we confess ourselves all but entirely unread)—"what could she have laid of Juliet? how would she have contrived to twist Beatrice into a pattern Miss? Perdita! would she have sent her to a boarding-school? or insisted on finishing, according to the Hannah More pattern, the divine Miranda? Imagine her criticism on Lady Macbeth, or on Ophelia's dying speech and confession, or her revelation of the 'Family Secrets' of the 'Merry Wives of Windsor!'"—But even this ironical query jars on the ear, in a paper devoted to so stanch a protester against toe faintest show of scorn or satire as Mrs. Jameson.
Apropos of her work on Canada, Dr. Channing said, "I do not know a writer whose works breathe more of the spontaneous—the free. Beauty and truth seem to come to her unsought."[1] Of the "Diary of an Ennuyée," and "Loves of the Poets," the Ettrick Shepherd (Ambrose's improved edition) is made to say, "Oh! sir, yon were maist beautifu' specimens o' eloquant and impassionat prase composition as ever dropped like hinny frae woman's lips. We maun hae Mrs. Jameson amang us—we maun indeed."[2] Her very numerous productions in the service and illustration of Art, we must dismiss with a passing salutation—her "Handbook" and "Companion" to Private Galleries, her æsthetic "Essays," "Early Italian Painters," "Spanish School of Painters," "Washington Allston," &c, &c. In her "Beauties of the Court of Charles II." she has, says Christopher North, "nought extenuated nor set down aught in malice," when speaking of the frail and vicious; and her own dear spirit kindles over the record of their lives, who, in the polluted air of that court, spite of all trials and temptations, preserved without flaw or stain the jewel of their souls, their virtue.[3] "Social Life in Germany" comprises able translations of the acted dramas of the Princess Amelia of Saxony—rendered with spirit and grace, and commented on with unfailing tact and intelligence.
The "Sacred and Legendary Art" series, including "Legends of the Monastic Orders," is a worthy contribution to so important a theme by one who, if she has not much sympathy with modern imitations of mediæval art, can still less sympathise with that "narrow puritanical jealousy which holds the monuments of a real and earnest faith in contempt." In this field is finely displayed her remarkable critical prowess—her faculty of genial, pictorial exposition—her enthusiasm, which yet discriminates when at summer-heat—her judicial temperateness, which so happily avoids whatever is captious. Of the subjects composing this interesting series, we select, for such hasty notice as may be available here, the section devoted to "Legends of the Madonna."
One of Hawthorne's pensive people is made to say, "I have always envied the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin Mother, who stands between them and the Deity, intercepting somewhat of his awful splendour, but permitting his love to stream upon the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman's tenderness." This is the sentiment of a much-meditating man, who declares he had never found it possible to suffer a bearded priest so near his heart and conscience as to do him any spiritual good, but who recog-
