years. Here were to be seen in her modest drawing-room the most brilliant men and women of the time-such as Rogers, Moore, Disraeli, Macaulay, Bulwer, Thackeray and Dickens. Her nieces added to the attractions of the place, being beautiful and accomplished young women.

Lady Morgan survived until 1859, when she died at the age of eighty-two. She possessed some womanly weaknesses, but she was a woman of genius having many admirable traits. She had a horror of debt and from her girlhood kept free from it and earned an honest living. Her novels and her books on France and Italy are now seldom read, but several of the novels are well worth reading.

TWO OLD NOVELS.

I LIKE to read occasionally certain of the oldfashioned novels that once delighted the hearts of our grandfathers and grandmothers. They have a twofold interest. One as showing the taste of the readers of that time, the other as exhibiting the literary art of the writers. And besides, many of them have considerable merit as stories -not a bad feature in novels.

There is "Frankenstein," for instance. Most people who know anything at all of the literature of the nineteenth century, know that novel by name at least. There have been so many allusions to it in one way or another, that one cannot help knowing that it is a weird and ghastly story that has something to do with a monster; but whether Frankenstein is the monster or not, some apparently well-read people do not know. As, for instance, Mrs. Deland, in her admirable novel, "Sidney," permits Major Lee to speak of "Christianity as a Frankenstein." If the Major meant anything, it was that it was a

Frankenstein's monster.

So Chauncey Depew, in his fine oration on the centennial of Washington's inauguration, says that the fathers looked upon the "Union as a Frankenstein." Charles Sumner was more accurate when he compared the Southern Confederacy to "the soulless monster of Frankenstein, the wretched creation of mortal science without God."

The story was written by Mary Godwin, or Shelley, as she became, when she was living with the poet in Switzerland after their elopement. Lord Byron was their neighbor, and they spent much time together, reading, writing and conversing. Byron one day proposed that each should write a ghost story, and thereupon they all set to work. Both Byron and Shelley failed, but Mary persevered, and at last presented her story for the consideration of the poets. They greatly admired it, and it was sent to London for publication. It met with instantaneous and wide success. This was in 1817.

In these days of innumerable novels there are not many persons that pick up this story, but it is quite worth while to do so.

Frankenstein, the hero, relates the story. He is a Swiss youth, educated at the University of Ingolstadt, and is possessed with an enthusiasm

for the study of chemistry and natural philosophy. He seeks to penetrate the mysteries of creation and the phenomena of human life and death. After a long period of study he at last discovers the sources of life and becomes capable of imparting animation to lifeless matter. He then pro

posed to create a magnificent being, colossal in proportions and beautiful in every feature, and give it life. In a workshop far apart from human habitation he proceeded with his labors, collecting his materials from charnel-houses and dissecting rooms. At last his work was ended, and there lay before him the immense being he had molded in accordance with his ideal of perfection. He says: "It was on a dreary night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony I collected the instruments of life around me that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one o'clock in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the window-panes and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs." The immense creature arose, and the artist, terrified at

his work, flees away. The monster possessed life and every attribute of humanity but a soul. Nowhere could it find human sympathy. It is out of harmony with the Universe, and after roaming everywhere and finding no happiness it returns to its creator and demands that he shall make a companion with whom it can live and find sympathy and love. Frankenstein refuses and thenceforth the monster pursues him with hatred and revenge. It slays his brothers, sister, friend and bride. To escape, Frankenstein flees to the far North and sails out on the Arctic Sea, but even there the monster finds him and they both perish.

Such is but the merest outline of this famous story from which morals and illustrations have been drawn without end.

Almost contemporaneous with "Frankenstein," there appeared another novel called " Melmoth the Wanderer." It was written by Robert Charles Maturin and was first published about the year 1820.

Maturin was an Irishman and a clergyman in the Church of England. He wrote novels and plays, one of the latter, " Bertram," having been produced by Edmund Kean very successfully. The elder Booth used to play it in this country.