of the proud Cardinal Wolsey's domain, inhabited during the days: of
his power over Henry VIII., and in their cloudy evening, when that
capricious monarch's favor changed to bitterest hate. It was the very
spot to foster her high romance, while she could at the same time
enjoy the sweets of that domestic converse she loved best of all.
We were prevented by the occupations and heart-beatings of our own
literary labors from repeating this visit; and in 1831, four years
after these well-remembered hours, the venerable mother of a family
so distinguished in literature and art, rendering their names known
and honored wherever art and letters flourish, was called HOME. The
sisters, who had resided ten years at Esher, left it, intending to
sojourn for a time with their second brother, Doctor Porter, (who
commenced his career as a surgeon in the navy) in Bristol; but within
a year the youngest, the light-spirited, bright-hearted Anna Maria
died; her sister was dreadfully shaken by her loss, and the letters
we received from her after this bereavement, though containing the
outpourings of a sorrowing spirit, were full of the certainty of
that re-union hereafter which became the hope of her life. She soon
resigned her cottage home at Esher, and found the affectionate welcome
she so well deserved in many homes, where friends vied with each
other to fill the void in her sensitive heart. She was of too wise
a nature, and too sympathizing a habit, to shut out new interests
and affections, but her _old ones_ never withered, nor were they
ever replaced; were the love of such a sister-friend--the watchful
tenderness and uncompromising love of a mother--ever "replaced," to a
lonely sister _or_ a bereaved daughter! Miss Porters pen had been laid
aside for some time, when suddenly she came before the world as the
editor of "Sir Edward Seward's Narrative", and set people hunting over
old atlases to find out the island where he resided. The whole was
a clever fiction; yet Miss Porter never confided its authorship, we