MRS. HEMANS.

FEMALE authorship is, if not a great, certainly a singular fact. And if a singular fact in this century, what must it have been in the earlier ages of the world-when it existed as certainly as now, and was more than now a phenomenon, standing often insulated and alone? If, even in this age, blues are black-balled, and homespun is still the "only wear," and music, grammar, and gramarye are the three elements legitimately included and generally expected in the education of woman, in what light must the Aspasias and the Sapphos of the past have been regarded? Probably as lusus naturæ, in whom a passionate attachment to literature was pardoned as a pleasant peccadillo, or agreeable insanity; just as a slight squint in the eye of a beauty, or even a far-off faux pas in her reputation, is still not unfrequently forgiven. But alas! in our age the exception is likely soon to become the rule the lusus the law; and, at all events, of female authorship the least gallant of critics is compelled now to take cognizance; and without absolutely admitting this as our characteristic, we must confess the diffidence as well as the good-will wherewith we approach a subject where respect for truth and respect for the sex are sometimes apt to jostle and jar.

The works of British women have now taken up, not by courtesy but by right, a full and conspicuous place in our literature. They constitute an elegant library in themselves; and there is hardly a department in science, in philosophy, in morals, in politics, in the belles-lettres, in fiction, or in the fine arts, but has been occupied, and ably occupied, by a lady. This certainly proclaims a high state of cultivation on the part of the many which has thus flowered out into composition in the case of the few. It exhibits an extension and refinement of that element of female influence which, in the private intercourse of society, has been productive of such blessed effects-it mingles with the harsh tone of general literature, as the lute pierceth through the cymbal's clash."-it blends with it a vein of delicate discrimination, of mild charity, and of purity of morals-gives it a healthy

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and happy tone, the tone of the fireside; it is in the chamber of our literature, a quiet and lovely presence; by its very gentleness, overawing as well as refining and beautifying it all. One principal characteristic of female writing in our age is its sterling sense. It is told of Coleridge, that he was accustomed, on important emergencies, to consult a female friend, placing implicit confidence in her first instructive suggestions. If she proceeded to add her reasons, he checked her immediately. "Leave these, madam, to me to find out." We find this rare and valuable sense-this short-hand reasoning-exemplified in our lady authors-producing, even in the absence of original genius, or of profound penetration, or of wide experience, a sense of perfect security, as we follow their gentle guidance. Indeed, on all questions affecting proprieties, decorums, what we may call the ethics of sentimentalism, minor as well as major morals, their verdict may be considered oracular, and without appeal. We remark, too, in the writings of females, a tone of greater generosity than in those of men. They are more candid and amiable in their judgments of authors and of books. Commend us to female critics. They are not eternally consumed by the desire of being witty, astute, and severe, of carping at what they could not equal-of hewing down what they could or would not have built up. The principle, nil admirari, is none of theirs; and whether it be that a sneer disfigures their beautiful lips, it is seldom seen upon them. And in correspondence with this, it is curious that (in our judgments, and, we suspect, theirs) the worst critics are persons who dislike the sex, and whom the sex dislikes-musty, fusty old bachelors, such as Gifford, or certain pedantic prigs in the press of the present day. Ladies, on the other hand, are seldom severe judges of any thing, except each other's dress and deportment; and in defect of profound principles, they are helped out by that fine instinctive sense of theirs, which partakes of the genial nature, and verges upon genius. itself.

Passing from such preliminary remarks, we proceed to our theme. We have selected Mrs. Hemans as our first specimen of Female Authors, not because we consider her the best, but because we consider her by far the most feminine writer of the age. All the woman in her shines. You could

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not (unknowing of the author) open a page of her writings without feeling this is written by a lady. Her inspiration always pauses at the feminine point. It never oversteps the modesty of nature," nor the dignity and decorum of womanhood. She is no sibyl, tossed to and fro in the tempest of furious excitement, but ever a "deep, majestical, and highsouled woman "-the calm mistress of the highest and stormiest of her emotions. The finest compliment we can pay her-perhaps the finest compliment that it is possible to pay to woman, as a moral being-is to compare her to Shakspeare's women," and to say, had Imogen, or Isabella, or Cornelia become an author, she had so written.

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Sometimes, indeed, Mrs. Hemans herself seems seduced, through the warmth of her temperament, the facility and rapidity of her execution, and the intensely lyrical tone of her genius, to dream that the shadow of the Pythoness is waving behind her, and controlling the motions of her song. To herself she appears to be uttering oracular deliverances. Alas! "oracles speak," and her poetry, as to all effective utterance of original truth, is silent. It is emotion only that is audible to the sharpest ear that listens to her song. A bee wreathing round you in the warm summer morn her singing circle, gives you as much new insight into the universe as do the sweetest strains which have ever issued from this "voice of spring." We are reluctantly compelled, therefore, to deny her, in its highest sense, the name of poet-a word often abused, often misapplied in mere compliment or courtesy, but which ought ever to retain its stern and original signification. A maker she is not. What dream of childhood has she ever, to any imagination, reborn? whose slumbers has she ever peopled with new and terrible visions? what new form or figure has she annexed, like a second shadow, to our own idiosyncracy, to track us on our way for ever? to what mind has she given such a burning stamp of impression as it feels eternity itself unable to efface? There is no such result from the poetry of Mrs. Hemans. She is less a maker than a musician, and her works appear rather to rise to the airs of the piano than to that still sad music of humanity-the adequate instrument for the expression of which has not yet been invented by From the tremulous movement, the wailing cadences,

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the artistic pauses, and the conscious-swelling climaxes of her verse, we always figure her as modulating, inspiring, and controlling her thoughts and words to the tune of some fine instrument, which is less the vehicle than the creator of the strain. In her poetry, consequently, the music rather awakens the meaning, than does the meaning round and mellow off into the music.

With what purpose does a lady, in whom perfect skill and practice have not altogether drowned enthusiasm, sit down to her harp, piano, or guitar? Not altogether for the purpose of display-not at all for that of instruction to her audience-but in a great measure that she may develop, in a lawful form, the sensibilities of her own bosom. Thus sat Felicia Hemans before her lyre--not touching it with awful reverence, as though each string were a star, but regarding it as the soother and sustainer of her own high-wrought emotions-a graceful alias of herself. Spring, in its vague joyousness, has not a more appropriate voice in the note of the cuckoo than feminine sensibility had in the more varied but hardly profounder song of the authoress before us.

We wish not to be misunderstood. Mrs. Hemans had something more than the common belief of all poets in the existence of the beautiful. She was a genuine woman, and, therefore, the sequence (as we shall see speedily) is irresistible, imbued with a Christian spirit. Nor has she feared to set her creed to music in her poetry. But it was as a betrayal, rather than as a purpose, that she so did. She was more the organ of sentiment and sensibility than of high and solemn truth-more a golden morning mist, now glittering and then gone in the sun, than a steady dial at once meekly reflecting and faithfully watching and measuring his

beams.

She was, as Lord Jeffrey well remarks, an admirable writer of occasional verses. She has caught, in her poetry, passing moods of her own mind-meditations of the sleepless night-transient glimpses of thought, visiting her in her serener hours-the "silver lining" of those cloudy feelings which preside over her darker and the impressions made upon her mind by the more remarkable events of her every-day life-and the more exciting passages of her reading. Her works are a versified journal of a quiet, ideal,

and beautiful life-the life at once of a woman and a poetess, with just enough, and no more, of romance to cast around it a mellow autumnal coloring. The songs, hymns, and odes in which this life is registered, are as soft and bright as atoms of the rainbow; like them, tears transmuted into glory, but, no more than they, are great or complete. In many poets, we see the germ of greatness, which might, in happier circumstances, or in a more genial season, have been developed. But no such germ can the most microscopic survey discover in her, and we feel that at her death her beautiful but tiny task was done. Indeed, with such delicate organization, and such intense susceptiveness as hers, the elaboration, the long reach of thought, the slow cumulative advance, the deep-curbed, yet cherished ambition which a great work requires and implies, are, we fear, incompatible.

It follows, naturally from this, that her largest are her worst productions They labor under the fatal defect of tedium. They are a surfeit of sweets. Conceive an orchard

of rose-trees. Who would not, stupefied and bewildered by excess and extravagance of beauty, prefer the old, sturdy, and well-laden boughs of the pear and pippen, and feel the truth of the adage-" The apple tree is the fairest tree in the wood?" Hence few, comparatively, have taken refuge in her "forest sanctuary," reluctant and rare the ears which have listened to her "Vespers of Palermo," her "Siege of Valencia" has stormed no hearts, and her "Skeptic" made, we fear, few converts. But who has not wept over her "Graves of a Household," or hushed his heart to hear her "Treasures of the Deep," in which the old Sea himself seems to speak, or wished to take the left hand of the Hebrew child and lead him up, along with his mother, to the temple service; or thrilled and shouted in the gorge of "Morgarten," or trembled at the stroke of her "Hour of Death ?" Such poems are of the kind which win their way into every house, and every collection, and every heart. They secure for their authors a sweet garden plot of reputation, which is envied by none, and with which no one intermeddles. Thus flowers

smile, unharmed, to the bolt which levels the pine beside them. The tapers live while suns sink and disappear. Even a single sweet poem, flowing from a gentle mind in a happy hour, ointment poured forth," and carries a humble name in

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