previously retired life, and not having associated with children of her own age, strangely combined the infantile with the intellectual. With her book in one hand, reading as well as she could by snatches, she might be seen trundling her hoop, during the hours for exercise, round and round the lawn, and it would have been difficult to suppose that she was doing aught else than combining lesson with play in a curious fashion. But the soul of Poetry was already there; and her first essays in song came with the hoop.

A few specimens of her earliest productions were shown to the Editor of the Literary Gazette, who was much struck by their immaturity and originality. Indeed he was so surprised by them that he could not believe they were written by the young creature whose name was attached to them, but attributed them to a cousin of more mature years and more poetic semblance, who might wish to remain incognita; and although he soon after inserted several of them in the Literary Gazette, it was not till he had put the authorship to the test, that he was convinced of their being in truth from the pen of the girlish L. E. L. As evidence of the rapidity with which she composed, it may be related what the test was: in driving from town to Brompton immediately before dinner, on passing St. George's Hospital, it was suggested to be a good subject for verse, and Miss Landon was requested to adopt it. Dinner passed, and within an hour the ladies were joined at tea, by which time a most touching poem of seventyfour lines was completed on the given theme. The author entered the refuge of the sick and dying, and painted their various conditions and sad fates with most pathetic touches. We quote one of the individual

sketches:

I looked upon another, wasted, pale,

With eyes all heavy in the sleep of death:
Yet she was lovely still,-the cold damps hung

Upon a brow like marble, and her eyes,
Though dim, had yet their beautiful blue tinge.
Neglected as it was, her long fair hair

Was like the plumage of the dove, and spread
Its waving curls like gold upon her pillow.
Her face was a sweet ruin. She had lov'd,
Trusted, and been betray'd! In other days,
Had but her cheek look'd pale, how tenderly
Fond hearts had watched it! They were far away,
She was a stranger in her loneliness,

And sinking to the grave, of that worst ill,

A broken heart

Her first contributions to the Literary Gazette were few and far between, but their appearance in print, and the praises they received, gave the impulse, which grew and grew till it was the occupation of life. These had not the signature which afterwards became so famous, but were signed L. alone; and the earliest, as far as we can at present ascertain, was entitled "Rome," and published in March 1820. One stanza will intimate its promise:

But, Rome, thou art fallen! the memory of yore,
Only serves to reproach thee with what thou art now;
The joy of thy triumph for ever is o'er,

And sorrow and shame set their seal on thy brow.

In August 1821, her first work was published with her name at full length, The Fate of Adelaide, a Swiss Romantic Tale, and other Poems; dedicated to Mrs. Siddons, between whom and some elder branch of her family a bygone intimacy had subsisted. With the blemishes of inexperience, it displayed so much beauty that it immediately excited public attention and critical applause; and its melancholy tone ensured it the favour of a large class of readers who delight in poetry. It was noticed with much commendation of the merits mixed with its inequalities, in the Literary Gazette of the period, and henceforward the writer became for many years at con

tributor to almost every number of that journal, wherein hundreds of her compositions are to be found; the first which bore her magical initials being inscribed Bells, and inserted in No. 244. September, 22. 1821.

Throughout the year 1822, L. E. L. was as full of song as the nightingale in May; and excited a very general enthusiasm by the Sapphic warmth, the mournful emotion, and the imaginative invention, the profound thought and the poetic charm with which she invested every strain. Readers of the present day, short as is the time which has elapsed since then, can hardly fancy the difference between that Then and Now, as regards the production of poetry, and the universal feeling which pervaded the country, as publication after publication claimed attention and sympathy. The muse did not then struggle as at present with almost unavailing energy to make her voice heard amid the dull and engrossing pursuits of utilitarianism, the crushing weight of inferior literature, and the destructive effects of cold busy-world apathy. Scott, Byron, Moore, Campbell, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, Bowles, Milman, James Montgomery, Croly, Procter, Watts, Hemans*, B. Barton, Maginn, Allan Cunningham, Shelley, Keats, Bloomfield, Kirke White, Hunt, Neele, Porden, Wiffen, T. Gaspey, Beresford, Reade, R. Ryan, Fitzadam, Hogg, and even Lord John Russell (Carlos, a Tragedy) were rejoicing in their strength; and if you looked towards the north, there were the sustainers of Blackwood in similar force, and Lockhart, Wilson, and others, upholding the glory of the Modern Athens. As a curiosity in literature, we have marked the contemporaries of L. E. L. in 1822, and distinguished by italics such of them as appeared side by side with her in original poetry, contributed to the journal adorned by her effusions. It

• Under the signature of H. About a hundred of Croly's and Procter's most beautiful productions were written and inserted in the Literary Gazette this year.

is a striking list, and forms an extraordinary contrast to the year 1848, only a quarter of a century later.

Reviewing the productions of L. E. L. at this period, we cannot quite assent to the propositions laid down by preceding biographers that the whole proceded from imagination and not real feeling. On the contrary, we think it impossible that such could have been the case with any mind that ever existed. We are far more inclined to agree with an anonymous writer, A. H. R., one of the multitude who addressed her in terms of enthusiastic admiration, and who wrote thus :

Farewell! sweet minstrel! Never hath mine ear
Drank in more magic melody; thy power
Wakens those hallow'd feelings, pure, and dear,
That lie close by the heart, like to a flower
That waits the influence of the April shower
To call its incense forth; so waked by thee,
Come fond remembrances of Youth's light hour,
And Hope's wild dreams of joy that is to be,
And Pity's tender burst of gentlest sympathy.

And Love, oh Love! is pictured in thy lay,
True to the very life; that gentle Love
That knows no change, no shadow, no decay,
But sad and tender as the pining dove;
Bleak storms may pass, and fickleness may prove
Its truth, and wring its bosom to the core;
But storms, or change, would all in vain remove
The love which is the heart's most precious store,
Even in its hopelessness, but prized, the more.

Deeply and wild, it has been thine to feel
Love's power on thee; for never may they tell
Of hope and fear, and visions bright, which steal
Upon the thralled senses like a spell,
Who have not known that flame unquenchable;
How sweetly hast thou told of that pale one,
Who loved too faithfully, and loved too well,*

*Fate of Adelaide.

Brook'd cold desertion, and yet still loved on,
Till hope, and life, and love, were altogether gone.

I've heard at night, when the young moon was high,
And dew was on the flower, a light breeze,

Rich with the nightingale and rose's sigh,

Sweep with wild music through the murmuring trees;
Such are thy harp's sad but sweet symphonies,

Sad as the lover's song, who loves in vain,

Sweet as the melody of wind-waked seas.

Farewell, young minstrel, to thy witching strain,

Soon wake thy plaintive harp's dream of romance again.

This seems to us to be no less faithfully descriptive than rationally and metaphysically just, but we must leave speculation to those who will peruse the poetry and draw their own conclusions. Pursuing her course, L. E. L. wrote three series of poetic sketches of luxuriant grace and beauty, characterised by Bernard Barton as "gentle music:

Whose gushing forth and dying fall,
Surpass'd the notes of Nourmahal.

Sappho, the first of the second series, is a remarkable
example of the passionate force in which the ideas are
couched; and is a poem, of its order, unsurpassed in any
language. In this series, too, began a line of poetry in
which she afterwards loved to indulge, namely, the ex-
pression of her feelings on seeing works of fine art. Thus
one of her noblest tributes to genius was addressed to
Lough's Milo, the first grand welcome cheer given to his
immortal chisel, and thus Martin, Maclise, and other
eminent artists were embalmed in enduring verse, A
few designs sketched by Mr. Richard Dagley, author of
Gems from the Antique, and a dear old friend, were next
sung
with the ardour of personal and poetical affection;
and dramatic sketches followed, being her first attempts in