Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCXXXVII. MARCH, 1852. VOL. LXXI. CONTENTS. MISS MITFORD'S "RECOLLECTIONS," 259 STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE. PART III., 272 SKETCHES FROM THE CAPE, 289 MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XIX., 298 ENGLISH ADMINISTRATIONS, 320 TIBET AND THE LAMAS, 335 FOREST LIFE IN CANADA WEST, 355 FAREWELL TO THE RHINE, 366 THE REFORM MEASURES OF 1852, 369 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCXXXVII. MARCH, 1852. VOL. LXXI. MISS MITFORD'S "RECOLLECTIONS."[1] [1] _Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places, and People._ By MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, author of "Our Village," &c. No one can have glanced at _Our Village_, or any of the charming sketches of Miss Mitford, without having been struck by the peculiar elegance, the raciness, the simplicity of her style. It is as free in all its movements as that pet of hers, the Italian greyhound she has made so familiar to us all--as free and as graceful. A beautiful style is no singularity in our days, and there are many orders of such beauty; nevertheless, Miss Mitford has a dialect of her own. It is a style gathered from familiarity with the classic, and especially the dramatic poets, and with whatever is most terse and elegant amongst our prose writers, and yet applied with perfect ease to the simplest details of life, to the real transaction and the daily scene before her. You would think every one was talking in the same manner; it is only Miss Mitford who speaks this dialect. It is as if any one should learn Italian from the works of Petrarch or Tasso, or any other of their classics, and be able to apply the language he had thus acquired without the least restraint to the common purposes of life; every Italian would understand him, and seem to speak like him, and yet he would remain in exclusive possession of his own Tuscan speech.