514 



HEMANS. 



is undeniable, besides, that the tastes of the 

 wedded pair had proved uncongenial, and their se- 

 paration took place by mutual consent. Mrs He- 

 inans afterwards lived with her children at a place 

 called Bronwylfa, near St Asaph, whither her 

 mother and sister had latterly removed. Here 

 Mrs Ill-mans sought for the restoration of her 

 mental composure, by ardently pursuing the studies 

 which she loved, and by devoting herself to the 

 education of her children. Though never placed 

 at any public seminary, she had formerly acquired 

 a slight knowledge of the Latin tongue, and she 

 now made herself familiar with Italian, German, 

 and other modern languages. This acquaintance 

 she maintained and continued to improve through 

 her life, as a variety of translations, from the Latin 

 of Horace, the Portuguese of Camoens, the Ger- 

 man of Goethe, and the Spanish of Herrera, exe- 

 cuted at various times, will enduringly prove. 

 One of her first compositions, after her separation 

 from her husband in 1818, was connected with 

 this branch of her studies being. a series of papers 

 on Foreign Literature, which were published in 

 the Edinburgh Magazine for1819. The poems 

 called the " Restoration of the Works of Art in 

 Italy," " Modern Greece," " Tales and Historic 

 Scenes," and the " Sceptic," were all composed 

 during the years 1819, 1820, and 1821. Her poem 

 of "Wallace" was published during the same pe- 

 riod, and gained a private prize, as the poem of 

 " Dartmoor " did a public one, from the Royal 

 Society, in 1821. The " Siege of Valentia, the 

 Last Constantine, and other Poems," formed a 

 volume, published in 1823, and in the same year a 

 tragedy, entitled the " Vespers of Palermo," was 

 produced at Covent Garden. This play was too 

 purely poetical for success on the stage. In 1827, 

 she published her " Forest Sanctuary," and in the 

 beginning of the following year her " Records of 

 Women." In the latter year (1828.) on the occa- 

 sion of her mother's death, she removed to Liver- 

 pool, and after a time took up her residence at 

 Wavertree, a village three miles distant from that 

 town. Early in the summer of 1829, urged by nu- 

 merous invitations, Mrs Hemans paid a visit to 

 Scotland. Her first residence was Chiefswood, 

 the house of her accomplished friend and corres- 

 pondent, colonel Hamilton, the author of Cyril 

 Thornton. With a still more eminent admirer, 

 Sir Walter Scott, she now became for the first 

 time personally acquainted, and many interesting 

 memorials of her intercourse with the great novel- 

 ist are given in her letters, written during a short 

 stay with him at Abbotsford. Mrs Hemans re- 

 sided for some months at Edinburgh, after visiting 

 Abbotsford, and was flatteringly entertained by 

 the literary and polite circles of that city. She 

 then returned to Wavertree, near Liverpool, and 

 published, in the summer of 1830, her " Songs of 

 the Affections," most of which had been pub- 

 lished separately, in Blackwood's Magazine. In 

 the same summer, she put into execution a long- 

 cherished plan of visiting the Lakes in the north 

 of England. Here she lived for some days with 

 Mr Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, and afterwards 

 resided for a week or two at a cottage called the 

 Dove's Nest. From the Lakes, Mrs Hemans was 

 again induced, in the autumn of 1830, to proceed 

 to Scotland, where she resided chiefly at her friend 

 Sk Robert Liston's seat of Lilburn Tower. It 

 was during this visit at Lilburn Tower that Mrs 

 Hemans formed a friendship, which led her to visit 



Dublin before returning to England. When she 

 did return to her native country, it was only to 

 make preparations for taking up her residence per- 

 manently in the Irish capital. Her own health 

 had become of late precarious, from an affection of 

 the heart, and this was one motive for the step in 

 question. The views which she entertained for 

 her boys formed another reason. After visiting 

 Wales, Mrs Hemans took leave of England, in the 

 spring of 1831, for the last time, as it unhappily 

 proved. In Ireland, Mrs Hemans mingled little 

 in society, excepting with a few intimate personal 

 friends, of whom the archbishop of Dublin was one 

 of the kindest and most attentive. The frame of 

 the poetess was now progressively decreasing in 

 strength, though her mind was unabated in its en- 

 ergies and activity. In 1833 and 1834, she pre- 

 pared for the press and published three little 

 works, " Hymns for Childhood," " National Ly- 

 rics, and Songs for Music," and " Scenes and 

 Hymns of Life," in some of which her muse exhi- 

 bited even a grander power and loftier object than 

 it had yet done. In the beginning of 1835, she 

 became so weak as to excite the deepest fears 

 among her friends and the public. Her malady 

 rapidly increased, and on the 16th of May she ex- 

 pired. 



The harp of Mrs Hemans, it may be said, had 

 two leading chords. The tones of the one sounded 

 of high and chivalrous deeds and feelings ; the 

 other spoke of love, and the holy ties of domestic 

 duty. These themes, sometimes apart, and some- 

 times blended together, were those on which the 

 genius of the poetess loved to dwell and dilate. A 

 feminine delicacy and gracefulness of thought and 

 expression, with a rich abundance of imagery, and 

 a never-failing harmony of versification, are the 

 characteristics of Mrs Hemans' poetical style. A 

 collected edition of her works, with a memoir of 

 her life by her sister, has been published by 

 Messrs Blackwood of Edinburgh. 



Of the personal appearance of Mrs Hemans, Miss 

 Jewsbury, afterwards Mrs Fletcher, has given the 

 following account, describing her under the name 

 of Egeria : " Egeria was totally different from any 

 other woman I had ever seen, either in Italy or 

 England. She did not dazzle she subdued me. 

 Other women might be more commanding, more 

 versatile, more acute ; but I never saw one so ex- 

 quisitely feminine. She was lovely without being 

 beautiful ; her movements were features ; and if a 

 blind man had been privileged to pass his hand 

 over the silken length of hair, that when unbraided 

 flowed round her like a veil, he would have been 

 justified in expecting softness and a love of soft- 

 ness, beauty and a perception of beauty, to be dis- 

 tinctive traits of her mind. Nor would he have 

 been deceived. Her birth, her education, but, 

 above all, the genius with which she was gifted, 

 combined to inspire a passion for the ethereal, the 

 tender, the imaginative, the heroic in one word, 

 the beautiful. Her knowledge was extensive and 

 various, but, true to the first principle of her nature, 

 it was poetry that shesoughtinhistory.scenery, char- 

 acter, and religious belief poetry that guided all her 

 studies, governed all her thoughts, coloured all her 

 conversation. Her nature was at once simple and 

 profound ; there was no room in her mind for phil- 

 osophy, or in her heart for ambition one was 

 filled by imagination, the other engrossed by ten- 

 derness. Her strength and her weakness alike lay 

 in her affections; these would sometimes make 



