the daughter of a Presbyterian
divine, wrote graceful verses, but is principally known by her numerous
plays. Among these, which include thirteen _Plays on the Passions_, and
thirteen _Miscellaneous Plays_, those best known are _De Montfort_ and
_Basil_--both tragedies, which have received high praise from Sir Walter
Scott. Her _Ballads_ and _Metrical Legends_ are all spirited and
excellent; and her _Hymns_ breathe the very spirit of devotion. Very
popular during her life, and still highly estimated by literary critics,
her works have given place to newer and more favorite authors, and have
already lost interest with the great world of readers.

OTHER WRITERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

_Thomas Warton_, 1728-1790: he was Professor of Poetry and of Ancient
History at Oxford, and, for the last five years of his life,
poet-laureate. The student of English Literature is greatly indebted to
him for his _History of English Poetry_, which he brings down to the early
part of the seventeenth century. No one before him had attempted such a
task; and, although his work is rather a rare mass of valuable materials
than a well articulated history, it is of great value for its collected
facts, and for its suggestions as to where the scholar may pursue his
studies farther.

_Joseph Warton_, 1722-1800: a brother of Thomas Warton; he published
translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the
_Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil_, which is valued for its exactness and
perspicuity.

_Frances Burney_, (Madame D'Arblay,) 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr.
Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself
and the world by her novel of _Evelina_, which at once took rank among the
standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more
truthful in the delineation of existing manners, and in the expression of
sentiment. She afterwards published _Cecilia_ and several other tales,
which, although excellent, were not as good as the first. She led an
almost menial life, as one of the ladies in waiting upon Queen Charlotte;
but the genuine fame achieved by her writings in some degree relieved the
sense of thraldom, from which she happily escaped with a pension. The
novels of Madame D'Arblay are the intermediate step between the novels of
Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and the Waverly novels of Walter
Scott. They are entirely free from any taint of immorality; and they were
among