victor of victors, in the infinite variety' of thy resources and enchantments more attractive than glory, resistless as fate; now terrible in the dusky splendors of thy imperious beauty; now softening and subtile as moonlight, and music, and poet dreams; insolent and humble, stormy though tender alluring tyranny, beautiful falsehood, fair and fatal enchantress, sovereign sorceress of the world! the end is not yet, and the day may not be far distant when thou shalt lay the asp to thine own bosom, and die."

These

Since her marriage to Leander K. Lippincott, Grace Greenwood's pen has been employed chiefly in writings for the young. She edits the "Little Pilgrim," a monthly devoted to the amusement, the instruction, and the well-being of little folks. Its best articles are her contributions. have been collected from time to time, and published by Ticknor & Fields, and make a juvenile library, numbering nearly a dozen volumes. Though intended for children, none of these books but will charm older readers, with the elegance and freshness of their style, their abounding vivacity and harmless wit, and the hopeful and sunny spirit which they breathe. They are remarkable for the felicitous manner in which they convey historical information. No child can fail to be drawn on to wider readings of the storied past, and to know more of old heroes, ancient cities, and famous lands.

Soon after its establishment, Mrs. Lippincott became a contributor to the "Independent," and during the war a lecturer to soldiers and at sanitary fairs. Her last book is made up from articles in the "Independent," and passages from lectures. It shows the fire of her youthful zeal, and the glowing rhetoric of twenty-five no whit abated. On the contrary, there are evidences in her later productions of a full grasping of the significance of the heroic and stormy times in which we live.

There appear in the writings of Grace Greenwood three phases of development, three epochs of a literary career. The first lasted from the days of the boarding-school till mar riage, from the first merry chit-chat and fragrant Greenwood Leaves beyond the Alleghanies, to the full-rounded, mellow, golden prime, as displayed in the letters from Europe. Then follows a decade, during which story-writing for children has principally occupied her pen. With the war commences the third period, — years -years "vexed with the drums and tramplings," the storms and dust-clouds of middle life; a great republic convulsed by a giant struggle; woman gliding from the sanctity of the fireside, going out to do, to dare, and to suffer at the side of her war-worn brother, attacking social wrongs, doing all that woman can do to cheer, to adorn, to raise the downfallen, to proclaim liberty to the captive, to open the prison to those that are bound. Up to the full summit level of such a time her spirit rises. She brings to the requirements of this epoch faculties polished by long and diligent culture; a heart throbbing with every fine sensibility, and every generous emotion; a large, warm, exuberant nature; a ripe and glorious womanhood.

For such a character in such a wondrous mother age, there lies open a long career of strenuous exertion, worthy achievement, and lasting fame.

ALICE AND PHEBE CARY.

BY HORACE GREELEY.

YEARS ago- a full score, at least the readers of some religious, and those of many rural, newspapers first noted the fitful appearance, in the poet's corner of their respective gazettes, of verses by ALICE CARY. Two or three years later, other such-like, and yet different—also irradiated, from time to time, the aforesaid corner, purporting to be from the pen of PHEBE CARY. Inquiry at length elicited the fact that the writers were young sisters, the daughters of a plain, substantial farmer, who lived on and cultivated his own goodly but not superabundant acres, a few miles out of Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a Universalist in faith, and they grew up the same, writing oftener for the periodicals of their own denomination, though their effusions obtained wide currency through others, into which they were copied. I do not know, but presume, that Alice had written extensively, and Phebe occasionally, for ten years, before either had asked or been proffered any other consideration therefor than the privilege of being read and heard.

This family of Carys claim kindred with Sir Robert Cary, a stout English knight, who, in the reign of Henry V., vanquished, after a long and bloody struggle, a haughty chevalier of Arragon, who challenged any Englishman of gentle blood to a passage-at-arms, which took place in Smithfield, London, as is chronicled in "Burke's Heraldry." Henry authorized

the victor to bear the arms of his vanquished antagonist, and the crest is still worn by certain branches of the family. The genealogy is at best unverified, nor does it matter. From Walter Cary—a French Huguenot, compelled to flee his country, upon the revocation by Louis XIV. of the great Henry's Edict of Nantes, and who, with his wife and son, settled in England, where his son, likewise named Walter, was educated at Cambridge — the descent of the Ohio Carys is unquestioned. The younger Walter migrated to America, very soon after the landing of the "Mayflower" pilgrims, and settled at Bridgewater, Mass., only sixteen miles from Plymouth Rock, where he opened a "grammar school," claimed to have been the earliest in America. Walter was duly blest with seven sons, whereof John settled in Windham, Connecticut; and of his five sons, the youngest, Samuel, was great-grandfather to the Alice and Phebe Cary of our day.

Samuel, educated at Yale, becoming a physician, settled and practised at Lyme, where was born, in 1763, his son Christopher, who, at eighteen years of age, entered the armies of the Revolution. Peace was soon achieved; when, in default of cash, the young soldier received a land grant or warrant, and located therewith the homestead in Hamilton County, Ohio, whereon was born his son Robert, who in due time married the wife who bore him a son, who died young, as did one daughter. Two more daughters have since passed away, and three remain, of whom the two who have not married are the subjects of this sketch. Their surviving sister, Mrs. Carnahan, is a widow, and lives in Cincinnati. Two brothers, sturdy, thrifty farmers, live near the spot where they first saw the light.

Alice Cary was born in 1820, and was early called to mourn the loss of her mother, of whom she has written: My mother was of English descent, a woman of superior

intellect, and of a good, well-ordered life. In my memory, she stands apart from all others, — wiser, purer, doing more, and living better, than any other woman." Phebe was born in 1825; and there were two younger sisters, of whom one died in youth, greatly beloved and lamented. A few weeks before her departure, and while she was still in fair health, she appeared for some minutes to be plainly visible in broad daylight to the whole family, across a little ravine from their residence, standing on the stoop of a new house they were then building, though she was actually asleep, at that moment, in a chamber of their old house, and utterly unconscious of this "counterfeit presentment" at some distance from her bodily presence. This appearance naturally connected itself with her death, when that occurred soon afterward; and thenceforth the family have lent a ready ear to narrations of spiritual (as distinguished from material) presence, which to many, if not most, persons are simply incredible.

The youngest of the family, named Elmina, was a woman of signal beauty of mind and person, whose poetic as well as her general capacities were of great promise; but she married, while yet young, Mr. Swift, a Cincinnati merchant, and thenceforward, absorbed in other cares, gave little attention to literature. She was early marked for its victim by Consumption, the scourge of this, with so many other families, and yielded up her life while still in the bloom of early womanhood, three or four years since. I believe her marriage, and the consequent loss of her society, had a share in determining the elder sisters to remove to New York, which they did in 1850.

Alice had begun to write verses at eighteen, Phebe at seventeen, years of age. Their father married a second time, and thence lived apart from, though near, the cottage wherein I first greeted the sisters in 1849; and, when the number