whose acquirements were of a high order. Here also it was, that Mrs Hemans received those impressions of the sublime and lovely in the features of the external world, which ever afterwards lent a colouring to her feelings, and exercised so marked an influence on the tone of her mind and writings.

Under these fostering influences, the peculiar bias of her imagination and intellect began to develope itself at an early period of childhood. While yet only in her sixth year, she took to the reading of Shakspeare as her favourite recreation, and, such was the retentiveness of her memory, that she could repeat pages of his most striking scenes, as well as many passages from our best poets, after little more than a single perusal. The circumstance is certainly not a unique one, but, in her case, is a proof of the intense delight, which her mind enjoyed while imbibing the beautiful and grand in sentiment,-impressions so instantaneously stamped shewing their depth by their durability.

Such a prevailing love of poetry soon naturally turned to a cultivation of the art in her own person; and a volume of verses, written by her, when she was not yet eleven years old, attracted from that circumstance, as well as from their intrinsic merit, no inconsiderable share of public attention. This little volume was, in the course of the four succeeding years, followed by two others, which evinced powers gradually but steadily expanding, and which were received with increasing favour by the admirers of poetry. Her studies, up to this time, had been the world to her; with nature and her books she had lived in devoted seclusion, dreaming bright dreams; storing up knowledge; and, no doubt, enjoying by occasional anticipation, glimpses of that reputation, which was eventually to encircle her name. But a change soon passed over the spirit of that Elysian picture; and, in her nineteenth year, she was married to Captain Hemans, of the Fourth Regiment, a gentleman of highly respectable

connections. Unfortunately his health had been undermined by the vicissitudes of a military life—more particularly by the hardships he had endured in the disastrous retreat to Corunna, and by the fever, which proved so fatal to many of our troops in the Walcheren expedition. Indeed to such an extent was this breaking up, as to render it necessary for him, a few years after their marriage, to exchange his native climate for the milder sky of Italy.

The literary pursuits of Mrs Hemans rendering it ineligible for her to leave England, she continued to reside with her mother and sister at a quiet and pretty spot, near St Asaph, in North Wales; where, in the bosom of her family, entirely devoted to literature, and to the education of five interesting boys, in whose welfare centred all the energies of her mind and heart, she

"Trod in gentle peace her guileless way;"

and won more and more on public regard and estimation by the simple and pathetic beauty

of those highly gifted productions, which have not only thrown an additional beauty over female nature, but have, doubtless, advanced in many a meditative bosom the sacred causes of religion and virtue.

Apart from all intercourse with literary society, and acquainted only by name and occasional correspondence with any of the distinguished authors of whom England has to boast, Mrs Hemans, during the progress of her poetical career, had to contend with more and greater obstacles than usually stand in the path of female authorship. To her praise be it spoken, therefore, that it was to her own merit alone, wholly independent of adventitious circumstances, that she was indebted for the extensive share of popularity which her compositions ultimately obtained. From this studious seclusion were given forth the two poems which first permanently elevated her among the writers of her age, the "Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy," and "Modern Greece."

In these the maturity of her intellect appears; and she makes us feel, that she has marked out a path for herself through the regions of song. The versification is high-toned and musical, in accordance with the sentiment and subject; and in every page, we have evidence not only of taste and genius, but of careful elaboration and research. These efforts were favourably noticed by Lord Byron ; and attracted the admiration of Shelley. Bishop Heber and other judicious and intelligent counsellors cheered her on by their approbation: the reputation, which, through years of silent study and exertion, she had, no doubt, sometimes with brightened and sometimes with doubtful hopes, looked forward to as a sufficient great reward, was at length unequivocally and unreluctantly accorded her by the world: and, probably, this was the happiest period of her life. The translations from Camoens; the Prize poem of Wallace, as also that of Dartmoor, The Tales and Historic Scenes, the Sceptic,