lucre-banished clans—of chieftains dwindled into imitation squires, and of chiefs content to barter the recollections of a thousand years for a few gaudy seasons of Almacks and Crockfords, the euthanasia of kilted aldermen and steamboat pibrochs was reserved for Miss Ferrier.'

"_Tickler.—' _She in general fails almost as egregiously as Hook does in the pathetic [1] but in her last piece there is one scene of this description worthy of either Sterne or Goldsmith. I mean where the young man [2] supposed to have been lost at sea, revisits, after a lapse of time, the precincts of his own home, watching unseen in the twilight the occupations and bearings of the different members of the family, and resolving, under the influence of a most generous feeling, to keep the secret of his preservation.'

[1] This is not true, as there are many pathetic passages in Destiny, particularly between Edith, the heroine, and her faithless lover, Sir Reginald.

[2] Ronald Malcolm.

"_North.-' _I remember it well, and you might bestow the same kind of praise on the whole character of Molly Macaulay. It is a picture of humble, kind-hearted, thorough-going devotion and long-suffering, indefatigable gentleness, of which, perhaps, no sinner of our gender could have adequately filled up the outline. Miss Ferrier appears habitually in the light of a hard satirist, but there is always a fund of romance at the bottom of every true woman's heart who has tried to stifle and suppress that element more carefully and pertinaciously, and yet who has drawn, in spite of herself, more genuine tears than the authoress of Simple Susan.' "

The story of Destiny, like its predecessors, is laid in Miss Ferrier's favourite Highlands, and it contains several picturesque and vivid descriptions of scenery there, —Inveraray, and its surroundings generally, forming the model for her graphic pen. Much of this novel was written at Stirling Castle, when she was there on a visit to her sister, Mrs. Graham, [1] whose husband, General Graham, was governor of that garrison. After the publication of this last work, and the offer of a thousand pounds from a London publisher for anything from her pen, [2] she entirely ceased from her literary labours, being content to rest upon the solid and enduring reputation her three "bantlings" (as she called her novels) had won for her. The following fragment, however, was found among her papers, and is the portrait of another old maid, and might serve as a companion to Miss Pratt. As it is amusing, and in the writer's satirical style, I lay it before my readers:—

[1] Celebrated by Burns, the poet, for her beauty. She inspired his muse when turning the corner of George Street, Edinburgh. The lines addressed to her are to be found in his Poems. She was also a highly-gifted artist. The illustrations in the work called the Stirling Heads are from her pencil. It was published by Blackwood, 1817.

[2] She says (1837) "I made two attempts to write something, but could not please myself, and would not publish anything."

"Miss Betty Landon was a single lady of small fortune, few personal charms, and a most jaundiced imagination. There was no event, not even the most fortunate, from which Miss Betty could not extract evil; everything, even the milk of human kindness, with her turned to gall and vinegar. Thus, if any of her friends were married, she sighed over the miseries of the wedded state; if they were single, she bewailed their solitary, useless condition; if they were parents, she pitied them for having children; if they had no children, she pitied them for being childless. But one of her own letters will do greater justice to the turn of her mind than the most elaborate description.

"'My DEAR Miss——— I ought to have written to you long before now, but I have suffered so much from the constant changes of the weather that the wonder is I am able to hold a pen. During the whole summer the heat was really quite intolerable, not a drop of rain or a breath of wind, the cattle dying for absolute want, the vegetables dear and scarce, and as for fruit—that, you know, in this town, is at all times scarce and bad, and particularly when there is the greatest occasion for it. In the autumn we never had two days alike, either wind or rain, or frost, or something or another; and as for our winter—you know what that is—either a constant splash of rain, or a frost like to take the skin off you. For these six weeks I may say I have had a constant running at my head, with a return of my old complaint; but as for doctors, I see no good they do, except to load people's stomachs and pick their pockets: everything now is imposition; I really think the very pills are not what they were thirty years ago. How people with families continue to live is a mystery to me; and people still going on marrying, in the face of national debt, taxes, a new war, a starving population, ruined commerce, and no outlet for young men in any quarter—God only knows what is to be the end of all this! In spite of all this, these thoughtless young creatures, the Truemans, have thought proper to make out their marriage; he is just five-and-twenty, and she is not yet nineteen! so you may judge what a prudent, well-managed establishment it will be. He is in a good enough business at present, but in these times who can tell what's to happen? He may be wallowing in wealth to-day, and bankrupt to-morrow. His sister's marriage with Fairplay is now quite off, and her prospects for life, poor thing, completely wrecked! Her looks are entirely gone, and her spirits quite broken. She is not like the same creature, and, to be sure, to a girl who had set her heart upon being married, it must be a great and severe disappointment, for this was her only chance, unless she tries India, and the expense of the outfit must be a complete bar to that. You would hear that poor Lady Oldhouse has had a son—it seemed a desirable thing, situated as they are with an entailed property; and yet when I look around me, and see the way that sons go on, the dissipation and extravagance, and the heartbreak they are to their parents, I think a son anything but a blessing. No word of anything of that kind to the poor Richardsons; with all their riches, they are without anyone to come after them. The Prowleys are up in the air at having got what they call "a fine appointment" for their fourth son, but for my part I'm really sick of hearing of boys going to India, for after all what do they do there? I never hear of their sending home anything but black children, and when they come home themselves, what do they bring but yellow faces, worn-out constitutions, and livers like cocked-hats, crawling about from one watering-place to another, till they are picked up by some light-hearted, fortune-hunting miss, who does not care twopence for them.'"

A beautiful and strong feature in Miss Ferrier's character was her intense devotion to her father, and when he died the loss to her was irreparable. She also was much attached to a very handsome brother, James; he was colonel of the 94th regiment, or Scots Brigade, and died in India in 1804, at the early age of twenty-seven. He had been at the siege of Seringapatam in 1799, and was much distinguished by the notice of Napoleon at Paris in February 1803, whence he writes to his sister Susan:—

"I think I wrote you I had been introduced to the Chief Consul. I was on Sunday last presented to his lady, whom I do not at all admire. The great man spoke to me then again, which is a very unusual thing, and I am told by the French I must be in his good graces; however, I myself rather think it was my good fortune only: at all events it has given me much pleasure, for it would have only been doing the thing half if he had not spoken to me. I do not think any of the pictures like him much, although most