Biographical Sketches.

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ANECDOTES OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.

No. XIV. MISS E. SMITH.

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THIS highly gifted and amiable young lady was born at Burnhall, near Durham, the residence of her patern alancestors, in December, 1776. At a very early age, she discovered that love of reading, and that close application to whatever she engaged in, that distinguished her through life. She was accustomed to leave an elder brother and younger sister to play, and themselves, while she eagerly seized on such books as a nursery library affords, and made herself mistress of their contents. In 1785, the family removed to Piercefield; in the preceding winter Elizabeth had made great progress in music, and at the age of thirteen astonished all her friends by the facility with which she acquired information on every subject that she attempted. Music, dancing, drawing, and perspective, were then her chief pursuits: she was well acquainted with French and Italian, and had made considerable progress in geometry, and other branches of the mathematics. In the year 1793, the bank with which Mr. Smith was connected, unfortunately failed, and the reverse of fortnne it occasioned, drove the family from the beautiful: domain of Piercefield, and for some time they had no settled home. Of the firmness of mind with which she bore their change of circumstances, an extract from one of Mrs. Smith's letters will testify. "Elizabeth was just entering her seventeenth year, an age at which she might have been supposed to have lamented deeply many consequent privations: but I do not recollect a single murmur to have escaped her, or the least expression of regret at what she had lost; on the contrary she always seemed contented, cheerful, and happy.” The two eldest daughters spent seven or eight months with Mrs. Bowdler, near Bath. Here, with that lady's kind assistance, Miss Smith continued those studies, which the severe shock they had so lately experienced, had for a time suspended. She had before obtained a sufficient knowledge of the Spanish language, to enable her to read it without difficulty, and now applied to the study of the German, of which she afterwards became particularly fond: she studied Hebrew from Mrs. Bowdler's bible, with the assistance of Parkhurst; in the following winter acquired some knowledge

of Arabic and Persian from a fine dic tionary and grammar, in the possession of her brother; and in 1794, when on a visit to Mr. Claxton, began to study Latin and Greek.

Mr. Smith having joined the army, his regiment was ordered to Ireland, and thither Mrs. and Miss S. followed him in 1796. The change from the comforts they had experienced, to a residence in barracks, may well be imagined; but here, the amiable Elizabeth endeavoured to alleviate their inconveniencies, by every means in her power. In one of Mrs. Smith's letters is the following anecdote :

"When we arrived at our barracks at Sligo, we were dripping wet, our bag. gage was not yet come, and we had not even a bed to rest upon. The whole of our furniture consisted of a bit of a cart wheel for a fender, a piece of iron for a poker, a dirty deal table, and three chairs. I was standing by the fire, meditating on our forlorn condition, when I was roused by Elizabeth's exclaiming,

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Oh, what a blessing! Blessing! I replied; there seems none left.' 'Indeed, my dear mother, there is; for see, here is a little cupboard.' I dried my tears, and endeavoured to learn fortitude from my daughter."

They only remained in Ireland about four months, and returned to Bath in October, where they spent the winter, and the years 1796 and 1798: the next year they removed again to Ireland, where they remained until the family was finally settled at Coniston in Cumberland. This county had many charms for Miss Smith: she drew correctly from nature, and her admiration of the sublime and beautiful often carried her beyond the bounds of prudence, as regarded her health. She was frequently out during twelve or fourteen hours, and in that time walked many miles, and, when she returned at night, seldom appeared tired. "It is astonishing how she found time for all she acquired, and all she accomplished: nothing was neglected; there was a scrupulous attention to all the minutiae of her sex, which her well-regulated mind was far from despising."

For some years before her death, the Holy Scriptures in their original languages were her principal study, and she translated from the Hebrew some chapters in Genesis, the whole book of Job, many of the Psalms, some parts of the Prophets, &c. Some of these translations were shown to a gentleman who was well skilled in the language: he said that the author had certainly an

THE CASE ALTERED. POPE SEXTUS, when cardinal, counterfeited sickness, and all the infirmities of age, so well, as to dupe the whole conclave. His name was Montalto; and on a division for the vacant apostolic chair, he was elected as a stop-gap by both parties, under the idea that he could not possibly live out the year. The moment he was chosen, he threw away his crutches, and began to sing Te deum with a much stronger voice than his electors had bargained for: and instead of walking with a tottering step, and a gait almost bending to the earth, he began to walk not only firm, but perfectly upright. On some one remarking to him on the sudden change, he observed, while I was looking for the keys of St. Peter, it was necessary to stoop, but having found them, the case is altered. B-.-.

ANECDOTE OF DR. SMOLLETT. 4 A LAD was apprenticed to a chirurgeon in Glasgow, and with whom he had been engaged in a frolic on a winter's evening, was receiving a severe reprimand from his master for quitting the shop; and having alleged in his excuse that he had been hit by a snow-ball, and had gone out in pursuit of the person who had thrown it, was listening to the taunts of his master on the improbability of such a story. "How long," said the son of Esculapius, with the confident air of one fearless of contradiction, "might I stand here, and such a thing not happen to me?" when Smollett, who stood behind the pillar of the shop-door,' and heard what passed, snatched up a snow ball, and quickly delivered his playmate from the dilemma in which this question had placed him, by an answer equally prompt and conclusive.

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Mechanic's Dracle and Domestic Guide.

ON DESTROYING BUGS. TAKE a table-spoonful of red-lead mixed with two ounces fluid of the spirit of salt, put it in a cup, and place the cup in a basin of warm water to float, this to be put in the middle of the room, which should be kept shut up for 24 hours: the smell thereof proves destructive.

METHOD OF RESTORING WHITE COLOURS IN PAINTINGS BY

OXYGENATED WATER.

A FRENCH painter, of the name of Merimée, having observed, in a desigo of Raphael, that the lights had lost their brightness, applied to M. Thernard for his advice. This chemist ascribed the effect to the circumstance, that the white lead dissolved in water had become sulphuretted by the lapse of time, and bad been changed from white to black... Ac-. cordingly, he sent to M. Merimée some slightly oxygenated water, which was applied to the black, parts, and the white. colour was instantly restored. The water contained only 5 or 6 times its volume.

"Autumn," by W., is under consideration. We shall thank this gentleman to pay the postage.

C. W., author of the "Magic Fables,". will find a letter for him at our Publisher's. Sympathy, by F. R., is under consideration.

T. J. M. ought to be pun-ished, for his infamous pun.

The Flowers of Literature.

VIEW OF

ST. BRIDE'S CHURCH, And the Ruins caused by the Recent Fires in Fleet Street.

WE gladly seize the opportunity casually afforded by a heavy calamity, to dwell upon a scene never before exhibited to the eye of living man, never probably again to be beheld by any of our own race. The recent destructive fire on the Fleet-strcet side of St. Bride's Church has laid open to our unencumbered view one of those great masterpieces of Sir Christopher Wren's genius, which ought in good taste to stand apart from the mere masses of brick and mortar with which the spirit of trade has everywhere closely invested them.

The view we have of this extraordinary and most beautiful structure, is from the Northern side, and is, in fact, a side elevation of all its parts; and the towering spire smiles down on the smoking heap at its feet, as in mild defiance of that element, one of whose most terrific freaks so immediately preceded its own birth, and was in fact the immediate occasion of it.

In this shape, it comes upon the man of taste like a meteor of the heavens, and he views it with wonder and with reverence: but with the mass of the good citizens, we fear it stands, in their estimation, more wonderful from the violent contrast it presents with the humbled structures which surround it, than in any other feeling.

The rage for Church building obliges us to say a word on the comparative merit of those excrescences (the term generally applied is hardly too severe).

The spire of St. Bride's is one of the two brightest examples of Sir Christopher Wren's building in that branch, and is eminently and confessedly beautiful. We may here observe, that the essential principles of a spire, and of a steeple that rises in any degree above a mere turret, is a gradual variation of a conic figure from the base to the summit, so as to reject that long, unvaried, slanting line of an actual cone, which is so common a deformity in many churches of London, and to produce the conic figure and angle, by the general, not the precise direction of the sloping line, but broken and varied in its parts: of this the spire of St. Bride's church, and that of Bow church, Cheapside, are certainly the most elegant and charming examples.

The vast superiority of Grecian over Modern architecture is a fact mortifying to the pride of modern genius, without the more humbling reference to an Architect of our own land, and almost of our own age (at least with reference to the ancients): the best modern edifices are but imitations of the ancients, and we find to our discredit and utter discomfiture, that most of our attempts at designs different from them, every variation from their system, and even from their individual forms, has been a deviation into inferiority or error. The spire of St. Bride's is a welcome sight, after the extravagancies of modern church building.

THE ESQUIMAUX.

"IN order (says Capt. Lyon, in his journal) to amuse our new acquaintances as much as possible, the fider was sent on the ice, where he instantly found a most delightful set of dancers, of whom some of the women kept pretty good time; their only figure consisted in stamping and jumping with all their might: our musician, who was a lively fellow, soon caught the infection, and began cutting capers also; in a short time every one on the floe, officers, men, and savages, were dancing together, and exhibited one of the most extraordinary sights I ever witnessed. One of our seamen, of a fresh ruddy complexion, excited the admiration of all the young females, who patted his face, and danced round him wherever he went. I am sorry to give but a bad account of the morals of our visitors, some of whom were very importunate in offering their wives in exchange for a knife, and the women as anxiously pressing the bargain.”—p. 25.

"Two fine seals were caught, and one of our officers was at the opening of the animals, which was numerously attended by man and beast: the fattest parts of the still warm entrails were given to the children, and the grown persons then selected such morsels as suited their palates, throwing the refuse to the dogs. A new refinement in the luxury of eating was on this day, and very frequently afterwards observed, this happy country alone affording almost constant means of procuring it; which was, that the children amused themselves by allowing various parts of the intestines to freeze quite crisp before they ate them, so that they could snap them off in lengths with their teeth, as our English youngsters dispatch barleysugar."—p. 148.