MEMOIRS OF MRS. °PIE. * Mits. OMR was one of that

band of writers who stood between the 'weakness or unnatural fantasies of the circulating-library fic- tionists of the old school, and the historical romance of Scott or the novel of manners that appeared in a later day. Less vivid and dramatic than their successors, yet more obvious in their craft, they had upon the whole greater solidity and purpose, though it was attained at the expense of their art by means of direct didactics. Of this class Miss Edgeworth may upon the whole be considered the head ; but if she brought to her task more sustained labour, weightier matter, and possibly greater closeness of structure, Mrs. Opie excelled them all in a genial warmth of feeling, as well as in a vivacity which if not life itself was very like A ; though she did not always escape a degree of stiffness, from which indeed the true didactic novel is seldom free. These fictions of Edgeworth, Opie, Hofland, Hannah More, surpassed the popu- larity of any later novels except Scott's. Their fashion has now passed; but they have left results behind, in the great superiority of our juvenile didactic tales, perhaps in the greater decorum of our manners and social morals. The age which read with avidity novels that would now be called "slow," was "fast" enough in its gentleman life, and not over straitlaced in general society.

A long life of eighty-five years (1769-1853) caused Amelia Opie to outlive her actual popularity, though a tradition of it remained ; and the homage of friends, stimulated perhaps by religious com- munity, continued to the last. Hence her biography has not the general interest which it would have had if she had died at fifty instead of eighty-five ; nor does its intrinsic character make up for want of temporary attraction. Her life, though long, was unevent- ful, and though living in society all her days, and for many years among the highest, her pictures of it in letters and diaries are not so striking and characteristic as some contained in other writings of a similar kind. The reader is carried over seventy years of a busy and eventful life ; he is continually brought into the company of remarkable persons ; he often hears of great names, from the opening of the first French Revolution to the "glorious Three Days '' of the second, and even to the setting of the younger Bourbon branch at Claremont; he has glimpses of manners and opinions "when George the Third was King" with frequent anecdotes, good in themselves or from the names attached to them. A great part of the book, however, consists of trivial remarks or slight occurrences. More of incident, too, is wanted as the story of a life; a greater insight into the training and progress of the author,

• Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, selected and arranged from her Letters, Diaries, and other Manuscripts. By Cecilia Lucy Brightwell. Published by Long- man and Co., London ; Fletcher and Alexander, Norwich.

as well as into the grounds of her religious " connexion." Passages from diaries, letters, or a fragmentary autobiography, indicate that

Amelia Opie wrote as Pope " lisp'd in numbers—for the numbers came"; that her genial nature gave warmth to her style ; that probably real occurrences, deposited in the mind to grow, often formed the germ of her tales ; and that her extensive acquaintalthe with society modified by art was used for the filling-up. She alas born a Unitarian ; for years she was, perhaps, practically a nothing- at-all-ist As half a century rolled on, she began to turn her atten- tion to religion ; and finally settled down amongst the Quakers,— prompted as much, probably, by her personal associations with the Gurney family and other "friends" at Norwich as by any theo- logical considerations. All this, however, we are told or see dimly. The point of struggle seems to have been one of grammar; the Friends' " plainness " in thee and thou, and that omission of dis- tinctive titles which Chalmers notes when he met the novelist without knowing her for some time : "I could have recognized in _Mrs. Opie an acquaintance of thirty years' standing; but I did not and could not feel the charm of any such reminiscences when Joseph John [Gurney] simply bade me lead out Amelia from his drawingroom to his diningroom."

The father of Amelia Opie was Dr. .Alderson, a physician of Norwich; the family was of repute and consideration ; the present Baron Alderson is a nephew of the Doctor and a cousin of the no- velist In consequence of the death of her mother, Miss Alderson at fifteen headed her father's table and entered the world. We hear of little flirtations and attentions; but it was not till 1798 that she married Opie the artist, and not till after her marriage that she began to publish. Among her earliest works was one of her best as an exciting tale, the Father and Daughter. The conjoint celebrity of husband and wife, and Amelia's Whig not to say Jacobin politics, led her into society of all classes, political, fashionable, lite- rary, and artistical, and gave her a social celebrity, which, looking coolly back on her actual literary merits, seems strange, although her sprightly disposition and evident love of company might have influenced A. Her husband died in 1807: Mrs. Opie subse- quently lived at Norwich with her father, till his death in 1825; and then by herself; making, however, frequent visits to London and other places, including Continental trips on several occasions. Her activity as a writer closed with her sixtieth or perhaps her fif- tieth year ; but she wrote till nearly her death. She published in Tait and Chambers reminiscences of her own life, (of which use has been made in this volume,) when she had passed her threescore years and ten. The last ten years of her life were clouded by in- firmity and pain—she was troubled with rheumatism ; but not more than "age protracted" almost inevitably brings. Her life upon the whole was happy ; and she seems to have had no idea of her waning fame. Few are so eosey as this at seventy-five. "I do so enjoy my home. In a morning I am only too full of company; but when at nightfall I draw my sofa round for a long evening to myself, I have such a feeling of thankfulness !—and so I ought. It is well to see how the burden is fitted to the back by our merciful Father. I have been a lone woman through life; an only child ; a childless widow ! All my nearest ties engrossed by nearer ones of their own. HI did not love to be alone, and enjoy the privileges leisure gives, what would have become of me! But I love my lot, and every year it grows dearer still ; though parting with be- loved friends throws, for a while, a deep shadow over my path."

From a very early period Mrs. Opie was a constant frequenter of the Assizes at Norwich. The actualities of life and the play of the passions, which she saw there, gave, no doubt, reality to her fiction, and preserved her from the absurdities into which the mere frequenter of " society " is apt to fall. In youth she visited the Lunatic Asylum from pity and curiosity, till she was shocked or frightened away. A patient offered an important suggestion.

"I was now eager to leave the place ; but I had seen, and lingered behind still to gaze upon, a man whom I had observed from the open door at which I stood, pacing up and down the wintry walk, but who at length saw me earnestly beholding him. He started, fixed his eyes on me with a look full of mournful expression, and never removed them till I, reluctantly I own, had followed my companions. What a world of wo was, as I fancied, in that look ! Perhaps I resembled some one dear to him ! Perhaps—but it were idle to give all the perbapses of romantic sixteen, resolved to find in Bedlam what she thought ought to be there of the sentimental, if it were not. However, that poor man and his expression never left my memory; and I thought of him when, at a later period, I attempted to paint the feel- ings I imputed to him in the 'Father and Daughter.' "

Amelia and her friend Mrs. Inchbald were both great admirers of extreme politicians. She attended the trials of Hardy and Home Tooke ; was an idolater of Charles Fox, Bonaparte, and Lafayette,—Bonaparte to a degree which now seems strange, though it really only indicates the violent party feelings of the day, which swept every one within a vortex of almost faction. She lived to modify her views somewhat; though clinging to Lafayette to the last: to be sure, he flattered her. If Peel was not an early favourite he won her " heart " at last, though not by politics.

"Sir R. Peel's heart has stolen mine : that exquisite self-oblivion, and that prompt sympathy with poor Haydon's sorrows, even only four days be- fore his death : and then the feeling and immediate reply to the hopes of the poor suicide in his letter in his dying moments; and the prompt help, and the promised succour of his purse and influence at a future time ; and when he (Sir Robert) was not himself lying on a bed of roses ! Oh! he is a good as well as a great man, and God's blessing must rest on him."

Erskine was a friend and favourite. The last time she heard him was in a great "right of way cause," when he excelled him- self. Shortly afterwards he was shelved on the woolsack ; and found it out, if he did not know it from the first.

"Fortunate, therefore, were those who heard him that day, as never again was he heard to equal advantage. A few months afterwards he was made Lord Chancellor ; and when, while talking to him at a party in London, I told him I was every day intending to go into the Court of Chancery in the hope of hearing him speak in his new capacity, his reply was, 'Pray do not

come! you will not hear anything worth the trouble. I am nothing now : you heard the last and beet of me at Norwich last year."

We know not whether the following story of Sheridan and John Kemble is new; it is characteristic. o My next letter (and I shall certainly answer your answer) shall contain more amusing stuff. At present I have only time to say, Kemble was ar- rested for a debt kindness had made him incur, (for 200/.,) as he came out of the. theatre on Saturday last. He is not yet in limbo, but to gaol he is re- solved to go on Wednesday, unless Mr. Sheridan pays the money ; and never will he play again till it is paid. Sheridan swears and protests that he will pay the debt, and that he knew not of the transaction ; whereas, it is certain that Sheridan went to the bailiff, and, for fear of a riot, prevailed on him to put off the arrest till the play was over. We think Sheridan dares not let him go to gaol, and go he will."

Although belonging to a sect, there was nothing sectarian about Amelia Opie except in forms. In her last illness she had the Li- tany read to her, earnestly making the responses ; and she was surrounded in life and death by counterfeit presentments of men opposite etough.

"She lay dead; placed in her coffin in the lower chamber beneath the one in which she had breathed her last; surrounded by the portraits of her friends, which, hanging upon the walls of the room, used so often to attract her notice, and win from her some expression of remembrance and regard. Ben of all views, political and religious, were there; all known and having earned a niche there by some superiority of natural or acquired' excellences. There Lafayette, Cooper, David, Madame de Steel, and others of her foreign friends, hung side by side. There J. J. Gurney and his brother, Elizabeth Fry and Lucy Aggs, and close by them the Bishops of Norwich and Durham, and Professors Sedgwick and Whewell; there the poets and statesmen whose genius had charmed her ; and last though not the least, Mrs. Siddons in her glory as Queen Catherine."