no department of literature has he more decidedly succeeded than in fiction. His "Linesman" is as good a military novel as Gleig, or Grant, or Maxwell have produced. Some of its scenes may offend the over-delicate, and some of its descrip. tions-that, for instance, of a military flogging-are excruciatingly painful; but when the author shocks our feelings, he always has a good reason for doing so. Indeed, throughout the tale one recognises the frankness, courage, and manly generosity which, more than their great mental endowments, are the pleasing characteristics of all the celebrated Napiers.

CAROLINE ELIZABETH NORTON, THE HON.

THE Honourable Mrs. Norton, the sister of the Duchess of Somerset and Lady Dufferin, a daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and grand-daughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was married when she was only nineteen years of age, on 30th of July, 1827, to the Hon. George Chapple Norton, a brother of the present Lord Grantley, and a police-magistrate, and the recorder of Guildford.

The genius of the Sheridans speaks emphatically in this lady, who has long been admired for her singular beauty, not less than she has been the object of universal sympathy for her sorrows. In the entire range of our literature there is no poetess, with the exception of Mrs. Browning, to rank with her. In prose she is scarcely less fervid than she is in her metrical compositions. Clearness of observation, lucid arrangement of ideas, and nervous force of melodious language-often impetuous, often overpoweringly tender, and always deeply affecting—are her principle characteristics as a writer. She has not exerted herself much-or rather frequently-as a writer of prose fiction, but her sad, sad tale, "Stuart of Dunleath," shows that she has the capability to be as great a novelist as she is a poetess,

MARGARET OLIPHANT.-JULIA PARDOE.

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For the rest, the world cannot do better than repeat her lines, and take them to heart:

"For they who credit crime, are they who feel

Their own hearts weak to unresisted sin;

Memory, not judgment, prompts the thoughts which steal
O'er minds like these, an easy faith to win;

And tales of broken truth are still believed

Most readily by those who have themselves deceived."

MARGARET OLIPHANT.

SCOTTISH stories have always been favourites with the public, and the best living writer of them is, beyond question, Mrs. Oliphant. It is now several years since she became famous in her department of literature; and each new work from her pen has so many signs of increasing mental vigour that there is now no fear of her ever sinking from the high place which "Passages in the Life of Mrs. M. Maitland," won for her. Her principal works, besides the "Life of Mrs. M. Maitland," are "C. Field: a Tale of the Puritans," "Merkland, a Story of Scottish Life," "Memoirs and Revelations of A. Græme," "Harry Muir: a Story of Scottish Life," "Magdalen Hepburn," "Zaidee: a Romance," and "The Days of my Life."

JULIA PARDOE.

MISS Pardoe has been a writer of position and celebrity for considerably more than twenty years, but her passion for authorship displayed itself long before the world took much notice of her, for like Lady Morgan and Mrs. Norton she published her first work ere she was fairly emancipated from the nursery. At six years of age she commenced literary composition, and in her fourteenth year she presented the world with a volume of poems.

Some considerable time after this juvenile outburst she produced an historical novel, entitled "Lord Morcar of Hereward," and since the date of that publication her pen has given us "Traits and Traditions of Portugal," " Speculation," a novel, "The Mardens and the Daventrys," a novel, "The City of the Sultan," "The River and the Desert t; or, Recollections of the Rhone and the Chartreuse," ," "The Romance of the Harem," a series of tales, "The Beauties of the Bosphorus," "The City of the Magyar; or, Hungary and its Institutions," "The Hungarian Castle," a novel, "Louis XIV.: or, the Court of the Seventeenth Century," "The Confessions of a Pretty Woman," a novel, "The Rival Beauties," a novel, "The Life of Francis I.," "The Life of Marie de Medici," "Reginald Lyle," a novel, "Flies in Amber," a series of tales, "The Jealous Wife," a novel, &c., &c.

In these numerous works, Miss Pardoe has shown herself capable of constructing ingenious plots, of charming by lively, and at times, gorgeously coloured narrative, and of giving an attractive and novel exposition of history.

She was born at Beverley, in Yorkshire, and her father was a field-officer in the army. Naturally observant, of an ardent poetic temperament, and yet endowed with no ordinary reflective powers, she has been, in many respects, favourably circumstanced for the development of her intellect. Delicate health at an early part of her life secured her the quiet retirement necessary for meditation and study, and her extended travels have supplied her susceptible mind and retentive memory with the best possible materials for thought.

CONSTANTINE HENRY PHIPPS, MARQUIS OF

NORMANBY.

Ir we wished to throw an aristocratic lustre over the fraternity of novelists, we could produce a startling list of

living magnates who have published anonymously prose fictions. One of our ex-Lord Chancellors has a novel of no great excellence attributed to him by general rumour ; and a feeble tale about a nun of very dubious moral tendency, is, by the same authority, asserted to have come from the pen of a distinguished statesman, the universality of whose mental endowments has for many a day been the cause of satiric pleasantries. Usually, however, illustrious personages, knowing that it is far easier to be an average statesman than a wretchedly bad novelist, have the prudence to guard with jealousy the secret of their being authors till their works have attained a celebrity calculated to add to the éclat of their rank. Lord Normanby is one of these noble writers. In 1825, he published his first novel with the mawkish and nambypamby title of "Matilda," which was followed in 1828 by "Yes and No." Both these works are very well-printed specimens of the stuff-in the way of fashionable romance— that in this great and free country any man may favour the public with who is able to pay a handsome sum to a West End publisher.

It is true that Lord Normanby's name does not appear on the title-pages of these fictions, and that from motives that need not be enlarged upon we have in these pages avoided dragging anonymous authors from the privacy it is their wish to maintain. Still, the parentage of "Amelia," and "Yes and No,” is so generally known that we cannot feel ourselves guilty of any violation of delicacy in pointing to the noble Marquis as a representative of the class in literature to which he belongs.

MARGUERITE A. POWER.

As Miss Austin is represented in this generation by her niece Mrs. Hubback, and Captain Marryat by his daugh

VOL. II.

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ter, so the memory of Lady Blessington is kept alive in literary circles by her niece, Miss Power, who, besides editing for two years "The Keepsake," and writing a memoir of her aunt, has published "Evelyn Forrester, a Woman's Story," and another novel. From the means we have as yet had of judging of Miss Power's capabilities as a writer, we should say that she will be rather injured than benefited by associating her name and genius with her aunt; for unquestionably "Evelyn Forrester" is altogether superior to any work of fiction that proceeded from Lady Blessington's pen.

CHARLES READE, D.C.L. (BARRISTER), &c. &c.

THIS gentleman was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which society he is at the present time a fellow. In the year 1835 he went through the edifying ceremony of taking his B.A. degree. In 1842 he obtained the higher distinction of being elected to one of the Vinerian fellowships; and at the commencement of the following year, having kept his terms at Lincoln's Inn, he was called to the bar.

as "

With the exception of "Jane Eyre" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," it may be safely asserted that no novel, not published in numbers, has of late years created such a sensation as Mr. Reade's "It is Never too Late to Mend." Besides this wonderful production, which has already been accepted a standard work," Mr. Reade is the author of other tales of singular force and merit, well known to the readers of "Christie Johnson," "Peg Woffington," "White Lies,” and "Cream;" and in conjunction with Mr. Tom Taylor, he has presented dramatic literature with "Masks and Faces," "The King's Rival," and "Two Loves and a Life."