Washington sentinel., 1854-01-08
Wasbiagtaa gsatinsl,
From the London Atheneum, Dec. II.

Death Of Mrs. Amelia Opie, thea uthoress.
The death of Amelia Opie, aged eighty-fve,
on the I'd asst, is one among the thick-coming
mementoes which mark not merely the flight
of time but the quality Of popular fame. In
her day, the part played by Mrs. Opie, was not
an obscure one. She was first known in her
birth place, Norwich, as the beautiful and ac-
complished daughter of DIR. Anderson, a physi-
clan of that cathedral town, and this at time
when Norwich possessed other local celebrities
besides herself. Subsequently, as the fasc ina
ting second wife of the "Cornish wonder" Mrs.
Opie, by her grace and her musical talents,
drew a circle around her in London, only
broken up by the untimely death Of her hus-
band, the painter, in 1907. This social repu-
tation, too, was largely helped-nay, in the first
instance, perhaps, created-by the attention
which Mrs. Opie excited and retained as a
novelist. She was sought and priced as one of
the women of genius Of her time-and the list
then included Harriet Lee, Charlotte Smith,
Madame d'Arblay, Mrs. Inchbald, the Porters,
Lady Morgan, Miss Edgeworth, and Anne Rad
cliffe-most Of these pioneers, if not positive
inventors in fction-who opened in romance,
historical and supernatural, in domestic fiction,
and in the national tale-paths that the proud
est men las Sir Walter Scott bears witness for
us) were only too glad to follow further, when
their turn and time of appeal to the public
came. We're they now published, Mrs. Opie's
"Simple Tales" her "Tales of the Heart her
"Father and Daughter" (the most popular,
perhaps of her novels,) would be thought to
want both body and soul-to be poor as re-
CARDS invention, slight in manner, unreal in
sentiment; and they are So if they be tried
against the best writings by the authors, Of
"The Admiral's Daughter" and "Mary Barton"
and "Jane Eyre In their day, however, they
were cherished and wept over, as moving and
truthful. They won for their authoress con-
tinental reputation and one Of them" The
Father and Daughter"--in its translated and
dramatized form as the opera "Agnese," with
Paer's expressive music (some of Paer's best, J
and Ambrogettis narrowing personation ofthe
principal character, will connect Amelia Opie's
name with opera so long as the chronicles of
music shall be written.
In these pursuits, accomplishments, and sue
cesses, the girlhood, married life, and first
years of widowhood Of Amelia Opie passed
not without its parallel in the history Of woman
of beauty, genius, and social success. She be-
came tired of the world, its pomps, pleasures,
and vanities, and attracted, it is believed, by
the influences exercised over her mind by Mr..
Joseph John Gurney, of Earlham, the brother
of Mrs. Fry, and one Of the most learned and
refined Of Quakers, Amelia Opie sought and
obtained membership in that sect, Of which
the ordinances admit neither music nor tale
telling nor the entrance of frivolous and imagi-
native gayety in any form. When she repaired
to London from Norwich, it was to the Friends
yearly meeting, or to the platform Of some
philanthropic assembly, on which the slave,
the prisoner, or some other desolate and op-
pressed" creature was the magnet of attraction.
What was more noticeable still, by way Of at
testing the sincerity of neophyte, Amelia
Opie did her best to force her old self, the no
velist into her new uniform of staidsilk bonnet
and dove-colored shawl. After having ceased
for some years from imaginative creation, the
newly fedged Friend suddenly appeared as the
authoress Of Illustrations Of Lying" work
in which fiction, by thought, word, or work,
was whimsically denounced in series of small
fctions. This was followed by "Detraction
Displayed" second draught from the same
fountain. But neither in the world she had
quilted, nor in the world she had entered, were
these hybrid attempts to reconcile old things
with new" received with any extraordinary
complacency. The fame of The Father and
Daughter" and of the opera Agnese,' could
not be got rid of could not be dyed drab; and
for its sake the worldly world of critics forgave
the feebleness and unconscious disingenuous-
ness of Amelia Opie's later attempts to re-
concile callings, habits, and associations, es-
sentially and sternly irreconcilable.
After some years of these new efforts, Amelia
Opie gently and gracefully oscillated back to
some place and pleasure in the world, where
her earlier, and we think her more real, life had
been led. She was once more seen, though
stillasa Friend, in generalsociety, andw seen
there, was always welcome for the vivacity Of
her manner, the kindness of her heart, and her
anecdotes and "reminiscences of gone-by worlds
of art and fancy. By those who were person
ally acquainted with her, Amelia Opie must be
always pleasantly remembered. By those who
knew her not, she can never be overlooked
thoress of the nineteenth century have to be
summed up.