ing there in the following spring. Late in the autumn, on her way back to Wavertree, she paid her last visit to Bronwylfa, and bade a second, and now an unconsciously final, adieu to the

"Green land of her childhood, her home, and her dead."

The following extracts are chiefly from letters addressed to her new friends in Dublin :

"I thought Anglesey, through which I travelled, without exception, the most dreary, culinary looking land of prose I ever beheld. I strove in vain to conjure up the ghost of a Druid, or even of a tree, on its wide, monotonous plains, which I really think nature must have produced to rest herself, after the strong excitement of composing the Caernarvonshire hills. But I cannot tell you how much I wanted to express my feelings when at last that bold mountain chain rose upon me, in all its grandeur, with the crowning Snowdon (very superior, I assure you, in 'shape and feature,' to our friend Ben Lomond), maintaining his pride of place' above the whole ridge. And the Menai bridge, which I thought I should scarcely have noticed in the presence of those glorious heights, really seems, from its magnificence, a native feature of the scene, and nobly asserts the preeminence of mind above all other things. I could scarcely have conceived such an union of strength and grace; and its chain work is so airy in appearance, that to drive along it seems almost like passing through the trellis of a bower; it is quite startling to look down from any thing which appears so fragile, to the immense depth below.

"Part of my journey lay along the sea-shore rather late at night, and I was surprised by quite a splendid vision of the northern lights, on the very spot where I had once, and once only, before seen them in early childhood. They shot up like slender pillars of white light, with a sort of arrowy motion, from a dark cloud above the sea; their colour varied in ascending, from that of silver to a faint orange, and then a very delicate green; and sometimes the motion was changed, and they chased each other along the edge of the cloud, with a dazzling brightness and rapidity. I was almost startled by seeing them there again; and after so long an interval of thoughts and years, it was like the effect produced by a sudden burst of familiar and yet long-forgotten music."

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I did not observe any object of interest on my voyage from Wales, excepting a new beacon at the extremity of the Liverpool Rock, and which I thought a good deal like the pictures of the Eddystone Lighthouse. There was something to me particularly stern and solemn in its appearance, as it rose darkly against a very wild sky, like a pillar of cloud,' with a capital of deep-coloured fire: but perhaps the gloom and stormy effect of the evening might have very much aided the impression left upon my fancy."

"Have you seen Rogers's Italy, with its exquisite embellishments? The whole book seems to me quite a triumph of art and taste. Some of Turner's Italian scenes, with their moonlit vestibules and pillared arcades, the shadows of which seem almost trembling

on the ground as you look at them, really might be fit representations of Armida's enchanted gardens: and there is one view of the Temples of Pæstum, standing in their severe and lonely grandeur on the shore, and lit up by a flash of lightning, which brought to my mind those lines of Byron

-As I gazed, the place
Became Religion, and the heart ran o'er

With silent worship of the great of old.'

"I have not yet read Northcote's Life of Titian, but I was much struck with a passage I lately saw quoted from it, relating to that piercing, intellectual, eagle-look, which I have so often remarked in Titian's portraits. It is the intense personal character,' Northcote says' which gives the superiority to those portraits over all others, and stamps them with a living and permanent interest. Whenever you turn to look at them, they appear to be looking at you. There seems to be some question pending between you, as if an intimate friend or an inveterate foe were in the room with you. They exert a kind of fascinating power, and there is that exact resemblance to individual nature, which is always new and always interesting.' I suppose it was a feeling of this kind which made Fuseli exclaim, on seeing Titian's picture of Paul the Third with his two nephews, That is history!'"

6

"The account you sent me of the longevity of artists (a privilege which I, at least, am far from envying them), seemed confirmed, or rather accounted for, in some degree, by a paper I was reading on the same

day, it is written, with great enthusiasm, on the 'Pleasures of Painting;' and the author (Hazlitt, I believe), describes the studies of the artist as a kind of sanctuary, a 'city of refuge' from worldly strife, envy and littleness; and his communion with nature as sufficient to fill the void, and satisfy all the cravings of heart and soul. I wonder if this indeed can be. I should like to go by night with a magician to the Coliseum (as Benvenuto Cellini did), and call up the spirits of those mighty Italian artists, and make them all tell me whether they had been happy; but it would not do to forget, as he also did-(have you ever read those strange memoirs of his ?)—the spell by which the ghosts were laid, as the consequences were extremely disagreeable."

"I was much interested a few days ago, in looking over some beautiful engravings of antique English portraits. I wonder whether you were ever impressed by what struck me much during an examination of them, the superior character of repose by which they are distinguished from the portraits of the present day. I found this, to a certain degree, the predominant trait in every one of them; not any thing like nonchalance or apathy, but a certain high-minded self-possession, something like what I think the 'Opium Eater' calls the brooding of the majestic intellect over all.' I scarcely ever see a trace of this quiet, yet stately sweetness, in the expression of modern portraits; they all look so eager, so restless, so trying to be vieillé. I wonder if this is owing to the feverish excitement of the times in which we live, for I should

suppose that the world has never been in such a hurry during the whole course of its life before."

"Since I wrote last, I have been quite confined to the house; but before I caught my last very judicious cold, I went to see an exquisite piece of sculpture, which has been lately sent to this neighbourhood from Rome by Gibson, with whose name as an artist you are most likely familiar. It is a statue of Sappho, representing her at the moment she receives the tidings of Phaon's desertion. I think I prefer it to almost any thing I ever saw of Canova's, as it possesses all his delicacy and beauty of form, but is imbued with a far deeper sentiment. There is a sort of willowy drooping in the figure, which seems to express a weight of unutterable sadness, and one sinking arm holds the lyre so carelessly, that you almost fancy it will drop while you gaze. Altogether, it seems to speak piercingly and sorrowfully of the nothingness of Fame, at least to woman. There was a good collection of pictures in the same house, but they were almost unaccountably vulgarized in my sight by the presence of the lonely and graceful statue."

"I wish I could be with you to see Young's performance of Hamlet, of all Shakspeare's characters the one which interests me most; I suppose from the never-ending conjectures in which it involves one's mind. Did I ever mention to you Goëthe's beautiful remark upon it? He says, that Hamlet's naturally gentle and tender spirit, overwhelmed with its mighty tasks and solemn responsibilities, is like a China vase,