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, nor the ardour with which she prepared to meet the duties of return ing health, if returning health were to be her portion. "They seemed rather to animate her zeal the more in any thing by which she could promote the welfare of her fellow creatures. To this great work she seemed the more anxious to devote herself, as her recollection became the deeper, that the ⚫ night cometh in which no man can work.' Life,' she says, in one of the last letters which she ever wrote, and which contains no other trace of her own forebodings; ' life is too short and uncertain to admit of our trifling with even the lesser opportu nities of testifying good-will. The flower of the field must scatter its odours to-day. To-morrow it will be gone.' "Her forebodings were not often the subject of her conversation with those around her, because she knew how painful the theme was to them. For the same reason, she mentioned it but slightly to her relations at a distance. But there is a striking mixture of fortitude and tenderness in the last letter which she addressed to her sister-in-law. "TO MRS BALFOUR. "Frankfield, Oct. 22, 1818. "If it please Almighty God to spare my infant's life and my own,-1 trust I am ⚫ made of sterner stuff,' than to shrink from a few hours of any pain which nature can support. I suppose the trial will be made about three weeks hence. I hope not sooner; for even then I shall scarcely be ready. Ready, do I say? What time would be necessary to prepare me for the change which I must probably then undergo! But there is ONE with whom one day is as a thousand years! When I spoke of preparation, I merely meant that I had not ⚫ set my house in order.' "I wish, my dear Mary, that some of you would write to me very circumstantially about aunt Craigie; and soon, lest the letter be too late for me. If I am to be removed, I cannot regret that she is so soon to follow. But what a loss will she be to every member of your circle? Where is there a being, within the sphere of her influence, who does not owe to her many acts of kindness? It grieves me especially to think of her excellent sister, whose kind. heart will feel her privation most deeply! Remember me most affectionately to them both, especially to aunt Mary, who was the first love of my heart-who was the first person whom I recollect as showing me kindness-and who, since the time when I remember her singing to sooth me, till this moment of my sending her my blessing and farewell, has never ceased to be kind and dear to me! "May God bless my dear William and you, in your family, and in all your concerns; but chiefly in that great concern of making your conduct in this life a prepa ration for a better! I shall not write again. My husband will. "Her anticipations, however, had been only too well founded. After giving birth to a still-born son, on the 7th of December, and recovering, for a few days, with a ra pidity beyond the hopes of her medical friends, she was attacked with fever. It advanced with fatal violence, till it closed her earthly life on the morning of Saturday, December 19, 1818.” pp. xcviiiciji. Dr Brunton is rather hurt, in the idea that Mrs Brunton's writings are losing their popularity. We think, however, that he has over-strained this supposition. Her works have by no means disappeared from the public eye, although, like every other work of the kind, their interest may have been superseded for a time by the numerous other compositions of the same class, which have since come forward. Those of the author of Waverley have of themselves engrossed, for the present, the attention which had before been scattered among many competitors. It is not, however, on the actual excellence of Mrs Brunton's works, considered as finished productions, that her fame is to rest. There are passages through them all'as finely written, perhaps, as any thing in our day; particularly in Self-Control, there is an overflowing eloquence, on many occasions, which seems to burst from a deep and perennial fountain. But it is rather the mind that predominates over the whole, which is admirable: the spirit of high, and, if we may use the expression, original piety,not caught from the precepts of teachers, and "This excellent person died a few days before her niece, but not before she had received this affecting testimony of gratitude and attachment." repeating its lesson at second-hand, but warm from its s own pure feelings, as if touched immediately by the living flame of the Gospel. We know not whether this internal inspiration, operating upon a highly moral and intellectual, and, at the same time, a most natural and simple mind, alive to every human affection, is not more apparent in her writings than in those of any other author. We are only sorry that she did not give herself up more courageously to its direction; it would itself have led her (without any laboured effort) amid the wildest mazes of invention, into situations in which it would have glowed with an overpowering intensity, while it fell like sudden fire upon the altar to burn away with irresistible holiness the obstructing passions and sophis. tries of the corrupt and worldly heart. This is an office, indeed, for which fe male piety is more peculiarly adapted. That of men, however sincere, is apt ither to be spoiled by philosophy, or zentangled amidst theological systems. The devotion of WOMAN alone flows Ifraely from the heart. 1 yd We might add much on Mrs Brun ton's many amiable and useful qualities in private life, and on her inde sfatigable labours of charity, but here we are nobly anticipated, and most grateful, indeed, we are, to be enabled to conclude this very imperfect sketch, lin which we have throughout been -wading among feelings for which we could find no adequate expressionby the following beautiful and tender tribute to her memory, from ONE tawhose name, indeed, we are not permitted to give, but who can scarceely fail to be recognised as that Sister Excellence, before the shrine of whose pre-eminent genius She once offered, with so profound a humility, the -first fruits of her moral invention, and who now, with an obeisance no less genuine and Christian, casts down her Town crown in the presence of the fair disembodied Spirit" to which, -in its angelic exaltation, all the highsest faculties of man or of woman have become but as the weakness of childthoodart to amprung ON THE LATE MRS BRunton. No more shall bed-rid pauper watch VOL. IV. The helpless vagrant, oft relieva, na en'd, Have seen her quit the friendly door, Fair, disembodied Spirit ! where art thou ? thee, soul Gains not on this dull earth its final goal, Will well believe that erring man might move, Though chang'd and fall'n he be, his Maker's love; And He who was by sin untainted, give With gen'rous love, his life that such might * live. LETTERS FROM LONDON, BY AN ISLANDER, VC NA LETTER TI. * I FEAR you will think me difficult to please, from being unwilling to be pleased. By no means. I have carried with me that happy faculty of always · seeing something to interest me, that 3 R you and Allan used to remark. But then, when you walk with people that you love, the flower, the shrub, or the bird's nest on shore, the sea fowl in all their fresh whiteness towering over the boat, produced a sensation in my mind, at least in some degree reflected from those of others. Now, my tribulation here arises from going to see things with people who have not only seen them before, but merely see them in the London way as sights, that is to say, as objects simply recommended by novelty. My pleasure and admiration appears to them the gawky wonder of a novice. The intense attention with which I like to dwell on works of art, till they are imprinted on my memory, wearies them, and I am much too sensitive to enjoy any thing of the kind, at the price of giving pain or disgust to others. Allan and I sometimes steal away by our selves, and then we do enjoy to the utmost what we see. Yet, even in this way we are liable to intrusive disappointment. I did once go with a tribe of misses and missish masters to Westminster Abbey; they had been often before, I fancy. They made a great noise, which was just as foreign to me, as our island talk would be to them, yet was possibly just as good in its own way, though I could not think so. What a flood of recollections would this last dwelling of the prince and the poet, the lovely and the brave, have awakened in my mind, if I had been allowed quietly to follow the train of my reflections. Allan, however, and I, were determined to go by ourselves in two days after. I hope to be more fortunate than the last time. I am returned from another, in some respects more fortunate excursion, yet this too had its drawbacks. Dear Flora, you can have no idea of the sort of people one occasionally meets here, so well dressed, yet so obviously coarse in mind and manners. To be sure I do not meet such people at my aunt's, or among her friends, who are all persons of some refinement and intelligence. But you know with us a cotton gown, and a straw bonnet, are undoubted marks of gentility, and our humbler class would be objects of ridicule and scorn if they attempted such an infringement on the costume of the privileged orders, as would result from such presumption; besides being the subjects of a satiri cal song, like that still sung all over the island in ridicule of poor Elspet of Ellanreach, when she exhibited her lowland finery for the first and last time at the church of Slate. By this broad distinction in outward forms, we have been taught to associate the idea of birth and good breeding with fashion and expence. To be sure, my aunt's maids helped to dispel this illusion, but then I was aware of their condition in life, and thought of their dress as I did of my aunt's sofas and window curtains, as marks of her ele gance, not of their own. But I must begin at the beginning, and tell first how Allan and I sagely determined to sce Westminster Abbey, exclusively, quietly, ourselves only; and, for that purpose, sought an early breakfast, and were admitted as soon as the doors opened. You may believe our first attention was turned to Poets' corner, which, indeed, first meets the eye at the entrance. You and I have read together a much more minute and ac curate description than I can give of these monuments. I only mean, there fore, to give you some idea of what I felt (and what I am sure you would feel) on seeing them. The recollec tion of those powerful minds, and the wonderful talents that have charmed and astonished so many, first rose on my mind with a kind of triumph in the force and splendour of human ge nius, and I thought of man made a little, and, in this case, but a little lower than the angels. I was elated at sharing their nature, and could have almost worshipped at those shrines erected to consecrate their memory; but more deep and serious reflections were forced upon me by the woeful triumph of death over all that we admire and revere, brought so home to the heart in this last abode of worldly grandeur and intellec tual greatness. I thought back on "the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease." "Unhappy Dryden," too, came heavily over my heart; I trembled to think of the abuse of talent, the pollution of mind and degrada tion of taste among that community. At length I began to feel most painfully serious, even with regard to the better class whose tombs I was sur veying I fear my reveries were something like Lady Macbeth's dreams, The Thane of Fife had a wife, where is she now?" Where now are those who have left us so much to admire and so much to blame? But I know it is not for me with unhallowed research to draw their frailties from their drear abode. I stood long fixed in thought, and the first thing that occurred to me, on waking from this trance, was Allan's sympathy in continuing so long in a similar state of abstraction; but I found he was not romantic enough to give up his thoughts to dead lions while there are living doves to muse on. He asked me suddenly, looking on an epitaph, whether I had not seen it in Flora's scrap book, and then remarked, what a time a letter took to come from Port nacroish. 2 You will scarce believe that I was seized with a foolish fit of laughter in the midst of these vestiges of mortality. It was the first sincere laugh since I left Skye. You may remember last winter when we read all the periodical publications over and over during our long confine ment with bad weather, how much we were amused with some anecdotes of King James and his Danish queen, who was so fond of shows and exhibitions. We were so diverted with the eagerness of her desire to accompany him to England, and his very natural wish to be free of the incumbrance of a female train while making his appearance among his new subjects, and arranging the momentous affairs that must occur upon his accession. Queen Anne, however, had no notion of remaining behind where so much show and novelty must be going on; and when every other argument failed, urged, that the safe ty of a branch of royalty then in prospect might be endangered by irritat ing her while in that anxious state. It says little in favour of the queen, that the king, on consulting with his sage counsellers, was convinced that she only feigned pregnancy to procure indulgence in her favourite plan. The sapient monarch, with more firmness than we should have given him cre dit for, resisted this tender plea, and set off by himself. To be sure, if there was much dignity or candour in the queen's general character, she could not have been suspected of such an artifice. However, she was in honour bound to produce an untimely birth in her own vindication, and to show his incredulous majesty how dangerous it was to disoblige her under such circumstances. All this rather belongs to tragedy. But the farce that amused us so much followed; it was her carrying up the imperfect young princess in a box to England, to convince the king of the fatal result of this harshness. In the antique way in which it is told, it amused us excessively, and we supposed we saw her presenting and opening the box, &c. &c. Now, when I was led by what aunt Marjory would call natural af fection towards the Stuart monuments, the first thing that met my eyes was this little damsel carved in stone, with cherubim cheeks, a great round head, a stone frock made extremely full, falling in large plaits to her feet, and her hands stuck in her sides as if about to make a minuet curtsey, and this extraordinary figure is meant to represent an infant that never saw the light. O, I had almost forgot to mention a stone cradle standing beside the young lady with a very stony covering, as it were carelessly thrown over it. But you must see the clumsy odd looking groupe, and remember what connects with it to have any notion of its ludicrous effect. It is odd, that the first genuine laugh that has been elicited from me in London should have been heard in a place so long hallowed in my mind. I will tell you another time why we laugh so little here, that is, we that are genteel. Turning to the other side, I be held an object that changed and chastened the whole current of my ideas in an instant, it was the monument of our hard-fated Queen Mary. Her figure by no means flattered, yet, with a kind of death like reality. I can not account for the chill of horror I felt, unless it was surprise, for it had not been shown me before. I have been often carried by imagination back to the closing scene at Fotheringay, yet, somehow, never felt myself so near the bloody catastrophe as now. In reading of her death, her own calm heroism, those graces which attended on all her unfortunate life, and did not forsake her on the scaffold, and the indignation one feels at the sycophants who embittered death to please their cruel mistress, divide the atten tion. But in this silent dwelling of the departed, one thinks of death abstractedly. I felt, as if all this had happened last week, the distance of time seemed lost in nearness of place. Now, though it is very painful, I like this. One feels as if viewing with the naked eye what we could formerly only see through a telescope; the vivid recollections thus awakened, are, after all, I think, the best things I have met in my travels. I think one's mind enlarges while reviewing the past or anticipating the future. Peo ple would not think it worth while to commit crimes for present gratification, if extended views had taught them to consider how little a point the present is, and how little we are ourselves in the scale of comparison. Now I am going to illustrate as it were what I said of vulgar fine drest people. I spoke then under the sore and immediate recollection of them. Just as we left the Stuart tombs, a crowd of drest people, that if they had but held their tongues, would have dazzled our ignorance, rushed in with irreverent noise and bustle, and they did talk, ye powers, how they did talk! and how they did dispel all our respect for their dress by their tittering and chattering! Think of poor us that were obliged by that vile Abbeyman to be driven about with these vulgarians; 'tis impossible to give you any idea of their ignorance and conceit, their flippancy and petulance. Though a little angry myself, I was tempted to smile at Allan's Scottish indignation, when they began to sneer and laugh at our chair, in which so many of our ancient monarchs had been crowned and anointed. "O la! what poor creatures them Scotch must be!" I could stand it no longer at last, but telling the man I should pay him for the time he remained with us after this set were gone, I withdrew into an inclosure like a little chapel, containing the tomb erected to his father and mother by the Duke of Buckingham, the worthless and fatal favourite of two Stuart kings. The effigies of his parents, Sir George and Lady Villiers, beautifully executed in white marble, lay on the tomb. While I stood to contemplate them and regain my composure, Allan, with all his righteous wrath, took his round along with the Cockneys, to indulge, I suppose, his scorn and curiosity, or perhaps exult in his own superiority I had somehow an interest quite in dependent of esteem or admiration in this unhappy favourite of princes. I had seen his picture, an original, in Holyroodhouse, in the Breadalbane apartments, which every one overlooks, no one can tell why, for certainly some of the best paintings are there I wanted to see whether I could trace the lineaments of his very fine coun tenance in those of his parents, and perfectly ascertained that his beauty was inherited from both, particularly from his father. Will you believe that I could not succeed in distinctly viewing this very fine sculpture, with out wiping the dust off with my hand kerchief; such is the shameful neglect of these greedy hounds, who are so rapacious in their demands, and so remiss in their duty. The Cockneys, consisting of smart men and pert women, grossly igno rant of all they were to see, and incal pable of understanding what was told them, had by this time departed. Our guides led us on, and suddenly threw open a kind of press, disclosing a figure in naval uniform, frightfully like life, with a melancholy but very interesting countenance. I was told it was Nelson, and my blood ran chill I hope I shall never again see a waxen effigy of any one I have been accustom ed to admire; I cannot account for the feeling, but it seems to me as if any thing great or noble were lessened by this mimicking of resemblance, I generally feel and then find out a cause for my feelings, but here I am utterly at a loss. I think I should not even like to see a fac simile of your own fair face thus presented to me. You feel as if you saw an object too near to see it to advantage. The only book that I have read with attention since I came here is Walpole's Reminiscences. There is something satirical and heartless about it. He strips grandeur of every adventitious ornament, and shows the littleness and deformity of the poor individual too distinctly; but I like every thing of the nature of memoirs and biography. In short, I like truth, even unpleasing truth; but I have a great notion, shrewd sensible men of the world are great cynics at bottom, and have very bad hearts. I was, however, very much diverted with his two Duchesses, the Buckingham and the |