with the Misses Lance in Hans Place.

"These were happy days, and little boded the premature and melancholy
fate which awaited them in foreign climes. We believe," says the
editor of the 'Literary Gazette,' "that it was the example of the
literary pursuits of Miss Landon which stimulated Miss Roberts to try
her powers as an author, and we remember having the gratification to
assist her in launching her first essay--an historical production,
{35} which reflected high credit on her talents, and at once
established her in a fair position in the ranks of literature. Since
then she has been one of the most prolific of our female writers, and
given to the public a number of works of interest and value. The
expedition to India, on which she unfortunately perished, was
undertaken with comprehensive views towards the further illustration
of the East, and portions of her descriptions have appeared as she
journeyed to her destination in periodicals devoted to Asiatic
pursuits."

The influence of Miss Landon's literary popularity upon the mind of Miss
Roberts very probably caused that lady to desire similar celebrity.
Indeed, so imitative are the impulses of the human mind, that it may
fairly be questioned if Miss Landon would ever have attuned her lyre had
she mot been in the presence of Miss Mitford's and Miss Rowden's "fame,
and felt its influence." Miss Mitford has chronicled so minutely all the
sayings and doings of her school-days in Hans Place (H. P., as she
mysteriously writes it), that she admits us at once behind the scenes.
She describes herself as sent there (we will not supply the date, but
presume it to be somewhere about 1800) "a petted child of ten years old,
born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare." The schoolmistress,
a Mrs. S---, "seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely
dressed, in a nicely-furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of
delicate needlework, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering
questions, and administering as much praise as she conscientiously
could--perhaps a little more. In the school-room she ruled, like other
rulers, by ministers and delegates, of whom the French teacher was the
principal." This French teacher, the daughter of an _emigre_ of
distinction, left, upon the short peace of Amiens, to join her parents in
an attempt to recover their property, in which they succeeded. Her
suc