tunate than herself. Successful in
authorship, she is equally successful in good works; loved at home and
honored abroad.

* * * * *

Lady Brassey's last voyage was made in the yacht she loved: the
_Sunbeam_. Three or four years before, her health had received a
serious shock through an attack of typhoid fever, and it was hoped
that travel would restore her. A trip was made in 1887 to Ceylon,
Rangoon, North Borneo and Australia, in company with Lord Brassey,
a son, and three daughters. While in mid-ocean, on their way to
Mauritius, Lady Brassey died of malarial fever, and was buried at sea,
September 14, 1887.

BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.

[Illustration: BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.]

We hear, with comparative frequency, of great gifts made by men:
George Peabody and Johns Hopkins, Ezra Cornell and Matthew Vassar,
Commodore Vanderbilt and Leland Stanford. But gifts of millions have
been rare from women. Perhaps this is because they have not, as often
as men, had the control of immense wealth.

It is estimated that Baroness Burdett-Coutts has already given away
from fifteen to twenty million dollars, and is constantly dispensing
her fortune. She is feeling, in her lifetime, the real joy of giving.
How many benevolent persons lose all this joy, by waiting till death
before they bestow their gifts.

This remarkable woman comes from a remarkable family. Her father,
Sir Francis Burdett, was one of England's most prominent members of
Parliament. So earnest and eloquent was he that Canning placed him
"very nearly, if not quite, at the head of the orators of the day."
His colleague from Westminster, Hobhouse, said, "Sir Francis Burdett
was endowed with qualities rarely united. A manly understanding and a
tender heart gave a charm to his society such as I have never derived
in any other instance from a man whose principal pursuit was politics.
He was the delight both of young and old."

He was of fine presence, with great command of language, natural,
sincere, and impressive. After being educated at Oxford, he spent some
time in Paris during the early part of the French Revolution, and
came home with enlarged ideas of liberty. With as much courage as
eloquence, he advocated liberty of the press in England, and many
Parliamentary reforms. Whenever there were misdeeds to be exposed, he
exposed them. The abuses of Cold Bath Fields and other prisons were
corrected through his searching public