that her friends will feel pleasure in hearing what she communicates. If she finds all her critics and readers willing to join the family party, and to chat with her, forgetting that they are reading a printed book, and taking things as they were meant, the world will have grown more civil to auto-biographers than it was wont to be. But this excellent lady is so surrounded by a halo of respect and regard; her trials have called forth so much sympathy; her talents so much admiration; and her characteristic zeal, disinterestedness, glowing affection, and unwearied benevolence, so much gratitude; that she probably is not much alarmed at the perils of her condition.

Charlotte Elizabeth, we learn from this volume, was born at Norwich, where her father was a minorcanon, and also held two small benefices. She was an ardent enthusiastic child, the delight of

In

her father and her friends. her childhood she lost her sight for a considerable period; and after recovering it, her hearing, which was never restored; and she was for some years so unwell that she was nearly killed by intended kindness, being dosed with medicine at the discretion of some of its most indiscreet administrators. She devoured books, which supplied the place of music and conversation, the loss of the enjoyment of which she had bitterly mourned. A much-loved brother, of whom in after pages she gives a glowing account, was her chief friend. She mentions many little occurrences of her childhood, among which is the following, which we transcribe because it contains an admonition to mothers about the health and figure of their daughters, which we, unversed in such matters, have never included among our

instructions; perhaps too hastily concluding that all women professing godliness must have better sense, as well as principle, than to injure their children by affect ing fashions even more irrational and injurious than the tight shoes of their Chinese sisters.

"Happily my health became so affected, that a removal into the country was judged necessary, and I forgave of me in consideration of their parting the doctors all their past persecution injunctions; which were, that I was to have unbounded liberty to live entirely in the open air, save when the weather forbade; to be amused with all rural occupations; and especially to frequent farm-yards, for the purpose of inhaling the breath of cows.

"This removal was a double reuntil I outgrew and out-bloomed every source; it invigorated my bodily frame, girl of my age in the neighbourhood, while really laying a foundation for many years of uninterrupted health, and a constitution to defy the change of climate for which I was destined; while it won me from the sickening, enervating habit of sedentary enjoyment over the pages of a book, which, added to the necessary studies and occupations, was relaxing alike the tone of the bodily and mental frame. From the polluted works of man I was drawn to the glorious works of God; and the field more luxuriate in the pure never did bird of the air or beast of bright elements of nature than I did. These were destructive expeditions in one sense. I remember the following dialogue, repeated to me by my brother, when we made our appearance at home after a day's demolition of wearing apparel. Mr. B., this will never do; that girl cannot wear a frock twice without soiling it; nor keep it whole for a week: the expense will ruin us.'

'Well, my dear, if I am to be ruined by expence, let it come in the shape of the washer woman's and linendraper's bills; not in those of the apothecary

and undertaker.'

'I beg your pardon; young gentlemen grow up very well without them, and so may young ladies.'

Oh, you are mistaken. See what a stoop she has already, depend on it this girl will be both a dwarf and a cripple if we don't put her into stays.'

My child may be a cripple, Ma'am, if such is God's will, but she shall be one of His making, not our's.'

"All remonstrance was vain; stays and every species of tight dress were strictly prohibited by the authority of one whose will was, as every man's ought to be, absolute in his own household. He also carefully watched against any evasion of the rule; a ribband drawn tightly round my waist would have been cut without hesitation by his determined hand; while the little girl of the anxious friend whose operations he had interrupted, enjoyed all the advantages of that system from which I was preserved. She grew up a wand-like figure, graceful and interesting, and died of decline at nineteen, while I, though not able to compare shapes with a wasp or an hour-glass, yet passed muster very fairly among mere human forms, of God's moulding and I have enjoyed to this hour a rare exemption from headaches, and other lady-like maladies, that appear the almost exclusive privilege of women in the higher

classes.

"This is no trivial matter, believe me; it has frequently been the subject of conversation with professional men of high attainment, and I never met with one among them who did not, on hearing that I never but once, and then only for a few hours, submitted to the restraint of these unnatural machines, refer to that exemption, as a means, the free respiration, circulation, and powers both of exertion and endurance with which the Lord has most mercifully gifted me."

Charlotte Elizabeth grew up, she says, a healthy, active, lighthearted girl; ardent in all she thought or undertook; and not least in politics, so that the present Bishop Monk, who was domiciled under her father's roof preparatory to entering college, remarked that "Missy would one day, be a great politician," to which she replies, that "Missy does not repent," though often

rebuked, "for indulging a taste not lady-like;" her wish being to

see

Her

all her countrymen and country-women, like herself, zealous political protesters," and guardians of "the ramparts of our Protestant constitution." Her father was what in those days was called an orthodox Tory clergyman; dividing his time between his stall, his parish, his family, and his pointers; kind, charitable, dignified, and holding sacred things in reverence; attentive to his various duties, and recreating himself after them with music, or a cudgel-match with Dr. Parr upon politics. mother was a good housekeeper, who loved her office so much that she never resigned any portion of it to her daughter, who grew up superbly bookish, and profoundly ignorant of housewifery. From her grandmother she inherited, it seems, some of the true Hotspur blood, which accounts for the mettlesome style of some of her writings. We do not share all her opinions; but if we do not break a lance with her, we hope she will duly attribute it to our chivalry and not to cowardice. Of her grandmother she says:

"My father's mother was a fine, sprightly, robust old lady. She was simplicity itself in manners, her blunt speeches sometimes clashing a little with her son's notions of polish and refinement, as also did her inveterate antipathy to the reigning fashion, whatever that might be. I used to stand proudly at her knee, admiring the high colour of her cheek, and uncommon brilliancy of her fine dark hazel eye, while her voice, remarkably rich and clear, involuntarily swelled the chorus parts of our magnificent music.

"She was a Percy; not by name, for that had been lost in the female line, some generations before; but the pedigree in my possession, drawn up by Sir W. Betham, shews how just was it she did, to us at least, often bringing her vaunt in that respect. For vaunt it forward to check any tendency to

behaviour unbefitting those who claimed descent from

The stout Earl of Northumberland,' with whom I ought to be well acquainted, for the singing of Chevy Chace in proper time and tune with her was the only secular accomplishment in which my dear grandmother personally laboured to perfect me, except knitting and curious old-fashioned needlework. The pride of ancestry took strong hold of my mind; and such an ancestry accorded but too well with my romance, innate and acquired. It stood me, many a time, in the stead of better things, when nerving myself to endure affliction and wrong; and therefore I notice it, to warn you against exposing your own children to the same

snare.

"Next to the fashion, if not in an equal or superior degree, I think my grandmother most abhorred the French. Indeed, her strongest denunciations against reigning modes were usually clinched with the triumphant assertion that they were French fashions. No marvel if her spirit was stirred within her by the horrors of revolutionary France, and her Protestantism strengthened by the butcheries of ninety-eight. I knew that she was a Protester and a Tory of no common stamp; and I knew that she brought her Bible forward in support of every opinion that she uttered. Rarely did I visit her without finding her buried in the study

of that blessed Book."

We have acquitted our heroine of the charge of intentional vanity, because we feel assured that though circumstances have given to her name a publicity which it always requires much grace to chastise by the retired severe graces of the female and Christian character, she is deeply embued with higher and holier principles than those of paltry personal display; and therefore we account it only a slip in argu. ment, and not hypocrisy or breach of truth, when she says that her reason for noticing her Percy blood, the pride of which, in the absence of better things, stood her in their stead, is to warn parents against encouraging family pride in their children. The natural inference would raCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 45.

ther have been, that what effected so much good, was to be coveted, not reprobated. Perhaps, however, what she really meant to say was, that though pride may deter persons from what are called mean vices, it is itself a vice against which God is highly incensed, and that she warns parents against fostering it in its appearance. their offspring, however specious But to elicit this

moral, she should rather have shown the harm it did her than the good.

Charlotte Elizabeth married an officer, whom she once followed to Nova Scotia; but their union was not happy, and a veil is decorously drawn domestic history. Of her own over her buoyant character at this period she gives us some striking illustrations.

Charlotte Elizabeth goes on to tell us of her residence in Ireland, and of the affairs of that country and her ardent attachment to it; of God's mercy in bringing her to a true knowledge and faith of her Saviour; of the opinions she was led to form on a variety of subjects, theological and otherwise; of her return to England, and her residence at Clifton, Sandhurst, and other places; of her writings; and of divers matters in which she was engaged : interspersed with many anecdotes and interesting recollections; but especially those relating to a deaf and dumb boy whom she brought up, and whom she has before mentioned in some of her publications. We might quote many detached passages, but we could not weave them into a narrative; we must therefore refer those of our readers who wish to prolong their conversation with her, to her own pages. We only add, may grace, mercy, and peace be with her. 4 D

who, it is allowed, form a very large and influential body, or of too much offending papists, infidels, and political dissenters, by following out the Christian principles which wise and holy men of former days considered the polar-star for a statesman's guidance. Sir R. Peel cannot indeed controul events, or prevent differences of opinion; he must yield to majorities when they are against him; but he ought not to refrain from acting upon the dictates of religious duty because some secular politicians of his own school will not proceed with him. In answer to every question, whether of Whig or Tory, of Conservative or Radical, of Papist or Protestant, of Churchman or Dissenter, where that question impinges, as very many national questions do, upon matters which bear upon religion, he should boldly say, We ought to be a people "serving the Lord our God;" and if the inquiry be added, "Wherewith will ye serve him;" the answer ought to be equally prompt, "With our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds;" regarding individually and nationally our persons and our property, our souls and our bodies, as rightfully belonging to God, and setting Him before us in all our proceedings. This will not make all men of one mind in political, legislative, or theological questions; nor would we wish to see religion de based, and senatorial deliberation travestied, in our houses of parliament, by hypocrisy and affected phrases; there is a time and a place for all things; the Bible sets forth principles of action, and what concerns legislation ought to be in subordination to them; but this implies no piebald blending of matters of finance, statistics, jurisprudence, or other secular discussion, with special sentences, as though religion were to be patched on here and there in illassorted prominence, instead of blending with the whole fabric of human action, and running as a golden thread through its ever-reeling warp. The principle is what is wanted, and it will extend itself to the details. We would hope that Sir R. Peel has so profited by past errors as to determine never again to adduce secular expediency as an argument in any question which ought to be tested by principle. It was this grievous mistake which took from him the confidence of the friends of religion in the matter of the Romanist disabilities, and ejected him from the representation of the University of Oxford. Mr. Wilberforce, and many other religious men, advocated

the measure as considering it consistent with scriptural principle; but Sir R. Peel stated that he had not altered his former views regarding it, but that he adopted it as a matter of expediency. It could not be expedient if it was not right; and he should have resigned office rather than have proposed it, with his unchanged belief of its demerits. In like manner, in various other things bearing upon religion, those who wished to make the Bible the standard of legislation, feared and found, when he was in power, that they could not depend upon him in a moment of exigency. There has been, by the blessing of God, a wide extension of scriptural knowledge and serious devout piety in the land, especially within the pale of the Anglican church; but it has not yet found due representation in parliament, or adequately influenced the decisions of state. It is for the most part connected with what are called conservative doctrines; but it is conservative for higher purposes than mere political partizanship or secular advantage. It places religious considerations in the scale of national legislation; and if these be not regarded by those who stand at the helm of public affairs, it will not be satisfied. It might be all that could be expected of Sir R. Peel, when on the side of opposition, that he should be a break water, to resist the storms which would have overwhelmed our most sacred institutions; but in power he cannot be allowed to be passive; he must aid, and invigorate, and enlarge; and we earnestly pray that God will give him the grace and strength to do so.

We are not scared from this line of argument by the petulant remark, now so common, that in this our day almost every stirring topic of public discussion is mixed up with religious, or, as the objectors phrase it, "sectarian" considerations. We rejoice to say that there is some truth in the assertion, and we wish there were more; for if there is a heaven and a hell; if Christianity be not a fable; and if man has a soul as well as a body, the whole aspect of his social and political affairs ought to have regard to his duties as a moral, responsible, and spiritual being; and it is not a question of trivial import, what may be the effect of any legislative or other measure, upon higher interests than those of this fleeting scene;-though we would not separate the two, for Divine providence has joined them; national religion being sound national policy; and godliness, in the case of states, having emphatically the promise