life. We shall never,' said Scott, 'learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine compared with the education of the heart.' 'Maria did not listen to this without some water in her eyes; her tears are always ready when any generous string is touched (for, as Pope says, "the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest"); but she brushed them gaily aside, and said: "You see how it is; Dean Swift said he had written his books in order that people might learn to treat him like a great lord. Sir Walter writes his in order that he may be able to treat his people

as a great lord ought to do.":

her incidents, her characters, dialogues, or plots, and few novelists have written more. Her brief and rapid tales fill above twenty closely printed volumes, and may be read one after the other without any feeling of satiety or sense of repetition.

[An Irish Landlord and Scotch Agent.]

of eloquent beggars who soon surrounded me: many who had been resolutely struggling with their difficulties, slackened their exertions, and left their labour for the easier trade of imposing upon my credulity. The money I had bestowed was wasted at the dram-shop, or it became the subject of family quarrels; and those whom I had relieved, returned to my honour, with fresh and insatiable expectations. All this time my industrious tenants grumbled, because no encouragement was given to them; and looking upon me as a weak good-natured fool, they combined in a resolution to ask me for long leases or a reduction of rent.

'I was quite angry,' says Lord Glenthorn, 'with Mr M'Leod, my agent, and considered him as a selfish, hardhearted miser, because he did not seem to sympathise irritated by his cold silence, that I could not forbear with me, or to applaud my generosity. I was so much In 1834 Miss Edgeworth reappeared as a novelist: pressing him to say something. "I doubt then," said her Helen, in three volumes, is fully equal to her he, "since you desire me to speak my mind, my lord -I doubt whether the best way of encouraging the Fashionable Tales, and possesses more of ardour industrious is to give premiums to the idle." But idle and pathos. The gradations of vice and folly, and or not, these poor wretches are so miserable, that I the unhappiness attending falsehood and artifice, are strikingly depicted in this novel, in connection with one can do it so easily, it is right to relieve misery, is it cannot refuse to give them something; and surely when characters-that of Lady Davenant, for examplenot? 66 'Undoubtedly, my lord, but the difficulty is to drawn with great force, truth, and nature. This relieve present misery, without creating more in future. was the latest work of fiction we had from the pen Pity for one class of beings sometimes makes us cruel to of the gifted authoress. She died in 1849, aged others. I am told that there are some Indian Brahmins eighty-three or eighty-four. The good and evil of so very compassionate, that they hire beggars to let fleas this world supplied Miss Edgeworth with materials feed upon them; I doubt whether it might not be better sufficient for her purposes as a novelist. Of poetical to let the fleas starve." or romantic feeling she exhibited scarcely a single 'I did not in the least understand what Mr M'Leod instance. She was a strict utilitarian. Her know-meant; but I was soon made to comprehend it by crowds ledge of the world was extensive and correct, though in some of her representations of fashionable folly and dissipation she borders upon caricature. The plan of confining a tale to the exposure and correction of one particular vice, or one erroneous line of conduct, as Joanna Baillie confined her dramas each to the elucidation of one particular passion, would have been a hazardous experiment in common hands. Miss Edgeworth overcame it by the ease, spirit, and variety of her delineations, and the truly masculine freedom with which she exposes the crimes and follies of mankind. Her sentiments are so just and true, and her style so clear and forcible, that they compel an instant assent to her moral views and deductions, though sometimes, in winding up her tale, and distributing justice among her characters, she is not always very consistent or probable. Her delineations of her countrymen have obtained just praise. The highest compliment paid to them is the statement of Scott, that 'the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact' of these Irish portraits led him first to think that something might be attempted for his own country of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland. He excelled his model, because, with equal knowledge and practical sagacity, he possessed that higher order of imagination, and more extensive sympathy with man and nature, which is more powerful, even for moral uses and effects, than the most clear and irresistible reasoning. The object of Miss Edge-than at their commencement." worth, to inculcate instruction, and the style of the preceptress, occasionally interfere with the cordial sympathies of the reader, even in her Irish descriptions; whereas in Scott this is never apparent. He deals more with passions and feelings than with mere manners and peculiarities, and by the aid of his poetical imagination, and careless yet happy eloquence of expression, imparts the air of romance to ordinary incidents and characters. It must be admitted, however, that in originality and in fertility of invention Miss Edgeworth is inferior to none of her contemporary novelists. She never repeats

*Life of Scott, vol. vi. p. 61.

The rhetoric of my tenants succeeded, in some instances; and again, I was mortified by Mr M'Leod's silence. I was too proud to ask his opinion. I ordered, and was obeyed. A few leases for long terms were signed and sealed; and when I had thus my own way completely, I could not refrain from recurring to Mr M'Leod's opinion. "I doubt, my lord," said he, "whether this measure may be as advantageous as you hope. These fellows, these middle-men, will underset the land, and live in idleness, whilst they rack a parcel of wretched under-tenants." But they said they would keep the land in their own hands and improve it; and that the reason why they could not afford to improve before was, that they had not long leases. "It may be doubted whether long leases alone will make improving tenants; for in the next county to us there are many shillings an acre, and her tenantry are beggars: and the farms of the Dowager-lady Ormsby's land, let at ten land now at the end of the leases is worn out, and worse

'I was weary of listening to this cold reasoning, and resolved to apply no more for explanations to Mr M'Leod; yet I did not long keep this resolution: infirm of purpose, I wanted the support of his approbation, at the very time I was jealous of his interference.

'At one time I had a mind to raise the wages of labour; but Mr M'Leod said: "It might be doubted whether the people would not work less, when they could with less work have money enough to support them."

'I was puzzled, and then I had a mind to lower the wages of labour, to force them to work or starve. Still provoking, Mr M'Leod said: "It might be doubted whether it would not be better to leave them alone."

greatest of her calamities, and her health sinks under the continued influence of grief and fear. At length, in one of her solitary wanderings by the river's side, she saw close to the shore an Indian canoe.]

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

No breeze moaned through the impervious woods; no The saintly strain arose unmixed with other sound. ripple broke the stream. The dark shadows trembled for a moment in its bosom as the little bark stole by, and then reposed again. No trace appeared of human presence. The fox peeping from the brushwood, the wild duck sailing stately in the stream, saw the unwonted stranger without alarm, untaught as yet to flee from the destroyer.

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 She sprang into the bark; she pressed the slender father was Colonel Balfour of Elwick, and her oar against the bank. The light vessel yielded to her mother, an accomplished woman, niece of field-touch. It floated. The stream bore it along. The marshal 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 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 Haddingtonshire. In 1803 Mr Brunton was called to one of the churches in Edinburgh, and his lady had thus an opportunity of meeting with persons of literary talent, and of cultivating her own mind. Till I began Self-Control,' she says in one of her letters, 'I had never in my life written anything but a letter or a recipe, excepting a few hundreds of vile rhymes, from which I desisted by the time I had gained the wisdom of fifteen years; therefore I was so ignorant of the art on which I was entering, that I formed scarcely any plan for my tale. I merely intended to shew the power of the religious principle in bestowing self-command, and to bear testimony against a maxim as immoral as indelicate, that a reformed rake makes the best husband.' SelfControl was published without the author's name in 1811. The first edition was sold in a month, and 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 published in one volume by her husband, Dr Brunton. Self-Control bids fair to retain a permanent place among British novels, as a sort of Scottish Calebs, 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 account 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 over-stepping 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 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 become precious, and feeble seemed her defence against the torrent. The canoe, which could not have contained more than two persons, was constructed of a slender 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 own limbs would have borne her more swiftly. In vain, behind each tangled point, did her fancy picture the haunt of man. 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 fell; 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 solitude it became more awful. on. Solemn even amid the peopled land, in this vast

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.

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, pinned 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.

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. 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 fellowcitizens. 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.

The Cottagers of Glenburnie is in reality a tale of cottage-life. The scene is laid in a poor scattered Scottish hamlet, and the heroine is a retired English governess, middle-aged and lame, with £30 a year! This person, Mrs Mason, after being long in a noble family, is reduced from a state of ease and luxury into one of comparative indigence, and having learned that her cousin, 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.

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 farmhouses 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 East India Company's service, and an elder sister was retained in Ireland. A feeling of strong affection seems to have existed among these scattered members of the unfortunate family. Elizabeth found in Mr and Mrs Marshall all that could have been desired. She was adopted and educated with a care and tenderness that has seldom been equalled. 'No child,' she says, 'ever spent so happy a life, nor have I ever met with anything at all resembling our way of living, except the description given by Rousseau 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 idolised 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 the gratiMrs Mason and Mary were so enchanted by the change fication of her aunt, and the good woman shewing of scenery which was incessantly unfolding to their view, it to one of her neighbours, it was sent to a pro- that they made no complaints of the slowness of their vincial magazine. Her retirement in Stirlingshire progress, nor did they much regret being obliged to stop was, in 1773, gladdened by a visit from her brother, a few minutes at a time, where they found so much to then about to sail for India. Mr Hamilton seems amuse and to delight them. But Mr Stewart had no to have been an excellent and able young man, and | patience at meeting with obstructions, which, with a

|

[Picture of Glenburnie and Scottish Rural Life in the Last Century.]

struck with admiration at the uncommon wildness of They had not proceeded many paces until they were which seemed to guard the entrance of the glen were the scene which now opened to their view. The rocks 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 cornfields, through which the rapid burn pursued its way in many

a fantastic maze.

The road, which winded along the foot of the hills, on the north side of the glen, owed as little to art as any country road in the kingdom. It was very narrow, and much encumbered by loose stones, brought down from the hills above by the winter torrents.