-not but what Greek is Greek to a woman, just as well as to a

"And the Miltonic style of her metre rivetted it."

"But it is a pity-I should think so even if I were her friend Miss Edgeworth-it is a pity she trod in the traces of Milton. To say the least of it, the venture was dangerous, and the comparison was not a little hazardous. In doing this she went beyond her depth, though her poetry is high, and pitched amongst the sublime."

"As regards my own opinion," said Miss Roche's voice, from the interior of her marble, "I question whether these solemn, or abstruse, or ethical subjects are the best fitted for poetry-especially if treated of by a woman, whose fort dwells more upon topics of the heart. These deep subjects are never more forcible than when they are in plain, downright, logical prose. The one great subject for poetry is passion-all the passions. Love, jealousy, rage, envy, revenge, and so on. Women write love poetry very

well-particularly if it be successful love."

"Yes," rejoined Mrs. Mysteries-of-Udolpho Radcliffe," because this agrees with their amiable natures better than do the fierce passions aroused by disappointment. Mrs. Norton has written some excellent love verse.'

"Her love is so celestial."

"Miss Eliza Cook sometimes writes what may be called pleasing verse; but she too often selects little paltry themes that are miserably unmeet, frivolous, unworthy, and foolish."

"Then I wish she would take her fine large curls for a subject."

"Much more worthy than many she has taken. She is either afraid to make love, and the other great passions of the heart, her topics, or else she does not feel them, and hence passes them over. Miss Sarah Stickney and Miss Edgeworth cannot handle love. Ladies of a certain age

"Which all these are not."

"Are afraid to meddle with this momentous subject. They have either quarrelled with it and forsworn its acquaintanceship, or they have turned religious (what a compliment to religion when all else fails!) or they have grown prudish and pretend to despise a passion which they declare is only fit for children smelling of bread and butter; or more strange than all, and yet in many cases true, they think the theme indecent! You never see such ideas in the mind of a girl, who is, nevertheless, all intensity, nor in the rational mind of a married woman."

"I suppose not," answered Miss Roche.

"Mrs. Hornblower,' continued the other gossip, "has written some excellent sonnets. Fanny Kemble Butler has great vigour and strength-—”

"By the bye," interposed Miss Roche, "she has lately changed to the solemn."

"Yes, love, she has; and this is a change indeed, when we look back upon her rollicking' journal in America. I believe you never saw her husband's nice house near Philadelphia? What a pity it is that husbands are not always angels !"

"That is what we have been lamenting all along."

"I don't know which she hates most-husbands, or the editors of newspapers. But I was going to mention the Hon. Julia Augusta Maynard. Read her verse. She has a spirit not to be subdued,' and she has written with peculiar fire and fervour."

6

"Oh!" cried Miss Roche again, trying to have her say with all her might."Oh! there is Miss Mary Rees-some of her sonnets and other short pieces are remarkably full of pathos and solemnity for so young a person, whilst, on the other hand, she has written several poems striking for their wit, satire, facetiousness, and point. Mrs. Charles Tinsley has penned some delightful lines, especially in her rhyming verse. Mrs. Garrow, Mrs. Torre Holme, Mrs. Abdy, Mrs. Crawford--"

"You have forgotten Lady Julianna Fullerton."

"No, I haven't, only you won't let me finish my sentence. You interrupted me just as I was going to say that Lady Julianna's prose is poetry complete, though without metrc. It is full of the most passionate fire. It tingles like a person's leg recovering its sensation after having been asleep."

Now

"Your simile is peculiar, my love," said Mrs. Radcliffe. "No matter, dear, as long as you know what I mean. we are talking of poetry, I will just mention Mrs. Gore's prize comedy, though that is not in metre. How dreadfully it was abused by the public press! I declare I never. If that play was the best of the lot sent in, then Heaven have mercy upon the the sinners who perpetrated the others-that's all! As for Lady Emeline Wortley's Moonshine,' it was too severely denounced by an immense deal. I felt for her."

"But Mrs. Gore will never be, or try to be, a poetess," observed Mrs. Radcliffe.

"Oh, no!" continued the friend; "she has no time for itshe is too expeditious a writer. If she gives herself so many volumes to write in so many months, they must be done somehow. It is quantity and not quality then. It is a question of so many words, and not so many original ideas. She is the most prolific authoress of the day, and she makes it pay well. But she writes too fast to be correct. Her style is loose, easy, pleasant, and peculiarly her own, though it is blemished with slang, satirical pretences, and carpings at those above her in rank. Notwithstanding that she writes on, she does not improve. I cannot assert that she is run dry, as the dairymen say, but the flow is May, 1846.-VOL. XLVI.-NO. CLXXXI.

F

still only milk and water. It does not thicken to cream. Her offspring betrays that it has been brought forth as soon as conceived. The term of gestation has not been long enough."

"Your similes are peculiar again, my dear."

"Nonsense, love; two women may say what they like to each other. Mrs. Trollope has been dreadfully denounced for her vulgarity-by the bye, that painting of her behind the door in the right-hand parlour at Hadley is not unlike-but don't you think that half her vulgarity consists in the sound of her name? The word Trollope always reminds one of Moll Wollops, and the association is very unfavourable."

"Goodness gracious, what extraordinary observations you do make!" exclaimed Mrs. Radcliffe's statue, puckering up its marble in surprise. "Let me explain to you," she continued, "that the name of Trollope is very ancient and very honourable, for an ancestor of her late husband-by the way, perhaps you have not seen his tomb and that of his son in the cemetery near Bruges? The little Ionic column over the son is tottering on its base, and sadly out of repair-but I was going to observe that an ancestor of her husband, many centuries ago, when wolves were as plentiful in England as blackberries, once did great service to one of the Norman kings by slaying three wolves-trois loups-by which he received much honour, and was afterwards called Mr. of the Trois loups, and from Trois loups came Trollope."

"Well now," rejoined Miss Roche's effigies, "that explanation improves the association amazingly. Some of this lady's most valuable works are her travels. I am delighted with Lady Grosvenor's Yacht Voyage in the Mediterranean. This peeress is full of enterprize, and has the good sense not to carry any nonsensically refined airs about with her. She can eat and drink whatever comes first, and does not grumble at her hotel."

"This is always the way with your true lady," said Mrs. Radcliffe. It is only your half-breds, and your would-be's, and your make-believes, that cannot do without their plate, their damask, and their down beds. The true-born can put up with anything cheerfully. Mrs. Romer, in her Rhone, Darro, and Guadalquiver,' is to be censured for this fastidiousness; but Mrs. Ashton Yates, in her Swiss Tour, is without it. Mrs. Postans, also, in her travels in India, is free from the weakness, and so is Mrs. Stisted, in her Bye-ways of Italy.' That amusing book called 'Western Clearings,' by Mrs. Kirkland, furnishes very pleasant reading, as do the Letters from Madras.' In Martha Macdonald Lamont's Two Years in France and Switzerland' there is plenty of vigour and freedom, and that, too, is coupled with a little basbleuism."

"Your critiques are most acute," said Miss Children-of-theAbbey Roche. "But what," she added, "do you think of Mary

Ann Everett Wood's 'Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain' for bas-bleuism ?"

"Her book, my dear," answered the one addressed, " is a valuable addition to English history."

"And so is Mrs. Thompson's 'Seasons'-oh, no! I mean"What stuff you are talking!"

"I mean Mrs. Thompson's Memoirs of the Jacobites."" "Exactly," said Mrs. Radcliffe's statue. "Mrs. Bray has displayed great historical knowledge even in her fictions. There is food for history in Lady Charlotte Bury's 'Diary'-you remember how she got scolded?-but we must not be deceived with what Lady Willoughby's make-believe purports' to be."

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6

"Oh! Lady Willoughby's 'make-believe,' as you call it, must be looked at merely as an amusing book, though I am aware that the title-page and the getting-up have deceived many. But if we want amusing books without deception, let us turn to the 'Lays and Legends of Camilla Toulmin, the gossiping anecdotes of Mrs. Vestris Matthews, the Country House,' edited by Lady Mary Fox, Mary Howitt's translations, Mrs. Hall's Irish wit, Mary Roberts' Ruins and Old Trees,' Eliza Stewart's 'Lord Dacre of Gilsland,' Mrs. Hofland's Catherine I.,' or Mrs. Hartley's Claudine Mignot.""

99

"Precisely," said the other; "or if we want a little of religion, there is Lady Charles Fitzroy's 'Scripture Conversations '——" "Ah! true, and Lady Calcott's 'Scripture Herbal '— "Not so quick, my love; or if we want a little sarcasm, we have the Change for the American Notes,' said to be by a lady." "And Miss Sedgwick's vitriol; but I prefer fictions to national spleen."

6

"So do I, dear. There is the Baroness

"Just what I was going to say-oh! no, but she is a countess. Let me see how stupid I am!--don't take the word out of my mouth-the Countess H-h-h-h-

"I'm sure," said Mrs. Radcliffe, "I cannot imagine who you mean by H-h-h-h.”

"Oh! that German countess."

"Hahn-Hahn?"

"The very name. What was I going to say of her? I have quite forgot-but no matter. You were going to mention a baroness?"

"Calabrella."

"True, my dear. What a duck of a cab she's got? You've seen that splendid book, the Prism of Imagination?' I'm afraid it cost as much as her title, and won't pay itself till Lady Dalmeny again sees the money she spent on her Spanish Lady's Love.' "I think," remarked Mrs. Radcliffe's statue, "you travel by very devious courses in your rambling disquisition."

"Oh, stuff and nonsense! Talking of travels reminds me of Miss Pardoe. I suppose you are delighted with her works?

am."

66 And Miss Costello."

I

"Stop! I had Miss Costello on the end of my tongue. She has written deliciously all about Persia and the other nations of Europe."

"Europe! Persia is not in Europe."

"Yes it is, I assure you. It didn't used to be, but I suppose annexation has taken place."

"You are quite wrong-indeed you are," persisted Mrs. Radcliffe.

"No, I am not," contended Miss Roche. "Miss Costello says Persia is in Europe; and she ought to know, for she has travelled everywhere-and that's a long way. I'll read you a passage out of her Rose Garden of Persia." She says,More poets have been produced in Persia than in all the other nations of Europe.' There now!"

"Well," returned Mrs. Radcliffe, submissively, "I confess I cannot contradict you after that."

66 'I should think not. I am always very positive when I know I am right."

Here the dialogue stopped suddenly-not because there was no more to say, but because the ladies were quite out of breath.