In January, 1752, she wrote to Ballard, who was preparing his book on Learned Ladies :-'This is not an age to hope for any Encouragement to Learning of any kind. . . You can come into no company of Ladies or Gentlemen, when you shall not hear an open and vehement exclamation against Learned Women, and by those Women that read much themselves, to what purpose they know best . . . The prospect I have of the next age is a melancholy one to me.' The Bulstrode circle was in those years much occupied with Clarissa, Sir Charles Grandison, Peregrine Pickle, and other such literary new births; and Mrs. Elstob was probably too old and serious to think there could be any purpose' in such reading.

However, in spite of illness and disappointment, we must not think of regret as the dominant note of the closing years. Mrs. Delany, who was with the Portlands in 1753, in November of that year reported that Mrs. Elstob was surprizingly well,' and in better spirits than ever I saw her in my life.' Her best happiness was in watching the development of her charges, and especially of Lord Titchfield, the well-behaved and promising lad of whom everybody was so fond, who was at Westminster, and getting ready for Oxford.1 The girls, too, of whom the favourite was the youngest,' the sweet Lady Margaret,' satisfied the scholarly instincts of their gover

ness.

The happy Bulstrode life flowed on, with its landscape-gardening outside, and the shell-work' and flower-work' indoors; there were the visits in the morning to the aviary and the lovely prize-bull; the long sessions in her Grace's dressing-room after dinner; the music and the cribbage, and the volume after volume of the admirable and improving Richardson. From all this Elizabeth Elstob was gradually shrinking away; her fingers grew feebler, her mem

1 In the Dictionary of National Biography the third Duke of Portland is erroneously stated to have been educated at Eton.

ory worse. The winter of 1754-5 was made darker by sickness. Smallpox laid hold of the Bentincks, and the house became a hospital. Mrs. Elstob managed to crawl downstairs. with the help of Lord Edward, to see her young ladies when they were recovering. The angel of death hovered long over the circle. The duchess lost her mother in December, 1755. In the spring of 1756, when they were all at Whitehall, one after another was struck down by scarlet fever. The calamities culminated in the seizure of the sweet Lady Margaret,' who was 'blooded and blistered,' but in vain. She died shortly afterwards.

This blow was too hard. On April 20th, 1756, Mrs. Delany had written with a touch of asperity, that Mrs. Elstob felt so much for herself that she did not seem to think others as bad as they really were. But on May 24th, she wrote:- Mrs. Elstob is gradually drawing towards that happy repose which we may presume so good a woman may obtain.' She had difficulty in recognising her greatest friends; she would have neither doctor nor clergyman. A Roman Catholic cousin alarmed the duchess by the frequency of her visits; but we do not hear that she did anything worse than bring chocolate to the invalid. În a few days more, on May 30th, Elizabeth Elstob passed away.

She was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster. Seventy guineas in cash were found after her death. Mrs. Delany was very anxious that she should leave something to her first benefactress Sarah Chapone ; but, for some reason, Elizabeth Elstob had ceased to care for her.

It would perhaps be unreasonable to argue from her unwillingness to see a clergyman, that she was indifferent to religious matters. In 1739, in the early days of Wesley's movement, she wrote about an enthusiast in the cause: It is surprizing to see how indefatigable he is in endeavouring to gain

proselytes. . . . Pray God if it be His good pleasure to put a stop to these miserable delusions, for the consequence, in my opinion, seems to be very terrible.' Such words indicate conviction of a kind. At fifty-two Elizabeth Elstob had described herself as a poor little contemptible old maid.' Her portrait may be found in initial letters, both in the Homily of S. Gregory, and the Anglo-Saxon Grammar. It shows a face of sufficiently piquant attractiveness to give real significance to the conventional phrase, 'The fair Saxon.' And even in these days of emancipation and specialised knowledge, we may surely, in taking leave of her, endorse George Ballard's words: Her superior talent was so very extraordinary as to make her the envy of this and the admiration of future ages."

MRS. RADCLIFFE'S LANDSCAPE.

ILL no one, in this anniversary year of her death, say a word for Ann Radcliffe ? There are, indeed, more reasons than one why it needs an effort to call up her spirit. She was an unblushing romantic and sentimentalist; she was lengthy and solemn; her stock-in-trade was the apparatus of terror which has lost its power over even the nurseries of the present day. Was she not slain by Jane Austen in the very decade in which her novels appeared? Who does not remember in Northanger Abbey the conversations between Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe about the Mysteries of Udolpho, and how Catherine said: While I have Údolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable. Oh! the dreadful black veil! My dear Isabella, I am sure there must be Laurentina's skeleton behind it.' How could the marvels of the romances survive the delightful raillery of the parodist? 'The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction, it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! it was snuffed and extinguished in one! A lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Catherine, for a few moments, was motionless with horror.

Ann Radcliffe's books have been called novels of terror and novels of suspense. Suspense in fiction is more honourable than terror. In the present day novel suspense is often nearly absent; the interest