Page:Female Prose Writers of America.djvu/456

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MARY ELIZABETH MORAGNE.

portion of the colony which did not remain in Charleston found refuge on the banks of Little River, in that district, where they formed a township after the manner of the country which they had left. Her connexion with, and proximity to this settlement, gave much colouring to the feelings and pursuits of Miss Moragne, and in the introduction to an unfinished tale once contemplated on this subject, she gives a brief but beautiful history of this settlement, from the unpublished manuscript of which an extract is made, at the end of the present notice.

Among these settlers was Pierre Moragne, the grandfather of the subject of the present notice, who, having lost his wife on the passage round by Plymouth, returned to Charleston from New Bordeaux, and married Cecille Bayle, a beautiful “compagnon-du-voyage.” As his letters and journals testify, he was from his youth addicted to literary pursuits, and though the wants of a primitive settlement could not have been very favourable to such inclinations, he is remembered and spoken of as a character of great eccentricity, on account of having devoted the latter years of his life to the entire companionship of his pen. His writings were not appreciated by his immediate descendants; and of the many manuscripts which he left, prepared for publication, only a few remain. These evince considerable elegance of diction, great orthodoxy of sentiment, and much fervent piety. The youngest of his four sons, who inherited much of his philosophic and eccentric temperament, was the father of Miss Moragne. On the other side, the parentage is respectable, her maternal grandmother claiming descent from the Randolphs of Roanoke.

“The British Partisan,” her first publication, appeared, as a prize tale, in the “Augusta Mirror,” in 1838. It was well received, adding greatly to the extension of the periodical, besides being reprinted in book form.

In 1841, appeared the “Rencontre,” a short tale, embracing revolutionary incidents. Of this story, Mr. Thompson, the editor of the “Augusta Mirror,” remarked as follows:—“The ‘Rencontre’ is of that class of literary productions which we prize above all other orders of fiction. Illustrative as it is of our own history, descriptive of our own peculiar scenery, and abounding in sound reflections and truly elevated sentiment, we hold it worth volumes of the mawkish romance and sickly sentimentality which has of late become a merchantable commodity with a great portion of the literary world.”

About this time appeared also some smaller pieces, both in prose and verse. One of the latter was called “Joseph, a Scripture sketch, in three parts,” comprising more than a thousand lines of blank verse.

Near the close of the year 1841, the editor of the “Augusta Mirror” says:—“We have received the first part of a tale, entitled “The Walsingham Family, or, A Mother’s Ambition,” by a favourite lady corres-