The Welsh Melodies; the Siege of Valencia ; and the Vespers of Palermo, may all be referred to this epoch of her literary career; and are characterized by beauties of a high and peculiar stamp. With reference to the two latter, it must be owned, that if the genius of Mrs Hemans was not essentially dramatic, yet that they abound with high and magnificent bursts of poetry. It was not easy to adapt her fine taste and uniformly high-toned sentiment to the varied aspects of life and character, necessary to the success of scenic exhibition; and she must have been aware of the difficulties that surrounded her in that path. If these cannot, therefore, be considered as successful tragedies, they hold their places, as dramatic poems of rich and rare poetic beauty. Indeed it would be difficult, from the whole range of Mrs Hemans's writings, to select any thing more exquisitely conceived, more skilfully managed, or more energetically written, than the Monk's Tale in the Siege of Valencia.

His description of his son, in which he dwells with parental enthusiasm on his boyish beauty and accomplishments-of his horror at that son's renunciation of the Christian faith, and leaguing with the infidel—and of the twilight encounter in which he took the life of his own giving,—are all worked out in the loftiest spirit of poetry.

The life of Mrs Hemans thus continued for many years a scene of uninterrupted domestic privacy-intercourse with the world, in an extended acceptation of the term, might be said to have been dropped by her; and the ideas with which her mind was stored, were derived solely from reading, united to a deep feeling of the beauties of nature, and its own bright comprehension and discernment. Her talent for acquiring languages was very remarkable, and she was well versed in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a sufficient knowledge of Latin for every requisite purpose. Of these languages she preferred the

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first, which she cultivated with much interest, finding its literature most in unison with her own style of feeling and of thought. She took particular pleasure in the writings of Schiller and Goethe, and considered her intimacy with their works in particular, and with the many treasures of German literature generally, as having imparted an entirely new impulse to the of her own mind. Nor in this did she judge erroneously. About this time were composed some of those inimitable lyrics,—more especially "The Treasures of the Deep,” “The Hebrew Mother," "The Voice of Spring," and "The Hour of Death," which the American critic Neale has quaintly characterized as "lumps of pure gold;" and which will find a response in the human bosom, till the end of all time. A deep and reverential study of our own Wordsworth was added to that of these continental classics; and, with what success; "The Records of Woman," "The Lays of Many Lands," "The Forest Sanctuary,"

"The Songs of the Affections," and the "Scenes and Hymns of Life," will long remain to testify.

In music and drawing the acquirements of Mrs Hemans were such as naturally might have been expected, in a mind so fraught with taste and imagination. She preferred in the former what was national and melancholy; and her strains adapted for singing were, of course, framed to the tones most congenial to the temperament of her own mind. How successfully wed to the magic of sweet sound many of her verses have been by her sister, no lover of music need to be reminded. The "Roman Girl's Song" is full of a solemn classic beauty; and, in one of her letters, it is said that of the " Captive Knight," Sir Walter Scott never was weary. Indeed, it seems in his mind to have been the song of Chivalry, representative of the English; as the Flowers of the Forest was of the Scottish; the Cancionella Española of the Spanish; and the Rhine Song of the

German. In her love for painting, she had few opportunities of indulging; but those few were rich in interest and imagery.

The death of her mother in 1827, and the marriage of her sister in the following year, added to the necessity of additional facilities for the education of her boys, induced Mrs Hemans to leave Wales, and to fix her residence at Wavertree, near Liverpool. Whilst at that place, a favourable opportunity occurred for her visiting Scotland, with the scenery of which she was delighted; and, the remembrance of the friends she had made, and the courtesy she had experienced there, was never effaced from her memory. In her journeyings on this occasion, she had the pleasure of forming a personal acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, Wordsworth, the author of Cyril Thornton, and other distinguished literary characters. The writer of this humble sketch had, also, at this time the honour of meeting her, and enjoying a few brief, but de