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"Anna Gurney." Biographies of Good Women, Charlotte Mary Yonge, ed., (London: J. and C. Mozley, 1862), 451-460.

ANNA GURNEY. (Reprinted, by the writer's permission, from the Obituary of the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' September, 1857.)

'When the ear heard her it blessed her.'

June 6th, 1857.Died, at the house of her brother, Hudson Gurney, Esq., of Keswick, near Norwich, Miss Anna Gurney, of North Repps Cottage, Norfolk, in her sixty-second year. The remarkable qualities of this lady, who has lately been removed from the wide sphere of beneficence and usefulness she filled in so beautiful and striking a manner, must not pass away unnoticed. Anna Gurney was the youngest child of Richard Gurney, of Keswick. Her father and mother, and most of her connexions, were Quakers; and to death she preserved a simplicity of dress, and a certain peculiar kindliness of manner, which are among the distinguishing features of that religious body. But her character was her own, and was developed by circumstances which, to women in general, would seem entirely incompatible with usefulness or happiness. She was born on the last day of 1795. At ten months old she was attacked with a paralytic affection, which deprived her for ever of the use of her lower limbs. She passed through her busy, active, and happy life, without ever having been able to stand or move without mechanical aid. She was educated chiefly by an elder sister and other near relations; and as her appetite for knowledge displayed itself at an early age, her parents procured for her the instructions of a tutor, whose only complaint was, that he could not keep pace with her eager desire, and rapid acquisition of knowledge. She thus learned successively, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; after which she betook herself to the Teutonic languages, her proficiency in which was soon marked by her translation of the Anglo-

Saxon Chronicle in 1819. In 1825, after her mother's death, she went to live at North Repps Cottage, near Cromer, a neighbourhood almost peopled by the various branches of her family. North Repps Hall was the country residence of the late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, whose sister, Miss Sarah Buxton, lived with Miss Gurney on a footing of the most intimate and perfect friendship. In 1839 Miss Buxton died. Miss Gurney, to whom this loss was entirely irreparable, continued to inhabit her beautiful cottage, and found consolation and happiness in dispensing every kind of benefit and service around her. She had procured, at her own expense, one of Captain Manby's apparatus for saving the lives of seamen wrecked on that most dangerous coast; and, in cases of great urgency and peril, she caused herself to be carried down to the beach; and from the chair in which she was wheeled about, directed all the measures for the rescue and subsequent treatment of the half-drowned sailors. We can hardly conceive a more touching and elevating picture than that of the infirm woman, dependent even for the least movement on artificial help, coming from the luxurious comfort of her lovely cottage, to face the fury of the storm, the horror of darkness and shipwreck, that she might help to save some from perishing. Nor was her benevolent activity satisfied with the preservation of life; she supplied the destitute seamen's wants, and helped them on their way home. Sometimes they were foreigners, and then her remarkable knowledge of languages came in aid of her kind heart, and she listened to their sad story and acted as their interpreter. But, indeed, everything she did was done with an energy, vivacity, and courage, which might be looked for in vain among the vast majority of those on whom Nature has lavished the physical powers of which she was deprived. She devoted her attention to the education, as well as the material well-being, of the poor around her, by-whom she was justly regarded as a superior beingsuperior in wisdom and in love. To the children of her friends and neighbours of a higher class she was ever ready to impart the knowledge with which her own mind was so amply stored. Even children, far too young to understand her superiority or appreciate her rare goodness, were attracted by her cheerful benignant countenance, and won by her obvious sympathy. It may be supposed that Miss Gurney did not live in such constant intercourse with Sir T. F. Buxton without imbibing his zeal on behalf of the blacks. She maintained up to the time of her death a constant and animated correspondence with missionaries and educated negroes in the rising settlements on the coast of Africa. Well do we remember the bright expression of her face when she called our attention to the furniture of her drawing-room, and told us with exultation that it was made of cotton from Abbeokuta. Miss Gurney was buried by the side of her beloved friend and companion, in the

ivy-mantled- church of Overstrand, on the verge of the ocean.* We hear from a correspondent that above two thousand people congregated from all the country side to see the beloved and revered remains deposited in their last resting-place. They were borne thither by hardy fishermen, whose weather-beaten cheeks, furrowed with tears, were more eloquent than words. We can easily imagine the poignant grief, the deep sense of bereavement, which the loss of such a friend and benefactress must have caused in all who lived within the sphere of her benevolent exertions. But it is not her benevolence, great as that was, which prompts this homage to her memory. It is that which was peculiarly her own;the example she has left of a life, marked at its very dawn by a calamity which seemed to rob it of everything that is valued by woman, and to stamp upon it an indelible gloom, yet filled to the brim with usefulness, activity, and happiness. She was cut off from the elastic joys and graces of youth; from the admiration, the tenderness, and the passion which peculiarly wait on woman; from the light pleasures of the world, or the deep happiness and honoured position of the wife and mother. What, it might be asked, remained to give charm and value to such a life? Yet those who knew Anna Gurney would look around them long to find another person who left on all that conversed with her an equal impression of complete happiness and contentment. They were continually struck, not only with her lively and untiring interest in everything she was engaged in, but with her enjoyment of life, under the constant access of wearing pain. Even her nearest friends were long ignorant of the degree and constancy of the pain she endured; and were astonished when, in her cheerful way, she revealed the secret of her sufferings. Such was the ardour of her curiosity, and the vivacity and force of her mind, that what might justly have been deemed physical impossibilities vanished before them. One proof of her singular energy and courage was, the journey to Rome, and the voyage thence to Athens and Argos, which she triumphantly achieved. Nor had added years and sufferings damped this generous ardour for knowledge. She had by no means given up the wish she had always entertained to see something of the North. Nothing, she said, was so easy; she would be 'bundled on board a ship at Cromer.' She had made up her mind to make a voyage one summer up the Baltic. Miss Gurney's conversation was not only interesting and instructive, but in the highest degree cheerful and animated. When talking on her favourite subject philology, she would suddenly and rapidly wheel away the chair in which she always sat and moved, to her well-stored bookshelves, take down a book, and return delighted to communicate some new thought or discovery. Never, in short, was there a more complete triumph of mind over matter; of the

nobler affections over the vulgar desires; of cheerful and thankful piety over incurable calamity. She loved and enjoyed life to the last, spite of nearly unceasing bodily suffering, and clung to it with as much fondness as is consistent with the faith and hope of so perfect a Christian. May some murmuring hearts, and some vacant listless minds, be seduced or shamed, by her example, into a better and more thankful employment of God's gifts! * (See lines at the conclusion.) S. A.

THE GRAVE OF ANNA GURNEY.

OVERSTRAND, NEAR CROMER, NORFOLK.

Here sleeps the sister, neighbour, mistress, friend; How lov'd, how honour'd, words can never tell, Though age and youth their different voices blend, And sea and shore the well-tun'd chorus swell!

Even strangers, drawn within the wide domain Of that large heart, caught up a higher tone; Nor sage, nor saint, nor scholar, came in vain; Each spirit found its noblest aims her own.

O might of Christian love! who would not seek Her life of life, her treasure, sought and found? Whence daily strength went forth to bless the weak, And nightly dews of mercy fell around?

Thanks be to God! though shiver'd at the brink The vessel be, still flows the copious spring; Come life, come death, our spirits shall not shrink; Like her we stoop to bathe the weary wing, Her Saviour, ours. And oh! the happiness! Her home in Heaven the mark tow'rd which we press! E.T.