of beauty. To them he ever turns for inspiration, and the brightest and the fairest proffer him their aid. How gorgeous and how gracious an assemblage form the heroines of romance! What galaxy of stars, what floral grove, what paradise of fabled houris can compare with them?

Yet, gentle dames, it is not from your beauty -your peculiar and essential attribute-that we have aspired to catch a reflected ray, or borrow one charm to grace our humble efforts. It is no admiration of passing loveliness that has prompted us to entwine the story of a people's sufferings with the history of one of your fair selves; but, because to you we turn as the fit exponents of those kind and gentle sentiments, which constitute your choicest characteristic and most excellent adornment-Sympathy, Charity, and Love! And are not such the feelings with which we should regard our suffering and erring fellow-mortals?

Philosophers may reason, politicians argue, calculating economists frame perfect theories; they may do this, and may do well, but without the warmer sentiments and kindlier sympathies, of what avail are all endeavours? Can the most accurate deductions of logic, the sublimest flights of eloquence, or the most unanswerable and astounding arguments, all perfect and all praiseworthy though they be, can they console the helpless,

cheer the desponding, soften the obdurate, reclaim the desperate? Can they advance one iota the great scheme of social regeneration, with half such moving force or such resistless power as does the kindly glance, the extended hand, the moistened eye, by which, in the mute but allintelligible language of sympathy, heart speaks to heart, and "makes the whole world kin ?"

It is not our object or intention to enter into the history of the country, or the present condition of society; we would not wander in the wide fields of controversy or the equally unlimited regions of the political economist; our aim and ambition is only to speak truth, and to pourtray our people as they are, in their innate glory and social degradation. We would show them to you, oh, fellow-men and brothers! not as objects of scorn, of contempt, or even of pity; not as supplicants for your alms, but as candidates for your love. And to bring their sorrows nearer home to you, we would show them reflected in the feelings of an ardent heart,-and such a one was Evelyn's.

The child of impulse, the creature of extremes, endued with a most acute susceptibility, nature had fashioned her specially to feel; external circumstances bade her think ;—and the sufferings of the suffering ever called forth her warmest feelings, and the regeneration of the people was the theme

of her hourly thoughts. We will not linger over her early years; and yet we must perforce trace the progress of her education. For as "the child is the father of the man," so is education (properly so called, and not in its scholastic signification) the cause from which all effects may be deduced the key to the history of a lifetime. Whatever the fate or fortunes of man, his whole career bears impress of his early days. In the soft and ductile mind of childhood, how deep are the furrows first graven! Time may partially conceal them, they may be seared up or covered over, but again and again, with uncontrollable force, the strong currents of thought and feeling will flow back in those unforgotten traces. Then, of how great avail is it, that first impressions, the ineffaceable, should be those of virtue. Can we wonder that crime and shame should flourish as they do? Should we not rather marvel things are not worse, when we behold the crowds of untaught infants-untaught? No, early trained in vice, nurtured in sin, and guided on towards guilt! Ah, were we really wise, we should see schools in the place of prisons,—the teacher and pastor preventing the hangman's work.

"Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

And so it was with our Evelyn. All her conduct

and character might be traced to the influence of her early lessons.

Her father was one of an unfortunate class,which might, perhaps justly, be termed the disappointed,-which, aspiring too high, falls too low, and whose misfortunes are rendered more acute by the very talents which inspire and should ennoble. A poor and friendless youth, of great abilities and greater ambition, he had aspired to the awards of genius ;-he had dared, in his lowliness and his poverty, to offer himself a candidate for those honours and plaudits, which Fortune guards jealously for her chosen favourites; he had offered, and been rejected. Perchance vanity had deceived or hope deluded him; experience taught wisdom, and in sooth it was a bitter lesson.

Wounded self-love strove to cheer him by the assurance that genius was his, though neglected and despised. But what is genius without fame? A man may have the genuine ore, but the fiat of the world alone can stamp the gold, and make it current coin. And this fiat came not to Henry Stuart; disappointed and desponding, he turned away, and found a solace for his grief in the charms of love. That potent spirit, which levels all distinctions, gave the humble author a more than recompense for the fame he had longed for and had missed. One of the fairest and

gentlest of the proud exclusive race, which looked down on him with pity, careless indifference, or contempt, recognized the high intellect beneath its lowly guise, and stooping from her ancestral elevation to share his humble fortunes, thought herself exalted by the change. Her family and friends turned from her with disdain, wealth and luxury were hers no longer,-yet she was happy, for love was worth them all. Amid the mountains of his native Scotland, in a humble and obscure retreat, Henry Stuart found a home, which, cheered by the sunshine of domestic affection, was to him a very paradise.

Here the crushed hopes and ambition of the author again aspired. He devoted himself with new ardour to his literary pursuits. Instead of glory, he was able to secure a moderate competence, while in his heart of hearts he still cherished his beloved and audacious dreams-still burned to realise his former fancies, and to inflict upon his detractors that most pleasurable revenge of proving them in the wrong.

It was here, in this peaceful abode, that our heroine first saw the light; here she received her first impressions; and here, like a delicate flower in a genial climate, expanded into moral beauty, reared in the very atmosphere of love. Her mother, while she rejoiced to recognize in her