A HAPPY HALF CENTURY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2039, 26 March 1907, Page 4

A HAPPY HALF CENTURY.

Writing in Harper’s Agnes Ropplier tolls amusingly of the ease with which fame came to the literary women of the latter half of tho eighteenth century." Those were the days to live in,” says Miss Repplier, “and

sensible people made baste to be borni in time. The close of the oigliteentl century saw quiet country families tearing the freshly published ‘Mysteries of Adolpho’ into a dozen parts because no one could wait his turn to read the book. All England held its breath while Emily explored the haunted chambers of her prisonhouse. The beginning of the nineteenth century found Mrs. Opie en-

throned as a peerless liovcl-writei and the Edinburgh Review praisin ‘Adeline Mowbray, or Mother an

j-aughter,’ as the most pathetic story in the English language. Indeed, one sensitive gentleman wrote to its authoress that ho had lain awake all night, bathed in tears, after reading it. About this time, ton, we began to hear ‘the mellow tones of Felicia Homans,’ whom Christopher North reverently admired, and who, we are assured, found her way to all hearts that were open to ‘the holy sympathies of religion and virtue.’ Murray's heart was so open that be pa id 200 tj-nme-.is — — u —r— r*—L onnnand Miss Edgeworth considered that the ‘Siege of Valencia’ contained the most beautiful poetry she had read for years. Finally Miss Jane Porter looms darkly on the

horizon, with novels five volumes long. All the Porters worked on a heroic scale. Anna Maria’s stories were, if possible, still lengthier than Jane’s; and their brother Robert painted on a single canvas, ‘The Storming of Soringapatam,’ seven hundred life-sized figures. ‘Thaddous of Warsaw’ and ‘The Scottish Chiefs’ were books familiar to our infancy. They stretched vastly and vaguely over many tender years—stories after tho order of Melcliisodec without beginning and without end. But when our grandmothers were young and my chosen period had still many years to run, they were read on two continents and in many tongues. In our own country her novels were exceedingly popular, and her American admirers sent her a rosewood armchair in token of appreciation and esteem. It is possible she would have preferred a royalty on her books; but the armchair was graciously accepted, and a pen-and-ink sketch in an album of celebrities represents Miss Porter seated majestically upon the cushions, ‘in tho quiet and lady-like occupation of taking a cup of coffee.’ ”