RACHEL GURNEY OF THE GROVE.* THE Quaker maiden to whose
memory her great-nephew, Sir Alfred Pease, has dedicated this attractive book died ninety years ago at the age of twenty-three. Rachel Gurney was the sixth of the nine children of Joseph Gurney of Lakenham Grove, younger brother of the more famous John Gurney of Earthen', the father of Elizabeth Try. With him and his children, many of them such typical figures in English life, Mr. Hare's book made us all familiar. The children of Joseph Gurney have not perhaps been quite so well known in the world as their cousins, but they are equally remarkable examples of those qualities which placed these large families of "Friends" on a level with the most distinguished people in English society. Not only the innate goodness, the " inward and spiritual grace," that their descendant claims for them, but the natural cleverness and large-mindedness, the dainty refinement, the delightful sense of fun, so remarkable in the Gurneys of Earlbam, were possessed in large measure by the Gurneys of the Grove. Such qualities breathe from every page of this quiet little biography, and give it a singular distinction. It is plain that in many ways Rachel Gurney was the flower of her family. She had a sweetness of disposition that attracted devoted affection, with a shrewd good sense that protected her from the religious extremes which were always a pitfall for the more enthusiastic and less well balanced of her Society. Among these latter her elder sister Hannah, who married Mr. Backhouse and made herself conspicuous as a preacher, was an eccentric example. Joseph Gurney and his wife, who to judge from her letters must have been a woman of singular charm, had the sorrow of losing five of their nine children while still young. One of these, the eldest, died in infancy ; one at eleven years old ; the two sons before they were twenty ; and Rachel at twenty-three. She caught cold by walking through snow• drifts in the terrible winter of 1814. For three years she lingered in a slow consumption, suffering terribly from asthma. The attempted cures are instructive,—London smoke in the first winter, Devonshire air in the second, Nice in the third; but most especially bleeding. Such treatment would seem incredible, if her father's journal did not prove it. In three months in 1816 the weak and dying girl was bled seven times !
However, it would be a mistake to suppose that the general effect of the book is melancholy. Rachel's courage and patience would alone prevent that; and there is much that is very lively and characteristic in this short family chroniole, if also, of course, a good deal that is chiefly interesting to the descendants of the family itself. We imagine, though it is not stated, that the pretty portraits of its various members are taken from original drawings or miniatures.
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