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to herself by the penetrating chill of an autumnal fog, which had suddenly closed around her. She hastened home; but not, alas! without having already imbibed the pestilential influence of the blighting atmosphere. A shuddering thrill pervaded her whole frame, and she felt, as she often afterwards declared, a presentiment that from that moment her hours were numbered. The same evening she was attacked by a fit of ague; and this insidious and harassing complaint continued its visitations for several weeks, reducing her poor wasted form to the most lamentable state of debility, and at length retiring only to make way for a train of symptoms still more fatal and distressing. Yet, while the work of decay was going on thus surely and progressively upon the earthly tabernacle, the bright flame within continued to burn with a pure holy light, and, at times, even to flash forth with more than wonted brightness. The lyric of "Despondency and Aspiration," which may be considered as her noblest and highest effort, and in which, from a feeling that it might be her last work, she felt anxious to concentrate all her powers, was written during the few intervals accorded her from acute suffering or powerless languor. And in the same circumstances she wrote, or rather dictated, the series of sonnets called Thoughts during Sickness, which present so interesting a picture of the calm, submissive tone of her mind, whether engaged in tender remembrances of the past, or in solemn and reverential speculations on the future. The one entitled "Sickness like Night," discloses a view no less affecting than consolatory, of the sweet

and blessed peace which hovered round the couch where

"Mutely and helplessly she lay reposing."

"Thou art like night, O sickness! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world's disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling

With low, sweet voices, by life's tumult drowned.
Thou art like awful night!-thou gatherest round
The things that are unseen, though close they lie,
And with a truth, clear, startling, and profound,
Giv'st their dread presence to our mortal eye.

Thou art like starry, spiritual night!

High and immortal thoughts attend thy way,
And revelations, which the common light

Brings not, though wakening with its rosy ray
All outward life. Be welcome, then, thy rod,
Before whose touch my soul unfolds itself to God."

The last sonnet of the series, entitled "Recovery," was written under temporary appearances of convalescence, which proved as fugitive as they were fallacious.

Early in the month of December, Mrs. Hemans having been recommended to try change of air, and the quiet of the country, her brother and sister-in-law, who had come up from Kilkenny to see her, and have a consultation of physicians, were about to remove her into the County of Wicklow; when the thoughtful kindness of the Archbishop and Mrs. Whateley placed at her disposal their own country-seat of Redesdale, a delightful retirement about seven miles from Dublin, where every comfort was provided for her that the most delicate consideration could suggest, and

:

where, for a short season, she appeared to derive some slight benefit from the change. She occasionally exerted herself to write short letters in pencil, to allay the anxieties of her friends; from one of which affecting epistles the following passage is extracted:

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"Redesdale, Sunday Evening, Dec. 13, 1834.

My fever, though still returning at its hours, is decidedly abated, with several of its most exhausting accompaniments; and those intense, throbbing headaches have left me, and allowed me gradually to resume the inestimable resource of reading, though frequent drowsiness obliges me to use this very moderately. But better far than these indications of recovery, is the sweet religious peace which I feel gradually overshadowing me with its dove-pinions, excluding all that would exclude thoughts of God. I would I could convey to you the deep feelings of repose and thankfulness with which I lay on Friday evening, gazing from my sofa upon a sunset sky of the richest suffusions-silvery green and amber kindling into the most glorious tints of the burning rose. I felt its holy beauty sinking through my inmost being, with an influence drawing me nearer and nearer to God. The stillness here is exquisite; broken only by the occasional notes of the robin, one of which faithful birds yesterday paid us a visit."

Her love of flowers not only continued undiminished, but seemed daily to strengthen into a deeper sentiment, realizing the feelings which had been already depicted in her poem, entitled " Flowers and Music in a room of Sickness."

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"God hath purified my spirit's eye,
And in the folds of this consummate rose
I read bright prophecies. I see not there,
Dimly and mournfully, the word 'farewell'
On the rich petals traced: No-in soft veins
And characters of beauty, I can read-
'Look up, look heavenward!"

I really think that pure passion for flowers," she wrote, in one of her notes at this time to Mrs. Lawrence, "is the only one which long sickness leaves untouched with its chilling influence. Often during this weary illness of mine, have I looked upon new books with perfect apathy, when, if a friend has sent me a few flowers, my heart has leaped up' to their dreamy hues and odours, with a sudden sense of renovated childhood, which seems to me one of the mysteries of our being."

Her son Charles was the inseparable companion of these solemn, yet blessed hours; and he will ever look back with a thankful heart on the privilege granted to him of being thus constantly permitted to profit by her example, to soothe her loneliness by his pious devotion, to read to her, to write for her, to be in all things her gently ministering spirit. During the Christmas holidays, these grateful offices were affectionately shared by his brother Henry, then a schoolboy at Shrewsbury. How often must the earnest eyes of the languid sufferer have rested on these, her bright and blooming ones, with all a mother's tenderness and pride-how must her heart have overflowed with unutterable yearnings at the thoughts of leaving them! -how fervently must she have committed them in

silent, inward supplication, to the love and care of their Heavenly Father!

It would be doing injustice to the memory of a humble, but not the less valuable friend, to omit mentioning the great comfort Mrs. Hemans derived from the indefatigable services of her faithful attendant, Anna Creer; a young person whose excellent principles, undeviating propriety, and real superiority of mind and manner, would have done honour to any station, while they made her a perfect treasure in the one of which she fulfilled the duties so admirably. She was born of respectable parents in the Isle of Man, and had been carefully educated in a manner befitting her line of life. Mrs. Hemans had taken great pains to improve her; and from the force of grateful attachment, and a certain inherent refinement which seemed a part of her nature, she almost insensibly acquired a sort of assimilation in her ideas and expressions to those of her kind mistress. The assiduity of her attendance, cheerful and unwearied by night and by day, cannot be remembered without thankful appreciation; and this is now blended with a touching interest, excited by many circumstances of her subsequent illness and death.'

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1 Two years after the death of her mistress, she married a most respectable tradesman in Dublin, who had been long attached to her the proprietor of the house in which Mrs. Hemans had latterly resided. In this house she herself died, in May, 1838 (having fallen into a decline, in consequence of a premature confinement), and was buried in the same vault which holds the remains of her dear mistress. The subjoined extract is given, as affording some idea of her warm heart and singularly

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