he was made Chaplain-General to the forces, and he has been also appointed Inspector-General of Military Schools.

Mr. Gleig's most important contributions to literature are, "The Subaltern," "Campaigns at Washington and New Orleans," "Chronicles of Waltham," "The Country Curate," "History of England," "Germany Visited," "The Hussar," "The Military History of Great Britain," "The Soldier's Help to Divine Truth," "Things Old and New," "The Chelsea Veterans," and "Two volumes of Sermons.”

CATHERINE GRACE GORE.

THE pen of this brilliant woman is as ready and productive as her wit is sparkling, her satire delicate, and her imagination lively. It does not detract from her merit to say that her positively innumerable characters are all taken from the same small school, and are representatives of the surface manners of a not-all-important class rather than of society at large. Mrs. Gore is, by birth, education, and position, a member of the polite and contracted world she has so frequently sketched; she is a woman of fashion,balls, routs, operas, flirtations at German Spas, pleasurehunting in Paris, have been both the amusements and serious occupations of her existence; in the retirement of home she has not breathed the free air of a country common, and had the half-clad paupers of a rural parish to tend as clients, -her domestic seclusion has been found in the perfumed luxury of a West-end boudoir, and the only urgent calls made on her charity have come from the secretaries of humanitarian societies. In these times, then, when there is so loud a clamour for sincerity in the artist, is not Mrs. Gore to be respected for exercising her fascinating powers of description in talking that which she sees and knows—

and for refraining from any attempt to paint scenes which, though they may be healthier than any in the life of her experience, she is personally unacquainted with? It is true that she has devoted herself to the delineation of a world of polite manners, decorous selfishness, mean ambitions, and elegant frivolities—a world little calculated to improve those who breathe its dangerous atmosphere either in reality or through the medium of books; but the questions to be put are:-is she veracious? and in what style does she perform her task? Of her truthfulness we think her popularity and reputation for fidelity with readers of the class she pourtrays are sufficient proof. It may indeed be objected that in the circles of high life there is not an everlasting cannonade of epigrammatic wit, any more than in the homelier drawing-rooms of St. John's Wood and Bloomsbury, and that the roseate splendours with which Mrs. Gore brightens her interiors of Almacks, and ducal entertainments, no more characterize the balls of May-fair and Belgravia, than those of the Mansion House. But the fact of the pictures being acceptable to fashionable readers shows that, though they may not describe the beau monde as it is, they not the less describe it as it would be, and erring only on the side of flattery depict "the ideal" and call it "the actual." As to the second question-of the style in which Mrs. Gore tells her stories, it would be difficult to be too eulogistic; it is here that her genius especially proclaims itself; in her narratives she scatters broadcast a wealth of humorous allusion, covert satire, and brief aphorisms of worldly philosophy, with a profusion that no writer can indulge in or command who is not elated with a consciousness of almost inexhaustible resources. She never tires; the dullest of her pages are amusing, and charm by their fresh. ness and vivacity; and her most sober chapters have the same exhilirating effect that we experience when listening to the idle badinage of a clever and brilliant talker.

Mrs. Gore was born at the close of the last century; and her literary career commenced in 1823, soon after her marriage, with the publication of "Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour." Since that time, she has produced upwards of sixty works; and yet she has never sunk into tediousness, or deserved censure for writing too much. The work that more than any other contributed to the establishment of her enviable reputation is "Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb."

JAMES GRANT.

THIS gentleman (who is not to be confounded with Mr. James Grant the editor of the "Morning Advertiser," but is to be distinguished as Mr. James Grant of the 62nd Regiment), has written many dashing stories, and has a quick, lively, fiery pen, capable of great achievements; but, unfortunately his object is to supply the booksellers with quantity rather than the public with good quality. Two novels a year is his average; he is very moderate and forbearing not to publish twice as much. Still the author of the "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp," " Harry Ogilvie," "Jane Seton; or the King's Advocate," "The Romance of War, or the Highlands in Spain," and the "Scottish Cavalier," deserves our respect and gratitude.

THOMAS COLLY GRATTAN.

IRELAND has supplied her share of good novelists to literature, and few of them deserve higher praise than Mr. Grattan. A man of the world, as Irish authors usually are, and one whose early years were spent in a state of semi

vagrancy between the legal and military professions, with a lively imagination and a truly Hibernian love of adventure, the author of " Highways and Byeways," in three series, the "Heiress of Bruges," "Jacqueline of Holland," and other works, has given the world some tales of lively description, which, in spite of their carelessness of construction, will long remain favourites with novel-readers.

Mr. Grattan was born in Dublin, in 1796, and has principally resided abroad. In 1839, he was appointed British Consul to the states of Massachusetts, and retained that post until in 1853 he was permitted to resign it in favour of his son. In early life he was in the army, but the battle of Waterloo and the conclusion of war, before he could join his regiment abroad, prevented his seeing active service.

ANNA MARIA HALL.

THIS very beautiful and womanly writer lives in the affections of thousands. Of Irish birth, she has given us tales illustrative of Irish character, which are unequalled in the entire range of our literature, for while they preserve with fidelity the grotesque humour, the faults, and the amiable traits of the Irish peasantry, they are altogether free from political venom and party rancour. Indeed, there is no taint of sectarianism in any of Mrs. Hall's writings, though many of them are on subjects that would compel its betrayal if any leaven of bitterness lurked in her heart. She is as remarkable for her enlarged views on social questions as for womanly sensibility and commanding intelligence.

She is of an old Wexford family named Fielding, and in that county she first saw the light. Her first work, "Sketches of Irish Character," appeared in 1829; since

which time she has presented the world with "Chronicles of a School-room," "The Buccaneer," "Tales of Woman's Trials," "The Outlaw," "Lights and Shadows of Irish Character," "The Groves of Blarney," "Marian, or a Young Maid's Trials," "The Whiteboy," "Midsummer Eve," "Stories of the Governess," &c., &c., &c.

JAMES HANNAY.

AMONGST the band of young writers who are steadily advancing in artistic power, and are yearly becoming more and more the favourites of the public, Mr. Hannay has a prominent place. A cadet of the ancient and honourable house of" Hannay of Sorbie," he was born in the year 1827, at Dumfries, where his family have long been of leading influence and position. Like the late Douglas Jerrold, and many other of our most distinguished authors, he passed the years, immediately succeeding emancipation from school, in the Royal Navy. In 1840, while a midshipman on board H.M.S. Cambridge, he took part in the Syrian` operations, and it was not till 1845 that he quitted the service for the more congenial profession of literature.

Mr. Hannay is now thirty-one years of age, and he has for twelve years resided in London, using his pen with unflagging industry. His novel, entitled " Singleton Fontenoy," immediately on its appearance, created for him a reputation, and placed him in public estimation in the first rank of "naval novelists." This successful fiction, which has had an immense sale, was followed by the publication of a series of lectures on 66 Satire and Satirists," which were delivered in London, during the summer of 1853. In 1855 appeared his last novel, "Eustace Conyers," which has all the poignant wit and literary merit of "Singleton Fon