and sentiment, the political wisdom and continued his ride. It proved, the patriotic fervor were every whit his own. next day, that he had taken cold, but Then, once again, Mount Vernon re- he made light of it, and passed his ceived her son, destined never long usual evening cheerfully with the to repose unsolicited by his country. family circle. He became worse during France, pursuing her downward course, the night with inflammation of the adopted an aggressive policy towards throat. He was seriously ill. Having the nation, which the most conciliating sent for his old army surgeon, Dr. deference could no longer support. A Craik, he was bled by his overseer, state of quasi war existed, and actual and again on the arrival of the phywar was imminent. The President sician. All was of no avail, and he looked to Washington to organize the calmly prepared to die. "I am not army and take the command, should it afraid," said he, "to go," while with be brought into action, and he accord- ever thoughtful courtesy he thanked ingly busied himself in the necessary his friends and attendants for their preparations. It was best, he thought, little attentions. Thus the day wore to be prepared for the worst while away, till ten in the night, when his looking for the best. New negotia- end was fast approaching. He noticed tions were then opened, but he did not the failing moments, his last act being live to witness their pacific results. He to place his hand upon his pulse, and was at his home at Mount Vernon, in-calmly expired. It was the 14th of tent on public affairs, and making his December, 1799. His remains were rounds in his usual farm occupations, interred in the grave on the bank at with a vigor and hardihood which had Mount Vernon, in front of his resi abated little for his years, when, on dence, and there, in no long time, acthe 12th of December, he suffered cording to her prediction at the mosome considerable exposure from a ment of his death, his wife, Martha, storm of snow and rain which came whose miniature he always wore on on while he was out, and in which he his breast, was laid beside him. MADAME D'ARBLAY. MADA ADAME D'ARBLAY, the author of "Evelina," the leader of the modern school of lady English novelists, was descended from a family which bore the name of Macburney, and which, though probably of Irish origin, had been long settled in Shropshire, England, and was possessed of considerable estates in that county. Unhappily, many years before her birth, the Macburneys began, as if of set purpose and in a spirit of determined rivalry, to expose and ruin themselves. The heir apparent, Mr. James Macburney, offended his father by making a runaway match with an actress from Goodman's Fields. The old gentleman could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy, than by marrying the cook. The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, who succeeded to all the lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The favorite son, however, was so extravagant, that he soon became as poor as his disinherited brother. Both were forced to earn their bread by their labor. Jo This sketch of Madame D'Arblay is abridged from an article by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review. seph turned dancing-master, and settled in Norfolk. James struck off the Mac from the beginning of his name, and set up as a portrait-painter at Chester. Here he had a son named Charles, well known as the author of the History of Music, and as the father of two remarkable children, of a son distinguished by learning, and of a daughter still more honorably distinguished by genius. Charles early showed a taste for that art, of which, at a later period, he became the historian. He was apprenticed to a celebrated musician in London, and applied himself to study with vigor and success. He early found a kind and munificent patron in Fulk Greville, a high-born and high-bred man, who seems to have had in large measure all the accomplishments and all the follies, all the virtues and all the vices which, a hundred years ago, were considered as making up the character of a fine gentleman. Under such protection, the young artist had every prospect of a brilliant career in the capital. But his health failed. It be came necessary for him to retreat from the smoke and river fog of London, to the pure air of the coast. He accepted ... the place of organist at Lynn, and settled at that town with a young lady who had recently become his wife. At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her childhood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have secured for herself an honorable place among English writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her a dunce, and not altogether without some show of reason; for at eight years old she did not know her letters. In 1760, Mr. Burney quitted Lynn for London, and took a house in Poland street; a situation which had been fashionable in the reign of Queen Anne, but which, since that time, had been deserted by most of its wealthy and noble inhabitants. He at once obtained as many pupils of the most respectable description as he had time to attend, and was thus enabled to support his family, modestly indeed, and frugally, but in comfort and independence. His professional merit obtained for him the degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Oxford; and his works on subjects connected with his art gained for him a place, respectable, though certainly not eminent, among men of letters. The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twentyfifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in a hackney-coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the most celebrated works of Voltaire and Molière; and, what seems still more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father's library was large; and he had admitted into it so many books which rigid |