she made up to them by an increase of payment what they had lost in time. The afternoon she divided between visiting the poor and instructing her children; of whom only two daughters survived their childhood. The accomplishments in which they excelled may excite a smile in the élèves of our Ladies' Colleges, but they were those with which Milton endowed the 'daughter of God and man, accomplished Eve,' when in the bowers of Eden she culled the berry and crushed the grape in preparation for her angelic guest. They learnt from their mother 'whatever might fit them for family employments;' for she was ambitious to impart to them all her own more lately acquired knowledge; and 'whatever required more art or curiosity for the closet or the parlor, as preserving, drawing spirits in an alembic or cold still, pastry, angelots, and other cream cheese, of which she made many, both for home use and to present to friends, -on her daughters she imposed these matters, to perfect them by practice, în what she had so accurately taught them.' She rivaled Mrs. Primrose herself in her gooseberry wine, reserved for the entertainment of her friends of higher rank; and for the cider, which won such high encomiums from their acquaintance, she would never allow her husband the smallest credit:-' His cider!' she would between jest and earnest reply, "tis my cider. I have all the pains and care, and he hath all the praise, who never meddles with it.'

Lest all this household lore should be lost to her descendants, she caused her daughters to transcribe her best recipes 'for things which were curious, but especially for medicines, with directions how to use them.' For she was skilled both as a physician and surgeon; and one of her sisters being married to a physician in London, she gained from him many valuable hints, besides what she acquired for herself from the study of Culpepper and other authorities. Part of the day was devoted to visiting the sick, and in preparing the 'distilled waters, syrups, oils, ointments, and salves,' with which her closet was more fully furnished than many a country shop. And both in their preparation and distribution her daughters were expected to lend their aid. A portion of their time was, besides, employed in needlework; and in this branch of their education their mother, though she was as well skilled as if she had been brought up in a convent, was always assisted by a servant, whom she had herself trained for the purpose. But, as far as possible, she kept her children under her own guidance; though she had a foreign master residing in the house for a time, to teach them languages, and they received lessons occasionally in singing and writing from other instructors. They were taught to read as soon as they could speak, and their mother devoted much care to make good readers of them. In this attainment she excelled; and to the skillful modulation of her voice, and to her judicious emphasis in reading, Dr. Walker gives high praise. This accomplishment is now but little prized. Yet the author of 'Friends in Council' has declared it as his conviction, that 'most mothers could hardly devote themselves to a more important thing in the education of their children than teaching them to read.'

For the use of her children, when very young, Mrs. Walker composed an easy First Catechism. But when they could say the Church Catechism perfectly, they were called upon to repeat it in church, that 'the meaner sort might be ashamed not to send their children, and the poor children might be quickened and encouraged by their example and company.'

Their mother was accustomed to give them a little reward in money for any psalms or chapters out of the Bible, which they committed to memory. This was less to incite them to learn, than that they might by their diligence have something of their own to bestow upon the poor in charity. And that the practice of benevolence might abide in them with the force of early habit, the beggar at the door was invariably relieved by the hand of one or other of the children.

In the evening they always accompanied their mother to their father's study for religious instruction. When they were dismissed the husband and wife united in prayer; after this she would herself bring him his evening meal-a service which she never allowed a domestic to perform for her, 'because she would not lose the pleasure and satisfaction of expressing her tender and endeared affection.' For herself a very slight repast sufficed; as her abstemiousness was so great that dinner was the only meal of which she regularly partook. The whole of Friday she spent in religious retirement, and this day she gave up to her maids for their own work, and that, if they pleased, they might employ more time in prayer and devotion. An hour in the evening before family prayer she dedicated to their instruction, and rewarded them with little presents to encourage them in learning the lessons set them. She gave to each of them also a Bible as soon as they could use it, the book being 'of double the price for which she might have bought it.' One of her rules was always to buy the best of every thing, yet she was not above the pride and pleasure of making a bargain; except when the person of whom she bought was poor, when she invariably gave the full price asked, whatever it was. After family prayer, and whilst she was preparing to retire to rest, one of her maids read to her a chapter in the Bible; and the day, opened with prayer, was closed with praise. And thus

"The trivial round, the common task,'

became to her, indeed, a path by which God's loving Spirit led her forth into the land of righteousness.

Such was her ordinary course of life, except when Sunday brought relief from its monotony, and rest from its labors. Great was the contrivance exercised by her during the week, that no worldly business should encroach upon the sanctity of the day. Her maids were never allowed to make a cheese that day; and she would seldom use the coach to carry her to church except in extremity of way and weather.' Though none gave a warmer welcome to her friends on other days, yet on this, if any uninvited intruded themselves, she escaped as soon as she could with civility from their company. Many a sick neighbor, however, she cheered with a Sunday visit in the interval between the services. When she walked to church she was always accompanied by all her servants, that they might not stay loitering idly at home or by the way.' In the evening she gathered her family round her for religious instruction.

So from week to week her life glided quietly on, varied occasionally by friendly visits given and received, by a journey to Tunbridge wells every summer, and by the festivities of Christmas, when the whole parish, rich and poor, old and young, were feasted for three days at the Rectory. On the anniversary of their wedding-day Dr. and Mrs. Walker entertained their neighbors of higher degree; and the Earl of Warwick's family was generally included amongst their guests.

On one occasion 'three coroneted heads, and others of best quality, next to nobility,' were numbered in the company. For this feast the venison was always supplied from Lees Priory. On the table there was conspicuously placed a dish of pies, prepared by Mrs. Walker, their number corresponding with the years of her married life. On the last anniversary a perfect pyramid appeared-thirty-nine in one dish, all ‘made,' as we are told, 'by the hand which received a wedding-ring so many years before."

On the day following this and other entertainments, the door used to be besieged by persons who sought advice and remedies for invalids. Their peculiar maladies were well understood by Mrs. Walker, who used to send home the applicants well supplied with a store of good things, which she used laughingly to assure them would cure all their ailments. She would herself send for those too modest to employ the ruse which their neighbors found so successful; and she did not let them on this account lose their share in the feast. The remains of it, after the household servants and laborers had had their share, were thus entirely distributed amongst the poor.

This, perhaps, was a more expedient mode of obeying the Gospel directions for feasting, than by inviting rich and poor to the same table: though the command, as we have seen, was at Christmas literally fulfilled; no difference at that time being apparantly made in their reception. The children alone were placed at a table by themselves; and when the parents proffered excuses for bringing them, Mrs. Walker would tell them that she loved to have them about her:'They are as welcome as yourselves, though you be very welcome.'

To the parishioners of Fyfield her hand, indeed, was always open. The rent of a small farm, worth £19 a year, was given to her by her husband; and besides this, what by her thrift she could spare from the profits of certain departments of their own farm, after supplying the family, was added to her little store, the whole amounting to about £23 in the year. Every half year on receiving her rent she laid aside nine and sixpence in her 'poor man's box' for lesser alms; but the whole amount of her charities in the year exceeded the half of what she received, as she rarely spent more than seven or eight pounds upon herself. Yet, as Dr. Walker proudly avers, she was always well dressed, though she never appeared but in black; and was as exquisitely neat and delicate in her own apparel as she expected her daughters to be in theirs. She used to tell them that this was in some measure 'a sign and evidence of inward purity; and that though all neat people were not good, yet almost all good people were neat.' What she might have lavished upon herself she preferred to impart to others. If she was simply attired, her poor neighbors were all the more comfortably clad. She had wool spun and made up into cloth, which was afterward converted into clothing for them; and on the birth of every infant in the parish the mother was presented with a blanket; so that we may well believe the assurance of one poor woman, who told her that she never woke in the night without praying for her. She found work for any who were in need of it, though she might not require their services; and, whilst supplying nourishment for the body, she did not withhold food for the mind. She gave away a great many books in the course of the year; and, until a free school was opened in the parish, she herself paid for the schooling of several poor children.

MRS. LUCY APSLEY HUTCHINSON.

MRS. HUTCHINSON, whose Memoir of her husband, Col. John Hutchinson, has commended her name as well as his to the keeping of English literature, was born in 1620 in the Tower of London, of which her father, Sir Allan Apsley, was governor. In the fragment of her 'Life,' found in 1806, one hundred and fifty years after her death, with the Memoirs of that manly, virtuous, and honorable man, to whom she was married in 1638, written for her own consolation, and for the edification of her children, she speaks of her parents and education as follows:

My father had great natural parts, but was too active in his youth to stay the heightening of them by study of dead writings, but in the living works of men's conversation, he soon became so skillful that he never was mistaken, but where his own goodness would not let him give credit to the evil he discovered in others. He was a most indulgent husband, and no less kind to his children. He was father to all his prisoners, sweetening with most compassionate kindness their restraint, that the affliction of a prison was not felt in his days. He was severe in the regulating of his family, so far as not to endure the least immodest behavior, or dress, in woman under his roof. There was nothing he hated more than an insignificant gallant that could only make his legs, and plume himself, and court a lady, but had not brains enough to employ himself in things more suitable to man's nobler sex.

My mother laid out most [of her noble allowance of £300 a year] in pious and charitable uses. Sir Walter Raleigh and Mr. Ruthin being prisoners in the Tower, and addicting themselves to chemistry, she suffered them to make their experiments at her cost, partly to comfort and divert the poor prisoners, and partly to gain the knowledge of their experiments, and the medicines to help such poor people as were not able to seek physicians. By these means she acquired a great deal of skill, which was very profitable to many all her life. She was not only to them, but to all the other prisoners that came into the Tower, as a mother. The worship and service of God, both in her soul and her house, and the education of her children, was her principal care. She was most diligent in her private reading and devotions.

By the time I was four years old I read English perfectly, and having a great memory, I was carried to sermons; and while I was young could remember and repeat them exactly. I was taught by my nurse, a French woman, to speak French and English as early as I could speak any thing. When I was about seven years old I began with private tutors in languages, music, dancing, writing, and needlework; but my genius was quite abstruse from all but my book, and that I was so eager of, that my mother thinking it prejudiced my health, would moderate in it. My father would have me learn Latin, and I was so apt that I outstripped my brothers who were at school. As for music and dancing, I profited very little in them, and would never practice my lute or harpsichord but when my masters were with me; and for my needle, I absolutely hated it. Living in the house with many persons that had a great deal of wit, and very profitable serious discourses being frequent at my father's table, and in my mother's drawing-room, I was very attentive to all, and gathered up things that I would utter again.

Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of her husband embodies the ideal of Wordsworth's Happy Warrior, more nearly than most of the historically great characters of English history, and her own character and conduct, in sharing his counsels and hazards, and ministering to his wants in prison, as unconsciously portrayed in the narrative, exalts our idea of the domestic training of the period in which she lived, as well as of republican and puritan manners generally. We can find few such characters in our reading of ancient or modern history.

THE BOYLE FAMILY.

RICHARD BOYLE, the founder of the house of Cork and Orrery, and known as the Great Earl of Cork, was born in 1566 at Canterbury, of a good but not wealthy family. After studying at Cambridge and Middle Temple, he went over to Ireland to seek his fortune. And in the internal distractions and confiscations of that unhappy country, by siding with the English government and the Protestant party, he bought confiscated estates, introduced English Protestant laborers, enjoyed public office, was knighted, made Viscount Dungarven and Earl of Cork in 1620, and in 1631 Lord High Treasurer;-rich with the spoils of party and sect, and the father of fourteen children, he purchased an estate at Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, where he died in 1644.

His seventh son, the Honorable Robert Boyle, born at Lismore, Waterford, 1626, inherited the estate of Stalbridge, was one of the founders of the Royal Society, of the Boyle Lecture, and promoter of science. He died in 1692.

Lady Ranelagh.

Lady Ranelagh, a daughter of Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, enjoyed the reputation of fine scholarship, which then meant the knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, and the higher credit of a doer of good, is thus described:

'She employed her whole time, interest, and estate in doing good to others; and as her great understanding and the vast esteem she was in made all persons, in their several turns of greatness, desire and value her friendship, so she gave herself a clear title to use her interest with them for the service of others, by this, that she never made any advantage of it to any design or end of her own. She was contented with what she had, and, though she was twice stripped of it, she never moved on her own account, but was the general intercessor for all persons of merit, or in want. This had in her the better grace, and was both more Christian and more effectual, because it was not limited within any narrow compass of parties or relations. When any party was depressed she had credit and zeal enough to serve them, and she employed that so effectually, that in the next turn she had a new stock of credit, which she laid out wholly in that labor of love in which she spent her life. She divided her charities and her friendships, her esteem as well as her bounty, with the truest regard to merit and her own obligations, without any difference made on account of opinion. She had a vast reach both of knowledge and apprehension, an universal affability and easiness of access, a humility that descended to the meanest persons and concerns, and an obliging kindness and readiness to advise those who had no occasion of any further assistance from her; and, with all these and many other excellent qualities, she had the deepest sense of religion, and the most constant turning of her thoughts and discourses that way, that was known perhaps in that age.

'It was Lady Ranelagh's suggestion that Waller wrote his "Divine Poems." Rachel, Lady Russel, speaks of her letters as affording instruction for a whole life, and nourishment for many days. Her name also appears frequently in Evelyn's "Diary and Correspondence;" and between her family and his wife's there was some connection. But she would not have failed, even without this, to be numbered amongst their friends, from the circumstance of her brother, Robert Boyle, residing with her in her house in Pall Mall,