sixteenth centuries. The mistress of the family is strictly the housewife;' superintending the bakings, and the brewings, the spinning, and the weaving; but still she is not the mere housewife; music beguiles her leisure hours, and she talks on French, and German, and English literature, with a feeling that shews. a cultivation of mind, certainly beyond what the middle classes of women in England can shew.

The chief character in the second work, The Home,' strongly exhibits this; the family belong to the middle classes; and the mother is engaged in household duties, but her sitting room is adorned with paintings, her bookshelf exhibits an interesting collection of works, and her piano is not neglected, although 'citron cream,' and tea-cakes, and sugar-drops, sometimes occupy her morning. The two principal characters of these works, afford indeed a very pleasant picture of the Swedish lady; the lively, hearty Franziska, in the Neighbours,' worrying her bear out of his quire of paper, and playing twenty girlish pranks, and then sitting patient and watchful by the bedside of ma chere mere;' and the gentle, earnest, poetical mother in the Home,' watching the opening minds of her children, and especially that of her summer child,' with those mixed feelings of hope and fear, which the delicate health of her darling and gifted boy awaken in her breast.

The most carefully written of Miss Bremer's works is, The President's Daughters;' and in this, too, the number and variety of her female characters are admirably arranged and brought out. The beautiful sister Adelaide loved, admired, and sought after; the plain and reserved sister Edla, conscious of her superior powers, but denied a sphere for their development, are in admirable contrast. The elegant Countess Natalie, rich in everything but feeling; the poor neglected Clara, rich in this alone, are another admirably contrasted pair; while the strong good sense and practical wisdom of Miss Greta, and the poetic imaginings of the gifted, but too highly wrought, Angelica, form a third pair of contrasts. Let not the reader, however, suppose that these contrasts are brought out formally; on the contrary, there are few writers who bring their various characters before us, with the ease and simplicity of Frederika Bremer. The quiet, matter of fact, propriety-loving, President, is admirably drawn too. Many of our readers will recognize his arguments against giving daughters a learned education. Women should remain in their own sphere, they should follow their destination' says the President, when urged to allow his daughter Edla opportunities for study: but the manner in which Mademoiselle Röunquist answers them, speaks well for the superior education of women in Sweden.

The President is at length persuaded by good Mademoiselle Röunquist to yield to Edla's wishes; and the gradual development of her mind is painted with great force and eloquence in the subsequent chapters. A character somewhat similar to Edla, is Petrca, in The Home;' and she also chooses a single life, and one of contemplation-indeed, this class of character seems to be a favorite one with Frederika Bremer.

After fourteen years the same party assemble together at the marriage of the President with the still lovely countess; and from the friendly gossip of Baron H. and Miss Greta, in the intervals between ices, jellies, and the superb supper, we learn all the changes that have taken place. The beautiful little twin Nina has now became a lovely young woman, and might have been a happy one, but for the dark shadow which Count Ludwig, one of the most unnatural of Miss Bremer's characters, casts over her prospects. Baron H., by the way, one of the most natural male characters in the book, and Miss Greta, however, make sunshine with their quiet humour, and most characteristic courtship, which at length ends in marriage; and the third volume exhibits the President setting out for a warmer climate, attended by the noble-minded Edla; and the other dramatis persone, assembled at the country seat of the countess in Nordland. The following extract, characteristic alike of Swedish customs, and of the general and practical feeling of the writer, although long, we must find space for:

They say in the north, that nature sleeps,' but this sleep resembles death; like death, it is cold and ghastly, and would obscure the heart of man, did not another light descend at the same time, if it did not open to the heart a warmer bosom and animate it with its life. In Sweden they know this very well, and whilst every thing sleeps and dies in nature, all is set in motion in all hearts and homes for the celebration of a festival. Ye know it well, ye industrious daughters of home, ye who strain your hands and eyes by lamplight quite late into the night to prepare presents. You know it well, you sons of the house, you who bite your nails in order to puzzle out what in all the world' you shall choose for Christmas presents. Thou knowest it well, thou fair child, who hast no other anxiety, than lest the Christman should lose his way and pass by thy door. You know it well, you fathers and mothers, with empty purses and full hearts: ye aunts and cousins of the great and immortal race of needle-women and workers in wool-ye welcome and unwelcome uncles and male cousins, ye know it well, this time of mysterious countenances and treacherous laughter! In the houses of the rich, fat roasts are prepared and dried fish; sausages pour forth their fat, and tarts puff themselves up; nor is there any hut so poor as not to have at this time a sucking-pig squeaking in it, which must endeavour, for the greater part, to grow fat with its own good humour.

The cold

'It is quite otherwise with the elements at this season. reigns despotically; it holds all life fettered in nature; restrains the heaving of the sea's bosom; destroys every sprouting grass blade; forbids the birds to sing and the gnats to sport; and only its minister, the powerful north wind, rolls freely forth into grey space, and takes heed that every thing keeps itself immoveable and silent. The sparrows only—those optimists of the air-remain merry, and appear by their twittering to announce better times.

'At length comes the darkest moment of the year; the midnight hour of nature; and suddenly light streams forth from all habitations, and emulates the stars of heaven. The church opens its bosom full of brightness and thanksgiving, and the children shout full of gladness, It is Christmas! it is Christmas!' Earth sends her hallelujah on high !'

And wherefore this light, this joy, this thanksgiving?' 'A child is born!' A child? In the hour of night, in a lowly manger, he has been born; and angels have also sung,Peace on earth!' This is the festival which shall be celebrated-and well may ye, you dear children, sound forth your cries of joy; Welcome, even though unconsciously, the hour in which this friend, this brother, was born to you; who shall guide you through life, who shall lighten the hour of death to you, and who one day shall verify all the dreams of your childhood; who shall stand beside you in necessity and care, and shall help to answer the great questions of life. Rejoice ye happy children, whom he blesses! Rejoice, and follow after him! He is come to lead you and all of us to God!

These are inexhaustible, love-inspiring, wonderful, entrancing thoughts, in which man is never weary of plunging. The sick soul bathes in them as in a Bethesda, and is made whole; and in them the healthy find an elevating life's refreshment. Of this kind are thoughts on that child-his poverty, his lowliness, his glory!'- President's Daughters, vol. iii. pp. 6-9.

The many pictures of Swedish life, and Swedish scenery, render this third volume more interesting to us than the two preceding; and more interesting, because more characteristic, than even that pleasing story of 'The Home.' Here is the spectacle of 'the sun at midnight':

At Mattaränghe, in the parish of Tortula, not far from Tornea, the travellers had engaged rooms. From one of the hills there they proposed to view the solemn spectacle. The whole inn was surrounded by tents. Numbers of Lapland families, half wild hordes from Finnmark, stream at this season of midsummer towards this country, in order to feast here three days by the light of the never-descending sun, to play, to dance, and to go to church. Here the Frenchman saw with rapture, not indeed the originals of Victor Hugo's tragedy, but wild, strange, original shapes, with little twinkling eyes and broad hairy breasts, the miserable children of want and wretchedness, whose state of culture and inward life no romance writer has truly represented; because, indeed, the romance built on the reality of this district would turn out tolerably

meagre, and because love, this marrow of all romances, knows here no nobler, fairer aim than that which Helvetius would vainly attribute to it. The spirit of the earth holds the people here in captivity, and mole-like they creep only in the sand and about the roots of the tree of life. Sometimes, however, in their clear winter nights, by the indescribable splendour of the snow and of the stars, when they fly forth in their snow-shoes to chase the bear and the reindeer, then awakens in their bosoms a higher life, then breathe they to pensive airs deep and affectionate feelings in simple beautiful love-songs. But they soon relapse again into their dark Laplandish night.

In the mean time the German was in the third heaven at this sight, and at its lively contrast with the civilized world. Lady Louisa found all this rather curious,' and noted it down in her journal.

· The weather—strange enough-favoured all the undertakings of the travellers. The sky was clear, and a silent midnight saw all our travellers assembled in glad sunshine on one of the green hills. Slowly descended the sun; it extinguished one beam after another. All eyes followed it. Now it sank-lower-ever lower;-suddenly, however, it stood still, as if upheld by an invisible hand. Nature seemed, like them, to be in anxious suspense; not an insect moved its humming wing; all was silent; a death-like stillness reigned, while the sun, glowing red, threw a strange light over the earth. O wonderful almighty power! It began now again slowly to ascend; it clothed itself again with beams, like a pure glorified spirit; it became every moment more dazzling.

A breath! and nature lives, and the birds sing again!— Ib. pp. 170-2. The conclusion of this interesting tale is painful and disappointing. The marriage of Nina to Count Ludwig is an absolute injustice, which we wonder Frederika Bremer's clear mind did not intuitively perceive. There is also rather too much of the Quietist doctrine of the necessity, not only of deep suffering, but of welcoming it as a thing in itself good-a doctrine which has done, we think, much injury to religion among a certain class of characters. It were well if its advocates would remember, that scripture has said, 'Now no suffering for the present scemeth to be joyous, but grievous;' and that it is its after effects that produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness.' The conclusion of 'The Home' is certainly managed better than that of 'The President's Daughters.' The regrets of the mother over the loss of her 'summer child' are softened by the sight of the happy circle around her, and we feel that although willing to meet again her darling first-born, she cannot hail death as her only refuge from misery. But for Nina, we feel that her hopes are so wholly crushed, and her future so dark, that death would indeed be her best friend.

The lugubrious, however, is not Frederika Bremer's favorite style, her mind is too strong, her perceptions too clear; above

all, she possesses too bright a well-spring of poetic feeling,-to look abroad on creation with sorrowful eyes, and refuse to pronounce it 'good.' And in a pleasant, spring-tide spirit are her two last tales written. The first, entitled 'A Diary,' is the record of a lady who, after a ten years' absence, returns to Stockholm, on a visit to her mother-in-law. The following picture of the new year's ball at the Exchange, may well excite surprise in England. What would be said if Queen Victoria and her court paid an annual visit to Guildhall? not to sit listlessly under a crimson canopy, and talk only with her own court attendants, but to walk about conversing freely with all -and Prince Albert to begin the first quadrille with the daughter of some city tradesman? And yet this is done in Sweden. This new year's ball' is held in the Exchange, and the nobles take their seats at the upper part, the mercantile classes lower down, and the arrival of the royal family is the signal for the ball to begin.

Slowly now began the quadrille to form itself at the upper end of the saloon. The royal chamberlains had gone round, and given out gracious invitations in the name of the illustrious guests. Now the Crown-princess, majestic and glittering with jewels, was seen to open the quadrille with Baker N., a little, stout old man, whose good-tempered polite behaviour shews how easily true moral education effaces every distinction in all, even in the greatest difference of ranks.

The Crown-prince danced with a young lady of the citizen class; and Prince Carl with, our little new friend, who had feared so much that this evening she should not dance at all, and who now, on the hand of the young prince, beamed with the charm of youth and innocent lovely delight.

She was pointed out as the eldest daughter of the wholesale dealer M. In my own mind I saw her thinking, what will my sisters say to this!'

Towards eleven the royal party went out into the large ante-room on the right, to receive and reply to the compliments of the diplomatic corps. When they again entered the saloon they began to make the great round of it, and I actually pitied them for the many unmeaning words which they must address to and hear from the many hundreds of people unknown to them. Yet the procession was beautiful and splendid to look at. The gorgeous dress of the Queen (she was almost covered with jewels) and her courteous demeanour occasioned deep bows and curtseys; people looked up with so much pleasure to the high and noble figures of the Crown-princess and her husband, and nobody noticed without joy and hope, the two young tall-grown slender princes; the one so brown and manly, the other fair and mild, and both with the bloom of unspoiled youth upon their fresh countenances.

My eye, however, rivetted itself especially upon the Crown-princess. I remember so well, how I saw her twenty years ago make her entry as bride into Stockholm; how I saw her sitting in the gilded coach with