FELICIA HEMANS. BY WILLIAM H. PICTON. ONE of the legitimate purposes for which a society like the Literary and Philosophical exists, is to bring to memory, from time to time, the works, literary or scientific, of eminent persons who have influenced thought or fired the aspirations of the people in the years which have passed away. I thought this object would be appropriately fulfilled, by a paper on the life and poetry of Mrs. Hemans, the centenary of whose birth occurred in 1893. The saying, poeta nascitur non fit, was signally instanced in the case of Mrs. Hemans. Throughout her whole life poetry was her passion and delight, the medium through which she expressed the workings of her mind, and the emotions of her soul. It was to her, as to Coleridge, "its own exceeding great reward." Her life and her poetry are so inextricably bound up together that some account of each is needed to explain the other. I propose, therefore, to give, in as brief a way as I can, the leading events of her life, illustrating them with passages from her poetry. Felicia Dorothea Browne was born on the 25th September, 1794, at 72 (now 118) Duke Street, Liverpool, her father being an eminent merchant, a native of Ireland. Her mother, a Miss Wagner, was a descendant of a Venetian house, whose old name, Veniero, had in the course of time been corrupted into this German form. When Felicia was little more than five years of age, her father, in consequence of misfortunes in business, removed his family to North Wales, where they took up their residence at Grwych, near Abergele, an old mansion lying near the seashore. Wales, like Caledonia, "stern and wild," proved "fit nurse for the poetic child." There she imbibed her first love of nature, which ever afterwards "haunted her like a passion." A pleasing picture is given by her biographer of the free and joyous life here passed by the young girl, rambling with her playmates on the hills and by the seashore, or slaking her thirst for reading amidst the treasures of an extensive library. Her education was the first care of a mother whose capability for the task was only equalled by her devotedness. One of her earliest tastes was a passion for Shakespere, whose plays she read at six years old in a secret haunt of her own amongst the branches of an old apple tree. She was an object almost of devotion for her extreme beauty, with a complexion remarkably brilliant, and hair long, curling, and golden, though in later years it deepened into brown. In this happy childhood her muse was born, her efforts showing so much promise that at the age of fifteen a volume of her poems was published. In addition to the influence of her surroundings, new sources of inspiration now lay open to view. Her two elder brothers had entered the army at an early age, one of them engaged in the Spanish campaign under Sir John Moore. Vivid imagination, and sisterly affection, prompted her to glorious visions of British valour and Spanish patriotism, which, at the age of fourteen, produced from her a poem entitled "England and Spain." The following apostrophe to Liberty, taken from this poem, is very remarkable for its beauty of language and perfection of form : O thou, the sovereign of the noble soul! Queen of the lofty thought, the gen'rous deed, For oh fair Liberty, when thou art near, One other quotation, from a poem called "The Domestic Affections," may be cited as an illustration of the strength of imagination thus early acquired. The sailor is pictured alone, keeping midnight watch during a dead calm When ocean-sounds in awful slumber die, No wave to murmur, and no gale to sigh; Wide o'er the world, when peace and midnight reign, And the moon trembles on the sleeping main; At that still hour the sailor wakes to keep, Considering that these compositions were the work of a young girl who had very few advantages in the way of |