of indistinctness positively sublime in the name of the day upon which you promise to visit me next. I was, as the Lady Cherubina says, in The Heroine, 'terribly ill off for mysteries,' before the arrival of your note; but this deficiency is now most happily supplied. Reasoning from analogy instead of wisdom, I should conclude it to be Tuesday, but then it has, if my senses fail me not, a dotted i: it seems to have rather too many letters for Friday, and into Wednesday it cannot be metamorphosed, even on the antiquarian system, that consonants are changeable at pleasure, and vowels go for nothing.' The force of nature can no further go; therefore I return the awful hieroglyphic for your inspection, and beg for some further light."

The next note refers to some of the works of an amiable young artist, whose distinguished talents excited in all who knew him a strong feeling of admiration, subdued into sorrowful interest by his early death.

"I return the very interesting collection of Mr. Austin's drawings, which I had great pleasure in looking over yesterday evening. I only regret that there were no names to them, as I am prevented from particularizing those which I most admired; but I recognised Tivoli, and was especially struck with one representing the interior of a church. There is also an exquisite little hermitage buried among trees, where I should like to pass at least a month after my late fatigues, and hear nothing but the sound of leaves and waters, and now and then some pleasant voice of a friend. I did not quite understand a message which VOL. I.

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Henry brought me, about the dedication or advertisement to these drawings. I cannot help feeling inte.rested in Mr. Austin, from all I have heard you say of him; and if you think it would gratify him, I would send you a few lines to be prefixed to this work, in which I should try to express in poetry what I imagine he wishes to convey-that the spirit of the artist was wandering over the sunny fields of Italy, whilst he himself was confined to the bed of sickness."

The "late fatigues" referred to in the above note, were occasioned by all the harassing preparations for removal, which were now assuming a "form and pressure" absolutely overwhelming to one so little used to worldly cares, and whose fitful strength was so easily exhausted. Mrs. Hemans had continued to be visited throughout the winter, by those distressing attacks of palpitation of the heart, which caused her friends so much uneasiness, and were invariably brought on by any unwonted excitement, or mental agitation. "My chest is still strangely oppressed,” she wrote in one of her letters," and always makes me think of Horatio's words:

'I, in this harsh world, draw my breath with pain." And the following, written at the point of departure, now seems fraught with a sad foreboding:— "You will be surprised to hear, that notwithstanding my healthful looks, Dr. who visited me after you were gone, positively forbade the intended excursion to Ince, and gave me most serious admonitions with regard to that complaint of the heart from which I suffer. He says that nothing but great care and

perfect quiet will prevent its assuming a dangerous character; and I told him that he might as well prescribe for me the powdered diamonds which physicians of the olden time ordered for royal patients. I must own that this has somewhat deepened the melancholy impressions under which I am going to Ireland, for I cannot but feel assured that he is right."

On the subject of her new plans, she thus wrote to an attached friend in Scotland:-"One of my greatest inducements to take this step, is the constant want of protection and domestic support to which my situation exposes me, and my anxiety to have my brother's advice and guidance as to my boys, for whose future prospects in life I begin to feel painfully anxious. Ireland seems a troubled land to seek, just at present; but every place is troubled to a woman at once so conspicuous, so unprotected, and so little acquainted with the world as, from peculiar causes, I am. I shall not despair of seeing you again, as Scotland is just as attainable from Dublin as from Liverpool, and I have too many kind friends there, ever to forget the beautiful scenes in which I first knew them. Do not fancy that I was insensible to the external charms of Kinfauns, because the treasures of art within its walls were more attractive to me (who am passionately fond of such objects, and have had few opportunities of gratifying my taste for them) than the hills and woods without. You should recollect that I have been almost cradled amidst scenes of beauty, and almost all the forms and colours of nature are familiar to me, but it is not so with those of art."

Towards the latter end of April 1831, Mrs. Hemans

quitted England for the last time, and, after remaining for a few weeks in Dublin, proceeded to visit her brother, then residing at the Hermitage, near Kilkenny. "This," she wrote, " is a very pretty little spot, and I should be really sorry that my brother is to leave it in two or three months, were it not that the change will be one of great advantage to himself, as he is appointed to a trust of high responsibility. I have a blue mountain chain in sight of my window, and the voice of the river comes in to me delightfully. My health has been very unsettled, yet my friends are surprised to see me looking so well. I think that, on the whole, the soft climate agrees with me; my greatest foe is 'the over-beating of the heart.' My life in Dublin was what might have been expected-one of constant excitement, and more broken into fragments' than ever. I very nearly gave up letter-writing in despair. I must, however, gratefully acknowledge, that I met there much true kindness. The state of the country here, though Kilkenny is considered at present tranquil, is certainly, to say the least of it, very ominous. We paid a visit yesterday evening at a clergyman's house about five miles hence, and found a guard of eight armed policemen stationed at the gate: the window-ledges were all provided with great stones for the convenience of hurling down upon assailants; and the master of the house had not, for a fortnight, taken a walk without loaded pistols. You may imagine how the boys, who are all here for the holidays, were enchanted with this agreeable state of things; indeed, I believe, they were not a little disappointed that we reached home without having sustained an attack

from the Whitefeet. Do not, however, suppose that we are in the least danger, though there seems just possibility of danger enough all round us, to keep up a little pleasant excitement-(the tabooed word again!) There is this peculiarity in Irish disturbances, that those who are not obnoxious, from party or political motives, to the people, have really nothing to fear; and my brother is extremely popular. My sister-in-law and myself are often amused with the idea of what our English friends would think, did they know of our sitting, in this troubled land, with our doors and windows all open, till eleven o'clock at night."

The extracts which follow, are from letters written at the same place.

"I wish to give you an account of an interesting day I lately passed, before its images become faint in my recollection. We went to Woodstock, the place where the late Mrs. Tighe, whose poetry has always been very touching to my feelings, passed the latest years of her life, and near which she is buried. The scenery of the place is magnificent; of a style which, I think, I prefer to every other; wild, profound glens, rich with every hue and form of foliage, and a rapid river sweeping through them, now lost, and now lighting up the deep woods with sudden flashes of its waves. Altogether, it reminded me more of Hawthornden than anything I have seen since, though it wants the solemn rock pinnacles of that romantic place. I wish I could have been alone with Nature and my thoughts; but, to my surprise, I found myself the object of quite a reception. There was no help for it, though I never