[Born in Ireland about the middle of the last century, yet of Scotch descent, Miss Hamilton while yet young came to Scotland, where, residing with relations, she went through many changes of life. She wrote a great many books, both on religious and political subjects, some of which challenged without retaining attention; but it was otherwise with the "Cottagers of Glenburnie.">[ This work was begun, we are told, merely as the amusement of an idle hour; she was encouraged to proceed with it, and to extend the plan, by the mirth which the first sheets of it excited, when she read them to a few friends collected at her own fireside. It was not, her biographer further informs us, without considerable distrust on the part of the publisher that it was committed to the press. Is it indeed the unhappy instinct of publishers to be thus always blindest to the value, before they come out, of the books that succeed the best? or is it thought expedient, for the sake of making the better story, that every instance of remarkably successful publication should be set off by being made to fall out contrary to expectation?
However that may be, the success of the present work was immediate and decided. It was universally read in Scotland, and very generally even in England, where its humour could less be appreciated. The great demand soon induced the publishers to print a cheap edition; and, in the native country of the writer, it was to be seen in the hands of all classes. Miss Benger relates, that in Stirlingshire a person named Isabel Irvine, who had been Miss Hamilton's attendant when she was at school there some thirty or forty years before, and to whom, we suppose, a copy had been sent by the authoress, made money by lending it out among her neighbours. It is believed, too, not to have been without effect in making the peasantry ashamed of the indolence and slovenliness which it exposed and ridiculed. "Perhaps few books," observes a friend and countryman of Miss Hamilton's, in a sketch of her character and her literary and other services to her country, which Miss Benger has printed, "have been more extensively useful. The peculiar humour of this work, by irritating our national pride, has produced a wonderful spirit of improvement. The cheap edition is to be found in every village library; and Mrs M'Clarty's example has provoked many a Scotch housewife into cleanliness and good order."
Miss Benger thus describes Miss Hamilton's ordinary mode of life after she took up her residence in Edinburgh: "The morning, whenever her infirmities admitted, was devoted to study. At two o'clock she descended to the drawing-room, where she commonly found some intimate friend ready to receive her. If no engagement intervened, the interval from seven till ten was occupied with some interesting book, which, according to her good Aunt Marshall's rule, was read aloud for the benefit of the whole party. On Monday, she deviated from the general system, by admitting visitors all the morning; and such was the esteem for her character, and such the relish for her society, that this private levee was attended by the most brilliant persons in Edinburgh, and commonly protracted till a late hour. But it was in the heartsome ingle-nook by her ain fireside, when the world was shut out, and its cares, and conflicts, and pretensions consigned to temporary oblivion, that Mrs Hamilton was most truly known and most perfectly enjoyed. Of anecdote she was inexhaustible, and in narrative she dramatised with such effect that she almost personated those whom she described."
"All who had the happiness to know this amiable woman," said Miss Edgeworth, in a tribute to her memory, which she contributed to an Irish paper soon after Mrs Hamilton's death, "will with one accord bear testimony to the truth of that feeling of affection which her benevolence, kindness, and cheerfulness of temper inspired. She thought so little of herself, so much of others, that it was impossible she could—superior as she was—excite envy. She put everybody at ease in her company, and in good humour and good spirits with themselves. So far from being a restraint on the young and lively, she encouraged by her sympathy their openness and gaiety. She never flattered, but she always formed the most favourable opinion, that truth and good sense would permit, of every individual who came near her. Instead, therefore, of fearing and shunning her reputation, all loved and courted her society." She died on the 23d July 1816, in the sixtieth year of her age.
COUNTESS DE VEMIEIRO.
[1760.]
SISMONDI.
HE Academy of Sciences in Portugal having proposed a prize for the best Portuguese tragedy, on the 13th of May 1788 conferred the laurel-crown on "Osmia," a tragedy which proved to be the production of a lady, the Countess de Vemieiro. On opening the sealed envelope accompanying the piece, which usually conveys the name of the author, there was found only a direction, in case "Osmia" should prove successful, to devote the proceeds to the cultivation of olives, a species of fruit from which Portugal might derive great advantages. It was with some difficulty that the name of the modest writer of this work, published in 1795, in quarto, was made known to the world. Bouterwek has erroneously attributed it to another lady, very justly celebrated in Portugal, Catharina de Sousa, the same who singly ventured to oppose the violence of the Marquis de Pombal, whose son she refused in marriage. From the family of this illustrious lady I learned that the tragedy of "Osmia" was not really the production of her pen.