"Johnny" is late in returning from the law-office or opera, Annie will sit up to chat with the amusing, goodnatured brother. "Play me something, Annie," was a frequent request, readily granted then, as in after years such a request would be by Anne Gilchrist to her children and friends. My school-friend told me that there were many little things that she, as a sister, could advise her brother in.'

'Wholly unprepared was Annie for the terrible blow that followed eight years after her father's death. In the sister's nineteenth year, that only brother, so full of promise, from whom she had never been separated for long together, was snatched away by a malignant fever (16th July, 1847); and the sister was not allowed even the sad satisfaction of seeing her brother from the time that he was taken ill to the day of his death. The loss of her "angel brother" put the sun out of her sky for many a day. The suddenness of the shock, too, stunned her and the thought of death so environed Annie that she owned to a surprise, "at finding any young man of her acquaintance alive."

Six months after the death of John T. Burrows, Annie wrote to her friend Julia' from 10, Heathcote Street-a house which Mrs. Burrows rented of Mrs. James Gilchrist. The former had moved from Highgate in the Michaelmas of 1846, in order that her son might the better be enabled to study law.

"Do write soon, dear Annie,' is the closing petition of your letter; and what shall Annie say to make you forgive her having allowed three weeks to slip away before answering you? In truth, dear Julia, I feel

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reluctant to enter into the discussion you wish not because my interest in the subject has diminished the contrary, it increases greatly; but because it is one on which I am conscious that my mind is in a state of darkness and perplexity. And I have suffered lately, too, from such almost unconquerable depression. However, I will try and begin the New Year better; indeed, I do not give way to it, and can always disguise it from those who surround; but I could not do so in writing to my friend.

"I feel deeply grateful for the warm, true affection that prompts your anxiety about my views of religion. May I speak freely, dearest? It seems to me that such anxiety betrays a want of confidence in the power of truth and in the goodness of God. Can you believe that one who earnestly and humbly seeks the truth, will be permitted to embrace vital error?

"I cannot help thinking you attach too much importance to creeds and doctrines. They are mere definitions, after all; and definitions are better calculated to circumscribe truth, and bring it down to the narrow level of our half-awakened understandings, than to raise our minds to deep, elevated, life-giving comprehension of it; and this, I feel persuaded, is not bestowed upon us at once by the Creator, but is to be earned slowly, by years of labour, by struggling resolutely to crush the evil and develop the good that is in us. To me, I confess, it seems a very considerable thing just to believe in God; difficult indeed to avoid honestly, but not easy to accomplish worthily, and impossible to compass to perfection. A thing not lightly to be professed, but rather humbly

sought; not to be found at the end of any syllogism, but in the inmost fountains of purity and affection; not the sudden gift of intellect, but to be earned by a loving and brave life. It is, indeed, the greatest thing allowed to mankind, the germ of every lesser greatness.' The greatest thing allowed to mankind. Oh, this is so true! The soul pants to worship God. Could it but catch a glimpse of its Creator, it would at once be filled with love and adoration, with joy unspeakable, mingled with awe and deep humility, with love to man, with divine energy, and with the thirst for perfection.

"You ask me if I believe in the doctrine of man's total depravity? I do not. I believe that there is much evil in the human heart, and also much that is good that the Creator has endowed it with noble capabilities; and the Scriptures are full of blessed promises of light and strength from above to those who seek it earnestly.

"The Gospels, the Psalms and Job, I read, but not the Epistles yet they are so hard of interpretation.

"It pains me to hear from your lips such a doctrine as this: That the least guilty of men deserve a doom so dreadful, that eternity will not exhaust their punishment;' whilst at the same time you confess that we are born with an irresistible tendency to sin. I can find no warrant in the Gospels for such a belief.

"I think, dear Julia, we start with a different aim; those who take your view of religion (the Calvinists) think that our sole object is to get to Heaven and escape damnation; and this necessarily results from their view of human nature and of God. But to me it seems, that

A SNUG COTTAGE.

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our great aim should be to fulfil the ends for which we were created; that is to say, develop to the utmost the nature which God has given us; and I cannot think of Heaven as a place, but as a state of Being. How I long to see you again, my dear friend. I count the days till your return."

Henry Carwardine-Anne Gilchrist's uncle-in one of his numerous letters to James Gillman (Coleridge's friend), tells us something about his niece:

" November, 1847.

"My sister (Mrs. Burrows) has been at her old quarters-No. 10, Heathcote Street, for four or five weeks-but since the death of her son, having no object for living in London, and her daughter not liking it, they are both coming to live at a snug cottage of mine, close to the entrance gate of the Priory. I am going to add a bedroom on the ground-floor; for she cannot mount a stair." [Mrs. Burrows suffered from rheumatism for twenty-five years.] "She will be near her own family and many of her early friends, and I shall be able in many ways to render her assistance, and minister to her little comforts and requirements; and I think we can get her into a bath-chair in fine weather, and wheel her about the old Priory grounds-a mode of enjoying air and exercise which she cannot obtain in London. All this cannot take place till after Midsummer next. The pleasure with which she [Mrs. Burrows] looks forward to her residence at Colne, is not unmixed with dread of the painful effort of the journey; however, she will make the attempt about August [1848]

by which time I hope to have everything ready to afford her as much comfort as her sad state admits of."

Annie Burrows writes to Julia Newton from Colne Priory, September 24, 1848:

"Your charming little note, after a journey round Essex, found me at the Priory; and here we shall remain till Friday next, when we enter our new abode.

"So you may fancy what a busy, bustling lady I am just now, making curtains and superintending carpenters.

"Poor Mamma got through the journey [from 10, Heathcote Street] pretty well, but I grieve to say her rheumatism is worse rather than better: however, I try to persuade myself this is owing to our being near a great deal of water, for there is a large pond a hundred yards from the Priory, and the river close by; and that when we are settled in our little cottage, she will not be so great a sufferer.

"And so at last, you do confess that chimney pots, brick walls, and a sky of smoke, are not so pleasant to look upon as fields and woods, and the azure heavens. I had really begun to think you were as hopeless a case as Dr. Johnson, who said: Sir, when you have seen one green field, you have seen all green fields. Sir, I like to look upon men; let us walk up Cheapside.' And yet, now I have left dear old London, I feel great affection for it, but I own I like it best at a distance, and have no wish to return, if my friends will come to me. How I long for your promised visit! Shall we not walk and talk of things human and divine? Apropos of things human, I agree in what you say of Miss Bremer. Her