control and most of the work, are in the hands of women; and if the bitter remark of an English Bishop of the last generation-" Our girls know nothing, but our boys will never find it out," is still true, the fault is not in the teachers, or the lack of opportunities for acquiring information. WINDSOR. THE HOME OF QUEEN VICTORIA. In English literature there is scarcely any department which women have not, and do not adorn. In History, Biography, Poetry, and Fiction, they seem equally at home, presenting a versatility and comprehensiveness, a grasp of deep and intricate questions, a delicacy and faithfulness of treatment, a logical force and clearness seldom equalled or surpassed by the stronger sex. No literary career of the present century excels in breadth, variety, and thorough usefulness, that of Harriet Martineau. It was reserved for her to popularize the principles of political economy which Adam Smith had discovered, but which slumbered unheeded in the volume which Miss Martineau has made the hand book of statesmen. It was to her that ministers of state appealed to bring their cherished plans home to the English people, and she took up the task and performed it so well that her employers themselves were glad to adopt her teachings, and make her plans their own. She has given us, in her "Society in America," and "Retrospect of Western Travel," the best picture of American institutions and American people in the beginning of the Anti-Slavery movement, that has ever been drawn by any one; far more comprehensive than that of M. de Tocqueville, and in many cases more accurate and reliable. It is to her that we owe the translation and popularization of Comtés "Positive Philosophy," whose influence upon the thought of the English speaking people is beyond estimation. It is to her that we are indebted for a statement of the phenomena of Mesmerism, which the learned world has found it more convenient to ridicule than to controvert. One of the ablest and most valuable histories of England extant was edited and in great part written by her, and her leading articles in the London Daily News were for years among the most important and valuable contributions to the journalism of the time. Laid aside by a fatal disease, and confined to the seclusion of a retreat in the beautiful Lake Country of England, she applied herself to the study and amelioration of the condition of the laboring classes about her; instituted schools, gave them lectures, aroused, awakened and interested them, rendering them the truest and most valuable assistance, in teaching them to help themselves. Her "Life in a Sick Room" has cheered and strengthened thousands of invalids, by teaching them occupation and diversion for the dreary hours of solitude and suffering, which no external aid can altogether relieve. The story of her "Farm of Four Acres " has been read and studied with profit by hundreds of practical agriculturists, and the history of her life, written by herself, and bearing in every line the impress of her independence and originality, is, notwithstanding its negation of that hope which is the light and the life of the Christian, one of the most valuable and instructive of studies. The spectacle it presents of a high morality, an exalted benevolence, an intense desire to make every thought and movement subserve to the benefit of her fellow beings; to teach them in all things the sturdy independence and energy, and the active and kindly helpfulness which she so successfully embodied in her own experience, while ignoring or denying the source from which all good must come; a life eminently Christian in most respects, without a Christian faith, challenges the most thoughtful attention, and however we may differ from her conclusions, her earnestness, honesty, and fearlessness can not fail to command our hearty admiration and respect for her as one of the noblest of English women. In the same line, we might mention Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who has given us one of the most convincing arguments, ever penned in proof of the future existence; Miss Evans, better known as Mrs. Lewes, and still better as George Elliott, who introduced herself to the English public, by a splendid translation of Strauss' "Life of Jesus," and now stands at the head of living novelists, having given to the world a series of volumes containing descriptions of English life and character, and pictures of English scenery of unequalled faithfulness and beauty, combined with a depth of thought and feeling seldom approached; Mrs. Oliphant, who follows closely behind her, with an equal variety and richness, and perhaps a greater general popularity, and very many more, amply sufficient in themselves, to establish the literary reputation of the women of a nation. We might also mention the lamented authoress of "Jane Eyre," whose short literary life was so full of brilliant success and promise; and her friend and biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, whose descriptions of the society of the manufacturing towns of England developed unusual power and pathos. But a simple catalogue of the English women who have achieved high distinction in fiction alone during the present generation, to say nothing of the Porters, and Miss Edgeworth, and Anne Radcliffe, and Joanna Baillie, and hundreds more of an earlier period, would fill all the remainder of our work to overflowing. The English female poets are at least equally numerous. At the very mention, what a rich and splendid procession rises up before us each one of the long array bearing her sheaves of brilliant and graceful verses, any quantity of which are household treasures wherever the English language is spoken. To speak of Mrs. Southey, whose simple natural lyrics are likely to outlive the ambitious epics of her more celebrated husband; of the Hon. Caroline Norton, the brilliant but unhappy daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, worthy of her parentage and of a better fate; of Felicia Hemans, and "L. E. L,” and Mary Howitt; of Eliza Cook, and Jean Ingelow, and Christina Rossetti, as they deserve, would require the extension of our work far beyond the limits we have assigned it; and these are scarcely the beginning of the list, whose crowning glory, hitherto unnamed by us, is or was, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the noblest poet of her time. In purity and loftiness of sentiment seldom excelled by Tennyson, with a similarity in genius and classical taste to Shelley, she displays a depth of thought, a fervor of imagination, an intensity and vigor of expression, a richness of coloring, and an originality not often found in any poetry. Perhaps among the best specimens of her style, is the following plea for the children who labor in mines and factories: THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. "Do you hear the children weeping? O my brothers, 'Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears, The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; They are weeping in the play time of the others, In the country of the free * 'For Oh,' say the children, we are weary, And we cannot run or leap. If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. |