beams, and know not the meaning of evil. Their genius conjectures
it; and in that there is no sin. But their genius loves best to image
forth good, for 'tis the blessing of their life, its power, and its
glory; and hence, when they write poetry, it is religious, sweet, soft,
solemn, and divine.

Observe, however--to prevent all mistakes--that we speak but of British
women--and of British women of the present age. Of the German Fair Sex
we know little or nothing; but daresay that the Baroness la Motte Fouque
is a worthy woman, and as vapid as the Baron. Neither make we any
allusion to Madame Genlis, or other illustrious Lemans of the French
school, who charitably adopted their own natural daughters, while other
less pious ladies, who had become mothers without being wives, sent
theirs to Foundling Hospitals. We restrict ourselves to the Maids and
Matrons of this Island--and of this Age; and as it is of poetical genius
that we speak--we name the names of Joanna Baillie, Mary Tighe, Felicia
Hemans, Caroline Bowles, Mary Howitt, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and the
Lovely Norton; while we pronounce several other sweet-sounding Christian
surnames in whispering under-tones of affection, almost as inaudible as
the sound of the growing of grass on a dewy evening.

Corinna and Sappho must have been women of transcendant genius so to
move Greece. For though the Greek character was most impressible and
combustible, it was so only to the finest finger and fire. In that
delightful land dunces were all dumb. Where genius alone spoke and sung
poetry, how hard to excel! Corinna and Sappho did excel--the one, it is
said, conquering Pindar--and the other all the world but Phaon.

But our own Joanna has been visited with a still loftier inspiration.
She has created tragedies which Sophocles--or Euripides--nay, even
Aeschylus himself, might have feared, in competition for the crown. She
is our Tragic Queen; but she belongs to all places as to all times; and
Sir Walter truly said--let them who dare deny it--that he saw her Genius
in a sister shape sailing by the side of the Swan of Avon. Yet Joanna
loves to pace the pastoral mead; and then we are made to think of the
tender dawn, the clear noon, and the bright meridian of her life, passed
among the tall cliffs of the silver Calder, and in the lonesome heart of
the dark Strathaven Muirs.

Plays on the Passions! "How absurd!" said one philosophical writer.
"This will never do!" It has done--p