XLII.—MISS HARRIET MARTINEAU.
"Ah! welcome home, Martineau, turning statistics
To stories, and puzzling your philogamistics;
I own I don't see any more than Dame Nature,
Why love should await dear good Harriet's dictature,
But great is earth's want of some love-legislature."
So, in his Blue Stocking Revels, or the Feast of the Violets, sings genial Leigh Hunt, whom we summon once more, as Master of the ceremonies, to usher in another of the fairer members of this, our "Gallery." Welcome, once and again, Miss Martineau; who, though you may rather belong to the Marthas, who are "careful about many things," than the Maries who choose "the better part," have yet earned our respect and gratitude for a long and consistent life of labour, whose sole object was the improvement and benefit of your generation.
Miss Martineau was born at Norwich, June 12th, 1802, and was descended from a French family, which settled in that city, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and carried on there the manufacture of silk for several generations. She was the youngest of eight children, and when her father, who was supposed to be wealthy, fell into commercial difficulties, she determined to cultivate a talent for composition, which she had early shown, and bravely turned to literature as a means of independent support. Her first appearance in print was about the year 1821, in the organ of the Unitarian body, The Monthly Repository, in which Talfourd first made essay of his nascent power. In 1823, she published a volume of Devotional Exercises for Young People; in 1824, her Christmas Day; and in 1825, the sequel. The Friend. In 1826, appeared The Rioters, and Principle and Practice; and in 1827, The Turn-Out, and Mary Campbell. In 1828, we have a tale, My Servant Rachel; a series of "Tracts," on questions concerning the operative classes; and a sequel to Principle and Practice. In 1830, a work entitled Traditions of Palestine enabled her to present a series of interesting and graphic sketches of the Holy Land at the time of Christ. In 1830, the committee of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association offered premiums for the best essays on the "Introduction and Promotion of Christian Unitarianism among the Roman Catholics, the Jews, and the Mahometans." The comparative merits of the competitive essays were decided upon by three distinct sets of arbitrators; and by each set, the prize was awarded to the essay written by Miss Martineau. One is entitled The Faith as unfolded by many Prophets; the second, Providence, as manifested through Israel; and the third,—which I have alone read, and which is certainly an able performance,—The Essential Faith of the Universal Church deduced from the Sacred Records (1831, 8vo, pp. 88).
It was about this same time that Miss Martineau, stimulated by the perusal of Mrs. Marcet's Conversations, conceived the idea of writing a series of tales, of monthly issue, with the object of exemplifying the leading doctrines of Political Economy by imaginative illustration. She submitted her plan to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; but the
