sun had never penetrated. It was impossible to enter it without experiencing a chilling sensation and depression of spirits, which induced a longing desire to escape from its gloom, which not all the taste and expense with which it had been fitted up could dispel.

The habits to which its young mistress was expected to conform, were little congenial to her feelings. The lower part of the house was appropriated to the business, and hither the elder Mr Smith came every morning to superintend his commercial concerns, and usually took his chocolate in his daughter-in-law's dressing-room. He was a worthy, and even a good-natured man, but he had mixed very little in general society-his ideas were confined, and his manners and habits were not calculated to inspire affection, however he might be entitled to respect and gratitude. He had no taste for literature, and the elegant amusements of his daughter-in-law appeared to him as so many sources of expense, and as encroachments on time, which he thought should be exclusively dedicated to domestic occupations; he had a quiet petulant way of speaking, and a pair of keen black eyes, which, darting from under his bushy black eye-brows the most inquisitive glances, always appeared to be in search of something to find fault with; so that whenever

the creaking of his "youthful shoes well saved" gave notice that one of his domiciliary visits was about to take place, it was the signal for hurrying away whatever was likely to be the subject of his displeasure, or the object of his curiosity. If any of her friends or acquaintance happened to call on her, he would examine them with a suspicious curiosity, which usually compelled them to shorten their visits, and took from them the desire of repeating them. His lady, who was at that time in very ill health, exacted the constant attendance of the family, and a more irksome task could hardly have been imposed on a young person. "I pass almost every day," says Mrs Smith, in a letter to one of her early friends, " with the poor sick old lady, with whom, however, I am no great favourite; somebody has told her I have not been notably brought up, (which I am afraid is true enough,) and she asks me questions which, to say the truth, I am not very well able to answer. There are no women, she says, so well qualified for mistresses of families as the ladies of Barbadoes, whose knowledge of housewifery she is perpetually contrasting with my ignorance, and, very unfortunately, those subjects on which I am informed, give me little credit with her; on the contrary, are rather a dis

advantage to me; yet I have not seen any of their paragons whom I am at all disposed to envy."

The stately formality of this lady, her tall meagre figure, languid air, and sallow complexion, with the monotonous drawl and pronunciation peculiar to the natives of the West Indies, rendered her one of the most wearisome persons that can be imagined, and I fear her economical lectures had very little attraction for a girl who had never been required to pay much attention to household cares, and were listened to with apathy and disgust. This lady did not live long enough to effect the reformation she was so anxious for; her death, however, produced no great relief from this bondage. Mrs Smith's attendance on her father-in-law was more than ever required, and a heavier duty never fell to the lot of youth and beauty. The poor old man was afflicted with a complication of disorders. From long residence in the West Indies he was so sensible of cold that he shrunk from the slightest breeze-no air was permitted to refresh his apartment, in which he sat in the hottest days of summer wrapped in his red roquelaure, surrounded with all the apparatus of sickness; she was expected to accompany him in his airings, on the dusty turnpike roads, with just enough of the carriage windows

let down to admit the smell of brick kilns, or the stagnant green ditches in the environs of Islington.

In the intervals of this recreation she had to assist at the lectures of an old governante, part of whose business it was to lull her master to sleep, by reading devotional books of the most gloomy tendency, with a broad Cumberland accent. Never did religion wear a garb so unalluring as in this house.

The comfort of her own family was not improved by the accession of four or five wild, ungovernable, West Indian boys, (sons of the correspondents of the house,) who, during the Eton and Harrow vacations, were its inmates.

Though she could occasionally give way to the sportiveness of her fancy, and describe these scenes of ennui and discomfort in the most humorous manner, yet the aversion she entertained for everything connected with this period of her life, and its contrast with her previous gay and cheerful habits, seems to have made the deepest impression, and to have reverted to her mind latterly in the most forcible manner; and her feelings are beautifully depicted in her unfinished Poem of Beechy Head. The lines are quoted by the elegant author of the Literaria Censura.

The following little Poem, in which melancholy and humour are not unpleasingly blended, appears, from the feebleness of the hand-writing, to have been composed a very short time before her death.

TO MY LYRE.

Such as thou art, my faithful Lyre,
For all the great and wise admire,
Believe me, I would not exchange thee,
Since e'en adversity could never
Thee from my anguish'd bosom sever,
Or time or sorrow e'er estrange thee.

Far from my native fields removed,
From all I valued, all I loved;

By early sorrows soon beset,

Annoy'd and wearied past endurance,
With drawbacks, bottomry, insurance,

With samples drawn, and tear and tret ;

With Scrip, and Omnium, and Consols,
With City Feasts and Lord Mayors' Balls,
Scenes that to me no joy afforded;

For all the anxious Sons of Care,
From Bishopsgate to Temple Bar,

To my young eyes seem'd gross and sordid.

Proud city dames, with loud shrill clacks,
("The wealth of nations on their backs,”)

Their clumsy daughters and their nieces,
Good sort of people! and well meaners,
But they could not be my congeners,

For I was of a different species.