Maria Edgeworth

by Helen Zimmern

LAST YEARS.

More and more Miss Edgeworth's life revolved round home and friends. "In this world, in which I have lived nearly three-quarters of a century, I have found nothing one-quarter so well worth living for as old friends," she said. In her person old age was seen in its most attractive form. Her lively interests remained undimmed. At seventy she even set herself to learn a new language, Spanish, while her impulsiveness never became extinct, though she playfully hoped that, provided she lived so long, she might perhaps at eighty arrive at years of discretion. It was in 1835 that Mr. Ticknor, the American historian of Spanish literature, visited Edgeworthstown. He has recorded in his journal a pleasing and vivid picture of his visit. He describes Miss Edgeworth as small, short and spare, with frank and kind manners, always looking straight into the face of those she spoke to with a pair of mild, deep gray eyes. Her kindness and vivacity instantly put her visitors at ease. Mr. Ticknor was also impressed with the harmony that existed in a family composed of the most heterogeneous relationships. What struck him about Miss Edgeworth herself was her uncommon quickness of perception, her fertility of allusion, and the great resources of fact which a remarkable memory supplied to her. He likens her conversation to that of her own Lady Davenant. Mr. Ticknor observed that though she would talk freely about herself and her works, she never introduced the subject, and never seemed glad to continue it. Indeed, though he watched carefully for it, he could not detect either any of the mystification or the vanity of authorship. He was struck with her good nature and desire to defend everybody, even Lady Morgan, as far as she could, though never so far as to be unreasonable.

"In her intercourse with her family she was quite delightful, referring constantly to Mrs. Edgeworth, who seems to be the authority in all matters of fact, and most kindly repeating jokes to her infirm aunt, Mrs. Sneyd, who cannot hear them, and who seems to have for her the most unbounded affection and admiration."

The dispersion of so many members of her family imposed much letter-writing on Miss Edgeworth, for all turned to her graphic pen for news of the dear old home. And, as before when she was away, those she left behind had to share in her pleasures, or they would be but sorry pleasures to her. Death, as well as marriages, had thinned the family ranks. Tenacious and warm in her affections as she was, Miss Edgeworth never took a morbid view concerning those who were gone. Everything morbid was foreign to her nature.

There is something mournful, yet pleasingly painful, in the sense of the ideal presence of the long-loved dead. Those images people and fill the mind with unselfish thoughts, and with the salutary feeling of responsibility and constant desire to be and to act in this world as the superior friend would have wished and approved.

And there were so many still left to love, young and old. "Who would not like to live to be old if they could be so happy in friends as I am?" The enthusiastic affection in her peculiar family relations, which she kept unimpaired, cannot be better shown than by quoting one of the countless letters she wrote concerning those dear to her:—

Edgeworthstown, Nov. 1, 1838.

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor:

I know so well your kind feelings towards all this family, that I am sure you will be pleased with the intelligence which I am going to communicate to you.

My sister Honora is going to be happily married to a person every way suited to her (and that is saying a great deal), as you who most kindly and justly appreciated her will readily join with me in thinking. The gentleman's name, Captain Beaufort, R. N., perhaps you may be acquainted with, as he is in a public situation, and not unknown to literary and scientific fame. He is a naval officer. (I hope you like this officer's name?) He made some years ago a survey of the coast of Caramania, and wrote a small volume on that survey, which has obtained for him a good reputation. He has been for some years Hydrographer Royal.... In one word, he is a person publicly esteemed; and privately he is beloved and esteemed by all who know him best. He is and has been well known to us ever since the present Mrs. Edgeworth's marriage with my father. Captain Beaufort is Mrs. Edgeworth's youngest brother. As Mrs. E. is Honora's stepmother, you see that he is no relation whatever to Honora. But the nearness of the connection has given us all the best means of knowing him thoroughly. He was my dear father's most beloved pupil and friend; by pupil I only mean that his being so much younger made him look up to my father with reverence, and learn from him in science and literature with delight. Thus has he been long connected with all I love. He has been a widower two years. He has three sons and four daughters.... The youngest daughter, Emily, is a delightful child. Captain Beaufort lives in London, 11 Gloucester place; has a very comfortable house, and sufficient fortune for all their moderate wishes. Honora's fortune, which is ample, will give them affluence.

My dear Mrs. Ticknor, I know you particularly liked Honora, and that you will be interested in hearing all these particulars, though it seems impertinent to detail them across the Atlantic to one who will, I fear, never see any one of the persons I have mentioned. Yet affections such as yours keep warm very long and at a great distance.

I feel that I have got into a snug little corner in both your hearts, and that you will excuse a great deal from me; therefore I go on without scruple drawing upon your sympathy, and you will not protest my draft.

You saw how devoted Honora was to her aunt, Mrs. Mary Sneyd, whom you liked so much; and you will easily imagine what a struggle there has been in Honora's mind before she could consent to a marriage with even such a man as Captain Beaufort, when it must separate her from her aunt. Captain Beaufort himself felt this so much that he never would have pressed it. He once thought that she might be prevailed upon to accompany them to London and to live with them. But Mrs. Mary Sneyd could not bear to leave Mrs. Edgeworth, and this place which she has made her heart's home. She decided Captain Beaufort and her niece to make her happy by completing their union, and letting her feel that she did not prevent the felicity of the two persons she loves best now in the world. She remains with us.

The marriage is to take place next Tuesday or Thursday, and my Aunt Mary will go to the church with her niece and give her away. I must tell you a little characteristic trait of this aunt, the least selfish of all human beings. She has been practicing getting up early in the morning, which she has not done for two years—has never got up for breakfast. But she has trained herself to rising at the hour at which she must rise on the wedding-day, and has walked up and down her own room the distance she must walk up and down the aisle of the church, to insure her being accustomed to the exertion and able to accomplish it easily. This she did for a long time without our knowing it, till Honora found it out. Mrs. Mary Sneyd is quite well and in excellent spirits.

A younger sister of mine, Lucy, of whom you have heard us speak as an invalid, who was at Clifton with that dear Sophy whom we have lost, is now recovered, and has returned home to take Honora's place with her Aunt Mary; and Aunt Mary likes to have her, and Lucy feels this a great motive to her to overcome a number of nervous feelings, which formed part of her illness. A regular course of occupations and duties, and feeling herself essential to the happiness and the holding together of a family she so loves, will be the best strengthening medicine for her. She arrived at home last night. My sister Fanny and her husband, Lestock Wilson, are with us. My sister has much improved in health; she is now able to walk without pain, and bore her long journey and voyage here wonderfully. I have always regretted, and always shall regret, that this sister Fanny of mine had not the pleasure of becoming acquainted with you. You really must revisit England. My sister Harriet Butler, and Mr. Butler, and the three little dear Foxes, are all around me at this instant. Barry Fox, their father, will be with us in a few days, and Captain Beaufort returns from London on Monday. You see what a large and happy family we are!!!

Do I not give you some proof, my dear Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor, of my affection in writing to you at this moment? and if I write without much sense or connection you will not be surprised.

My head is really upside down, and my feelings so divided between joy and sorrow—joy for Honora's happiness, but sorrow for the parting that must be!

It will all settle down under the hand of strong necessity and of lenient time. My sisters Fanny and Harriet will stay with us some weeks after the marriage; this will be a great comfort.

Mr. Butler will perform the happy, awful ceremony. How people who do not love can ever dare to marry, to approach the altar to pronounce that solemn vow, I cannot conceive.

My thoughts are so engrossed by this subject that I absolutely cannot tell you of anything else. You must tell me of everything that interests you, else I shall not forgive myself for my egotism.

I am most sincerely and affectionately, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, with affectionate remembrances to your engaging daughter, not forgetting your little darling,

Yours most sincerely,

Maria Edgeworth.

Mention Lockhart's Memoirs of Scott, of which my head and heart were full before this present all-engrossing subject overcame me.

I shall be quite rational again, I am sure, by the time your answer reaches me, so pray do not treat me as quite a hopeless person to write rationally to.

Mrs. Edgeworth desires me to send you her very affectionate remembrances.

I believe, I am almost sure, that I wrote to you, my dear Mr. Ticknor, some months ago while you were on the Continent, to thank you for the present you sent me, through Mr. Norton's means, of an American edition of my works. I thought it beautifully printed and bound, and the engravings excellent, particularly that for Helen, and the vignette for Helen, which we have not in the English edition. I have another American copy of this edition, and I have left yours for life with my brother Francis and my Spanish sister Rosa, who live in a little cottage near Windsor, and have not money to indulge themselves in the luxury of books. I hope you will not be angry with me for so doing; no, I think you will be glad that I made your present give me the greatest possible sum of pleasure. Take into account the pride I felt in saying, Mr. Ticknor sent me these books.

I am ashamed to see that I have come so far in a second sheet, and in spite of all the wonderings at what can Maria be about?

Sense in my next.

In answer to a letter from Mr. Ticknor, describing to her his library, in which the only picture was one of Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth wrote a reply, of which a portion has been published, but which contains besides an able parallel, or rather contrast, between Washington and Napoleon, worthy of preservation for its own sake, and as a testimony to her unimpaired powers:—

Trim, Nov. 19th, 1840.

"Who talks of 'Boston' in a voice so sweet?" Who wishes to see me there? and to show me their home, their family, their country? I have been there—at Boston! "Yes, and in Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor's happy, beautiful home." I have been up "the slope of the Boston hillside," have seen "the fifty acres of public park" in all its verdure, with "its rich and venerable trees," its graveled promenade surrounding it, with those noble rows of venerable elms on either side. I have gone up the hillside and the steps profusely decked with luxuriant creepers; I have walked into Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor's house, as I was desired—have seen the three rooms opening into one another, have sat in the library, too, and thought—and thought it all charming. Looking into the country, as you know the windows all do, I saw down through "the vista of trees" to the quiet bay and the "beautiful" hills beyond, and I "watched the glories of the setting sun" lighting up country and town, "trees, turf and water!"—an Italian sun not more gorgeously attended than this "New England luminary" setting or rising. I met Sir Walter Scott in Mr. Ticknor's library with all his benign, calm expression of countenance, his eye of genius and his mouth of humor—such as he was before the life of life was gone, such as genius loved to see him, such as American genius has given him to American friendship, immortalized in person as in mind. His very self I see feeling, thinking and about to speak—and to a friend to whom he loved to speak; and well placed and to his liking he seems in this congenial library, presiding and sympathizing. But my dear madam, ten thousand books, "about ten thousand books," do you say this library contains? My dear Mrs. Ticknor! Then I am afraid you must have double rows—and that is a plague. But you may ask why do I conceive you have double rows? Because I cannot conceive how else the book-cases could hold the ten thousand. Your library is 34 by 22, you say. But to be sure you have not given me the height, and that height may make out room enough. Pray have it measured for me, that I may drive this odious notion of double rows out of my head—"and what a head," you may say, "that must be that could calculate in such a place and at such a time!" It was not my poor head, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, but Captain Beaufort's ultra-accurate head. I gave him through Honora the description of your library, and he (jealous, I am clear, for the magnitude and number of his own library and volumes) set to work at 22 by 34—and there I leave him—till I have the height to confound him completely. You see, my dear friends, that you need not again ask me to go to see you—for I have seen and I know everything about your home; full as well I know Boston and your home as you know ours at Edgeworthstown. It is your turn now to come and see us again. But I am afraid to invite you, lest you should be disenchanted, and we should lose the delightful gratification we enjoy in your glamor of friendship. Aunt Mary, however, is really all you think and saw her, and in her ninety-first year still a proof as you describe her—and a remarkable proof—of the power of mind over time, suffering and infirmities; and an example of Christian virtues making old age lovely and interesting.

Your prayer, that she might have health and strength to enjoy the gathering of friends round her, has been granted. Honora and her husband, and Fanny and her husband, have all been with us this summer for months; and we have enjoyed ourselves as much as your kind heart could wish. Especially "that beautiful specimen of a highly-cultivated gentlewoman" as you so well called Mrs. E., has been blest with the sight of all her children round her, all her living daughters and their husbands, and her grandchildren. Francis will settle at home and be a good country gentleman and his own agent—to Mrs. E.'s and all our inexpressible comfort and support, also for the good of the country, as a resident landlord and magistrate much needed. As he is at home I can be spared from the rent-receiving business, etc., and leaving him with his mother, Aunt Mary and Lucy, I can indulge myself by accepting an often-urged invitation from my two sisters Fanny and Honora, to spend some months with them in London. I have chosen to go at this quiet time of year, as I particularly wish not to encounter the bustle and dissipation and lionizing of London. For tho' I am such a minnikin lion now, and so old, literally without teeth or claws, still there be, that might rattle at the grate to make me get up and come out and stand up to play tricks for them—and this I am not able or inclined to do. I am afraid I should growl—I never could be as good-humored as Sir Walter Scott used to be, when rattled for and made to "come out and stand on his hind legs," as he used to describe it, and then go quietly to sleep again.

I shall use my privilege of seventy-two—rising seventy-three—and shall keep in my comfortable den: I will not go out. "Nobody asked you, ma'am," to play Lion, may perhaps be said or sung to me, and I shall not be sorry nor mortified by not being asked to exhibit, but heartily happy to be with my sisters and their family and family friends—all for which I go. Knowing my own mind very well, I speak the mere plain truth. I shall return home to Edgeworthstown before the London season, as it is called, commences, i.e., by the end of March or at the very beginning of April.

This is all I have for the present to tell you of my dear self, or of our family doings or plannings. You see I depend enough on the sincerity of your curiosity and sympathy, and I thank you in kind for all you have been so affectionately good to tell me of yourselves.

I have been lately reading Thibeaudeau's ten volumes of the History of Napoleon—Le Consulat et l'Empire—immediately after having read the life of Washington by Sparks, a book which I think I mentioned to you had been sent to me by an American Jewess of Philadelphia, Miss Gratz. A most valuable present—a most interesting work it is. The comparison between the characters, power, deeds, fortune and fate of Washington and Napoleon continually pressed on my mind as I read their lives; and continually I wished that some modern Plutarch with more of religious, if not more of moral and political knowledge and philosophy than the ancient times afforded, would draw a parallel—no, not a parallel, for that could not be—but a comparison between Napoleon and Washington. It would give in the result a comparison between moral and intellectual power on the highest scale, and with the fullest display in which they have ever been seen in two national heroes. The superior, the universal abilities of Bonaparte, his power of perseverance, of transition of resource, of comprehensiveness, of adaptation of means to ends, and all tending to his own aggrandizement, and his appetite for dominion growing with what it fed upon, have altogether been most astonishingly displayed in the Frenchman's history of Napoleon. The integrity, disinterestedness, discretion, persevering adherence to one great purpose, marking the character and the career of Washington, are all faithfully portrayed by his American biographer, and confirmed by state papers and by the testimony of an independent world. The comparison between what Napoleon and Washington did living, and left dying, of the fruits and consequences of their deeds, would surely be a most striking and useful moral and political lesson on true and false glory, and further, would afford the strongest illustrations of the difference in human affairs of what is called the power of fortune and the influence of prestige, and the power of moral character and virtue. See Napoleon deserted at his utmost need by those his prosperous bounty gorged. See Napoleon forced to abdicate his twice-snatched imperial sceptre!—and compare this with your Washington laying down his dictatorship, his absolute dominion, voluntarily, the moment he had accomplished his great purpose of making his beloved country, the New World, free and independent. Then the deep, silent attachment shown to him when he retired from the army, parted from military power, took leave of public life, is most touching—quite sublime in its truth and simplicity, in as strong contrast as possible with all the French acclamations, inconstancy, frivolity, desertion, treachery, insult, toward their prostrate idol of an Emperor. I felt while I read, and I feel while I reflect, how much of the difference between Napoleon and Washington must be ascribed to the different times, nations, circumstances in which they were placed. But independent of all these, the comparison ably and clearly drawn would lie between the individual characters—between moral and religious power and influence, and intellectual powers even supported by military glory and political despotism. The comparison would ultimately lie between success and merit, and between their transient and durable effects—their worldly and never-dying consequences.

Forgive me, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, for my having been actually run away with thus, and forgetting what I was going to say when I began. I was going to say that I wish Mr. Ticknor would draw the comparison between these two heroes of false and true glory—between real patriotism, true and great to the last, and ambition using patriotism as a mask, and having it struck from his hand powerless at the last. There is no one more able, better fitted to draw this than your husband. Channing has said well of the character of Napoleon as far as he went. But Mr. Ticknor, I conceive, has wider views, more means of information, and a less rhetorical style than Channing: and Sparks, having been the biographer of Washington, might be considered as a party too much concerned to be quite impartial. I am ashamed to have written so much that must seem common-place to him. But I will not tear the pages, as I am tempted to do, because there is a possibility that when you read them to him it might turn his mind to the subject—and no matter for the rest.

* * * * * * *

I do not know whether I was most interested, dear Mrs. Ticknor, in your picture of your domestic life and happy house and home, or by the view you gave me of your public festivity and celebration of your American day of days—your national festival in honor of your Declaration of Independence.

It was never, I suppose, more joyously, innocently and advantageously held than on the day you describe so delightfully with the accuracy of an eye-witness. I think I too have seen all this, and thank you for showing it to me. It is a picture that will never leave the memory of my heart. I only wish that we could ever hope to have in Ireland any occasion or possibility of such happy and peaceable meetings, with united sympathy and for the keeping alive a feeling of national patriotism. No such point of union can be found, alas! in Ireland—no subject upon which sects and parties could coalesce for one hour, or join in rejoicing or feeling for their country. Father Mathew, one might have hoped, considering the good he has effected for all Ireland, and considering his own unimpeachable character and his real liberality, admitting all sects and all parties to take his pledge and share his benevolent efforts, might have formed a central point round which all might gather. But no such hope! for as I am just now assured, his very Christian charity and liberality are complained of by his Catholic brethren, priests and laity, who now begin to abuse him for giving the pledge to Protestants and say, "What good our fastings, our temperance, our being of the true faith, if Father Mathew treats heretics all as one, as Catholics themselves! and would have 'em saved in this world and the next too?" Then I would not doubt but at the last he'd turn tail! aye, turn Protestant himself ENTIRELY. I have written so much to Mr. Ticknor about Father Mathew that I must here stop, or take care lest I run on with him again. Once set a-running, you see how I go on. You having encouraged me, and I from having conversed with you even for a few days, we have so much knowledge of each other's minds that it is as easy and pleasant to me to write as to speak to you. I will send you some Irish tales newly published by Mrs. Hall, which I think you will like, both from their being well-written and interesting portraitures of Irish life and manners, and from the conciliating, amiable and truly feminine (not meaning feeble) tone in which they are written.

* * * * * * *

I have not yet thanked you enough, I feel, for Rollo. Our children all, and we ourselves, delight in him at play and at work, and every way, and we wish to see more of him. If there be any more of him, pray pack him up bag and baggage and send him off by first steamer, steam-haste. By the by, are you or your children acquainted with the elephant who in his haste forgot to pack up his trunk?

If you are not acquainted with him, I shall have the pleasure of introducing him to you and yours.

Meantime, if you wish to be amused, and with what is new and what is true, read Mrs. Wilmot's Memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff, and her own residence in Russia. We know enough of the author to warrant the whole to be true. I do not say that she tells the whole truth, but that all she does tell is true, and what she does not tell she was bound in honor and friendship, and by the tacit, inviolable compact between confidence shown and accepted, never to reveal, much less to publish. Both in the Princess Dashkoff's own memoirs (very able and curious) and in Mrs. Wilmot's continuation (very amusing and new) there are from time to time great gaps, on coming to which the reader cries Ha! Ha! and feels that he must skip over. These gaps are never covered over; and when we come even to dangerous ground we see that we must not turn that way, or hope to get on in utter darkness and our guide deserting—or, if not deserting, standing stock still, obstinately dumb. These memoirs are not a book on which history could absolutely be founded, but a book to which the judicious historian might safely refer illustrations, and even for materials, all which it affords being sound and solid. Much more, in short, may these memoirs be depended upon than any or many of the French varnished and vamped-up Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire.

After reading the book I wrote to Mrs. Wilmot, and after homage due to her talents and her truth, I ventured to express, what I am sure you will feel if you read the volume, some horror, towards the close, at the Princess Dashkoff's accepting for herself or her sister, or for whoever it was, a ball from Orloff, the murderer—that Orloff who with his own hand strangled his Emperor.

Mrs. Wilmot made me but a lame apology for her dear princess, I think, and an odd answer for herself. In the first place, she said, it was so long ago. As if such a murder could be a by-gone tale! or as if thirty or forty or any number of years could purify or cleanse a murderer in the eyes and sense of humanity or justice! In the next place she pleaded that she was so much pleased by Orloff's angel daughter who stood beside him, and then with his parental delight in her beauty, simplicity and elegance in the dance.

Mrs. Wilmot was sure I should have felt as she did, and have forgotten the murderer in the father. But, on the contrary, I am afraid I should have forgotten the father in the murderer; I fear I should have seen only "the vile spot" which would never out of that hand! And oh! that horrible knee—I see it pressing on the body of the breathless Peter; and, through all the music of the ball-room band, methinks I hear "shrieks of an agonizing king."

Possibly in Russia "murder is lawful made by the excess," and may be palliated by the impartial historian's observing, "It was then necessary that the Emperor should CEASE TO BE"—soft synonym for assassination.

I ought not to leave Mrs. Wilmot and the Princess Dashkoff, however this may be, with a tragical and unmerited impression on your mind. I am quite convinced the princess had nothing to do with this horrid affair, or that our countrywoman never would have gone or never would have staid with her.

I can also assure you that when you read these memoirs you will be convinced, as I am, that the Princess Dashkoff was quite pure from all the Empress Catherine's libertine intrigues (I can use no softer phrase). This is proved by facts, not words, for no word does she say on the subject. But the fact is that during Orloff, the favorite Orloff's reign and his numerous successors, the Princess Dashkoff was never at court, banished herself on her travels or at her far-distant territories; she over-rated, idolized Catharine, but was her real friend, not flatterer.

It is scarcely worth telling you, but I will for your diversion mention that I asked Mrs. Wilmot whether the Princess Dashkoff evermore went about in the costume, which she described, of a man's great-coat, with stars and strings over it, at the ball, and with the sentimental old souvenir silk handkerchief about her throat. Yes. But Mrs. Wilmot would not let me laugh at her friend, and I liked her all the better. She defended the oddity by the kindness of the motive. It was not affectation of singularity, but privilege of originality, that should be allowed to a being so feeling and so educated by circumstances and so isolated—so let the ragged handkerchief and the old gloves museumized pass, and even the old overall of the man's coat on a woman and a princess—so be it.

But from the time of Cardinal Chigi and his one stump of a twenty-years-old pen on which he piqued himself, I quite agree with Cardinal Mazarin[11] that these petty singularities are proofs of a little mind, instead of an originality of genius.

And now, my dear Mrs. Ticknor, "Bisogna levar l'incommodità"—to use the parting phrase of a vulgar Italian who feels that she has made an unconscionable visit: or, as the cockney would say as she got up to depart from a morning visitation, "Time for me to be going, I think." And if you do not think so, or have not thought so ten pages ago, you are more indulgent and fonder of me than I had any right or reason to expect, even after all I have heard from and seen of you.

I promise you that you shall not be so tried again for a twelvemonth to come, at the least. Give my kind remembrances to your eldest daughter, who so kindly remembers me, and give a kiss for me to your youngest, that dear little plaything who cannot remember me, but whom I shall never forget; nor her father's fond look at her, when the tear was forgotten as soon as shed.

Ever affectionately, dear Mrs. Ticknor,

Your obliged friend,

Maria Edgeworth.

Turn over, and as the children's fairy-boards say, "you shall see what you shall see."

N. B.—Among the various scratchifications and scarifications in this volume, you may remark that there have been reiterated scratches at Mrs. and Miss Wilmot, and attempts alternately to turn the lady into Mrs. and Miss.

Be it now declared and understood that the lady is not either Mrs. or Miss Wilmot, but Mrs. Bradford—born Wilmot, daughter of a Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot of Cork—went over to Russia to better herself at the invitation of the Princess Dashkoff, who had, in a visit to Ireland, become acquainted with some of her family. What motives induced her to go to Russia, except the general notion of bettering her fortune, I cannot tell. But she did better her fortune, for the princess gave her pearls in strings, and diamonds in necklaces and rings, and five thousand solid pounds in her pocket, for all which she had like to have been poisoned before she could clear away with them out of Russia.

When she came back she married, or was married to, Mr. Bradford, a clergyman, and now lives in Sussex, England.

Now, in consideration of my having further bored you with all this, be pleased whenever you see Mrs. or Miss Wilmot in the foregoing pages to read Mrs. Bradford, and you will save me thereby the trouble and danger of scratching Mrs. or Miss Wilmot into ten or eleven holes.

The visit to London referred to was paid. Part of the time was spent agreeably visiting friends, seeing sights and reading new books, among them Darwin's Voyage in the Beagle, which delighted Miss Edgeworth. But the larger portion of her stay was occupied in nursing her sister Fanny through a weary illness, with the added mental anxiety of knowing that Mrs. Edgeworth was ill at home. Both invalids, however, happily recovered, yet Miss Edgeworth was to find an empty chair on her return; her aunt, Mary Sneyd, had been taken away at the advanced age of ninety. As often before, she felt the sorrow keenly, but rallied bravely from its effects for the sake of those who were left and who depended on her yet more.

During the summer of 1842 Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall visited Ireland. They spent some days at Edgeworthstown, with the avowed purpose of writing of its occupants, and we have from their pen also a pleasant picture of the family home-life:—

"The library at Edgeworthstown" (say the writers) "is by no means the reserved and solitary room that libraries are in general. It is large and spacious and lofty; well stored with books, and embellished with those most valuable of all classes of prints—the suggestive; it is also picturesque, having been added to so as to increase its breadth; the addition is supported by square pillars, and the beautiful lawn seen through the windows, embellished and varied by clumps of trees judiciously planted, imparts much cheerfulness to the exterior. An oblong table in the centre is a sort of rallying-point for the family, who group around it, reading, writing or working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious upon one point—that all in the house should do exactly as they like, without reference to her—sits quietly and abstractedly in her own peculiar corner on the sofa, her desk—upon which lies Sir Walter Scott's pen, given to her by him when in Ireland—placed before her upon a little quaint table, as unassuming as possible. Miss Edgeworth's abstractedness would puzzle the philosophers: in that same corner, and upon that table, she has written nearly all that has enlightened and delighted the world. There she writes as eloquently as ever, wrapt up to all appearance in her subject, yet knowing, by a sort of instinct, when she is really wanted in dialogue; and, without laying down her pen, hardly looking up from her page, she will, by a judicious sentence wisely and kindly spoken, explain and elucidate in a few words, so as to clear up any difficulty; or turn the conversation into a new and more pleasing current. She has the most harmonious way of throwing in explanations—informing without embarrassing. A very large family party assemble daily in this charming room, young and old bound alike to the spot by the strong cords of memory and love. Mr. Francis Edgeworth, the youngest son of the present Mrs. Edgeworth, and of course Miss Edgeworth's youngest brother, has a family of little ones who seem to enjoy the freedom of the library as much as their elders. To set these little people right if they are wrong; to rise from her table to fetch them a toy, or even to save a servant a journey; to mount the steps and find a volume that escapes all eyes but her own, and, having done so, to find exactly the passage wanted—are hourly employments of this most unspoiled and admirable woman. She will then resume her pen, and, what is more extraordinary, hardly seem to have even frayed the thread of her ideas; her mind is so rightly balanced, everything is so honestly weighed, that she suffers no inconvenience from what would disturb and distract an ordinary writer."

Miss Edgeworth wrote of this notice:—

Mrs. Hall has sent to me her last number, in which she gives Edgeworthstown. All the world here are pleased with it, and so am I. I like the way in which she has mentioned my father particularly. There is an evident kindness of heart and care to avoid everything that could hurt any of our feelings, and at the same time a warmth of affectionate feeling, unaffectedly expressed, that we all like in spite of our dislike to that sort of thing.

Early in 1843 Miss Edgeworth was taken seriously ill with bilious fever, from the effects of which she recovered but slowly. In late autumn she once more went to London to pass the winter with her sister. It was to be her last visit. She enjoyed it with all the freshness of youth, sight-seeing and visiting without fatigue, even attending an opening of Parliament, which she protested had not tired her more than if she had been eighteen. Her prayer and hope was, as it had been her father's, that her body might not survive her mind, and that she might leave a tender and not unpleasing recollection of herself in the hearts of her friends. Her letters certainly showed no falling-off in power, as is amply proved by one written during this visit to her Boston friends:—

London, 1 North Audley street,	}
Grosvenor square, January 1, 1844.

My Dear Friends Mr. and Mrs. Ticknor:

I cannot begin this new year better, or more to my own heartfelt satisfaction, than by greeting you with my best wishes for many, many happy years to you of your domestic felicity and public estimation—estimation superior to celebrity, you know, Mr. Ticknor, disdaining notoriety, which all low minds run after and all high minds despise. How I see this every day in this London world, and hear it from all other worlds—loudly from your New World across the great Atlantic, where those who make their boast of independence and equality are struggling and quarreling for petty preëminence and "vile trash."

I have been here with my sister, Mrs. Wilson, in a peaceful, happy home these six weeks, and the rattle of Grosvenor square, at the corner of which her house is, never disturbs the quiet of her little library, which is at the back of the house, and looks out upon gardens and trees (such as they are!)....

Among the pleasantest days I have enjoyed in London society, among friends of old standing and acquaintance of distinguished talents, I spent two days at my very good old friend Dr. Holland's, where I heard your name and your letter to your countrymen on Sydney Smith's memorial spoken of in the highest terms of just estimation! You know that Dr. Holland is married to Sydney Smith's daughter. I hope you know Dr. Holland's book, Medical Notes, which, though the title might seem exclusively professional, is full of such general and profound views of the human mind as well as body, that it could not but be interesting to you, and would prove to you for my present purpose that he is a person whose estimation and whose praise is worthy of you....

I do not know whether you made acquaintance, when you were in London, with Sydney Smith's brother, Mr. Robert S., or, as he is strangely cognomened (or nicknamed) Bobus Smith. He is well known as one of the celebrities of Holland House, where he has been figuring this half-century. But he no longer figures as a diner-out, and indeed, I believe from that notoriety he always seceded. He is now old and blind, but nevertheless has a most intelligent, energetic countenance, and I should almost say penetrating eye. When he turns and seems to look at me, I feel as if he looked into my face, and am glad so to feel, as he encourages me to open my mind to him by opening his own at once to me. I saw him for the first time a few evenings ago at Dr. Holland's, and sat between him and your American ambassador, Mr. Everett. I was much pleased by their manner towards each other, and by all they said of the letter of which I spoke. Mr. R. Smith has, in the opinion of all who know him and his brother, the strongest and highest and deepest powers of the two; not so much wit, but a more sound, logical understanding—superior might in the reasoning faculty. If the two brothers' hands grasped and grappled for mastery, with elbows set down upon the table, in the fashion in which schoolboys and others try strength, Robert Smith's hand would be uppermost, and Sydney must give way, laughing perhaps, and pretending that he only gave way to fight another day. But independently of victory or trials of strength, the earnestness for truth of the blind brother would decide my interest and sympathy in his favor.

Mr. Everett and Mr. R. Smith seemed to me properly to esteem each other, and to speak with perfect courtesy and discretion upon the most delicate national questions, on which, in truth, they liberally agreed more than could have been or was expected by the bystanders of different parties. Oh, Party Spirit! Party Spirit! how many follies, how many outrages are committed in thy name, even in common conversation!

Mr. Everett did me the honor to come to visit us a few mornings after I had first met him at Dr. Holland's, and sat a good hour conversing as if we had been long known to each other. It is to me the most gratifying proof of esteem to be thus let at once into the real mind, the sanctum sanctorum, instead of being kept with ceremonials and compliments on the steps, in the ante-chamber, or even in the salle de reception, doing Kotoo Chinese or any other fashion.

We went over vast fields of thought in our short hour, from America to France, and to England and to Ireland, Washington, Lafayette, Bonaparte, O'Connell. You may guess it could only be a vue d'oiseau, flying too, but still a pounce down upon a true point now and then, and agreeing in our general unchangeable view that moral excellence is essential to make the man really great; that the highest intellectual superiority that can be given by Omnipotence to mortal ought not and does not, even in human opinion, entitle him without moral worth to the character of great. Mr. Everett tells me that Washington Irving is going to publish another life of Washington. I fear his workmanship will be too fine and delicate for the main matter. Boldness, boldness, boldness—and brevity. Oh, the strength of brevity! Brevity keeps fast hold of the memory, and more fast hold of the judgment; the whole process, en petit compris, goes in a few words with the verdict to "long posterity," while elegance only charms the taste, accords with the present fashion of literature, and passes away, gliding gracefully into "mere oblivion."

Lecture upon brevity well exemplified by present correspondent.

A severe attack of erysipelas laid her low this summer; but if it weakened her body it did not depress her mental faculties. She writes to her cousin with all the buoyancy of youth:—

I am right glad to look forward to the hope of seeing you again, and talking all manner of nonsense and sense, and laughing myself and making you laugh, as I used to do, though I am six years beyond the allotted age and have had so many attacks of illness within the last two years; but I am, as Bess Fitzherbert and poor dear Sophy used to say, like one of those pith puppets that you knock down in vain; they always start up the same as ever.... Sir Henry Marsh managed me with skill, and let me recover slowly, as nature requires at advanced age. I am obliged to repeat myself, "advanced age," because really and truly neither my spirits nor my powers of locomotion and facility of running up and down stairs would put me in mind of it. I do not find either my love for my friends or my love of literature in the least failing. I enjoyed, even when flattest in my bed, hearing Harriet Butler reading to me till eleven o'clock at night.

Her interest in the current literature was sustained; and though she had little sympathy with the romantic school of poetry and fiction that had arisen, her criticisms were both fair and acute. Of the modern French writers she said:—

All the fashionable French novelists will soon be reduced to advertising for a new vice, instead of, like the Roman Emperor, simply for a new pleasure. It seems to me with the Parisian novelists a first principle now that there is no pleasure without vice, and no vice without pleasure, but that the Old World vices having been exhausted, they must strain their genius to invent new; and so they do, in the most wonderful and approved bad manner, if I may judge from the few specimens I have looked at.

Henrietta Temple she condemns as "trash," "morally proving that who does wrong should be rewarded with love and fortune." Indeed, so eager was she over books, so ardently did she still enter into all adventures and details, that when she was ill her doctor found it needful to prescribe that her reading must be confined to some old, well-known work, or else something that should entertain and interest her without over-exciting her or straining her attention.

During the whole of 1846 the long illness and death of her brother Francis absorbed all Miss Edgeworth's interest. Next year came the terrible potato famine. She strained every nerve to help the sufferers; her time, her thoughts, her purse, her whole strength, were devoted to the poor. She could hardly feel or think on any other theme; plans to relieve the distress, petitions for aid, filled her letters. She even turned her attention once more to writing, in order to get more money for her starving countrymen. The result was Orlandino, a tale for children, relating the fortunes and reformation of a graceless truant. It was the last work she published—her literary career thus ending, as it began, with a tale to give gladness to childhood. She had her reward in a great pleasure that came to her from America. The children of Boston, hearing what pains their kind friend in Ireland was taking for her unhappy compatriots, as a recognition of their love for her and her writings, organized a subscription. At the end of a few weeks they were able to send her one hundred and fifty barrels of flour and rice. They came with the simple address, worth more to her than many phrases: "To Miss Edgeworth, for her poor."

She was deeply touched and grateful. It touched her also that the porters, who carried the grain down to the shore, refused to be paid; and with her own hands she knitted a woolen comforter for each man and sent them to a friend for distribution. Before they reached their destination the hands that had worked them were cold, and the beating of that warm, kind heart stilled forever.

For scarcely was the famine over, and before Miss Edgeworth's over-taxed strength had time to recoup, another and yet heavier blow was to befall her. Indeed, many deaths and sorrows as she had known, in some respects this was the severest that had for some years come upon her. It was natural to see the old go before her, but not so the young, and when in 1848 her favorite sister Fanny died rather suddenly, Miss Edgeworth felt that the dearest living object of her love had gone.

The shock did not apparently tell on her health, as she continued to employ herself with her usual interest and sympathy in all the weal and woe of her family and many friends, but the life-spring had snapped, unknown perhaps even to her, certainly unknown to those around her. For she bore up bravely, cheerfully, and was to all appearances as bright as ever. Next to doing good, reading was still her greatest pleasure:—

Our pleasures in literature do not, I think, decline with age. Last 1st of January was my eighty-second birthday, and I think that I had as much enjoyment from books as ever I had in my life.

History gave her particular delight:—

I am surprised to find how much more history interests me now than when I was young, and how much more I am now interested in the same events recorded, and their causes and consequences shown, in this history of the French Revolution, and in all the history of Europe during the last quarter of a century, than I was when the news came fresh and fresh in the newspapers. I do not think I had sense enough to take in the relations and proportions of the events. It was like moving a magnifying glass over the parts of a beetle, and not taking in the whole.

Macaulay's history charmed her, and in all her first enthusiasm she wrote a long letter about it to her old friend, Sir Henry Holland. He showed it to Macaulay, who was so struck with its discrimination and ability that he begged to be allowed to keep it. Among all the incidents connected with the publication of his book, nothing, it is said, pleased Macaulay more than the gratification he had contrived to give Miss Edgeworth as a small return for the enjoyment which, during more than forty years, he had derived from her writings:—

Trim, April 2nd, 1849.

My dear Dr. Holland:

I have just finished Macaulay's two volumes of the History of England with the same feeling that you expressed—regret at coming to the end, and longing for another volume—the most uncommon feeling, I suppose, that readers of two thick octavo volumes of the history of England and of times so well known, or whose story has been so often written, ever experienced. In truth, in the whole course of reading or hearing it read I was sorry to stop and glad to go on. It bears peculiarly well that severe test of being read aloud; it never wearies the ear by the long resounding line, but keeps the attention alive by the energy shown. It is the perfection of style so varied, and yet the same in fitness, in propriety, in perspicuity, in grace, in dignity and eloquence, and, whenever naturally called forth, in that just indignation which makes the historian as well as the poet. If Voltaire says true that "the style is the man," what a man must Macaulay be! But the man is in fact as much more than the style, as the matter is more than the manner. It is astonishing with what ease Macaulay wields, manages, arranges his vast materials collected far and near, and knows their value and proportions so as to give the utmost strength and force and light and life to the whole, and sustains the whole. Such new lights are thrown upon historic facts and historic characters that the old appear new, and that which had been dull becomes bright and entertaining and interesting. Exceedingly interesting he has made history by the happy use and aid of biography and anecdote. A word brings the individual before us, and shows not only his character, but the character of the times, and at once illustrates or condemns to everlasting fame. Macaulay has proved by example how false Madame de Staël's principle was that biography and biographical anecdotes were altogether inadmissible in history—below the dignity or breaking the proportion or unity, I suppose she thought. But whatever might be her reasons, she gave this opinion to Dumont, who told it to me. Much good it did her! How much more interesting historical précis in painting or in writing, which is painting in word, are made by the introduction of portraits of celebrated individuals! Either as actors or even as spectators, the bold figures live, and merely by their life further the action and impress the sense of truth and reality. I have pleasure, my dear Dr. Holland, in pointing out to you, warm as it first comes, the admiration which this work has raised to this height in my mind. I know this will give you sympathetic pleasure.

And now, my good friend, in return I require from you prompt and entire belief in an assertion which I am about to make, which may appear to you at first incredible. But try-try; at all events the effort will give you occasion to determine a question which perhaps, excellent metaphysician as you have shown yourself, you never settled whether you can or cannot believe at will.

That which I require you to believe is ☞ that all the admiration I have expressed of Macaulay's work is quite uninfluenced by the self-satisfaction, vanity, pride, surprise, delight, I had in finding my own name in a note!!!!!

Be assured, believe it or not as you may or can, that neither my vanity nor my gratitude weighed with my judgment in the slightest degree in the opinion I formed, or in that warmth with which it was poured out. In fact, I had formed my opinion, and expressed it with no less warmth to my friends round me, reading the book to me, before I came to that note; moreover, there was a mixture of shame and twinge of pain with the pleasure, the pride I felt in having a line in his immortal history given to me, when the historian makes no mention of Sir Walter Scott throughout the work, even in places where it seems impossible that genius could resist paying the becoming tribute which genius owes and loves to pay to genius. I cannot conceive how this could be. I cannot bring myself to imagine that the words Tory or Whig, or Dissenter or Churchman, or feeling of party or natural spirit, could bias such a man as Macaulay. Perhaps he reserves himself for the forty-five, and I hope in heaven it is so, and that you will tell me I am very impetuous and prematurely impertinent. Meanwhile, be so good to make my grateful and deeply-felt thanks to the great author for the honor which he has done me. When I was in London some years ago, and when I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Macaulay, I took the liberty of expressing a wish that he would visit Ireland, and that if he did we might have the honor of seeing him at our house. I am very glad to find that the Battle of the Boyne will bring him here. He must have now so many invitations from those who have the highest inducement to offer, that I hardly dare to repeat my request. But will you, my dear friends, do whatever you can with propriety for us, and say how much Mrs. Edgeworth and myself and our whole family would be gratified by his giving us even a call on his way to some better place, and even an hour of his conversation. I am now at Trim with my sister and dear brother. Trim and its ruins, and the tower, and where kings and generals and poets have been, would perhaps, he may think, be worth his seeing. Dean Butler and my sister feel as I do how many claims Mr. Macaulay must have upon his time in his visit to Ireland; but they desire me to say that if anything should bring him into this neighborhood, they should think themselves highly honored by receiving him. I am sure he would be interested by Mr. Butler's conversation and remarks on various parts of Macaulay's history, and I should exceedingly like to hear it commented and discussed. Little i must come in, you see, at every close. You will observe that, in speaking of Macaulay's work, I have spoken only of the style, the only point of which I could presume to think my opinion could be of any value. Of the great attributes, of the essential qualities of the historian, accuracy, fidelity, impartiality, I could not, even if I thought myself qualified to judge, attempt to speak in this letter.

But I am sensible that I have neither the knowledge nor the strength, much less the coolness of judgment, necessary to make opinion valuable on such subjects. I could easily give my own opinion, but—of no use. The less I am inclined to speak when I do not know, the more I am anxious to hear; and most delightful and profitable would it be to me to hear the great historian himself speak on many points which I hear discussed by my learned brother, Dean Butler, and others (on Clarendon's character, etc., etc., etc.) We have not yet seen any of the public reviews of Macaulay's history. No doubt the stinging, little, ephemeral insects will come out in swarms to buzz and fly-blow in the sunshine. The warmer, the brighter, the thicker the swarm will be to prick. I hope you will read this unconscionable lengthy letter when you are in your carriage, rolling about from patient to patient, and be patient yourself then, my dear doctor. You are always so very good and kind to me that I encroach. I seldom write such long epistles. As the most impudent beggar-woman in our town says to Mrs. E., "Ma'am, your ladyship, I never beg from any one so much as your ladyship; troth, never from any but you." ...

Give my most kind and affectionate remembrances to Mrs. Holland and your daughters and sons, and

Believe me most garrulously and sincerely yours,

Maria Edgeworth.

This letter, so characteristic in its humility and generous admiration, shows no sign of old age or impaired faculties, neither is there any trace of this in one of the last she ever wrote, addressed to her sister Harriet:—

I am heartily obliged and delighted by your being such a goose and Richard such a gander, as to be frightened out of your wits at my going up the ladder to take off the top of the clock! Know, then, that I am quite worthy of that most unmerited definition of man, "A creature that looks before and after." Before I let on to anybody my doubts of my own capability of reaching the nail on which to hang the top, I called Shaw, and made her stand at the foot of the ladder while I went up, and found I could no more reach the nail than I could reach the moon, Exit Shaw!

Prudence of M. E., Act 2: Summoned Cassidy, and informed him that I was to wind up the clock, and that he was promoted to take off the top for me; and then up I went and wound the clock, and wound it as I had done before you was born, as there is nothing easier, only to see that it is not going to maintain at the very instant, which is plainly to be noted by the position of the maintaining pin on the little outer wheel relative to the first deep tooth. You see I am not quite a nincompoop. I send my lines:—

"Ireland, with all thy faults, thy follies too,

I love thee still: still with a candid eye must view

Thy wit too quick, still blundering into sense;

Thy reckless humor; sad improvidence;

And even what sober judges follies call—

I, looking at the heart, forget them all."

Maria E., May, 1849.

Miss Edgeworth had been staying with Mr. and Mrs. Butler in the spring. When taking leave she was unusually agitated and depressed, but said as she went away: "At Whitsuntide I shall return." On the very day before she was to redeem this promise, she drove out in apparent good health, when a sudden feeling of weakness overcame her and made her return to the house. Severe pains in the region of the heart set in, and after a few hours' illness Maria Edgeworth died—died as she had fondly wished, at home, in the arms of her stepmother. Yet another of her wishes was granted: she had spared her friends the anguish of seeing her suffer from protracted illness. May 22d, 1849, she rose from the banquet of life, where, in her own words, she had been a happy guest.

In her latter years Miss Edgeworth had been asked to furnish prefaces of a biographical character to her novels. She refused, saying she had nothing personal to tell. "As a woman, my life, wholly domestic, cannot afford anything interesting to the public; I am like the 'needy knife-grinder'—I have no story to tell."

Was she right? or is not the story of so loving and lovable a life worth telling?

---

MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.

Famous Women Series.

GEORGE ELIOT.

By MATHILDE BLIND.

One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

———

"Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous Women with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of the series is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages in open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that are known in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other material from personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a good idea of proportion in a memoir of its size. The critical study of its subject's works, which is made in the order of their appearance, is particularly well done. In fact, good taste and good judgment pervade the memoir throughout."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

"Miss Blind's little book is written with admirable good taste and judgment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea' and 'nay' of life. It is a graceful and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents," says the New York Tribune.

"Miss Blind's little biographical study of George Eliot is written with sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if not elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great novelist, is particularly full and authentic concerning her earlier years, tells enough of the leading motives in her work to give the general reader a lucid idea of the true drift and purpose of her art, and analyzes carefully her various writings, with no attempt at profound criticism or fine writing, but with appreciation, insight, and a clear grasp of those underlying psychological principles which are so closely interwoven in every production that came from her pen."—Traveller.

"The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and speculation than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the century she might easily have become the centre of a mythos. As it is, many of the anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of fable. It is, therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true story of her career to the lowest terms, and this service has been well done by the author of the present volume."—Philadelphia Press.

———

Sold by all booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.

———

MARY LAMB.

By ANNE GILCHRIST.

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

"The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, but never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has just contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by Talfourd in his Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known as the years went on and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and franker biographies,—became so well known, in fact, that no one could recall the memory of Lamb without recalling at the same time the memory of his sister."—New York Mail and Express.

"A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a biography of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister encompassed by that of her brother; and it must be allowed that Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has performed a difficult biographical task with taste and ability.... The reader is at least likely to lay down the book with the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous she certainly deserves to be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for this well-considered record of her life."—Boston Courier.

"Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while through the terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman struggling year after year with madness, triumphant over it for a season, and then at last succumbing to it. The saddest lines that ever were written are those descriptive of this brother and sister just before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 'On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' What pathos is there not here?"—New York Times.

"This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of pain patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in sorrow and affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography is unaffected and simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story with judicious sympathy, showing always the light shining through darkness."—Philadelphia Press.

———

Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.

———

GEORGE SAND.

By BERTHA THOMAS.

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

"Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense as good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand's life, extenuating nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely leaving her readers to form their own conclusions. Everybody knows that it was not such a life as the women of England and America are accustomed to live, and as the worst of men are glad to have them live.... Whatever may be said against it, its result on George Sand was not what it would have been upon an English or American woman of genius."—New York Mail and Express.

"This is a volume of the 'Famous Women Series,' which was begun so well with George Eliot and Emily Brontë. The book is a review and critical analysis of George Sand's life and work, by no means a detailed biography. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant, the married woman, is forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George Sand.

"Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a representative woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century. She was great among the greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest intellects, and Miss Thomas's essay will be a useful and agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life and works."—Knickerbocker.

"The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but with some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on George Sand that has yet been published. The author modestly refers to it as a sketch, which it undoubtedly is, but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating analysis of George Sand's life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses which prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this remarkable character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter, which says, 'In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.' That tells the whole story. Misconstruction, condemnation, and isolation are the penalties enforced upon the great leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by the bigoted people of their time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, whose soul-wings are not strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and consequently they censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George Sand, even to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim to ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced to recognize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each widely different in her character and method of thought and writing.... She has told much that is good which has been untold, and just what will interest the reader, and no more, in the same easy, entertaining style that characterizes all of these unpretentious biographies."—Hartford Times.

———

Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.

FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES.

———

EMILY BRONTË.

By A. MARY F. ROBINSON.

One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.

"Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography.... Emily Brontë is interesting, not because she wrote 'Wuthering Heights,' but because of her brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope shining beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in bearing more than the burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters is infinitely sad, but it is the ennobling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author of this intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young lady and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets, which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the best writers."—Boston Daily Advertiser.

"Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she has performed in this little volume, among which may be named, an enthusiastic interest in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily Brontë's sad and heroic life. 'To represent her as she was,' says Miss Robinson, 'would be her noblest and most fitting monument.' ... Emily Brontë here becomes well known to us and, in one sense, this should be praise enough for any biography."—New York Times.

"The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and characters of the Brontë family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Characters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that Miss Robinson has told their story not in prosaic language, but with a literary style exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers will understand that this life of Emily Brontë is not only as interesting as a novel, but a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it presents most vividly a general picture of the family, there seems hardly a reason for giving it Emily's name alone, except perhaps for the masterly chapters on 'Wuthering Heights,' which the reader will find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but somewhat forbidding story. We know of no point in the Brontë history—their genius, their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their love and friendships, their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness, their patience, their pride,—which Miss Robinson has not touched upon with conscientiousness and sympathy."—The Critic.

"'Emily Brontë' is the second of the 'Famous Women Series,' which Roberts Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which 'George Eliot' was the initial volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the personage whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to all who are at all familiar with the sad and singular history of herself and her sister Charlotte. That the author, Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, has done her work with minute fidelity to facts as well as affectionate devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be seen all through the book."—Washington Post.

———

Sold by all Booksellers, or mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

A SELECTION FROM

Messrs. ROBERTS BROTHERS'

LATEST NEW PUBLICATIONS.

FIGURES OF THE PAST. From the Leaves of Old Journals. By Josiah Quincy (Class of 1821, Harvard College). 16mo. Price $1.50

"There are chapters on life in the Academy at Andover, on Harvard Sixty Years Ago, on Commencement Day in 1821, the year of the author's graduation, and on visits to and talks with John Adams, with reminiscences of Lafayette, Judge Story, John Randolph, Jackson and other eminent persons, and sketches of old Washington and old Boston society. The kindly pen of the author is never dipped in gall—he remembers the pleasing aspects of character, and his stories and anecdotes are told in the best of humor and leave no sting. The book is of a kind which we are not likely to have again, for the men of Mr. Quincy's generation, those at least who had his social opportunities, are nearly all gone. These pictures of old social and political conditions are especially suggestive as reminding us that a single life, only lately closed, linked us with days, events and men that were a part of our early history and appear remote because of the multitude of changes that have transformed society in the interval."—Boston Journal.

WHIST, OR BUMBLEPUPPY? By Pembridge. From the Second London Edition. 16mo. Cloth. Price .50

Definition of Bumblepuppy.—Bumblepuppy is persisting to play whist, either in utter ignorance of all its known principles, or in defiance of them, or both.

"'Whist, or Bumblepuppy?' is one of the most entertaining, and at the same time one of the soundest books on whist ever written. Its drollery may blind some readers to the value of its advice; no man who knows anything about whist, however, will fail to read it with interest, and few will fail to read it with advantage. Upon the ordinary rules of whist, Pembridge supplies much sensible and thoroughly amusing comment. The best player in the world may gain from his observations, and a mediocre player can scarcely find a better counsellor. There is scarcely an opinion expressed with which we do not coincide."—London Sunday Times.

RECOLLECTIONS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By T. Hall Caine. With Portrait. One vol. 8vo. Cloth, gilt. Price $3.00

"Mr. Caine's 'Recollections of Rossetti' throws light upon many events in Rossetti's life over which there hung a veil of mystery.... A book that must survive."—London Athenæum.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

PEARLS OF THE FAITH; or, Islam's Rosary; being the "Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah." By Edwin Arnold. 16mo. Cloth. Uniform with "The Light of Asia." Price, $1.00

"Mr. Edwin Arnold has finished his Oriental trilogy. The first part is 'The Light of Asia.' The second part is 'The Indian Song of Songs.' The trilogy is completed by 'Pearls of the Faith,' in which the poet tells the beads of a pious Moslem. The Mohammedan has a chaplet of three strings, each string containing 33 beads, each bead representing one of the 'Ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah.' These short poems have no connection; they vary in measure, but are all simple and without a touch of obscurity. All the legends and instructions inculcate the gentle virtues that make life lovely—courtesy, humility, hospitality, care for the poor and the ill, kindness to dumb animals, perfect manners in social intercourse. Many of the poems are suitable for Christian Sunday-schools.... The view of Mohammedanism given by these poems is very pleasant; the precepts for life here are sweet and noble; the promises for heaven are definite; they appeal directly to the love of what is known as pleasure in this life, and that must be renounced in this life, but in the next it may be enjoyed to the uttermost without evil consequences."—Boston Daily Advertiser.

ART AND NATURE IN ITALY. By Eugene Benson. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"Mr. Benson's long residence in that country has operated to imbue his mind with the spirit of the region. He treats con amore of its art in its historical and in its modern aspects, and he presents its scenes of nature in their most fascinating form. Mr. Benson is not only one of the most appreciative of students and observers, but he has a rare grace of manner as well. He writes little of late, but his productions are always acceptable to cultivated people."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

"This book is a record of impressions and reflections on art and nature in Italy. The great beauty and the historic associations of the country are set forth in very pleasing language by one who fully appreciates them. He particularly describes those portions of that beautiful land in which its most distinguished artists have lived, showing how its natural features, its enchanting scenery, must have had a molding influence upon their tastes and their works. His estimates of art and artists and his criticisms are, in the main, just and satisfactory."—Western Christian Advocate.

NORSE STORIES, RETOLD FROM THE EDDAS. By Hamilton W. Mabie. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"Is one of the most charming little books for children I have ever seen. The myths are splendidly told, and every household in America ought to have a copy of the book."—Prof. R. B. Anderson.

"The old Norse stories bear being told again and again. Mr. Mabie keeps their freshness, fascination and simplicity in his new version of them, and one reads with unabated pleasure of Odin's search for wisdom, of the wooing of Gerd, and of all the strange adventures of Thor, of the beautiful Balder, of the wicked Loke and, best of all, of the new earth that was created after long years of darkness, in which there was no sun, no moon, no stars, no Asgard, no Hel, no Jotunheim; in which gods, giants, monsters and men were all dead—the earth upon which the gods look lovingly, upon which men are industrious and obedient, and know that the All-Father helps them."—Boston Daily Advertiser.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

A LITTLE PILGRIM. Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine. 16mo. Cloth. Red edges. Price, $.75

"An exquisitely written little sketch is found in that remarkable production, 'The Little Pilgrim,' which is just now attracting much attention both in Europe and America. It is highly imaginative in its scope, representing one of the world-worn and weary pilgrims of our earthly sphere as entering upon the delights of heaven after death. The picture of heaven is drawn with the rarest delicacy and refinement, and is in agreeable contrast in this respect to the material sketch of this future home furnished in Miss Stuart Phelps's well-remembered 'Gates Ajar.' The book will be a balm to the heart of many readers who are in accord with the faith of its author; and to others its reading will afford rare pleasure from the exceeding beauty and affecting simplicity of its almost perfect literary style."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

"The life beyond the grave, when the short life in this world is ended, is to many a source of dread—to all a mystery. 'A Little Pilgrim' has apparently solved it, and, indeed, it seems on reading this little book as if there were a great probability about it. A soft, gentle tone pervades its every sentence, and one cannot read it without feeling refreshed and strengthened."—The Alta California.

THE GREAT EPICS OF MEDIÆVAL GERMANY. An Outline of their Contents and History. By George Theodore Dippold, Professor at Boston University and Wellesley College. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50

Professor Francis J. Child, of Harvard College, says: "It is an excellent account of the chief German heroic poems of the Middle Ages, accompanied with spirited translations. It is a book which gives both a brief and popular, and also an accurate, account of this important section of literature, and will be very welcome here and at other colleges."

"No student of modern literature, and above all no student who aims to understand the literary development of Europe in its fullest range, can leave this rich and ample world of early song unexplored. To all such Professor Dippold's book will have the value of a trustworthy guide.... It has all the interest of a chapter in the growth of the human mind into comprehension of the universe and of itself, and it has the pervading charm of the vast realm of poetry through which it moves."—Christian Union.

MY HOUSEHOLD OF PETS. By Theophile Gautier. Translated from the French by Susan Coolidge. With illustrations by Frank Rogers. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25

"This little book will interest lovers of animals, and the quaint style in which M. Gautier tells of the wisdom of his household pets will please every one. The translator, too, is happy in her work, for she has succeeded in rendering the text into English without loss of the French tone, which makes it fascinating. These household pets consisted of white and black cats, dogs, chameleons, lizards, magpies, and horses, each of which has a character and story of its own. Illustrations and a pretty binding add to the attractions of the volume."—Worcester Spy.

"The ease and elegance of Theophile Gautier's diction is wonderful, and the translator has preserved the charm of the French author with far more than the average fidelity. 'My Household of Pets' is a book which can be read with pleasure by young and old. It is a charming volume."—St. Louis Spectator.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

CHRISTIAN HISTORY IN ITS THREE GREAT PERIODS. By Joseph Henry Allen, late lecturer on ecclesiastical history in Harvard University.

Second Period. "The Middle Age." Topics.—1. The Ecclesiastical System. 2. Feudal Society. 3. The Work of Hildebrand. 4. The Crusades. 5. Chivalry. 6. The Religious Orders. 7. Heretics. 8. Scholastic Theology. 9. Religious Art. 10. Dante. 11. The Pagan Revival. Also a new edition of the

First Period. "Early Christianity." Originally published under the title of "Fragments of Christian History." The two volumes uniformly bound. 16mo. Price each, $1.25

"Whatever may be said or thought of Professor Joseph Henry Allen's 'Christian History,' which will be completed by the publication of a third volume, it is the first and foremost work of the kind ever attempted in this country. Even in our theological schools, the history of the Church is usually taught on the basis of some foreign manual, of which Guericke may be mentioned as the most favorable example, although the book is clumsy and exceedingly narrow-minded. The history of the Church, written for the use of educated men and women, has never been so much as attempted in this country. Our theologians have never been partial to ecclesiastical history, and in most cases they have been satisfied with accepting the statements of so-called standard authorities. Professor Allen's two volumes, covering the early Church and the middle age, are distinctly a new departure, for they rest in good part on original research.... There can be no reasonable doubt that in Professor Allen's work we have the most considerable attempt at the history of the Church ever made in the United States."—Boston Daily Advertiser.

Third Period. "Modern Phases." (In press.)

A NEW LIFE OF SWEDENBORG. The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg. By Benjamin Worcester. With an Introductory Chapter on Swedenborg's Place in History, an Appendix giving a complete list of Swedenborg's Writings, and a fine steel-engraved portrait and facsimile of his handwriting. One large 12mo volume. Cloth, gilt top. Price, $2.00.

"It is a large 12mo volume of towards five hundred pages, in which the author has collected, with great care, the leading facts relating to the Swedish seer, and has woven them into a biography prepared with scrupulous fidelity, though of course marked by the most reverent admiration for its subject. Mr. Worcester holds to the reality of the visions of Swedenborg, and believes the revelations which his works furnish as the result to be supplementary in the quality of inspiration to the Bible. The work is not one of the most attractively written pieces of biography; but its subject is interesting, and there are characteristics of Swedenborg which, aside from any supernatural endowment, plainly stamp him as one of the great minds of his time. His followers, if they are not as large as those of many of the religious sects of the day, are people of the purest minds and most intelligent perceptions, without a tendency to credulity or a tinge of fanaticism in their natures. This book will be welcomed by them as a repository of much that is valuable in the founder of their religion. It contains a portrait of Swedenborg. Many extracts from his writings are also given as incidental to the biography."—Gazette.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston

---

GEORGE ELIOT. Famous Women Series. By Mathilde Blind. One volume, 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"The first volume in the 'Famous Women' series just begun by Roberts Brothers is a life of 'George Eliot,' by Mathilde Blind. It is a clear, concise and masterly sketch, from a woman's point of view, of the career and work of the most remarkable figure in current English literature. It has a peculiar value, in that its author, in its preparation, collected her material from private and living sources. She had the assistance and countenance of Mr. Isaac Evans, a brother of George Eliot, from whom she obtained much valuable information, and a large mass of unpublished correspondence was placed at her disposal by such friends of the dead author as C. L. Lewes, W. M. Rosetti and James Thomson. By thus having her material at first hand, Miss Blind is enabled to correct certain mistakes which have found place in every memoir of George Eliot until now published."—Boston Transcript.

"Miss Blind's little book is written with admirable good taste and judgment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea' and 'nay' of life. It is a graceful and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting, if not fascinating, woman whom Miss Blind presents," says the N. Y. Tribune.

HESTER STANLEY AT ST. MARK'S. By Harriet Prescott Spofford. With illustrations. Small 4to. Cloth. Price, $1.25

"For the first time Mrs. Spofford has tried her hand at a juvenile. 'Hester Stanley' is emphatically a girl's book, a story of school-day life 'at St. Mark's,' which will be read with great interest."

"This book is, we believe, the first attempt that Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford has made to write a story for girls, but it is written with so delicate a touch and in such a pleasing style that most girl readers who chance upon it will hope that it may not be the last. It is a story of a life in a girl's boarding-school, and the young heroine of it comes almost as near to the ideal of what is winning and womanly as Tom Brown did to the ideal of frank young manhood. The tone of the book is high and pure and sweet, and we do not remember a story among the recent issues of the press which can be placed in the hands of girls with a stronger assurance that they will be charmed with its teaching and inspiration."—Item.

EMILY BRONTË. Famous Women Series. By A. Mary F. Robinson. One volume, 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography." ... "Emily Brontë is interesting, not because she wrote 'Wuthering Heights,' but because of her brave, baffled human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope shining beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in bearing more than the burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters was infinitely sad, but it is the ennobling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author of this intensely interesting, sympathetic and eloquent biography is a young lady and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets, which is supposed to contain only the best poems of the best writers," says the Boston Daily Advertiser.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

THE JEAN INGELOW BIRTHDAY BOOK. With red-line border and divisions, 12 illustrations and portrait. 16mo. Cloth, gilt and illuminated. Price, $1.00

Full calf or morocco, $3.50

"This is a dainty little volume having a selection from Jean Ingelow for each day of the year. The extracts are of both prose and verse. There are graceful illustrations for each month suited in subject to the season. The book will be welcomed by admirers of this writer and must prove a popular gift-book for the birthday season."—Chicago Advance.

"We have seen no more tasteful book this year than 'The Jean Ingelow Birthday Book,' which Messrs. Roberts Brothers publish. It is somewhat larger in form than are the birthday books with which the public is familiar, is printed on very fine paper, and has a page with the usual quotations and the usual blanks, the whole encircled with a carmine line border, the date of the days of the months being printed in the same color. The work is illustrated with handsome engravings, and has a steel-engraved portrait of Jean Ingelow. The binding is a real gem. Nothing could well be more attractive in the way of cloth ornament than is its combination of design and color."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

UNDER THE SUN. By Phil. Robinson, the new English Humorist. With a Preface by Edwin Arnold, author of "The Light of Asia." 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50

This is a volume of essays, humorous and pathetic, of incidents, scenes, and objects grouped under the heads: Indian Sketches, The Indian Seasons, Unnatural History, Idle Hours under the Punkah.

"Under the Sun," by Phil. Robinson, is one of the most delightful of recent books. The style is fascinating in its strength and picturesqueness, and there is now and then a delicious quaintness that recalls Charles Lamb. A volume such as this is rare in our day, when the art of essay writing is almost lost and forgotten. Freshness, vigor, humor, pathos, graphic power, a keen love for nature, a gentle love for animals, and a pleasing originality are among the more charming characteristics of this work, which may be read again and again with renewed satisfaction. Its scenes are laid in India, and whether the author discourses of the elephant, the rhinoceros, some bird that has attracted his attention, a tree, or a flower; whether he describes an exciting hunt, or tells a marvellous story; whether he moralizes or gives free rein to his fancy, he is always brilliant, fascinating, vivacious and masterly. It is difficult to write of this remarkable book without superlatives; but it is not too much to insist that it is impossible to exaggerate its peculiar merits, or to bestow too large a share of praise upon it. It is not a book for the few, but for the many, and all will find delight in its perusal."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

A CONCISE ENGLISH HISTORY, From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By W. M. Lupton. A readable volume of 400 pages, comprising, in paragraphs, every important event in the history of England. 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50

"Mr. W. M. Lupton's 'Concise English History' condenses into 332 pages the substance of the history of England from the invasion of Julius Cæsar down to our own time, and appends an index of 60 pages as a key to the contents of his admirable little book. It has peculiar merits as a school-book, and is the skeleton companion to the late J. R. Green's 'History of the English People.'"

"This is a volume that will be found very helpful to the student of history. It has 400 pages only, and yet every event of importance is to be found there. The general plan is to present the facts compressed into the fewest and clearest words. We heartily commend it."—School Journal.

AN INLAND VOYAGE. By Robert Louis Stevenson, author of "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes." 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"Those who have read Mr. Stevenson's delightful 'Travels with a Donkey,' in which he told the story of a unique trip among the mountains of Southern France, will gladly welcome this bright account of a canoe voyage through the canals of Belgium, on the Sambre, and down the Oise. Unlike Captain Macgregor, of 'Rob Roy' fame, Mr. Stevenson does not make canoeing itself his main theme, but delights in charming bits of description that, in their close attention to picturesque detail, remind one of the work of a skilled 'genre' painter. Nor does he hesitate, from time to time, to diverge altogether from his immediate subject, and to indulge in a strain of gently humorous reflection that furnishes some of the pleasantest passages of the book." ... "In a modest and quiet way Mr. Stevenson's book is one of the very best of the year for summer reading. The volume has a very neat design for the cover, with a fanciful picture of the 'Arethusa' and 'Cigarette,' the canoes of the author and his companion. The versatility which could produce works so unlike as 'An Inland Voyage' and the 'New Arabian Nights' is somewhat unusual."—Good Literature.

LETTERS TO A FRIEND. By the late Connop Thirlwall, D. D., Bishop of St. David's, and edited by the late Dean Stanley. New and much enlarged edition. One volume, crown 8vo. Price, $1.50

"One of the most interesting collections of letters in the English language," says the St. James' Gazette.

"Bishop Thirlwall's 'Letters to a Friend' were such delightful reading that every one will welcome the reprint of them. No pleasanter volume has appeared this season," says the London Athenæum.

"The letters which he wrote to a lady friend for a period of ten years give a most charming picture of Bishop Thirlwall.... These letters will be interesting to many people of culture, who will find instruction and profit in them."—Phila. Press.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

SINNERS AND SAINTS. A Tour across the States and around them, with Three Months among the Mormons. By Phil. Robinson, author of "Under the Sun." 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50

"Although he has won a reputation as a humorist, Mr. Robinson is one of the most faithful of descriptive writers, and his pictures of life in the United States, as seen through the eyes of the cosmopolitan Englishman, may be accepted as trustworthy and instructive. His humor is of the sort that never wearies, for it is never extravagant or forced."

"Mr. Robinson had peculiar facilities for an inside view of Mormon life, and his impressions are altogether different from accepted statements. His book will amply repay perusal."

"Mr. Robinson is the fortunate possessor of a rich and racy vein of humor, and the account he has given in the volume before us of his trip across the continent, and of his adventures in the territory of the Mormons, is entertaining in a very high degree. The larger part of the book is given up to a description of what the writer saw in Salt Lake City and the vicinity, and upon this subject he has much to say that will take most people by surprise. According to his story the Mormons have been very much maligned, and Mormonism, so far from being a pernicious and reprehensible institution, which ought, in the interest of the public and of morality, to be suppressed by the exercise of any force that may be needed to accomplish that purpose, is a praiseworthy and beneficent system. This differs widely from the prevailing idea, but Mr. Robinson is earnest and evidently sincere in his statements, and as a non-resident Anglo-Indian he certainly has no object to misrepresent the facts. His report is well worth a careful and dispassionate reading. Mr. Robinson's humor is of much the same order as that which makes the Mark Twain books so amusing, but it is wanting in that grave stolidity which distinguishes the American article, and is strongly flavored with the Dickens quality of fun."—North American, Phila.

RED CLOUD, THE SOLITARY SIOUX. A Story of the Great Prairie. By Lieut.-Col. Butler, author of "The Great Lone Land." With 24 full-page illustrations. One volume, uniform with "The Two Cabin Boys." Square 16mo. Cloth, black and gold. Price, $1.50

"Lieutenant-Colonel Butler's books, 'The Great Lone Land' and 'The Wild North Land,' have had thousands of charmed readers, the large majority of whom will follow him with delight in 'The Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux, a Story of the Great Prairie,' in which he gives us a most interesting resume of the dangers, delights, fascinations and fears of life in the hunting-grounds of the North-west. Of course there is much of fiction in the story, and in this respect we have a work as charming as any of Cooper's; but the adventures are such as might happen to any brave and energetic hunter. They afford us a most excellent example of what life in the prairies may be, surrounded by Indians, in the chase for the deer and the buffalo, and they contain so many examples of exciting adventure, of daring, of Indian craft, that all who are fond of that kind of life will find the 'Red Cloud' one of the most agreeable of companions. Col. Butler tells of adventure with much skill. He readily conveys to his readers a realistic sense of what he describes, and he writes in an easy and pleasing tone."—St. John's Globe.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

THE "WISDOM SERIES." Edited by the editor of "Quiet Hours" and "Sursum Corda." 16mo. Cloth, red edges. Flexible covers. Price per vol., $.50 Selections from the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis; Selections from the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; Sunshine in the Soul (poems selected by the editor of "Quiet Hours"), First Series; Sunshine in the Soul, Second Series; Selections from Epictetus; The Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach: or Ecclesiasticus; The Wisdom of Solomon, and other Selections from the Apocrypha; Selections from Fénelon; The Life and Sermons of the Rev. Doctor John Tauler; Socrates, the Apology and Crito of Plato; Socrates, the Phædo of Plato. The above are also published in six volumes complete, enclosed in a handsome box, and include everything issued thus far. Price for the set, $4.50

"The editor who gave us the excellent volume of selected poems called 'Quiet Hours,' and who has just prepared another and similar book, has done the public a service by here putting together in compact form the best of the thoughts and aspirations which this generation is too little disposed to look for amidst the less pregnant and valuable matter with which they are mingled in the full editions. A brief but compact and readable memoir prefaces each volume."—Unitarian Review.

SUNSHINE IN THE SOUL. Poems selected by the editor of "Quiet Hours." Second Series, uniform with the First Series. 18mo. Cloth, red edges. Price, $.50 The two series in one volume. Cloth, red edges. Price, .75

"The compiler of 'Quiet Hours,' and other volumes of hymns and serious poems, has made a second collection of the poems that are so soothing, helpful and encouraging that she calls them 'Sunshine in the Soul.' They are published in the 'Wisdom Series' of Roberts Brothers, and can be carried about in one's pocket until they are transferred to one's memory, and have done their work of bringing light into dark places."

"Although it is small enough to fit easily in either a lady's or gentleman's pocket, it contains about one hundred and fifteen poems carefully selected from the popular and standard writers. In turning over the delicate little pages we see the names of Longfellow over 'The Legend Beautiful' and 'To-morrow,' and Christina G. Rosetti's over 'Who Shall Deliver Me?' There is also Whittier's name, Miss Mulock's, Wordsworth's, Faber's, Susan Coolidge's and many others, who have written tenderly, sweetly or helpfully upon higher or better thoughts of life, death and the world to come."—School Journal.

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---

GATHERINGS FROM AN ARTIST'S PORTFOLIO IN ROME. By James E. Freeman. The author, an American artist, long resident in Rome, gives an entertaining account of life in Rome, with reminiscences and tales, as the result of his personal experience. 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50

"It is in some respects a sequel to a very interesting volume from the same hand, which appeared three years ago under a similar title. It is an uncommonly bright, attractive and well-written book, pleasingly natural in style, full of information gracefully conveyed, picturesque in its descriptive portions, and overflowing with spirited sketches of character and events. In addition, the book has a touch of refined Bohemianism that lends it a special charm. The work is one that will be perused with genuine pleasure by readers of cultivated tastes."—Saturday Evening Gazette.

PLISH AND PLUM. From the German of William Busch, author of "Max Maurice." By Charles T. Brooks. With 100 illustrations. 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00

"Roberts Brothers, Boston, have published in 'Plish and Plum' one of the most delightful juveniles imaginable. It is translated from the German of William Busch by Chas. T. Brooks, and is the history of two uncommonly lively and rascally dogs. Plish is a slender and demure fellow, Plum a fat, smirking young wretch—both have an equally diabolical power of mischief. Their puppyhood is a time of woe to their possessors, the little Peter and Paul, who repeat in person and character the traits of their pets. How a comfortable dose of birch corrects and improves the four, and how the reward of virtue is bestowed upon them, must be left to the enraptured youngster to find out. The many illustrations, which more than the text tell the story, are little more than outlines, but are so humorous that they would almost bring a laugh to the lips of a graven image. There are such merriment, freshness and healthfulness about the little book, that the boy who gets it in his stocking is blest indeed."—Tribune.

New Editions of the Following Popular Books:

NONSENSE SONGS, Stories, Botany and Alphabets. By Edward Lear. With colored illustrations. Square 12mo. Half cloth, illuminated covers. Price, $1.25

MAX AND MAURICE: A Juvenile History in Seven Books. By William Busch. With colored illustrations. 12mo. Half cloth, illuminated covers. Price, $.75

POSIES FOR CHILDREN. A Book of Verse. Selected by Mrs. A. C. Lowell. With illustrations. Small quarto. Illuminated cloth. Price, $1.50

OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES. The original Munroe and Francis edition. Fully illustrated. Complete in one volume. Square 16mo. Red and black lettered. Price, $1.50

———

⁂ Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt of advertised price.

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.

---