herself at different periods of life, the former in the turbulence of youth, the latter in the maturity and under the disappointments of middle life. Passion tinged with melancholy is the informing spirit of Corinne, which has retained its hold upon the reading world by its glowing pictures of Italian art and scenery. "With few features of a story," writes William Roberts, in a comparison of her genius with that of Hannah More, "the tale is so contrived as to keep attention and expectation constantly on the stretch, and to occupy the heart and engage its sympathies in deep and continuous emotion. The reader is hurried on without a breathing interval, with his eyes forever on Corinne, overlooking a multitude of absurdities and contradictions for her sake. All is in subjection to the bright lady of the ascendant. There is certainly something very admirable in the art by which the author has contrived to merge the vanity of her principal character in the brilliancy with which she has surrounded it. When Corinne comes forth in the panoply of her endowments, we think no more of her vanity than of the Roman general proceeding with his trophies in triumph to the capitol. There is a gayety and a grace accompanying all she acts and speaks,—a majesty in her brow, a goddess-like gait in her approach, that affects us almost supernaturally. A fatal passion seizes her: the Graces and the Muses gradually forsake her: the diadem drops from her temples: the incense of praise is withdrawn: a rapid dereliction of her powers lets her down to the level of common beings:

she sinks into obscurity and dies a pitiable death."

The work of Madame de Staël on Germany, originally printed in Paris in 1810 and suppressed by order of Napoleon, was the first to present to foreign nations a general review of the growing intellectual wealth of the nation. It is divided into four parts treating respectively of " Germany and the manners of the Germans;" of "Literature and the Arts;" of "Philosophy and Morals;" of "Religion and Enthusiasm." "The voice of Europe," said Sir James Mackintosh in his analysis of the work, "has already applauded the genius of a national painter in the author of Corinne. But it was there aided by the power of a pathetic fiction

by the variety and opposition of national character-and by the charm of a country which unites beauty to renown. Her work on Germany is certainly the most vigorous effort of her genius, and probably the most elaborate and masculine production of the faculties of woman. What other woman, indeed, or (to speak the truth without reserve) what living man could have preserved all the grace and brilliancy of Parisian society in analyzing its nature; explained the most abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably; and combined the eloquence which inspires the most pure, the most tender, and the most sublime sentiments of virtue, with the enviable talent of gently indicating the defects of men or of nations by the skilfully softened touches of a polite and merciful pleasantry?"

ORATIO NELSON, the son of Edmund and Catherine Nelson, was born on the 29th of September, 1758, at the parsonage-house of Burnham-Thorpe, a village in the county of Norfolk, of which his father was rec tor. The maiden name of his mother was Suckling; her grandmother was an elder sister of Sir Robert Walpole, and the subject of this notice was named after the first Earl of Orford. Mrs. Nelson died in 1767, leaving eight out of eleven children. Upon this occasion her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of the navy, visited Mr. Nelson, and promised to take care of one of the boys. Three years afterwards, when Horatio was only twelve years of age, and with a constitution naturally weak, he applied to his father for permission to go to sea with his uncle, recently appointed to the Raisonnable, of sixty-four guns. The uncle was accordingly written to, and gave a reluctant consent to the proposal. "What," said he, in reply, "has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action a cannon-ball may knock off his Abridged from the "Encyclopædia Britannica."

head, and provide for him at once." The Raisonnable, on board of which he was now placed as a midshipman, was soon afterwards paid off, and Captain Suckling removed to the Triumph, of seventy-four guns, then stationed as a guard-ship in the Thames. This, however, was considered as too inac tive a life for a boy, and Nelson was therefore sent on a voyage to the West Indies in a merchant ship. "From this voyage I returned," he tells us in his "Sketch of my Life," "to the Triumph at Chatham in July, 1772; and, if I did not improve in my education, I returned a practical seaman, with a horror of the royal navy, and with a saying then constant with the seamen,

Aft, the most honor; forward, the better man.'" While in connection with this guard-ship, he had the opportunity of becoming a skilful pilot, an acquirement which he afterwards had frequent occasion to turn to account.

Not: many months after his return, his inherent love of enterprise was excited by hearing that two ships were fitting out for a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole. From the difficulties expected on such service, these vessels were to take out none