ing against tiny rocks into Lilliputian waves.

****

Nous voila at Harrowgate; and I believe there is no place in Britain to which you would not sooner accompany us. One hundred and forty people dine with us daily-all dressed as fine as Punch's wife in the puppet-show. Do but imagine the noise of so many tongues-the bouncing, banging, and driving of eighty waiting men-the smell of meat sufficient for a hundred and forty cormorants-and all this in the dog-days!!'

Harrowgate itself is a straggling village, built on an ugly, sandy common, surrounded with stunted black Scotch firs-the only thing in shape of tree or shrub that never can be an ornament to any possible place. From a hill above Harrowgate, there is a view of prodigious extent, over the richest and largest plain which I have ever seen.-York, which is twenty-two miles distant, seems nearer than the middle of the landscape. Mrs. I., who is an Englishwoman, was in ecstasies. For my part, I must confess, that I think a little rising ground, or even a mountain, no bad feature in a landscape. A scene without a hill seems to me to be about as interesting as a face without a nose !

MRS. BRUNTON TO MRS. IZETT.

April 10, 1810. IT is even so! You are sixty miles distant from Edinburgh, and I have lost what probably no time will restore to me; that "medicine of life," which it is promised that they shall find who have received a title to yet higher rewards.

Since you left me I have a hundred times determined to write. I need not assure you that forgetfulness has had no share in my silence. Levity itself would not forget a friend (if levity could have a friend) in one month-" one little month!" I am reminded of you by all my business and all my pleasures; for which of all my pleasures did not you heighten-and in what branch of duty did not you stimulate me? But all that is over! and I can only repent that I did not better use what might have been so eminently useful.

I thank you heartily for your account of your rambles at Kinnaird-would that I were the companion of them! In return, you shall learn my methodical routine. I write part of every forenoon, and walk for an hour or two before dinner. I lounge over the fire with a book, or I sew and chat all the evening.

Your friend Laura proceeds with a slow but regular pace; a short step every day—no more! She has advanced sixty paces, alias pages, since you left her. She is at present very comfortably situate, if the foolish thing had the sense to think so; she is on a visit to Norwood, there she is to remain for a few days; and a very snug old fashioned place it is! Though it should never be laid open to the public at large, you shall see the interior of it one day or other.

Last Thursday I paid a visit to a very different habitation-our chateau at St. Leonard's; though nothing has as yet the least tinge of green, it did not look very ill. It is as gay as ten thousand purple crocuses, and twice as many yellow ones can make it. I shall soon grow impatient to take possession, and, if we can manage it, I

believe we shall revert to our old plan of going there early; if not, I must console myself with my friend Laura in Edinburgh. I wish I saw the end of her; but "wilds immeasurably spread seem lengthening as I go."

If ever I undertake another lady, I will manage her in a very different manner. Laura is so decently kerchiefed, like our grandmothers, that to dress her is a work of time and pains. Her younger sister, if she ever have one, shall wear loose, floating, easy robes, that will slip on in a minute. ***

As for -'s new production, I believe I shall never have any personal acquaintance with it. It is an "Historical Romance"-a sort of composition to which I have a strong dislike. Fiction disguises the simplicity, and destroys the usefulness of the true history; and the recollection of the true history deprives me of all history in the fiction. Besides, the foundation of -'s tale is a history as well known as that of the deluge; and she professes to adhere closely to truth, only dramatizing a little. Now, this "dramatizing" is an undertaking too arduous for mortals. Shakspeare himself has, in some degree, failed in it; historical plays are, indeed, the most amusing of histories; perhaps, as far as mere character is concerned, the most faithful. But he is sadly encumbered with the facts; and no part whatever of the interest of these plays arises from the plot; so, at least, it appears to me. Now and all other misses, must pardon me, if I think that ladies are more likely to make their works interesting by well imagined incident than by masterly delineation of character. Ladies have,

indeed, succeeded in delineating real life; a very few of them have done so; but it has been rather in pictures of manners than of character. But has slender materials for a picture of manners; and let your theory of female genius forgive me for doubting her power of giving interest to a story, the catastrophe of which is not to be forgotten. * * *

We old folks make friends slowly-so slowly, that I believe life will be too short to furnish me with another such as you; therefore I value you accordingly. I hope we shall be near neighbours in another world; or that, if your place be, as it well may, a higher one than mine, you will not be forbidden to visit the meaner mansions of our Father's house. * * *

I am going to visit the woman that is come to No. 6. I believe I shall hate her; yet they say she is a pleasant person enough. If she sits in the same place where you used to work, I think I shall beat her. They say narrow-minded people always hate their successors; I must be the most illiberal of all creatures, for I hate the successors of my friends. *** You see my paper

is done so, of course, is my letter.

MRS. BRUNTON TO MRS. IZETT.

St. Leonard's, Aug. 30, 1810.

IF I have not answered your two letters, blame not me, who had all the will in the world to do so, nor Mr. B., who has teased me every day to write to you. Blame your dear friend and favourite, Montague de Courcy, of Norwood,

Esq., for he has been wholly and solely in fault. He has been making love so energetically, that I had not the heart to leave him in the middle of his flames; more especially as he had been interrupted by a score of troublesome visiters breaking in upon his privacy. To say the truth, I have been far more compassionate towards him than she who ought to have been the most deeply interested. She has not only given him his congé, but has barbarously left him, in a cold October evening, standing under a tree in his own avenue. There he has stood since last night; there he must stand all to-day, for to-day I write to you; all to-morrow, for to-morrow I go to town; and all Thursday, for I do not return till then. The thirtieth chapter is closed, and I mean that six more should bring all things to their proper issue. If I write every day, and all day, that may be done in fifty days. But I find that in one way and another, half my time is abstracted from my business, as I now begin to consider this affair, at first begun for pastime! Besides, I must take more exercise, if I would not be sick; and must sew more, if I would not be ragged.

I admit not an iota of what you are so polite to Mr. M. as to call his reasoning; I must be allowed to call it sophistry, since it was at best only a just conclusion upon wrong premises. Selfish we should indeed be, if we rejoiced in the prosperity of our friends merely because it promotes our own happiness. But the question remains, "Why does it promote our happiness, while we expect from it no personal advantage?" Why, but because we are not selfish? Why, but because an unvitiated mind has a faculty for