Doctor! odd-I'm thinking they've forgotten an auld wife like me up yonder!" However, when he came back next day, the Doctor found her at the spoon meat-supping a haggis. She was remembered.

Lord Cockburn

The Old View

I

THE

...

HE utmost of a woman's character is contained in domestic life; . . . All she has to do in this world is contained within the duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother.

Sir Richard Steele

II

A

S our English women excel those of all nations in beauty, they should endeavour to out-shine them in all other accomplishments proper to the sex, and to distinguish themselves as tender mothers and faithful wives, rather than as furious partizans. Female virtues are of a domestic turn. The family is the proper province for private women to shine in.

Joseph Addison

XVIII

THE ADVENTURERS

Lady Hester Stanhope

THE

HE woman before me had exactly the person of a Prophetess--not, indeed, of the divine Sibyl imagined by Domenichino, so sweetly distracted betwixt Love, and Mystery, but of a good, business-like, practical, Prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred calling. I have been told by those who knew Lady Hester Stanhope in her youth, that any notion of a resemblance betwixt her and the great Chatham, must have been fanciful, but at the time of my seeing her, the large commanding features of the gaunt woman, then sixty years old or more, certainly reminded me of the Statesman that lay dying in the House of Lords according to Copley's picture; her face was of the most astonishing whiteness; she wore a very large turban made seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and so disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress, from the chin down to the point at which it was concealed by the drapery on her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely

1

1 Historically "fainting"; the death did not occur until long afterwards.

2 I am told that in youth she was exceedingly sallow.

folding an ecclesiastical sort of affair-more like a surplice than any of those blessed creations which our souls love under the names of "dress," and "frock," and (6 boddice," and "collar," and "habit-shirt," and sweet "chemisette."

Such was the outward seeming of the personage that sat before me, and indeed she was almost bound by the fame of her actual achievements, as well as by her sublime pretensions, to look a little differently from the rest of woman-kind. There had been something of grandeur in her career: after the death of Lady Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived under the roof of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when he resumed the Government in 1804, she became the dispenser of much patronage, and sole Secretary of State for the department of Treasury banquets. Not having seen the Lady until late in her life, when she was fired with spiritual ambition, I can hardly fancy that she could. have performed her political duties in the saloons of the Minister with much of feminine sweetness and patience; I am told, however, that she managed matters very well indeed; perhaps it was better for the lofty-minded leader of the House to have his reception-rooms guarded by this stately creature, than by a merely clever and managing woman; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with which he filled the minds of the country gentlemen should be aggravated by the presence of his majestic niece. But the end was approaching. The sun of Austerlitz shewed the Czar madly sliding his splendid army like a weaver's shuttle, from his right hand to his left, under the very eyes—the deep, gray, watchful eyes of Napoleon; before night came, the coalition was a vain thing-meet for history, and the heart of its great author, when the terrible tidings came to his ears, was

wrung with grief-fatal grief. In the bitterness of his despair, he cried out to his niece, and bid her ROLL UP THE MAP OF EUROPE"; there was a little more of suffering, and at last, with his swollen tongue (so they say) still muttering something for England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.

Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to have scorned the poor island that had not enough of God's grace to keep the "heaven-sent" Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, but there is a longing for the East very commonly felt by proud people, when goaded by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse; for some time, I believe, she was at Constantinople, and there her magnificence as well as her near alliance to the late Minister gained her great influence. Afterwards she passed into Syria. A. W. Kinglake

Isopel Berners

BUT

UT other figures were now already upon the scene. Dashing past the other horse and cart, which by this time had reached the bottom of the pass, appeared an exceedingly tall woman, or rather girl, for she could scarcely have been above eighteen; she was dressed in a tight bodice and a blue stuff gown; hat, bonnet, or cap she had none, and her hair, which was flaxen, hung down on her shoulders unconfined; her complexion was fair, and her features handsome, with a determined but open expression. .

In the evening of that same day the tall girl and I sat at tea by the fire, at the bottom of the dingle; the girl on a small stool, and myself, as usual, upon my stone.

The water which served for the tea had been taken from a spring of pellucid water in the neighbourhood, which I had not had the good fortune to discover, though it was well known to my companion, and to the wandering people who frequented the dingle.

"This tea is very good," said I, “but I cannot enjoy it as much as if I were well: I feel very sadly."

"How else should you feel," said the girl, "after fighting with the Flaming Tinman? All I wonder at is that you can feel at all! As for the tea, it ought to be good, seeing that it cost me ten shillings a pound." "That's a great deal for a person in your station to pay."

"In my station! I'd have you to know, young man

-however, I haven't the heart to quarrel with you, you look so ill; and after all, it is a good sum for one to pay who travels the roads; but if I must have tea, I like to have the best; and tea I must have, for I am used to it, though I can't help thinking that it sometimes fills my head with strange fancies-what some folks call vapours, making me weep and cry.”

Dear me," said I, "I should never have thought that one of your size and fierceness would weep and cry!"

"My size and fierceness! I tell you what, young man, you are not over civil this evening; but you are ill, as I said before, and I shan't take much notice of your language, at least for the present; as for my size, I am not so much bigger than yourself; and as for being fierce, you should be the last one to fling that at me. It is well for you that I can be fierce sometimes. If I hadn't taken your part against Blazing Bosville, you wouldn't be now taking tea with me." .

If I am asked how we passed the time when we were