THE HUNTING-PARTY. ND forth he fared, while from That Echo joyed such numbers to repeat, Who, from dark glade or rock of pumice her turret high That smiling form beheld his hunter crew; Pleased she beheld whose unacquainted eye Found in each varying Nor her sated view, Nor custom palled the gloss of royalty. Like some gay child, a simple bliss she drew From every gaud of feudal pageantry, And every broidered garb that swept in order by. And, sooth, it was a brave and antic sight, Where plume and crest and tassel wildly blending, And bended bow, and javelin flashing bright, Marked the gay squadron through the copse descending; The greyhound, with his silken leash contending, Wreathed the little neck, and on the falconer's hand, With restless perch and pinions broad depending, stone, Sent to the woodland nymphs a softer moan; While, listening far, from forth some fallow brown, The swinked ploughman left his work undone, And the glad schoolboy from the neighboring town Sprang o'er each prisoning rail, nor recked his master's frown. Her warm cheek pillowed on her ivory hand, Her long hair waving o'er the battlement, In silent thought Ganora kept her stand; Though feebly now the distant bugle sent Its fading sound, and on the brown hill's bent Nor horse nor hound nor hunter's pomp was seen, Yet still she gazed on empty space intent, As one who, spellbound, on some haunted green Beholds a faëry show the twilight elms be tween. REGINALD HEBER. THE BELLS OF SHANDON. Each hooded goshawk kept her eager stand, And to the courser's tramp loud hollow land. And over all, in accents sadly sweet, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. | born in 1806 at a town, not far from Portland, Maine, which was then called North Yarmouth, but now Cumberland. She was of old Puritan and Huguenot descent. In 1823, before she was seventeen years old, she married Mr. Seba Smith, one of the leading journalists of his State, widely known as the original "Major Jack Downing." Financial troubles overtook her husband, and to aid him she began to write. She soon became known under various noms de plume, which her diffidence suggested, as a sweet poet, a graceful essayist, a dramatist and a novelist. Among her best poems are "The Acorn," "The Brook," "The Lost Angel and "The Sinless Child." Her principal tragedy is The Roman Tribute. Among her novels those best known are The Western Captive, Bertha and the Lily and The Newsboy. She has written many harmonious sonnets and My Autobiography, from which the character and motive of her life may be gathered from her own introspection. RS. SIGOURNEY, who was born in 1791, was one of the first American women who gained real distinction by the pen, and she stands among the few who so charmingly illustrate the first period in our national literature. She wrote much, both in prose and in verse, most of it of a gentle didactic character. Her maiden-name was Huntley. When When very young, she established a girls' school at Norwich, Connecticut, and the habit of instruction appears in almost everything she has written. Her first volume is entitled Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse. After two years of successful teaching she gave up her school, and in 1819 married Mr. Sigourney, a merchant of Hartford, whither she had removed her residence. Always inspired with a sense of duty and an ardent desire to do good, she used in her writings the form of letters as the most natural mode of conveying good advice; thus we have Letters to Young Ladies, To Mothers, To my Pupils, and in 1865-the year of her death-she published her last volentitled Letters of Life. She was a ready writer, a pleasant poet, a good preceptor and an excellent example to her sex. ume, MRS. ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. THIS graceful and voluminous writer, HIS graceful and voluminous writer, whose maiden-name was Prince, was MRS. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. MRS. ELLET was the daughter of Dr. W. N. Lummis, and was born at Sodus. on Lake Ontario, in 1818. At the age of seventeen she married Dr. William H. Ellet, first a professor in Columbia College, New York, and afterward at Columbia, South Carolina. She began to write very early in 1833 she published a translation of Silvio Pellico's Euphemia of Messina, and in 1845 a tragedy entitled Teresa Contarini, which had some success upon the stage. She wrote numerous articles for the American Quarterly on subjects connected with Italian, French and German literatures, and also many poems. More admired as a critic than as a poet, she found a more congenial róle than either. Her most popular and valuable work is The Women of the American Revolution. In this she presents models for the women of her own day. She died in 1877. ALICE AND PHOEBE CAREY. THE HESE gifted poetesses were born on a farm about eight miles from Cincinnati, in 1820. They began early to write verses. Alice was always delicate in person and health, while her sister was strong and well. They wrote at first for the Cincinnati newspapers, and as their pieces became known they were welcomed as contributors to the leading magazines. In 1847 they began to write for the National Era, at Washington, and were emboldened to publish, in 1850, a volume of poems contributed by both. This was so well received that they formed, in 1851, the somewhat hazardous plan of removing to New York city and supporting themselves by literary effort. In this they were successful. Living at first most frugally, they were enabled to increase their comforts from time to time; and at last they gathered at their house on stated evenings men and women distinguished in literature and art. They were now both regular contributors to the Tribune, the Independent and other influential papers. They were Universalists -devout and excellent women. The religious sentiment is finely displayed in the piece entitled "Nearer Home," by Phoebe Carey. There is beautiful pathos in the poem (which has been placed in our collection) by her sister, "An Order for a Picture." Alice Carey died in February, and her sister in July, 1871. ROBERT BLAIR. OBERT BLAIR was minister of the ROB parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian. His son was a very high legal character in Scotland. The eighteenth century produced few specimens of blank verse of so powerful and simple a character as that of "The Grave." It is a popular poem not merely because it is religious, but because its language and imagery are free, natural and picturesque. The latest editor of the poets has, with singularly bad taste, noted some of this author's most nervous and expressive phrases as vulgarisms, among which he reckons that of friendship "the solder of society." Blair may be a homely, and even a gloomy, poet in the eye of fastidious criticism, but there is a masculine and pronounced character in his gloom and homeliness that keeps it most distinctly apart from either dulness or vulgarity. His style pleases us like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty. He was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, A. D. 1699, and died A. D. 1746. FRA THOMAS CAMPBELL. HUMAN FRAILTY. RAIL creatures are we all! To be the best Is but the fewest faults to have: Look thou, then, to thyself, and leave the rest To God, thy conscience and the grave. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. |