Kitto, John (1804-1854), an industrious writer on biblical subjects. In his twelfth year made deaf for life by a fall. The Pictorial Bible, 1838, very valuable; Pictorial History of Palestine; The Lost Senses,-Deafness and Blindness; Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature; Daily Bible Readings. Lardner, Dionysius, LL.D. (1793-1859), a distinguished writer on physical science, born in Dublin. Hand-Books of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, four volumes; Museum of Science and Art; edition of Euclid. In 1830 he projected a sort of encyclopædia, consisting of original treatises, by the most eminent authors, upon History, Science, Economics, &c.; published under the name of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. Lee, Harriet (1766-1851), of Bristol. The Canterbury Tales, a series of romantic fictions: The New Peerage, and The Three Strangers, dramas. Lingard, John (1771–1851), historian. History of England, 8 volumes, from the invasion of the Romans to the abdication of James II., 1688. He was a "Roman Catholic" priest, and, of course, discussed the Reformation and kindred subjects from a hostile point of view; but, making this allowance, his History is a calm and learned narrative, and especially valuable in those chapters which deal with the Anglo-Saxons and their life. He also wrote The Antiquities of the Saxon Church, 2 volumes. Lockhart, John Gibson (1794-1854), of Lanarkshire, Scotland, for many years one of the chief supporters of Blackwood's Magazine, and editor of the Quarterly Review from 1826 till a short time before his death; author of Valerius, a tale of Trajan's time; Reginald Dalton, an English story; and of Ancient Spanish Ballads. But he is best known as the biographer of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott. The diary and letters of Scott are in this work interwoven with the story of his life, in that finished, graceful style of which Lockhart was a thorough master. Luttrell, Henry (1770-1851). Advice to Julia, a poem; A Letter in Rhyme; Crockford House. He was a favorite in the circle of "Holland House;" and the poet Rogers speaks highly of his conversational powers. Maltby, Edward (1770-1856), Bishop of Chichester and Durham. Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Religion; several volumes of Sermons. Mantell, Gideon Algernon (1788–1852), an English physician. The Fossils of the South Downs, 1822; Wonders of Geology, 1833,-“perhaps the most popular geological work ever written by an Englishman;" Medals of Creation, or First Lessons in Geology, 1844. Maxwell, William H. (died 1850), captain in the army; novelist and historian. Stories of Waterloo; Wild Sports of the West; Hector O'Halloran; Adventures of Captain Blake, &c. Milford, Mary Russell (1789-1855), novelist. Our Village, 1824; Bedford Regis, 1835; Atherton, and other Tales, 1854, &c. Of her dramatic works the most important were-Julian, first performed in 1823; Foscari, 1826; Rienzi, 1828. But she is most known and probably most valued for her charming work, Recollections of a Literary Life, or Books, Places, and People, published in 1851, in three volumes. It is filled with just and beautiful thoughts upon some of the first authors in our language, both English and American, and with selections from their works. Mitford, Rev. John (1782-1859), a profound and varied scholar, for merly an editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. Works of Gray, with a Memoir, 1814; Editor of Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Butler, Prior, Swift, Young, Parnell, Goldsmith, and Falconer, with Memoirs, for the Aldine Poets; Life of Milton; Miscellaneous Poems, &c. Montgomery, Rev. Robert (1807-1855), minister of Percy Street Episcopal Chapel, London, and an author of several volumes of poetry, which is now but little read, though very popular in its day. His Omnipresence of the Deity (1828) passed through twenty-six editions. In the April number (1830) of the Edinburgh is a review-altogether too severe of his poems, by Macaulay. Morgan, Lady (1781–1859), novelist, of Dublin, whose maiden name was Sydney Owenson, was married to Sir Charles Morgan, M.D. Works: The Lay of the Irish Harp, 1801, in which is the popular song of Kate Kearney; The Wild Irish Girl; O'Donnell, a National Tale, 1814; Florence Macarthy, an Irish Tale, 1818; The O'Briens und the O'Flahertys, 1827, &c. But all her works are now little read or known. Parry, Edward, Bart. (1790-1855), traveller. First, Second, and Third Journals of a Voyage to Discover a Northwest Passage, 1817-1826. Captain Parry has handed down an undying name for hardy and successful enterprise. Phillips, Samuel (1815-1854), London. Literary Essays in the Times; Caleb Stukeley, a novel. His Essays have been published in two volumes. Porter, Jane (1776-1850), novelist, sister of Anna Maria. Two romances, Thaddeus of Warsaw, 1803, and The Scottish Chiefs, 1810, both once highly popular. Reach, Angus Bethune (1821-1856), Inverness; reporter and critic in the Morning Chronicle. Clement Lorimer, and Leonard Lindsay, novels; The Natural History of Bores and Humbugs; The Comic Bradshaw; Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone. Shelley, Mary (1797-1851), novelist; Miss Godwin,-afterwards the poet's second wife. Frankenstein, 1817; after the death of her husband she produced Valpergor; The Last Man; The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, and other works of fiction; and also edited and wrote prefaces to her husband's Poetical Works, and edited his Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, 1840. Warburton, Eliot (1810–1852), traveller, novelist, and historical writer. The Crescent and the Cross, or Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel; Hochelaga (an Indian name for Canada), or England in the New World; Reginald Hastings, and Darien, novels; Memoir of the Earl of Peterborough. Wardlaw, Ralph (1779–1853), Independent minister at Glasgow. Dis courses on the Socinian Controversy, in answer to Mr. Yates, the Unitarian minister at Glasgow; Eight Lectures in Defence of Congregationalism; Unitarianism incapable of Vindication; Congregational Independency (in contradistinction to Episcopacy and Presbyterianism) the Church Polity of the New Testament; and numerous other able theological works. Wilson, George (1818-1859), Edinburgh; chemist and lecturer. Lives of John Reid, and Henry Cavendish; Five Gateways of Knowledge (popular science); Life of Sir Edward Forbes (the eminent naturalist, 1815-1854), completed by Geikie. Seventh Decade. ANNA JAMESON, 1796-1860. No work pretending to give an account of the prominent English authors of the nineteenth century would be complete without the name of this charming and instructive writer. Accident, she says, made her an author; and she thus expounds some of HER AIMS IN WRITING. It is not by exposing folly and scorning fools that we make other people wiser or ourselves happier. But to soften the heart by images and examples of the kindly and generous affections,— to show how the human soul is disciplined and perfected by suffering, to prove how much of possible good may exist in things evil and perverted,-how much hope there is for those who despair,-how much comfort for those whom a heartless world has taught to contemn both others and themselves, and to put barriers to the hard, cold, selfish, mocking, and levelling spirit of the day. This high and noble aim she successfully carried out in many of her works, but in none more than in that by which she is best known,-Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, and Historical. These are designed to illustrate the Female Characters of Shakspeare; and seldom has a commentator caught more perfectly the spirit of an author, or conveyed to the reader a more exact or a more vivid impression of his genius and scope. It is more than interesting it is fascinating; for, wherever we take it up, we find it not easy to lay it down. "The secret of this excellence of Mrs. Jameson's book we take to be the fact that it is a woman-a very woman-who undertakes the task: none so well able as those to approve or condemn, as one who, being of a like nature, has in herself had the same feelings excited in her own heart during her life,who, as lover, wife, mother, and friend, has in turn acted all these parts in real history, and has not gone to other commentators for her criticism." In her Essays, Mrs. Jameson has an admirable chapter on our own countryman, Washington Allston, whose peculiar genius and power she well appreciates; for, an artist herself, she could enter into an artist's hopes and fears, his disappointments and his triumphs. In her chapter, in the same book, entitled "Woman's Mission and Woman's Position," she takes a plain, practical, common-sense view of that hackneyed theme on which so much nonsense has been 1 I may add prolific, too; for her mine of in- | and near London; History of the Early Italian tellectual wealth seems to be inexhaustible. The following are the chief of her published works:-Diary of an Ennuyée; Characteristics of Women; Memoirs and Essays illus-¦ trative of Art, Literature, and Social Morals; Memoirs of Female Sovereigns; Loves of the Poets; Hand-Book to Public Picture-Galleries in Painters; Social Life in Germany; Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art; Companion to Private Picture-Galleries. A complete edition, and a very beautiful one, of all her works, in ten volumes, has been published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston. 2 Powell's Living Authors of England. spoken and written. In short, in most of her works she aims to be practical,"to bring the flowers of art and genius to glorify our common household lives, and render them more sweet by the beatification." Mrs. Jameson was born in Dublin in 1796. Her maiden name was Anna Murphy, and her father was an artist: hence her own fine taste and skill in pen-drawing; for she is generally esteemed one of the first art-critics England has produced. She was married in 1823 to Mr. Robert Jameson, a barrister, and who subsequently filled the office of Vice-Chancellor of Canada. The marriage was not a happy one, and was practically, though not legally, dissolved soon after its celebration. From that time she devoted her life to literature, and died March 17, 1860. PORTIA. Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful qualities which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female characters; but, besides the dignity, the sweetness, and tenderness which should distinguish her sex generally, she is individualized by qualities peculiar to herself; by her high mental powers, her enthusiasm of temperament, her decision of purpose, and her buoyancy of spirit. These are innate: she has other distinguishing qualities more external, and which are the result of the circumstances in which she is placed. Thus, she is the heiress of a princely name and countless wealth; a train of obedient pleasures have ever waited round her; and from infancy she has breathed an atmosphere redolent of perfume and blandishment. Accordingly, there is a commanding grace, a high-bred, airy elegance, a spirit of magnificence in all that she does and says, as one to whom splendor had been familiar from her very birth. She treads as though her footsteps had been among marble palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements of jasper and porphyry,-amid gardens full of statues and flowers and fountains and haunting music. She is full of penetrative wisdom and genuine tenderness and lively wit; but, as she has never known want or grief or fear or disappointment, her wisdom is without a touch of the sombre or the sad; her affections are all mixed up with faith, hope, and joy; and her wit has not a particle of malevolence or causticity. But all the finest parts of Portia's character are brought to bear in the trial scene. There she shines forth in all her divine self. Her intellectual powers, her elevated sense of religion, her high honorable principles, her best feelings as a woman, are all displayed. She maintains at first a calm self-command, as one sure of carrying her point in the end; yet the painful, heartthrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the whole court, until suspense verges upon agony, is not contrived for effect merely: it is necessary and inevitable. She has two objects in view: to deliver her husband's friend, and to maintain her husband's honor by the discharge of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. It is evident that she would rather owe the safety of Antonio to any other thing than the legal quibble with which her cousin Bellario has armed her, and which she reserves as a last resource. Thus, all the speeches addressed to Shylock in the first instance are either direct or indirect experiments on his temper and feelings. She must be understood, from the beginning to the end, as examining with intense anxiety the effect of her own words on his mind and countenance; as watching for that relenting spirit which she hopes to awaken either by reason or persuasion. She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in that matchless piece of eloquence which, with an irresistible and solemn pathos, falls upon the heart like "gentle dew from heaven:" but in vain; for that blessed dew drops not more fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert than do these heavenly words upon the ear of Shylock. She next attacks his avarice: "Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee!" Then she appeals, in the same breath, both to his avarice and his pity: "Be merciful! Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond." All that she says afterwards, her strong expressions, which are calculated to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves,— the reflections she interposes,-her delays and circumlocution, to give time for any latent feeling of commiseration to display itself, all, all are premeditated, and tend in the same manner to the object she has in view. Thus,— "You must prepare your bosom for his knife. These two speeches, though addressed apparently to Antonio, are spoken at Shylock, and are evidently intended to penetrate his bosom. In the same spirit she asks for the balance to weigh the pound of flesh; and entreats of Shylock to have a surgeon ready: "Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, Portia. It is not so expressed,--but what of that? So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to resign all hope, or to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the bosom of the Jew, that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, to speak for himself. His gentle, yet manly, resignation,-the |