making and broth-making, are assigned to the males. In Paris, as we once heard an Irish gentleman observe, the footmen are all housemaids.

It may be doubted, however, whether this exemption from hard labour is an enviable distinction. A woman never appears to less advantage than when raising her voice in pecuniary disputes; and the sharpness with which even the youngest and prettiest Frenchwoman looks after the main chance, is far from a becoming accomplishment. Instinctively versed in the pecuniary interests of life, they reduce every thing to the most matter-of-fact level:- love, matrimony, gallantry, all is matter for arithmetic. A table of interest exceeds in importance the tables of the law; and, just as the chicken emerging from the egg, begins to peck about it, as if hatched only to fight and feed, the young and timid French bride, scarcely enlarged from the hands of the governess, starts forth full-armed, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, able and willing to defend her interests, to bargain, buy, sell, speculate at the Bourse, or discuss the clauses of a lease. A Frenchwoman is taught to regard life in the most positive point of view there is not the slightest vein of poetry in her nature.

- A

This love and knowledge of business, (which in the highest class of life assumes the shape of political intrigue,) ́may, perhaps, be, in some measure, attributable to the scantiness of the mental resources supplied them by education. Frenchwoman's measure of instruction rarely exceeds the useful; and the excess of accomplishments, and extensive acquirements in modern languages, which diversify the leisure of a well-born Englishwoman, are rarely bestowed on a French girl, unless for professional purposes. Unaddicted to literature, and circumscribed in household occupation, she finds no better employment for her leisure than the care and administration of the property in which she possesses an inalienable interest.

Frenchwomen marry young; their duties commence early in life; among the middling classes, their children are reared away from home, that maternal cares may not interfere with the active business of life; and constant practice, unsoftened by gentler motives, qualifies a French matron, at five-and-thirty, to overmaster Shylock himself in the items of a bargain!

Nor does the narrow scale of private fortunes admit, as in London, of a separate family residence, apart and at a dis tance from the house of business. The banker's counting.

house is usually next to his dining-room; and an attorney's office adjoins the boudoir of his lady; there is no Bedford Square, no citizen's "pie," to secure the rich tradesman's fastidious family from the vulgar clamour of trade. The lady of the wholesale dealer of the Rue des Lombards or Rue St. Denis, delights, on the contrary, in the hurry and scuffle which offend the nerves of the fine lady of Bishopsgate or Cheapside.

It may be observed, however, that housewifery and activity in business, which in England are rarely separable from coarseness of manners, produce no such influence over a Frenchwoman. Business may render her unamiable, but rarely vulgar. After performing household duties, executed in an English family by servants alone, or presiding over business in England invariably assigned to a clerk, a Frenchwoman of the middle class walks, elegantly dressed, into her drawing-room, receives her company with good breeding, and converses with intelligence; while one of our countrywomen arriving out of the kitchen, would inevitably move and talk like a cook.

EXERCISE CXCIX.

ANNA MARIA PORTER. Anon.

MISS ANNA MARIA PORTER, though a native of England was taken, an infant, to Scotland, where she was brought up. Her sister's, Miss Jane Porter's little domestic introductions to her works in "The Standard Novels," give several interesting anecdotes of the plan used in the culture of their minds there, by their mother, whose venerable name is not held in less respect, than that of any of the most revered of our British matrons; having shown in herself the best excellences of the female character, in a wife's, a widow's, a mother's duties fulfilled. She educated her children on these principles; and, though neither of her daughters took on herself the same train of woman's usual destiny, the pens of both have been devoted to instil, from the parental source, the precepts and example of such a character. But, perhaps, her youngest daughter, the subject of this memoir, executed her self-imposed task with a deeper insight, than her sister, into the female heart; and with a more intimate knowledge

of all the bearings of domestic affections, feelings, and mutual sensibilities to be cherished, or gently changed from weakness into strength, but in no instance to be designedly offended.

In painting these family pictures, Miss Anna Maria Porter's pen, we may venture to say, was quite at home! Her kind, delicate, and endearing spirit, delighted in all the fostering amenities, all the tendernesses, and elegant courtesies of life; and, most especially, those to be shown at the domestic hearth. Of such were the wives, the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, the friends, in her novels; from that sweet tale of her early youth, "The Hungarian Brothers," to her yet more admired "Barony," the last of her works.

Between those novels, her prolific genius, united with her earnest love of labouring in this "Eden garden of heaven's own flowers" for the bosoms of her young contemporaries, made her pass away her own life's spring and summer, in the production of many engaging and instructive volumes of a similar character. "Don Sebastian" followed "The Hungarian Brothers" in order of time. And in the portrait of Cara Azak, the faithful wife of the hero, we have a picture, which several amiable and happy women we know, have since acknowledged to have been the model whence they first sketched the line to secure their own connubial bliss. "The Recluse of Norway," gives us sisterly, unselfish, affection," in honour preferring each other!" The Village of Mariendorpt," shows the perfection of filial duty. But how can we name in distinctions, or rather, how divide a spirit that with one great principle pervades them all?-a spirit never weary to promote religious motives, blameless moral conduct, and the forbearing, cherishing love, which should ever abide in the human heart, with regard to all its relations, in this probationary existence.

But we must not leave this part of the subject, without noticing her accurate description of fashionable manners, delightfully amusing, when found innocently gay; but in most striking warning, when they lead to pining regrets, misery, and, too frequently, to ruin. Her "Honor O'Hara," and especially her tale called " Coming Out," need not our criticism, to show their value as beacons in this way. Miss A. M. Porter was a sweet poetess: many specimens grace her novels; and some of them have not less sweet airs adapted to them by some of our best composers.

The year after the publication of "The Barony," the

venerable and beloved mother of our authoress died. From that period, Miss Anna Maria Porter's health, always fragile, became more so; and her sister, with a natural anxiety, which held her as one of the last of her treasures on earth, in the course of a few months afterwards, took her from their home at Esher in Surrey, to begin a little tour for change of scene and air. During March and April, they were in London and there, many friends of past times renewed the pleasure of meeting one again, in their dear Anna Maria, whose attaching social qualities were ever uppermost in the minds which knew her best; -so much in true value, is real worth of heart beyond even first-rate talents, though possessed by the same beloved person. Vanity had no place in her character. She thought humbly of her own talents; and still more humbly of the unobtrusive tenor of a life, which, in the retirement of her village home, she had long dedicated to the Christian's silent walk of " charity with all human beings, in thought, word, and deed!"

In the course of their purposed tour, the sisters came to Bristol on the 28th of May; where their brother, Dr. Porter, resides as a physician. Miss A. M. Porter was taken ill of a fever on the 3d of June, which, in spite of his utmost skill, and that of another professional gentleman, terminated her earthly life on the 21st of the same month. But she closed it in the spirit of that life's career; -an example to the "lowly in heart!" and to those who have a faithful trust in the Divine Promise, that such" shall see God!"

EXERCISE CC.

THE WOMEN OF FRANCE AND THOSE OF ENGLAND. [Translated from Mirabeau.]

WOMEN are a subject upon which so much has been said and written, by so many men of abilities, that it is not easy to imagine a new light to show them in; or to place them in an attitude in which they have not already been placed. But, talking of a nation, if one did not say something about so considerable a part of it, the subject would appear mutilated and imperfect. As "brevity is the soul of wit," I shall be brief; and I shall only touch on the principal points

in which the women of France differ from those of other countries.

When a French lady comes into a room, the first thing that strikes you, is, that she walks better, carries herself better, has her head and feet better dressed, her clothes better fancied and better put on, than any woman you have ever seen. When she talks, she is the art of pleasing personified. Her eyes, her lips, her words, her gestures, are all prepossessing. Her language is the language of amiableness; her accents are the accents of grace; she embellishes a trifle, interests upon nothing; she softens a contradiction; she takes off the insipidness of a compliment by turning it elegantly; and when she has a mind, she sharpens and polishes the point of an epigram, better than all the women in the world. Her eyes sparkle with spirit; the most delightful sallies flash from her fancy; in telling a story, she is inimitable; the motions of her body, and the accents of her tongue, are equally genteel and easy; an equable flow of sprightliness keeps her constantly good-humoured and cheerful; and the only objects of her life are to please and be pleased.

Her vivacity may sometimes approach to folly; but perhaps, it is not in her moments of folly that she is least interesting and agreeable.

Englishwomen have many points of superiority over the French: the French are superior to them in many others. I have mentioned some of these points in other places. Here I shall only say, there is a particular idea, in which no woman in the world can compare with a Frenchwoman; it is in the power of intellectual excitement. She will draw wit out of a fool. She strikes, with such address, the chords of self-love, that she gives unexpected vigour and agility to fancy, and electrifies a body that appeared non-electric.

I have mentioned here the women of England; and I have done wrong. – I did not intend it when I began the letter. They came into my mind, as the only women in the world worthy of being compared with those of France. To settle the respective claims of the fair sex in these two countries, requires an abler pen than mine. I shall not dare to examine it, even in a single point, nor presume to determine, whether, in the important article of beauty, form and colour are to be preferred to expression and grace; or whether grace and expression are to be considered as preferable to complexion and shape. I shall not examine whether the piquant of