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His description of his son, in which he dwells with parental enthusiasm on his boyish beauty and accomplishments—of his horror at that son's renunciation of the Christian faith, and leaguing with the infidel—and of the twilight encounter in which he took the life of his own giving,—are all worked out in the loftiest spirit of poetry.

The life of Mrs Hemans thus continued for many years a scene of uninterrupted domestic privacy—intercourse with the world, in an extended acceptation of the term, might be said to have been dropped by her; and the ideas with which her mind was stored, were derived solely from reading, united to a deep feeling of the beauties of nature, and its own bright comprehension and discernment. Her talent for acquiring languages was very remarkable, and she was well versed in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a sufficient knowledge of Latin for every requisite purpose. Of these languages she preferred the