Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/30

 of Palermo"; and Miss Edgeworth considered that the "Siege of Valencia" contained the most beautiful poetry she had read for years. Finally Miss Jane Porter looms darkly on the horizon, with novels five volumes long. All the Porters worked on a heroic scale. Anna Maria's stories were more interminable than Jane's; and their brother Robert painted on a single canvas, "The Storming of Seringapatam," seven hundred life-sized figures.

"Thaddeus of Warsaw" and "The Scottish Chiefs" were books familiar to our infancy. They stretched vastly and vaguely over many tender years,—stories after the order of Melchisedec, without beginning and without end. But when our grandmothers were young, and my chosen period had still years to run, they were read on two continents, and in many tongues. The King of Würtemberg was so pleased with "Thaddeus" that he made Miss Porter a "lady of the Chapter of St. Joachim,"—which sounds both imposing and mysterious. The badge of the order was a gold cross; and this unusual decoration, coupled with the lady's habit of draping herself in flowing veils like