the letters of any well-educated gentlewoman of moderate abilities, who thought it worth while to journalize on a summer's ramble. About this period Miss Fuller resided for a time in New York, where she edited the literary department of the "Tribune," contributing papers on various subjects, but chiefly critical notices of the works of distinguished authors, for which task both education and genius seemed peculiarly to fit her.
In 1845, her most important work, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," was published in New York. It is evident that a strong wish to benefit her own sex, moved her heart and guided her pen. One male critic, whose title of Reverend should have inspired more charity, has flippantly remarked, that Miss Fuller wrote because she was vexed at not being a man.—Not so. Though discontented with her woman's lot, she does not seek to put aside any duty, or lower the standard of virtue in order to escape the pressure of real or imagined evils in her position. Nor was it for herself that she sought freedom; she wanted a wider field of usefulness for her sex; and unfortunately for her own happiness, which would have been secured by advancing that of others, she mistook the right path of progress. With her views we are far from coinciding; she abandoned the only safe guide in her search for truth. Whatever be the genius or intellectual vigour possessed by a woman, these avail her nothing without that moral strength which is nowhere to be obtained, save from the aid God has given us in His revealed Word. Experience and observation prove that the greater the intellectual force, the greater and more fatal the errors into which women fall who wander from the Rock of Salvation, Christ the Saviour, who, "made of a woman," is peculiarly the stay and support of the sex.
But though Miss Fuller's theories led to mazes and wanderings, her mind was honest in its search for truth, and with much that is visionary and impracticable, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" contains many useful hints and noble sentiments.
In 1844, a selection from her contributions to various periodicals was issued, under the title of "Papers on Literature and Art;" a work much admired by those who profess to understand the new thoughts, or new modes of expressing old apothegms, which the transcendental philosophy has introduced. It was her last published work. In the summer of 1845, Miss Fuller accompanied some dear friends to Europe; after visiting this country, Scotland, France, and passing through Italy to Rome, they spent the ensuing winter in the "Eternal City," where she continued, while her friends returned to America. In the following year Miss Fuller was married, in Rome, to Giovanni, Marquis d'Ossoli, an Italian. She remained in Rome till the summer of 1849, when, after the surrender of that city to the French, the Marquis d'Ossoli and his wife, having taken an active part in the Republican government, considered it necessary, to emigrate. They went to Florence, and remained there till June, 1850, when they determined to go to the United States, and accordingly embarked at Leghorn, in the brig Elizabeth, bound for New York. The deplorable and melancholy catastrophe is well known; the ship, as she neared the American coast, encountered a fearful storm, and on the morning of the 8th. of August was wrecked on Fire Island, south of Long Island; and the D'Ossoli family—husband, wife, infant son, and nurse—all perished!
