Grace Darling. "She holds no parley with unmanly fears: Where duty bids, she confidently steers; Faces a thousand dangers at its call, And, trusting in her God, surmounts them all." COWPER. Grace Darling. 1800. Ir is not often given to human heroism to see the results of its ardour, to taste the fruit of its selfdenial. The subject of the present sketch was destined to form an exception to this rule. The report of the noble action that immortalized her, had spread far and wide; praises and money were lavished upon her, from noble, and even regal, hands: the blessings of those she had rescued from a terrible death, cast a halo around her, as the sweet incense of flowers hangs about the hand that revives, with timely nourishment, their drooping leaves: lastly, she was not perhaps the less blest, that the angel of death wafted away her meek spirit whilst her fame was at its zenith, and time hesitated to wither a leaf of the chaplet gilded, now, by the fadeless tints of Heaven! Grace Darling! how vivid, how graphic, a picture rises before us at the very sound of that singularly expressive name ! We can fancy a lone lighthouse, dropped, as it were; into the very midst of the sea. The waves toss and wrangle around it, and at times they even curl up as if to lap the friendly light itself, and, drinking, quench the lustre for ever! Beyond, among the black waters, moves a speck, heaving and disappearing in every fresh struggle with the fearful element. And alone upon the island of the lighthouse, a young girl of delicate form, and strange intelligent countenance, wanders to and fro, clasping her little hands, and murmuring prayers for the safety of the hapless mariners; whilst her father hastens to their assistance, and her mother, gazing from the windows above, watches him, through her tears, and the everblinding spray, go forth upon the merciful and perilous errand ! Later on. The child has grown into a woman. Still goes the father on his work of mercy, to succour the shipwrecked sailor, and rescue the half-drowned passenger from the hungry waves that threaten every moment to engulf himself; but a female form gazes with straining eyes upon those frightful billows, watching the rowers as with marvellous dexterity they surmount each wave, cheering onward with earnest hopeful voice, when strength and courage flag. Whenever danger menaces, whenever others shrink aside, in the tempest, and lighted by the thunder-flash, wave the tresses of the ocean-nurtured maiden, damp with the salt foam. Another Venus, she seems ocean-born, yet invested with a beauty more touching than her prototype's; for it is the beauty of the heart, not of mere physical charms, but that of an angel guardian, sent to pity and to save! Those who have visited the coast of Northumberland will remember the group of islands, called the Farne or Fern, upon one of which, the lighthouse, called the Longstone, is situated. Nothing more desolate and isolated can well be imagined. Like the Eddystone, it is so placed that an interval, of weeks sometimes elapses without an opportunity of reaching it from the shore, whilst even those accustomed to the jarring warfare of the elements, around the lone and unprotected spot, tremble, despite all their courage, to realize its perilous position. What an abode for the early years of a child, and that child a girl! Yet here the infancy, nay the greater part of Grace's short life, was passed. Her books were the shifting clouds and the capricious billows; her pleasures, the search for strange oceanshells and many-tinted sea-weeds; her companions, the screaming sea-fowl and the melancholy curlew. It would have been wonderful indeed, if extraordinary circumstances had not made her a remarkable woman. Instead, however, of the moroseness such an education was likely to engender, the spirit of energetic philanthropy early manifested itself in the senti |