tion to its heroine was easy and natural. On my asking her opinion of this portrait, as drawn by Milton, she replied, "That she considered Eve in her state of innocence, as the most beautiful model of the delicacy, propriety, grace, and elegance of the female character which any poet ever exhibited. Even after her fall," added she, "there is something wonderfully touching in her remorse, and affecting in her contrition." "We are probably," replied I, more deeply affected with the beautifully contrite expressions of repentance in our first parents for being so deeply involved in the consequences of the offence which occasioned it." "And yet," replied she, " I am a little affronted with the poet, that while, with a noble justness, he represents Adam's grief at his expulsion, as chiefly arising from his being banished from the presence of his Maker, the sorrows of Eve seem too much to arise from being banished from her flowers. The grief, though never grief was so beautifully eloquent,is rather too exquisite, her her substantial ground for lamentation considered." Seeing me going to speak, she stopped me with a smile, saying, "I see by your looks that you are going, with Mr. Addisou, to vindicate the poet, and to call this a just appropriation of the sentiment to the sex; but surely the disproportion in the feeling here is rather too violent, though I own the loss of her flowers might have aggravated any common privation. There is, however, no female character in the whole compass of poetry in which I have ever taken so lively an interest, and no poem that ever took such powerful possession of my mind." If any thing had been wanting to my full assurance of the sympathy of our tastes and feelings this would have completed my conviction. It struck me as the Virgilian lots formerly struck the superstitious. Our mutual admiration of the Paradise Lost,and of its heroine, seemed to bring us nearer together than we had yet been. Her remarks which I gradually drew from her in the VOL. II. 0 course course of our walk, on the construction of the fable, the richness of the imagery, the elevation of the language, the sublimity and just appropriation of the sentiments, the artful structure of the verse, and the variety of the characters, convinced me that she had imbibed her taste from the purest sources. It was easy to trace her knowledge of the best authors, though she quoted none.. "This," said I exultingly to myself, "is the true learning of a lady; a knowledge that is rather detected than displayed, that is felt in its effects on her mind and conversation; and that is seen not by her citing learned names, or adducing long quotations, but in the general result, by the delicacy of her taste, and the correctness of her sentiments." In our way home I made a merit with little Kate, not only by rescuing her hat from the hedge, but by making a little provision of wood under it, of larger sticks than she could gather, which she joyfully promised to assist the grand-daughter, in carrying to the cottage. I ven I ventured with as much diffidence as if I had been soliciting a pension for myself, to entreat that I might be permitted to undertake the putting forward Dame Alice's little girl in the world, as soon as she shall be released from her attendance on her grandmother. My proposal was graciously accepted, on condition that it met with Mr. and Mrs. Stanley's approbation. When we joined the party at supper, it was delightful to observe that the habits of religious charity were so interwoven with the texture of these girls' minds; that the evening which had been so interesting to me, was to them only a common evening marked with nothing particular. It never occurred to them to allude to it; and once or twice when I was tempted to mention it, my imprudence was repressed by a look of the most significant gravity from Lucilla. I was comforted, however, by observing that my roses were transferred from the hat to the hair. This did not escape the penetrating eye of Phoebe, who archly said, "I ག་ 02 won |