tenor of her whole literary course; for no one ever felt, or expressed, more repugnance to factitious praise, or more strenuously declined to avail herself of the warmth of private regard in softening the rigour of criticism. The prayer of the poet, “O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!” was the language of all her actions. She even took pains to prevent some, who, she knew, were desirous of expressing their sense of her genius, from writing eulogies on her works, as she could not endure the conscious degradation of being exalted even by the genial quackery of friendship. It is scarcely necessary now to assert, that the supposition of her having laid claim to the authorship of the Plays on the Passions, or voluntarily endured the ascription of those powerful compositions to her pen, was utterly groundless. Rich as these works are in passion, and richer in fancy, they could not tempt the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho, even if she had not been restrained by any higher feeling than pride, to claim them—not because they would have been unworthy of her, if she had written them, but because the secret sense of merited reputation must alone have created a distaste for eulogies which she did not deserve. Anxious as Mrs. Radcliffe was to repel the suggestion, she felt that, as she could not discover its author, it would not become her to intrude on Miss Baillie a denial of the report, which she had not sanctioned; and the same susceptible delicacy, which made her feel it so deeply, compelled her to bear it in silence. The subject, which was always painful to her, is rather now alluded to as an instance of the singular apprehensiveness of her moral sense, than as at all required for the vindication of her character.