"I have now to introduce," says Miss Mitford, "another fair artist into the female gallery of which I am so proud; an artist whose works seem to me to bear the same relation to sculpture that those of Mrs Acton Tindal do to painting. The poetry of Miss Day is statuesque in its dignity, in its purity, in its repose. Purity is perhaps the distinguishing quality of this fine writer, pervading the conception, the thoughts, and the diction. But she must speak for herself. As 'The Infant Bridal' might form a sketch for an historical picture, so 'Charlotte Corday' is a model, standing ready to be chiselled in Parian stone." "Stately and beautiful and chaste, Forth went the dauntless maid, Her blood to yield, her youth to waste, That carnage might be stayed. This solemn purpose filled her soul, There was no room for fear; She heard the cry of vengeance roll Prophetic on her ear. "She thought to stem the course of crime By one appalling deed; She knew to perish in her prime Alone would be her meed. No tremor shook her woman's breast, No terror blanched her brow; She spoke, she smiled, she took her rest, And hidden held her vow. "She mused upon her country's wrong, Upon the tyrant's guilt; Her settled purpose grew more strong As blood was freshly spilt. What though the fair, smooth hand were slight! It grasped the sharpened steel; A triumph flashed before her sight-- The death that it should deal. "She sought her victim in his den-- The tiger in his lair; And though she found him feeble then, There was no thought to spare. Fast through his dying, guilty heart, That pity yet withstood, She made her gleaming weapon dart, And stained her soul with blood." In another chapter of her work Miss Mitford gives us a slight biographical sketch of one who needs no introduction here or elsewhere--of the now celebrated Mrs Browning. The sketch is very interesting, but the extract given from her poems is not very happily selected. Miss Mitford does not seem to have ventured to trust herself among the more daring beauties--the bolder and more spiritual flights of her friend Mrs Browning. Her taste clings, as we have said, to what is distinct and definite. Of this we have rather an amusing instance in the criticism she passes on Shelley's _Alastor_. There is good sense and some truth in the criticism, and yet it is not all that ought to have been said of such a poem:--