she has attempted in a series of dramatic pieces, to paint the most
energetic passion of the human heart; and her pieces, written in the most
elevated and _Shakspearian_ tone, will always be regarded as the work of a
superior mind. John Kemble, in the part of _Montfort_, reached the sublime
of agony. In the writings of Miss Baillie there is a combination of the
solemn and the poetical, which is rarely observed in women. Miss Aikin has
written some charming poems, far more beautiful than any I have met with
in the writings of Miss Landon and Miss Mitford. The _Mouse's Petition_,
by Miss Aikin, is a _chef-d'oeuvre_. Miss Benger has published some
historical works of great interest, which place her in the same line with
Miss Aikin. Lastly, there is Helen Maria Williams, whose muse, half
English, half French, has published poems, sonnets, and other pieces of
verse, besides several political and historical works. This superior woman,
at the same time that she gave birth, under the influence of sensibility
and fancy, to works of inspiration, portrayed the details of the events of
the French revolution, in the centre of which she threw herself, in 1792,
from pure enthusiasm for liberty.--_Foreign Quarterly Review._

* * * * *


AMERICAN LAW.


"No commentator," says Judge Hall, in his Letters from the West, "has
taken any notice of _Linch's Law_, which was once the _lex loci_ of
the frontiers. Its operation was as follows:--When a horse thief, a
counterfeiter, or any other desperate vagabond, infested a neighbourhood,
evading justice by cunning, or by a strong arm, or by the number of his
confederates, the citizens formed themselves into a "_regulating company_,"