We have dwelt longer on this part of the subject, than we should have done, because it has seemed to us, that, while her sex have reason to be proud both of the genius and virtue of this admirable woman, the young, the imaginative, among them, may be tempted into too zealous a cultivation of those parts of their nature, which bear the nearest affinity to hers; and commit the dreadful error of unfitting themselves for their own proper sphere, while unable to attain the etherial height in which her orbit lay. A genius like hers cannot be made; it was a gift; and of so rare and exquisite an order, that it is not likely to reappear often in the lapse of ages. In vainly seeking to nurse a poetical turn of mind into the genius of a Hemans, a life may be wasted, usefulness sacrificed, health injured, and a susceptibility to mental suffering be, after all, the only power quickened into more active vitality.

We do not forget, when we regret that Mrs. Hemans's mind was far from being a well-regulated one, that she is not to be altogether judged by the rules applied to ordinary individuals. She was an extraordinary woman; she was one of the very few who have their mission distinctly marked out, not in the usual track, perhaps, of feminine duties. But, believing as we do, that books absolutely influence the characters of their readers more or less, and that this volume is calculated to fly far and wide, fascinating thousands of hearts, we would pray that it might never be forgotten, especially by readers of her own sex, how singularly Mrs. Hemans was gifted, and thereby exempted; how few, like her, can walk in the clouds, without need of firmer footing; how impossible it is for any, except a being precisely like her, to be respected in spite of the indulgence of undisciplined impulses. If she was self-willed to her own misery, if she was sometimes too gay, sometimes too sad, ever the creature of excessive emotions, and ever yielding to the emotion of the instant, we remember the influences of her constitution, and her education, (for she was evidently the greenhouse plant of a too tender nurture); we remember our obligations to her genius, and we pardon. Whom else could we so pardon? Who could plead so much against unkind judgment? But eccentricities are never noble, never lovely, in any common being, though many have fallen into the strange error of believing them interesting. Rare are those who have been noble and lovely in spite of them.

e now turn to a part of the volume which can be studied

We

with unmingled pleasure, and breathes from every line a lesson most delightful to the heart of the Christian reader.

Where found the wandering dove her ark at last? What filled the void of an aching heart with substantial comfort? What was it that at last met the spiritual longings which the exquisite beauty of her own conceptions, the fullness of friendship and filial affection, the justly valued fame accorded by the wise and good, could not satisfy? When all these had done their utmost, when she had become weary of the fragrance exhaled from the ever-renewed flowers of her garland, when she had become acquainted with bereavement by death, as well as by alienation, had been drawn near the realities of this life and the next by the departing spirit of a mother, and subdued into calm reflection by severe sickness, then the Gospel seems to have come to her in its true character of a Comforter, offering to lift the burden from her fainting spirit, and to bind up the heart that had been bleeding for years. Then, when she yielded her spirit to its tranquillizing regulation, she found a joy more still and deep than any which had been vouchsafed in her freest moments of poetic inspiration. Never was anything more beautiful and touching, than the manner in which this sober yet glorious change came over her character, with a sort of bright autumnal calm.

We are far from meaning to intimate that she was not a religious woman, during the spring-time and summer of life. But we think her dearest friends would willingly allow, what we have gathered from the Memoir before us, that her religious impressions assumed a relative importance, a seriousness, a distinctness, and a practical influence upon her mind, in her latter days, which they had previously wanted. From poetical, though holy impressions, they deepened into steady and governing principles. What an immense difference there is in the effect of impressions and principles !

The moral to be drawn from the last part of Mrs. Hemans's biography is so delightful, that, although it must strike the most careless reader, we cannot pass it over without comment. With this change came-Peace. We see that, at last, although she was still deserted by the husband of her youth, though still struggling with maternal cares, far from the romantic and beloved home of her childhood, sick amid strangers, -(and what forlornness is expressed by those few words!) her spirits became less variable, and in the words of her sister,

"She no longer sought to forget her trials; ('wild wish and longing vain,' as such attempts must ever have proved,) but rather to contemplate them through the only true and reconciling medium; and that relief from sorrow and suffering, for which she had once been apt to turn to the fictitious world of imagination, was now afforded her by calm and constant meditation on what can alone be called the things that are."

p.

262.

We are tempted to exclaim, would that her feelings had been earlier thus disciplined! Then, perhaps, her hand might have still swept its earthly lyre, with less perhaps of melting pathos, but with enough of a seraph's power. Had her life been spared, the devout purposes of her soul would have been carried into effect; and the God of the Christian would have been adored in such strains as have not mounted to the skies, since the royal harper sang the praises of the Holy One of Israel. "I have now,' are her memorable words, "passed through the feverish and somewhat visionary state of mind, often connected with the passionate study of Art in early life; deep affections and deep sorrows seem to have solemnized my whole being; and I now feel as if bound to higher and holier tasks, which, though I may occasionally lay [them] aside, I could not long wander from, without some sense of dereliction. I hope it is no self-delusion; but I cannot help sometimes feeling as if it were my true task to enlarge the sphere of sacred poetry, and extend its influence." p. 273.

The heart melts with vain regrets over the untimely grave in which these blessed purposes were buried; and could almost murmur, did not the ear of Faith recognise some faint, sweet strains from the Spirit-land, telling us that the remainder of her appointed task lay where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Thinking, as we do, that it is no uncommon thing to mistake the love of Nature, or of abstract beauty and purity, for the love of God, to denominate exalted but vague emotions religion, we are anxious to summon the attention of our readers to the difference, as exemplified in the earlier and latter part of Mrs. Hemans's brilliant yet melancholy career. Which was best and happiest, the successful poet, absorbed in following out the impulses of her genius, and swayed by the tyranny of an excited or depressed imagination, or the retired and dying Christian, studying the Scriptures, filled with their holy and soothing inspiration, hourly manifesting their influence in gentle patience, thoughtfulness for

others, serene confidence in her Maker and her Saviour, and expressing the state of her soul in occasional strains of religious aspiration;-like the following, which was her last composition a few days before her death.

"How many blessed

SABBATH SONNET.

groups this hour are bending,

Through England's primrose meadow-paths, their way
Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day!
The halls, from old heroic ages gray,

Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways-to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness."

L. J. P

1

ART. V. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society. May, 1839. Published at the Society's Rooms.

THIS valuable document, presented at the annual meeting of the Society in May last, has just been published; and, like all that have preceded it, presents a mass of important information, well deserving the attention of every intelligent and philanthropic citizen. The community, we might rather say the nation, are indebted to the labors of its devoted and indefatigable secretary. The statistics he has gathered by personal observation and correspondence are of unquestionable authority; and on the various topics, of which the Report treats, the condition of "Penitentiaries, of County Prisons, and Houses of Correction;" on "Houses of Refuge for Juvenile Delinquents; on "Imprisonment for Debt;" and especially on "Asylums for Poor Lunatics," the public may see what has been done and what still remains to be done for these great objects.

Few of our philanthropic institutions have accomplished so much, in modes so unexceptionable, or with evidence so satisfactory, as the "Prison Discipline Society." During the fourteen years of its existence it has awakened the public attention to interests, vitally connected with the safety and wellbeing of the community, and with the physical and spiritual condition of thousands of individuals. It has mercifully visited the prisoner in his cell; and it has generously pleaded the cause of the "poor debtor." It has fearlessly exposed abuses, where abuses were undeniable; and at one time, by suggesting improvements, and at another, by commending what was already excellent, it has, we believe, exerted a most salutary influence.

There is one subject, however, to which, as we collect from the Reports, its special attention has been directed, namely, the condition of the Insane, and Asylums for Poor Lunatics. It would well nigh break the heart of the compassionate, to think what horrors were formerly endured by this most unfortunate class of our fellow-creatures. The abuses of power committed in private and public asylums for these sufferers, both in our own country and in Great Britain, boasting as we do of civilization and charity, would be absolutely incredible, were they not attested beyond the possibility of denial. "If a faithful picture of the pitiable condition of the insane pauper could be drawn, confined in his lonely cell, deprived of the sweet air and light of heaven, cast off from all the tender charities of life, forced into returnless banishment, the recital, like the lyre of Orpheus, would move the very stones to pity."

In nothing have the labors of humanity, in times distinguished as are these by philanthropic effort, been more judiciously exerted, or more signally blest, than in efforts for the relief of the insane. They have prevailed to expose the utter uselessness and absurdity, not less than the cruelty of the system common in Great Britain and in this country, till within a few years past. When the Archbishop of York, (Dr. Venables Vernon,) with the help of the municipality of that city, actually

See an eloquent speech of Dr. Collins, of Baltimore, before the Legislature of Maryland, urging an appropriation for the completion of the Insane Hospital in that State. But for the fullest exhibition of the cruelties, and dreadful abuses of power in institutions of this class, public and private, see the Examinations and Reports, by the Committee of the House of Commons, 1816-20.