Mary Howitt published jointly with her husband two volumes of miscellaneous poems, in 1823; and, in 1834, she gave to the world “The Seven Temptations,” a series of dramatic poems; a work which, in other times, would have been alone sufficient to have made and secured a very high reputation: her dramas are full of keen perceptions, strong and accurate delineations, and powerful displays of character. She afterwards prepared for the press a collection of her most popular ballads, a class of writing in which she greatly excels all her contemporaries. She is also well known to the young by her “Sketches of Natural History,” “Tales in Verse,” and other productions written expressly for their use and pleasure. Mrs. Howitt is distinguished by the mild, unaffected, and conciliatory manners, for which “the people called Quakers” have always been remarkable. Her writings, too, are in keeping with her character: in all there is evidence of peace and good-will; a tender and a trusting nature; a gentle sympathy with humanity; and a deep and fervent love of all the beautiful works which the Great Hand has scattered so plentifully before those by whom they can be felt and appreciated. She has mixed but little with the world; the home-duties of wife and mother have been to her productive of more pleasant and far happier results than struggles for distinction amid crowds; she has made her reputation quietly but securely; and has laboured successfully as well as earnestly to inculcate virtue as the noblest attribute of an English woman. If there be some of her contemporaries who have surpassed her in the higher qualities of poetry,--some who have soared higher, and others who have taken a wider range,--there are none whose writings are better calculated to delight as well as inform. Her poems are always graceful and beautiful, and often vigorous; but they are essentially feminine; they afford evidence of a kind and generous nature, as well as of a fertile imagination, and a safely-cultivated mind. She is entitled to a high place among the Poets of Great Britain; and a still higher among those of her sex by whom the intellectual rank of women has been asserted without presumption, and maintained without display. THE POOR SCHOLAR. PERSONS. THE POOR SCHOLAR. ACHZIB, THE PHILOSOPHER. THE MOTHER. LITTLE BOY. _The Scholar’s Room--Evening._ THE POOR SCHOLAR AND LITTLE BOY. _Little Boy, reading._ “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Here endeth the 16th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.