and digressions, she has treated the greatest questions of moral philosophy, and pointed out, by examples, how absolute truths should regulate real life, and penetrate the infant reason of children. The excellence of this book consists in a union of great severity of principles, with perfect freedom of mind. It is this union which faithfully recals Madame Guizot. Nothing is there yielded to conventional abuses; to artificial proprieties; but nothing flatters the caprices of weakness, or of imagination; nothing there, favors the influence of that sentimental indulgence, which too often, in our times, is transferred from romances to morals. It is a book founded on truth. But if the principles are those of a philosopher, who but a woman could have produced details so fine and so varied; such striking observations, dictated by the most intimate knowledge of the world and of children. Such traits of sentiment, betraying and exciting emotion. Who but a woman-a mother, could have rendered reason so touching, and thus have softened without perverting it. This book was composed rapidly, and in spite of bodily sufferings. In finishing it, Madame Guizot seemed to have exhausted her strength. It is rare that superior faculties meet in a woman without her being overwhelmed with the burthen. The most distinguished woman is still a feeble being; the light consumes the torch. In. the bosom of the most solid and deeply felt happiness, Madame Guizot did not escape those agitations from which her sex are rarely exempted. She was too active, too feeling, to be calm, and her soul exhausted her life. Seized by a slow malady, we perceived her constantly declining, but not yielding. For nearly a year she contended against her disease; she struggled to conquer or to evade it. Then, as ever, she placed her duty and her hope in resistance. But at last, she felt that her efforts were vain; that the decree had gone forth, and she submitted without shrinking, and from this moment, her resignation was entire. Receiving the most devoted and tender care, touched, and grateful for the love of which she felt secure; equally sustained by reason and faith, she thought no more but of dying. In the intervals of her sufferings, she occupied herself with the truths that had guided her life. It seemed that her soul retired, by degrees, from its perishing organs, and collected itself to appear entire, pure and living before God. The 30th of July, 1827, she took the most tender and tranquil leave of her husband, her son, and her family. She declared her end to be near. On the first of August, at ten o'clock, in the morning, she begged her husband to read to her. He read Fenelon's letter for a sick person, and began Bossuet's sermon on the immortality of the soul. In the midst of the sermon she expired. Such was the woman, worthy in all of him, to whom Heaven gave her. A mutual friend thus wrote of them,"The more I contemplate them, the more I am confirmed in the belief that we have each our mission; theirs must have been to employ their minds in the service of morals, and certainly they have well fulfilled it." The same idea seemed ever present to Madame Guizot. To her, nothing was indifferent, nothing lost in this noble career; all had a value, a rule, an end; at the same time, high principle had taken such possession of her soul, that she pursued it without effort, and appeared in fulfilling her duties to obey her nature. Reason imparted to her neither coldness nor constraint. Strong in suffering, she was sensitive, and alive to happiness. She received with unbounded animation, the true goods of existence. The simplest pleasures inspired her with the joy of a child. Almost always deprived of leisure and liberty, chained to study, and confined to town, she could not breathe the pure air of the country without a kind of transport. The delights of the arts and of nature, excited in her a true emotion. An austere reason and serious life, instead of freezing her imagination, seemed, on the contrary, to have preserved all its vivacity, and all its in nocence. Many opposite qualities were in her happily ited; thus the notion of duty was always present to her: she applied it rigorously to the solution of moral questions. Injustice inspired her with an indignation, and immorality, a disgust, she could not conceal; and singular though it may be, it was impossible for her to afflict any one; suffering, even merited, excited her pity. Frank, to imprudence, she knew not how to address a reproach to him whom she saw sensible of his fault-her goodness disarmed her reason. But it was above all, the sufferings of strong and affectionate natures that excited her deepest compassion; in their griefs she recognized her own, and thus seemed to partake them. There is so much genius in Madame Guizot's works, that it appears superfluous to speak of that she exhibited in con VOL. I.-NO. I. 6 versation. Its originality was striking-all sprung from herself-she repeated nothing-she borrowed nothing, even from her reading. No book pleased her that did not make her think. She never gave herself to an opinion till she had seen reason for yielding to it. These reasons were not always the most natural, but they were like those of Montaigne, her own. She did not always take the most direct way to attain the truth, but she attained it, and till then there was no repose for her mind. Then all resistance vanished, and she submitted without any reserve. There was no opposition-no discordance. Her reason disposed of her will, and both maintained between her heart and her actions, a perfect harmony. Thus, she could not easily comprehend that any one should remain insensible to testimony. This inconsistency in man, always astonished her as marvellous. She was in that deceived by her own experience. Prepossessions-desires-regrets-all yielded in her to conviction. Truth reigned with a divine right over her soul. This merit is rare-it is the last attainment of human wisdom; and she who had attained it was a woman of simplicity and goodness. The tenderest of wives—the most devoted of mothers-the sincerest of friends. But I have told what was admired in her-can I tell how much she was beloved! FURNESS ABBEY. Amongst the numerous reliques of "by-gone times," scattered over the face of fair England, there are none perhaps, which surpass, either in interesting associations, or in sublime and romantic character, the ruins of Furness Abbey. When the reformation occured in England, this extensive and magnificent structure fell, with other similar establishments, a prey to the fierce, and it might be called bigoted zeal, which marked the progress of that stupendous event. No one can view the vestiges which yet remain, of this venerable monastic establishment, without a deep and solemn feeling of regret, for the excesses that have accompanied the revolutions produced by religious fanaticism. The above remarks are intended as an introduction to the following original sonnet, written by a young gentleman now pursuing his studies at the university of Oxford. It was composed at the request of a lady, just after viewing the romantic remains, when receiving her education in England. The lady is now in Boston, and has politely offered it for the Magazine. When I have look'd on thee, thou ruined pile, Visions of the past! where swelled the anthem's sound Around the sacred cross, the brier clings; Near its polluted base unweeded waves The dark night shade; and o'er the shapeless graves Oh ruined pile! like thine our glories fade, W. J. D. To the Editor of the Ladies' Magazine. You There is an evil under the sun, besides those enumerated by the wisest of men, and a misery which is not recorded in the "miseries of human life," but which you, madam, are doomed shortly to suffer. Forewarned, forearmed, says the proverb; and as I am one of those old fashioned folks, who believe in the wisdom of old saws, I deem it my duty to sound the warning; the armour to defend yourself withal, must be furnished by your own discretion. have undertaken to provide a feast for the refined and the intellectual, and are doubtless suffering some anxiety, lest the entertainment should not be perfectly agreeable to the public taste. Now, I, who have had experience in my time, will give you a recipe, that never fails of adding a flavor to the best prepared meal, and even making the most ordinary one palatable. "Change your courses often, and let no dish, however excellent, be brought on a second time." Or, to drop the metaphor, let the articles for your Magazine be, mostly, short ones, and admit none of such a length as will require to be continued to the succeeding numbers. I know there are few requisites of an author more difficult of attainment than the art of conveying ideas clearly, and yet without prolixity. If words possessed intrinsic value, the throwing 44 To the Editor of the Ladies' Magazine. [Jan. them away so idly, as many of our writers do, would at once explain the reason why authorship, as à profession, is esteemed so unprofitable, and why poetry and poverty are so often considered synonymous. And here I might notice the ridiculousness of that pompous, "Fourth of July" style, which is so fashionable with many of our American writers; but it is not now the manner in which an article is written, but its length, I am considering. The evil then, which you will suffer, is the receiving from a "valued correspondent," as the notice must record, a packet, containing a story of seven chapters, which, it will be modestly hinted, has been expressly written for the Ladies' Magazine. Perhaps that identical packet has been forwarded to half the editors in the union. To print, or not to print, will then be the question. The publishers will call for copy, you will want matter, and, moreover, be fearful of creating enemies, by rejecting, even what your judgment must condemn. But I say, do not be induced by motives of convenience, or even the fear of giving offence, to permit the work under your care to become the repository of those long, lovesick, lamentable tales, written without plan or aim, and only concluded, when the author has exhausted every five syllable word to be found in Walker. After turning over, perhaps, twenty pages of such a story, hoping every leaf will be the last, let "to be continued" strike the eye of the sensible and sensitive reader, and the effect on his nerves will be similar to the horror of Macbeth, when he saw the shadowed kings, and exclaimed, "What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?" A good story is deprived of half its interest when a whole revolution of the moon is permitted to intervene before the curiosity excited by its beginning, is gratified with the denouement. But seldom are good articles thus managed. It is the dull, prosing pieces, admitted merely to fill up; and perhaps it will be impossible to exclude all of such description from a periodical; but, if possible, let those inserted, be short, and be concluded in the same number in which they are commenced. The reader has then the whole evil before him, and the story affords him one pleasure, that of seeing its termination; he congratulates himself that he can take up the next number of the Magazine without shuddering. The ladies will surely approve a plan which thus, without unnecessary delay, promises to gratify their curiosity, and |