of writing in which she greatly excels all her contemporaries; many of them are favourably known to the public through the periodicals in which, at various times, they have appeared. She is also well known to the young by her "Sketches of Natural History," "Tales in Verse," and other productions written expressly for their use and pleasure.

Mrs. Howitt is distinguished by the mild, unaffected, and conciliatory manners, for which "the people called Quakers" have always been remarkable. Her writings, too, are in keeping with her character: in all there is evidence of peace and good will; a tender and a trusting nature; a gentle sympathy with humanity; and a deep and fervent love of all the beautiful works which the Great Hand has scattered so plentifully before those by whom they can be felt and appreciated. She has mixed but little with the world: the home-duties of wife and mother have been to her productive of more pleasant and far happier results than struggles for distinction amid crowds; she has made her reputation quietly but securely; and has laboured successfully as well as earnestly to inculcate virtue as the noblest attribute of an English woman. If there be some of her contemporaries who have surpassed her in the higher qualities of poetry,-some who have soared higher, and others who have taken a wider range,-there are none whose writings are better calculated to delight as well as inform. Her poems are always graceful and beautiful, and often vigorous; but they are essentially feminine: they afford evidence of a kindly and generous nature, as well as of a fertile imagination, and a safelycultivated mind. She is entitled to a high place among the Poets of Great Britain; and a still higher among those of her sex by whom the intellectual rank of woman has been asserted without presumption, and maintained without display.

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HOWITT.

AN OLD MAN'S STORY.

THERE was an old and quiet man,
And by the fire sate he;

And now," he said, " to you I'll tell
A dismal thing, which once befel

In a ship upon the sea.

'Tis five-and-fifty years gone by,
Since, from the river Plate,

A young man, in a home-bound ship,
I sailed as second mate.

She was a trim, stout-timbered ship,
And built for stormy seas,

A lovely thing on the wave was she,
With her canvass set so gallantly
Before a steady breeze.

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For forty days, like a winged thing,
She went before the gale,

Nor all that time we slackened speed,
Turn'd helm, or alter'd sail.

She was a laden argosy

Of wealth from the Spanish main, And the treasure hoards of a Portuguese Returning home again.

An old and silent man was he,

And his face was yellow and lean;

In the golden lands of Mexico

A miner he had been.

"His body was wasted, bent, and bowed And amid his gold he lay;

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Amid iron chests that were bound with brass And he watched them night and day.

No word he spoke to any on board,

And his step was heavy and slow; And all men deemed that an evil life He had led in Mexico.

But list ye me-on the lone high seas,
As the ship went smoothly on,

It chanced, in the silent, second watch,
I sate on the deck alone;

And I heard, from among those iron chests,
A sound like a dying groan.

I started to my feet, and, lo!

The captain stood by me; And he bore a body in his arms, And dropped it in the sea.

"I heard it drop into the sea,

With a heavy, splashing sound,

And I saw the captain's bloody hands

As he quickly turned him round;

And he drew in his breath when me he saw Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe Of a spectre doth astound.

"But I saw his white and palsied lips,
And the stare of his ghastly eye,
When he turned in hurried haste away,-
Yet he had no power to fly;

He was chained to the deck with his heavy guilt,
And the blood that was not dry.

"""Twas a cursed thing,' said I, ' to kill

That old man in his sleep!

And the plagues of the storm will come from him, Ten thousand fathoms deep!

"And the plagues of the storm will follow us,
For Heaven his groans hath heard!'
Still the captain's eye was fixed on me,-
But he answer'd never a word.

"And he slowly lifted his bloody hand,

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His aching eyes to shade;

But the blood that was wet did freeze his soul,

And he shrinked like one afraid.

And even then-that very hour
The wind dropped, and a spell
Was on the ship,-was on the sea;
And we lay for weeks, how wearily,
Where the old man's body fell.

I told no one within the ship

That horrid deed of sin;

For I saw the hand of God at work,
And punishment begin.

"And when they spoke of the murdered man, And the El Dorado hoard,

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They all surmised he had walked in dreams,
And had fallen overboard.

But I, alone, and the murderer,

That dreadful thing did know,

How he lay in his sin-a murdered man,
A thousand fathom low.

"And many days, and many more Came on, and lagging sped;

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And the heavy waves of that sleeping sea
Were dark, like molten lead.

And not a breeze came, east or west,
And burning was the sky;

And stifling was each breath we drew
Of the air so hot and dry.

Oh me! there was a smell of death
Hung round us night and day;
And I dared not look in the sea below
Where the old man's body lay.

"In his cabin, alone, the captain kept,
And he bolted fast the door;
And up and down the sailors walked,

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And wish'd that the calm was o'er.

'The captain's son was on board with us,-
A fair child, seven years old,
With a merry look, that all men loved,
And a spirit kind and bold.

I loved the child,-and I took his hand,
And made him kneel, and pray

That the crime, for which the calm was sent,
Might be purged clean away.

For I thought that God would hear his prayer,

And set the vessel free;

For a dreadful thing it was to lie

Upon that charnel sea.

Yet I told him not wherefore he prayed,—

Nor why the calm was sent ;

I would not give that knowledge dark

To a soul so innocent.

At length I saw a little cloud

Arise in that sky of flame;

A little cloud,--but it grew, and grew,
And blackened as it came.

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