Three generations

ANNIE KEARY, MARGARET VELEY, ETC. 341
ballads and songs, as in " Katherine Janfraie" (the
original of "Young Lochinvar ") and "Auld Robin
Gray," were not failures. On the contrary, they
obtained deserved praise. His stories attracted the
attention of Queen Victoria, who let him know through
a North-country lady-in-waiting, her appreciation.
Alexander Japp's mind was analytical rather than
creative; witness the devotion with which he collected
and edited all of De Quincey's work on which he could
lay his hands, and the zeal he displayed in furthering
Louis Stevenson's interests while Stevenson was still
a little-known author, with Japp's lively satisfaction
in recalling and dwelling on their temporary inter-
course.
Annie Keary, with her "Castle Daly" and "A
Doubting Heart," in Macmillari s Magazine, showed
an earnest, tender, discriminating spirit, sympathetic
towards all she touched. Margaret Veley, with her
" Sword of Damocles," in the Cornhtll, was such
another, and she came near to the heart of nature.
She had also a peculiar elusive charm, a subtle sense
by which she read between the lines and saw beyond
the bounds of ordinary barriers which trammel us.
She was endowed with a power of graphic visualiza-
tion which brought her characters and their surround-
ings face to face with her readers.
Elizabeth Charles wrote on other lines — those of
good works, and their source in a wide Christianity
which included all the churches. Hers were " The
Schonberg Cotta Family," etc. Elizabeth Sewell, and
still more Charlotte Yonge (with the last of whom I
was not personally acquainted), raised pure, sweet
voices for the Church of England. Hesba Stretton, a
Nonconformist, urged the cause of the poor and