of Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucault, and Fontenelle's

'History of Oracles' and wrote the paraphrase of

'Plurality of Worlds.' She Enon's Epistle to Paris,' in Dryden's 'Ovid,' a great many verses and letters, several histories and novels, and seventeen successful plays.

According to Machiavelli, the secret of success lies in the capability of adaptation to the times. The licentious indelicacy of Aphara Behn's lively writings insured them a favourable reception, both upon the public stage and in the private dwellings of that fashionable world which had Charles II. for its luminary. Robert Chambers aptly terms Aphara Behn "a female Wycherley." Her name would have been excluded from all mention in these pages, had it not been necessary to mark the true state of female literature at this period.

Aphara Behn is the first English authoress upon record whose life was openly wrong, and whose writings were obscene.

In all ages when morality prevailed, the favourite narrative and dramatic fictions represented the heroes either as virtuous characters or as deservedly punished for evil deeds. Base, indeed, had the condition of society become when the heroes of the English stage and of the fashionable novels were attractively displayed as triumphant libertines.

A complete list of her published works is given in the first volume of the Biographia Britannica,' pp. 667-8, notes F, G, and H.

An engraving of her, by White, and a copy from it by Cole, are mentioned by Granger, who says nothing of a painted portrait.

ELIZABETH WALKER.

Elizabeth, eldest daughter of John Sadler, citizen and grocer of London, was born in Bucklersbury, July 12,

1623. In 1650, she married Anthony Walker, D.D., and, after forty years of domestic happiness, died February 23, 1690. Mrs. Walker left behind her a manuscript volume of 'Instructions' for her daughters, and 'Memorials of God's good Providence, towards herself and family;' copious extracts from which were engrafted in the 'Biography' of her life subsequently published by her husband.

LADY GETHIN.

Grace, daughter of Sir George Norton, of Abbot's Leigh, in the county of Somerset, was born in 1676. She was very carefully educated, and showed great aptness for the acquisition of valuable knowledge. She was married early to Sir Richard Gethin, Bart., of Gethin's Grot, in Ireland; died October 11, 1697, in the twenty-first year of her age, and was buried at Hollingbourn, in Kent.* A monument, with her effigy, was erected in Westminster Abbey; and, further to perpetuate her memory, her parents provided that a sermon should be preached there yearly on Ash Wednesday, for ever. The contents of her commonplace books and other papers were published after her death, under the title of Reliquiæ Gethinianæ.' Ballard gives extracts, which he trustingly supposes to be original; they are, however, the undoubted property of Lord Bacon and of some other authors; and the sole merit of the work would appear, from the table of contents, to consist in judicious selection.

Ballard's praise of Lady Gethin's character rests upon a surer basis than his estimate of her literary works. He says, "She soon discerned that true Christian virtue is the most desirable attainment of which we are capable, and that the best use that can be made of a superior under*Noble's Continuation of Granger, vol. i., p, 281.

K

standing is to enable us to acquire further degrees of real goodness." An engraving from Dickson's portrait of her is prefixed to the 'Reliquiæ Gethinianæ.'

LADY HALKET.

Anne, daughter of Mr. Robert Murray, preceptor to Prince Charles, was born in London, January 4, 1622. She was carefully educated, and excelled in divinity, physic, and surgery. In 1656, she married Sir John Halket, and, after an exemplary and useful life, she died in 1699. Twenty-one volumes of Religious Meditations' are attributed to her, but probably most of them were mere transcripts; for the tabular view of the contents of the Eighth Book, as copied by Ballard from the catalogue subjoined to the published account of her life, accords precisely with the Week's directions of Vices to be opposed, and Virtues to be practised, in Bishop Jeremy Taylor's 'Guide to Devotion,' Part I. of his Golden Grove.'

Taking a retrospective view of the preceding pages, it may confidently be affirmed that the well-educated possessors of the finest natural abilities were, with few exceptions, exemplary in the discharge of practical duties, and lived in true piety to God. It may also be remarked that the greater number of those literary Englishwomen were married, and many of them more than once; from whence it would appear that their mental pursuits had not weakened their domestic affections. The followers in their track will be found to add instances in further confirmation of these statements. In all biographies, the main things to be considered, both by writers and readers, are, the training-ground of character, the arena of life's struggle, and the subsequent results. In the present work, the literary

results are the more especial objects of attention; but, even in their just estimate, the moral and religious effects of such preparatory discipline must be included, for earnestness of intention and elevation of aim give vigorous health and strength to intellect.

In the foregoing chapters mention has been made of the principal English authoresses who died before the year 1700. Henceforth the more varied products of the fertile and widening fields of literature will render it necessary that the increasing numbers of its female cultivators should be divided and classified. From this period more abundant materials are also supplied to the biographer, and better opportunities afforded of discriminating and fixing the lights and shades of individual character, and of comparing and contrasting the mental productions of women of genius. Each generation, like every floral season, may be said to have a prevalent colour of its own; but, as the same dye produces different tints upon textures of silk, wool, and cotton, so variously does the secular influence of opinion affect and tincture human minds.

Approaching more nearly to our own times, we are enabled more readily to realize the habits of life and of thought and feeling, which belong to our more immediate predecessors, and, connecting their literary utterances with their personal experience, to yield up our sympathies, and lay our hearts and understandings open to their teachings; for teach they do, whether intentionally or not, both by the example of their actions and the register of their opinions.

Verse constitutes the earliest literature of all nations, and through all ages it embodies the highest. The writings of women, as compared with those of men, are but as the satellite to the planet, imparting little light and deriving much; nevertheless, they have their own

peculiar utility, and their own soft glory. Intuitive fineness of perception, rapidity of apprehension, tenderness, delicacy, and a certain persuasive sweetness, are general attributes of women; and these qualities, conjoined with a sound understanding, high imaginative faculties, and an enlightened conscience, finding graceful and harmonious expression, breathe genial, refreshing, and holy influences upon many a careworn heart.

While intermingled with the productions of manly intellects, in the general growth of a nation's literature, women's writings and their elegant characteristics lie overshadowed and unremarked; mere speedwells and eyebright in a forest of stately trees, requiring separate consideration and comparison among themselves. This consideration and this comparison it is a principal object of the present work to afford; not under the fallacious impression that pretty herbs can rival giant oaks and lofty pines in fitness for shipbuilding, but simply taking them for what they are, and pointing out their real use and value.

It may here be not inappositely remarked that, up to the termination of the seventeenth century, no Englishwoman had surpassed Margaret Roper in scholastic attainments, Mary Sydney, Countess of Pembroke in poetry, and Lucy Hutchinson in prose. They stand as tide-marks, by which the subsequent rise and fall of feminine abilities may be ascertained.

Warton has treated the history of English poetry and of English literature as identical; and such in the early periods of all languages will their poetry and literature be found; the former representing at once the most excellent form and the most essential qualities of the latter, in which it is comprised. But after long ages of cultivation, learning, social knowledge, and scientific researches divide