LADY FANSHAWE.

A DEVOTED wife and mother, a woman full of feminine qualities and energetic resolution happily combined, the daughter of Sir John Harrison, and the cousin of Evelyn, must always excite a pleasing interest when we follow her in her flights and her wanderings, and accompany her in her simple and clear descriptions of places and things which circumstances, both of misfortune and prosperity, made known to her. She has written her own memoirs, which present a lively picture of the time in which she lived, namely, during the civil wars, when Charles and Cromwell were struggling for mastery, and when that most careless and ungrateful of princes, Charles the Second, reclaimed his birthright, and shuffled off the friends who had gained it for him.

She relates minutely all that occurred to her husband and herself; for it was then a time when to write memoirs was considered a necessary

employment; but, unlike the insufferable Duchess of Newcastle, and the amiable but prosaic Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery, her accounts are full of life and grace, and the mixture of superstition which accompanies her genuine piety is merely entertaining, for her wonderful stories are really good. At the outset of her biography, she relates this anecdote of her mother, who died when she had attained the age of fifteen, in 1640.

After naming that her "ever honoured and most dear mother's" funeral cost above a thousand pounds, she speaks of Dr. Howlsworth, who, with several other divines, was intimate in the family, having preached her funeral sermon, "in which, upon his own knowledge, he told, before many hundreds of people, this "accident" following:

"That my mother, being sick to death of a fever three months after I was born, her friends and servants thought, to all outward appearance, that she was dead, and so lay about two days and a night; but Dr. Winston, coming to comfort my father, went into her room, and, looking earnestly on her face, said, 'She was so handsome and now looks so lovely, I cannot think she is dead;' and suddenly took a lancet out of his pocket, and with it cut the sole of her foot, which bled. Upon this, he immediately caused her to be laid upon the bed again, and to be rubbed, and such means, as she came to life, and opening her eyes saw two of her kinswomen stand

by her, my Lady Knollys and my Lady Russell,* both with great wide sleeves, as the fashion then was, and said :

"Did you not promise me fifteen years? and are you come again?'

"Which they not understanding, persuaded her to keep her spirits quiet in that great weakness wherein she then was; but, some hours after, she desired my father and Dr. Howlsworth might be left alone with her, to whom she said:

In the Catalogue of the Portraits at Woburn, a lady is named as Elizabeth, Baroness Russell, of Thornhaugh: and her picture, by Lucas de Heere, is thus described by Mr. Wiffin :—

Holding a fan of peacock's feathers, and apparelled in a black dress, figured with white and gold; a large plain ruff, and full sleeves, upon one of which is a curious ornament of jewelry, representing a naked man supporting a coronet, and bayed at by his hounds; whilst, on the other, is her monogram, E. R., hung round with fulgent jewels.

“She was the daughter and sole heir of Sir Henry Long, of Shengay, in Cambridgeshire, and, in 1583, married Sir William Russell, fourth son of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, before he was created Baron Russell, of Thornhaugh. When he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, she accompanied him thither, and, as we learn from his diary, often attended him in his hunting excursions to the moors and mountains, where the wild wolf was the object of pursuit. Lady Fairfax, (this, of course, should be Lady Fanshawe,) in her Memoirs, relates a singular dream, which was very remarkably fulfilled, in which this Lady Russell figures, with the same large sleeves, doubtless, in which she is represented here. She was a lady of great piety, and left behind her many 'holy meditations and religious comments on the Scriptures, dying with great resignation and sereneness, 12 June, 1611.'”

As Lady Harrison died in 1640, she could scarcely be the kinswoman who stood by her bedside, unless the two she saw were visions, as well as the rest.

It is singular how lamentably inaccurate authors are in dates; by that means confounding persons in a most perplexing manner.

"I will acquaint you, that during the time of my trance, I was in great quiet, but in a place that I could neither distinguish nor describe but the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to me than all my children, remained a trouble upon my spirits.

Suddenly I saw two by me, clothed in long white garments, and methought I fell down with my face in the dust and they asked me, why I was troubled in so great happiness: I replied,

Oh, let me have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years to see my daughter a woman;" to which they answered, "It is done." And then, at that instant, I woke out of my trance.'

"And Dr. Howlsworth did there affirm, that that day she died made just fifteen years from that time."

Lady Harrison, on her recovery from this illness, which had threatened to terminate so fatally, devoted herself to the education of this beloved child, who had "all the advantages that time afforded, both for working all sorts of fine work with my needle,”—which she places in the first rank of accomplishments," and learning French, singing, and the lute, the virginals and dancing; and, notwithstanding I learnt as well as most did, yet was I wild to that degree, that the hours of my beloved recreation took up too much of my time; for I loved riding in the first place, running, and all active pas

:

times in short, I was that which we graver people call a hoyting girl; but, to be just to myself, I never did mischief to myself or other people, nor one immodest word or action in my life, though skipping and activity was my delight; but upon my mother's death, I then began to reflect, and, as an offering to her memory, I flung away those little childishnesses that had formerly possessed me, and, by my father's command, took upon me the charge of his house and family, which I so ordered, by my excellent mother's example, as found acceptance in his sight."

Her brother, William Harrison, who, together with all the family, was a staunch royalist, she describes as, in 1641, "sitting in the Commons' House of Parliament; but not long, for when the King set up his standard he went with him to Nottingham; yet he, during his sitting, undertook that my father should lend one hundred and forty thousand pounds to pay the Scots, that had then entered England; and, as it seems, were to be both payed and prayed to go home; but afterwards their plague infected the whole kingdom, as to all our sorrows we know, and that debt of my father's remained to him until the restoration of the king."

Her father was plundered by the Long Parliament, and all his estates sequestered soon after this. The account she gives of her uncomfortable position at this time is striking, shared, doubtless, as it was,