ings of others, was a distinguishing characteristic of her disposition. Selfish and wilful, all attempts to control her, excited only passion and spite. No pains had been spared to soften and tame her. The most celebrated teachers were employed. Not only did Miss Catherine E. Beecher try her skill upon her, but schools at Pittsfield, Mass., at Londonderry, N. H., and at several other places, were patronized, one after the other, with quite indif ferent success. At the termination of each fruitless effort to mould her character, Miss Fanny was returned, wild and wilful as ever, upon hes parents' hands.

In the course of conversation, Fanny's com plaints of neglect and cruelty on the part of her friends, were alluded to. Again the old man shook his head sorrowfully. These complaints, he said, were utterly without foundation; and to this statement he added a fact, which Fanny and her advisers will find it difficult to put out of sight. During the brief widowhood of the self-styled "Ruth Hall," her own father alone, paid out money to the amount of eight hundred dollars, for her support. For this, Mr. Willis can show receipts. Add an equal sum contributed by her husband's father, and we have not less than sixteen hundred

dollars-certainly a snug little pension for Ruth and her children to starve upon.

In this connection, the old gentleman had occasion to remark, that, had he been less liberal in the education and support of his children, he might not now be compelled to go early in the morning to his office, and remain late in the afternoon in all sorts of weather, exerting his feeble strength to obtain a livelihood, at an age when quiet and rest from toil are most to be desired.

Instead of becoming less troublesome to her friends as she grew older, Fanny seemed to acquire with years additional power to harass and distress them. At last came her separation from Mr. Farrington, accompanied with inexpressible mortification and pain to her family.

"Notwithstanding her rash and undutiful conduct they once more came to her relief, and she was permitted to draw the same pension as when a widow. She now commenced writing for the papers, and under the stimulus of her first success as an authoress, assumed an air of insufferable insolence toward the old man, who, all her life, had borne so patiently with her temper. More than once she had angrily charged him with falsehood to his face. Her letters to him were foolishly

impertinent. It was with reluctance and grief that Deacon Willis spoke of these things; but they seemed wrung from him by a powerful sense of the wrongs which had been heaped upon his

head.

When, at length, it was well known that Mrs. Farrington was in the receipt of liberal pay from the newspapers for which she wrote, her father warned her, that, if she sent him any more such unwomanly and unfilial notes as generally accom. panied her applications for money, her pension would be stopped. She defied him, and the threat was carried into execution. And now Fanny has sought her revenge.

The old man spoke affectionately of his son, Mr. N. P. Willis, whose touching tribute to his father has been recently published. Throughout the interview he had shown a subdued and Christian temper, uttering unpleasant truths "more in sorrow than in anger." It was affecting to listen to him; and our informant states, that on coming away, the reflection that this was the man whom the "Old Ellet" in Fanny's book was intended to caricature—a fact he had quite lost sight of— excited a revulsion of feeling, which he devoutly wished might be experienced by a few of the adorers of poor, abused "Ruth Hall."

LI

JOHN BULL'S OPINION OF RUTH HALL.

WE clip the following critique on "Ruth Hall"

from the columns of the Albion, an able organ of English sentiment.

"There are some books of which it is difficult to speak as one could wish, for a variety of reasons. Ruth Hall is such a one. We have watched the career of Fanny Fern from the first, and have seen but little in it to commend. Suddenly elevated to a pinnacle of popularity, she has demeaned herself as no right-minded woman should have done, and no sensitive-minded woman could have done-throwing out insinuations, that she was a very ill-used woman; that her family neglected her; and finally, that she had no family.' Her 'Fern Leaves,' of which two series are before the public, are more

or less an expansion of these or of congenial ideas -neglected wives and sisters, hard-hearted fathers and uncles, fatherless and suffering children, and young but talented authoresses seeking a livelihood by the pen, forming the bulk of the work. 'Ruth Hall' harps on the same strings; showing how Ruth Hall got married; how Mr. Hall died; how Mr. Hall's aged parents,' and the blood relatives of Ruth Hall, née Ellet, chaffered about helping her in her time of need, and how they didn't; how she took to authorship, and wrote in the newspapers under the signature 'Floy;' how she became famous, and humbled her brother Hyacinth, who had the good sense to discourage her from the first; and how she has a friend in the person of a Mr. Walter. This, and more of the same sort, is the plot of 'Ruth Hall.' The book is ostensibly published as a novel; but is intended -if general report may be believed-as an autobiography of Fanny Fern herself. If designed for a novel, it is clumsy in construction, and full of false sentiment and questionable morality. If meant for an autobiography, it is a piece of malice and impertinence. Admitting-what we do not for a moment believe-the truth of the narrative, we see no reason why it should be published, but many excellent ones why it should not. An old