been contradicted and restrained, but this she rarely was by anybody, and when left to herself she was to the greatest degree a good-natured child, and as such, a favorite with her elder sisters. If anybody wanted a thing, Carry would fetch it,-if any little service was to be done, Carry would do it--if any secret to be transacted, Carry could be trusted-anybody might use Carry's books or papers, or thread or pencils, she would never be angry; there was nothing that she would not do to assist or oblige any one, for she was as quick with her fingers as with her brain: "Let Carry try," is a sentence well remembered, when any little difficulty occurred among the sisters. She cannot well remember, that any individual of her large. family, living as they did invariably together, ever treated her unkindly, or otherwise than with the greatest indulgence and affection. A happier childhood, perhaps, has seldom been passed. Out of hearing, almost, of the world's cares, except the divisions of Whig and Tory, Opposition and Ministerial, Pitt and Fox, about which her father troubled himself by his fireside, and talked among his children, with as much interest as if he had been a placeman, with all the stirring interests of the long war, the taxes, the invasion, &c. &c.-provided abundantly for anything she ever heard or saw, or thought of, with

the comforts of life, free in the exercise of her tastes and powers, in the absence of all temptation to misuse them-leading in the simplicity of country hours and habits, the most healthful existence possible-occupied in all natural pleasures and rational pursuits, there seems not the shadow of a cloud upon the first division of her history, but that which she probably brought with her into the world, and must take with her out of it-the morbid sensibilities of her own nature the capacity to suffer without a proportionate cause--the heart's indwelling and inburied torment.

She closes at fourteen the first division of these memoranda, because she was about that age when her father died; the first great change in her changeful life; for though many years elapsed before there was any alteration in the external mode of life, it was the source and cause of much within herself, and ultimately of all relating to her. It must not be omitted, that before this period, little Caroline had actually attained the inborn desire of her heart,-to be an author. The fond father, whose pride and pleasure in her talents were very great, had pleased himself with printing and publishing, at the Tunbridge Wells Library, a few hundred copies of a History of England in verse, which little Caroline had composed for the use of her own school-room. They sold immediately,

and were much thought of as the production of so young a person; the printers, and no doubt the author, much desired a second edition, but the prudent parent, who perhaps never seriously looked forward tc his little girl's literary character, was dissuaded from permitting it, as likely to spoil her with public approbation. If he anticipated, as she surely believes he did not, that his children would depend on their own talents for the means of existence, this was a great mistake. If he thought to leave them in the com fortable obscurity of domestic life, perhaps it was judicious. At all events it was the commencement of the prolonged course of opposition which circumstances seemed to make to the dictates of nature, by which her early propensities and powers were baffled and suppressed;-in mere human language, we should say, by which her destiny was crossed. Is it not rather good to say, by which a merciful God kept in reserve for his own use, powers which might else have been expended in opposition to his truth. Had Caroline Fry been an author earlier, what would she have written? Blessed be God, and to Him alone the praise, that she never has written anything of which the memory is painful to her best and holi

est moments.

If any manuscript record of this period remain, it

must be with Caroline's family; she knew no one else. Most likely there are not any in existence-she believes they were not worth preserving, even as the productions of a child.

In reading the memoirs of other female writers, it has often come into her mind to think what the result would have been to her, had her powers been stimulated, as most others have been, by early opportunities and associations. Greater she would

perhaps have been, but far less happy, there is little

doubt.

Early Youth.

CAROLINE was about fifteen when her father died. Everything for a time went on the same-the same house, the same habits, the same establishment, but all was materially changed to Caroline. She passed from a child to a woman. The only control or influence she had ever known was withdrawn; nobody any more attempted to guide or to control her; the form of education was relinquished; her young sister and companion being sent from home, Caroline became the companion of the older ones; and was solely committed to her own discretion and responsibility, treated in every respect as a grown-up girl. For the first year or two, as might be expected, the little poet became more moody and whimsical than ever. She passed the greater part of the day alone in her chamber scribbling at an old escritoire of which she had got possession, or sitting for hours together at a high window-place with her feet upon a table, looking at the moon, and making verses; but her compositions