directly benefits. Yet it seems to us that our young countrywomen require to be reminded from time to time of the enormous sacrifices in leisure, health, and money, that have been made on their behalf, in order to obtain for them these priviliges, and that it is well to point out to them how different is their position from that of women in former generations. One exceptional woman here and there, like Elizabeth Carter, was originalminded and strong-minded enough to vanquish all the difficulties with which she was surrounded. But how many of her sisters. equally devoted to knowledge, though less happily endowed by nature, succumbed in the struggle? How many lives have been made wretched by that worst of all famines, the hunger and thirst after knowledge, the craving for intellectual light, the desire to learn what is worth learning, left unsatisfied from the cradle to the grave! How many careers have been frustrated by reason of the fragmentary education women received in former days! How many rare gifts were wasted from want of proper training and opportunity! Instances in point are given in the pages of this volume, but it is now our pleasant task to record a life that was wholly satisfactory, and which ended as it began, in a noble spirit of gratitude and cheerfulness-joyousness, indeed, we might almost say so uniformly hearty, genial, and glad was the life of Elizabeth Carter from early youth to the termination of a venerable old age. It is in striking contrast with such a biography as the foregoing of Alexandrine Tinné. The admirable translator of Epictetus was, however, no recluse, and though the best and happiest part of her days must have been spent in her library, she lived also in the world, mingling with kindred spirits and congenial minds. N It is the lot of most of us either to suffer from a lack or a redundance of society, to have too much or too little of it, a glut of what we cannot relish, a scarcity of the aliments exactly suited to our taste. "Were the quality of society compensated by quantity, we might well afford to live in the world," wrote the great pessimist, Schepenhauer, and uncharitable although the sentiment may appear, many of us will echo it. We have, generally speaking, little choice between solitude and boredom-social intercourse uncongenial to us, or none at all. To Elizabeth Carter fell the happy portion of having about her just the men and women who could appreciate, interest, and stimulate her, whilst she was privileged with as much solitude as all brain-workers require, and as much intercourse as was good in the intervals of repose. Thus she turned from her books to her friends, and from her friends to her books, always finding refreshment and satisfaction. A charming picture is here presented to us. True woman, ripe scholar, kindly neighbour, and devoted friend, Elizabeth Carter is a figure in the history of literature, all her sex should delight to honour. She was born of an honourable and lettered family at Deal, in 1717. From her father, the Rev. Dr. Carter, perpetual curate to the chapel of Deal, rector of Woodchurch and Ham, also one of the six preachers of Canterbury Cathedral, she evidently inherited scholarly tastes and intellectual gifts. He gave all his children, girls and boys alike, a learned education, though in her earliest years Elizabeth gave no sign of especially profiting by it. Indeed, so slow was her progress in learning the rudiments of Latin and Greek, that her father often entreated renounce the notion of ever beShe persevered, how her to ever, studied hard, later, taking snuff at night to keep herself awake, and finally overcame all impediments. There can be little doubt that what was regarded as natural slowness in her case, was nothing of the kind, but merely an inability to learn anything according to a bad method. Many of the most gifted people who ever lived have been unable to learn except in their own way, and so it was with Elizabeth Carter. She could not endure the study of Latin and Greek grammars, and seeing what they were in those days, it is small matter of astonishment; but she understood the principles of grammar nevertheless, and became afterwards a sound scholar. The great Johnson, as is wellknown, in speaking of some celebrated scholar, said "he understood Greek better than any one he had ever known except Mrs. Carter." At seventeen she translated some odes of Anacreon, and was so well versed in |