about the conduct of the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, who on every occasion supported and countenanced the sisterhood, is satisfactory to the mind; but we are left in the dark as to the great practical question n how far the scheme realized in the issue Hannan More's fervent anticipations; and another scarcely less important, namely, whether the machinery she had arranged was found to be at all effective when advancing years and other circumstances made it impossible for her and her sister to continue their own daily labours in its superintendence. That much good was done it is, however, impossible for us to doubt; and we transcribe this account of the funerai of one of their humble assistants, as in itseif a sufficient testimony.

• Chettiar, De just 18, 1795.—We have just deposited the remains of our excellent Ms. Baber, to mingle with her kindred dust. Who else has ever been so attended, so followed to the grave? Of the hundreds who attended, all had some tokens of mourning in their dress. All the black gowns in the villare were exhibited, and those who had none had some road, some little bits, of narrow black ribbon, such as their few spare pence could provide. The house, the garden, and place before the door were fall. But how shall I describe it? Not one single voice or step was heard—their very silence was dreadful; but it was not the least affecting part to see their poor little ragged pocket-handkerchiefs, not half sufficient to dry their tears-some had none; and those tears that did not fall to the ground, they wiped off with some part of their dress. Though the stones were rugged, you did not hear one single footstep. The undertaker from Bristol wept like a child, and confessed, that, without emolument, it was worth going a hundred miles to see such a sight. I forgot to mention, the children sobbed a suitable hymn over the grave. Here was no boisterous, hysterical grief, for the departed had taught them how to select suitable texts for such occasions, and when to apply the promises of Scripture. I think almost tears enough were shed to lay the dust.'

It is well known that Mrs. More, among other good works, gave a powerful support to the old constitution of these realms by various political tracts, in prose and verse, which she put forth during the revolutionary war. It is impossible to read the letters in which she adverts to the internal danger of her country at that period, without applying her language to the still more alarming condition of England at the present day. What a true picture is the following!—

Bath, happy Bath, is as gay as if there were no war, nor sin, nor misery in the world! We run about all the morning, lamenting the calamities of the times, anticipating our ruin, and regretting the general dissipation; and every night we are running into every excess, to a degree unknown in calmer times. Yet it is the fashion to affect to be religious, and to show it by inveighing against the wickedness of France!'

As

As to the revolutionary rulers of France themselves, we are sorry to say her indignant denunciation of them is exactly what, if she had now been among us, she could not have hesitated to utter concerning some of our own Reformers.

Judgment, memory, comparison, combination, and deduction, afford human sagacity but slender assistance in its endeavours to develope their future plans. We have not even the data of consistent wickedness on which to build rational conclusions. Their measures, though visibly connected by uniform depravity, are yet so surprisingly diversified by interfering absurdities, such is their incredible eccentricity, that it is hardly extravagant to affirm that improbability is become rather an additional reason for expecting any given event to take place.'-Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont.

But we must now prepare to shut these volumes. The sisterhood drop away from before us one by one, and the sterling sense and worth of every one of them are successively exhibited in the most touching manner in the details of a Christian death-bed. We have been dealing largely in quotation, but we are sure every reader will thank us for transcribing a page out of the correspondence of the late venerable Bishop of Limerick, just published, in which his lordship gives an account of a visit which he paid at Barley Wood in September, 1817, shortly after the death of Sarah More.

'Feeling, as they do very deeply, the sad breach made in their circle, they are wisely, cheerfully, and piously submissive to this appointment of Providence; and neither their talents nor vivacity are in the least subdued. Patty is suffering, with exemplary patience, the most excruciating pain; not a murmur escapes, though, at night especially, groans and cries are inevitably extorted; and, the moment after the paroxysm, she is ready to resume, with full interest and animation, whatever may have been the subject of conversation. Hannah is still herself: she took Charles Foster and me a drive to Brockley Combe; in the course of which, her anecdotes, her wit, her powers of criticism, and her admirable talent of recitation, had ample scope. On the whole, though not unmingled with melancholy, the impression of this visit to Barley Wood is predominantly agreeable,-I might, indeed, use a stronger word: differences of opinion there do, it cannot be denied, exist; but they are differences, on their part, largely the growth of circumstances; differences, too, which will vanish before the earliest beams of eternity: I parted with them, as noble creatures, whom, in this world, I never might again behold; and while I felt some pangs, which I would not willingly have relinquished, it was with deep comfort that I looked forward in hope to an hereafter, when we might meet without any of those drawbacks, in some shape or other, inseparable, perhaps, from the intercourse of mortals.'-Bishop Jebb's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 333,4.

2 G 2

Our

LA

WEYS CH hard? need to be reminded of the painful HET TE Tile & orach Conic heart, about 1825, rumours decresses Went lien It Trouble the closing period the estabustment at barier Wood bad got 1920 SK ZNTIST atter the death of her sister Martha, who had EV LE Reel the mange other domestic details.-dishonest She dissolut rank hat waster her substance, and for a Saat I was Chubtiu whether enongt remained to secure her tu comfort to WC she hat beer accustomed. In the end, h weeks. I turned out that thougt she must consent once more 1 chang her place of residence. there would be no necessity for stering. I am essential respect, the scvic of her household economy. She removet Chittor: and there, as has been atracy mentioned, she at last quiety and placids ceased to breathe II. the September of inst year. The account of her latter days, contributer u Mr. Roberts's book by her friend and pr/sicial. Dr. Carrick, is st interesting, that we would willingly kstad 1 entre ; DIE WE car only give these fragments :—

- From the time As Not removed to Cition, her health was nene, otherwise that in a very uncertain and precarious state, and she stiam continued remont a few days exempt from some attack

We the friends and admirers of Ms. Banner More, it was painful inring her later years to set those great and brilliant talents, which rai justy Faiset, her at the highest pinnacle of celebrity, descending 1. the level of mart ordinary persons. Yet there was this consoling circumstance in the case of this admirable woman; that while the STENË ENË VIKIrons qualities of her mind submitted to decay, the good, the små, the benefcen, sufered no diminution nor abatement, to the last moment of consciousness. Age, which of necessity shrinks and in pairs the badly powers, generly blunts sensibility, and narrows The socia. Virtues. The SOL. Wach in youth, and in the prime of life, teemed with every Eberal and benevolent quality, is not unfrequently observed to grow cold and insensible, parsimonious, and even avaminions, when sinking into the grave. With this remarkable woman it was signally the reverse. Her beneficent qualities not only suffered no abatemeni, tur expanded with her years.

So long as her intellectual faculties remained but moderately impaired, her wonted cheerfulness and playfulness of disposition did not forsake her; and at no period of her declining life did an impatient or querulous expression escape her lips, even in moments of painful sudering.

It seems worthy of remark, that as it pleased the Almighty to protect this distinguished woman to a very advanced period of life, from the infirmities of temper, which often tend to render age both unamiable and unhappy, so it likewise accorded with his goodness to spare her from many of those bodily infirmities, which usually accom

pany

pany length of years. To the very last her eye was not dim: she could read with ease, and without spectacles, the smallest print. Her hearing was almost unimpaired; and until very near the close of life, her features were not shrunk, nor wrinkled, nor uncomely, and her person retained to a considerable degree its wonted appearance, as at a much earlier period. Even to the last, her death-bed was attended with few of the pains and infirmities which are almost inseparable from sinking nature.'-vol. iv. p. 299–304.

Our respect, nay, veneration for the memory of Mrs. More, who perhaps did as much real good in her generation as any woman that ever held the pen, has, whatever Mr. Roberts may think, made us lenient critics of his part in this work. We now leave him with respect for his motives and intentions; with regret for that narrowness of mind and feeling, which it is, we presume, too late to expand; and with a simple expression of our hope that, at some future period, the valuable letters embodied in these volumes may be printed by themselves. We are not aware that Mr. Roberts's connecting narrative has given us any one fact which is not stated in the text of the correspondence, either following or preceding the page where he has chosen to make it the subject of his circumlocutory prose.

ART. VII.-Mémoires ou Correspondance Secrète du Père L'Enfant, Confesseur du Roi pendant les trois années de la Révolution, 1790, 1791, 1792. 2 vols. Paris. 1834.

WE

E notice these volumes only to warn our readers against an imposition-not indeed so gross and shameless as the Memoirs of Louis XVIII. and Madame de Créqui, but yet very dishonest. The title-page announces this work as the Memoirs or Secret Correspondence of the Confessor of the King during three eventful years. The editor's preface adds, that the Père L'Enfant lived at court, and concludes (as he might do if his premises were but true) that these are indeed precious memoirs.' Now, the truth is, that the Abbé L'Enfant was not-nor, if he really was the penman of these Memoirs, (which are not memoirs,) does he himself even pretend to have been-the king's confessor; that during the three years specified he never was at court at all, and never so much as saw either the king or the queen; that the pretended Memoirs are only a series of letters which, even if genuine, have no claim to the character of a secret correspondence,' for they are chiefly and professedly mere repetitions of the journals of the day; and, finally, that, so far from being precious,' they are so nearly worthless, that we shall not even do them the small

honour

honour of binding them, and should think we made a good bargain if we could obtain a couple of shillings for what has cost us ten. Our readers will judge of the interest of such a publication by the confession of the editor, that

We have printed the correspondence entire, except some mysterious and allegorical passages, which we do not understand, or at least not clearly enough to be able to afford a key to them. There was certainly a political object hidden under these enigmatical passages, which however we have thought it advisable to omit, because we have not the means of explaining their secret meaning.'-Notice, xi.

This is excellent-the man publishes the whole correspondence, except the passages which might be really interesting; and these curious passages are hidden from the public eye, because the individual blockhead has not the means of explaining them—as if that would not have been the best reason for publishing them, in the possibility that others better informed than he might be able to elucidate these important secrets: and, to crown the absurdity, it happens that, by a whimsical inconsistency, this editor, who thinks it right to suppress what he cannot fully elucidate, has not given us one note-no, not a single syllable of explanation or observation upon any part of the correspondence!

As

The utter insipidity and insignificance of these Memoirs, as to any purpose either of information or amusement, relieves us from the necessity of adducing our reasons for disbelieving that they were written by the Père L'Enfant at all. We shall only say that we incline to suspect that they have been lately fabricated by rummaging the files of old newspapers; or, if they were really written at the time, they must have been the nouvelles à la main of some asinine quidnunc in town, to some equally ignorant correspondent in the country, which the editor finds it convenient to attribute to a priest who fell in the massacre of the Abbaye, and whose name might therefore be usurped with impunity. an article in the Biographie Universelle furnished the editor of Madame de Créqui's Memoirs with his fictitious heroine, so we believe the editor-i. e. fabricator-of the present volumes has borrowed his hero from the same work. But however that may be, nothing can be more stupid than the result. In the 777 pages of which the two first volumes consist, (we are to have more, it seems, if the public consents to be duped,) we have been able to discover but one passage which contains anything like novelty. On the occasion of some difficulties in which the National Assembly is represented as having found itself in July 1791, after the return of the king, an old woman is quoted as having said, Voici le commencement de la fin.' (vol. ii. p. 256.) Now, we had always

heard