Beyond a doubt they are from the same hand with Guy Mannering, though the author has changed his publisher for concealment. The four volumes contain two tales. The last, the longest, and by very far the best, is a story of the days of the Covenanters ; in which, by the by, our ancestor Balfour of Burleigh makes a very scurvy figure. The conscientious and heroic, though often misguided, Covenanters are treated with little candour, and less mercy. But, notwithstanding all this, the tale is one of ten thousand. The description - the exquisite drawing of character the humour the unrivalled fertility of invention - or rather the boundless observation, which are shown in this Old Mortality, would immortalise the author, even if he had no former claim to immortality. I cannot, however, allow, that I think it equal, upon the whole, to Guy Mannering.

To Mrs. Balfour.

Jan. 17. 1818.

Send me carelessly and freely whatever you happen to hear of anecdote - superstition — proverb- or provincial expression, which at all marks the peculiarities of character, or the state of society in our county. It is with such that Scott has given life and reality to his novels. In these admirable works, I am persuaded that there is little, except the mere story, which can be called invention. The more prominent persons in them are indeed, as it seems to me, real characters; and his dialogues the essence of thousands of real conversations. Scott is gifted with a memory, which absolutely retains every thing good, bad, and indifferent. Hence he can never be at a loss for realities to enliven his tale; and there is a spirit in the truth, which no human genius can give to mere fiction. From whence comes the wonderful verisimilitude of De Foe's novels but from this, that they contain only so much falsehood as is necessary to make truth connected and entertaining? So let me have whatever you collect. There is nothing so common that it may not be of use. A structure may not be the less pleasing, that it is not all built of alabaster.

Scott (for I am convinced that it must be he) has again tried this mixture of truth and fiction in Rob Roy, and tried it successfully; though not perhaps quite so successfully as in former instances. But though it may be inferior to some of his other works, I think it will gain by a comparison with the best national pictures of any other hand. I understand he has already contracted for four volumes more of Tales of my Landlord. How wonderful is the activity of his mind! No sooner is one effort made, than he is ready to undertake another, and of the same kind too!

Her leisure was now very much broken in upon while we were in Edinburgh; her visiters were numerous; the share which she took in the management of some of the public charities required much both of time and thought; and, above all, a resolution which she had early formed, of investigating personally every case of distress which claimed relief from her, led to extensive and increasing occupation. During the winter, therefore, Emmeline went on very slowly.

When we removed in June for a few months to the country, I was in hopes that its progress would be more regular and rapid. But she had a lingering attack of the same low fever which had seized her in London, and which was now even more than usually accompanied with dejection and languor. Its effect is thus strongly painted in á letter to Mrs. Izett.

To Mrs. Izett.

Sept. 4. 1816.

I am as much in the open air as this melancholy summer has allowed me. As for my writing, it has been for four months entirely discontinued. For the greater part of that time, I have been utterly incapable of interesting myself in that, or, indeed, any other employment. The worst consequence, however, of my indisposition, has been the uneasiness it has given to you and to Mr. B.; to him especially, for he has felt it much; and this has, no doubt, tended to increase it. I trust that it is now removed; and that I shall, when an endless train of visiters allows me, be able once more to take my talent from its napkin.

Do not write to me either reproof or exhortation. I might have done something to rouse myself; but I had lost the will. I write without method or coherence; for I do not aim at either. I am setting down my thoughts just as they occur. the feelings which prompt them as you best can.

Make out

Have you seen a little tale called Display? It is worth its price, I assure you. There is a most overpowering Memoir of Cowper, by himself. If you have not seen it, pray get it! You will be astonished by its power!

*

In the spring of 1817 her spirits got a severe shock, by the death of a young lady to whom she was most affection

ately attached, and whose talents and principles justified the brightest hopes of her friends. She had been the companion of part of our tour in 1815; and I cannot refuse myself the melancholy satisfaction of inserting a tribute to her, in a letter written by Mrs. Brunton at that time. It thus describes the beginning of an attachment, which afterwards ripened into strong affection; and which, I trust, is now again the joy of both.

To Mrs. F.

London, June, 1815.

G. left me on Wednesday, and has carried with her more of my esteem, as well as affection, than I ever bestowed upon any person in the same term of acquaintance. Perhaps I like her the better that she affords me occasion to applaud my own penetration. She is precisely the being I expected her to prove. She tempts me to the sin of covetousness; and is, at this moment, the only possession of yours, or any other person's, for which I am inclined to break the tenth commandment. If I do not absolutely, as the Catechism says, 66 envy and grieve at the good of my neighbour," I cannot deny that I have inordinate motions and affections" to what is yours. I am ready to quarrel with you for taking her away from me before I had time to steal any part of the kindest and gentlest of hearts from you. I have seldom seen any one whom I was more desirous to attach; but she is gone from me before I had time to counteract the ill impressions she would receive from my stiffness, and my Calvinism. This last, you

know, you gave me permission to expose; and, accordingly, L have not concealed it. On the contrary, I have spoken out my convictions strongly, though, I hope, not harshly; and have even solemnly adjured my dear young friend to give them her deliberate and candid consideration.

She will probably tell you this, and all else which has oc cupied our discourse and attention. But she will not tell you, that the modesty and candour, the singular mixture of simplicity and acuteness, of enthusiasm and gentleness, which she was every moment unconsciously exhibiting, have made her the most interesting show which I have seen in London.

For a long time this blow disinclined her from exertion. The first effort which she made was prompted by the revival of a desire which she had before attempted to indulge, of learning the Gaelic language. To this arduous attempt she devoted a great part of her leisure for some

months. I have reason to believe that her progress was considerable; but this was the only one of her pursuits in which I took no share.

She was fond of the study of language; and very little encouragement would have induced her to devote to classical learning that leisure, which seemed to me to be, in her circumstances, capable of a more improving destination. On the general subject, she thus expresses herself in a letter to her sister-in-law.

*

To Mrs. Balfour.

Jan. 17. 1818.

*

It seems to me,

I am glad you are teaching Mary Latin. that nature itself points out the propriety of teaching women languages, by the facility with which we generally acquire them. I never knew a girl, who, in learning the dead languages, did not keep above the boys in her class; nor did I ever happen to see this acquisition produce a female pedant. Indeed, learning of all kinds is now too common among ladies, to be any longer like Cain's mark, excluding the bearer from all human intercourse. I know a lady, who, two years ago, gained a mathematical prize, from Oxford I think, with perfect impunity; being still universally received as a very agreeable womanly sort of person.

I am clearly for furnishing women with such accomplishments as are absolutely incapable of being converted into matter of exhibition; and such, in the present state of society, are clas→ sical learning and mathematics. These hard times compel so many women to celibacy, that I should think it no bad speculation to educate a few for respectable old maids; especially such as have minds strong enough to stand alone, and romantic enough, not to choose to marry merely for the sake of being married. Luckily, the education which fits a woman for leading apes with a good grace, will not spoil her for "suckling fools, and chronicling small beer."

Whether your Mary is to marry or not, I hope she will grow up with a mind vigorous and happy in its own resources; trained as a mind ought to be, which is soon to shake off its connection with all material objects, and to owe its sole happiness to improvement in knowledge and goodness.

As for the boys, the world will educate them in spite of you. You may "plant and water," but the rude blast will soon give your sprouts its own direction; nor can they, like our happier sex, hide themselves from its influence. Reading, reflection, and advice,

do much to form the character of women.

Men are the creatures of circumstance and of example; half a dozen witty profligates will put to flight a dozen years' maxims in an afternoon. But as the old saying has it, "They are well kept whom God keeps ;" and some are wonderfully kept - -some as wonderfully restored. By this time, I fancy you think I am borrowing a page from the Doctor's incipient volume.

I wish you would let me do the honours of the banks of Esk. Surely you may contrive to leave Orkney for a little while next summer. You would be so much amused; and yet you would return with such new pleasure to your home. So, at least, it is with me. Wherever I ramble, my own home seems to me like some flowery island in the great ocean; upon which the eye, when it is weary of wanderings, can always rest with pleasure.

Composition had now longed ceased to be a voluntary employment. It had come to be looked upon as a task; and she rather sought reasons to justify to her own mind her desertion of her former habits, than opportunities of renewing them in their strength. During the summer of 1818, however, she had in a great measure conquered these feelings; and had it pleased Providence to spare her life, I am convinced that she would at this hour have been returning to her former occupations with all her former ardour.

She was strongly impressed, indeed, with a belief that her confinement was to prove fatal; not on vague presentiment, but on grounds of which I could not entirely remove the force, though I obstinately refused to join in the inference which she drew from them. Under this belief she completed every the most minute preparation for her great change, with the same tranquillity as if she had been making arrangements for one of those short absences which only endeared her home the more to her. The clothes in which she was laid in the grave had been selected by herself; she herself had chosen and labelled some tokens of remembrance for her more intimate friends; and the intimations of her death were sent round from a list in her own hand-writing. But these anticipations, though so deeply fixed, neither shook her fortitude, nor diminished her cheerfulness.

They neither altered her wish to live,