ness of a departed friend, with the expression of countenance, the dress, the position, and the circumstances with which the memory of that friend was associated.
Drawing is, unfortunately, one of those accomplishments which are too frequently given up at the time of life when they might be most useful to others, when they might really be turned to good account, in that early expansion and developement of mind, which belong exclusively to woman in her maternal capacity; but as this view of the subject belongs more properly to a later stage of the present work, we will pass on to ask, In what degree of estimation poetry is, and ought to be held, by the daughters of England in the present day?
There have been eras in our history, when poetry assumed a more than reasonable sway over the female mind, when an acquaintance with the Muses was considered essential to a polished education, and when the very affectation of poetic feeling proved how high a value was attached to the reality. It would be useless now to speak of the absurdities into which the young and sensitive were often betrayed by this extreme of public taste. Such times are gone by, and the opposite extreme is now the tendency of popular feeling. It is not to be wondered at that this should be the case with men, because as a nation, our fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers are becoming more and more involved in the necessity of providing for mere animal existence. No wonder, then, that in our teeming cities, poetry should be compelled to hide her diminished head; or, that even, pursuing the man of business home to his suburban villa, she should leave him to his stuffed arm-chair, in the aims, of that heavy, after-dinner sleep, which so frequently succeeds to his short and busy day of unremitting struggle and excitement. Nor is this all. If poetry should seek the quiet fields, as in the days of their pastoral beauty,
