The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

O80

CLARA HOWARD; OR,

all human excellence was comprised. Her own melancholy temper and gloomy destiny she imagined to have
descended to her by inheritance; and she once allowed
me to collect from her discourse that her mother had
died the. victim of some early and heavy disappointment.
We were once, the winter before last, conversing by
an evening fire on that most captivating topic, ourselves.
Having said something of my attachment to my country,
and especially to the hill-side where I first drew breath,
and inquired into her feelings in relation to the same
objects,"Alas!" said she, "I should be puzzled to say to what
country I belonged. I am a German by my father,
English by my mother. I was born at a hotel in Paris;
I was nursed by a woman of Nice, where I passed my
infancy; and my youth and womanhood, and probably
my whole life, belong to America. Now, what is the
country-Germany, England, France, Italy, or America
-which I have a right to call my own? The earliest
object of my recollection is the face of my nurse, who
accompanied us in all our wanderings, and who died
just before my father, on Brandywine. The olives, the
orange-walks, and the sea-shore scenery of Savoy are still
fresh in my remembrance. Should I visit them again,
no doubt my feelings would be strongly affected; but I
never expect to visit them."
"But your father's, your mother's natal spot would
have some charms, methinks, to one of your sensibility."
"Some influence, no doubt, the contemplation would
have, but no charms. Strange if I should ever have an
opportunity of trying their effect upon my feelings."
"You are acquainted, then, with the birthplace of
your father and mother?"
" Yes; I have heard them described so often, and with
such minuteness, that I should recognise them, I think,
at any distance of time. My father was born in the
Gray Street, next to the chapel of St. Anne, at Altona.
My mother and family have subsisted, from the days of
William the Norman, at a spot five miles from Taunton,
in Devonshire."
I was in hopes that these particulars were preliminary