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TO HIS DAUGHTER.

Oh, daughter dear, my darling child,
Prop of my mortal pilgrimage,
Thou who hast care and pain beguiled,
And wreath'd with Spring my wintry age!-
Through thee a second prospect opes
Of life, when but to live is glee;
And jocund joys and youthful hopes
Come thronging to my heart through thee.

Backward thou lead'st me to the bowers
Where love and youth their transports gave;
While forward still thou strewest flowers,
And bidd'st me live beyond the grave;
For still my blood in thee shall flow,
Perhaps to warm a distant line;
Thy face my lineaments shall show,
And e'en my thoughts survive in thine.

Yes, daughter, when this tongue is mute,
This heart is dust, these eyes are closed-
And thou art singing to thy lute

Some stanza by thy sire composed-
To friends around thou may'st impart
A thought of him who wrote the lays,
And from the grave my form shall start,
Embodied forth to fancy's gaze.

Then to their memories will throng

Scenes shared with him who lies in earth

The cheerful page, the lively song,

The woodland walk, or festive mirth;
Then may they heave the pensive sigh,
That friendship seeks not to control,
And from the fix'd and thoughtful eye
The half unconscious tears may roll:

Such now bedew my cheek-but mine
Are drops of gratitude and love,
That mingle human with divine,
The gift below, its source above.

How exquisitely dear thou art

Can only be by tears express'd,

And the fond thrillings of my heart,

While thus I clasp thee to my breast!

ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S EXHIBITION.

And thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets, three thousand years ago,

When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow

Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade-
Then say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise play'd?
Perhaps thou wert a priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat,
Has hob-a-nobb'd with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doff'd thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'd and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalm'd,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that wither'd tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world look'd when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contain'd no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;

But prithee tell us something of thyself;

Reveal the secrets of thy prison house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd,

What hast thou seen-what strange adventures number'd?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,

March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confess'd,
The nature of thy private life unfold:

A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have roll'd:
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecay'd within our presence,

Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.'

MARIA EDGEWORTH, 1767-1849.

MARIA EDGEWORTH, daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was born in Oxfordshire, England, on the 1st of January, 1767-a very valuable new year's present to the literary world. Her father having succeeded to an estate in Ireland, the family removed thither when she was very young, and resided at Edgeworthtown, Longford county. She commenced her literary career in the beginning of the nineteenth century-at first assisted by her father in her "Essay on Irish Bulls." Soon after this appeared her "Castle Rackrent," the precursor of a copious series of tales, national, moral, and fashionable, which at once placed her in the first class of novelists, as a shrewd observer of manners, a warm-hearted observer of national humors, and a resolute upholder of good morals in fiction. Sir Walter Scott assures us, that when he began his Scottish novels, it was with the thought of emulating Miss Edgeworth; and Sir James Mackintosh says, "Her extraordinary merit, both as a novelist and a woman of genius, consists in her having selected a class of virtues far more difficult to treat as the subject of fiction than others, and which had therefore been left by former writers to her." In 1804 appeared "Popular Tales," in three volumes-"a genuine display of nature, and a certain tone of nationality and good sense, which was the more pleasing because in a novel it was then new." In this work she was probably

assisted by her father. In 1806 appeared "Leonora," a novel in two volumes; and in 1809, "Tales of Fashionable Life," in three volumes. Three other volumes of "Fashionable Tales" were issued in 1812, which fully supported the reputation of the authoress. The number of tales in this series was three, the best of which, "The Absentee," exposes the evils of the system of persons of fortune forsaking their country-seats and native vales, for the frivolity, heartlessness, and expense of fashionable society in London.

In 1814, Miss Edgeworth published her "Patronage," in four volumes-showing the miseries resulting from a dependence on the patronage of the great, contrasted with the manly virtues arising from honest and independent exertion. In 1817 appeared two other tales,-"Harrington," designed to counteract the prejudices against the Jews, and " Ormond," an Irish tale. The same year she lost her father. So deeply did she feel this blow, that for some time she suspended all literary labor. At length, in 1820, she completed a "Memoir" of her father, which he had begun. In 1822, she returned to her course of moral instruction, and published "Rosamond, a Sequel to Early Lessons," a work for juvenile readers; and three years after, "Harriet and Lucy," in four volumes, of a similar character. "Parents' Assistant," Moral Tales," "Helen," a novel in three volumes, and other works followed, in successive years, so that she ranks as one of the most prolific as well as one of the most interesting writers in English literature of the nineteenth century. She died on the 21st of May, 1849.

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Few authors have commanded more attention in their day than Miss Edgeworth. Her tales are singularly rich in allusion and anecdote, and indicate intellectual mastery and cultivation of no common order. But it is as a writer of stories for children, that she is now most known and most read. Here she has not been surpassed; for no one has ever more fully succeeded in captivating the fancy and attention of the young, and impressing upon them the most valuable lessons of industry, economy, and whatever relates to the practical duties of life. Her other works may be neglected or forgotten, but her "Rosamonds" and her "Lucys," her "Waste Nots and Want Nots," her "Simple Susans," &c. will ever be remembered, read, and prized.1

In "Patronage," Caroline's feelings had been highly excited by the sight of a poor, but beautiful girl, who had been most cruelly betrayed. Her character is finely developed in the following noble sentiments, which she utters upon

LOVE.

"I do not believe you will ever be in love," said Rosamond. "I confess I should admire, or at least love you better, if you had more feeling," added Rosamond hastily.

In the 20th volume of the "Edinburgh Review," Lord Jeffrey thus writes:-"The writings of Miss Edgeworth exhibit so singular a union of sober sense and inexhaustible invention-so minute a knowledge of all that distinguishes manners, or touches on happiness in every condition of human fortune-and so just an estimate both of the real sources of enjoyment, and of the illusions by which they are so often obstructed, that it cannot be thought wonderful that we should separate her from the ordinary manufacturers of novels, and speak of her Tales as works of more serious importance than much of the true history and solemn philosophy that comes daily under our inspection." Read "Edinburgh Review,” xx. 100; xxii. 416; xxviii. 390; and li. 444; "Quarterly Review," vii. 329; x. 301.

"By what do you judge that I want feeling?" said Caroline, coloring deeply, and with a look and tone that expressed her keen sense of injustice. "What proof have I ever given you of my want of feeling?"

"No proof, that I can recollect," said Rosamond, laughing; "no proof, but that you have never been in love."

"And is it a crime never to have been in love? or is it a proof I am incapable of feeling, that I have never loved one who has proved himself utterly unworthy of my love-against whose conduct my sister cannot find words sufficiently severe to express her indignation? Rosamond, if I had ever given him any encouragement, if I had loved him, what would have been my misery at the moment you said those words!"

"Ah! my dear, but, then, if you had been very miserable I should have pitied you so much, and loved you so heartily for being in love," said Rosamond, still laughing.

"O Rosamond!" continued Caroline, whose mind was now too highly wrought for raillery, "is love to be trifled with? No, only by trifling minds, or by rash characters: by those who do not conceive its power, its danger. Recollect what we have just seen: A young, beautiful woman sinking into the grave with shame-deserted by her parents-wishing her child unborn! Do you remember her look of agony when we praised that child-the strongest charm of nature reversed the strongest ties dissolved-and-love brought her to this! She is only a poor servant girl. But the highest and the fairest, those of the most cultivated understandings, of the tenderest hearts, cannot love bring them down to the same level-to the same fate? And not only our weak sex, but over the stronger sex, and the strongest of the strong, and the wisest of the wise, what is what has ever been the power, the delusions of that passion, which can cast a spell over the greatest hero, throw a blot on the brightest glory, blast in a moment a life of fame! What must be the power of that passion, which can inspire genius in the dullest and the coldest, waken heroism in the most timid of creatures, exalt to the highest point, or to the lowest degrade our nature—the bitterest curse, or the sweetest blessing Heaven bestows on us in this life! O sister! is love to be trifled with?"

Caroline paused, and Rosamond, for some instants, looked at her and at her mother in silence; then exclaimed-"All this from Caroline! Are you not astonished, mother?"

"No," said Mrs. Percy; "I was aware that this was in Caroline's mind."

"I was not," said Rosamond. "She who never spoke of love!I little imagined that she thought of it so highly, so seriously."

"Yes, I do think of it seriously-highly, may Heaven grant!" cried Caroline, looking fervently upwards as she spoke, with an