1820-30.] JULIA L. DUM ON T. 45 been one weaiy battle-field, at last triumphed ! I cannot forbear transcribing one other passage from her daughter's letter to me, though it was not written for publication : "For many years she suffered with a nervous restlessness, which prevented her sleeping ; but the blessed promise, ' He giveth his beloved sleep,' seemed graven on her heart. Again and again have I found her with her eyes closed, hands clasped, and voice uttering, as in thanksgiving prayer, 'So he giveth his beloved sleep.'" Early in life Mrs. Dumont's mental powers attracted attention, and led many to presage for her a liigh literary position. But the cares of her household, her feeble health, and a distrust of her own abilities, prevented her from attempting more than fragmentary essays, tales, sketches, and poems. Wliile her productions were sought after with avidity by publishers able to pay for tliem, she felt so much desire to build up and sustain the local press and home literature, that she more usually would send her best songs to some new village paper, struggling for an existence, and with the communication, some woi'ds of cheer to the editor, to give him heart and hope. She was a frequent contributor to the Literary Gazette^ published at Cincin- nati. Several of the best poems she wrote were first printed in the Gazette, among which are "Poverty," "The Pauper to the Rich Man," and "The Orphan Emi- grant." In the years 1834, '35 and '36, she wrote frequently for the Cincinnati Mirror^ but chiefly in prose. She was awarded two prizes by the publishers of the Mirror for stories on Western themes. One of those stories, "Ashton Grey," with others, contributed to the Western Literary Journal, and the Ladies^ Repository, are collected in a volume entitled "Life Sketches."* Wliile examinmg the characteristics of Mrs. Dumont's style, we are impressed with its purity. She never wrote a Une calculated to lure one from virtue, to gild vice, or bedeck with flowers the road to death. There is virtue in all that lives from her pen — virtue the child of heaven — the true guide to success in life, and true title to fra- grant memory. Her teachings addressed to the young — for to them and for them she mainly wrote — inspire heroic virtue, a working faith, and conquering zeal. She had ever a word of hopefulness for the desponding, of encouragement for the toiling. Mrs. Dumont died on the second day of January, 1857 — mourned not only by a bereaved family and immediate neighbors, but by many far distant, to whom kind instructions had closely endeared her. It was understood, in 1835, that Mrs. Dumont had collected materials for a Life of Tecumseh. WTiether the purpose of such a work was executed we are not advised. We are informed, however, that her friends contemplate the publication of her poems in a volume. Mr. Dumont is yet a resident of Vevay — the center of a family of wide influence in Indiana. He was a member of the Indiana Legislature in 1822-23, and was afterward a candidate for the office of Governor, against David Wallace. Mr. Dumont has a worthy reputation in Indiana as a lawyer. His son, Ebenezer Dumont, who distinguished hunself as a Colonel in the Mexican Mtir, is now a citizen of Indi- anapolis.
- Life Sketclies, from Common Paths. Appletons, New York, 1856. 12mo. pp.286.
