146
figure the conduct of the hero; but he is throughout distinguished by a true patriot's disinterested love for his country, and chivalrous devotedness to its welfare;—a noble example of one who esteemed no sacrifice of personal ease, feeling or interest, too costly to offer on the altar of the public good,—one who leaves on the mind the certain conviction that patriotism is indeed something more than a name, whenever it finds a shrine in such characters as Castruccio Castrucani.
A series of papers, on several of the female characters in Sir Walter Scott's works, were sent over from Cape Coast Castle. Not only are these papers invested with the deep interest of being the depositories of some of their gifted writer's latest recorded sentiments, but their own intrinsic value, derived both from their intellectual and moral tone of thought and feeling, increases even the above-mentioned mournful charm. They are, indeed, what could be wished for the author's own sake;—they are what might be gladly accepted as earnests of the innate and growing strength of her mental character,*[1] left to its own resources and solitude of thought; they are also evidences of the gradual inclination of her moral judgment to a higher standard of right and wrong, both in feeling and conduct, than is to be
- ↑ * Of the progressive change in her mental tastes and habits of thought, L. E. L. herself remarks, in comparing her former with her present perusal of Scott's works: "I can remember I devoured the story keenly, dwelt on all that partook of sentiment, and never questioned the depth of any remark. I now find I take chief interest in what brings out character,**and am every now and then tempted to analyze the truth of a deduction. I think more over what I am reading, and delight more in connecting the world of fiction with that of reality."—Blanchard's life of L. E. L., vol. ii.
