too little known; since also condensation, and the tendency to sacrifice reality to attractiveness-sometimes the most profitable characters being the least engaging-further augment it, yet a pleasant task is that of consecrating to posterity the sex's annals. The historian wanders through the garden of the Past, culls from each fairest plant the brightest tints, the richest odors, to stimulate the ambition or support the endurance of the young mothers of the future generation. Lastly, each truth is immortal; the blossom that has faded in the tomb, leaves in the wreath of history the germ of imperishable reproduction, either to adorn the humble porch of domestic life, or crown with amaranth the noble-perchance the regal-brow. To instruct by attraction has been my chief design in the following pages, but if I have failed in rendering all the subjects entertaining, it must be recollected that Heroism, in its very nature, infers circumstances of pain or difficulty; like the gorgeous blossom, which, refusing to unfold itself to meridian glory, reserves for the cold hour of night the display of its unique loveliness. Yet the shade enhances the outline: in ocean depths lies the delicate, the beauteous shell, which the waves in their passion cast at our feet; and thus though feminine Heroism appear superficially hardened, by the warring contact with alternate elevation and depression, yet it has sheltered in the spiral caverns of its love, life which would otherwise have perished, interests which its fragile walls have yet borne triumphant through the elemental strife. Nor while we take warning by that misguided energy which, notwithstanding its vastness, appears "An awful chaos-light and darkness And wind and dust-and passions and pure thoughts, All dormant or destructive:" should yet the lowliest despair of imitating the courage, generosity, or fortitude developed in most of the "Heroines of History." It is true that individuality is never restored; yet, "whatever man has done, man may do;" by the use of identical muscles we "either climb or crawl," and the same wings that we employ to bear us lightly through the grove may, if properly exercised, carry us aloft into regions above the swallow's flight, or the most dizzily-hung eyrie of the eagle! BURSTOW RECTORY, E. O. HEROINES OF HISTORY. Jewish Era. JAEL, OR JAHEL. B. C. 1296. "BLESSED above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be." Do we ever reflect, in enumerating the ineffable blessings accruing to us from the Gospel dispensation, that among them ranks the privilege of living in times when our faith is not likely to be tested by, nor our hope of heaven based upon, the performance of a duty at variance with every softer impulse of our woman's nature? Fenced around by refinement, carefully guarded from aught that can assail the feminine character in these happy days, we are apt to regard those of our sex like Jael, and the parallel case of Judith, as possessing a wholly distinct temperament from our own; and to a certain extent we are right. Education and circumstances have operated to the last degree beneficially upon our existence, and perhaps the present age is one permitting the nearest approach to actual per |