."

The story of _Evelina_ being printed when the authoress was but
seventeen years old is proved to have been sheer invention, to trumpet
the work into notoriety; since it has no more truth in it than a
paid-for newspaper puff. The year of Miss Burney's birth was long
involved in studied obscurity, and thus the deception lasted, until
one fine day it was ascertained, by reference to the register of the
authoress' birth, that she was a woman of six or seven-and-twenty,
instead of a "Miss in her teens," when she wrote _Evelina_. The story
of her father's utter ignorance of the work being written by her, and
recommending her to read it, as an exception to the novel class, has
also been essentially modified. Miss Burney, (then Madame D'Arblay,) is
said to have taken the characters in her novel of _Camilla_ from the
family of Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, who built for Gen. D'Arblay the
villa in which the work was written, and which to this day is called
"Camilla Lacy." By this novel, Madame D'Arblay is said to have realized
3000 guineas.

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON CHARLES LAMB.

Lamb lies buried in Edmonton churchyard, and the stone bears the
following lines to his memory, written by his friend, the Rev. H. F.
Cary, the erudite translator of _Dante_ and _Pindar_:--

"Farewell, dear friend!--that smile, that harmless mirth,
No more shall gladden our domestic hearth;
That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow--
Better than words--no more assuage our woe.
That hand outstretch'd from small but well-earned store
Yield succour to the destitute no more.
Yet art thou not all lost: through many an age,
With sterling sense and humour, shall thy page
Win many an English bosom, pleased to see
That old and happier vein revived in thee.
This for our earth; and if with friends we share
Our joys in heaven, we hope to meet thee there."

Lamb survived his earliest friend and school-fellow, Coleridge, only a
few months. One morning he showed to a friend the mourning ring which
the author of _Christabelle_ had left him. "Poor fellow!" exclaimed
Lamb, "I have never ceased to think of him from the day I first heard of
his death." Lamb died in _five days after_--December 27, 1834, in his
fifty-ninth year.

* * * * *

"TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."

The author of this very successful work, (originally published in
_Blackwood's Magazine_,) was a Mr. Mick Scott,