GREAT poet has said Honour and shame from no condition rise; How much truth there is in this saying, is strikingly shown in the history of Grace Darling; for, being in what is called a humble station in life, she, acting well her part in it, and having on one occasion manifested some of the highest qualities which belong to human nature, became, for these reasons, an object of respect and admiration to persons of every rank and condition, and acquired a celebrity which may be said to have spread over the greater part of the civilised world. Nobles of the highest rank, and even royalty itself, felt the demands which the singular worth of this young woman made upon them, and vied with individuals of her own class in doing her the honour she deserved. Grace Darling was one of a numerous family born to William Darling, lighthouse-keeper. Her grandfather, Robert Darling, originally a cooper at Dunse, in Berwickshire, removed to Belford, in Northumberland, and finally settled as keeper of the coal-light on the Brownsman, the outermost of the Farne islands on the coast of the last-mentioned county. William Darling succeeded his father in that situation, but in 1826 was transferred to the lighthouse on the Longstone, another of the same group of islands. The qualities required in the keeper of a lighthouse are of no common kind: he must be a generally intelligent, as well as steady and judicious man. Moreover, in so solitary a situation as the Longstone lighthouse, where weeks may pass without any communication with the mainland, he would need to be of that character which has resources within itself, so as to be in a great measure independent of the rest of society for what may make life pass agreeably. In such a situation, the mind of an ordinary man is apt to suffer from the want of excitement and novelty; while a superior mind only takes advantage of it for improving itself. Of this superior character seems to be William Darling, the father of our heroine. He is described as uncommonly steady and intelligent, and of extremely quiet and modest manners. It speaks great things for him, that his children have all been educated in a comparatively respectable manner his daughter Grace, for example, writing in a hand equal to that of most ladies. Grace was born, November 24, 1815, at Bamborough, on the Northumberland coast, being the seventh child of her parents. Of the events of her early years, whether she was educated on the mainland, or lived constantly in the solitary abode of her parents, first at the Brownsman, and afterwards on the Longstone island, we are not particularly informed. During her girlish years, and till the time of her death, her residence in the Longstone lighthouse was constant, or only broken by occasional visits to the coast. She and her mother managed the little household at Longstone. She is described as having been at that time, as indeed during her whole life, remarkable for a retiring and somewhat reserved disposition. In person she was about the middle size—of fair complexion and a comely countenance—with nothing masculine in her appearance; but, on the contrary, gentle in aspect, and with an expression of the greatest mildness and benevolence. William Howitt, the poet, who visited her after the deed which made her so celebrated, found her a realisation of his idea of Jeanie Deans, the amiable and true-spirited heroine of Sir Walter Scott's novel, who did and suffered so much for her unfortunate sister. She had the sweetest smile, he said, that he had ever seen in a person of her station and appearance. "You see," says he, "that she is a thoroughly good creature, and that under her modest exterior lies a spirit capable of the most exalted devotion-a devotion so entire, that |