121
panion; let it henceforth be yours: may it teach you, as it has taught me, the blessed hope in which I die. We shall meet again in a happier and better world. Henrietta, dear and kind friend, think sometimes of the peace and faith which support me even in death. Father, my beloved father, could I leave you as I do, with words of comfort, but for that divine belief whose truth is immortal?"***"Not in vain have those divine words been spoken; I die in their glorious faith, and in their cheering hope."
We are left to rejoice in, rather than regret, the early death of the gentle, the lovely, the Christian Constance. We feel that it was far happier for her trusting though wounded spirit to find its home of rest far away from the heart-withering realities of what, to her, was a wearying world:—
"Then hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things,—
Her quiet is secure;
No thorns can pierce her tender feet,
Whose life was like the violet sweet,
And like the jasmine pure.
Her nature to its inmost part
Had faith refined, and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given,—
Calm as the dew-drop's, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose's breast,
Till it exhales to heaven."
Wordsworth.
The other characters pourtrayed in these volumes have each their own separate interest. To many readers the real and celebrated personages of the time, skilfully introduced and appropriately delineated, will be most attractive. The wit, so piquant and renowned, of Lady Wortley Montague; the acute susceptibility and bitter self-regard of Pope, alike the poet and egotist; the political generalship and predominant qualities of
L
