MEMOIR OF L. E. L.

THIS volume, in the usual form of three volumes, was the first prose publication of L. E. L., who had previously achieved, even in her girlhood, a widely popular fame by her poetical productions. If these had startled the public by their fancy, beauty, feeling, and passion, the sparkling vivacity, the wonderful display of acute and comprehensive observation, and the neatness with which the ideas were expressed, the novelty in matter and manner, and the variety and charm of the whole, in this new exercise of luxuriant faculties, raised the reputation of the author to a still higher pitch; and those who are unwilling to bend the knee to Genius in Poetry were foremost to comprehend and appreciate this more ordinary form of its development. The Improvisatrice of the incognito and spell-like initials became yet more celebrated; and from that period, for many years, continued to delight the world with an unceasing efflux of many-coloured literature. The amount which she wrote is almost incredible. It was not " no day without a line," but no day without a piece of poetical composition, an essay, or a chapter. Writing was the atmosphere in which she breathed and lived, and her facility was so great that no task ever seemed to be a labour to her. Her invention and powers were equal to any demand; and what to others must have been a heavy burthen, was to her, as it were, a plaything. But let it not therefore be supposed that what appeared to be so easily and lightly done was of that quality which has

wittily been denominated "hard reading:" on the contrary, it was full of thought, and drawn from a vast fountain of intelligence collected from the perusal of the best authors, as well as from mingling with the best orders of society, whether with regard to station and refinement or to intellectual accomplishments. In fact, it might be said she devoured books of every kind, and transferred their stores of knowledge to her own rich treasury by a species of alchemy, which can belong only to the gifted few who are born to immortality.

Of this fine being, whose life and death have so deeply interested, not England alone, but Europe and America; not where the English language is spoken or read, but throughout the civilised globe, several biographies have been published; generally pretty accurate as to facts and dates, but hardly sufficient to satisfy the inquiring mind. Nor have we, in a sketch necessarily so brief as this, an opportunity to discuss the phenomena of her extraordinary nature; but our view, however limited, must differ materially from aught that has gone before. The best account of her more infantile years is that which proceeds from her own pen.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born in Hans Place, Brompton. Her father was first a superior clerk in the house of Adair and Co., eminent army agents, and ultimately a partner, to whom, when Mr. Adair retired, he left the business in conjunction with Mr. Bruce and another. It was a lucrative concern, productive, as Mr. Adair himself assured the writer, of many thousands a year, and the splendid style in which that gentleman lived fully sustained the estimate. When he left, it appeared as if each of his three successors thought they might indulge in similarly expensive style or tastes, and as some loss of connexion also took place, the consequences were unfortunate. Mr. Landon's hobby was a most innocent one,

and well became a man of his simple heartedness, kindly nature, and quiet worth. He was attached to agricultural pursuits, and the cultivation of a fancy farm, and Trevor Park, near Barnet, not only interfered detrimentally with his official affairs, but turned out to be a toy too costly for his circumstances. Resolved to suit his expenditure to the reduction imposed upon him, he removed to a house in Old Brompton, near Gloucester Lodge, with a fair garden and paddock, and though within less than two miles of the capital, altogether free from its noisy intercourse. The cottage occupied by Jenny Lind is the next to it on the London side. Mrs. Landon was the daughter of a Mrs. Bishop, who was in some way descended from noble blood; and the fondest of grandmothers. After her writings had led to celebrity and offered an independency, the young Letitia, who was most warmly attached to her, took up her residence with her in Sloane Street, and there remained till the good old lady died. With her an annuity died also, but the small property she had, she bequeathed to her favourite grandchild. Previous to this, Miss Landon's father, to whose memory she has ministered such imperishable verse, had been gathered to the grave, and the death also of a younger sister, a sweet and amiable little girl, had made her but too familiar with the sorrows of life and the shadows of death. For all these she mourned with touching affection; and many pathetic and admired sentiments in her after poems may be traced to the remembrance of these scenes and feelings. And it may here be stated that her memory was most wonderful: she never seemed to have forgotten any thing, even the slightest passages in books or the commonest incidents of the day.

To conclude with family relations, we may mention that an aunt in Gloucestershire, and Dr. Landon the Dean of Worcester College, and the Rev. Mr. Landon, Rector of

Aberford, Yorkshire, her uncles, afforded her occasions, as she visited them, to enlarge her acquaintance with various classes of society in various conditions of life. There were the old secluded country mansion, the swarming university, and the domestic happiness of the northern vicarage, combining all of "elegant content " and rural pleasures, to change the scene and recreate and improve a mind upon which nothing was lost. At home an only and younger brother, the present Rev. Whittington Landon, educated at Worcester College, was her dear companion, and one for whom she felt all a sister's anxiety and love.*

Come we now to her literary career. When the writer first noticed her from his adjacent residence she appeared to be a girl of some fourteen or fifteen years of age, slightly proportioned, with yet an exuberance of form. In manners she was simplicity itself, and from her

* He in his youth exhibited some of the talent inherent in his family, and many smart impromptus and epigrams showed, that if he had chosen to cultivate it, he might have attained a literary reputation. We cite a short example, where the host hesitatingly, after dinner, offered to order in another bottle of wine, with the remark that heads the impromptu :

ADVENTURES OF A THIEF.

A thief stole a tea-pot in a window placed;
Both pot and thief excessively were chased;
And after being taken, as they tell,

Were both of them directly sent to cell.

Still they were both alike, both still were suited,
For each of them was highly executed!