their own pure springs and rills, tinkling soft music and fraught with peculiar efficacy.

The natural and inherent differences between feminine intellects are likewise very great, and culture renders many of those differences distinct and conspicuous which might have lain undeveloped and unnoticed under ordinary circumstances; thorough cultivation having a directly opposite effect to that superficial form of education which veils or neutralizes the distinctive faculties.

Dr. Lindley enumerates ten principal forms in which the young leaves of plants are folded up-" The appressed, as in the misletoe; the conduplicate, as in the rose; the imbricate, as in the lilac; the equitant, as in the iris; the obvolute, as in the sage; the plaited, as in the vine; the involute, as in the violet; the revolute, as in the willow; the convolute, as in the apricot; and the circinate, as in the sun-dew." By far more numerous and more complicated, but equally true, each to its specific development, are the foldings in the buds of human character; and the study of such human vernation is one of the most general interest which can be offered to the attention of any reader. It constitutes the chief attraction of ably-constructed fiction, and the main charm of authentic records.

Biography, yet more emphatically than history, may be defined as "philosophy teaching by examples;" and besides those plain and striking lessons which it placards for all as human beings, and for many as Christians, it has in certain instances an instructive voice perceptible only to women and to authoresses, and tones still finer and more thrilling, subtly penetrating the hearts of individuals with applicable truths, which can effectually be learned only by means of self-drawn inferences.

Within the limits of my personal acquaintance, the want of such an epitome as the present aspires to be has often, in my hearing, been deplored; and it is my full conviction that this want is felt by a large section of the public.

This book owes its origin to a sort of accident. Having undertaken to write a Critical and Biographical Essay on the subject of Mrs. Hemans and her poetry, I was consequently led to institute a comparison between her compositions and those of other English poetesses. The want of a compendious work exclusively appropriated to a summary view of our literary countrywomen being thus forced upon my attention, I was induced to enlarge my plan, and, instead of illustrating only the character of one authoress, to take a brief survey of the general progress of female literature in England from the earliest period to the year 1700, where the stream divides into several branches, and thence to trace the course of female poetry, the principal of those branches, down to the year 1850.

As a portrait-painter produces his own idea of the persons who sit to him, so have I endeavoured to produce original likenesses of character, though often in the earlier chapters constrained perforce to piece them out as Professor Owen does the fragments of extinct species.

Deeming that sort of literary criticism which connects the written utterances of individuals with the every-day workings of their hearts to be essential to the establishment of those solid principles which must form alike the basis of correct taste and the active spring of all that is most valuable and excellent in mental acquirement, I have earnestly endeavoured throughout, candidly, kindly, and truthfully, to estimate the lives and works of my illustrious fellow-countrywomen.

I have happily been supplied with some fresh biographical materials of great value. I have never been content to derive information from a single source; and whenever I discovered that the works of good writers contained facts or hints from which inferences could be drawn relating to personal history or illustrative of character, I have gathered and garnered the fruits of my researches.

Pleasant as it is to rove through fields, woods and valleys, by the sides of lakes and rivers, on the sea-shore, and over hills and mountains, collecting indigenous flowers from their various homes, yet the exhilarating exercise fatigues when long continued, and perhaps there are few botanists who do not at last prefer resorting in quiet ease to the Regent's Park, or to Kew, where British gardens scientifically arranged exhibit within a small area the accumulated treasures of the country's Flora. A similar state of feeling prevails concerning books, and those readers who want leisure and inclination for the examination of several hundred scattered volumes may probably be glad, while evading studious toil, to see an abstract of the knowledge they desire placed before them in these pages.

It is refreshing to let the eyes wander sometimes over the ample pages of the old and only complete edition of the 'Biographia Britannica,' revelling in the profusion and even in the confusion of its knowledge, and more especially taking in all the works and ways of the British worthies, and gaining leisurely acquaintance by description with their very looks. But the women admitted into this goodly assemblage are few, and by no means well selected for instance, under the letter " A," only Arabella Stuart, Arlotta (better known as Arlette), and poor Mrs. Ascham in dutiful attendance on her spouse, are to be

met with; while "B" produces only Joan and Margaret Beaufort, Aphara Behn, and Boadicea, with Lady Bacon unobtrusively waiting on her husband and sons. Nor does the scale or choice amend in following down the alphabet; the most important notices of female writers lurking in all sorts of improbable corners, carelessly treated, and often shut out from the index as well as from the lettering. It may be argued, that, in compensation of this obvious deficiency, the separate memoirs of English authoresses are numerous. Many of them, however, are not easily attainable, and a vast amount of time and labour must be expended in collecting and perusing them. It follows from this state of things, that, excepting the dates of their births and deaths, and the bare titles of their principal productions, furnished in books of reference, very little is known of them by the public, and Englishwomen generally are deprived of the benefit and satisfaction of forming a real acquaintance with their lives and characters.

The Censura Literaria' of Sir Egerton Brydges, the 'Collections' of Nicholls, and similar repositories of miscellaneous matter, are valuable as storehouses, but fatiguing as places of frequent resort. Students are thankful for them, fashionable ladies and indolent gentlewomen are not; while young persons, eager for congenial information and ready to shape their yet ductile natures after the noblest models, are easily repulsed by difficulties, and cast back again upon the callous shows of outer life in conventional usages.

The four volumes of Granger's 'Biographical History of England' contain brief notices of all the most famous and infamous men and women of Great Britain, from the days of King Egbert to the Revolution of 1688, with a list of their engraved portraits; but, excepting this list, there

is no information concerning our literate fellow-countrywomen which may not be obtained more satisfactorily from other sources.

The three volumes of the Rev. Mark Noble's 'Continuation' of Granger's History supply some interesting particulars of the few literary women who died between the years 1688 and 1727.

Warton's History of English Poetry' extends only to the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, but it does justice to the few female writers who flourished before that period in England.

'Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature,' the most complete series of extracts, with criticisms and brief biographical notices, in the language, includes authoresses as well as authors, but attempts no delineation of personal character.

Craik's 'Sketches of Learning and Literature in England' notice female writers in flocks and groups, without giving sufficient distinctness even to the intellectual character of individuals. In both the 'Cyclopædia' and the 'Sketches' the authoresses are doubtless reduced to their true relative proportions when contrasted with authors, but the peculiarly valuable and most attractive attributes of the female mind are obscured.

In Park's edition of Walpole's 'Catalogue of Royal and Noble British Authors' may be found, intermixed with brief records of learned and literary princes and lords, brief records also of learned and literary princesses and ladies, from the reign of King Henry VII. down to the close of the eighteenth century. This valuable compilation contains many specimens of the writings of our patrician authoresses. It has been carefully consulted in the preparation of the present work. It affords much