rmer
days, may not unjustly be traced to the larger share which feminine
pens now have in the production of these works. It would appear to
countenance the heretical notion just condemned, to assume that
a robust organization is essential to the proper development and
exercise of the powers of the understanding; but it is certain
that, in several instances, individuals, who have exhibited the most
striking examples of female pre-eminence, have not reached the full
maturity of their intellectual growth, but have been lost to the world
in a premature grave: to the names of Felicia Hemans and Laetitia
E. Landon, besides others, is now added that of Emma Roberts, who,
although in respect of poetical genius she cannot be placed upon
a level with the two writers just named, yet in the vigour of her
faculties, and in the variety of her talents, is worthy of being
associated with them as another evidence against the asserted mental
inequality of the sexes.

Miss Roberts belonged to a Welsh family of great respectability. Her
grandfather, who was a gentleman of good property, and served the
office of High Sheriff for Denbighshire, North Wales, possessed the
fine estate of Kenmell Park in that county, which was disposed of
after his death to Colonel Hughes, the present Lord Dinorben, whose
seat it continues to be. He had three sons, all of whom entered a
military life, which seems to have had peculiar attractions to this
gallant family. The eldest, the late General Thomas Roberts, raised
a regiment, which became the 111th, and it is said he frequently
officiated as Gold Stick in Waiting to George the Third. A son of
General Roberts was aide-de-camp to Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal,
was taken prisoner by the French, and detained during the war: he
afterwards rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The second son,
Colonel David Roberts, of the 51st regiment, distinguished himself in
the Peninsular war, having, on the 7th January, 1809, during Sir
John Moore's retreat, near the heights of Lugo, headed a party which
repulsed the French Light Brigade, on which occasion his cloak was
riddled with bullets, two of which passed through his right-hand,
which was amputated. He was then a major, but afterwards commanded the
regiment, in Lord Dalhousie's brigade, and subsequently in Flanders,
and was so seriously and repeatedly wounded, that his pensions for
wounds amounted to L500 a year. Colonel Roberts was an author, and
wrote, amongs