Life in е Lady Mary's return to England. pleased as the young; and I, who dread growing wise more than anything in the world, was overjoyed to find that one can never outlive one's vanity. These letters are chosen from the many written by Lady Mary during her life in the world of fashion and literature. In 1739 her health declined and she took the resolution of passing the remainder of her days on the Continent, with the full assent of Mr. Wortley, with whom, moreover, she kept up a continuous correspondence until his death in 1761. During all this time she remained in the southern part of Europe, writing always most amusing and entertaining letters about everything she saw. Her accounts of the manner of living in Venice, at Louvere, or at Geneva, show as great a difference from that of the present day as her English ones do, but it is not so much within our subject to dwell on these points, however amusing. On the Lake of Isco she took possession of a deserted palace; she planned her garden, applied herself to the business of a country life, and was happy in the superintendence of her vineyards and silk-worms. English books, sent her by her daughter, Lady Bute, supplied the deficiency of society, and she appears to have enjoyed most sincerely her repose from the occupations of the gay world. To Mr. Wortley she writes in 1748: I am very much pleased that you accustom yourself to tea, being persuaded that the moderate use of it is generally wholesome. I have planted a great deal in my garden, which is a fashion lately introduced in this country, and has succeeded very well. I cannot say it is as strong as the Indian, but it has the advantage of being fresher, and is at least unmixed. After an absence of twenty-two years, Lady Mary returned to England, arriving in October, but her health had suffered much and a gradual decline terminated in death on the 21st of August, 1762, and in the seventy- Her death. third year of her age. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Moy Thomas. (Bohn, 1861.) Alexander Pope. Leslie Stephen. (Morley's Men of Letters Series.) Pope's Complete Works. Smith's Smaller History of English Literature. James Rowley, M.A. (London.) Walks in London. A. J. C. Hare. (Latest revised edition, 1894, London.) Compendium of English History. A. B. Edwards. BOOK II. CHARLOTTE LENNOX. CHAPTER V. AMONG the literary names preserved by Boswell and Horace Walpole, says Chambers's Encyclopædia, is that of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox (1720-1804). The first novel of this lady was celebrated with a sumptuous supper at the Devil's Tavern, where Dr. Johnson invested crowned by Dr. the authoress with a crown of laurel. Until 1788 Mrs. Lennox Johnson. Her works. existed the famous Devil's Tavern in Fleet Street, with the sign of St. Dunstan and the Devil, where the Royal Society held its dinners, and where the Apollo Club held its meetings, guided by poetical rules of Ben Jonson which began : ६ Let none but guests or clubbers hither come; She wrote several novels, and some comedies, compiled and translated other works, probably for the sake of the money she could earn by them. Her name would hardly survive to this day but that Mrs. Barbauld allowed her a place in her excellent edition of the "British Novelists of the Eighteenth Century," published in 1800, a collection without which I should be lost in the pursuit of my favorite old books. Mrs. Barbauld says that Mrs. Lennox, "a very respectable writer, born at New York, was a diligent and successful author. comment. Lady Mary Wortley, a voracious reader of "all the novels that had been invented" in her time, speaks of one and another of her books as they appear with friendly comment, but under the impression that they were written by her cousin, Sally Fielding, the sister of the brilliant author of "Tom Jones." Lady Mary says: Lady Mary's "The Art of Tormenting" and "The Female Quixote” are sale work. I suppose they proceed from her pen, and I heartily pity her, constrained by her circumstances to seek her bread by a method I do not doubt she despises. She has mended her style in the last volume of "David Simple," which conveys a useful moral, though she does not seem to have intended it. "David Simple" is such a "dreadful" stupid book that I myself have never succeeded in reaching the third volume. There is a slight reference to Charlotte Lennox in Fanny Burney's diary of August 26, 1778: Dr. Johnson gave us an account of Mrs. Lennox. Her "Female Quixote" is very justly admired here. But Mrs. Thrale says that though her books are generally approved, nobody likes her. I find she, among others, waited on Dr. Johnson upon her cornmencing writing, and he told us that at her request he carried her to Richardson. "Poor Charlotte Lennox!" continued he. "When we came to the house she desired me to leave her; 'for,' says she, 'I am under great restraint in your presence; but if you leave me alone with Richardson, I'll give you a very good account of him.' However, I fear she was disappointed, for she gave me no account at all." Miss Burney's reference. "The Female Poor Charlotte's "Sophia,' Henrietta," etc., are absolute rubbish, but the "Female Quixote," published Quixote." in 1752, and perpetuated by Mrs. Barbauld, is precious heroine. for preserving to the world the best impression we have of what the old, old romances of the Calprénede and Scudéry school really were; sparing us an effort which even I am incapable of-that is, wading through the black volumes like those beloved of the old nurse in the Wortley family, and even of Lady Mary herself and her contemporaries. It is an agreeable and ingenious satire upon the old romances, and I really think it is written in a modern. Account of the spirit, and that Arabella, the heroine, has more good stuff in her than other imaginary ladies of the time who have been more praised. She is supposed to have been brought up in the country and secluded from all society, but allowed to amuse herself in an old library furnished with the works of these voluminous authors. Of course she imbibes their views of life, and when she comes out into the world, possessed of beauty and fortune, it is with a pronounced ignorance of every circumstance of real life and manners. She fancies every man who speaks to her to be secretly in love with her, and is in constant apprehension of being forcibly carried off. The extracts I shall give are those which throw light upon the style of the older books, and, condensed as these extracts are, I am sure they will sufficiently impress the reader with a sense of their dulness, a dulness from which Mrs. Lennox in a measure rescued her readers by the vivacity of her heroine, who seems modern by contrast. The disadvantage of her book, as Mrs. Barbauld already observes, is that the satire has now no object. She says: Most young ladies of the present day, instead of requiring to be cured of reading those bulky romances, would acquire the first information of their manner (and we may now say of |