HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA, an English poetess, was b. at Liverpool, Sept. 25, 1794. At an early age she manifested a taste for poetry, in which she was encouraged by her mother. Her first volume was published in 1808, when she was only 14 yeah of -age, and contained a few pieces written about four years earlier; her second, entitled the Domestic Affections, appeared in 1812. In the same year she married capt. Hemans of the 4th regiment, whose health had suffered in the retreat on Corunna, and after wards in the Walcheren expedition, and who found it necessary a few years after to remove to Italy. After that period they never met. Although five sons were born of this marriage, it was not understood to have been happy. Mrs. Hemans spent the rest of her life in North Wales, Lancashire, and latterly at Dublin, where she died April 26, 1835. IIer principal works are: 2 he Vespers of Palermo, a tragedy (1823); the Siege of Valencia; The Last Constantine, and other Poems (1828); The Forest Sanctuary (1827); the Songs of the Affections (1830); and Hymns for Childhood; National Lyrics and Songs for Music, and Scenes and Hymns of Life. A volume of Poetical Remains was' published
.after her death, and subsequently a complete edition of her works, with a memoir by her sister, was issued by Messrs. Blackwood.
Mrs. Ilemans, without great daring or force, is sweet, natural, and pleasing. But she was too fluent, and wrote much and hastily; her lyrics are her best productions; her more ambitious poems, especially her tragedies, being, in fact, quite insipid. Still, she was a woman of true genius, and one or two of her little pieces, The Graves of a Household; The Treasures of the Deep; The Homes of England, and sonic others, are per fect in pathos and sentiment, and will live as long as the English language.