of all the bearings of domestic affections, feelings, and mutual sensibilities to be cherished, or gently changed from weakness into strength, but in no instance to be designedly offended.

In painting these family pictures, Miss Anna Maria Porter's pen, we may venture to say, was quite at home! Her kind, delicate, and endearing spirit, delighted in all the fostering amenities, all the tendernesses, and elegant courtesies of life; and, most especially, those to be shown at the domestic hearth. Of such were the wives, the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, the friends, in her novels; from that sweet tale of her early youth, "The Hungarian Brothers," to her yet more admired "Barony," the last of her works.

Between those novels, her prolific genius, united with her earnest love of labouring in this "Eden garden of heaven's own flowers" for the bosoms of her young contemporaries, made her pass away her own life's spring and summer, in the production of many engaging and instructive volumes of a similar character. "Don Sebastian" followed "The Hungarian Brothers" in order of time. And in the portrait of Cara Azak, the faithful wife of the hero, we have a picture, which several amiable and happy women we know, have since acknowledged to have been the model whence they first sketched the line to secure their own connubial bliss. "The Recluse of Norway," gives us sisterly, unselfish, affection," in honour preferring each other!" "The Village of Mariendorpt," shows the perfection of filial duty. But how can we name in distinctions, or rather, how divide a spirit that with one great principle pervades them all? a spirit never weary to promote religious motives, blameless moral conduct, and the forbearing, cherishing love, which should ever abide in the human heart, with regard to all its relations, in this probationary existence.

But we must not leave this part of the subject, without noticing her accurate description of fashionable manners, delightfully amusing, when found innocently gay; but in most striking warning, when they lead to pining regrets, misery, and, too frequently, to ruin. Her "Honor O'Hara," and especially her tale called "Coming Out," need not our criticism, to show their value as beacons in this way. Miss A. M. Porter was a sweet poetess: many specimens grace her novels; and some of them have not less sweet airs adapted to them by some of our best composers.

The year after the publication of "The Barony," the

venerable and beloved mother of our authoress died. From that period, Miss Anna Maria Porter's health, always fragile, became more so; and her sister, with a natural anxiety, which held her as one of the last of her treasures on earth, in the course of a few months afterwards, took her from their home at Esher in Surrey, to begin a little tour for change of scene and air. During March and April, they were in London and there, many friends of past times renewed the pleasure of meeting one again, in their dear Anna Maria, whose attaching social qualities were ever uppermost in the minds which knew her best; so much in true value, is real worth of heart beyond even first-rate talents, though possessed by the same beloved person. Vanity had no place in her character. She thought humbly of her own talents; and still more humbly of the unobtrusive tenor of a life, which, in the retirement of her village home, she had long dedicated to the Christian's silent walk of" charity with all human beings, in thought, word, and deed!"

In the course of their purposed tour, the sisters came to Bristol on the 28th of May; where their brother, Dr. Porter, resides as a physician. Miss A. M. Porter was taken ill of a

fever on the 3d of June, which, in spite of his utmost skill, and that of another professional gentleman, terminated her earthly life on the 21st of the same month. But she closed it in the spirit of that life's career; an example to the "lowly

in heart!" and to those who have a faithful trust in the Divine Promise, that such "shall see God!"

EXERCISE CC.

THE WOMEN OF FRANCE AND THOSE OF ENGLAND. [Translated from Mirabeau.]

WOMEN are a subject upon which so much has been said and written, by so many men of abilities, that it is not easy to imagine a new light to show them in; or to place them in an attitude in which they have not already been placed. But, talking of a nation, if one did not say something about so considerable a part of it, the subject would appear mutilated and imperfect. As brevity is the soul of wit," I shall be brief; and I shall only touch on the principal points

in which the women of France differ from those of other countries.

When a French lady comes into a room, the first thing that strikes you, is, that she walks better, carries herself better, has her head and feet better dressed, her clothes better fancied and better put on, than any woman you have ever seen.

When she talks, she is the art of pleasing personified. Her eyes, her lips, her words, her gestures, are all prepossessing. Her language is the language of amiableness; her accents are the accents of grace; she embellishes a trifle, interests upon nothing; she softens a contradiction; she takes off the insipidness of a compliment by turning it elegantly; and when she has a mind, she sharpens and polishes the point of an epigram, better than all the women in the world. Her eyes sparkle with spirit; the most delightful sallies flash from her fancy; in telling a story, she is inimitable; the motions of her body, and the accents of her tongue, are equally genteel and easy; an equable flow of sprightliness keeps her constantly good-humoured and cheerful; and the only objects of her life are to please and be pleased.

Her vivacity may sometimes approach to folly; but perhaps, it is not in her moments of folly that she is least interesting and agreeable.

Englishwomen have many points of superiority over the French: the French are superior to them in many others. I have mentioned some of these points in other places. Here I shall only say, there is a particular idea, in which no woman in the world can compare with a Frenchwoman; it is in the power of intellectual excitement. She will draw wit out of a fool. She strikes, with such address, the chords of self-love, that she gives unexpected vigour and agility to fancy, and electrifies a body that appeared non-electric.

I have mentioned here the women of England; and I have done wrong. -I did not intend it when I began the letter. They came into my mind, as the only women in the world worthy of being compared with those of France. To settle the respective claims of the fair sex in these two countries, requires an abler pen than mine. I shall not dare to examine it, even in a single point, nor presume to determine, whether, in the important article of beauty, form and colour are to be preferred to expression and grace; or whether grace and expression are to be considered as preferable to complexion and shape. I shall not examine whether the piquant of

France is to be thought superior to the touchant of England; or whether deep sensibility deserves to be preferred to animation and wit. So important a subject requires a volume. I shall only venture to give a tract.

If a goddess could be supposed to be found, compounded of Juno and Minerva, that goddess would be the emblem of the women of this country. Venus, as she is, with all her amiableness and imperfections, may stand, justly enough, for an emblem of Frenchwomen. I have decided the question without intending it; for I have given the preference to the women of England.

EXERCISE CCI.

INFLUENCE OF POETRY ON WOMEN. Mrs. Ellis.

It is the taste of the present times to invest the material with an immeasurable extent of importance beyond the ideal. It is the tendency of modern education, to instil into the youthful mind the necessity of knowing, rather than the advantage of feeling. And, to a certain extent, "knowledge is power;" but neither is knowledge all that we live for, nor power all that we enjoy. There are deep mysteries in the book of nature which all can feel, but none will ever understand, until the veil of mortality shall be withdrawn. There are stirrings in the heart of man, which constitute the very essence of his being, and which power can neither satisfy nor subdue. Yet this mystery reveals more truly than the clearest proofs, or mightiest deductions of science, that a master-hand has been for ages, and is still at work, above, beneath, and around us; and this moving principle is forever reminding us, that, in our nature, we inherit the germs of a future existence, over which time has no influence, and the grave no victory.

If, then, for man it be absolutely necessary that he should sacrifice the poetry of his nature for the realities of material and animal existence; for woman there is no excuse, for woman, whose whole life, from the cradle to the grave, is one of feeling, rather than of action; whose highest duty is so often to suffer, and be still; whose deepest enjoyments are all relative; who has nothing, and is nothing, of herself; whose experience, if unparticipated, is a total blank; yet, whose world of interest is wide as the realm of humanity,

boundless as the ocean of life, and enduring as eternity! For woman, who, in her inexhaustible sympathies, can live only in the existence of another, and whose very smiles and tears are not exclusively her own,- for woman to cast away the love of poetry, is to pervert from their natural course the sweetest and loveliest tendencies of a truly feminine mind, to destroy the brightest charm which can adorn her intellectual character, to blight the fairest rose in her wreath of youthful beauty.

A woman without poetry, is like a landscape without sunshine. We see every object as distinctly as when the sunshine is upon it; but the beauty of the whole is wanting: the atmospheric tints, the harmony of earth and sky, we look for in vain; and we feel that though the actual substance of hill and dale, of wood and water, are the same, the spirituality of the scene is gone.

A woman without poetry! the idea is a paradox; for what single object has ever been found so fraught with poetical associations, as woman herself? "Woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and her blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire."

It is good, and therefore it must be useful, to see and to feel that the all-wise Creator has set the stamp of degradation only upon those things which perish in the using; but that all those which enlarge and elevate the soul, all which afford us the highest and purest enjoyment, from the loftiest range of sublimity, to the softest emotions of tenderness and love, are, and must be, immortal. Yes, the mountains may be

overthrown, and the heavens themselves may melt away; but all the ideas with which they inspired us, - their vastness and their grandeur, will remain. Every flower might fade from the garden of earth; but would beauty, as an essence, therefore cease to exist? Even love might fail us here. Alas! how often does it fail us at our utmost need! But the principle of love is the same; and there is no human heart so callous as not to respond to the language of the poet, when he says

"They sin who tell us love can die.

Its holy flame forever burneth,
From heaven it came,

to heaven returneth,"

THE END.