FIFTY years ago, i.e. on the 20th of Octo- ber, 1842, there was laid to rest in her early grave, amid the stormy surround- ings of her short life, one of the greatest heroines the world has ever known. After this lapse of time the story of Grace Darling's noble exploit is worth recalling.

From the narrative of the only cabin- passenger who survived, published in the Spectator of the following week, we learn that the steamer Forfarshire, bound from Hull to Dundee, met with a violent storm off St. Abb's Head on September 5th, and becoming unmanageable on account of leaking boilers, drifted into the Fame Islands, where she struck in the small hours of the morning. The passengers in bed, when warned of breakers close under the lee of the vessel, rushed on deck, and an awful scene of terror en- sued, " the shrieks of the females on deck mingled with the roaring of the ocean, and the screams of the wild fowl dis- turbed from their resting place." The steamer parted three minutes after strik- ing, the stern-half being instantly washed away down the terrible current of the Piper's Gut, carrying twenty-five passen- gers with it. The fore-part remained wedged in the rocks. Eight of the crew with the one cabin-passenger escaped in a boat almost miraculously, for they un- wittingly took the one outlet through the breakers, but the captain, sticking to the ship, was washed overboard and drowned with his wife in his arms. At daybreak, the lighthouse-keeper on the Longstone descried nine survivors clinging to the rocks in the boiling sea. He opined that a rescue was impossible, especially as he was the only man then at the lighthouse.

But his daughter thought otherwise. In an account of the inquest, the Spectator says:—"Nine of the persons saved owe their lives to the humanity and intre- pidity of Grace Darling, a fine young woman of twenty-two, daughter of the keeper of the Northumberland Light- house. Her father would not venture out till she urged him to make the effort and offered to take an oar herself. They then put off, and, at extreme risk, suc- ceeded in rescuing nine persons from the ' wreck." The famous boat, one of the high-bowed " cobles" in use in those parts, still exists, and was recently on iew at the Fisheries Exhibition in jondon.

Yet Grace Darling was of no athletic mould. "William Howitt, who inter- viewed her a few years later, speaks of her as " not tall or handsome, her figure not striking." She was carried off by consumption in her twenty-sixth year.

But sympathy gave her strength, and she must have been a skilful oarswoman, as it was entirely owing to her exertions that the coble was kept afloat while William Darling rescued those nine people.

It is nice to read in Howitt's " Visits to Eemarkable Places," how little Grace's head was turned by her fame. Atten- tions and rewards were showered upon her. The Duke of Northumberland gave her at Alnwick a gold watch, the Royal National Life-Boat (then Shipwreck) In- stitution voted her and her father its silver medal, the Humane Society sent her a vote of thanks, its president a silver teapot. Seven hundred pounds were subscribed for her, and boat-loads of curious sightseers crowded the light- house tower. Her exploit was ridiculously dramatised in London, and she was offered 20Z. a night to appear in the play merely sitting in a boat. Yet Howitt found her a " little, simple, innocent young woman perfect Jeanie Deans—with the most gentle, amiable, quiet look, the sweetest smile—a thoroughly good creature—shun- ning public notice, even troubled at the visits of the curious"—sitting at her sewing with neatly-braided hair and plain print dress, wearing the Duke's watch and surrounded by masses of presents, chiefly books. She refused many offers of marriage, including one from the artist who came to take her portrait, because they were not quite the right thing. But the bridegroom who claimed her was Death. She was buried in Barn- burgh Churchyard, and a memorial shrine was erected there within sight of the lonely lighthouse where she lived and died.

The following lines by " Corona Civica " appeared in the Spectator just after her death:— Grace Darling's deed! I heard the tale from one Whose manly voice while telling it sank low, Sufferingly to a reverential tone, Such as nought draws from him but worth or woe, And generosity that breaks the blow.

Type of the British heart! which still shall turn With saddened pride and brotherly emotion Towards her whose name, though ne'er it grace an urn, Shall oft be heard through sighs of wind and ocean, Where 'twill avail again, as erst, to save.

For there was in thy virtue more than Roman, Artlessly brave, self-saoriflcing woman ! That which shall gain her life even from thine early grave! From Hearth and Home..