trees in this place are magnificent cedars of Lebanon, which bring to mind the expression in the Psalms, Excellent as the cedars.' They are the very impersonation of kingly majesty, and are fitted to grace the old feudal stronghold of Warwick the king-maker. These trees, standing as they do amid magnificent sweeps and undulations of lawn, throwing out their mighty arms with such majestic breadth and freedom of outline, are themselves a living, growing, historical epic Their seed was brought from the Holy Land in the old days of the Crusades; and a hundred legends Ingat be made up of the time, date, and occasion of their planting.

In 1856, Mrs. Stowe published another novel written to expose the evils of slavery and the state of Southern society in Americanamely, ‘Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp,' a work much inferior to Uncle Tom.' Before the period of her European fame, the authoress had contributed tales and sketches to American periodicals, the most popular of which was 'The Mayflower, or Sketches of the Descendants of the Pilgrims,' 1849; a number of children's books, religious poems, and anti-slavery tracts have proceeded from her fertile pen. Among her late separate works may be mentioned The Min.ster's Wooing,' 1859-an excellent novel, descriptive of Puritan life in New England: The Pearl of Orr's Island,' 1862; 'Agnes of Sorrento,' 1862; 'Little Foxes, or the Insignificant Little Habits which mar Domestic Happiness,' 1865; Light after Darkness,' 1867; Men of our Times, or Leading Patriots of the Day,' 1862; Old Town Folks,' 1869; 'Little Pussy Willow,' 1870; My Wife and I,' 1871; Pink and White Tyranny,' 1871; 'Old Town Fireside Stories' (humorous little tales), Palmetto Leaves,' 1873; &c. One publication of Mrs. Stowe's which appeared simultaneously in America and England-The True Story of Lady Byron's Life,' 1869 -excited a strong and painful interest. This was a narrative disclosing what the authoress termed a terrible secret,' confided to her thirteen years before by Lady Byron. The secret was that Lord Byron was guilty of incest with his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh, to whom he had dedicated some of the most touching and beautiful of his verses. So revolting an accusation called forth a universal burst of indignation. When examined, the statement was found to be inaccurate in dates and in some of its leading features.

Letters written by Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh in terms of the warmest affection, after the separation of the poet and his wife, were produced, and a formal contradiction to some of the principal allegations was given by the descendants and representatives of both Lord and Lady Byron. Mrs. Stowe attempted a vindication next year, but it was a failure. No new evidence was adduced, and her defence consisted only of strong assertions, of aspersions on the character of Byron, and of extracts from the most objectionable of his writings. The whole of this affair on the part of the clever American lady was a blunder and a reproach. No one, however, ventured to think she had fabricated the story. Lady Byron was the delinquent; on that subject Lady Byron was a monomaniac. Her mind was not a weak one, but she had impaired it by religious speculations

beyond her reach, and by long brooding over her trials, involving some real and many imaginary wrongs. She could at first account for her gifted husband's conduct on no hypothesis but insanity; and now, by a sort of Nemesis, there is no other hypothesis on which the moralist can charitably account for hers; but there is this marked difference in their maladies-he morbidly exaggerated his vices, and she her virtues' ('Quarterly Review'). This seems to be the true view of the case.

We add a few sentences from 'The Minister's Wooing.'

A Moonlight Scene.

Mary returned to the quietude of her room. The red of twilight had faded, and the silver moon, round and fair, was rising behind the thick boughs of the apple trees. She sat down in the window, thoughtful and sad, and listened to the crickets, whose ignorant jollity often sounds as mournfully to us mortals as ours may to superior beings. There the little, hoarse, black wretches were scraping and creaking, as if life and death were invented solely for their pleasure, and the world were created only to give them a good time in it. Now and then a little wind shivered among the boughs, and brought down a shower of white petals which shimmered in the slant beans of the moonlight; and now a ray touched some small head of grass, and forthwith it blossomed into silver, and stirred itself with a quiet joy, like a new-born saint just awaking in Paradise. And ever and anon came on the still air the soft eternal pulsations of the distant sea-sound mournfullest, most mysterious, of all the harpJugs of Nature. It was the sea-the deep, eternal sea-the treacherous, soft, dreadful, inexplicable sea.

Love.

It is said that, if a grape-vine be planted in the neighbourhood of a well, its roots, running silently under ground, wreath themselves in a network around the cold clear waters, and the vine's putting on outward greenness and unwonted clusters and fruit is all that tells where every root and fibre of its being has been silently stealing. So those loves are most fatal. most absorbing, in which, with unheeded quietness, every thought and fibre of our life twines gradually around some human soul, to us the unsuspected well-spring of our being. Fearful, it is, because so often the vine must be uprooted, and all its fibres wrenched away; but till the hour of discovery comes, how is it transfigured by a new and beautiful life!

There is nothing in life more beautiful than that trance-like quiet dawn which precedes the rising of love in the soul, when the whole being is pervaded imperceptibly and tranquilly by another being, and we are happy, we know not and ask not why, the soul is then receiving all and asking nothing. At a later day she becomes selfconscious, and then come craving exactions, endless questions-the whole world of the material comes in with its hard counsels and consultations, and the beautiful trance fades for ver.

Do not listen to hear whom a woman praises, to know where her heart is; do not ask for whom she expresses the most earnest enthusiasm. But if there be one she once knew well, whose name she never speaks; if she seem to have an instinct to avoid every occasion of its mention: if, when you speak. she drops into silence and changes the subject-why, look there for something!-just as, when getting throngh deep meadow-grass, a bird flies ostentatiously up before you, you may know her nest is not there, but far off under distant tufts of fern and buttercup, through which she has crept, with a silent flutter in her spotted breast, to act her pretty little falsehood before you.

MRS. LYNN LINTON-MRS. HENRY WOOD.

MRS ELIZA LINTON, a popular novelist, is a native of the picturesque Lake country. She was born at Keswick in 1822, daughter of the Rev. J. Lynn, vicar of Crosthwaite in Cumberland. In 1958 she

was married to Mr. W. J. Linton, engraver. Mrs. Linton appeared as an authoress in 1844, when she published Azeth the Egyptian,' which was followed by Amymone, a Komance of the Days of Pericles,' 1848; Realities, 1851; W tch Stories,' 1-61; Lizzie Lorton,' 1866; Patricia Kemball; and other works of fiction, with various piquant essays and critical contributions to the periodical press. Mrs. Linton has also published an account of The Lake Country,' with illustrations by Mr. Linton. The novels of this lady represent, in clear and vigorous English, the world of to-day. All the little frivolities, the varieties, the finesse of women, all the empty pretence and conscious self-deception of men, she paints with real power and with a peculiar tinge of cynicism, which is so regularly recurrent as to make the reader a little doubtful of its genuineness. In 'Patricia Kemball' she lays bare the hollow hearts and secret vices of society; the real heroine, Dora, is insincere, and instigates to crime, yet is represented as a girl of the period.' Mrs. Linton has real constructive faculty, with descriptive and satirical power. Her earlier novels are healthier in tone and feeling than her later ones. She appears to be passing into sensationalism and love-stories based on intrigue; and though professedly she would by these teach a high moral, we doubt if the bulk of her readers will draw the lesson she intends. The 'History of Joshua Davidson,' sufficiently shews that Mrs. Lynn Linton has latterly been exercised in seeking a solution of the great social problems of the day-the enigmas of life.' Her book cannot be regarded otherwise than as a rejection of Christianity as a creed impossible of application to our complex modern society, or as applicable only in the form of an undisguised communism.

MRS. HENRY WOOD (nee Price), born in Worcestershire in 1820, his written a great number of novels (twenty are enumerated in Bentley's catalogue), beginning with Danebury House,' 1860; 'East Lynne,' which was published in 1861, and met with great success; The Channings' (1862); Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles,' 'Verner's Pride,Bessy Rane,' 'Roland Yorke,' Lady Adelaide's Oath,' &c. Mrs. Wood has edited a monthly magazine, The Argosy,' and has contributed, during an active literary life, to various other periodicals. In her novels she contrives to unite plot and melodrama with healthy moral teaching. She has shewn talent in dealing with character alone, as seen in her anonymous Johnny Ludlow Papers,' which were highly praised by critics who had spoken coutemptuously of the novels published under her own name.

MISS ANNE MANNING-MISS RHODA BROUGHTON, &C.

A series of novels, most of them cast in an antique autobiographi cal form, commenced in 1850 with The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell, afterwards Mrs. Milton,' an ideal representation of Milton's first wife, written and printed in the style of the period. This has been followed by The Household of Sir Thomas More,'

1851; Edward Osborne,' 1852; The Provocations of Madame Palissy,' 1853; Chronicles of Merrie England,' 1854; Caliph Haroun Alraschid,' 1855; Good Old Times,' 1856; a 'Cottage History of England,' Masque of Ludlow,' &c., 1866. These works

are stated to be written by a lady, MISS ANNE MANNING.

MISS RHODA BROUGHTON has constructive talent, combined with no ordinary knowledge of society, with little sentiment and some defiance—at least disregard—of conventionalism. Her novels are -Nancy; Good-bye, Sweetheart; Red as a Rose is She;' Cometh up as a Flower,' &c. Not unlike Miss Broughton is MRS. EDWARDS, who has written Steven Lawrence, Yeoman,' Archic Lovell,' &c. Mrs. Edwards's heroes are of the masculine sort, and in her 'Archie Lovell' (which was very popular) she has delineated some of the features of the fashionable Bohemianism of the day. HOLME LEE (whose real name is Harriet Parr) is of the purest and brightest of the domestic school of novelists, and also a writer of some excellent essays, She has but slight skill in plot, but has a firm hold of certain ranges of character, and superior analytical faculty. The unwearying industry of Holme Lee 'has enabled her to reside on a small property of her own in the Isle of Wight. Her novels are'Against Wind and Tide,' 'Sylvin Holt's Daughter,' 'Kathie Brande,' 'Warp and Woof, Maude Talbot,'The Beautiful Miss Barrington,' &c. MRS. RIDDELL made a reputation among the novel-readers by her novel 'George Geith,' a really powerful fiction. In her later works she has gone too far in the direction of plot and sensation merely. In 1875 an anonymous novel, Coming through the Rye,' became at once popular, and various authors are named. At length it was found that it was written by MISS MATHER, a lady known as the author of some poems.

CHARLES READE.

The novels of MR. CHARLES READE have been among the most popular and most powerful of our recent works of fiction. In 1853 appeared his 'Peg Woffington,' a lively, sparkling story of town-life and the theatres a century ago, when Garrick, Quin, and Colley Cibber were their great names. The heroine, Peg Woffington, was an actress, remarkable for beauty and for her personation of certain characters in comedy. Walpole thought her an 'impudent Irishfaced girl,' but he admitted that all the town was in love with her.' Mr. Reade's second heroine was of a very different stamp. His 'Christie Johnstone,' 1853, is a tale of fisher-life in Scotland, the scene being laid at Newhaven on the Forth. A young lord, Viscount Ipsden, is advised by his physician, as a cure for ennui and dyspepsia, to make acquaintance with people of low estate, and to learn their ways, their minds, and their troubles. He sails in his yacht to the Forth, accompanied by his valet

Newhaven Fisherwomen.

Per

'Saunders! do you know what Dr. Aberford means by the lower classes?' fectly, my lord.'Are there any about here?' I am sorry to say they are everywhere, my lord' Get me some — (cigarette). Out went Saunders, with his usual graceful empressement, but an internal shrug of his shoulders. He was absent an hour and a half; he then returned with a double expression on his face-pride at his success in diving to the very bottom of society, and contempt of what he had fished up thence. He approached his lord mysteriously, and said. sotto roce, but impressively: This is low enough, my lo d.'Theu ghded back, and ushered in. with polite disdain, two loveher women than he had ever opened a door to in the whole course of his pertumed existence.

On their heads they wore caps of Lutch or Flemish origin, with a broad lace border, stiffened and arcued. over the forehead, about three inches high, leaving the brow and checks un.ncumbered. They had cotton jack ts. bright red and yellow, mixed in patterns, confined at the waist by the apron strings, but bobtailed below the weist; short woollen petticoats, with broad vertical stripes, red and white most viv'd in colour; white worsted stockings, and neat though high-quartered shoes. Under their jackets they wore a thick spotted cotton handkerchief, about one inch of which was visible round the lower part of the throat. Of their petticoats, the outer one was kilted, or gathered up towards the front; and the second, of the same colour, hung in the usual way.

Of these young women. one had an olive complexion, with the red blood manthing under it, and black hair, and glorious black eyebrows. The other was fair, with a massive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold; and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashee, took the luminous effect peculiar 10 thắt rare beauty.

Their short petticoats reveal da neat ankle and a leg with a noble swell: for nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of a cient sculptors and poets, not of modern po tasters, who, with their a'ry-like sylphs, and their smokelike verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. They are, my lads. Continuez! These women had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset! so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads-actually! Their supple persons moved as nature intended; every gesture was cse, grace, and freedom. What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment.

Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said. 'How do you do?' and smiled a welcome. Fine, hoow's yoursel?' answered the dark lass, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face. What'n lord are ye?' continued she. Are ye a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke.' Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, sotto roce, His lordship is a viscount.' 'I dinna ken't,' was Jean's remark; but it has a bonny soond.' What mair would ye hae ?' said the fair beauty, whose name was Christie Johnstone. Then appealing to his lordship as the likeliest to know, she added: Nobeelity is just a soond itsel, I'm tauld.' The viscount finding himself expected to Fay something on a topic he had not attended much to, answered drily: We must ask the republicans; they are the people that give their minds to such subjects.' And yon man.' asked Jean Carnie, is he a lord, too?' 'I am his lordship's servant,' replied Saunders gravely, not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just. Na replied she, not to be imposed upon. Ye are statelier and prooder than this ane.' I will explain,' said his master. 'Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount.'

Mr. Reade is not very happy with his Scotch dialogue. His novel, however, is lively and interesting, and Christie, like Peg Woffington, is ably drawn. This type of energetic impassioned women is characteristic of all Mr. Reade's novels. In 1856 appeared 'It is Never Too Late to Mend,' the scene of which is partly laid in Australia,