moirs of her life, with which we hope she will at some time favor the public. A true history of her trials and triumphs, in her own magic style, would stimulate forcibly those under similar privations, to shake off the fetters of dependence, and grapple successfully with the difficulties of their situation.

The following is an example of her composition, which, in point of majesty and sublimity of thought, we think, is seldom excelled in the English language:

PRAYER TO LIGHT.

Oh, holy light! thou art old as the look of God, and eternal as his breath. The angels were rocked in thy lap, and their infant smiles were brightened by thee. Creation is in thy memory; by thy torch the throne of Jehovah was set, and thy hand burnished the myriad stars that glitter in his crown. Worlds, new from His omnipotent hand, were sprinkled with beams from thy baptismal font. At thy golden urn, pale Luna comes to fill her silver horn, and Saturn bathes his sky-girt rings; Jupiter lights his waning moons, and Venus dips her queenly robes anew. Thy fountains are shoreless as the ocean of heavenly love; thy center is everywhere, and thy boundary no power has marked. Thy beams gild the illimitable fields of space, and gladden the farthest verge of the universe. The glories of the seventh heaven are open to thy gaze, and thy glare is felt in

the woes of lowest Erebus. The sealed books of heaven by thee are read, and thine eye, like the Infinite, can pierce the dark vail of the future, and glance backward through the mystic cycles of the past. Thy touch gives the lily its whiteness, the rose its tint, and thy kindling ray makes the diamond's light; thy beams are mighty as the power that binds the spheres; thou canst change the sleety winds to soothing zephyrs, and thou canst melt the icy mountains of the poles to gentle rains and dewy vapors. The granite rocks of the hills are upturned by thee, volcanoes burst, islands sink and rise, rivers roll, and oceans swell at thy look of command. And oh, thou monarch of the skies, bend now thy bow of millioned arrows, and pierce, if thou canst, this darkness that thrice twelve moons has bound me. Burst now thine emerald gates, O morn, and let thy dawning come. My eyes roll in vain to find thee, and my soul is weary of this interminable gloom. My heart is but the tomb of blighted hopes, and all the misery of feelings unemployed, has settled on me. I am misfortune's child, and sorrow long since marked me for her own.

"

MISS FRANCES BROWN.

Though this fair world so radiant with light,
To thee, lay shrouded in perpetual night;
Creative Genius, conscious of her power,

Framed thee a world with mountain, tree and flower,
And glassy lake, reflecting from its breast
The mirrored forms that there in beauty rest;
And e'en the muse, obedient to thy call,
Kindled thy fancy, and inspired thy soul
To rapturous song, of love and story old,

Of memories faded, and of hearts grown cold

For the particulars of the life of Miss Brown, we are chiefly indebted to the celebrated Dr. Kitto, author of "The Lost Senses." She was born, it appears, in 1816, at Stranolar, in the county of Donegal. There is little known of her parents, except that her father was postmaster of the village. When but eighteen months old, she lost her sight by the smallpox. And in consequence of this misfortune, her early education, like that of most blind children, was neglected. It is commonly supposed, that blind persons can derive no benefit from the ordinary methods of instruction used at common schools. This we think is a mistaken notion. It is true, a blind child cannot perform an example in arithmetic on a common slate, or demonstrate a geometrical figure drawn upon the

black-board, but he may recite in the classes of mental arithmetic, and receive oral lessons from the teacher in geography, grammar, and, in short, all the branches usually taught at common schools.

Our young author not only gained a knowledge of the rudiments of grammar, but added a considerable stock of words to her vocabulary, by hearing her brothers and sisters con aloud their lessons. From her earliest years, Frances Brown evinced a love for poetry. At seven years of age she made her first attempt at writing verse, by throwing into rhyme the Lord's Prayer. Up to this time a few psalms, of the Scotch version, Watts' Divine Songs, and some old country songs, formed the extent of her poetical knowledge. As she grew older, her memory was strengthened by committing pieces of poetry from the provincial newspapers. These furnished rich food for the mind, and were no doubt well digested, as she was in the habit of frequently repeating them for her own amusement. As books were at this time scarce in her remote neighborhood, Susan Gray, The Gentle Shepherd, Mungo Park's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, were among the first of her book acquaintances. "I have often heard them read by my relatives," says she, "and remember to have taken a strange delight in them, when, I am sure, they were not half understood." These soon created in her a passion for fiction and romance; a taste by no means commendable, but much preferable, we think, to that distaste for all reading which dry history is likely to G*

cultivate, if placed too soon in the hands of young persons. By this we would not be understood to encourage novel reading, yet rather such than none at all. Furnish the mind with food of some kind, or it will devour its own puny offspring, and at last feed upon its own vitality. One who has been blind from infancy, will be likely to suffer most from such neglect.

When the mind cannot look out upon God's perfect work, or be permitted to catch one glance at the book of nature thrown open to the view of kindred minds, yet feels an inward consciousness of powers it cannot put forth, of inspirations and desires it can never gratify, when it has tried in vain to break its prison house and roam at large over the broad field of nature, its gaze is turned inward upon itself; but only sees, by the faint light of its expiring energies, its own moral deformity. Our authoress, however, did not thus pine under her afflictions. Through the sunshine of her young heart floated many a bright vision. Relating in part her early history, she says: "It was a great day for me when the first of Sir Walter Scott's works fell into my hands. It was the 'Heart of Mid Lothian,' and was lent me by a friend, whose family were rather better provided with books than most in our neighborhood. My delight in the work was very great, even then; and I contrived by means of borrowing, to get acquainted in a very short time with the greater part of the works of its illustrious author, for works of fiction, about this time, occupied all my