America," writes, "'Miriam’ was published In 1837. It received

the best approval of contemporary criticism, and a second edition, with such revision as the condition of the author’s eyes had previously forbidden, (she having been, for four or five years, afflicted with partial blindness,) appeared in the following year. Mrs. Hall had not proposed to herself to write a tragedy, but a dramatic poem, and the result was an instance of the successful accomplishment of a design, in which failure would have been but a repetition of the experience of genius. The subject is one of the finest in the annals of the human race, but one which has never been treated with a more just appreciation of its nature and capacities. It is the first great conflict of the Master's kingdom, after its full establishment, with the kingdoms of this world. It is Christianity struggling with the first persecution of power, philosophy, and the interests of society. Milman had attempted its illustration in his brilliant and stately tragedy of ’The Martyr of Antioch;' Bulwer has laid upon it his familiar hands in ’The Last Days of Pompeii;’ and since, our own countryman, William Ware, has exhibited it with power and splendour in his masterly romance of ’The Fall of Rome;' but no one has yet approached more nearly its just delineation and analysis than Mrs. Hall in this beautiful poem."

The prose works of Mrs. Hall evince a cultivated mind and refined caste; the style is carefully finished, and the delineations of character satisfy the judgment of the reader, if they fail to awaken any deep interest in the fate' of the queen or the pursuits of the learned lady. There is something in the genius of Mrs. Hall which seems statue-like; we feel that this repose is a part of the beauty, and yet one would wish to see it disturbed if only to prove the power which the inspired artist possesses.

Born at Philadelphia on the 30th. of October, 1761, was daughter of the Rev. John Ewing, D.D., who was for many years Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Although brought up in the troublesome times of the Revolution, and when it was not customary to bestow much cultivation on the female mind, with access to few books or other of the usual means of study. Miss Ewing became the mistress of accomplishments such as few possess. For her earliest years her active and inquisitive mind was ever on the alert for knowledge, and, fortunately, she possessed, in the society of her father—one of the most distinguished scholars of his day—a prolific source of information, which she failed not to improve to the utmost. By means of conversations with him, and observing the heavenly bodies under his direction, she became quite a proficient in the science of astronomy, which, through her whole life, continued one of her favourite pursuits. She also obtained a critical acquaintance with the principles of grammar, and an extensive knowledge of the ancient classics, by hearing her brothers recite their Latin and Greek lessons to their father, and by listening to the conversations of the learned men who frequented his house. True genius is stimulated to exertion by the obstacles that embarrass it in the pursuit of knowledge; and in the case of Miss Ewing the difficulties which she was obliged to surmount only served to redouble her