OLIPHANT, MIS. MARGARET (née WILSON), one of the most distinguished of our liv ing female novelists, was born about the year 1820. The prevalent impression that she is a Scotchwoman, naturally enough derived from the obvious fondness with which iu her earlier works she has treated Scottish character and incident, is not strictly correct. She is a native of Liverpool; her mother was, however, a Scotchwoman of a somewhat remarkable type, strongly attached to old traditions. In 1849 Mrs. Oliphant published her first work, Passages in the Life of Mrs. _Margaret Maitland of Sunnyside, which instantly won attention and approval. Its most distinctive charm is the tender humor and insight which regulate its exquisite delineation of Scottish life and character at once in their higher and lower levels. This work was followed by Merkland (1851); Adam Graeme of Mossgray (1852); _Harry Muir (1833); Magdalen Hepburn (1851); Lilliesleaf (1835); and subsequently by Zaidee, Katie Stewart, and The Quiet Heart, which originally appeared in succession in B'ackwood's Magazine. Though these are of somewhat various merit, in all of them the peculiar talent of the writer is marked. They are rich in the minute detail which is dear to the womanly mind; have nice and subtle insights into character, a flavor of quiet humor and frequent traits of delicacy and pathos in the treat ment of the gentler emotions. It is, however, oh the Chronicles of Carlingford that her
reputation as a novelist was first secured. In the first of the two sections separately published, apart from its other merits, which are great, the character of little Netty, the heroine, vivifies the whole work, and may rank as an original creation. The other, Salem Chapel. perhaps indicates a wider and more vigorous grasp than is to be found in any other work of the authoress. Certain of the unlovelier features of English dis• sent, as exhibited in a small provincial community, are here graphically sketched, and adapted with admirable skill to the purposes of fiction. The intrusion, however, in some portion of the work of a "sensational " element, as it is termed, though it subserves intensity of interest, must be noted as a little defective in art. In 1870, she published Three Brothers; in 1871, Spire Arden; in 1872, the most subtly thought and gracefully written of all her novels, Ombra; in 1874, A Rose in June; and in 1876, Plelebe Junior. Mrs. Oliphant has also published Life of Edward living; St. Francis of Assisi; .Memoir of the Comte de Mantalembert; and The Makers of Florence.