22 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



art for which she had no natural taste (the art of 

 literature) that she appeared before the public. 

 Her novels, though they attained and merited a 

 certain popularity both in France and England, 

 are a measure only of her courage. They were a 

 task, not a beloved task ; they were written for 

 money in days of poverty, and they served their 

 end. In the least thing as well as in the greatest, 

 in every province of life as well as in her novels, 

 she displayed the same capacity of taking infinite 

 pains, which descended to her son. When she was 

 about forty (as near as her age was known) she 

 lost her voice ; set herself at once to learn the 

 piano, working eight hours a day ; and attained 

 to such proficiency that her collaboration in chamber 

 music was courted by professionals. And more 

 than twenty years later, the old lady might have 

 been seen dauntlessly beginning the study of 

 Hebrew. This is the more ethereal part of courage ; 

 nor was she wanting in the more material. Once 

 when a neighbouring groom, a married man, had 

 seduced her maid, Mrs. Jenkin mounted her horse, 

 rode over to the stable entrance and horsewhipped 

 the man with her own hand. 



How a match came about between this talented 

 and spirited girl and the young midshipman, is 

 not very easy to conceive. Charles Jenkin was one 

 of the finest creatures breathing ; loyalty, devotion, 

 simple natural piety, boyish cheerfulness, tender 



