of sentiment, so that she could scarcely at Edinburgh with eminent success, talk of anything else. She revelled exceeding even the "most sanguine exalike in the warm-hearted enthusiasm pectation." Mrs. H. Siddons recited an of the noble-minded Schiller, in the epilogue written expressly by Sir Walter infinite variety of the wonderful and Scott. On this joyful occasion Mrs. many-sided Goethe, in the poetry of Hemans writes to a friend:-"I knew Herder, and the fiery lyrics of Theodore how much you would rejoice with me Körner. Tieck and Novalis were also in the issue of my Edinburgh trial. It among her favourite authors. Of the has, indeed, been most gratifying, and "Sternbald's Wanderungen," she thus I think amongst the pleasantest of its speaks in a letter :results, I may reckon a letter from Sir Walter Scott, of which it has put me in possession. I had written to thank him for the kindness he had shown with regard to the play, and hardly expected an answer, but it came, and you would be delighted with its frank and unaffected kindliness."

"Now let me introduce you to a dear friend of mine. Tieck's Sternbald, in whose 'Wanderungen,' which I now send if you know them not already I cannot but hope that you will take almost as much delight as I have done amidst my own free hills and streams, where his favourite book has again and again been my companion."

The fine lyric, "The Grave of Körner," procured Mrs. Hemans the honour of some lines from Theodore Körner's vater, which she ever valued most highly, This interesting tribute has been well translated by W. B. Chorley, Esq. We will, therefore, transcribe it:

Gently a voice from afar is borne to the ear of the
mourner;

Mildly it soundeth, yet strong, grief in his bosom
Strong in the soul-cheering faith, that hearts have

to soothe;

a share in his sorrow,

In whose depths all things holy and noble are

shrined.

From that land once dearly beloved by our brave

one the fallen,

In 1823, the well-known little poem, "The Voice of Spring," was written. It is singular that the fair spring-time of the year should ever have spoken to the mind of Mrs. Hemans in tones breathing more of sadness than of joy. "If," she writes, "if I could choose when I would wish to die, it should be in spring -the influence of that season is so strangely depressing to my heart and frame."

In December 1823, the "Vespers of Palermo," was produced at Covent Garden. Mr. Young, Mr. C. Kemble, Mr. Yates, Mrs. Bartley, and Miss Kelly taking the principal parts. Chiefly

Her next production was the tragedy of "De Chatillon; or, the Crusaders;" and at the close of the year 1824, she commenced her longest poem, "The Forest Sanctuary," which refers to the sufferings of a Spanish Protestant in Philip the Second's time, and the hero, who escapes to the wilds of America, is the supposed narrator.

In 1825, our poetess removed, with her mother, sister and children, from Bronwylfa to Rhyllon, a house belonging to her brother, and only a quarter of a mile distant from her former residence. The new abode was not nearly so romantic, externally, as Bronwylfa. At Rhyllon, however, Mrs. Hemans spent many happy years, and it was ever to her the home of sweet remembrances. And here, on a soft, grassy mound, beneath the shade of a beech tree, she enjoyed the first perusal of the "Talisman," so gracefully commemorated in her lines, "The Hour of Romance:"

There were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs, like those of childhood's

sleep;

Amidst the dimness, and a fitful sound
Lay the oak shadows on the turf, so still,
They seemed but pictured glooms; a hidden rill
Made music such as haunts us in a dream,

As of soft showers on water; dark and deep

Under the fern-tufts; and a tender gleam
Of soft green light, as by the glow-worm shed,
Came pouring through the woven beech-boughs
And steeped the magic page wherein I read,
down,

Of royal chivalry and old renown,
A tale of Palestine.

The year 1825 brought several tributes owing to the inefficiency of the last- to the fame of our authoress from Amementioned actress, the piece proved a rica. Amongst the most pleasant was complete failure, and was the cause of a letter from Professor Norton, of Cambitter disappointment to the authoress and her friends. The following April, however, the play was brought forward

bridge University, New England, offering to superintend the publication of a complete edition of her poems, which

was projected at Boston, and also to After the last remains of her mother secure the profits for her benefit. Bright had been consigned to the dark and and beautiful must have been the atmo- silent grave, she writes in a letter to a sphere of the household of Rhyllon, friend:-"My soul is indeed 'exceeding gladdened by so many tokens of good- sorrowful,' dear friend; but, thank God! will from afar, and blessed with health, I can tell you that composure is returnsustaining love and social enjoyment at ing to me, and that I am enabled to home. At this period she writes:- resume those duties which so imperi"Soft winds and bright blue skies make ously call me back to life. What I have me, or dispose me to be a sad idler; lost none better knows than yourself. and it is only by an effort, and a strong I have lost the faithful, watchful, patient feeling of necessity, that I can fix my love, which for years had been devoted mind steadily to any sedentary pursuits, to me and mine; and I feel that the when the sun is shining over the moun- void it has left behind must cause me to tains, and the birds singing at heaven's bear 'a yearning heart within me to the gate; but I find the frost and snow grave,' but I have her example before most salutary monitors, and always me, and I must not allow myself to make exertion my enjoyment during their continuance. For this reason From the date of her mother's death, I must say, I delight in the utmost the health of Mrs. Hemans, which had rigour of winter, which almost seems ever been delicate, became still more so, to render it necessary that the mind and she experienced frequent recurrences should become fully acquainted with of inflammatory attacks.

sink."

its own resources, and find means. She writes of herself about this pein drawing them forth to cheer with riod::- My spirits are as variable as mental light the melancholy day!" the light and shadow flitting with the In 1826, however, a deep gloom over-winds over the high grass, and someshadowed the family circle at Rhyllon. times the tears gush into my eyes, when There was mourning in the household I can scarcely define the cause." And of the eldest brother of Mrs. Hemans again:-"I am a strange being, I think. for those "who were not," for the sound I put myself in mind of an Irish melody, of the beloved voices now hushed in sometimes, with its quick and wild the silence of death, transitions from sadness to gaiety."

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheered with song the hearth.
And a sadder trial was yet in store.
The frame of the aged mother whose
presence had been like the sweet star
trembling over bright waters, was ra-
pidly yielding to decay, and soon the
hand was cold, the eyes closed, never to
open again on earth; "the silver chord
was loosed, the golden bowl was broken."
It was in the anticipation of the decease
of this dear parent that Mrs. Hemans
wrote the following lines:-

Father! that in the olive shade,
When the dark hour came on,
Didst with a breath of heavenly aid,
Strengthen thy Son;

Oh! by the anguish of that night,
Send us down bless'd relief;
Or, to the chasten'd let thy might
Hallow this grief!

And Thou, that when the starry sky
Saw the dread strife begin,
Didst teach adoring faith to cry,
"Thy will be done;"

By Thy meek spirit, Thou of all

That e'er have mourned the chief;
Thou, Saviour! if the stroke must fall,
Hallow this grief!

In June, 1827, Mrs. Hemans wrote a letter of self-introduction to Miss Mitand thus opened 'a pleasant corresponford, which met with a cordial response, dence with the authoress of "Our Village."

The state of her health often confined

her to her bed, and being unable to use her pen under such circumstances, she vices of an amanuensis. On one of these was obliged to have recourse to the seroccasions the friend who acted in that capacity wrote thus :-"Felicia has just sent for me, with pencil and paper, to put down a little song which, she said, had come to her like a strain of music, whilst lying in the twilight under the infliction of a blister; and as I really think, that 'a scrap' (as our late eccentric visitor would call it) composed under such circumstances, is, to use the words of Coleridge, a psychological curiosity,' I cannot resist copying it for you. It was suggested by a story she somewhere read lately of a Greek islander, carried off to the Vale of Tempe, and pining amidst all its beauties for the sight and sound of his native sea :

Where is the sea? I languish here-
Where is my own blue sea?

With all its barks in fleet career,
And flags and breezes free?

I miss that voice of waves which first

Awoke my childish glee;

lay in her affections; these would sometimes make her weep at a word, at others imbue her with courage; so that she was alternately a falcon-hearted dove, and'a reed shaken by the wind.' Her

The measured chime, the thundering burst- voice was a sad, sweet melody, and her Where is my own blue sea?

Oh! rich your myrtle breath may rise,
Soft, soft your winds may be;
Yet my sick heart within me dies-
Where is my own blue sea?

I hear the shepherd's mountain flute,
I hear the whispering tree,
The echoes of my soul are mute,
Where is my own blue sea?

spirits reminded me of an old poet's description of the orange tree with its

Golden lamps hid in a night of green; or of those Spanish gardens, where the pomegranate grows beside the cypress. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if, in her depression, she resembled night, it was night bearing her stars. I might describe and describe for ever, but I should never succeed in portraying Egeria. She was a Muse, a Grace, a variable child, a dependant woman, the Italy of human beings."

66

At last the time drew near for Mrs. Hemans to take a farewell of her Welsh home, and remove to the residence she had engaged at Wavertree. It was a severe trial, leaving the old familiar place," and still more so, as she was obliged also to part with her two eldest sons, who were sent to their father at Rome. She writes: "I am suffering' deeply, more than I could have dreamt or imagined, from this farewell sadness! My heart seems as if a nightmare weighed it down.

You know it is impossible I should be better till all these billows have passed over me. The improvisatore talent has scarcely deserted me yet, but it is gushing up from a fountain of tears. Oh! that I could but lift up my head where alone the calm sunshine is!"

"The Records of Woman," dedicated to Mrs. Joanna Baillie, was published in 1828. In a letter to a friend who had lost a beloved child, Mrs. Hemans writes: "6 And I, too, have felt, though not (through the breaking of that tie) those sick and weary yearnings for the dead, that fervent thirst for the sound of a departed voice or step, in which the heart seems to die away, and literally to become a fountain of tears.' Who can sound its depths? One alone, and may He comfort you!" In the same year, Mrs. Hemans again visited her kind friends at Wavertree Lodge, near Liverpool; and in consequence of many changes having taken place in the family circle at Rhyllon, she decided upon fixing her residence in the village of Wavertree, where she had extensive facilities for literary enjoyments. She here formed several new and interesting friendships, and was delighted in making the personal acquaintance of her New England friends, Mr. and Mrs. Norton. It was sometime about this period that Many new friends clustered around she became on terms of intimacy with the poetess on her removal to Waverthe gifted and noble-minded Miss Jews- tree. She was, indeed, almost overbury. A warm and sincere attachment whelmed by the overtures of strangers sprang up between them; and Miss desirous of making her acquaintance. Jewsbury's enthusiasm and admiration In a letter to Mrs. Howitt, written shortly for the character of her friend, were beau- after her change of residence, she says: tifully exemplified in her eloquent deli-" My health and spirits are decidedly neation of Egeria, in the "Three His- improving; and I am reconciling myself tories," which is generally understood to to many things in my changed situabe a portraiture of Mrs. Hemans. We tion, which at first pressed upon my have not space for the whole, but can- heart with all the weight of a Switzer's not deny ourselves the pleasure of home-sickness. Among these is the transcribing the following passage:- want of hills. Oh! this waveless horizon, how it wearies the eye accustomed to the sweeping outline of mountain scenery! I would wish that there were, at least, woodlands, like those so delightfully pictured in your husband's 'Chapter on Woods,' to supply their place; but it is a dull, uninventive Nature all around here, though there must be somewhere

Egeria was totally different from any of the women I had ever seen, either in Italy or in England. She did not dazzle, she subdued me. Other women might be more commanding, more versatile, more acute; but I never saw one so exquisitely feminine..

Her strength and her weakness alike

M