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a new and more pleasing current. She has the most of memory and love. Mr Francis Edgeworth, the harmonious way of throwing in explanations-in- youngest son of the present Mrs Edgeworth, and forming without embarrassing. A very large family- of course Miss Edgeworth's youngest brother, has party assemble daily in this charming room, young a family of little ones, who seem to enjoy the freeand old bound alike to the spot by the strong cordsdom of the library as much as their elders: to set

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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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There is no

attempt to express fine things, nor any scenes of sur-
life-like dialogues and conversation.
prising 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 circum-
stances and common details are far from tiresome.

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 JANE AUSTEN, a truly English novelist, was born duces us to various classes of persons, whose characcountry-house, the villa, and cottage, and introon the 16th December 1775, at Steventon, in Hampters 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 com bining, 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

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 edufoibles and vanity-in family differences, obstinacy, cation of young ladies-in delicate ridicule of female 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.'

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

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.

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 | Haddingtonshire. In 1803 Mr Brunton was called and humour, is her genial and inexhaustible element. to one of the churches in Edinburgh, and his lady Instruction is always blended with amusement. A had thus an opportunity of meeting with persons finer moral lesson cannot anywhere be found than of literary talent, and of cultivating her own mind. the distress of the Bertram family in Mansfield Till I began Self-Control,' she says in one of her Park,' arising from the vanity and callousness of the letters, I had never in my life written anything but two daughters, who had been taught nothing but a letter or a recipe, excepting a few hundreds of vile 'accomplishments,' without any regard to their dis-rhymes, from which I desisted by the time I had positions and temper. These instructive examples gained the wisdom of fifteen years; therefore I was are brought before us in action, not by lecture or so ignorant of the art on which I was entering, that preachment, and they tell with double force, because I formed scarcely any plan for my tale. I merely they are not inculcated in a didactic style. The intended to show the power of the religious principle genuine but unobtrusive merits of Miss Austen have in bestowing self command, and to bear testimony been but poorly rewarded by the public as respects against a maxim as immoral as indelicate, that a fame and popularity, though her works are now reformed rake makes the best husband' 'Selfrising in public esteem. She has never been so Control' was published without the author's name popular,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, as in 1811. The first edition was sold in a month, and 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!'

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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

Self-Control' bids fair to retain a permanent place among British novels, as a sort of Scottish | Cœlebs, 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 ac count 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 Canada. 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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triumphed over every fear; and the first sound that awoke the morning, was her voice raised in a trembling hymn of praise.

At

man own their alliance with pain, by seeking the same expression. Joy and gratitude, too big for utterance, long poured themselves forth in tears. length, returning composure permitting the language of ecstacy, was breathed in the accents of devotion; and the lone wild echoed to a song of deliver

ance.

Her countenance elevated as in hope, her eyes cast upwards, her hands clasped, her lips half open in the unfinished adoration, her face brightened with a smile the dawn of eternal day, she was found by her attendant. Awe-struck, the woman paused, and at a reve- The saintly strain arose unmixed with other sound. rent distance gazed upon the seraph; but her entrance No breeze moaned through the impervious woods; no had called back the unwilling spirit from its flight; ripple broke the stream. The dark shadows trembled and Laura, once more a feeble child of earth, faintly for a moment in its bosom as the little bark stole by, inquired whether her enemy were at hand. Mary and then reposed again. No trace appeared of human answered, that her master was not expected to arrive presence. The fox peeping from the brushwood, the before the evening, and intreated that Laura would wild duck sailing stately in the stream, saw the untry to recruit her spirits, and accept of some refresh- wonted stranger without alarm, untaught as yet to ment. Laura made no opposition. She unconsciously flee from the destroyer. swallowed what was placed before her; unwittingly suffered her attendant to lead her abroad; nor once heeded aught that was done to her, nor aught that passed before her eyes, till her exhausted limbs found rest upon the trunk of a tree, which lay mouldering near the spot where its root was sending forth a luxuriant thicket.

The breath of morning blew chill on the wasted form of Laura, while it somewhat revived her to strength and recollection. Her attendant seeing her shiver in the breeze, compassionately wrapt her more closely in her cloak, and ran to seek a warmer covering. She feels for my bodily wants,' said Laura. Will she have no pity for the sufferings of the soul? Yet what relief can she afford? What help is there for me in man? Oh, be Thou my help, who art the guard of the defenceless! thou who canst shield in every danger! thou who canst guide in every difficulty!'

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Her eye rested as it fell upon a track as of recent footsteps. They had brushed away the dew, and the rank grass had not yet risen from their pressure. The unwonted trace of man's presence arrested her attention; and her mind, exhausted by suffering, and sharing the weakness of its frail abode, admitted the superstitious thought that these marks afforded a providential indication for her guidance. Transient animation kindling in her frame, she followed the track as it wound round a thicket of poplar; then, suddenly recollecting herself, she became conscious of the delusion, and shed a tear over her mental decay.

She was about to return, when she perceived that she was near the bank of the river. Its dark flood was stealing noiselessly by, and Laura, looking on it, breathed the oft-repeated wish that she could seek rest beneath its waves. Again she moved feebly forward. She reached the brink of the stream, and stood unconsciously following its course with her eye, when, a light wind stirring the canes that grew down to the water's edge, she beheld close by her an Indian canoe. With suddenness that mocks the speed of light, hope flashed on the darkened soul; and stretching her arms in wild ecstacy, Help, help!' cried Laura, and sprang towards the boat. A feeble echo from the farther shore alone returned the cry. Again she called. No human voice replied. But delirious transport lent vigour to her frame. She sprang into the bark; she pressed the slender oar against the bank. The light vessel yielded to her touch. It floated. The stream bore it along. The woods closed around her prison. 'Thou hast delivered me!' she cried; and sank senseless.

A meridian sun beat on her uncovered head ere Laura began to revive. Recollection stole upon her like the remembrance of a feverish dream. As one who, waking from a fearful vision, still trembles in his joy, she scarcely dared to hope that the dread hour was past, till raising her eyes, she saw the dark woods bend over her, and steal slowly away as the canoe glided on with the tide. The raptures of fallen

The day declined, and Laura, with the joy of her escape, began to mingle a wish, that, ere the darkness closed around her, she might find shelter near her fellow-beings. She was not ignorant of the dangers of her voyage. She knew that the navigation of the river was interrupted by rapids, which had been purposely described in her hearing. She examined her frail vessel, and trembled; for life was again becom precious, and feeble seemed her defence against t'e torrent. The canoe, which could not have contair.ed more than two persons, was constructed of a slen der frame of wood, covered with the bark of the birch. It yielded to the slightest motion, and caution was necessary to poise in it even the light form of Laura.

Slowly it floated down the lingering tide; and when a pine of larger size or form more fantastic than his fellows enabled her to measure her progress, she thought that through wilds less impassable her cwn limbs would have borne her more swiftly. In vain, behind each tangled point, did her fancy picture the haunt of inan. Vainly amid the mists of eve did she trace the smoke of sheltered cottages. In vain at every winding of the stream she sent forward a longing eye in search of human dwelling. The narrow view was bounded by the dark wilderness, repeating ever the same picture of dreary repose.

The sun went down. The shadows of evening fall; not such as in her happy native land blend softly with the last radiance of day, but black and heavy, harshly contrasting with the light of a naked sky reflected from the waters, where they spread beyond the gloom of impending woods. Dark and more dark the night came on. Solemn even amid the peopled land, in this vast solitude it became more awful.

Ignorant how near the place of danger might be, fearing to pursue darkling her perilous way, Laura tried to steer her light bark to the shore, intending to moor it, to find in it a rude resting-place, and in the morning to pursue her way. Laboriously she toiled, and at length reached the bank in safety; but in vain she tried to draw her little vessel to land. Its weight resisted her strength. Dreading that it should slip from her grasp, and leave her without means of escape, she re-entered it, and again glided on in her dismal Voyage. She had found in the canoe a little coarse bread made of Indian corn; and this, with the water of the river, formed her whole sustenance. Her frame worn out with previous suffering, awe and fear at last yielded to fatigue, and the weary wanderer sank to sleep.

It was late on the morning of a cloudy day, when a low murmuring sound, stealing on the silence, awoke Laura from the rest of innocence. She listened. The murmur seemed to swell on her ear. She looked up. The dark woods still bent over her; but they no longer touched the margin of the stream. They stretched their giant arms from the summit of a precipice. Their image was no more reflected unbroken. The gray rocks which supported them, but half lent their colours to the rippling water. The wild

duck no longer tempting the stream, flew screaming over its bed. Each object hastened on with fearful rapidity, and the murmuring sound was now a deafening roar.

Fear supplying superhuman strength, Laura strove to turn the course of her vessel. She strained every nerve; she used the force of desperation. Half hoping that the struggle might save her, half fearing to note her dreadful progress, she toiled on till the oar was torn from her powerless grasp, and hurried along with the tide.

The fear of death alone had not the power to overwhelm the soul of Laura. Somewhat might yet be done perhaps to avert her fate, at least to prepare for it. Feeble as was the chance of life, it was not to be rejected. Fixing her cloak more firmly round her, Laura bound it to the slender frame of the canoe. Then commending herself to Heaven with the fervour of a last prayer, she in dread stillness awaited her doom. With terrible speed the vessel hurried on. It was whirled round by the torrent, tossed fearfully, and hurried on again. It shot over a smoothness more dreadful than the eddying whirl. It rose upon its prow. Laura clung to it in the convulsion of terror. A moment she trembled on the giddy verge. The next, all was darkness !

When Laura was restored to recollection, she found herself in a plain decent apartment. Several persons of her own sex were humanely busied in attending her. Her mind retaining a confused impression of the past, she inquired where she was, and how she had been brought thither. An elderly woman, of a prepossessing appearance, answered, with almost maternal kindness, that she was among friends all anxious for her safety; begged that she would try to sleep, and promised to satisfy her curiosity when she should be more able to converse.' This benevolent person, whose name was Falkland, then administered a restorative to her patient, and Laura, uttering almost incoherent expressions of gratitude, composed herself to rest.

Awaking refreshed and collected, she found Mrs Falkland and one of her daughters still watching by her bedside. Laura again repeated her questions, and Mrs Falkland fulfilled her promise, by relating that her husband, who was a farmer, having been employed with his two sons in a field which overlooked the river, had observed the canoe enter the rapid: that seeing it too late to prevent the accident, they had hurried down to the bed of the stream below the fall, in hopes of intercepting the boat at its reappearance: that being accustomed to float wood down the torrent, they knew precisely the spot where their assistance was most likely to prove effectual: that the canoe, though covered with foam for a moment, had instantly risen again; and that Mr Falkland and his sons had, not without danger, succeeded in drawing it to land.

She then, in her turn, inquired by what accident Laura had been exposed to such a perilous adventure; expressing wonder at the direction of her voyage, since Falkland farm was the last inhabited spot in that district. Laura, mingling her natural reserve with a desire to satisfy her kind hostess, answered that she had been torn from her friends by an inhuman enemy, and that her perilous voyage was the least effect of his barbarity. Do you know,' said Mrs Falkland, somewhat mistaking her meaning, 'that to his cruelty you partly owe your life; for had he not bound you to the canoe, you must have sunk while the boat floated on!' Laura heard with a faint smile the effect of her self-possession; but considering it as a call to pious gratitude rather than a theme of self-applause, she forbore to offer any ciaim to praise, and the subject was suffered to drop without further explanation.

Having remained for two days with this hospitable family, Laura expressed a wish to depart. She com municated to Mr Falkland her desire of returning immediately to Europe, and begged that he would introduce her to some asylum where she might wait the departure of a vessel for Britain. She expressed her willingness to content herself with the poorest accommodation, confessing that she had not the means of purchasing any of a higher class. All the wealth, indeed, which she could command, consisted in a few guineas which she had accidentally had about her when she was taken from her home, and a ring which Mrs De Courcy had given her at parting. Her bost kindly urged her to remain with them till they should ascertain that a vessel was immediately to sail, in which she might secure her passage; assuring her a week scarcely ever elapsed without some departure for her native country. Finding, however, that she was anxious to be gone, Mr Falkland himself accompanied her to Quebec.

They travelled by land. The country at first bore the characters of a half-redeemed wilderness. The road wound at times through dreary woods, at others through fields where noxious variety of hue bespoke imperfect cultivation. At last it approached the great river; and Laura gazed with delight on the everchanging, rich, and beautiful scenes which were presented to her view; scenes which she had passed unheeded when grief and fear veiled every prospect in gloom.

One of the nuns in the Hotel Dieu was the sister of Mrs Falkland, and to her care Mr Falkland intended to commit his charge. But before he had been an hour in the town, he received information that a ship was weighing anchor for the Clyde, and Laura eagerly embraced the opportunity. The captain being informed by Mr Falkland that she could not advance the price of her passage, at first hesitated to receive her; but when, with the irresistible candour and majesty that shone in all her looks and words, she assured him of his reward, when she spoke to him in the accents of his native land, the Scotsman's heart melted; and having satisfied himself that she was a Highlander, he closed the bargain by swearing that he was sure he might trust her.

With tears in her eyes Laura took leave of her benevolent host; yet her heart bounded with joy as she saw the vessel cleaving the tide, and each object in the dreaded land of exile swiftly retiring from her view. In a few days that dreaded land disappeared. In a few more the mountains of Cape Breton sank behind the wave. The brisk gales of autumn wafted the vessel cheerfully on her way; and often did Laura compute her progress.

In a clear frosty morning towards the end of September she heard once more the cry of Land!' now music to her ear. Now with a beating breast she ran to gaze upon a ridge of mountains indenting the disk of the rising sun; but the tears of rapture dimmed her eyes when every voice at once shouted Scotland!'

All day Laura remained on deck, oft measuring with the light splinter the vessel's course through the deep. The winds favoured not her impatience. Towards evening they died away, and scarcely did the vessel steal along the liquid mirror. Another and another morning came, and Laura's ear was blessed with the first sounds of her native land. The tolling of a bell was borne along the water, now swelling loud, and now falling softly away. The humble village church was seen on the shore; and Laura could distinguish the gay colouring of her countrywomen's Sunday attire; the scarlet plaid, transmitted from generation to generation, pnned decently over the plain clean coif; the bright blue gown, the trophy of more recent housewifery. To her every form in the well-known garb seemed the form of a friend. The

blue mountains in the distance, the scattered woods, the fields yellow with the harvest, the river sparkling in the sun, seemed, to the wanderer returning from the land of strangers, fairer than the gardens of Paradise.

Land of my affections!-when I forget thee, may my right hand forget her cunning!' Blessed be thou among nations! Long may thy wanderers return to thee rejoicing, and their hearts throb with honest pride when they own themselves thy children!

MRS HAMILTON.

brother, and the composition of two short papers which she sent to the Lounger. Mr Hamilton returned from India in 1786, in order that he might better fulfil an important duty intrusted to him, the translation of the Mussulman Code of Laws. It would not be easy to paint the joy and affection with which he was received by his sister. They spent the winter together in Stirlingshire, and in 1789, when her kind friend and protector, Mr Marshall, died, she quitted Scotland, and rejoined her brother in London. Mr Hamilton was cut off by a premature death in 1792. Shortly after this period commenced the literary life of Elizabeth Hamilton, and her first work was that to which we have alluded, connected with the memory of her lamented brother, The Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, in two volumes, published in 1796. The success of the work stimulated her exertions. In 1800 she published The Modern Philosophers, in three volumes; and between that period and 1806 she gave to the world Letters on Education, Memoirs of Agrippina, and Letters to the Daughters of a Nobleman. In 1808 appeared her most popular, original, and useful work, The Cottagers of Glenburnie;' and she subsequently published Popular Essays on the Human Mind, and Hints to the Directors of Public Schools. For many years Mrs Hamilton had fixed her residence in Edinburgh. She was enfeebled by ill health, but her cheerfulness and activity of mind continued unabated, and her society was courted by the most intellectual and influential of her fellow-citizens. The benevolence and correct judgment which animated her writings pervaded her conduct. Having gone to Harrowgate for the benefit of her health, Mrs Hamilton died at that place on the 23d of July 1816, aged sixty-eight.

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ELIZABETH HAMILTON, an amiable and accomplished miscellaneous writer, was authoress of one excellent little novel, or moral tale, The Cottagers of Glenburnie, which has probably been as effective in promoting domestic improvement among the rural population of Scotland as Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides was in encouraging the planting of trees by the landed proprietors. In both cases there was some exaggeration of colouring, but the pictures were too provokingly true and sarcastic to be laughed away or denied. They constituted a national reproach, and the only way to wipe it off was by timely reformation. There is still much to accomplish, but a marked improvement in the dwellings and internal economy of Scottish farm-houses and villages may be dated from the publication of the Cottagers of Glenburnie.' Elizabeth Hamilton was born in Belfast in the year 1758. Her father was a merchant, of a Scottish family, and died early, leaving a widow and three children. The latter were educated and brought up by relatives in better circumstances, Elizabeth, the youngest, being sent to Mr Marshall, a farmer in Stirlingshire, married to her father's sister. Her brother obtained a cadetship in the The Cottagers of Glenburnie' is in reality a tale East India Company's service, and an elder sister of cottage life, and derives none of its interest from was retained in Ireland. A feeling of strong affec- those strange and splendid vicissitudes, contrasts, tion seems to have existed among these scattered and sentimental dangers which embellish the ideal members of the unfortunate family. Elizabeth world of so many fictitious narratives. The scene found in Mr and Mrs Marshall all that could have is laid in a poor scattered Scottish hamlet, and the been desired. She was adopted and educated with heroine is a retired English governess, middle-aged a care and tenderness that has seldom been equalled. and lame, with £30 a-year! This person, Mrs No child,' she says, ever spent so happy a life, nor Mason, after being long in a noble family, is reduced have I ever met with anything at all resembling our from a state of ease and luxury into one of compaway of living, except the description given by Rous-rative indigence, and having learned that her cousin, seau of Wolmar's farm and vintage.' A taste for literature soon appeared in Elizabeth Hamilton. Wallace was the first hero of her studies; but meeting with Ogilvie's translation of the Iliad, she idolized Achilles, and dreamed of Hector. She had opportunities of visiting Edinburgh and Glasgow, after which she carried on a learned correspondence with Dr Moyse, a philosophical lecturer. She wrote also many copies of verses-that ordinary outlet for the warm feelings and romantic sensibilities of youth. Her first appearance in print was accidental. Having accompanied a pleasure party to the Highlands, she kept a journal for [Picture of Glenburnie, and View of a Scotch Cottage the gratification of her aunt, and the good woman showing it to one of her neighbours, it was sent to a provincial magazine. Her retirement in Stirlingshire was, in 1773, gladdened by a visit from her brother, then about to sail for India. Mr Hamilton seems to have been an excellent and able young man, and his subsequent letters and conversations on Indian affairs stored the mind of his sister with the materials for her Hindoo Rajah, a work equally remarkable for good sense and sprightliness. In 1778 Miss Hamilton lost her aunt, whose death was a heavy blow to the happy family. For the ensuing six years she devoted herself to the cares and duties of the household, her only literary employments being her correspondence with her

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her only surviving relative, was married to one of the small farmers in Glenburnie, she agreed to fix her residence in her house as a lodger. On her way she called at Gowan-brae, the house of the factor or land-steward on the estate, to whom she had previously been known, and we have a graphic account of the family of this gentleman, one of whose daughters figures conspicuously in the after-part of the tale. Mr Stewart, the factor, his youngest daughter, and boys, accompany Mrs Mason to Glenburnie.

in the Last Century.]

They had not proceeded many paces until they were struck with admiration at the uncommon wildness of the scene which now opened to their view. The rocks which seemed to guard the entrance of the glen were abrupt and savage, and approached so near each other, that one could suppose them to have been riven asunder to give a passage to the clear stream which flowed between them. As they advanced, the hills receded on either side, making room for meadows and corn-fields, through which the rapid burn pursued its way in many a fantastic maze.

If the reader is a traveller, he must know, and if he is a speculator in canals, he must regret, that rivers have in general a trick of running out of the straight

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