creature of air and light from her husband's

arms,

"And left him on this earth disconsolate!"

That the verses she inspired are still popular, is owing to the power of truth, which has here given lasting interest to what were otherwise mediocre. Lord Lyttelton was not much of a poet; but his love was real; its object was real, beautiful, and good: thus buoyed up, in spite of his own faults and the change of taste, he has survived the rest of the rhyming gentry of his time, who wrote epigrams on fans and shoe-buckles,-songs to the Duchess of this and the Countess of thatand elegies to Miras, Delias, and Chloes.

Lucy Fortescue, daughter of Hugh Fortescue, Esq. of Devonshire, and grand-daughter of Lord Aylmer, was born in 1718. She was about twoand-twenty when Lord Lyttelton first became attached to her, and he was in his thirty-first year: in person and character she realized all he had imagined in his "Advice to Belinda."*

See his Poems.

Without, all beauty-and all peace within.

Blest is the maid, and worthy to be blest,

Whose soul, entire by him she loves possest,
Feels every vanity in fondness lost,

And asks no power, but that of pleasing most :

Her's is the bliss, in just return to prove

The honest warmth of undissembled love;

For her, inconstant man might cease to range,

And gratitude forbid desire to change.

To the more peculiar attributes of her sex— beauty and tenderness,-she united all the advantages of manner,—

Polite as she in courts had ever been;

and wit-the only wit that becomes a woman,

That temperately bright

With inoffensive light

All pleasing shone, nor ever past

The decent bounds that wisdom's sober hand

And sweet benevolence's mild command,

And bashful modesty before it cast.

Her education was uncommon for the time; for then, a woman, who to youth and elegance and beauty united a familiar acquaintance with the

:

per

literature of her own country, French, Italian, and the classics, was distinguished among her sex. She had many suitors, and her choice was equally to her own honour and that of her lover. Lord Lyttelton was not rich; his father, Sir Thomas Lyttelton, being still alive. He had haps never dreamed of the coronet which late in life descended on his brow and far from possessing a captivating exterior, he was extremely plain in person, "of a feeble, ill-compacted figure, and a meagre sallow countenance.”* But talents, elegance of mind, and devoted affection, had the influence they ought to have, and generally do possess, in the mind of a woman. We are told that our sex's" earliest, latest care,―our heart's supreme ambition," is " to be fair." Even Madame de Stael would have given half her talents for half Madame Recamier's beauty! and why? because the passion of our sex is to please and to be loved; and men have taught us, that in nine cases out of ten we are valued merely for

* Johnson's Life of Lord Lyttelton.

our personal advantages: they can scarce believe that women, generally speaking, are so indifferent to the mere exterior of a man,-that it has so little power to interest their vanity or affections. Let there be something for their hearts to honour, and their weakness to repose on, and feeling and imagination supply the rest. In this respect, the

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gentle lady married to the Moor," who saw her lover's visage in his mind, is the type of our sex ;the instances are without number. The Frenchman triumphs a little too much en petit maitre, who sings, Grands Dieux, combien elle est jolie !

Et moi, je suis, je suis si laid!

He might have spared his exultation: if he had sense, and spirit, and tenderness, he had all that is necessary to please a woman, who is worthy to be pleased.

Personal vanity in a woman, however misdirected, arises from the idea, that our power with those we wish to charm, is founded on beauty as a female attribute; it is never indulged but with a reference to another-it is a means, not an end. Personal vanity in a man is sheer unmingled

egotism, and an unfailing subject of ridicule and contempt with all women-be they wise or foolish.

To return from this long tirade to Lucy Fortescue. After the usual fears and hopes, the impatience and anxious suspense of a long courtship,* Lord Lyttelton won his Lucy, and thought himself blest-and was so. Five revolving years of happiness seemed pledges of its continuance, and "the wheels of pleasure moved without the aid of hope:”—it was at the conclusion of the fifth year, he wrote the lines on the anniversary of his marriage, in which he exults in his felicity, and in the possession of a treasure, which even then, though he knew it not, was fading in his arms.

Whence then this strange increase of joy?
He, only he can tell, who matched like me,
(If such another happy man there be,)

* See in his Poems,--the lines beginning

And

On Thames's banks a gentle youth

For Lucy sighed with matchless truth,

Your shape, your lips, your eyes are still the same.