6

"I have been delighted with the paper on Burns,' which you were kind enough to lend me. I think that the writer has gone further into the heart of the mystery' than any other, because he, almost the first of all, has approached the subject with a deep reverence for genius, but a still deeper for truth: all the rest have seemed only anxious to make good the attack or the defence. And there is a feeling, too, of 'the still sad music of humanity' throughout, which bears upon the heart a conviction full of power, that it is listening to the voice of a brother. I wonder who the writer is: he certainly gives us a great deal of what Boswell, I think, calls bark and steel for the mind.' I, at least, found it in several passages; but I fear that a woman's mind never can be able, and never was formed to attain that power of sufficiency to itself, which seems to lie somewhere or other amongst the rocks of a man's.”

"I send you the Moravian air; and this is the old Swedish tradition of which I was speaking to you last night. There is a dark lake somewhere among the Swedish mountains, and in the lake there is an island of pines, and on the island an old castle, and there is a spirit-keeper, who lives far down in the lake, and when any evil is going to befall the inhabitants of the castle, he rises to the surface, and plays a most mournful ditty on his shadowy harp, and they know that it is a music of warning. I met with it in Olaus Magnus—such a strange wild book!"

1 That by Carlyle in the Edinburgh Review.

"Did it ever strike you how much lighter sorrow's 'pining cares' become, out in the free air, and under the blue sky, than beneath a smoky roof,' as the seakings of old used to say? For my part, I am never the least surprised to hear of people becoming fascinated with Indian life, and giving up all our boasted refinements for the range of the tameless forests. This reminds me of some American books, which I send you; in one of them, New England's Memorial, I wish to call your attention to the beautiful map at the beginning, with all those gallant ships, and groups of armed men, and wolves and bears wandering about, to express, I suppose, the dangers which the pilgrim fathers so bravely encountered. The other, Mademoiselle Riedesel's Memoirs, I send for Mrs. C., whom, I think, it will interest: the heroine goes through many trials, but, sustained as she is by the strong affection which overcometh all things,' who can look upon her with pity?"

6

"I am quite surprised at your liking my 'StormPainter' so much: as an expression of strong and perturbed feeling, I could not satisfy myself with it in the least; it seemed all done in pale water-colours."

"Will you tell your brother, I regretted, after you and he had left me the other evening, that, instead of Werner's Luther, which I do not think will interest him much, I had not lent him one of my greatest favourites, Grillparzer's Sappho. I therefore send it him now. It is, in my opinion, full of beauty, which I am sure he will appreciate, and of truth, developing

itself clearly and sorrowfully through the colouring mists of imagination."

6

"I have been thinking much of the German scenes for translation, respecting which you paid me the compliment of wishing for my opinion. The interview between Philip the Second and Posa1 is certainly very powerful, but to me its interest is always destroyed by a sense of utter impossibility, which haunts me throughout. Not even Schiller's mighty spells can, I think, win the most unquestioning spirit' to suppose that such a voice of truth and freedom could have been lifted up, and endured, in the presence of the cold, stern Philip the Second-that he would, even for a moment, have listened to the language thus fearlessly bursting from a noble heart. Three of the most impressive scenes towards the close of the play, might, I think, be linked together, leaving out the intervening ones, with much effect;-the one in which Carlos, standing by the body of his friend, forces his father to the contemplation of the dead: the one in which the king comes forward, with his fearful, dreamy remorse, alone amidst his court,

Gieb diesen todten mir heraus, &c.'

and the subsequent interview between Philip and the Grand Inquisitor, in which the whole spirit of those fanatic days seems embodied.

"There is a scene in one of Oehlenschläger's dramas, Der Hirtenknabe,3 which has always affected me

'In Schiller's Don Carlos. "Give me this dead one back" 'The Shepherd Boy.

strongly. It has also the recommendation of telling its own tale at once, without need of any preliminaries. An aged priest wishes by degrees, and with tenderness, to reveal to a father the death of his only child. The father, represented as a bold and joyous character, full of hope, and strength, and muth des lebens,' attributes all the dark sayings,' and mournful allusions of his visitant, to the natural despondency of age, and attempts to cheer him by descriptions of his bright domestic happiness. "Starke dich," he “in meinen sonnenschein !" The very exultation of his spirit makes you tremble for him, and feel that fate is approaching: at last, the old man uncovers the body of the child, and then the passionate burst of the father's grief is indeed overpowering :then the mother enters, and even amidst all her anguish, the meekness of a more subdued and chastened being is felt, and beautifully contrasted with her husband's despair.

says,

"In Goethe's Egmont, the scenes in which Clärchen endeavours to rouse the spirit of the bewildered citizens, and in which Brackenburg communicates to her the preparations for Egmont's execution, seem to stand out from the rest in the bold relief of their power and passion; and the interview between Egmont in prison and Ferdinand, the son of his enemy, who soothes even the anguish of those moments by the free-will offering of his young heart's affection and reverence, I have always thought most deeply touching."

'Spirit of life.

'Strengthen thyself in my sunshine.

It may here not be out of place to introduce a few recollections regarding Mrs. Hemans's progressive tastes, supplied by the friend already described, as having been for so many years her indefatigable literary purveyor.

"My book beckifications in the days of old were multifarious enough; in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish poetry; or prose (not prosy prose), grave or gay, lively or severe, history or fiction (the history chiefly of feudal ages), essay or criticism; only nothing in the service of science ever found a place in them. At a later period, during her Wavertree residence, I was often struck with the change of her tastes, which then seemed to have retreated from the outer world, and devoted themselves exclusively to the passionate and imaginative. The German poets were always on her table, especially Goethe. Wordsworth was ever growing in her favour, yet I think at that time she oftener quoted Byron, Shelley, and Madame de Staël, than any other. This was aliment too stimulating for an organization that so much needed

'All the works of Sismondi, particularly the Litterature du Midi, and Republiques Italiennes, held a high place in her estimation; perhaps she prized them all the more from their having been especial favourites of her mother. Fauriel's Chants Populaires de la Grèce Moderne, opened out to her a world of new ideas and feelings, and suggested, as the books she loved always did, some of her sweetest lyrics.

Amongst the old household favourites, none was more popular than the Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence in Tripoli, by the sister-in-law of Mr. Tully; and in one of Mrs. Hemans's letters, she says "What will you think of our wanting to borrow, for the sixth time, the dear old letters from Tripoli ?"