From Bentley's Miscellany. |be gathered from the record already quoted, Maria was less rigidly trained, according to system, than some of her brothers and sisters; one of whom was and others, it may be divined, on plans which her brought up according to the canons of Rousseau, own reference to her father's work on 66 Practical A WHEN Considering the imaginative literature of England, during the past half century, the historian to come especially if there be anything of the Salique law-giver in his composition-will possi- Education" explicitly points out, were, in many bly be surprised by the value of the contributions of their details, proved to be untenable, if not falmade to it by women. It is pleasant, meanwhile, lacious. for contemporary chroniclers to reflect how many given for an originality to develop itself, which a Time and space may thus have been among these have been allowed by "Time and Change" to live to the full enjoyment of their vir- girl has already gathered much, and felt more, ere more formal training might have discouraged. tuous and bright reputation:-to have seen one she arrives at her teens; and though eighty-two fashion pass and another succeed, and the illustrations of truth and beauty which they originated, as years ago precocity was less common than it is in clear and as little likely to wane as at the mo- chimerical to presume that Imagination must even our time of electrically-diffused intelligence, it is not ment of being given to the world, amidst all the then have begun to stir-nay, too, and taste to select fevers and tremors of virgin authorship. The au- have already awakened in one whose character thoress of the " Canterbury Tales" has lived to throughout life has displayed a singular union of become a classic-Jane Porter, to read the long vivacity with temperance, of observation with realist of historical novels of which her own and her soning power. Then, too, it may have been good sister's were the predecessors; Joanna Baillie, for the authoress that Ireland, with its strange, though pathetic humorous life, came upon her as a contrast, not as a matter of course. She might otherwise hardly have so shrewdly noticed all the odd discrepancies and striking individualities of its Sir Condy Rackrents and its Sir Terence O'Fays;she might have treated that as natural, inevitable, and not worth the painting, which proved to be a vein of rare interest and peculiar nature. Retired as noontide dew, delightful example among those who have been the equal and chosen friends of men of genius, and yet have kept, not acted the keeping of their womanly simplicity-has been searched out on her Hampstead Hill, by the voices of the worthiest of the world bringing her their precious and honest tributes. And here, now that we are at the end of a period of novelists-now that the spasmodic manufacturers of horrors have had their day-now that the Silver Fork people have "said their say," and can hardly find a reader in the porter's black chair, or in the drowsy Abigail, who sits up waiting for the return of Lady Anne from Almack's-now that the last school, that of " The Wooden Ladle," with its tales of jails and hospital anatomies, and garret graces, and kennel kindlinesses, begins to tire, and its sentimentality to be proved "a hollow thing,' -here do we find ourselves returning to the Good Fairy who delighted us in the young days when a "book was a book,”—being called to the pleasant duty of pronouncing an éloge (as they say in France) upon the authoress of "Castle Rackrent," and the "Absentee," and "Vivian," and " Basil Lowe," and Harry and Lucy,"-the excellent and incomparable Maria Edgeworth. It was by her "Castle Rackrent" that Miss Edgeworth was first introduced to the public, and took at once her place in the foremost rank of female novelists. Though the eminent personages of her chronicle might very possibly not really be more individual than Miss Burney's Braughtons, or Madame Duval, or Briggs, or the "tornish" people (as the authoress called them) in " Cecilia," they arrested English attention by their strange over-sea air. It was at once felt that we of Britain have nothing so charming, so savage, so humorous, so pathetic, so endearing, and so provoking, as the society and manners depicted. Most curious, too, is it now to read the apology of the artist for offer|ing such a picture, on the plea that Ireland must, owing to the union, presently lose its identity, and that the Sir Kits and Thadys must become, like other British subjects, dull, thriving, country gentlemen, and tame followers. Most curious!-seeOur éloge, however, shall not be, "after the ing that there is no more puzzling sign of the manner of the French," a piece of unmitigated times-their intellectual enlargement and gracious flattery. No one has more closely and systemati- benevolence considered-than the revival, in every cally addressed herself to the understanding than exasperated form, of all the obsolete prejudices and the delightful novelist whom we shall attempt to animosities of race-than the cherishing prepense characterize; in the case of no one, therefore, is of all those jealousies, peculiarities, and barbarisms the keenest intellectual appreciation more of a ne- which keep asunder Saxon from Celt, Slave from cessity. The Della Cruscans did well to rhapso-German, the South from the North. dize over one another's Della Cruscanisms; the But though-in part, because-Miss Edgeworth's class novelists must look to be propped by class-prophecy runs small chance of being fulfilled in our panegyric, or assailed by class-prejudice ;-the ro-life-time, fifty years or more have done nothing to mantic, to be romantically approached with com- tarnish the brightness of her delineations, or to pliments of the superlative degree. We will try to be "fair and honest" with one, the whole scope and tissue of whose authorship has been to defend fairness and honesty by the inculcation of truth and high principle. By Miss Edgeworth's own preface to the third edition of the Memoirs of her Father, we are reminded that eighty-two years have elapsed since she was born, being the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, by the first of four wives, born in England, and until the age of thirteen, with little exception, brought up in this country. So far as can give them an obsolete or washed-out air. And her Irish tales and characters are among her best :witness "Ennui,"-witness "The Absentee,"witness the persone of her Comic Dramas-to whom we especially call attention because we think they have been unfairly overlooked. We have Sir Walter Scott's own warrant for saying, that it was the freshness and vivacity of their nationality, and the success of their characteristic dialogue, which led him to adventure those tales in the "language of Burns," which, (in spite of its being criticized on its first utterance, "as a dark dialect of Angli fied Erse,") metamorphosed the fiction of Europe. | and wilful misconception has been perpetrated on We have the warrant, too, of one of Mr. O'Con- any argument than this. Generally speaking, innell's tail, Mr. O'Neill Daunt, for the assertion deed, it has always seemed to us that the quarrel that the Liberator was aggrieved at the novelist, betwixt Utilitarianism and Imagination, is one of because she never directly espoused the cause of words rather than realities. For it will be owned Catholic Emancipation. It is something to have as abstract propositions, that Beauty without disshown the way to the genius of Scott, and to have cretion is, insomuch, Beauty without symmetry, been counted as a stumbling-block by the Arch and, thus far, Beauty imperfect; that Vice hath as (let Orangeman or Repealer fill the blank each for much coldness as warmth-as much cruelty as inhimself) of Derrynane Abbey! dulgence towards others. Again, it will be agreed that the power in passion theory (to coin words in the new-fashioned manner) bore with a tyrannic and extinguishing harshness upon the feeble, the delicate, the humbly-gifted, and those to whom Nature had denied pleasant attractions. Small is the imagination required to invent a monster; great and truthful the magic which can interest us in a heart, moving within the common walks of men— bound by our responsibilities, agitated by our cares; loving, fearing, sacrificing itself, serving others as we (should) do! But enough of aphorism-and let us for a moment exclusively regard the light in which Miss Edgeworth was studied and analyzed by a philosophical and refined critic. 66 66 66 In my first enthusiasm of admiration," says Sir James Mackintosh, (following out a defence of the use of imagination, illustrated by a comparison of Raffaelle with Hogarth,) "I thought that Miss Edgeworth had first made fiction useful; but every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues, and the fictions which taught them were, therefore, of the highest, though not of unmixed utility. Miss Edgeworth inculcates pru Once having begun and been acknowledged, Miss Edgeworth could not but proceed in her pleasure-giving labor (for who gives so much pleasure as the story-teller?) We by no means profess to enumerate her novels-but must mention the "Moral Tales," the "Popular Tales," the "Tales of Fashionable Life"-the insulated stories, "Leo"Belinda," nora," " "Patronage,' Harrington and Ormond," that inimitable sarcastic sketch The Modern Griselda:" and the stories for children, which will never lose their hold. We are acquainted with wiser men than ourselves, and burdened, to boot, with graver burdens, (if that could be,) who are still glad of an excuse to read again "The Cherry Orchard," and "The Purple Jar,' and "Simple Susan." There are few such books for children in any other language, as we English possess and that is one reason why there are few such men and women as English men and women! For the pleasure of children of a larger growth, it would be hard to specify, in the picture-gallery of men and manners which novelists have given, scenes of greater power and emotion, characters of more vivacity and variety, finer touches of humor, than exist in the Edgeworth Library. Let us men-dence, and the many virtues of that family. Are tion"Vivian," with its deep, overmastering interest and exquisitely painful close-To-morrow," "Out of Debt out of Danger," as stories, the end of which is announced in the very titles thereof, without the interest and pain being thereby in the least lessened. Let us recall the post-boy Lanty's letter, winding up The Absentee" with a veritable "trot for the Avenue"-recollecting the while that the same hand wrote Sir Philip Baddeley's description of the fête at Frogmore, in Belinda." Let us instance as masterly studies of foible in female form, (all how distinctly marked, all how different!) Almeria, Mrs. Somers in "Emilie de Coulanges," Mrs. Beaumont the policizer in "Manoeuvring," and the Frankland girls in "The Contrast,' who rejoiced over their newly acquired wealth, because now "they could push Mrs. Craddock in the street." A brightness, a truth, and clearness animate these, and one hundred similar examples which could be collected-which, of themselves would suffice to give the author her due rank with the initiated. As an artist in detail, whose hand has embraced a range of subjects and characters, very nearly as wide as society-there are very few of either sex who have surpassed Miss Edgeworth. ་་ these excellent virtues higher or more useful than those of fortitude-of benevolence? Certainly not. Where, then, is Miss Edgeworth's merit? Her merit-her extraordinary merit, both as a moralist and as a woman of genius--consists in her having selected a class of virtues far more difficult to treat as the subject of fiction than others, and which had, therefore, been left by former writers to her." Thus, then, it seems, according to the estimate of Mackintosh, that we are in Miss Edgeworth's case, also, dealing with a poetess working up materials which had been found by her predecessors hard to break and bend; and her title as such, therefore, unfairly questioned or misunderstood by those belonging to a different congregation. Question and misunderstanding were rendered critically and personally exclusive by the fact, that, shortly after Miss Edgeworth's success was established, arose that singular and fascinating school of writers, whose denunciation of the selfishness of Virtue (while, in reality, they were illustrating the selfishness of Vice) so strangely, for a time, affected our literature. During the reign of the Poetry of Passion, it was totally forgotten-it was indignantly denied-that self restraint could have any poetrythat there was any benevolence in sparing pain to Let us now consider the whole of which the others, by providing honestly for their happiness in above form merely parts. The taste and tendency one's own. No-the unfaithful wife was to be of Miss Edgeworth's works have been too widely pitied; the husband she wronged, the children she discussed for us also not to enter into the question demoralized, were both to be forgotten, forsooth, in a little diffusely, as the most important part of our the bitterness of her sufferings! The extravagant task. While some of her panegyrists have, perad- spendthrift was pardoned, and the wreck and the venture, exalted her too high as a moralist-another ruin brought by him on a thousand homely and unsection of her critics has perversely considered her gracious folks utterly forgotten, because of his as a sort of teaching-machine, opposed to every- charming smile, and because he wouldn't sell thing beautiful, fanciful, poetical—to all, in fact, | Uncle Oliver's picture!" The grandeur, the beauwhich a Goethe loves to observe, is making up ty, the mystery of crime, were to be dwelt upon as "eine Natur." No greater amount of short-sighted objects of allurement and sympathy-power and diseased passion combined, were to be pitied, be- | Nor was the labor always paid by literary success. cause they could not rule the world; and "hard-Yet it was not labor in vain; it strengthened my ness, ," "selfishness," and other branding epithets, power of perseverance, nor did it prevent fresh exwere flung about on those whom such a code of ertion. moral monstrosities revolted. It may be well for England that the end of this epidemic came many years ago! "Were it worth while, I could point out many hints for invention furnished me by the incidents and characters which my father had met with in his The above granted, let us own that the assign-youth." ment of an egotistic and mechanical spirit to Miss Edgeworth's works may be in part chargeable, not or the manner of working which distinguishes a upon her peculiarities as a moralist, but upon her manner of working as an artist. This she has herself so pleasantly described in her " Memoirs of her Father," that it has naturally-necessarily-a place here:: 66 My father wrote but little; but I may be permitted to say how much, as a critic, he did for me. Yet, indeed, this is out of my power fully to state to the public-only that small circle of our friends, who saw the manuscripts before and after they were corrected by him, can know or imagine how much they were improved by his critical taste and judgment. Those who are curious whether as to character Van Eyck from a Pietro Perugino, or a Teniers from a Wilkie, can hardly do better than compare the above passage with Miss Burney's revelations of the fevers of confidential modesty, in which she laid her "Cecilia," and a certain defunct comedy, before the Streatham Sanhedrim of wits and critics -the Thrales, the Johnsons, the Murphys, the Montagus-her more stubborn counsellor, Daddy Crisp of Chesington, and her animated, accomplished father, the historian of music and the biographer of Metastasio! Now, it is hardly within nature and possibility that such a manner of writing as Miss Edgeworth "Whenever I thought of writing anything, I told reveals, should not produce a certain stiffness and him my first rough plans, and always, with the in-over-anxious finish, because of which, superficial stinct of a good critic, he used to fix immediately upon that which would best answer the purpose. Sketch that and show it to me.' These words, from the experience of his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used to dilate upon it in the sketch; but to this he always objected: I don't want any of your painting-none of your drapery I can imagine all that; let me see the bare skele ton.' or impulsive readers have been apt to rebuke the Trifles make the sum of human things, these phenomena can hardly consist with ease, and flow, and the appearance of inspiration. There must be also evident, under such a dispensation, a certain consciousness on the part of the writer; a "It seemed to be sometimes impossible that he complacent and careful laying-out of plots and plan, could understand the very slight sketches I made, of utilizing every episodical incident and accessory when, before I was conscious that I had expressed figure-and these are calculated to disturb, if not this doubt in my countenance, he always saw it. to distract, the reader, by drawing his attention "Now my dear little daughter, I know, does from the beauty of the fabric to the art of the not believe that I understand her.' Then he would, machinery. Those whom analysis interests will in his own words, fill up my sketch, paint the de- find an example of art carried out to its extremity scription or represent the character intended, within "Patronage," the most ambitious, but the least such life, that I was quite convinced he not only interesting, of Miss Edgeworth's tales. We know seized the ideas, but that he saw, with the prophetic that eye of taste, the utmost that could be made of them. After a sketch had his approbation, he would not see the filling it up till it had been worked upon for but in "Patronage" every important affair turns a week or a fortnight, or till the first thirty or forty upon some minute incident by way of pivot. A pages were written. Then they were read to him, bread-seal thoughtlessly given-the direction of a and if he thought them going on tolerably well, the letter casually recognized by the right person at the pleasure in his eyes, the approving sound of his right moment-set a minister to rights with his voice, even without the praise he so warmly be- monarch. A family artfully and progressively stowed, were sufficient and delightful excitements tried by every temptation which enables them to to go on and finish. When he thought there was exhibit their independence, is reinstated, rewarded, spirit in what was written, but that it required, as with the mathematically apportioned bounty of (as it often did, great correction, he would say, Leave it were) steam fairies. The phrase of "poetical that to me; it is my business to cut and correct— justice" acquires a new meaning from books like yours to write on.' these; and not till we close them do we remind ourselves that (to quote a yet truer phrase) the best of mankind must be content with the poetry without the justice. But, we repeat, the manner has a larger share in producing this impression, and provoking this repulsion, than the matter of Miss Edgeworth's tales. His skill in cutting, his decision in criticism, were peculiarly useful to me. His ready invention and infinite resource, when I had run myself into difficulties or absurdities, never failed to extricate me at my utmost need. It was the happy experience of this, and my consequent reliance on his ability, decision, and taste, that relieved me from the vacillation and anxiety to which I was much subject. He enjoined me to finish whatever I began; and such was his power over my mind, that during his life nothing I began to write was left unfinished; and in particular instances, where the subject was not happily chosen, t was irksome to go on and complete the task. We have dwelt on this distinction from not having seen it drawn in any other place; and because it is one, in every respect, important. Bet whether the peculiarity commented on, (or complained of as may be,) be here rightly estimated, or not :-certain it is that the novel written by Miss Edgeworth alone and unassisted after her father's death, is so superior in ease, in play, in nature, and in poetry, PEAT MOSSES.-A scheme has been lately proto any of her earlier productions of similar extent,jected in London for the improvement of Ireland, as to warrant us in fancying that filial affection which is thus graphically described by the correovervalued the assistance of the monitor and guide, spondent of the Inverness Courier:"-" It is whose literary counsels she prized so highly. We briefly this-to convert all the peat bogs into charallude to 6. Helen" as compared with "Belinda" coal! A society is in course of being organized or "Patronage.' It has been impossible to return for the above laudable purpose. A first meeting to this tale, after the pause of some years, without of its projectors and promoters was held here the being surprised by its elegance, its vivacity, the other day, presided over by Lord de Mauley. A skill of its invention, the shrewdness and sweetness Mr. Rogers, said to be an eminent civil engineer, of heart, which it discloses; the knowledge of life, expounded the nature and advantages of the project. the sympathy with progress which it registers. There are in Ireland about three million acres of Here, at least, those whom the very idea of the peat bog. Being situated at various elevations schoolmistress scares, have not to complain of the above the sea-level, they are all capable of being prim presence or the ponderous pressure of the easily and effectually drained. By a process lately pattern woman. Helen's strength (upon which, discovered and patented, the peat-fuel may be conand her sacrifice of herself for her friend, the story densed and hardened, and rendered as dense, and turns) is set in motion at the service of her weak- consequently as portable, as pit coals. All the ness-her immoderate craving for love and sym-aqueous matter, amounting to forty per cent., pathy. Cecilia's falsehood is not excused, but explained, by the deep and reverential affection she bears her husband, which makes her desirous of blotting out from her own recollection the thoughts of an earlier affection, such as she fears he would have disapproved. Lady Davenant's high-toned and intellectual character has a redeeming weakness. She can be credulous, too, as in the case of her page; she can have been womanish, and failing in her duties as a mother, as the early struggles for ascendency which her confessions reveal. And how admirably, as in life, are the strength and weakness of these three characters made to play into each other's hands and hearts! Then, for secondary characters, how highly finished are the persons of the scandalous coterie, and Churchill, who hovers, like Mahomet's coffin, betwixt their poisonous world and “the diviner air" of better feeling and Lady Bearcroft, with her liberality, and her vulgarity, and her cordiality, and her selfinterest. Capitally is the interest complicated; with exquisite neatness "the tow spun off the reel," (and how few novelists, now-a-days, are competent to manage a close!) and the sprightliness, the grace, the depth, are unimpaired by the intrusion of any mechanical process which can be detected. Were we given to prophesy in these days, when the comet is keeping away from us for the express purpose (of course) of rebuking arrogant prophecy, and when, at a moment's warning, literature may rise of form and scope as yet totally undreamed of-we should assert, with the confidence of those who know much and risk little, that the good days of " Helen's" right appreciation, and steady popularity as a classic, are only just set in, if not still to come. We have written principally of the authoress; for to prowl about the private dwelling of a lady 66 pen in hand," does not altogether suit our humor. That Miss Edgeworth has taken her place with due distinction in the brightest worlds of London and Paris, contemporary memoirs have already told. Byron looked out for her even when Byron's Gulnares and Zuleikas were the rage in May Fair. One of the happiest months ever known at Abbotsford (as Mr. Lockhart assures us) was the one which followed her crossing of Scott's threshold. He wrote of her as a Good Fairy-tiny in stature -lively of eye-kind and gay in speech. Nor is the vivacity dimmed even now which has made Miss Edgeworth, throughout her long life and distinguished literary career, not merely "the observed" of mere lion-hunters, and "the discussed" of philosophers and poets, but also "the beloved" of a large and happily-united domestic circle. (whether of bulk or weight is not stated,) can be Chambers' Journal. MARGARET ARNOLD. A letter from Arnold to Miss Shippen, which has been published-written from the camp at RarWE give below an extract from Mrs. Ellet's itan, February 8th, 1779, not long before their marnew work," The Women of the Revolution," riage, shows the discontent and rancor of his heart, assured that it will interest those of our readers who have not the volumes at command. in the allusions to the president and council of PennPre-sylvania. These feelings were probably expressed freely to her, as it was his pleasure to complain of of which no one suspected him till the whole cominjury and persecution; while the darker designs, munity were startled by the news of his treason, were doubtless buried in his own bosom. suming that they are already familiar with the history of many of the ladies whose biographies Mrs. Ellet has given, we have selected that of one whose name has been wrongfully, we are persuaded, associated with treachery and unpatriotic Some writers have taken delight in representing sentiments. It is a pleasure to find our country- Mrs. Arnold as another Lady Macbeth-an unscruwoman thus vindicated, and by one of her own pulous and artful seductress, whose inordinate vanMrs. Ellet has here displayed true, gener-crime; but there seems no foundation even for a ity and ambition were the cause of her husband's ous, and womanly feeling, and the record of the supposition that she was acquainted with his purunhappy life and lonely death of Mrs. Arnold can- pose of betraying his trust. She was not the being not but move our deepest sympathy.-N. Intel. he would choose as the sharer of a secret so perilous; nor was the dissimulation attributed to her consistent with her character. Arnold's marriage, sex. iar association-with the enemies of American liberty, and strengthened distrust of him in the minds of those who had seen enough to condemn in his previous conduct; and it is likely that his propensity for extravagance was encouraged by his wife's taste for luxury and display, while she exerted over The wife of Benedict Arnold was Margaret Shippen, of Philadelphia. One of her ancestors, Ed-it is true, brought him more continually into familward Shippen, who was mayor of the city in the beginning of the eighteenth century, suffered severe persecutions from the zealots in authority at Boston, for his Quakerism; but, successful in his business, he amassed a large fortune, and, according to tradition, was distinguished for " being the biggest man, having the biggest house and the biggest car-him no saving influence. In the words of one of riage in Philadelphia.' His mansion, called "the his best biographers, "he had no domestic security governor's house," "Shippen's great house," and for doing right—no fireside guardianship to protect "the famous house and orchard outside the town," him from the tempter. Rejecting, as we do utterwas built on an eminence, the orchard overlookingly, the theory that the wife was the instigator of the city; yellow pines shaded the rear, a green lawn extended in front, and the view was unobstructed to the Delaware and Jersey shores. A princely place, indeed, for that day—with its summer-house and gardens abounding with tulips, roses, and lilies! It is said to have been the residence for a few weeks of William Penn and his family. An account of the distinguished persons who were guests there at different times would be curious and interesting. his crime-all common principles of human action being opposed to it-we still believe that there was nothing in her influence or associations to countervail the persuasions to which he ultimately yielded. She was young, gay, and frivolous; fond of display and admiration, and used to luxury; she was utterly unfitted for the duties and privations of a poor man's wife. A loyalist's daughter, she had been taught to mourn over the pageantry of colonial rank and authority, and to recollect with pleasure the pomp of those brief days of enjoyment, when military men of the noble station were her admirers. Arnold had no counsellor on his pillow to urge him to the imitation of homely republican virtue, to stimulate him to follow the rugged path of a revolutionary patriot. He fell; and though his wife did not tempt or counsel him to ruin, there is no reason to think she ever uttered a word or made a sign to deter him." Edward Shippen, afterwards Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, was the father of Margaret. His family, distinguished among the aristocracy of the day, was prominent after the commencement of the contest among those known to cherish loyalist principles; his daughters were educated in these, and had their constant associations with those who were opposed to American independence. The youngest of them-only eighteen years of age-beautiful, brilliant, and fascinating, full of spirit and gayety— Her instrumentality in the intercourse carried on the toast of the British officers while their army oc- while the iniquitous plan was maturing, according cupied Philadelphia-became the object of Arnold's to all probability, was an unconscious one. Major admiration. She had been " one of the brightest Andre, who had been intimate in her father's famiof the belles of the Mischianza ;" and it is some-ly while General Howe was in possession of Philawhat curious that the knight who appeared in her delphia, wrote to her from New York, in August, honor on that occasion chose for his device a bay 1779, to solicit her remembrance, and offering his leaf, with the motto, "Unchangeable." This gay services in procuring supplies, should she require and volatile young creature, accustomed to the dis any, in the millinery department, in which he says, play connected with "the pride of life," and the playfully, the Mischianza had given him skill and homage paid to beauty in high station, was not one experience. The period at which this missive was to resist the lure of ambition, and was captivated, sent-more than a year after Andre had parted with it is probable, through her girlish fancy, by the the "fair circle" for which he professes such lively splendor of Arnold's equipments, and his military regard-and the singularity of the letter itself, jusostentation. These appear to have had their effect tified the suspicion which became general after its upon her relatives, one of whom, in a manuscript seizure by the Council of Pennsylvania-that its letter, still extant, says :-"We understand that offer of service in the detail of capwire, needles, Gen. Arnold, a fine gentleman, lays close siege to and gauze, covered a meaning deep and dangerous. Peggy-thus noticing his brilliant and imposing This view was taken by many writers of the day; exterior, without a word of information or inquiry | but, admitting that the letter was intended to conas to his character and principles. vey a mysterious meaning, still it is not conclusive |