peculiarly sensitive mind, her sorrows were bitter, nor could all the celebrity which attended her poetical career, sooth the throbbings of a wounded spirit.

It may seem late to review her life and works; but it was not till now that the former was fully and authentically written, and that the latter were collected, together with her unpublished pieces; and we also owe her memory a debt, for a large portion of her lyrics being scattered, as they were thrown off, in various publications, we have never adorned our pages with more than an occasional extract. Few persons comparatively in these days of large and rapid publication, and in the present distaste for poetry, will possess themselves of seven volumes of one author's versification; but a few pages of extract from such valuable stores will, we doubt not, be generally acceptable. The memoir is entirely new; and most of the poems will be so to the majority of our readers; and should we quote, as we purpose, some pieces better known, their merit will render them acceptable for re-perusal.

We have in our possession letters from several of the most eminent of the living masters of poetry, lamenting the neglect into which their once-honoured art is fallen. There is scarcely any encouragement in the literary market for the article; the booksellers are afraid to touch it; and instead of our Southeys, Milmans, Montgomerys, Wordsworths, and Crolys finding their once popular works called for in repeated editions, it is only by condensing several expensive volumes into a a cheap duodecimo, that the public can be induced to trouble themselves about the matter.

The real admirers of poetry of a high order are few. Dramatic and inflammatory poetry are still

popular; but the deep poetry of sentiment is not understood by the multitude. We shall be happy if some of our readers, after wading through a few pages of Mrs. Hemans, do not mentally ask what all the " pother" is about; indeed some men make quite a merit of saying, "I never cut open a poem." And yet if our Creator has given us imagination, and the deep springs of emotion, why should not they be exercised, both for lawful recreation and for moral benefit; and the Christian ought not to say of any faculty, that it cannot be consecrated to the glory of God.

We ought perhaps to excuse our neglect of Mrs. Hemans, by remarking that rich, beautiful, and affecting as is her poetry, it is not generally of that class which we can call strictly religious. Even in many of her more devout pieces, there is no distinct allusion to the peculiarities of the Gospel of our Redeemer. There is a radiant glow, but it partakes more of sentiment than piety. In the evangelical school of Montgomery, Christian doctrines, and in the mystical school of Keble, Christian mysteries, and in both Christian emotions, are constantly prominent. Mrs. Hemans is more the poetess of nature; and what is religious often appears rather as unfolded in the pages of creation than in those of inspiration. Still to the devout mind her strains suggest devotional feelings; and they are eminently calculated to soften the heart to serious emotions.

We fear almost to let the last paragraph stand, lest in it we should have borne false witness; for there are many passages, and some whole poems, especially among her later productions, which may be quoted against us, and we shall be very glad to have our sentence modified or

anx

reversed, we are only ious that the line should be clearly marked between poetical emotion and specific Christianity. In her "Hymns for Childhood," published in 1834, the year before her death, we meet with many passages which are distinctive, as for example:

THE RIVERS.

Shall he not then thy guardian be?
Will not his aid extend to thee?
Oh! safely may'st thou rest !
Trust in his love, and e'en should pain,
Should sorrow tempt thee to complain,
Know what He wills is best.

The Monarch throned on high,
The peasant in his native vale-
All journey on-to die!

But if Thy guardian care, my God!
The pilgrim's course attend,
I will not fear the dark abode

To which my footsteps bend.
For thence thine all-redeeming Son,
Who died the world to save,
In light, in triumph, rose, and won
The victory from the grave!

THE NIGHTINGALE.

At that calm hour, so still, so pale,
Awakes the lonely nightingale;
And from a hermitage of shade
Fills with her voice the forest-glade.
And sweeter far that melting voice,
Than all which through the day rejoice;
And still shall bard and wanderer love
The twilight music of the grove.
Father in heaven! oh thus when day
With all its cares hath pass'd away,
And silent hours waft peace on earth,
And hush the louder strains of mirth;
Thus may sweet songs of praise and
prayer

To Thee my spirit's offering bear;
Yon star, my signal, set on high,
For vesper hymns of piety.

So may thy mercy and thy power
Protect me through the midnight hour;
And balmy sleep and visions blest
Smile on thy servant's bed of rest.

THE BIRDS.

Some, amidst India's groves of palm,
And spicy forests breathing balm,

Weave soft their pendent nest;
Some deep in Western wilds, display
Their fairy form and plumage gay,
In rainbow colours drest.
Others no varied song may pour,
May boast no eagle plume to soar,

No tints of light may wear;

Yet, know, our heavenly Father guides The least of these, and well provides For each, with tenderest care.

prayer,

And by the yearning of its tenderness, Too full for words upon their stream to bear,

I have been drawn still closer to thy

shrine, Well-spring of love, the unfathom'd, the divine;

I bless thee, O my God! That hope hath ne'er my heart or song forsaken,

High hope, which even from mystery, doubt, or dread,

Calm, rejoicingly the things hath taken Whereby its torch-light for the race was fed :

That passing storms have only fanned the fire,

Which pierced them still with its triumphal spire,

I bless thee, O my God! Now art thou calling me in every gale, Each sound and token of the dying

day:

Thou leavest me not, though early life

grows pale,

I am not darkly sinking to decay; But hour by hour, my soul's dissolving shroud

Melts off to radiance, as a silvery cloud. I bless thee, O my God! And if this earth, with all its choral streams,

And crowning woods, and soft as solemn skies,

And mountain sanctuaries for poet's dreams,

Be lovely still in my departing eyes. 'Tis not that fondly I would linger here, But that thy foot-prints on its dust appear.

I bless thee, O my God! And that the tender shadowing I behold, The tracery veining every leaf and flower,

Of glories cast in more consummate mould,

No longer vassals to the changeful hour;

That life's last roses to my thoughts can bring

Rich visions of imperishable spring:
I bless thee, O my God!

Yes! the young vernal voices in the skies

Woo me not back, but, wandering past mine ear,

Seem heralds of th' eternal melodies, The spirit-music, imperturbed and

clear;

The full of soul, yet passionate no

And if thy spirit on thy child hath shed

The gift, the vision of the unseal'd eye, To pierce the mist o'er life's deep meanings spread,

To reach the hidden fountain-urns
that lie

Far in man's heart-if I have kept it free
And pure-a consecration unto thee:
I bless thee, O my God!

If my soul's utterance hath by thee been fraught

With an awakening power-if thou hast made,

Like the winged seed, the breathings of my thought,

And by the swift winds bid them be convey'd

To lands of other lays, and there become Native as early melodies of home:

I bless thee, O my God!

Not for the brightness of a mortal wreath, Not for a place midst kingly minstrels dead,

But that perchance, a faint gale of thy breath,

A still small whisper in my song hath led

One struggling spirit upwards to thy throne,

Or but one hope, one prayer :-for this alone I bless thee, O my God! That I have loved that I have known the love

Which troubles in the soul the tearful springs,

Yet, with a colouring halo from above, Tinges and glorifies all earthly things,

Whate'er its anguish or its woe may be, Still weaving links for intercourse with thee:

I bless thee, O my God.

Mrs. Hemans was a woman who shrunk from the world's noon-tide glare; and would have been harassed at the anticipation of being made the subject of a copious memoir; but her sister's apology is, that it is now too late to deprecate or deplore, for that others have already laid before the world a portion, and not the most eligible portion, of her correspondence, and that it is therefore best to exhibit a larger and more adequate selection.

The details of her life were not numerous; and they derive their chief public interest from their connexion with her character

and writings. She was the daughter of an Irish gentleman, Mr. Browne, who had settled as a merchant in Liverpool, where Felicia was born in 1793. She was distinguished from her cradle by her personal beauty and precocious talents. Commercial reverses caused her father to retire, when she was seven years old, to the village of Gwrych in Denbyshire, where she passed the next nine years in a large old mansion close to the sea, and shut in by a range of picturesque mountains. In this romantic seclusion she spent her happy childhood. She had a careful and highly gifted mother to instruct her, and a large library at her command; and her juvenile verses exhibit how well she had profited by her advantages. But the woods and the glens, the waters and the mountains, were her favourite books; and in them, and in commerce with her own heart, she acquired the art and mystery of her gentle craft.

She soon learned to read French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and German; and so extraordinary was her memory, that on one occasion, to satisfy the incredulity of one of her brothers, she learned by heart the whole of Heber's Palestine (more than four hundred lines), which she had never seen before, in one hour and twenty minutes. She had a refined taste in drawing and music; and an instinctive affinity for whatever was sublime or beautiful in art or nature.

In 1808, her admiring friends were so injudicious as to publish a collection of her childish poetical efforts in a quarto volume. Some of the pieces were remarkable as juvenile performances, but they were not fitted to be thus enshrined for the cold-hearted world to gaze upon. About the

same time, at the age of fifteen, she fell in love with Captain Hemans, and he with her; she was then in the full glow of that radiant beauty which faded in after years;-her very mind beaming in her countenance; and her voice and conversation were peculiarly fascinating. The captain was about to embark with his regiment for Spain; but on his return their acquaintance was renewed, and they were married in the year 1812. This early marriage was far from happy. The causes of the discord are not particularly mentioned in the narrative; nor is it necessary to revive the subject. The captain's health being much impaired by military fatigues, he went to reside in Italy in the year 1818; Mrs. Hemans remaining under her mother's roof at Bronwylfa near St. Asaph (the family having removed thi ther from Gwrych) to educate her children-five sisterless boys. It was not expressly intended that the separation should be final; but neither party sought to terminate it; and the result was that they never met again. They corresponded however by letter, and Captain Hemans was consulted respecting the disposal of their boys; but time rolled on; seventeen years of absence and consequent alienation ensued, and Mrs. Hemans lived as a widow to the end of her life, exerting herself by her literary talents to support her family.

In 1812, shortly before her marriage, she published her "Domestic Affection and other Poems;" after which appeared in rapid succession volume after volume, besides numerous smaller pieces, first scattered in magazines and annuals, and afterwards collected. Her poetical career may be divided into two periods, the Classic and the Romantic.

Her "Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy;" her "Modern Greece," her "Tales and Historic Scenes," Wallace," "Dartmoor," and "The Sceptic," belong to the former period; her "Forest Sanctuary,' "Records of Woman," and most of her later poems, to the latter. Her critics, we believe, generally gave the preference to her second school; but the first evinced an academical purity, and a delicacy of finish, which are very pleasing to a wellformed taste, though the thoughts may not be so wildly sweet as those of the latter. We have not yet in our mature years forgotten so much of our youthful days as not to be able to enjoy the exquisite beauty and classical polish of Heber's Palestine; though poetry less highly polished and more romantic may inore forcibly arrest the imagination. Of all Mrs. Hemans's productions that which we have always considered the most elaborately wrought, and the most resembling in ethereal beauty the statues and temples of the days of Pericles and Phidias, the Elgin marbles, or the Apollo Belvidere, was her "Modern Greece." She seemed to have felt the magic of treading upon classic ground; and if to severe dignity was added something of womanly softness, the combination was but the more captivating. Greece is a land of thrilling, but blended, associations. If we regard it only with the recollections of academical enthusiasm, we kindle into glowing emotions of wonder and admiration. We mix with poets and historians, with philosophers and orators; we walk with sages in tranquil groves; or follow the animated crowd to scenes of forensic or theatrical eloquence; or pace marble temples, and gaze entranced upon all that is elegant and splendid in architecture and

sculpture. Every state and city, every river and mountain, every grove and glade, brings before us the recollection of deeds and men of heroic fame. Sedate majesty, pensive tenderness, breathless veneration, steal over the soul; we are in the land of arts and arms; of liberty and glory; we see, we hear, we feel all that fires and exalts the imagination; all that adds elasticity and ardour to mortal energies; and gives to the ordinary passions and pursuits of mankind an aspect of poetical dignity, of mental elevation, of ideal sublimity.

But if from the pagan we turn to the Christian page; if we survey this faded world of enchantments, not by the flickering glare of excited passions, but of a holier lamp which casts all that is earthly into shadow; what then do we behold? Like an inspired apostle, we cease to listen to the Lydian lute or the Doric strain : we see no longer a land of gorgeous palaces and hallowed temples; we exult no more, as the agonistic champion encircles his brow with wreaths of amaranth, or the undaunted matron urges on her sons to deeds of heroic glory; we pass by the student drinking deep at the fountains of Attic wisdom, and the statesman pouring forth the exalted conceptions of his free-born mind in the majestic strains of Athenian eloquence; we see but a land "wholly given to idolatry." We need not indeed cease to admire what is beautiful, or to be charmed with what is intrinsically noble; but the contrast is too painful to render the scene pleasurable; ambition and blood usher in and conclude the spectacle; cruelty and rapine fill every palace, and licentiousness violates every temple; God is forgotten, and his gifts are abused; man, ignorant of his Creator, nay expelling Him