Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/130

 114 Think of the author of "The Search after Happiness" and the author of "A Poetical Epistle to Mr. Wilberforce" loudly refusing to envy each other's eminence! There is nothing like it in the strife-laden annals of fame.

Finally there stepped into the arena that charming embodiment of the female muse, Mrs. Hemans; and the manly heart of Protestant England warmed into homage at her shrine. From the days she "first carolled forth her poetic talents under the animating influence of an affectionate and admiring circle," to the days when she faded gracefully out of life, her "half-etherealized spirit" rousing itself to dictate a last "Sabbath Sonnet," she was crowned and garlanded with bays. In the first place, she was fair to see,—Fletcher's bust shows real loveliness; and it was Christopher North's opinion that "no really ugly woman ever wrote a truly beautiful poem the length of her little finger." In the second place, she was sincerely pious; and the Ettrick Shepherd reflected the opinion of his day when he said that "without religion, a woman's just an even-down deevil." The appealing helplessness of Mrs. Hemans's