say it, the perfections of my mind were much above those of my body: I had a strong and copious memory, a sound judgment and a discerning spirit; and so much of a strong judgement and a discerning spirit ; and so much of a strong imagination in me, as at many times even my dreams and apprehensions proved to be true."

Lady Anne Clifford was born, as she herself testifies, on the 30th January, 1589-90, at Skipton Castle. With a Shandean exactness, very unusual among female autobiographers in these days, she begins her memoirs of herself nine months before her nativity, for the sake of introducing a beautiful quotation from the cxxxix. Psalm, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th verses, "Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb: I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

Her governess was Mistress Taylor; her tutor, that excellent man— "the well languaged Daniel." The disagreements of her parents, and the embarrassed condition of the family estates, obliged her education to be conducted on the strictest principles of frugality; but luckily the best knowledge is not the dearest; and to the housewifely habits imposed upon her youth, and her comparative seclusion from expensive vanities, many of her best virtues may be ascribed. Her improvement was in no particular neglected; but above all, she was nurtured in the precepts and practice of economy, self-denial, domestic order, and "Pure religion, teaching household laws." *

is but grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever." 1 Peter i. 24: For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass."

* Wordsworth. Perhaps I ought to apologize for quoting this poet so often, but to promulgate by any means such a line as the above, surely needs no apology. Mr. Wordsworth will, I doubt not, excuse me, if, admiring above measure the poetry of the sublime sonnet which it concludes, I venture to object to the querulous spirit which it breathes. That we are much worse than we ought to be, is unfortunately a standing truism, but that the "stream of tendency" is recently diverted from good to evil, I confidently deny. Having said this much, it is better to give the sonnet at once, for I am afraid that some one of my readers may not have a copy of Wordsworth's poems in his pocket, or even on his parlour window.

Written in London, 1802.

"O friend, I know not which way I must look

For comfort, being as I am opprest,

To all such book-learning as could edify or adorn her young mind she was skilfully and honestly guided by her Preceptor Daniel, who, in To think that now our life is only drest

For show: mean handy-work of craftsman, cook,
Or groom.
We must run glittering like a brook
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest:
The wealthiest man among us is the best.
No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,
This is idolatry, and these we adore.
Plain living and high thinking are no more
The homely beauty of the good old cause

Is

gone,- -our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure Religion, breathing household laws."

Seldom has the same feeling, which is expressed so often, been expressed so beautifully; but is not the feeling itself a delusion, or rather, in minds like Wordsworth's, a voluntary illusion? Greater virtues were rendered visible by the trials of the past, than by the security of the present, but it was not the goodness of the times that called those virtues into act. Had there been no persecutors there would have been no martyrs: war and oppression make patriots and heroes; and wherever we hear of much almsgiving, we may be sure that there is much poverty. If Anne Clifford had not had a bad father and two bad husbands, and a long weary widowhood, and lived in days of rebellion, usurpation, and profligacy, she perhaps would have obtained no other record than that of a sensible, good sort of a woman, upon whose brow the coronet sat with graceful ease. Nay, it is possible, that the same disposition which her adversities disciplined to steady purpose, meek self-command, considerate charity, and godly fortitude, might, under better circumstances, have produced a most unamiable degree of patrician haughtiness. From reading the memoirs of her, and such as her, an imaginative mind receives a strong impression of the superior sanctity of former generations; but a little examination will prove that these high examples have always been elect exceptions, called out of the world---no measures of the world's righteousness. No period produced more saintly excellence than that in which Anne Clifford lived: in none were greater crimes perpetrated; and if we look to her later years--never, in a christian age, was the average of morals so low. But the age was characterised more by the evil than the good, as Rochester's poems were much more characteristical of Charles the second's times than Milton's.

One thing is obvious, that if we are not better than our ancestors, we must be much worse---if we are not wiser than the ancients, we must be incorrigible fools. God forbid that I should glory, save in the glory of God. God forbid that I should flatter the men of my own generation, or detract one atom from the wise or good of ages past. What we are we did not make ourselves; whatever truth perfumes our atmosphere, is the flower of a seed planted long ago. We do not, we need not do more than cultivate and improve our paternal fields. But to deny that we are benefitting by the labours of our forefather, morally as well as physically, would be impious ingratitude to that Great Power which hath given, and is giving, and will give the wish, and the will, and the power, and the knowledge, and the means to do the good which he willeth and doeth.

Much, very much, remains to do. It is no time to sit down self-complacently, and

his address to another noble Lady-Lucy, Countess of Bedford, has so well set forth the use of books, what they can, and what they cannot do:

And though books, Madam, cannot make the mind,
(Which we must bring apt to be set aright)

Yet do they rectify it in that kind;

And touch it so as that it turns that way,

Where judgment lies: and though we cannot find,
The certain place of truth, yet do they stay
And entertain us near about the same;
And give the soul the best delight that way,
Enchant it most, and most our spirits inflame
To thoughts of glory, and to worthy ends:
And therefore in a course that best became
The clearness of your heart, and best commends
Your worthy powers you run the rightest way

By which when all consumes, your fame shall live.

If Anne could read all the books represented in the picture where she is portrayed as a damsel of thirteen, she must have been a learned little lady indeed for among them are Eusebius, St. Augustine, Josephus, and Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia. But

Pictoribus atque Poetis

Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestus.

as Horace has it---thus quaintly Englished by Tom Brown the third, To Bards or Limners there is no denying

An equal privilege of dauntless lying

Yet as her funeral panegyrist asserted she could discourse well upon all subjects-from predestination to Slea-Silk-we may conclude that she studied the fathers in the original languages.

Among the papers at Skipton Castle is an original book of accounts, filled with memoranda relative to this young lady's education, from 1600 to 1602, from which Whitaker has given copious extracts. We shall select such items as are most characteristic, or throw light on the count our gains; but neither is it a time to stretch out our arms vainly to catch the irrevocable past. We can neither stand still nor go backward, but striving to go backward, we may go lamentably astray. There is one line in Mr. Wordsworth's sonnet, against which, for his own sake, I must enter my protest:

"No grandeur now in nature or in book
Delights us."

If by "us," he means the numerical majority of the population, I answer, that many more are awake to the grandeur and beauty of nature now than at any former æra: if he means that the mind and soul of England is insensible to the sublime, in the visible or in the intellectual world, let him only consider the number of young, and pure, and noble hearts, that have joyfully acknowledged the grandeur of his book, and let him unsay the slander.

habits and economy of Elizabeth's latest days. All books, whatever the subject, were then introduced with a text or an ejaculation. The same was the case with the old metrical romances, which regularly begin and conclude with addresses to the Saviour, the Virgin or the Saints: often strangely inconsistent with the matter which they preface. Stage-plays also, were finished with a prayer. No wonder that grave citizens guarded their ledgers with scripture, and still less that a young female's pocket book should commence with a petition to be used on entering church: "O Lord increase our faith, and make us evermore attentive hearers, true conceivers, and diligent fulfillers of thy heavenly will." After come these lines, supposed to be in the handwriting of Daniel:

She was at this time in London, under the care of Mistress Taylor; the whole receipt for the two years amounting only to £38. 12s. 1d., and the disbursements to £35. 13s. 3d. The extravagance and neglect of the Earl her father, who is never mentioned in this book, reduced the good Countess her mother, to a state, bordering on poverty. Nor had he anything to spare for his daughter. But better fathers than George Clifford, were, in that age, often careless and unaffectionate to their female children. The want of a male heir is a great mortification to an aristocratic family. What, however, was deficient in the allowances of her parents, was supplied in some measure, in presents from noble ladies, particularly the Countesses of Northumberland, Derby, and Warwick, who used to fetch her to visit them in their own coaches, and sent her donations, sometimes in gold, sometimes silver groats, threepences, &c. in small silver barrels, often in trinkets, venison, (what would a young lady of these days think of a whole stag at a time,) fruit, fish, &c. The mother's directions for her dress and management are numerous and minute. But to proceed with our

extracts.

Item. A reward for finding her Ladyships golden picture lost, 15s. Rather high.

By some unaccountable syncope of memory or understanding, Dr. Whitaker asks upon this article "Were there any miniatures at this time?" Has he forgotten Portia's Caskets? Has he forgotten, or did he never read a play called Hamlet, written near the time which he is inquiring about? If the pictures Hamlet shews to the Queen were not miniatures, but full length portraits, yet there is another passage which

puts the question to rest at once,-"It is not very strange; for my uncle is king of Denmark, and those who would have made mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, and a hundred ducats a piece for his picture in little." The wearing of miniatures, richly set in gold, pearls, or diamonds was a fashion in the courts of Elizabeth and the first Stuarts. Hiliard, and the elder Oliver, the first Englishmen, who could be called artists, were both miniature painters, and both living in 1600. Another item, in her Ladyship's accounts is, an ivory box to put a picture in, xiid. Now surely a picture contained in a twelve-penny box of ivory,* must have been as minute as any of Petito's, famous as he was for inserting portraits into rings, bracelets and seals. Possibly the Doctor has confounded miniature in general, with miniature in enamel.

It is afflicting to think how the free and graceful motions of childhood have been constrained and distorted by the absurdities of fashion. The Lady Anne did not wholly escape. We find among her memoranda 7s. to a French woman for a Rabato wyre: this by its high price must have been a new-fangled torture: and again 5s. 11d. for a Verdingale and Verdingale wyre. The purpose of the Rabato or ruff was to prevent the natural turn and fall of the neck and how would a maiden trip it on the elastic turf, or fragrant heather of a mountain side, if her steps were impeded by a Verdingale stiffened with wire? Some other items there are which seldom enter the bills of a modern lady's education; for example, "15s. for a masque." "Item 10s. to musicians for playing at my Lady Anne's masque." Masques indeed, were then worn as an article of dress-a piece of superogatory modesty which gave license to much impudence. But the masque, at which the musicians played must have been, not a modern masquerade, but one of those allegorical pastorals, which were so much in vogue at the courts of Elizabeth and James, and particularly patronized by Anne of Denmark, with whom the daughter of Clifford was a special favourite. Who will censure a fashion which gave birth to Comus?

Of printed books, there is no mention; we find a pair of writing tables charged at 11s., and two paper books; one for accompte, and another to write her catechism in. The Church catechism is probably meant, for Pinnock's Catechisms, then were not. Yet it is rather remarkable that in an age so very religious, a young woman so well tutored, should, in her eleventh year, require a book to write down, what every

* Is there not an error in transcription here? When almost all foreign commodities (wines excepted) were much dearer than at present, it is very unlikely that an ivory box, however tiny, should not cost more than one shilling.