We have lost within one week two accomplished authoresses, Lady
Theresa Lewis, the sister of Lord Clarendon, and 'Mrs. Gaskell. They were both novelists, Mrs. Gaskell the more re- markable of the two, while Lady Theresa Lewis had done other valuable work, including Lives from the Clarendon Gallery, and quite recently edited Miss Berry's memoirs. Her novels, the Semi-Detached House and the Semi-Attached Couple, especially the former, were-full of wit and lively observation. She died while on a visit to the Principal of Brazenose College, Oxford, having survived her husband only two years. Mrs. Gaskell's death was still more sudden. It took place at Alton last Sunday, while she was sitting and reading with her daughters. She had written much, and for the most part well. Mary Barton, the first of the cotton-mill class of novels, is a tale of great power, and Cranford (probably her finest literary effort, unless her last book, Wives and Daughters, surpasses it in its own line) is a study of "still life" of exquisite workmanship. Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Miss Bronte; too, though not without grave defects, is a piece of biography not likely soon to be forgotten. We hope it may prove that Wives and Daughters, which was to be concluded in the January number of the Cornhill, had received the. final touches from its author's hand. Mrs. Gaskell had, quite recentlynontributed several papers of true humour to the Pall Mall Gazette.
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