of those highly gifted productions, which have not only thrown an additional beauty over female nature, but have, doubtless, advanced in many a meditative bosom the sacred causes of religion and virtue.
Apart from all intercourse with literary society, and acquainted only by name and occasional correspondence with any of the distinguished authors of whom England has to boast, Mrs Hemans, during the progress of her poetical career, had to contend with more and greater obstacles than usually stand in the path of female authorship. To her praise be it spoken, therefore, that it was to her own merit alone, wholly independent of adventitious circumstances, that she was indebted for the extensive share of popularity which her compositions ultimately obtained. From this studious seclusion were given forth the two poems which first permanently elevated her among the writers of her age,—the "Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy," and "Modern Greece."
