enius in a remarkable degree, though her different position and less
leisurely circumstances as wife of a country clergyman and mother of a
large family, devoted to the important duties of both callings, probably
prevented the full development and manifestation of her fine
intellectual gifts. She was a singularly modest and diffident person,
and this as well as her more serious avocations may have stood in the
way of her doing justice to her uncommon abilities, of which, however,
there is abundant evidence in her drawings and groups of modeled
figures, and in the five volumes of charming stories called "Tales of a
Chaperon," and "Tales of the Peerage and the Peasantry," which were not
published with her name but simply as edited by Lady Dacre, to whom
their authorship was, I think, generally attributed. The mental gifts of
Lady Dacre appear to be heirlooms, for they have been inherited for
three generations, and in each case by her female descendants.

The gentleman who accompanied her to her house, on the evening I
referred to in my letter, was the Honorable James Stuart Wortley,
youngest son of the Earl of Wharncliffe, who was prevented by failure of
health alone from reaching the very highest honors of the legal
profession, in which he had already attained the rank of
solicitor-general, when his career was prematurely closed by disastrous
illness. At the time of my first acquaintance with him he was a very
clever and attractive young man, and though intended for a future Lord
Chancellor he condescended to sing sentimental songs very charmingly.

Of my excellent and amiable friend, the Reverend William Harness, a
biography has been published which tells all there is to be told of his
uneventful life and career. Endowed with a handsome face and sweet
countenance and very fine voice, he was at one time a fashionable London
preacher, a vocation not incompatible, when he exercised it, with a
great admiration for the drama. He was an enthusiastic frequenter of the
theater, published a valuable edition of Shakespeare, and wrote two
plays in blank verse which had considerable merit; but his pre-eminent
gift was goodness, in which I have known few people who surpassed him.
Objecting from conscientious motives to hold more than one living, he
received from his friend, Lord Lansdowne, an appointment in the Home
Office, the duties of which did not interfere with those of his clerical
profession. He was of a delightfully sunny, c