So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, Glancing with black-beaded eyes. Prythee weep, May Lilian! Prythee weep, May Lilian. If prayers will not hush thee, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, LOVE AND DEATH. WHAT time the mighty moon was gathering light And talking to himself, first met his sight: "You must begone," said Death; "these walks are mine." Love wept, and spread his sheeny vans for flight; Yet, ere he parted, said, "This hour is thine: Thou art the shadow of life; and as the tree Stands in the sun, and shadows all beneath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death; MARY HOWITT was born at Coleford, in Gloucestershire, where her parents were making a temporary residence; but shortly after her birth they returned to their accustomed abode at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, where she spent her youth. The bautiful Arcadian scenery of this part of Staffordshire was of a character to foster a deep love of the country; and is described with great accuracy in her recent prose work, "Wood Leighton." By her mother she is descended from an ancient Irish family, and also from Wood, the ill-used Irish patentee, who was ruined by the selfish malignity of Dean Swift,-from whose aspersions his character was vindicated by Sir Isaac Newton. A true statement of the whole affair may be seen in Ruding's "Annals of Coinage." Charles Wood, her grandfather, was the first who introduced platina into England from Jamaica, where he was assay-master. Her parents being strict members of the Society of Friends, and her father being, indeed, of an old line who suffered persecution in the early days of Quakerisin, her education was of an exclusive character; and her knowledge of books confined to those approved of by the most strict of her own people, till a later period than most young persons become acquainted with them. Their effect upon her mind was, consequently, so much the more vivid. Indeed, she describes her overwhelming astonishment and delight in the treasures of general and modern literature, to be like what Keats says his feelings were when a new world of poetry opened upon him, through Chapman's "Homer,"-as to the astronomer, "When a new planet swims into his ken." Among poetry, there was none which made a stronger impression than our simple old ballad, which she, and a sister near her own age, and of similar taste and temperament, used to revel in, making at the same time many young attempts in epic, dramatic, and ballad poetry. In her twenty-first year she was married to William Howitt, a gentleman well calculated to encourage and promote her poetical and intellectual taste,himself a Poet of considerable genius, and the author of various well-known works. Her domestic life has been a happy one. The names of William and Mary Howitt are honoured wherever they are known, and that is wherever the English language is spoken or read. Mary Howitt published, jointly with her husband, two volumes of poems; "The Forest Minstrel," in 1823; and “The Desolation of Eyam, and other Poems," in 1827. In 1834, she published "The Seven Temptations," a series of dramatic poems; a work which, in other times, would have been alone sufficient to have made and secured a very high reputation: her dramas are full of keen perceptions, strong and accurate delineations, and powerful displays of character. She has also published a collection of her most popular ballads, a class of writing in which she greatly excels all her contemporaries; many of them were favourably known to the public through the periodicals in which, at various times, they appeared. She is also well known to the young by her "Sketches of Natural History," "Tales in Verse," and other productions written expressly for their use and pleasure. A list of her writings, for old and young, would indeed fill this page. Mrs. Howitt is distinguished by the mild, unaffected, and conciliatory manners, for which "the people called Quakers" have always been remarkable. Her writings, too, are in keeping with her character: in all there is evidence of peace and good will; a tender and a trusting nature; a gentle sympathy with humanity; and a deep and fervent love of all the beautiful works which the Great Hand has scattered so plentifully before those by whom they can be felt and appreciated. She has mixed but little with the world: the home duties of wife and mother have been to her productive of more pleasant and far happier results than struggles for distinction amid crowds; she has made her reputation quietly but securely; and has laboured successfully as well as earnestly to inculcate virtue as the noblest attribute of an English woman. If there be some of her contemporaries who have surpassed her in the higher qualities of poetry, some who have soared higher, and others who have taken a wider range,→ there are none whose writings are better calculated to delight as well as inform. Her poems are always graceful and beautiful, and often vigorous; but they are essentially feminine: they afford evidence of a kindly and generous nature, as well as of a fertile imagination, and a safely-cultivated mind. She is entitled to a high place among the Poets of Great Britain; and a still higher among those of her sex, by whom the intellectual rank of woman has been asserted without presumption, and maintained without display. THERE was an old and quiet man, "And now," he said, "to you I'll tell ""Tis five-and-fifty years gone by, "She was a trim, stout-timber'd ship, A lovely thing on the wave was she, "For forty days, like a winged thing, Nor all that time we slacken'd speed. "She was a laden argosy Of wealth from the Spanish main, "An old and silent man was he, And his face was yellow and lean; In the golden lands of Mexico A miner he had been. "His body was wasted, bent, and bow'd, And amid his gold he lay; Amid iron chests that were bound with brass, "No word he spoke to any on board, "But list ye me-on the lone high seas, And I heard, from among those iron chests, "I started to my feet, and, lo! "I heard it drop into the sea, With a heavy, splashing sound, And I saw the captain's bloody hands As he quickly turn'd him round; And he drew in his breath when me he saw, Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe Of a spectre doth astound. "But I saw his white and palsied lips, 666 He was chain'd to the deck with his heavy guilt, And the blood that was not dry. 'Twas a cursed thing,' said I, ' to kill That old man in his sleep! And the plagues of the storm will come from him, Ten thousand fathoms deep! "And the plagues of the storm will follow us, "And he slowly lifted his bloody hand, But the blood that was wet did freeze his soul, "And even then-that very hour "I told no one within the ship For I saw the hand of God at work, "And when they spoke of the murder'd man, They all surmised he had walk'd in dreams, "But I, alone, and the murderer, That dreadful thing did know, How he lay in his sin-a murder'd man, A thousand fathom low. |