tenoy," and in addition is rich in those excellences of thought and style which are rarely, if ever, found in the writings of so young a man. In Germany, "Eustace Conyers," immediately on its translation, met with even a warmer reception than in this country.

Though Mr. Hannay has produced these separate works, his principal literary labours have been in the metropolitan journals, such as "Punch," and "The Athenæum," and in the pages of the "Quarterly" and "Westminster" magazines, and for a long time he has been the chief political writer in one of the best of the weekly papers of London. The numerous sketches which he dashed off for different periodicals during his literary noviciate, and many of which have been collected and re-published, the reader of general literature is well acquainted with.

At the last general election Mr. Hannay solicited the suffrages of the inhabitants of his native town in opposition to Mr. Ewart, who eventually was re-elected M.P. for the Dumfries district of Burghs. Though the result of his candidature was not success, still Mr. Hannay obtained so large a minority of votes, and created so favourable an impression on the entire constituency, by his remarkably graceful and powerful eloquence, and by the courage with which he honestly declared the whole of his political creed, that it is more than probable that we may, ere many years, see him member for the "district." In such a case, the House of Commons would have its present dearth of eloquence relieved by an effective orator, and a lively wit.

WILLIAM HOWITT.

THIS popular author, whose "History of Priestcraft," on its first appearance, produced perhaps a greater impression on religionists than any other work of the kind, written in

the present century, was born in 1795, at Heanor in Derbyshire. Mr. Howitt is, and from his infancy was bred, a Quaker, but the cold formality and austere manners of the school to which he belongs, and in which he was reared, have not chilled the warmth of his generous nature, or placed any fetters on his active intelligence. Gentle as Bernard Barton, but far superior to that poet in vigour and determination of character, he is justly regarded with pride and affection by the Society of Friends as a manly representative of their best qualities. Of all his many works, none are more widely admired than "The Hall and the Hamlet," a novel published in 1847, and "Madame Dorrington of the Dene," published in 1851.

MARY HOWITT.

THE wife of William Howitt is inseparably connected in reputation with the literary career of her husband. Her girlish poems, handed about in manuscript for the amusement of her friends and neighbours, were her first introduction to the poet destined to become her husband, who, it is said, was so delighted with the genius displayed in them, that he did not rest till he formed the acquaintance of their author. Like her husband, Mrs. Howitt was reared and educated by Quakers, and as a girl was forbidden to gratify her longing for imaginative literature; but tenptation was too strong for her-the commands of her father were disobeyed, and clandestinely she studied all the "light frivolous story books" that the libraries in the neighbourhood contained. It was only to be expected that a child capable of so transgressing the rules of the gentle "Friends," would as a woman yet farther shock their tenderest prejudices. Besides her poems, which are to be found in nearly every well

furnished library, and her numerous productions for children, which—a rare thing in children's books—are very popular with the little people they were intended to interest, Mrs. Howitt is the author of that most agreeable novel, "Wood Leighton." But, excellent as her original compositions are, the most valuable contributions she has made to our standard literature are her faithful and spirited translations of Miss Bremer and Hans Christian Andersen. It is a startling proof of her mental vigour and her perseverance, that she actually acquired the language of each of these charming writers for the express purpose of making them known to the English public.

MRS. HUBBACK.

THIS lady is well-known and highly esteemed as a writer ; for her novels are in themselves good, and they have additional interest as coming from the niece of Miss Austin. It is true that Miss Austin's works are as generally neglected as they are universally eulogized, and that, instead of reading them in private and condemning them in public, most people do not peruse them in the closet or anywhere else, and yet make a point of praising them in the drawing-room. Still it is not less the fact that her name and genius, though not popular, are generally approved, and that the consequences of this singular regard have been most beneficial to Mrs. Hubback in literature. Mrs. Hubback has been and promises to be the most prolific creator of novels, for we believe that "The Younger Sister," "The Wife's Sister," "The Rival Suitors," "The Old Vicarage," "May and December," "Malvern," "Life and its Lessons," and Agnes Milbourne," are not all the fictions which have proceeded from her pen since the commencement of 1850.

have not space to express at greater length our deep gratitude to her for often rousing us in moments of selfishness or apathy to a healthy sympathy with the desolate and distressed, and our warm admiration for every thing that has come from her pen. With a tender heart, a lively imagination, rare moral courage, high aspirations, and winning simplicity, as well as startling force of diction, Mrs. Gaskill possesses every quality requisite for a novelist of the very highest order. If her "Life of Charlotte Brontë," has a fault, it arises from her making too liberal a use of epistolary documents, and in not relying more on her own unusual gift of nervous and skilful narration. The publication of this life has, it is needless to say, been the source of much pain and unkindly feeling, the expressions of which have in some cases been injudicious and even unmannerly. The friends of the late Revd. Carus Wilson felt themselves aggrieved by the portrait of that gentleman in “Jane Eyre," and the "Biography," and one clergyman took upon himself to declare Charlotte Brontë was guilty of calumniously aspersing a good man in speaking of Mr. Wilson as the victim of spiritual pride. The proof which this Quixotic champion of the Revd. Carus Wilson's spiritual graces adduced in behalf of the accused, was singularly amusingconsisting as it did for the most part of a letter written by an unknown lady, to the effect that she had never discovered anything like Pharisaical arrogance in Mr. Wilson, and that she thought Miss Brontë was altogether wrong. It never struck the sagacious counsel that by this step he did not clear the character of his protégé, but only put the blindness and insensibility of one lady in opposition to the accurate observation of another, who was not only peculiarly gifted with a power of reading character, but whose acute sufferings bore witness to the correctness of her opinions. By the same reasoning it could be shown that Uncle Tom could not have been flogged to death because black

Sambo had never received a lash; or that a certain English King never died of eating lampreys, because his chief minister never eat any; or that A could not have died of small pox, because B had never been vaccinated.

GEORGE ROBERT GLEIG-THE REV.

Ar one time the novelist was looked on with distrust in every rank of society, and while the zealously devout did. not hesitate to call him "a child of Belial," and a host of other unpleasant names, even the charitable deemed him a representative of worldly-mindedness. Indeed, in certain obscure sects, the writer of prose fiction still retains this vague, fabulous, reputation of wickedness; and only the other day the writer of these pages was not a little amused with reading a broad-side posted on a wall by some society for the promulgation of the Christian virtues, which warned all good people to avoid the company of "play-actors, infidels, scoffers, novelists, and all other followers of impious callings." This evil fame, however, must, in these days, be fast dying out, even amongst the flocks presided over by Chadbands and Stigginses, when the most zealous and effective of our clergy are found amongst the ranks of novelists.

The Rev. George Gleig, the son of a Scottish bishop, was born in 1796, and after being educated at Oxford, entered the army as an officer of the 85th Regiment of Light Infantry. He served in the Peninsula, and in the campaign of Washington, being severely wounded at the taking of that city. Retiring from the service on half-pay, he was ordained, and in 1822 he was presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the living of Ivy Church, Kent. In 1844 he obtained the chaplaincy of Chelsea Hospital.

In 1846

VOL. II.

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