criticism had not begun its deadly work. We had not to go far for truth
then. It was quite unnecessary to seek it--at any rate, so it seemed to
us--at the bottom of a well; there it was right underneath one's
nose--before one's very eyes in the printed pages of the printed book.

Agnes Strickland did all she could to confer reputation on her native
county. The tall, dark, self-possessed lady from Reydon Hall was a lion
everywhere. On one occasion she visited the House of Lords, just after
she had written a violent letter against Lord Campbell, charging him with
plagiarism. Campbell tells us he had a conversation with her, which
speedily turned her into a friend. He adds: 'I thought Brougham would
have died with envy when I told him the result of my interview, and
Ellenborough, who was sitting by, lifted his hands in admiration.
Brougham had thrown me a note across the table, saying: "So you know your
friend Miss Strickland has come to hear you."' Miss Strickland often
visited Alison, the historian, at Possil House. He says of her that she
had strong talents of a masculine rather than feminine
character--indefatigable perseverance, and that ardour in whatever
pursuit she engaged in without which no one could undergo similar
fatigue. On one occasion she was descanting on the noble feeling of
Queen Mary, 'That may all be very true, Miss Strickland,' replied the
historian; 'but unfortunately she had an awkward habit of burning
people--she brought 239 men, women, and children to the stake in a reign
which did not extend beyond a few years!' 'Oh yes,' was her reply, 'it
was terrible, dreadful, but it was the fault of the age--the temper of
the times; Mary herself was everything that is noble and heroic.' Such
was her feminine tendency to hero-worship. Another tendency of a
feminine character was her love of talking. 'She did,' instances Sir
Archibald, 'not even require an answer or a sign of mutual intelligence;
it was enough if the one she was addressing simply remained passive. One
day when I was laid up at Possil on my library sofa from a wound in the
knee, she was kind enough to sit with me for two hours, and was really
very entertaining, from the number of anecdotes she remembered of queens
in the olden time. When she left the room she expressed herself kindly
to Mrs. Alison as to the agreeable time she had spent, and the latter
said to me on coming in, "What did you get to say to Miss Strickland all
this