her under her especial patronage, received her into her house, and treated her with great hospitality for a period of six months. At the end of that time the Duchess, in a fit of caprice, turned Mrs. Manley out of doors, who, being cast entirely upon her own exertions for support, and longing probably to regain a place in the gay society for which she had acquired a relish, wrote soon afterwards her first tragedy, 'The Royal Mischief,' which was successfully performed at the Theatre Royal in the year 1696, the earliest date which we find attached to any incident of Mrs. Manley's erratic career. The fashionable favour won by this production she too eagerly strove to increase by her play called 'The Lost Lover, or Jealous Husband,' which was produced in the same year and failed. 1707 her tragedy of Almyna, or the Arabian Vow' was brought out. 6 In While thus occupied with dramatic compositions her social connections involved her in the political partizanship of that licentious age, and she wrote the four volumes of Memoirs of the New Atlantis,' a defamatory and scandalous work, chiefly, though not exclusively, directed against the Whig party then in power. A warrant from the Secretary of State's office having consequently been sent to seize the printer and publisher, Mrs. Manley avowed the authorship, was examined before Lord Sunderland, and replied to his interrogations with flippant falsehoods, carefully screening from censure not only the apprehended tradesmen, but all the persons who had supplied her with information. Her Court Intrigues' and 'Memoirs of Europe towards the close of the eighteenth century,' belonged to her defamatory and political series. A change of ministry taking place in the year 1710, she became a defender of the government. 'The Examiner,' a weekly paper, having been commenced by Henry St. John (Lord Bolingbroke), Matthew Prior, and their confederates, had issued only thirteen. numbers, when, on the 10th of November, 1710, Swift became its editor. He carried it on with great success, writing every article himself, until June 14, 1711, when, under his continued direction, Mrs. Manley undertook to write for it, and she carried it on with much spirit and little conscience during the remainder of the reign of Queen Anne, who died August 1, 1714. In Nichols's 'Collection of Poems,' vol. vii., p. 369, are some verses by Mrs. Manley, addressed to the Countess of Bristol, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Felton, second wife of John first Earl of Bristol and mother of John Lord Harvey. Lady Bristol was then in the prime of life, and her children in their infancy. The verses run upon a level line of mediocrity, and as they declare "Thee, lovely Bristol, thee, with pride I choose, it is to be hoped that no other heroic or pseudo-heroic couplets can be laid to Mrs. Manley's charge. In the year 1717 her tragedy of 'Lucius' was brought out and well received by the public. It was probably in connection with 'The Examiner' that Mrs. Manley made the acquaintance of Alderman Barber, a printer and a high Tory, who invited her to his house on Lambeth Hill, where she resided until her death, which took place on the 11th of July, 1724. She was buried in the church of St. Bennet, Paul's Wharf. She published an autobiographical account of her own life under the title of Memoirs of Rivella,' which the writer of these pages has not seen. None of her productions have lived, or deserved to live, although her popularity was great in her day, and her talents undoubtedly were versatile and engaging. As an extraordinary instance of the love of the public for gossip and slander, it may be mentioned here that a seventh edition of her New Atlantis' was published in the year 1736. The memory of the fabled or mythic Atlantis of the ancients, and the zeal for maritime discovery, which in the sixteenth century, stimulated by the success of Columbus, had directed daring English navigators to seek the northwest passage near the Arctic Pole, and a new Atlantis at the Antarctic, furnished Lord Bacon with a basis on which to rear the imaginary fabric of 'Solomon's College, or the College of the Six Days' Works,' and that same uncertain site, the New Atlantis, was subsequently chosen by Mrs. Manley as the scene of her disgraceful tales. Thus does the same conjectural fact, or figment, afford either a field for the cultivation of the choicest fruits, or a waste place for the reception of the vilest refuse. "L'énigme de la destinée humaine n'est de rien pour la plupart des hommes; le poëte l'a toujours présente à l'imagination."- L'Allemagne,' vol. i., seconde partie, chap. x. The enigma of human destiny is as nothing to most people; but to the imagination of the poet it is ever present. MRS. BRERETON. JANE, daughter of Thomas Hughes, of Bryn Gryffid, near Mold, in Flintshire, and of Anne Jones his wife, was born in the year 1685. Her father was an intelligent, wellinformed man, and took care to cultivate his child's promising abilities. In 1711, she married Mr. Thomas Brereton, the only son of Major Brereton, of a good Cheshire family, who was at that time a commoner of Brazennose College, Oxford. Having been imprudent, and outrun his pecuniary means, Mr. Brereton for some time sought refuge in France from his creditors. Returning, he obtained employment in the Custom-House department; and being stationed at Park Gate, near Chester, was accidentally drowned in February, 1722, at Saltney, by attempting to cross when the tide was coming in. His remains were interred in Shotwick Chapel, which belonged to his kinsman, Thomas Brereton, Esq., M.P. for Liverpool. After her widowhood Mrs. Brereton took up her abode. at Wrexham, where she died, Aug. 7, 1740, leaving two surviving daughters, Lucy and Charlotte. She had been a contributor of verses to The Gentleman's Magazine,' using the signature of "Melissa." A volume, containing her poems, letters, and an account of her life, was published in 1744: Edward Cave, London. The candid and chivalrous Sir Egerton Brydges has enshrined her name in the third volume of 'The Censura Literaria.' ELIZABETH ROWE. Elizabeth was the eldest of three daughters, the only children of respectable and opulent parents, Mr. Walter Singer, a dissenting minister, who had suffered imprisonment for nonconformity, and his wife Elizabeth Portnell. They were persons of deep and consistent piety, who brought up their children in faith, hope, and charity, and set them a daily example of practical truth, justice, and kindness. Elizabeth Singer was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, Sept. 11, 1674, the same year in which Dr. Isaac Watts first saw the light. She had a constitutional complacency of disposition, strong affections, and joyous spirits; and from her early infancy she received the home lessons of piety and goodness as congenial and delightful beyond all other things. When a child she manifested great fondness for music, painting, and poetry; being enchanted with melodious sounds; accustomed to squeeze out the various coloured juices of plants to tincture her little pictures before she received lessons from a drawingmaster; and to make verses at twelve years' old. Her general education in mental exercises, manual occupations, and personal accomplishments, was only such as an ordi |