Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only Yet distant and soft the night-breeze is blowing, Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child. Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, There is a thought that for strength should avail me, CHARLES JAMES LEVER. A series of Irish novels, totally different in character from those of Banim or Carleton, but as distinctly and truly national, has been written by MR LEVER, who commenced his career in 1839 with The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer. The author was born in Dublin, August 31, 1806. He studied medicine, and practised in Ireland. When the cholera broke out in 1832 he exerted himself nobly, and was rewarded with the appointment of physician to the British Embassy at Brussels. The success of Harry Lorrequer determined Mr Lever in favour of the literary profession. In 1841 he produced Charles O'Malley, which was highly popular; and for thirty years afterwards scarcely a year passed without a novel from the gay and brilliant author. Among them were Jack Hinton; Tom Burke of Ours; The O'Donoghue, a Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago; The Knight of Gwynne, a Tale of the Union; Roland Cashel, The Daltons, The Dodd Family Abroad, The Martins of Cro' Martin, The Fortunes of Glencore, Davenport Dunn, Maurice Tierney, Sir Jasper Carew, Luttrell of Arran, Sir Brook Fossbrooke, That Boy of Norcott's, Paul Gosslett's Confessions, A Day's Ride, Con Cregan, The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly, &c. His last novel, Lord Kilgobbin, was produced only a few months before his death, and aware that his end was near at hand, he said: 'I hope this effort may be my last.' He died of heart-disease at Trieste, June 1, 1872. Besides his long file of novels, Lever published in Blackwood's Magazine (where many of his fictions also first appeared) a series of papers upon men and women, and other things in general, by Cornelius O'Dowd.' These are clever sarcastic and humorous essays, which, when collected, formed three volumes of admirable light reading. For about three years (1842-45) Mr Lever conducted the Dublin University Magazine. The novels of this versatile and lively author had all a considerable sale some of the early ones rivalled the works of Dickens in popularity. Charles O'Malley has gone through twelve editions. Besides his strange adventures, his battle-scenes, and romantic exploits, Mr Lever has a rich, racy, national humour. His heroes have all a strong love of adventure, a national proneness to blundering, and a tendency to get into scrapes and questionable situations. The author's chief fault is his sometimes mistaking farce for comedy-mere animal spirits for wit or humour. In Glencore he tried the higher style of fiction-' the detection of char acter, and the unravelment of that tangled skein which makes up human motives;' but his satire and serious painting are not equal to his lighthearted gaiety, rollicking fun, and broad, laughable caricature. In The Dodd Family is an excellent view of foreign life. During the latter part of his life Mr Lever constantly resided abroad. He was many years in Florence; in 1858 he was appointed vice-consul at Spezia, where he remained till 1867, when he was transferred to Trieste. In 1871 the university of Dublin conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. Dispensing Charity among the Irish Poor. From The Martins of Cro' Martin. Most of those who came were desirous of tickets for dispensary aid, for sickness has its permanent home in the Irish cabin, and fever lurks amidst the damp straw and the smoky atmosphere of the poor peasant's home. Some, however, came for articles of clothing, or for aid to make and repair them; others, for some little assistance in diet, barley for a sick man's drink, a lemon, or an orange, to moisten the parched lips of fever; others, again, wanted leave to send a grandchild or a niece to the school; and, lastly, a few privileged individuals appeared to claim their weekly rations of snuff or tobacco-little luxuries accorded to old age-comforts that solaced many a dreary hour of a joyless existence. Amongst all the crowded mass, there was not one whom Mary had not known and visited in their humble homes. Thoroughly conversant with their condition and their necessities, she knew well their real wants; and if one less hopeful than herself might have despaired to render any actual relief to such wide-spread misery, she was sanguine enough to be encouraged by the results before her, small and few as they were, to think that possibly the good time was yet to come when such efforts would be unneeded, and when Ireland's industry, employed and rewarded, would more than suffice for all the requirements of her humble poor. 'Jane Maloney,' said Mary, placing a small packet her door; and here's the order for your own cloak. on the table. Give this to Sally Kieran as you pass May the heavens be your bed. May the holy ''Catty Honan,' cried Mary, with a gesture to enforce silence. Catty, your grand-daughter never comes to the school now that she has got leave. What's the reason of that ?' 'Faix, your reverance miss, 'tis ashamed she is by rayson of her clothes. She says Luke Cassidy's daughters have check aprons.' 'No more of this, Catty. Tell Eliza to come on Monday, and if I'm satisfied with her, she shall have one too." 'Two ounces of tea for the Widow Jones.' makes it without a little green in it!' 'Ayeh,' muttered an old hag, but it's weak it 'How are the pains, Sarah ?' asked Mary, turning to a very feeble-looking old creature with crutches. 'Worse and worse, my lady. With every change of the weather they come on afresh.' "The doctor will attend you, Sally, and if he thinks wine good for you, you shall have it.' 'Tis that same would be the savin' of me, Miss Mary,' said a cunning-eyed little woman, with a tattered straw bonnet on her head, and a ragged shawl over her. 'I don't think so, Nancy. Come up to the house on Monday morning, and help Mrs Taafe with the bleaching.' 'So this is the duplicate, Polly?' said she, taking a scrap of paper from an old woman, whose countenance indicated a blending of dissipation with actual want. 'One-and-fourpence was all I got on it, and trouble enough it gave me.' These words she uttered with a heavy sigh, and in a tone at once resentful and complaining. 'Were my uncle to know that you had pawned your cloak, Polly, he'd never permit you to cross his threshold.' 'Ayeh, it's a great sin, to be sure,' whined out the hag, half insolently. A great shame and a great disgrace it certainly is; and I shall stop all relief to you till the money be paid back.' And why not?'-To be sure !'-'Miss Mary is right!'-'What else could she do?' broke in full twenty sycophant voices, who hoped to prefer their own claims by the cheap expedient of condemning another. 'The Widow Hannigan ?' 'Here, miss,' simpered out a smiling, little old creature, with a curtsey, as she held up a scroll of paper in her hand. 'What's this, Widow Hannigan ?' "Tis a picture Mickey made of you, miss, when you was out riding that day with the hounds; he saw you jumping a stone wall.' 'Tell Mary smiled at the performance, which certainly did not promise future excellence, and went on: Mickey to mend his writing; his was the worst copy in the class; and here's a card for your daughter's admission into the infirmary. By the way, widow, which of the boys was it I saw dragging the river on Wednesday?' 'Faix, miss, I don't know. Sure it was none of ours would dare to' 'Yes, they would, any one of them; but I'll not permit it; and what's more, widow, if it occur again, I'll withdraw the leave I gave to fish with a rod.' 'Teresa Johnson, your niece is a very good child, and promises to be very handy with her needle. Let her hem these handkerchiefs, and there's a frock for herself. My uncle says, Tom shall have half his wages paid him till he's able to come to work again.' But why attempt to follow out what would be but the long unending catalogue of native misery-that dreary series of wants and privations to which extreme destitution subjects a long-neglected and helpless people. There was nothing from the cradle to the coffin, from the first wailing wants of infancy to the last requirement of doting old age, that they did not stand in need of. A melancholy spectacle, indeed, was it to behold an entire population so steeped in misery, so utterly inured to wretchedness, that they felt no shame at its exposure, but rather a sort of self-exaltation at any opportunity of displaying a more than ordinary amount of human suffering and sorrow-to hear them how they caressed their afflictions, how they seemed to fondle their misfortunes, vying with each other in calamity, and bidding higher and higher for a little human sympathy. Mary Martin set herself stoutly to combat this practice, including, as it does, one of the most hopeless features of the national character. To inculcate habits of selfreliance, she was often driven, in violation of her own feelings, to favour those who least needed assistance, but whose efforts to improve their condition might serve as an example. SAMUEL LOVER-LEITCH RITCHIE. Another Irish worthy, SAMUEL LOVER (17981868), a native of Dublin, produced a number of good Irish songs-The Angels Whisper, Molly Bawn, The Four-leaved Shamrock, &c. His Irish novels-Rory O'More (1839), Handy Andy (1842), and Treasure Trove (1844), were well received. His short Irish sketches, however, are much better; and by reciting some of these, and singing his fine wild songs, he made up a public entertainment which he gave with great success in Ireland, England, and America. The Angels' Whisper. A baby was sleeping, its mother was weeping, And she cried: 'Dermot, darling, oh! come back to me.' Her beads while she numbered, the baby still slumbered, And smiled in her face while she bended her knee. 'Oh! blest be that warning, my child, thy sleep adorning, For I know that the angels are whispering with thee. 'And while they are keeping bright watch o'er thy sleeping, Oh! pray to them softly, my baby, with me; And say thou wouldst rather they 'd watched o'er thy father, For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.' The dawn of the morning saw Dermot returning, see, And closely caressing her child with a blessing, Said I knew that the angels were whispering with thee.' LEITCH RITCHIE (1800-1865), a native of Greenock, was author of four novels-Schinderhannes, The Game of Life, The Magician, and Wearyfoot Common, 1855. He wrote various short tales and continental tours, and for several years bore a part in conducting Chambers's Journal. THOMAS HUGHES. Tom Brown's School-days, by an Old Boy, 1857, gives an excellent account of Rugby School under Dr Arnold; also some delightful sketches of scenery, rural customs, and sports in Berkshire. The hero, Tom Brown, is the son of a Berkshire squire; he is genial, good-humoured, and highspirited; he fights his way nobly at Rugby, and battles against bullying, tossing, and other evils of our public schools. The tone and feeling of the volume are admirable, and it was pleasant to see so healthy and wise a book-for so it may be termed-in its sixth edition within twelve months. Several more editions have since been published. The same author has still further commemorated his beloved Berkshire in The Scouring of the White Horse, or the Long Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk, 1858. In this work the country games, traditions, and antiquarian associations of Berkshire are described. The Browns. The Browns have become illustrious by the pen of Thackeray and the pencil of Doyle, within the memory of the young gentlemen who are now matriculating at the universities. Notwithstanding the well-merited but late fame which has now fallen upon them, any one at all acquainted with the family must feel that much has yet to be written and said before the British nation will be properly sensible of how much of its greatness it owes to the Browns. For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most English counties, and leaving their mark in American forests and Australian uplands. Wherever the fleets and armies of England have won renown, there stalwart sons of the Browns have done yeomen's work. With the yew-bow and cloth-yard shaft at Cressy and Agincourt-with the brown bill and pike under the brave Lord Willoughby-with culverin and demi-culverin against Spaniards and Dutchmen-with hand-grenade and sabre, and musket and bayonet, under Rodney and St Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington, they have carried their lives in their hands; getting hard knocks and hard work in plenty, which was on the whole what they looked for, and the best thing for them: and little praise or pudding, which indeed they, and most of us, are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St Maurs and such-like folk, have led armies and made laws time out of mind; but those noble families would be somewhat astounded-if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken-to find how small their work for England has been by the side of that of the Browns. The author of Tom Brown's School-days is Thomas Hughes, a Chancery barrister (appointed Queen's Counsel in 1869), son of John Hughes, Esq., of Oriel College, Oxford, author of the Itinerary of Provence, and editor of the Boscobel Tracts. Sir Walter Scott pronounced this gentleman 'a poet, a draughtsman, and a scholar.' The once famous ballad of The One-horse Shay and other political jeux d'esprit in John Bull, were by the elder Mr Hughes. His son, born in 1823, was educated at Rugby under Dr Arnold. Mr Hughes was for some time an active member of parliament, warmly advocating the interests, without flattering the prejudices, of the working-classes. In all social questions he takes a deep interest, and evinces a manly, patriotic spirit. MRS CROWE. faculty of woman is inferior in quality and calibre to that of man : If, as we believe, under no system of training, the intellect of woman would be found as strong as that of man, she is compensated by her intuitions being stronger-if her reason be less majestic, her insight is clearer-where man reasons, she sees. Nature, in short, gave her all that was needful to enable her to fill a noble part in the world's history, if man would but let her play it out, and not treat her like a full-grown baby, to be flattered and spoiled on the one hand, and coerced and restricted on the other, vibrating betwixt royal rule and slavish serfdom. In 1848 Mrs Crowe issued two volumes represent- from the German, and others are relations of Stages in the History of Crime. It is in the annals of the doings and sufferings of the good and brave spirits of the earth that we should learn our lessons. It is by these that our hearts are mellowed, our minds exalted, and our souls nerved to go and do likewise. But there are occasionally circumstances connected with the history of great crimes that render them the most impressive of homilies; fitting them to be set aloft as beacons to warn away the frail mortal, tossed on the tempest of his passions, from the destruction that awaits him if he pursues his course; and such instruction we hold may be best derived from those cases in which the subsequent feelings of a criminal are disclosed to us; those cases, in short, in which the chastisement proceeds from within instead of from without; that chastisement that no cunning concealment, no legal subtlety, no eloquent counsel, no indulgent judge can avert. This lady differs from most of her sister-novelists in a love of the supernatural and mysterious. She possesses dramatic skill in describing characters and incidents, and few who have taken up one of her stories will lay down the volume until it has been read through. Mrs Crowe's first publication was a tragedy, Aristodemus, 1838. Her next One of the features of our time-as of all times, each work was addressed to the many. The Advenof which is new in its generation-is the character of tures of Susan Hopley, 1841, is a novel of English its crimes. Every phasis of human affairs, every advance life, and was very successful. It was followed by material comforts and conveniences, gives rise to new in civilisation, every shade of improvement in our Men and Women, or Manorial Rights, 1843-a modes and forms-nay, to actual new births-of crime, tale less popularly attractive than Susan Hopley, the germs of which were only waiting for a congenial but undoubtedly superior to it in most essential soil to spring in; whilst others are but modifications of points. Mrs Crowe next translated The Seeress the old inventions accommodated to new circumstances. of Prevorst, revelations concerning the inner life There are thus stages in the history of crime indicof man, by Justinus Kerner; and two years after-ative of ages. First, we have the heroic. At a very wards (1847), she published The Story of Lilly Dawson. The heroine, when a child, falls into the hands of a family of English smugglers, desperadoes of the Dirk Hatteraick stamp; and the account given of the gradual development of her intellect and affections amidst scenes of brutal violence and terror, with the story of her subsequent escape and adventures when the world was all before her, form a narrative of psychological as well as of romantic interest. Among the opinions and reflections thrown out by the authoress is an admission that the intellectual early period of a nation's annals, crime is bloody, bold, and resolute. Ambitious princes 'make quick conveyance' with those who stand in the way of their advancement; and fierce barons slake their enmity and revenge in the blood of their foes, with little attempt at concealment, and no appearance of remorse. poisonings, and lifelong incarcerations; when the Next comes the age of strange murders, mysterious passions, yet rife, unsubdued by education and the practical influence of religion, and rebellious to the new restraints of law, seek their gratification by hidden and tortuous methods. This is the romantic era of crime. But as civilisation advances, it descends to a lower sphere, sheltering itself chiefly in the squalid districts of poverty and wretchedness; the last halo of the romantic and heroic fades from it; and except where it is the result of brutal ignorance, its chief characteristic becomes astuteness. But we are often struck by the strange tinge of romance which still colours the page of continental criminal records, causing them to read like the annals of a previous century. We think we perceive also a state of morals somewhat in arrear of the stage we have reached, and, certainly, some curious and very defective forms of law; and these two causes combined, seem to give rise to criminal enterprises which, in this country, could scarcely have been undertaken, or, if they were, must have been met with immediate detection and punishment. There is also frequently a singular complication or imbroglio in the details, such as would be impossible in this island of daylight-for, enveloped in fog as we are physically, there is a greater glare thrown upon our actions here than among any other nation of the world perhaps—an imbroglio that appears to fling the narrative back into the romantic era, and to indicate that it belongs to a stage of civilisation we have already passed. MISS PARDOE. Be when she published Two Old Men's Tales. LADY FULLERTON, daughter of the first Earl Granville, was married in 1833 to A. G. Fullerton, Esq. of Ballintoy Castle, county of Antrim, Ireland. In 1844 she published Ellen Middleton, a domestic story, which was followed by Grantley Manor, 1847; Lady Bird, 1852; the Life of St Francis of Rome, and La Comtesse de Bonneval, 1857; Rose Leblanc, 1861; Laurentia, 1861; Constance Sherwood, 1865; A Stormy Life, 1867; Mrs Gerald's Niece, 1869; &c. MISS KAVANAGH. JULIA PARDOE (1806-1862), born at Beverley, in Yorkshire, the daughter of Major Thomas Pardoe, was an extensive writer in fiction, in books of travels, and in historical memoirs. Her most successful efforts have been those devoted to A series of tales, having moral and benevoEastern manners and society. She is said to lent aims, has been produced by MISS JULIA have produced a volume of Poems at the age of KAVANAGH. In 1847 she published a Christmas thirteen. The first of her works which attracted book, The Three Paths; and in 1848, Madeleine, a any attention was Traits and Traditions of Tale of Auvergne; founded on Fact. The 'fact' Portugal, published in 1833. Having proceeded that gave rise to this interesting story is the devoto the East, Miss Pardoe wrote The City of the tion of a peasant-girl, who by her labour founded Sultan, 1836; which was succeeded in 1839 by a hospital in her native village. Woman in The Romance of the Harem and The Beauties France during the Eighteenth Century, two of the Bosphorus. In 1857, reverting to these volumes, 1850, was Miss Kavanagh's next workEastern studies and observations, Miss Pardoe| an ambitious and somewhat perilous theme; but produced a pleasant collection of oriental tales, the memoirs and anecdotes of the belles esprits entitled Thousand and One Days. A visit to Hun- who ruled the Parisian courts and coteries are gary led to The City of the Magyar, or Hungary told with discretion and feeling as well as taste. and its Institutions, 1840, and to a novel, entitled French society and scenery supplied materials for The Hungarian Castle. Another journey called another fiction, Nathalie, 1851; after which Miss forth Recollections of the Rhône and the Chartreuse; Kavanagh gave short biographies of women while studies in French history suggested Louis the eminent for works of charity and goodness, entitFourteenth and the Court of France in the Seven-ling the collection, Women of Christianity, 1852. teenth Century, 1847. The novels of Miss Pardoe She has since published Daisy Burns, 1853; are numerous. Among them are Reginald Lyle, Grace Lee, 1855; Rachel Gray, 1856; Adèle, 1858; Flies in Amber, The Jealous Wife, Poor Relations, A Summer and Winter in the Two Sicilies, and Pilgrimages in Paris-the last published in two vols. 1858; Seven Years, and other Tales, 1859; 1858, and consisting of short romantic tales French Women of Letters, 1861; English Women which had appeared in various periodicals. Her of Letters, 1862; Queen Mab, 1863; Beatrice, historical works include The Court of Francis I., 1865; Sybil's Second Love, 1867; Dora, 1868; Memoirs of Marie de Medici, Episodes of French Sylvia, 1870; &c. In fiction and memoirs, Miss History, &c. Kavanagh is always interesting, delicate in fancy and feeling, and often rich in description. She is not so able in construction as some of her contemporaries, but she has dealt with very various types of character, and always with a certain grace and careful decision. This lady is a native of Ireland, born at Thurles, in Tipperary, in the year 1824; but she was educated in France. MRS ANNE MARSH-LADY GEORGIANA The domestic novels of these ladies have been received with great favour. They are earnest, impassioned, and eloquent expositions of English life and feeling-those of Lady Fullerton, perhaps too uniformly sad and gloomy. MRS MARSH (17991874) was a Staffordshire lady, daughter of Mr James Caldwell of Linleywood, Recorder of Newcastle-under-Lyme. She does not seem to have entered on her career as an authoress until 1834, of the manufacturing classes in Lancashire. MRS charm of one particular stile, that it should be, on such ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (née Steven- occasions, a crowded halting-place. Close by it is a son), wife of the Rev. W. Gaskell, Unitarian deep, clear pond, reflecting in its dark-green depths the minister, Manchester, in 1848 published anony-shadowy trees that bend over it to exclude the sun. The mously Mary Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life. only place where its banks are shelving is on the side The work is a faithful and painfully interesting picture of the society of the manufacturing capital. The heroine is the daughter of a factory operative; and the family group, with their relatives and friends, are drawn with a distinctness and force that leave no doubt of its truth. The authoress says she had often thought how deep might be the romance in the lives of some of those who elbowed her daily in the streets of Manchester. 'I had always,' she adds, 'felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men, who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternations between work and want tossed to and fro by circumstances apparently in even a greater degree than other men. A little manifestation of this sympathy, and a little attention to the expression of feelings on the part of some of the work-people with whom I was acquainted, had laid open to me the hearts of one or two of the more thoughtful among them; I saw that they were sore and irritable against the rich, the even tenor of whose seemingly happy lives appeared to increase the anguish caused by the lottery-like nature of their own. Whether the bitter complaints made by them, of the neglect which they experienced from the prosperous-especially from the masters whose fortunes they had helped to build up-were well founded or no, it is not for me to judge. It is enough to say, that this belief of the injustice and unkindness which they endure from their fellow-creatures, taints what might be resignation to God's will, and turns it to revenge in too many of the poor uneducated factory-workers of Manchester." The effects of bad times, political agitation, and 'strikes,' are depicted and brought home more vividly to the reader by their connection with the characters in the novel. The Lancashire dialect is also occasionally introduced, adding to the impression of reality made by the whole work; and though the chief interest is of a painful character, the novelist reflects the lights as well as the shades of artisan life. Her powers of description may be seen from the beautiful opening scene: Picture of Green Heys Fields, Manchester. There are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as 'Green Heys Fields,' through which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant. In spite of these fields being flat and low-nay, in spite of the want of wood (the great and usual recommendation of level tracts of land), there is a charm about them which strikes even the inhabitant of a mountainous district, who sees and feels the effect of contrast in these commonplace but thoroughly rural fields, with the busy, bustling manufacturing town he left but half an hour ago. Here and there an old black and white farm-house, with its rambling outbuildings, speaks of other times and other occupations than those which now absorb the population of the neighbourhood. Here in their seasons may be seen the country business of haymaking, ploughing, &c., which are such pleasant mysteries for towns-people to watch; and here the artisan, deafened with noise of tongues and engines, may come to listen awhile to the delicious sounds of rural life-the lowing of cattle, the milkmaids' call, the clatter and cackle of poultry in the old farm-yards. You cannot wonder, then, that these fields are popular places of resort at every holiday-time; and you would not wonder, if you could see, or I properly describe, the next to a rambling farm-yard, belonging to one of those old-world, gabled, black and white houses I named above, overlooking the field through which the public footpath leads. The porch of this farm-house is covered by a rose-tree; and the little garden surrounding it is crowded with a medley of old-fashioned herbs and flowers, planted long ago, when the garden was the only druggist's shop within reach, and allowed to grow in scrambling and wild luxuriance-roses, lavender, sage, balm (for tea), rosemary, pinks and wallflowers, onions and jessamine, in most republican and indiscriminate order. This farm-house and garden are within a hundred yards of the stile of which I spoke, leading from the large pasture-field into a smaller one, divided by a hedge of hawthorn and blackthorn; and near this stile, on the further side, there runs a tale that primroses may often be found, and occasionally the blue sweet violet on the grassy hedge-bank. I do not know whether it was on a holiday granted by the masters, or a holiday seized in right of nature and her beautiful spring-time by the workmen ; but one afternoon-now ten or a dozen years ago-these fields were much thronged. It was an early May eveningthe April of the poets; for heavy showers had fallen all the morning, and the round, soft white clouds which were blown by a west wind over the dark-blue sky, were sometimes varied by one blacker and more threatening. The softness of the day tempted forth the young green leaves, which almost visibly fluttered into life; and the willows, which that morning had had only a brown reflection in the water below, were now of that tender gray-green which blends so delicately with the spring harmony of colours. Groups of merry, and somewhat loud-talking girls, whose ages might range from twelve to twenty, came by with a buoyant step. They were most of them factorygirls, and wore the usual out-of doors dress of that particular class of maidens-namely, a shawl, which at mid-day, or in fine weather, was allowed to be merely became a sort of Spanish mantilla or Scotch plaid, and a shawl, but towards evening, or if the day were chilly, was brought over the head and hung loosely down, or was pinned under the chin in no unpicturesque fashion. Their faces were not remarkable for beauty; indeed, they were below the average, with one or two excep tions; they had dark hair, neatly and classically arranged; dark eyes, but sallow complexions and irregular features. The only thing to strike a passer-by was an acuteness and intelligence of countenance which has often been noticed in a manufacturing population. There were also numbers of boys, or rather young men, rambling among these fields, ready to bandy jokes with any one, and particularly ready to enter into conversation with the girls, who, however, held themselves aloof, not in a shy, but rather in an independent way, assuming an indifferent manner to the noisy wit or obstreperous compliments of the lads. Here and there came a sober, quiet couple, either whispering lovers, or husband and wife, as the case might be; and if the latter, they were seldom unencumbered by an infant, carried for the most part by the father, while occasionally even three or four little toddlers had been carried or dragged thus far, in order that the whole family might enjoy the delicious May afternoon together. In 1850 Mrs Gaskell published The Moorland Cottage-a short domestic tale; in 1853, Ruth, a novel in three volumes, and Cranford, a collection of sketches that had appeared in a periodical work; in 1855, North and South, another story of the manufacturing districts, which had also |